Gathering speed, the car was shooting down a side road.
Jane jumped up and put her head out of the window, remonstrating with the driver. He only laughed and increased his speed. Jane sank back into her seat again.
‘Your spies were right,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘We’re for it all right. I suppose the longer I keep it up, the safer it is for the Grand Duchess. At all events we must give her time to return to London safely.’
At the prospect of danger, Jane’s spirits rose. She had not relished the prospect of a bomb, but this type of adventure appealed to her sporting instincts.
Suddenly, with a grinding of brakes, the car pulled up in its own length. A man jumped on the step. In his hand was a revolver.
‘Put your hands up,’ he snarled.
The Princess Poporensky’s hands rose swiftly, but Jane merely looked at him disdainfully, and kept her hands on her lap.
‘Ask him the meaning of this outrage,’ she said in French to her companion.
But before the latter had time to say a word, the man broke in. He poured out a torrent of words in some foreign language.
Not understanding a single thing, Jane merely shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. The chauffeur had got down from his seat and joined the other man.
‘Will the illustrious lady be pleased to descend?’ he asked, with a grin.
Raising the flowers to her face again, Jane stepped out of the car. The Princess Poporensky followed her.
‘Will the illustrious lady come this way?’
Jane took no notice of the man’s mock insolent manner, but of her own accord she walked towards a low-built, rambling house which stood about a hundred yards away from where the car had stopped. The road had been a cul-de-sac ending in the gateway and drive which led to this apparently untenanted building.
The man, still brandishing his pistol, came close behind the two women. As they passed up the steps, he brushed past them and flung open a door on the left. It was an empty room, into which a table and two chairs had evidently been brought.
Jane passed in and sat down. Anna Michaelovna followed her. The man banged the door and turned the key.
Jane walked to the window and looked out.
‘I could jump out, of course,’ she remarked. ‘But I shouldn’t get far. No, we’ll just have to stay here for the present and make the best of it. I wonder if they’ll bring us anything to eat?’
About half an hour later her question was answered.
A big bowl of steaming soup was brought in and placed on the table in front of her. Also two pieces of dry bread.
‘No luxury for aristocrats evidently,’ remarked Jane cheerily as the door was shut and locked again. ‘Will you start, or shall I?’
The Princess Poporensky waved the mere idea of food aside with horror.
‘How could I eat? Who knows what danger my mistress might not be in?’
‘She’s all right,’ said Jane. ‘It’s myself I’m worrying about. You know these people won’t be at all pleased when they find they have got hold of the wrong person. In fact, they may be very unpleasant. I shall keep up the haughty Grand Duchess stunt as long as I can, and do a bunk if the opportunity offers.’
The Princess Poporensky offered no reply.
Jane, who was hungry, drank up all the soup. It had a curious taste, but was hot and savoury.
Afterwards she felt rather sleepy. The Princess Poporensky seemed to be weeping quietly. Jane arranged herself on her uncomfortable chair in the least uncomfortable way, and allowed her head to droop.
She slept.
Jane awoke with a start. She had an idea that she had been a very long time asleep. Her head felt heavy and uncomfortable.
And then suddenly she saw something that jerked her faculties wide awake again.
She was wearing the flame-coloured marocain frock.
She sat up and looked around her. Yes, she was still in the room in the empty house. Everything was exactly as it had been when she went to sleep, except for two facts. The first was that the Princess Poporensky was no longer sitting on the other chair. The second was her own inexplicable change of costume.
‘I can’t have dreamt it,’ said Jane. ‘Because if I’d dreamt it, I shouldn’t be here.’
She looked across at the window and registered a second significant fact. When she had gone to sleep the sun had been pouring through the window. Now the house threw a sharp shadow on the sunlit drive.
‘The house faces west,’ she reflected. ‘It was afternoon when I went to sleep. Therefore it must be tomorrow morning now. Therefore that soup was drugged. Therefore—oh, I don’t know. It all seems mad.’
