The Mystery of the Peacock's Eye

by Brian Flynn

  Inspector Bannister leaned over the table and held him lightly by the fore-arm. “Think very carefully,” he said quietly, “was it by any chance the Crown Prince of Clorania? Was that the name?”

  Davidson sat back in open-mouthed astonishment. “’Pon my solemn sole,” he exclaimed with a look of complete mystification, “you’ve holed in one. You’re sure some little laddie—what?”

  Chapter XIII

  Re-enter Mr. X

  It seemed to “Pinkie” Kerr that her entire world had come tumbling hopelessly about her ears. That she had been relentlessly caught in the mesh of misery. The news that had awaited her upon her arrival at Tranfield had produced in her a species of mental paralysis. Her brain was numbed. The telegram that had summoned her from her Devonshire home and holiday had not told her all. Bannister had deliberately tempered the blow to her by partly preparing her for the inevitable shock. She sat in the dining-room of “Rest Harrow” with the brilliant July sunshine pouring through the windows and tried hard to realise that she would never see her beloved Miss Sheila again in this transitory world of hopes, doubts and fears. And the mental paralysis that had so completely taken hold of her mercifully prevented her from experiencing this bitter realisation to its full poignancy. To her, representative as she was of her class, a telegram was always regarded as the harbinger of evil and when it had reached her on the evening of the previous day, she had felt instinctively and assuredly that this particular telegram would prove no exception to the sinister rule. She had obeyed its startling summons almost mechanically—dumbly as it were—making no articulate complaint against the bludgeoning of Fate and accepted the scroll of punishment with a bowed head and the better part of a contrite heart. As she sat in the comfortable chair in the room at “Rest Harrow” and faced Chief-Inspector Bannister, supported left and right by Anthony Bathurst and Sergeant Ross, her sixty-odd years weighted heavily upon her but she tried hard to collect the best qualities of her intelligence for the sake of her “bairn” that had been so foully struck down and so ruthlessly taken from her. The only real consciousness that she possessed was clamouring for vengeance. She was half Devonian and half Scots and for the moment the Scots strain had struggled for the mastery and after the habit of its kind had succeeded in obtaining it. One thought was being registered clearly in her sorely-afflicted brain and one thought only. She might be the means of bringing Miss Sheila’s murderer to the penalty of Justice. An idea here or a suggestion there might well prove to be a shaft of enlightenment to the skilled brains that were waiting to question her. She sat there, fighting hard against the chaos of her mind. There was not only Miss Sheila’s memory of her to serve! There was also Colonel Dan’s Colonel Dan to whom she had ministered faithfully for more years than she cared to remember. Colonel Daniel Delaney had been a gentleman—more than that even—he had been an Irish gentleman and as his faithful servant had informed more than a few persons in her time, an “Irish gentleman was the finest gentleman in the world.” When the news was brought home to her years ago that he had been found drowned it had plunged her into genuinely deep distress-distress that persisted—but her supremely loyal nature after a time asserted itself and the distress became alleviated by the loving care that she showered upon the dainty blossom that Colonel Dan had left behind. When Colonels Dan’s widow followed him a few years later to “the bourne from which no traveller returns,” this are became even more assiduous—it became in the nature of a Religion. But now she was assailed by a black and devastating sense of complete and utter loneliness. All her loving care had been brought to naught—she had laboured in vain! The edifice that she had built so lovingly had been eternally shattered. As she sat there sobbing convulsively her tall spare frame shook with the paroxysm of her grief. She dabbed continually at her streaming eyes with her handkerchief and Bannister was sufficiently sensible to let the first flood of her sorrow run its full course before he attempted to put any questions to her. Gradually it began to show signs of subsiding and as the intervals between her shuddering sobs grew more lengthy he saw that before very long she would quieten down considerably. He waited patiently and Anthony could not help admiring his dignified control—so many men of his acquaintance would have rushed their fences and achieved in the rushing entirely inadequate results.

