by Lynn Brock
Starting from the blankness of mind indicated by ‘No record,’ he divided the progress towards certainty into the stages ‘Surmise,’ two degrees of Suspicion, Belief, and Certainty. Minus degrees of the same kind would indicate the stages to Certainty at the other end of the scale—that is to say, in this particular case, certainty that Barrington had not died simply of heart-disease.
He traced the ‘curve’—one, certainly, of sufficiently acute aberration—for November 7th and 8th. From ‘No record,’ it sprang to the strong suspicion of his first view of the dead man’s face, and the scratch on his hand; from that it sprang to a suspicion that had been almost belief that Melhuish’s verdict of heart disease had been the right one; from that it jumped to a belief that had been almost certainty at the other end of the scale, marking the discovery that Melhuish had brushed the mud from Barrington’s clothes and taken away his wrist-watch; so it had remained overnight until that morning when it had leaped to absolute belief that the ‘story’ was all moonshine; and now it had dropped once more to the strongest of suspicions that another ‘story’ no less sensational, lay behind the affair.
Having considered this edifying product of his intelligence for some little time, he made three similar graphs illustrating his speculations with regard to the three people, one of whom, it seemed, or had seemed, must have been, wilfully or accidentally, responsible for Barrington’s death if natural causes had not been responsible for it. Then he decided to make a fifth graph, to be used—if occasion should arise, for some possible fourth person. And having got as far as that, he ultimately decided to make one for every person who, to his knowledge, had been connected with Barrington in any way whatever.
This proved a longish job; but the task interested him. Many of the graphs, of course, remained blank and curveless; the great majority of the names which his memory collected from the preceding forty-eight hours or so appeared so absolutely improbable that he was almost disposed to omit them. But the strain of doggedness in him refused to allow him to abandon his design. It would be curiously interesting, he reflected, if by chance someone of those improbable persons should prove in the end—if there ever was an end—the key to the riddle. Not that he seriously anticipated any such dramatic dénouement. He had at that moment very little doubt that either Melhuish or Arndale, or both, had had some sort of scrap with Barrington, and that in the course of the encounter Barrington’s hand had received a scratch which had been at least partially responsible for his death. The details persisted in remaining bafflingly obscure. Little discrepancies of time and place intruded themselves irritatingly. But the central fact appeared to him beyond all doubt or question. Barrington’s death lay between Arndale and Melhuish.
He had tossed the diagrams to the hearth-rug as he had completed each. He gathered them up now in a jumble, as they came to his hand, and made a key list, numbering the graphs to correspond with the numbers opposite the names on the list respectively—twenty names in all, including that of Barrington himself. Finally he carefully deleted all initials and other marks by which he had originally distinguished the graphs, and put his key-list away in his pocket-wallet. The graphs themselves he pinned together and left inside the cover of his writing-block, where, next morning, one of the Riverside’s maids found them, and, being an unscientific person, formed an opinion, which nothing ever afterwards altered, that ‘the Colonel’ in the unwedded loneliness of his middle-age, was accustomed to console himself of nights with some complicated version of the ancient pastime of ‘Fox-and-Geese.’
CHAPTER XII
THREE communications reached Gore on Thursday morning—a scrawl from Challoner, cancelling the golf arranged for that day, on the plea of a day amongst the partridges in Wiltshire; an intimation that the secretaryship of the London club had been filled; and the following reply to a note which he had despatched to Mrs Barrington before starting for Cleveport on the preceding morning:
‘27, HATFIELD PLACE,
Wed., Nov. 8.