She got up and went to the door. It was unlocked. She explored the house. It was silent and empty.
Jane put her hand to her aching head and tried to think.
And then she caught sight of a torn newspaper lying by the front door. It had glaring headlines which caught her eye.
‘American Girl Bandit in England,’ she read. ‘The Girl in the Red Dress. Sensational hold-up at Orion House Bazaar.’
Jane staggered out into the sunlight. Sitting on the steps she read, her eyes growing bigger and bigger. The facts were short and succinct.
Just after the departure of the Grand Duchess Pauline, three men and a girl in a red dress had produced revolvers and successfully held up the crowd. They had annexed the hundred pearls and made a getaway in a fast racing car. Up to now, they had not been traced.
In the stop press (it was a late evening paper) were a few words to the effect that the ‘girl bandit in the red dress’ had been staying at the Blitz as a Miss Montresor of New York.
‘I’m dished,’ said Jane. ‘Absolutely dished. I always knew there was a catch in it.’
And then she started. A strange sound had smote the air. The voice of a man, uttering one word at frequent intervals.
‘Damn,’ it said. ‘Damn.’ And yet again, ‘Damn!’
Jane thrilled to the sound. It expressed so exactly her own feelings. She ran down the steps. By the corner of them lay a young man. He was endeavouring to raise his head from the ground. His face struck Jane as one of the nicest faces she had ever seen. It was freckled and slightly quizzical in expression.
‘Damn my head,’ said the young man. ‘Damn it. I—’
He broke off and stared at Jane.
‘I must be dreaming,’ he said faintly.
‘That’s what I said,’ said Jane. ‘But we’re not. What’s the matter with your head?’
‘Somebody hit me on it. Fortunately it’s a thick one.’
He pulled himself into a sitting position, and made a wry face.
‘My brain will begin to function shortly, I expect. I’m still in the same old spot, I see.’
‘How did you get here?’ asked Jane curiously.
‘That’s a long story. By the way, you’re not the Grand Duchess What’s-her-name, are you?’
‘I’m not. I’m plain Jane Cleveland.’
‘You’re not plain anyway,’ said the young man, looking at her with frank admiration.
Jane blushed.
‘I ought to get you some water or something, oughtn’t I?’ she asked uncertainly.
‘I believe it is customary,’ agreed the young man. ‘All the same, I’d rather have whisky if you can find it.’
Jane was unable to find any whisky. The young man took a deep draught of water, and announced himself better.
‘Shall I relate my adventures, or will you relate yours?’ he asked.
‘You first.’
‘There’s nothing much to mine. I happened to notice that the Grand Duchess went into that room with low-heeled shoes on and came out with high-heeled ones. It struck me as rather odd. I don’t like things to be odd.
‘I followed the car on my motor bicycle, I saw you taken into the house. About ten minutes later a big racing car came tearing up. A girl in red got out and three men. She had low-heeled shoes on, all right. They went into the ho
use. Presently low heels came out dressed in black and white, and went off in the first car, with an old pussy and a tall man with a fair beard. The others went off in the racing car. I thought they’d all gone, and was just trying to get in at that window and rescue you when someone hit me on the head from behind. That’s all. Now for your turn.’
Jane related her adventures.
‘And it’s awfully lucky for me that you did follow,’ she ended. ‘Do you see what an awful hole I should have been in otherwise? The Grand Duchess would have had a perfect alibi. She left the bazaar before the hold-up began, and arrived in London in her car. Would anybody ever have believed my fantastic improbable story?’
‘Not on your life,’ said the young man with conviction.
They had been so absorbed in their respective narratives that they had been quite oblivious of their surroundings. They looked up now with a slight start to see a tall sad-faced man leaning against the house. He nodded at them.
‘Very interesting,’ he commented.
‘Who are you?’ demanded Jane.
The sad-faced man’s eyes twinkled a little.
‘Detective-Inspector Farrell,’ he said gently. ‘I’ve been very interested in hearing your story and this young lady’s. We might have found a little difficulty in believing hers, but for one or two things.’
