Sybilla Attleton’s story, which she produced after a certain amount of protestation, and at one stage a flood of tears, was, as Macdonald said, such an obvious story that he could have made it up for himself to suit the occasion.
Following Weller’s dictum, that what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander, Mrs. Attleton made no inquiries about what her husband proposed to do in Paris during his holiday, but made arrangements for her own “rest cure” in a characteristically efficient manner.
Leaving London in her own car, she drove to Southampton, (corroborated by Reeves) left her suitcases at the railway station while she garaged her car, returned to the station and met the admirably punctual Mr. Thomas Burroughs, retrieved her luggage, and drove with him to a cottage mid-way between Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst.
This retreat was, as Macdonald discovered later, an ideal habitation for two people who wished to escape observation, but to live luxuriously. While it was secluded from the main road in a forest clearing, and so set about by tall hedges of Thuya as to be almost invisible from the track which led to it, it yet had all the amenities which modern electrical engineering and plumbing can supply to the wealthy. In due time Macdonald regarded the marble bathroom with a sardonic eye, observing the glamorous greenery of the sunk bath, the mirror set in the ceiling, and the showers and heating arrangements, with detached interest. He saw also the “sun parlour” on the flat roof, its glass panels and electric heating rods calculated to enable the sun worshipper to obtain the maximum benefit from ultra violet rays, whether the sun shone or not. But when Sybilla mentioned the place (Antibes was the name given to it) she spoke of “the cottage,” and Macdonald envisaged some Tudor imitation, with half-timbering safely nailed on. The nature of the building did not at first interest him, what he wanted was some corroboration of the fact that Mrs. Attleton and Mr. Burroughs had spent ten days together at Antibes. Guessing that housework was hardly likely to be numbered among Sybilla’s activities, he inquired how service was arranged. Her answer was quite explicit. A man and wife named Jobson who lived nearby, were retained by Mr. Burroughs to look after house and garden. When the owner was in residence, the cleaning of the place was all done in the afternoon—during which period the two residents either went for a drive or retired to the seclusion of the sun-parlour. Food was supplied by a relay of hampers and cases from Messrs. Fortnum & Mason, whose service was of a nature to supply even the exigent requirements of epicures such as the two residents at Antibes.
Macdonald, listening patiently to the lady’s narrative, at last put in a blunt question. “By your own showing it appears that no one can corroborate your statement concerning the past ten days. Neither Jobson, nor his wife, nor any other person actually saw you while you were staying at the cottage? Presumably Mr. Burroughs saw Jobson occasionally to give him orders, but there can be no outside proof that you and Mr. Burroughs were there during the whole period?”
“Of course not.” The marble-grey eyes looked scornful. “I should not have dreamt of going there if there were any risk of anybody knowing that I was there. The Jobsons are very competent. They understand what is required of them and they do it. There is no need to give them any orders. They clean, they fetch and carry, and they are well paid. They do not interfere in what is not their business.”
“From the point of view of Mr. Burroughs’ interest, it is perhaps to be hoped that they are not so immune from human curiosity as they appear to be,” replied Macdonald dryly.
A very real shadow of fear appeared for the first time on that well-drilled countenance facing him.
“I fail to see what you mean. You cannot suggest—”
“I am not suggesting anything, madam. It is obvious that Mr. Burroughs’ actions will be subjected to very close inquiry. His actions at the Belfry last night inevitably cause him to come under suspicion. Meanwhile, I should be glad if you would let me have the letters of Debrette’s that are in your possession.”
It was then that Sybilla Attleton began to cry, and Macdonald could not for the life of him decide if he were witnessing a performance of surpassing virtuosity by a finished actress, or whether the lady was so agitated that her tears were a spontaneous outburst of emotion.
After a moment during which her sobs (not too loud or uncouth) were the only sound in the room, Macdonald got up and went over to the bell.
“I am afraid that this has been too great a strain on your fortitude, madam,” he said politely, but not quite without malice. He had not forgotten her surprising fortitude when she heard of her husband’s death. “I will ring for your maid.”