  “We want you to help us,” he commenced very quietly, and with a delicate suggestion of sympathy, “we understand your feelings thoroughly. But please do your best to control them—if you do—you will not only help us in our investigations but you will also help the poor girl who has gone. Please understand that—” he added sympathetically.

  “What is it you want to know?” she asked listlessly.

  “We want to know as much as you can possibly tell us,” said Bannister, “about your young mistress—about her life here with you—what friends she had in her life—you know the kind of things I mean.”

  She nodded. “I’ve lived with poor Miss Sheila ever since she was born—I was with her mother when she came—my name is Agnes Kerr—my home is in Devon—I had gone there for a holiday, the address on your telegram is my home.” She stopped for a moment and pushed the buff envelope on to the edge of the table. It would have fallen but for the agility of Mr. Bathurst who gallantly retrieved it. Bannister nodded encouragingly. “We found the address here. We got it from your postcard to Miss Delaney,” he explained.

  “I see,” murmured “Pinkie,” “I thought perhaps that was how it came about. When Colonel Delaney died some years ago—I stayed on with Mrs. Delaney and when Mrs. Delaney was taken too, I had to be mother and father to Miss Sheila, sort of combined. What else do you want me to tell you?” she inquired of him, plaintively.

  “Who were her friends? With whom did she mix?” demanded Bannister. “Who was in the habit of visiting here?”

  “Since Major Carruthers was killed—scarcely anybody,” came “Pinkie’s” answer.

  “Come now,” said Bannister, gently and persuasively, “surely somebody came here sometimes?”

  “A few girl friends—very occasionally—and a year or so ago young Mr. Alan Warburton was a pretty frequent visitor—up to the time, say, that the major’s accident took place. But he hasn’t been near for a long time now. Sir Matthew Fullgarney and Lady Fullgarney would come perhaps once every two or three months but latterly there was no one at all who came here anything like regularly. You can rest easy on that,” she added.

  “You say Alan Warburton was a regular visitor a year or so ago. Why did he suddenly cease to come—any idea? Was there any trouble between them that you know of?”

  “I don’t know about trouble exactly—Miss Sheila told me though in the early part of last year that Alan Warburton needed ‘putting in his place.’”

  “Putting in his place, eh?” exclaimed Bannister with interest.

  “And what did you understand by that remark?”

  “I thought perhaps he had presumed on his friendship with Miss Sheila.”

  “How far had this friendship extended?”

  “What do you mean?” “Pinkie” looked a trifle scared.

  “I mean this. Rumours have reached me from more than one source that Miss Delaney and Alan Warburton were looked upon as lovers at the time of which you speak. Would you subscribe to that opinion?”

  “Pinkie” demurred—vigorously shaking her head. “No! Mr. Warburton admired her very much—it’s true—a blind man would have been able to see that. And Miss Sheila liked him a great deal, too. I can tell you that much. But I wouldn’t admit anything beyond that. Sheila, in my opinion looked upon him as a close friend—but I wouldn’t say that it was anything more than that.” She repeated her denial.

  “I see,” soliloquised Bannister. “So that it would be altogether an unfair statement to say that Miss Delaney’s attitude changed towards Mr. Warburton consequent upon the Bank scandal in which his uncle—Sir Felix Warburton—was involved?”

  “Utterly untrue,” responded Miss Kerr, vehemently. “A thin
g like that wouldn’t alter Sheila’s feelings in any way towards anybody she regarded as a friend. She would have scorned to do such a thing. Such conduct would have been completely foreign to her nature.” She began to sob again—engulfed once more in a tide of poignant memories. Her mention of Sheila had brought them all rushing home to her again.

  “Please calm yourself,” entreated the Inspector, “there’s something else I want to ask you.”

  She pulled herself together as the result of a supreme effort and faced him confidently. “Had your mistress a lover?”

  “Pinkie” shook her head but in such a way that Bannister was quick to see it and follow up his question with another.

  “No? Are you absolutely certain that there wasn’t a secret lover in her life? Would you swear to it?”

  She hesitated—then framed her reply. “No one to my knowledge—but—”

  Bannister pounced. “But what?”