‘For instance?’
‘Well, you see, we heard this morning that the real Grand Duchess had eloped with a chauffeur in Paris.’
Jane gasped.
‘And then we knew that this American “girl bandit” had come to this country, and we expected a coup of some kind. We’ll have laid hands on them very soon, I can promise you that. Excuse me a minute, will you?’
He ran up the steps into the house.
‘Well!’ said Jane. She put a lot of force into the expression.
‘I think it was awfully clever of you to notice those shoes,’ she said suddenly.
‘Not at all,’ said the young man. ‘I was brought up in the boot trade. My father’s a sort of boot king. He wanted me to go into the trade—marry and settle down. All that sort of thing. Nobody in particular—just the principle of the thing. But I wanted to be an artist.’ He sighed.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Jane kindly.
‘I’ve been trying for six years. There’s no blinking it. I’m a rotten painter. I’ve a good mind to chuck it and go home like the prodigal son. There’s a good billet waiting for me.’
‘A job is the great thing,’ agreed Jane wistfully. ‘Do you think you could get me one trying on boots somewhere?’
‘I could give you a better one than that—if you’d take it.’
‘Oh, what?’
‘Never mind now. I’ll tell you later. You know, until yesterday I never saw a girl I felt I could marry.’
‘Yesterday?’
‘At the bazaar. And then I saw her—the one and only Her!’
He looked very hard at Jane.
‘How beautiful the delphiniums are,’ said Jane hurriedly, with very pink cheeks.
‘They’re lupins,’ said the young man.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Jane.
‘Not a bit,’ he agreed. And he drew a little nearer.
The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim
Poirot and I were expecting our old friend Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard to tea. We were sitting round the tea-table awaiting his arrival. Poirot had just finished carefully straightening the cups and saucers which our landlady was in the habit of throwing, rather than placing, on the table. He had also breathed heavily on the metal teapot, and polished it with a silk handkerchief. The kettle was on the boil, and a small enamel saucepan beside it contained some thick, sweet chocolate which was more to Poirot’s palate than what he described as ‘your English poison’.
A sharp ‘rat-tat’ sounded below, and a few minutes afterwards Japp entered briskly.
‘Hope I’m not late,’ he said as he greeted us. ‘To tell the truth, I was yarning with Miller, the man who’s in charge of the Davenheim case.’
I pricked up my ears. For the last three days the papers had been full of the strange disappearance of Mr Davenheim, senior partner of Davenheim and Salmon, the well-known bankers and financiers. On Saturday last he had walked out of his house, and had never been seen since. I looked forward to extracting some interesting details from Japp.
‘I should have thought,’ I remarked, ‘that it would be almost impossible for anyone to “disappear” nowadays.’
Poirot moved a plate of bread and butter the eighth of an inch, and said sharply:
‘Be exact, my friend. What do you mean by “disappear”? To which class of disappearance are you referring?’
‘Are disappearances classified and labelled, then?’ I laughed.
Japp smiled also. Poirot frowned at both of us.
‘But certainly they are! They fall into three categories: First, and most common, the voluntary disappearance. Second, the much abused “loss of memory” case—rare, but occasionally genuine. Third, murder, and a more or less successful disposal of the body. Do you refer to all three as impossible of execution?’
‘Very nearly so, I should think. You might lose your own memory, but someone would be sure to recognize you—especially in the case of a well-known man like Davenheim. Then “bodies” can’t be made to vanish into thin air. Sooner or later they turn up, concealed in lonely places, or in trunks. Murder will out. In the same way, the absconding clerk, or the domestic defaulter, is bound to be run down in these days of wireless telegraphy. He can be headed off from foreign countries; ports and railway stations are watched; and as for concealment in this country, his features and appearance will be known to everyone who reads a daily newspaper. He’s up against civilization.’