Sybilla sat up, a handkerchief still to her eyes, and said brokenly, “No. Do not do that. I am sorry. I am only just beginning to realise it all. I will get you the letters you want. They are in my safe upstairs.”
She got up, still busy with her handkerchief, and trailed softly out of the room. Macdonald, while he waited, went to the window, pulled aside the curtains, and opened the glass door which gave on to a low balcony surrounded by a balustrade. The heat of the room, and the scentedness of it, were both unpleasant to him, and he took in a deep breath of the cold moist air outside. Standing by the window, holding the curtains aside with one hand, he suddenly realised that some one had been moving in the garden just below him. In a trice he had an electric torch out of his pocket and turned its beam downwards—to light up the perplexed face of Weller, the butler.
“Sir?” inquired Weller politely.
“What do you think you’re doing?” demanded Macdonald, and Weller replied:
“I thought that I heard some one in the garden, sir. I was just looking to ascertain that those seals which you affixed were still secure. I think it would be advisable for you to inspect them, sir.”
“Very good. I will—and I think it would be advisable for you, Weller, to stay in your own quarters,” retorted Macdonald.
Drawing back into the “silver boudoir” again, Macdonald pulled the curtains across the windows. If those seals had been meddled with, it must mean that somebody possessed the keys of the writing-room. He had not more than a few seconds in which to follow up this line of thought before Sybilla Attleton re-entered the room.
“This is the letter you wanted,” she said.
Macdonald took the sheet and considered it. It was written on thin grey paper, certainly foreign in origin, and the handwriting immediately suggested a German origin. The long spidery script with its curious f’s, g’s and s’s was characteristically German. It was dated January 25th, and headed with the address “c/o Blanco, 509 Charing Cross Place.”
“Madame,” it ran. “I think that it has come to your knowledge that your husband, Mr. Bruce Attleton, has been unfaithful to you. If you wish for unassailable evidence of his infidelity I can supply it to you in the course of time. For such a service I would ask a reward of £50 (fifty pounds) to be paid to me in English treasury notes when my service has been completed to your satisfaction. I will advise you of the manner in which this sum is to be remitted to me if you agree to these terms, trusting to your honour, madame, to liquidate the debt thus incurred. As an instance of my ability to obtain for you the information I suggest, I offer this example. Your husband habitually carries a small wallet. In the inner pocket of this you will find a replica of the photograph enclosed with this letter:
Receive, madame, the expression of my most distinguished sentiments.
—Louis De Vallon De Brette
“Have you kept the photograph, and the envelope in which this letter arrived?” inquired Macdonald.
She nodded and held out to him an envelope of similar paper to that on which the letter was written.
“I have kept both—but I did not realise that the snapshot enclosed was an unfixed proof. I let it rest in the sunshine on my desk for no more than a few minutes, and it blackened completely.”
From the envelope Macdonald drew out what had once been a print of a small photograph. It was, as Sybilla Attleton had said, completely blackened, nothing but a shiny purplish surface showing a few finger-prints where it had been touched before the fading was final.
“And you looked in Mr. Attleton’s wallet to see if the photographs corresponded—as the letter said?”
“Yes. I did.” Sybilla Attleton’s little white teeth bit into the scarlet of her lips. “Debrette was right. It was a photograph of a young girl, a fair round-faced little country miss with eyes like saucers. Are you married, Inspector?”
Macdonald almost jumped at the unexpected question.
“No, madam, I am not,” he replied stiffly.
“Then you cannot understand what I felt like when I saw that picture. I put it back into Bruce’s case. Not for the world would I have had him know that I knew. I wrote to Louis de Vallon de Brette, and I told him that if he would carry out his part of the compact I would pay him the £50 he asked. In reply I received this letter.”
She handed another sheet to Macdonald, similar to the first, on which was written:
Madame, you may rely on me to earn the reward.
—Louis de Vallon de Brette
“And after this, you received no other letter until the one came posted to you at Antibes? Have you got that with you here?”
“No, I gave it to Mr. Burroughs.”
