Too Many Cousins, page 17
“I know Greek. And it isn’t. I’ve heard about Mr. Eady. Sergeant Webley brought me up to date.”
Wray was frowning. “What was he up to, anyway? Was he going to this Whipstead place, or did he change his mind at King’s Cross? Did he see something when he got there? Or did he meet Raymond Shearsby in that lane? Why did he pinch the bicycle—if he did? To save his legs, or because something had delayed him? A hell of a lot of if’s and an’s and why’s. Curse the fellow! What with the grave giving up its dead, we’ve one complication too many already. Now we’ve got another.”
“Have we?” Mr. Tuke queried.
Wray stared at him. Inspector Vance was staring too. But the quicker wits of his chief were first off the mark.
“By God!” Wray snapped. “It could be. Holy Joe’s trump card is his gentlemanly manner. He’s about the same age as Martin Dresser. Dresser was a bad hat. Joe is one— we’re damned sure of that, in spite of all his benevolent friends. Dresser would have a reason for going to Stocking. What do you think of it, Inspector?”
The Inspector was frowning heavily, pondering the idea. “As you say, sir, it could be,” he agreed. Then, for he was an honest man, he glanced at Mr. Tuke as he added: “Yes, I ought to have thought of it. If the man in the Morris is Joe, and Joe’s Martin Dresser, it clears the decks and explains a lot.”
“Well, we may not know much about Dresser, but we know a good deal about Joe,” Wray said. “ I wish you knew whether he’d tumbled to it you were after him, Tuke.”
“Neither Sergeant Webley nor I are clairvoyant.”
Wray’s fingers were drumming on his desk. “Well, get after him, Vance. You’d better go down to Cambridge yourself. You know the locals have asked for a man to watch this taxi-driver?”
“Thomsett, sir? Yes, Detective-Constable Pratt went last night.”
“You’ll have Sergeant Gowrie with you, I suppose? Take another man if you want him. We’re on to something at last. You’re watching Joe’s house?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We ought to have his prints. I’ve a good mind to take a warrant out and have his place dusted for them. You’ve got Dresser’s with you?”
“Yes, sir,” said the Inspector again.
“Get Mrs. Shearsby’s story about Joe’s visit. You’d better handle that yourself. Though this Sergeant Webley seems to have his wits about him. But whoever sees her will have to go carefully——” Wray broke off to give Harvey a foxy look.
“What are you grinning .at, Tuke?”
“All this zeal and action. Most exhilarating. When you’ve finished, may I ask a question or two before Inspector Vance vanishes in a cloud of dust?”
“I have finished. Fire away.”
“How is the London end going? Any developments, apart from the rehabilitation of Mile Boulanger?”
Wray nodded. “One bit of news. We’ve got a line on Mrs. Porteous’s doings on Bank Holiday Sunday. Her friends in Guildford gave us the names of one or two more here in London. Mrs. Porteous called on a Miss Blissett, another schoolteacher, just before lunch that day. She was very much annoyed, because she’d come up to keep an appointment with a cousin. The cousin had telephoned on the Friday, and they’d arranged to meet at Waterloo at eleven. Mrs. Porteous waited in the booking hall for an hour, but the cousin didn’t show up. Unfortunately Miss Blissett was just going out to lunch, and was in a hurry, so she didn’t hear the cousin’s name, or sex. Mrs. Porteous said that as she was in London she’d look at the bomb damage.” Wray lighted another cigarette from the stump of the old one. “The story suggests that Mrs. Porteous was deliberately got out of the way that Sunday. Not necessarily by a cousin—a voice can be faked over the phone. But it narrows our time factor.”
“If it was a London cousin,” Mr. Tuke said, “you’d think she’d trot along to have it out with the culprit.”
“Perhaps she did. Perhaps she was too cross. They were both out that day, anyhow. So was Mortimer Shearsby.” Mr. Tuke knocked the ash from his cigar and addressed his next question to Inspector Vance.
“Do you know, Inspector, if Raymond Shearsby had a letter or telegram on the day of his death, or beforehand, making an appointment for that evening? I noticed that there is no telephone at the cottage.”
Mr. Vance looked at the Assistant Commissioner, who nodded before glancing curiously at Mr. Tuke.