‘DEAR WICK,—It is very good of you to have thought of me. I know nothing of my husband’s business affairs, nor have I the least curiosity with regard to them. However, I suppose someone ought to go through his papers and see how things stand. The funeral, as you perhaps know, is tomorrow morning at eleven. If you can spare an hour or so on Friday afternoon—I suggest three o’clock—I shall be very grateful if you will come and talk over things. At the moment I don’t know if he has left enough money to pay his servants the wages owing to them—or even his own funeral expenses. Fortunately, I have still a few pounds of the £100 a year which my most generous of parents allow me. Angela Heathman, too, has been very kind, and has offered repeatedly to tide me over any money difficulties that may arise. A rather unexpected charity—but I can’t afford to be proud. Forgive this long grouse.
‘Yours,
‘ETHEL BARRINGTON.’
‘P.S.—I take back anything stupid I said to you about Barbara Melhuish and her husband. No one could be more kind or more thoughtful than Dr Melhuish has been. And Barbara wrote me the sweetest little note before she went away to Surrey this morning. I have only just got it, and am still inclined to blubber. So please forget anything silly I said to you yesterday.—E.B.’
When, about three o’clock on the following afternoon, Gore arrived at Hatfield Place, his friend Florence ushered him out to a room at the end of the hall, where he found Mrs Barrington awaiting him with—somewhat to his discomfiture—Miss Heathman. On a table stood a large tin box, the contents of which had been emptied on to the tablecloth and arranged roughly in order.
By daylight Miss Heathman’s drawn, sallow pallor was still more noticeable. She departed almost immediately, having explained with her nervous, fleeting smile, that she had merely called in passing to cheer dear Ethel up a little, and to renew her offer of any assistance in her power.
‘Well,’ said Gore, when she had gone—slithering, as he described her mode of progression to himself, like a sick snake—‘I have a respect amounting to slavish adoration for anyone who is sixpence richer when she has ended shaking hands with you than she was when she began doing it. But, candidly, if I wanted a little cheering up—’
‘She does look rather dreadful, poor old thing,’ Mrs Barrington agreed. ‘But she has been awfully kind, really. In fact, almost overpoweringly kind. She has been here for an hour and a half this afternoon. I can’t think why, exactly. I’ve never really known her very well. Of course she’s years and years older than I am. However … she obviously means well … and I haven’t so many friends that I can afford to pick and choose exactly …’
For a little while they chatted desultorily over a cigarette. Then she turned to the table.
‘My husband kept all his private papers in that box, as far as I can make out. I couldn’t find the key. But Mr Frensham very kindly borrowed a file and filed the hasp of the padlock through for me. He has looked through all those things on the table. I really don’t know that there’s any necessity for you to bother about them, Wick.’
‘Who is Mr Frensham?’ he asked carelessly.
‘He was a friend of my husband’s. They used to go racing together, I think. He has stayed here once or twice.’
‘Then he doesn’t live here?’
‘No. He lives in London. But he happened to be in Westmouth … so he went to the funeral yesterday … the solitary mourner, by the way … And this morning he very kindly came along to know if he could help me in any way about my husband’s business affairs.’
‘That,’ said Gore thoughtfully, ‘was very kind of him. What sort of chap is he?’
‘Oh … well …’ said Mrs Barrington.
‘I see.’
‘I mean … he’s a funny little man, but quite a good business man, I should say. Very much on the spot.’
‘Oh, yes. And so he came along and volunteered to go through your husband’s papers and things, did he?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you said “Yes”?�
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‘Well … I did. I thought it would save my having to bother you or anyone else.’
‘He has looked over all these things here?’
‘Yes. He went through them all most carefully.’
‘Alone … or with you?’
‘I was in and out of the room. You seem very suspicious of poor Mr Frensham, Wick. Why? You don’t know anything about him, do you?’
‘I? Nothing whatever. Do you?’
‘No, I can’t say that I do.’
‘Well,’ he asked, after a moment’s silence, ‘what is the result of Mr Frensham’s investigations?’
‘He says he can’t find any trace of my husband’s having made a will … so far. Not that that matters in the least … to me. I shan’t touch a penny of his money. I have just two pounds a week of my own to live on. Lots of people live on less. I can do it if other people can.’
