“November first?” The peer drew towards him a morocco-bound diary. “In one moment I’ll answer your questions.”
Silence while he searched and, having found what he wanted, stared hard at the entry. Then, his whole manner noticeably relaxed, he passed the book across the mahogany table for his visitor to examine.
“That’s simple,” he said, with a smile. “I was dining with my legal adviser, Nicholas Blundell, at his flat in Kensington. It comes back to me now. Between eleven and twelve, you said? I was sitting in his library, deep in an interesting discussion. Didn’t come away till—oh, quite one o’clock.”
Limpsfield was now entirely at his ease. In place of the metallic glint, his eyes held humorous curiosity.
“Does that statement clear me?” he asked. “And, if so, may I inquire of what charge? I’d rather like to know what regulation I may have been infringing. I may want to take steps.”
Headcorn also smiled as he handed the diary back.
“So you were dining with Mr. Blundell. I suppose he remained with you the whole evening without break?”
“Certainly he did. See here, Inspector, what’s it all about?” The magnate’s expression was frankly bewildered. “What’s old Blundell been up to? Exceeding speed limits? He’s quite capable of it.”
Although the tone implied that all this was a great joke, Headcorn read the undercurrent thoughts as plainly as though they had been uttered. Limpsfield was asking himself, What’s wrong about November first? Has something got by me?
“Oh, it’s quite on the level,” continued the peer, still with puzzled expression. “If you doubt my word, consult the other guest who was present at the time. Sir Norbury Penge. Oh, yes—” in reply to the Inspector’s raised brows. “He’s Blundell’s client too—through my recommendation, as it happens. Penge is a busy man these days. Whizzing about all over the country, hard to nail down. As Blundell had a little business to talk over with each of us, he conceived the notion of inviting us together for old times’ sake. I was much interested to hear the latest details of Penge’s development scheme, straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Well?” He paused expectantly.
“Am I wrong,” ventured the Inspector, “or was Sir Norbury once in your lordship’s employ?”
“He was,” assented Limpsfield. “I’d like to be conceited and call him my discovery. Bright lad, Penge. Best advertising manager the Banner’s ever had—which is saying a mouthful. A loss to me when he moved up the ladder, but it’s been gratifying to find him sponsoring an improvement plan which has such excellent news value. The swings and the roundabouts, eh?”
Again he paused and, with pretended lightness, returned to the matter in hand.
“Now then, Inspector! You’ve heard my answer, which I’ll swear to if need be—though I can’t imagine it’ll be necessary. Can’t you give me some inkling of what you’re after?”
However, Headcorn was moving towards the door. With a gesture intended to soften his evasion, he said, “It amounts to just nothing, sir, now I’ve had your assurance on the point. I’ll have to do my duty and get Sir Norbury’s statement, of course. In fact, I’ll move on to him now; but you can take it from me, it’s a wash-out, and we may leave it at that. Many thanks. I’ll not take up any more of your valuable time!”
So saying, he quitted the room, taking with him the strong impression of a man trying to sift out a problem.
“He’s stumped,” thought Headcorn. “But not for long. He’s only got to turn up a few back files of his own papers to see exactly what I’m after—and then what? Now we’ll hear if Sir Norbury is telling a like story.”
Soon afterwards, in a cubby-hole office at New Scotland Yard, he was listening to Inspector Baynes’s account of a visit astonishingly similar to his own.
“I put the thing as you advised,” said Baynes. “Sir Norbury declares most positively that Blundell never left the premises for the whole of that evening. Says he may have quitted the actual room for a few minutes, but that was all. I’ll take my oath he was telling me the truth.”
“Just how did he behave when you first entered his office?” asked Headcorn tentatively.
“In the very beginning,” answered Baynes slowly, “before I said anything at all, he seemed acutely attentive. When I asked my question about what be had been doing on the stated date, he stared very hard at me in what you might call a stilled fashion. Would startled be too strong a word for it? I’m not sure. He’s got good control of his features, but I noticed he started to fiddle with his tie—which, incidentally, is about as perfect a creation as you’ll see in a walk down Piccadilly. One hand was doing this while the other laid hold of his diary. Then I saw him change. He went on staring, first at the entry, then at me, but in a different way—all at sea, wondering what the hell I was after. Relieved, I thought—though I may have been wrong.”
Headcorn nodded. “Anything more?” he prompted.
“Yes, decidedly. When I declined to put him wise to my object, those coal-black eyes of his smouldered. Suspicion, resentment, all mixed up together. He turned curt, with more than a touch of arrogance. I’ll lay a fiver he pushes straight off to Blundell to get the explanation. You’re prepared for that?”
“Oh, quite! But you’re sure he didn’t already know?”
“He knew nothing. His mind was a total blank. If he ruffled up, I’d say it was because he doesn’t mean to have his precious reputation smirched by having any one even remotely connected with himself running foul of the law. He’s a young man who takes himself very seriously. Not surprising, either. It’s a big job he’s stepped into, and he’s naturally anxious to toe the mark.”
“Apart from all this, how did he strike you? Live wire, straightforward chap?”
“Both—with a flavour of the young Mussolini. Good looking and knows it, maybe a spot self-conscious, but plenty of magnetism too. I got a whiff of his charm when his man-secretary showed in a deputation of Town Councillors from some potty little hole up north. Military back, hard handshake, white teeth to the fore under that little black wire-brush of a moustache he cultivates. All good stuff—the sort that gets votes.”
“Now for one other point. Any one ring him up while you were with him?”