“There was nothing about any appointment, sir, in the letters I took over from his cousin,” the inspector said. “I have heard nothing about any post or telegram for him that day. There were some bits of paper in his pocket, but they’d been so long in the water that the writing had run, and they were just pulp. You’ll remember, sir,” Mr. Vance added in his most wooden manner, “it was thought to be an accident, so the locals didn’t pay much attention to letters and such.”
“What are you getting at, Tuke?” Wray inquired.
“Leave me my little mystifications. But in my role of amicus curiae, may I make a suggestion?”
“You would, anyhow.”
“Then I would suggest an inquiry on these lines. There will be a record of telegrams, and as it was, if you’ll pardon the pun, a red-letter day in Stocking, the village postman may still remember if he had anything for the cottage.”
Wray continued to stare. Then he shrugged.
“Will you be good enough to humour Mr. Tuke, Inspector?”
“Very good, sir,” said the inspector, more flatly than ever. “If that’s all, I’ll be getting off to Cambridge.”
Mr. Tuke reached for his hat. Then he paused.
“I’ve been reading the cancelled story, by the way. ‘Too Many Cousins’. It is uncannily prophetic. Well, at the end you’re left in the air, with strong suspicions of the dead uncle who turns out to be alive. But he also has a wife, collected during his absence. Arising out of that, haven’t we forgotten something? Or somebody? What about Mrs. Eady?” Wray stared again. “Well, what about her?”
“What was she doing on the dates in question? Because if Eady is Martin Dresser. . . .”
“What revolting ideas you do have,” said Wray.
CHAPTER XXII
FROM the open door and windows of No 10 Falcon Mews East came a babel of talk. It was after seven, and the party was evidently in full swing. Mrs. Tuke, in navy blue, an impertinent blue trifle on her dark head, leading a procession of three up the narrow outside stair, found an overflow in the apple-green hall. Miss Ardmore’s sitting-room appeared to be packed with people. A thick layer of tobacco smoke hung under the rather low ceiling, and the noise was deafening. Gradually one or two familiar faces materialised out of the throng. Mr. Mainward was holding aloft a tray of glasses: Charles Gartside’s horn-rims and disgusted expression rose above a mass of heads in a corner. Mrs. Tuke felt a touch on her arm, and found Cecile Boulanger beside her. Then a sudden swirl of the scrum heeled out Miss Ardmore herself, tall and slender and surprisingly unruffled in green corduroy slacks and a yellow shirt.
“How nice of you to come,” she said to Yvette. “For this sort of thing one really needs expanding rooms, like Oxford bookcases. I’ll get you some drinks. Mr. Mainward!”
The tray of glasses began to sway towards them. She was now nodding to Mr. Tuke, and gazing at Sir Bruton with some curiosity. But if she caught his name when Mrs. Tuke effected introductions, it apparently conveyed nothing to her at the moment. Harvey thought she seemed a little abstracted.
“How de do,” said Sir Bruton, whose pop-eyed stare appeared to indicate approval. “Kind of you to let me come.”
He was feeling for his cigar-case, but Mr. Tuke forestalled him.
“Not one of those things. Have a cigar.”
Mr. Mainward had fought his way to them. He carefully lowered his tray and bowed with his customary impressement to Mrs. Tuke. Then he saw Sir Bruton, and behind his spectacles, with their immense side-pieces, his eyes looked startled.
“What have you got? ” Vivien Ardmore was asking, eyeing the contents of the tray. “I’m sorry there’s no Pernod,” she said to Yvette. Her slightly worried glance went to Mr. Tuke. “An extraordinary thing’s happened. I’ve been burgled.”
“Nothing valuable taken, I hope?”
“Only the Pernod and half a lemon.”
“A burglar of discrimination,” Harvey said lightly.
Mr. Mainward handed drinks. Vivien still looked worried.
“That’s all that’s gone, so far as I can see. Oh, and a tumbler. And something was spilt in here—the carpet’s been scrubbed. I only found it out when I got back after lunch. It must have happened this morning, while I was at the office, because the carpet was still wet. It’s damp now.”
She pointed across the room, where little of the carpet was to be seen for feet and legs.
“Has anybody besides yourself got a key?” Harvey asked.