‘Had your husband any relatives living? He must have had.’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I suppose that sounds incredible. But it’s the simple fact, none the less. He told me so many lies that finally I reached a stage at which I preferred him to tell me nothing about himself.’
‘How often has this Mr Frensham stayed here with you?’ he asked, after a moment.
‘Three times, I think.’
‘You’ve no idea what he is … what he does?’
‘None whatever. He seems to have travelled a lot. He has been to China, Japan, America, Africa, Russia, all over the Continent … everywhere. The sort of man who can tell you what time the trams start running on Sundays in Oklahoma—’
‘Very helpful … in Oklahoma … on Sunday morning,’ he said dryly. ‘But I should have thought an ordinary stay-at-home Westmouth solicitor would be quite competent to deal with your husband’s affairs. Sorry to seem so unenthusiastic about your friend Mr Frensham. I know nothing about him. Neither do you. But that’s a lot too little.’
She played for some moments with the filed-through padlock which lay on the table beside the tin box.
‘As a matter of fact,’ she said at length, ‘I have rather regretted that I allowed Mr Frensham to go through these things of my husband’s. You see, a rather awkward thing turned up. I found a cheque which I couldn’t understand. I think, now, that perhaps I ought not to have shown it to anyone else until I had found out something about it.’
He stared. But Pickles had said explicitly that she had always paid in cash—
‘A cheque?’
‘Yes. For quite a large sum … two hundred and fifty pounds. A cheque of Mr Arndale’s—that’s what I think so odd. I can’t think why Mr Arndale should have paid my husband a cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds.’
Gore pulled down his waistcoat.
‘Nice round little sum—two hundred and fifty pounds,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Cards, I suppose. Your husband had card-parties here fairly regularly, hadn’t he? …’
‘Yes. But Mr Arndale has never played cards here. I don’t think he has been to the house for over twelve months … longer. He and his wife used to dine here occasionally during the first year or so after my marriage. But … that stopped. Certainly Mr Arndale has never played cards here. I’m quite sure about that. Mr Frensham suggested that it might be in settlement of racing debts.’
‘Quite possibly,’ nodded Gore. ‘May I see the cheque?’
‘Mr Frensham took it away,’ Mrs Barrington said with some embarrassment.
‘Took it away? Why?’
‘He suggested that he should see Mr Arndale about it?’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Well … really I don’t know … now. Except that I told him I couldn’t understand it.’
‘The cheque was drawn by Arndale … and payable to your husband?’
‘No. It was drawn by Mr Arndale, payable to “self.”’
‘Endorsed?’
‘Yes. Mr Arndale had endorsed it, and written “Please pay cash to bearer.”’
‘An uncrossed cheque?’
‘It was not crossed.’
‘And … you allowed this Mr Frensham to take it away?’
She was plainly alarmed by his disapproval—by some misgivings of her own, too.
‘Yes, to make sure from Mr Arndale that it was all right.’
‘All right?’
‘Yes. All right that it should be amongst my husband’s papers.’
‘What was the date of the cheque?’
‘November 4th.’
‘That was last Saturday. When did Mr Frensham propose to see Arndale about it?’
‘Today. This afternoon. He has probably seen him already.’
Lest he should alarm her further—perhaps quite unnecessarily—he left the matter there for the moment.
‘Oh, well, I expect it’s all right. Very probably a racing debt, as Mr Frensham suggests. However, I think I’d like to run through these things for you. It won’t take me very long. May I smoke a pipe?’
‘Of course. You … you don’t think, really, Wick, that there could be anything … queer … about that cheque, do you?’
‘Not for a moment,’ he said brightly, seating himself at the table. ‘Now let us see what we’ve got here. You’ve looked through all other likely drawers and so forth, I presume?’
‘Those are all the papers I could find,’ she said, turning away a little impatiently.
‘Good.’