  “I am not absolutely sure.”

  The admission seemed to have been wrung from her. Her reluctance was plain to behold. The Inspector looked her over keenly—obviously wondering what it was exactly that was in her mind. “What do you mean?”

  “I have noticed a change in her.”

  “What kind of a change?”

  “She was just a little bit secretive over one or two small things—didn’t confide in me so much.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “Pinkie” bent her head for a moment, thinking. “Well—just this. It’s hard to explain to anybody else. She has been to London about half-a-dozen times within the last twelve months—when she has returned here—she hasn’t been so full of what she had done, like she used to be—in the past she had always confided in me and told me everything. Then she has had letters from time to time in a handwriting that was strange to me—also I can remember a few postcards. I don’t know where they came from.”

  Bannister frowned, but Mr. Bathurst evidently considered the point of some importance.

  “Did you ever actually see one of these?” he inquired with his most engaging smile.

  “See one?”

  “Read one, if you like? I’m not accusing you of spying on your mistress’s correspondence, if that’s what you fear—but sometimes it may be hard to avoid seeing something that isn’t intended for us.”

  “Pinkie” nodded in acquiescence. “On two occasions I did happen to notice an initial at the foot of the card,” she contributed.

  “And what was it?” inquired Anthony.

  “Just the one letter ‘X’—that was all.”

  Anthony looked across at the Inspector and waited for his next move. The latter caught Mr. Bathurst’s meaning. He produced the postcard found amongst Miss Delaney’s belongings in the bedroom and handed it across to the woman. “Is this one of those to which you are referring?”

  “Pinkie” gazed at it with wide-open eyes. “Yes—yes! That is one of the cards I mentioned. That’s in a handwriting I don’t know. Where did you get this?”

  “I’ll show you later on,” observed Bannister with a touch of severity, “meanwhile you can definitely state that Miss Delaney has received several communications in the same handwriting as this postcard—yes?”

  “Pinkie” nodded, “Several, sir.”

  “How long would you say they had been coming? Could you give a time?” questioned Anthony.

  She puckered her brows as she sat there and thought over the question.

  “Let me help you with a suggestion,” broke in Anthony, “Would it be correct to say that they commenced to come somewhere about the time that Alan Warburton’s visits began to get less frequent? Could you agree with that?”

  “Let me think” she answered. The three men watched her closely. “As far as I can remember the first time I saw this handwriting was about Eastertide last year. I think it was on the Maundy Thursday. Yes, it was about then when young Warburton stopped coming here. Let me think again. If I’ve given you the impression that his visits gradually dropped off, I’m afraid I’ve confused you. They didn’t—now I think more clearly. They stopped quite suddenly—I should say a month or so before I noticed these letters and things coming. I know!”—she concluded on a note of triumphant remembrance. “He hasn’t been here since the Hunt Ball at Westhampton—early last year.”

  Mr. Bathurst felt his blood course a little more fiercely through his veins. He remembered the trenchant query that he had put to himself upon the occasion of his first visit from the Crown Prince of Clorania. “What was it that had happened at the Hunt Ball at Westhampton in the February of the previous year?” Find the right answer to that, he argued to himself and he would go a long distance towards solving the entire mystery. Bannister’s thoughts were evidently following similar lines for the expression on his face showed that he thought “Pinkie’s” statement to be extremely important.

  “That was in the February,” she continued, “only a few weeks before Major Carruthers was killed in his motoring accident. I’m certain, now I come to think of it, that young Mr. Warburton hasn’t been here to see Miss Sheila since then.” She spiced her statement with unmistakable emphasis and certainty.

  “Did you notice this change in Miss Delaney that you speak of immediately after?” queried Anthony.

  “After when?”

  “After this Ball that you have mentioned?”

  She thought for a while before she answered. “Yes, I think I can say now that it was after that, that she began to alter. Just a little. Perhaps some people wouldn’t have noticed it. But in small ways—”

  Anthony interrupted her. “So that it might be a perfectly reasonable inference for one to make—that Miss Delaney met somebody at the Ball whom she preferred to Mr. Alan Warburton? What would you say to that?”