“The woman who cleans the place for me. But she only comes three days a week, and never on Saturdays. And she’s a Rechabite or something. She disapproves of what I expect she calls my orgies. But we get on very well for all that, and I’ve had her three years. And if she’s suddenly developed a passion for Pernod, she could have taken it at any time in the last month.”
“Has anything of this kind ever happened before?”
A wrinkle of perplexity contracted Miss Ardmore’s brow.
“Well, I have had a suspicion once or twice lately that somebody’s been through my things. Letters, and so on.
I’m not very tidy, so I can’t swear to it, but letters I thought were in one part of my bureau I’ve found in another. And things in the drawers weren’t as I remembered leaving them. Annie, my char, never touches the inside of the bureau. Of course, she could ransack it if she wanted to—it’s never locked—but why should she start now? It’s only during the last few months that I’ve noticed anything—or thought so.” Miss Ardmore shrugged. “Well, I needn’t bother you with all this. I only mentioned it because of the Pernod—and the lemon, which is almost as rare.”
“Is there any other way into this place?” Harvey inquired. “No. The back windows look into the yards of the houses in Cranborne Gardens. You’d want a ladder to get to them.” Sir Bruton, over a gin and lime, fixed Miss Ardmore with a shrewd if protuberant eye.
“Bins,” he said suddenly. “Who was talking about bins?”
“No one,” said Mr. Tuke. “What sort of bins? You were talking of the domestic variety last night, with reference to waistcoats.”
“Got a bin in your kitchen?” Sir Bruton demanded of Miss Ardmore.
“Yes, I have.”
“Looked in it since you came home to-day?”
“I haven’t looked in it. I shot some rubbish in.”
“Have a squint now, there’s a good gal. I’ll come along.”
“The kitchen’s frightfully untidy,” Vivien Ardmore said. “I’ve just left everything till I wash up later.”
“I’ll stay and help,” said Sir Bruton handsomely. “Like old times, when I hadn’t a brief to my name, and only three shirts and half a one.”
“Why half a one?” Mrs. Tuke wanted to know.
The Director chuckled. “I’d thrown the thing away, and used the tails for dusters or something. Not that I did much dusting. Then I wanted a shirt. It looked all right. Sleeves and collar and two front buttons left. Sort of dicky. Wore it for months like that. Come on, Miss Ardmore. Let’s peep into this bin of yours.”
With a shrug and a lift of her left eyebrow, Vivien gave Mr. Tuke a comical look and led the way out of the room, Sir Bruton lumbering after her. Mr. Tuke began to move his head from side to side in an endeavour to see the damp stain on the carpet. He was thus found by Rockley Payne, who having greeted Mrs. Tuke caught his eye and held up a sheet of paper.
“I’ve got what you wanted,” said the editor of The Ludgate, sotto voce. “It’s Southey. ‘The Scholar.’ I ought to have known. It’s in most anthologies.”
Harvey took the paper, and standing a little to one side with Mr. Payne, studied a typewritten set of verses. There were four stanzas; and the first two were enough to make Harvey frown so diabolically that the youthful editor said afterwards he felt like crossing his fingers.
My days among the dead are passed;
Around me I behold,
Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedewed
With tears of thoughtful gratitude. . . .
Under Mr. Payne’s curious gaze his companion continued to frown blackly as he read the stanzas a second time. Then the frown lifted, and his lips curled in a sardonic smile.
“You see before you, Mr. Payne, the biggest ass in the legal profession.”
“Oh, no, no,” said Rockley Payne in a shocked murmur. “But it helps, does it?”
“It does indeed. It’s a revelation. I stand blasted with excess of light—which isn’t Southey, anyway. I am enormously indebted to you. With tears of thoughtful gratitude,” said Mr. Tuke, still staring in a fascinated way at the paper in his hand, “I must leave it at that for the moment. This requires some meditation. I’ll tell you all I can later on.”
“Right you are,” said Mr. Payne in his accommodating way. “I’m glad to have been useful. Have you heard about the burglary?”
Mr. Tuke nodded as he thrust the paper in his pocket.
“I was looking for the damp patch on the carpet.”
“I’ll show you.”
They edged their way through the crush. At the end of the room near the bookshelves, beside a low round table, a considerable area of the grey rug had evidently been recently cleaned with a wet cloth.