“I shall need to see that one, too,” said Macdonald. “Now, madam, one very important point emerges from this statement of yours. Who could have known that you were going to stay at the cottage—and by what means did they obtain the information?”
“I can’t imagine,” she replied. “I told nobody—nobody at all. You can surely take that for granted. I told Louise, my maid, that I was going to have a ten days’ cure with Annette Kampf, for skin treatment and slimming. I sent Louise home to her people in Boulogne while I was away, as I don’t like her staying in the house when I’m not there. She makes mischief among the other servants. I can assure you that I told no one,” she concluded earnestly.
“But since you received that letter, it stands to reason that some one knew your destination before you went away, or else followed you when you left London, since you are so certain that no one saw you while you were at the cottage,” replied Macdonald, and she shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine how it happened. If any one followed me they were very cunning about it. I kept a look-out. You see I had no intention of letting Bruce get to know, and I didn’t trust him,” she ended coolly. “He said that he was going to Paris. Perhaps he was—but I took care to see that no car followed me while I was driving to Southampton.”
“The cottage at which you stayed belongs, I suppose, to Mr. Burroughs?” inquired Macdonald. She nodded. “Yes. He built it.”
“And you have stayed there before?”
She took a long time before she made up her mind to answer that simple question, but at last replied:
“Yes. Once or twice before.”
“Then it seems to me that some one must have known that you had stayed there, and when you went away again leaving no address, they concluded you were at Antibes. It would not have been difficult to put the matter to the proof. You say that you went driving. Any one could have seen you in the car going to or leaving the house.”
“But why should any one have done that?” Sybilla had by this time entirely abandoned her air of dramatic aloofness and allowed anxiety to percolate into her voice. Macdonald found it difficult to assess her, because he could never be certain when she was acting and when she wasn’t, and he was willing to admit that as an actress she was certainly an accomplished one. Her last question irritated him, because it seemed foolish—unsophisticated. Whatever else Sybilla Attleton was, he did not believe her to be dense.
Leaning forward in her place, she looked at him again with that unfathomable stare.
“I told you to start with that I know nothing at all which can have any bearing on my husband’s death. This man, Debrette, was simply out to make money from other people’s misfortunes.”
Macdonald could have laughed. The word “misfortune” struck him as almost comical.
“It is not my business to point a moral from any one’s behaviour,” he retorted, “but did it not occur to you that if Debrette approached you along such lines, it is not inconceivable that he approached your husband along similar ones? If he found the means to learn what your husband carried about in his pocket book, it is not inconceivable that he found means to learn where you stayed when you went away and left no address. To employ such a tool is to ask for trouble. On what business did you imagine that Debrette telephoned to your husband?”
“Not to give him information about me,” she flashed back. “Why? Because his attentions infuriated Bruce. My husband would have been only too delighted to learn anything that could discredit me. Debrette probably tried to get money out of him. I can tell you he wouldn’t have got much. Bruce spent all that he made on his own enjoyment. Understand this, too. Bruce had no intention of quarrelling with me to the extent of leaving this house. He was much too comfortable here.”
If Macdonald had spoke aloud the thought in his mind, he would have said:
“What a perfectly loathsome pair you seem to have been.” Instead he rose to his feet, saying formally:
“I must take these letters with me for further investigation. As you probably know, I have put a seal on the entrance to Mr. Attleton’s writing-room. Have you a key of that room, or of the desk within it?”
She shook her head. “No. I never went there. Weller has a key.”
“I must thank you for the frankness with which you have answered my questions. It will be advisable for you to stay here, at home, during our investigation. I take it that you have no intention of going away again in the near future?”
Sybilla Attleton stared at him, apparently seeking to fathom the meaning behind that formal voice. Macdonald had spoken with no satiric impulse, but he saw quickly enough the construction which could have been read into his words.
“No. I shall stay here—until you have found the answer to this mystery. You think Debrette killed him?”
“I do not know.”
“And the inquest?”
“It will be held to-morrow. You will be served with a notice of it, and I should advise you to have your lawyer at hand, as is customary.”
He bowed to her politely and walked out of the room, conscious that he was glad to leave the scented warmth of it.