  “Yes—it might,” she conceded with a quick movement of the hand.

  “Let’s ask her to have a look at the bedroom,” put in Bannister, “she may be able to help us there too.”

  Ross crossed the corridor and opened the bedroom door; Bannister piloted her in it and shewed her the indescribable scene of confusion in the room itself.

  “Any idea what they were looking for?” he demanded of her sharply. “Pinkie” slowly shook her head.

  “None whatever! All Miss Sheila’s valuables—except her own personal jewellery of course, were always kept at the bank.”

  “H’m,” grunted Bannister, “You’re sure she kept nothing valuable in any of these drawers?”

  “I’m quite sure—although—”

  “Although what?”

  “Well, she was in the habit of keeping that small drawer on the right there always locked. I’ve often noticed that.” She pointed to the drawer she mentioned.

  “Why?” ventured Anthony, “do you know?”

  “I am sure that she kept nothing that you could call valuable—there—in the real sense of the word—that is—” She hesitated again. “I think that she just kept private things in there. Things that she considered valuable, let us say—but that nobody else would.”

  Anthony nodded. “And I think I agree with you Miss Kerr. I think it extremely likely that she would do so.”

  “Another point,” Bannister cut in, “when you went home to Otterton for your holiday the other day—were you aware then that Miss Delaney was intending to go to Seabourne?”

  “No. I knew she intended going away somewhere—as my card showed you—but I didn’t know to what particular part of the world she was going. I understood when I left her here, that she didn’t know for certain, herself—that she hadn’t made up her mind. She was always inclined to leave holidays till the last minute.”

  “Had Seabourne been mentioned between you?” persisted Bannister.

  “To my knowledge,” she answered, “never—that is to say in connection with this last holiday of Miss Sheila’s.”

  “Now think, Miss Kerr,” exclaimed the Inspector, still quietly persistent, “has anything at all unusual or abnormal happened here, latel
y?”

  “How do you mean?” she returned.

  “In any way,” he reiterated, “in the country one day is very like another—full up with the ‘trivial round and common task’—has anything happened recently to disturb this? Has anything occurred that you could call unusual?”

  She thought. “All I can think of was the Indian’s visit about a month ago,” she declared.

  “The Indian!” cried Bannister, “what Indian?”

  “I think his name was Lal Singh or something like that. He called here one afternoon to see Colonel Delaney. He had been the Colonel’s body-servant years ago in India and said he didn’t know that the Colonel was dead. He was a big—tall man—getting well on in years—Miss Sheila interviewed him here and I fancy helped him financially. I was glad to see the back of him—he rather frightened me. He asked after Major Carruthers and also Sir Matthew Fullgarney. He had known them as well, when they were with the Colonel in India. I think that Miss Sheila thought he intended to call upon Sir Matthew from what she told me he said to her. I don’t know whether he actually did.”

  “Strange thing him turning up,” observed Bannister musingly, “did you see him again at all?”

  “No.” replied “Pinkie,” “I haven’t ever seen him since.”

  Anthony turned this new piece of information over in his mind. The case certainly became more puzzling as it progressed. He couldn’t forget that he had two trails to follow. Would the trail that led to the blackmailer of the Crown Prince also lead to the murderer of Sheila Delaney? He couldn’t feel sure… yet something seemed to tell him that they were intertwined. He heard Bannister put another question to the woman who sat in the room.

  “How long—less than half an hour, I should say.”

  “Did you hear any of the conversation?”

  “No. None at all. All I heard was his greeting to her when I took him into her. If Miss Sheila had wished me to hear what he came to see her about she would have asked me into the room where the interview took place. She didn’t—so I heard nothing. All I know is what she was pleased to tell me of it afterwards. She gave him money. That’s all I can tell you.” “Pinkie” tossed her head rather defiantly—she was unable to rid herself of the idea that she had been suspected of eavesdropping.