‘Mon ami,’ said Poirot, ‘you make one error. You do not allow for the fact that a man who had decided to make away with another man—or with himself in a figurative sense—might be that rare machine, a man of method. He might bring intelligence, talent, a careful calculation of detail to the task; and then I do not see why he should not be successful in baffling the police force.’
‘But not you, I suppose?’ said Japp good-humouredly, winking at me. ‘He couldn’t baffle you, eh, Monsieur Poirot?’
Poirot endeavoured, with a marked lack of success, to look modest. ‘Me also! Why not? It is true that I approach such problems with an exact science, a mathematical precision, which seems, alas, only too rare in the new generation of detectives!’
Japp grinned more widely.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Miller, the man who’s on this case, is a smart chap. You may be very sure he won’t overlook a footprint, or a cigar-ash, or a crumb even. He’s got eyes that see everything.’
‘So, mon ami,’ said Poirot, ‘has the London sparrow. But all the same, I should not ask the little brown bird to solve the problem of Mr Davenheim.’
‘Come now, monsieur, you’re not going to run down the value of details as clues?’
‘By no means. These things are all good in their way. The danger is they may assume undue importance. Most details are insignificant; one or two are vital. It is the brain, the little grey cells’—he tapped his forehead—‘on which one must rely. The senses mislead. One must seek the truth within—not without.’
‘You don’t mean to say, Monsieur Poirot, that you would undertake to solve a case without moving from your chair, do you?’
‘That is exactly what I do mean—granted the facts were placed before me. I regard myself as a consulting specialist.’
Japp slapped his knee. ‘Hanged if I don’t take you at your word. Bet you a fiver that you can’t lay your hand—or rather tell me where to lay my hand—on Mr Davenheim, dead or alive, before a week is out.’
Poirot considered. ‘Eh bien, mon ami, I accept. Le sport, it is the passion of you English. Now—the facts.’
‘On Saturday last, as is his usual custom, Mr Davenheim took the 12.40 train from Victoria t
o Chingside, where his palatial country seat, The Cedars, is situated. After lunch, he strolled round the grounds, and gave various directions to the gardeners. Everybody agrees that his manner was absolutely normal and as usual. After tea he put his head into his wife’s boudoir, saying that he was going to stroll down to the village and post some letters. He added that he was expecting a Mr Lowen, on business. If he should come before he himself returned, he was to be shown into the study and asked to wait. Mr Davenheim then left the house by the front door, passed leisurely down the drive, and out at the gate, and—was never seen again. From that hour, he vanished completely.’
‘Pretty—very pretty—altogether a charming little problem,’ murmured Poirot. ‘Proceed, my good friend.’
‘About a quarter of an hour later a tall, dark man with a thick black moustache rang the front door-bell, and explained that he had an appointment with Mr Davenheim. He gave the name of Lowen, and in accordance with the banker’s instructions was shown into the study. Nearly an hour passed. Mr Davenheim did not return. Finally Mr Lowen rang the bell, and explained that he was unable to wait any longer, as he must catch his train back to town.
‘Mrs Davenheim apologized for her husband’s absence, which seemed unaccountable, as she knew him to have been expecting the visitor. Mr Lowen reiterated his regrets and took his departure.
‘Well, as everyone knows, Mr Davenheim did not return. Early on Sunday morning the police were communicated with, but could make neither head nor tail of the matter. Mr Davenheim seemed literally to have vanished into thin air. He had not been to the post office; nor had he been seen passing through the village. At the station they were positive he had not departed by any train. His own motor had not left the garage. If he had hired a car to meet him in some lonely spot, it seems almost certain that by this time, in view of the large reward offered for information, the driver of it would have come forward to tell what he knew. True, there was a small race-meeting at Entfield, five miles away, and if he had walked to that station he might have passed unnoticed in the crowd. But since then his photograph and a full description of him have been circulated in every newspaper, and nobody has been able to give any news of him. We have, of course, received many letters from all over England, but each clue, so far, has ended in disappointment.
Midsummer Mysteries Page 10