“Not a soul—and I strung my session out as long as possible, in anticipation of a call. Here are the times—twelve-three to twelve-nine.”
“Then you arrived one minute before I left Belgrave Square,” remarked Headcorn pensively. “That’s odd, in a way . . .”
He had fully expected that the moment his back was turned the newspaper proprietor would have got in touch with Sir Norbury, if not to prepare him for the coming visitation then to find out if the other knew why Scotland Yard was interested in the solicitor who occupied a responsible position towards the two of them. Did the non-performance of this act mean that both men anticipated these inquiries and had arranged in advance not to communicate?
“Nothing of the sort,” was the Inspector’s prompt veto. “I’ll swear Baynes and I sprung a couple of complete surprises, which makes it all the stranger for Limpsfield, believing I was on my way to Penge, not to discuss the matter before I got to him. I’d have done it. So would most men. Why the devil didn’t he?”
He was more deeply puzzled when, a day later, the men he had stationed at certain telephone exchanges reported an entire absence of calls between the peer and the knight, while those instructed to tail Lord Limpsfield and Sir Norbury declared their respective quarries had not come in contact.
Was this indifference? Headcorn would have said so, but for the reactions witnessed by him and his colleague. As it was, though still firmly convinced there had been no conspiracy to uphold Blundell’s alibi, nor even the least fore-knowledge that an alibi might be sought, he found this refusal to communicate extremely provocative. Making certain the two friends had not quarrelled, he began to play with the idea that both were being overcautious, and to conclude that their twin-apprehension must spring from a common source. Still, as that source had manifestly no connection with Blundell, he was forced to shelve it as unrelated to his own particular problem. He had got his answer. Two witnesses, whose names alone carried weight, had independently proved Blundell incapable of being Margaret Fairlamb’s murderer—and this they had done not only by their statements, but by their involuntary emotions. Of the second crime, then, Blundell stood completely exonerated. If the two murders did hang together, it followed automatically that Blundell was cleared of the first murder as well.
“Unless, in the Fairlamb case, he used the Indian as his instrument. If he did, all I can say is it’s well-nigh impossible to prove.” Headcorn gave a regretful sigh. “Oh, well! I dare say I was on the wrong track. I might have guessed it, seeing the entire lack of apparent motive in the Somervell affair. And yet, there’s this blasted Haji impinging on both cases! What are we to make of that? Let him go without a murmur?”
It seemed to him improbable that Haji’s sole function had been to plant the jewels on the Amsterdam pawnbroker. Then there was the riddle of the rogue’s being in funds, despite the fact that his father had cut down on him with the utmost severity. He had tried to keep tab on Diana Lake’s activities on the prisoner’s behalf; at the same time he had made an attempt to get into Elsie Dilworth’s room. These actions proved a keen interest in both crimes, or else that Haji had been hired to attend to certain jobs which the principal dared not handle in person. As the Somervell murder came first and could not benefit Haji, the natural conclusion was that he was being employed. By whom, if not by Blundell?
The answer leaped into his mind: “Somervell!” Why not? Or possibly it was the secretary, herself hoping to profit by trapping Somervell into marriage, and anxious to secure some person totally behind the scenes to obtain poison for her and, later, to perform other services.
There was nothing for it but to map out a course of action which would include a thorough checking of the prisoner’s movements during the crucial hour on the night of November first. In the midst of this the birth of a new idea drew him back to reconsider the circumstances of Frieda Klapp’s sudden decease. It had struck him that while a verdict of “Natural death” was all very well, this same verdict had been given on Rose Somervell till her body was examined, and that even then it was by pure chance the particles of aconite had not been eliminated. He interviewed the police-surgeon who had performed the autopsy on Klapp. What he learned made him ask still more searching questions, but that was all.
It was just, he thought, one more unprovable business. God, he was sick of it! Wasn’t there one thing in any of these cases for a detective to get hold of?
Some time had elapsed before he again called on Diana. He found her looking pinched and white, her grey eyes heavy and encircled, her usually smooth hair clinging in moist rings to her forehead. The air of the flat was over-hot, over-scented from the flowers which filled quite an incredible number of vases. He noticed, too, how disordered everything was—furniture pulled about, pictures awry, even the rugs displaced. Over all hung a bluish haze of cigarette smoke.
Diana stared at him in a dazed fashion, brushed her hair back as though she were removing invisible cobwebs, and whispered, “So it’s you. . . . What—what have you to tell me this time?”
Certain that her question referred to one matter alone, he put his answer as briefly as possible. It seemed a full minute before her mind grasped its significance. She turned still whiter, clutched at an overthrown chair, and gazed past him into space.
“So he was in his library the whole of that evening,” she muttered. “No doubt of that, I suppose?”
“Lord Limpsfield and Sir Norbury Penge both vouch for it—as well as his servants. I’m afraid there’s no chance of upsetting testimony like this.”
A curious expression flared in her eyes, died down immediately. He saw her trying with the fortitude which from the first had commanded his admiration to readjust herself to this latest, most devastating blow. Days ago he had guessed that she bore her godfather no love, only conscientious gratitude for favours she dared not forego; that she had sacrificed her independence for one object—Somervell. Now he asked himself if Somervell was worthy of it, or if the verdict for which he was heading was only his just deserts. The removal of Blundell from the list of possible suspects left but a poor choice of alternatives.
Tactfully he righted the chair, at the webbing of which her fingers were blindly picking.
“At it again?” he inquired in a pitying tone. “Here, let me help you to put the place to rights. You won’t find anything. All you’re doing is to wear yourself out.”