“Funny little things seem to pursue this family,” Mr. Payne remarked, again in an undertone, though in the clamour of talk all round this precaution seemed superfluous.
“As you say,” Mr. Tuke agreed, staring at the damp rug.
“All this mob, by the way,” the editor continued, “will be pushing off soon. There’s another and more splendiferous do on at Bailey’s Hotel. The family are staying for a little symposium about their own troubles. That includes Charles and Mainward. Charles asked me to stop. He’s out of his depth in crime. Arboriculture’s his passion. He’s rather like a tree walking himself.” Mr. Payne was craning his head to peer about the crowded room. Suddenly he called and waved. “Oy, Audrey!”
A young woman fought her way to join them, and Harvey was introduced to Mrs. Rockley Payne, who was small and neat and dark, with a lively intelligent face. Her large brown eyes regarded him with faint amusement but no surprise. No doubt, like Sergeant Webley, she had been given a portrait parle.
“Let us see what the bin has produced,” Harvey said.
The young couple looked puzzled. As they all moved away, the editor with his slight limp, he stooped to pick up some small object from the carpet. It was a splinter of glass.
“I trod on it. A bit of the missing tumbler, perhaps.”
Mrs. Tuke having been collected and introduced, the combined party struggled out into the hall, to which Miss Ardmore and Sir Bruton had returned. The Director, cigar in one hand, spectacles on his nose, was holding up to this in his handkerchief a fragment of a tumbler, at which he was sniffing. Vivien Ardmore, looking harassed, was conveying two other fragments in a duster.
‘‘Been doing a bit of sleuthing,” said Sir Bruton, scowling over his spectacles at Mr. Tuke. “Deductive reasoning, if you know what that is. Found this in the bin. There’s half a lemon there too—or most of it. Someone’s cut off a slice. It don’t fit the other half that wasn’t used. The slice isn’t in the bin—we turned the damned thing out. And this glass has been washed—it’s still wet. Not a sniff of Pernod or anything else.”
“Why wash a tumbler after it has been broken?” Harvey asked.
“Whaddayou mean, after?”
Rockley Payne showed the sliver of glass from the carpet. It was found to fit into one of the larger fragments held by Miss Ardmore. That young lady’s air of uneasiness was now marked. Her wide-set eyes were dark and troubled, and the little frown was etched deep in her forehead.
“What does it all mean?” she said. “It’s so silly I can understand a thief going off with the Pernod—though I don’t know why he left all the other stuff. But if the tumbler was broken in there”—she gestured with a capable, long-fingered hand towards the room where her unsuspecting guests still chattered and laughed—“why wash the bits afterwards, as Mr. Tuke says? And what’s happened to the slice of lemon? It was a whole lemon this morning, when I went to the office. It was on the dresser. The other half’s there now. Why on earth throw half into the bin, and .take the slice away? It’s nowhere about. We’ve looked.” She made a little grimace of exasperation. “Oh, the whole thing’s crazy! ”
“It is indeed,” said Mrs. Tuke, giving her a smile of sympathy. “For who in the world takes lemon with Pernod?”
Cecile Boulanger appeared in the doorway of the living-room, the noticeable horn-rims of Mr. Mainward flashing inquisitively over her shoulder. But before she could be enlightened as to the cause of this conference in the hall, a rush of departing guests, en route for Bailey’s Hotel, followed after her. Hasty farewells were made, and hats were seized. Miss Ardmore acknowledged the former in an abstracted and perfunctory manner. For a minute or two the noisy crowd clattered down the steps and over the cobbles of the mews. Then comparative peace descended upon No. 10. Mile Boulanger and Guy Mainward had withdrawn again out of the way: in the room there remained with them only Charles Gartside and four or five more.
During the confusion Sir Bruton had relieved his hostess of the pieces of the tumbler which she was holding, and adding his own fragment had carried this treasure trove in the duster down the hall to the kitchen. Mr. Tuke followed his chief’s movements with a speculative eye. Was the old boy on to something? No high degree of deductive reasoning was required to suggest an exploration of the bin; but the Director’s test with the halved lemon was ingenious, and its upshot decidedly odd. Why, indeed, should anyone walk away with a slice of lemon?