There was a large—an extraordinarily large—collection of letters, neatly tied up in bundles of varying sizes, and docketed with the writers’ names. One of the bundles had been opened—by Mrs Barrington herself, it seemed—for, as he glanced at the uppermost letter, and read the words: ‘My Darling Boy,—What a topping day yesterday was. Today the world seems as flat and dull as—’ she laughed contemptuously.
‘Pleasant, isn’t it? I used to write him letters like that, too—once. But he hasn’t kept mine … thank goodness. I shouldn’t bother about those, Wick. I’m going to make a bonfire of them at the end of the garden presently. I expect they’re all from women. He was simply crazy about women, poor creature.’
Barrington had evidently been a person of orderly mind at any rate; for the letters were arranged alphabetically. And it had taken Gore something less than thirty seconds to discover, half-way through one of the larger bundles, a wad of some twenty-five or thirty letters, each docketed ‘Letchworth.’ He nodded prompt agreement to the bonfire suggestion.
‘Best thing to do with them.’
Bank-books, cheque-books, and cancelled cheques he put aside for more careful examination, restoring to the tin box a miscellaneous jumble of less interesting souvenirs—photographs of horses, an automatic pistol, a service revolver, some boxes of cartridges, five gold cigarette-cases, a small sketch in oils of a girl’s head, admirably fresh and living, a pair of field-glasses, a woman’s slipper, a dog’s collar engraved ‘Bill,’ and three small note-books containing names and addresses. In a little jeweller’s box, wrapped in tissue-paper, he found four unset diamonds—as far as he could judge, very fine stones—and a platinum and diamond ring. These also, in compliance with a silent gesture from Mrs Barrington, he restored to the tin box.
A large cardboard box next attracted his attention.
‘What’s in this?’ he asked. ‘Have you looked?’
‘Wigs and things,’ Mrs Barrington replied, and smiled at his surprise.
He opened the box and surveyed its contents for a moment or two curiously. There was, as a matter of fact, no wig amongst them. But there were a couple of beards, three moustaches, an extensive ‘make-up’ outfit, a pair of blue ‘goggles,’ a pince-nez, and two pairs of spectacles.
‘What the deuce—?’ he murmured in perplexity.
‘I didn’t know he had those things,’ Mrs Barrington smiled, ‘but I’ve always had an idea that at some time or other he had either been on the stage or had been very keen about it.’
‘Oh!’ Gore replaced the lid on the cardboard box. ‘Bonfire?’
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br /> ‘Yes.’
Some unused packs of cards and a roulette apparatus were sentenced to the same fate. Four £10 Bank of England notes, discovered in an envelope, went back into the tin box. There remained a large tobacco-tin filled with some white crystalline powder, on top of which rested three little packets, each containing a small quantity of the same powder. Gore sniffed—sniffed again. A gentleman of many activities, Mr Barrington, it was evident.
Mrs Barrington had risen from her chair and stood beside him now at the table. She stopped him as he was about to replace the lid on the tin.
‘There were four of those little packets,’ she said. ‘Have you taken one out, Wick?’
‘No.’
‘Then where is the fourth?’
They made the brief search necessary to assure them that the missing packet was neither on the table, nor on the floor, nor in the tin box.
‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter,’ said Mrs Barrington. ‘Only … it’s rather odd that it should have disappeared. What is that white stuff, Wick? Have you any idea?’
It seemed to Gore very much better that he should have no idea, and he said, promptly, that he had none.
‘Perhaps Mr Frensham borrowed the fourth packet for some reason or other,’ he suggested.
‘No. There were four in that tin when Miss Heathman was here. I know that—because I showed her that white stuff and asked her what she thought it was. Perhaps she may have taken one of the little packets. Though why on earth should she … without saying so?’
‘Heaven knows,’ smiled Gore. Though, in fact, it had just occurred to him that the explanation might not lie at an at all so inconvenient a distance. His speculations upon the matter were interrupted, however, at that point by the appearance of Florence.