Going down the charming little staircase, Macdonald saw Weller standing in the conservatory, and the butler came to meet him with a troubled frown on his face.
“I am afraid you thought that I was exceeding my instructions, sir, being out there in the garden,” he began. “I thought I heard footsteps and went out to look. The fact is, that French maid of madam’s is always poking her nose where it’s no need to be.”
“You can tell her that she can keep her nose to herself for the time being,” said Macdonald. “I will go and have a look at those seals.”
He went out of the conservatory into the little garden, deciding that he had better have a man sent down to remove the contents of the desk wholesale to Scotland Yard. For a moment he blamed himself that he had not stayed to examine it earlier, and then reflected that his day had not been unprofitably spent. Nevertheless, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the seals had not been broken. With his torchlight directed on them, he perceived that some one had meddled a little—the seal was chipped at one side, but not broken.
“Of course it would be,” he said to himself. “If Weller’s telling lies, he had to have some corroboration.”
Going back to the house, he telephoned to the Regent’s Park Police Station to have a man sent immediately to Park Village South, to stand guard over the garden house until the Yard man should arrive to relieve him. Macdonald did not for a moment believe that anything relevant to his case would be found in Bruce Attleton’s desk. Presumably the dead man had had his keys on him when he left home, and the murderer would be in possession of them all—the keys of the writing-room, of the desk, and of the house. During the past week he would have had plenty of time to remove anything which he wished to remove.
Waiting for the man from the station to arrive, Macdonald went into the hall again and called to Weller.
“Has the house been left empty any time since your master went away?” he asked.
“No, sir. I have been most particular on that point. There have never been less than two of the staff in. The maids are nervous and do not like being left here by themselves.”
“Have you bolted the front door at night?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Attleton both said that they would not be back before the first of the month, and I locked up myself every night.”
“Then you can be quite sure that no intruder has got into the house during the week?”
“I would say, quite sure, sir. The windows and doors have all been in order.”
“Did you bolt the further door of the writing-room when Mr. Attleton went away?”
“No, sir. I had instructions not to bolt it.”
“Well, be sure that you bolt the front door to-night, Weller. It’s quite probable that a latchkey has gone astray.”
It was only a few minutes before the constable turned up to take charge, and with him Macdonald left the key of the writing-room to be handed over to the C.I.D. man when he arrived. Whereupon Macdonald left the Attletons’ house with the intention of interviewing Mr. Thomas Burroughs, the owner of Antibes.
While driving his car the Chief Inspector had leisure to think over the story told him by Sybilla Attleton. The maddening part of it was that there were two ways of looking at it, both quite logical, but both leading to totally different conclusions. If the story were true, and Debrette had really written those letters, the inference was obvious—Mr. Burroughs was to be induced to go to the Belfry while the police were on guard there, to provide the scapegoat. That hasty-tempered gentleman had obliged by his useless and impetuous show of violence and landed himself in very strong suspicion. But what if the story were not true? There was, at present, no proof at all that the letters had been written by Debrette. To Macdonald’s mind their phraseology was not at all the work of a foreigner. Mr. Burroughs, with his businesslike mind, and Sybilla Attleton with her actress’s sense of the dramatic, might well have concocted such a composition, and prepared the whole story lest their plans went awry. They might well have taken it for granted that the Belfry would not reveal its secret until its demolition. In which case, argued Macdonald, ever trying to penetrate the criminal’s mind, the suitcase was left in the cellar as an indication of the murderer. Attleton’s body was not to be recognised, and the police were to assume that he had killed Debrette.
“I suppose we rushed them by finding the body too quickly,” said Macdonald to himself. “Losh keeps! How many solutions is that? One: Debrette killed Attleton. Two: Attleton killed Debrette (disproved by identification). Three: Burroughs killed Attleton. Four: Grenville killed Attleton. And if number one is correct, old Streaky Beaver, known to his fellows as a bit balmy, double-crossed everybody, handed a stout stockbroker the baby to hold, and is capable of the criminal carelessness of omitting to shave his beard. What a story!”