by Various
To all practical purposes I was a prisoner in the Albany for an indefinite period. Outside the shelter of Sheringham’s rooms I did not dare to put my nose. And for all the company that the silent-footed, respectfully taciturn Meadows proved himself, I might just as well have been completely alone. The time hung heavily on my hands, in spite of the numbers of newspapers I examined, Meadows silently bringing me each fresh edition as it appeared. There was, however, little fresh to be found in the reports so far as real information went, though columns of balderdash were printed concerning myself, Frank and everything relevant and irrelevant to the case. The only piece of complete news was that the dagger with which Frank had been stabbed had been identified as my own dagger, from the wall in my library, a fact which lent superficial support to the police theory but, to me, more to Sheringham’s.
The latter had not been able to say how long he would be absent. Actually it was nearly forty-eight hours before he returned, looking considerably graver than when he departed.
I had jumped up eagerly to question him as to his success and his reply was anything but reassuring.
‘I’ve found out a little, but not much. And the police have found out a good deal more. They’ve got evidence now which has made them change their theory completely. You’d better prepare for a shock, Chappell. They think now that you feigned the first two hallucinations in order to create the impression that you were mad and then, having established that, killed your cousin in extremely sane cold blood in accordance with a careful plan of murder, knowing that as a homicidal maniac you couldn’t be executed but would get off with a year or so in Broadmoor before proving that you’d recovered your sanity. That’s what we’re up against now.’
Chapter IX
I had still found no words to answer Sheringham’s appalling news when the door behind him opened and Sylvia herself appeared. ‘Oh, Hugh!’ she said, with a little cry and ran to me.
‘She would come,’ Sheringham said gloomily. ‘I couldn’t stop her. Well, I’ll go and unpack.’ He left us alone together.
‘Hugh dear,’ Sylvia said, when our first disjointed greetings were over, ‘what does this terrible business all mean? Frank dead and you suspected of killing him! I knew all the time there was something dreadful behind those “hallucinations” of yours, as that idiot of a Dr Gotley would call them.’
‘I can tell you one thing it must mean, darling,’ I said sadly, ‘and that is that our engagement must be broken off. It wouldn’t be fair to you. Though when I’m cleared I shall—’
‘Hugh!’ she interrupted me indignantly. ‘How dare you say such a thing to me! What kind of a girl do you imagine I am? Engagement broken off indeed. Do you know why I’ve come up with Mr Sheringham?’
‘Well, no,’ I had to admit.
But I was not destined to learn just then exactly why Sylvia had come up to London, for Sheringham himself followed his own discreet tap on the door into the room.
We settled down into a council of war.
‘There’s no disguising the fact,’ Sheringham said gravely, ‘that the position’s uncommonly serious, Chappell. The hunt for you is up, with a vengeance.’
‘Look here,’ I returned, ‘in that case I must leave your rooms. You could get into serious trouble for harbouring a wanted man, you know.’
‘Oh, that,’ Sheringham said scornfully. ‘Yes, you can go all right, but you’ll have to knock me out first. I’ll hold you here if necessary by main force.’
Sylvia’s face, which had become highly apprehensive at my remark, lightened again and she shot a grateful smile at our host.
‘Then you really don’t think I should surrender to the police and let them hold me while you’re working?’ I asked anxiously, for, magistrate as I was, the way in which I was evading arrest seemed to me just then almost more reprehensible than the ridiculous charge which was out against me.
‘I do not,’ Sheringham replied bluntly. ‘That is, not unless you want to turn a short story into a long one. Give me just a few days and I’ll clear the mystery up – granted one thing only.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Why, that the agent we send abroad is able to establish the fact that your cousin was not at his hotel abroad on those first two occasions; because unless you’re completely mistaken in your identification, there can’t be any doubt about that, as a fact.’
‘But wait a minute!’ Sylvia cried. ‘Mr Sheringham, that would mean that – that his wife is in it too.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Sheringham agreed carelessly. ‘Naturally.’
‘Joanna!’ I exclaimed. ‘Oh, that’s impossible.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past her,’ said Sylvia. ‘But why “naturally”, Mr Sheringham? Have you got a theory that brings her in?’
‘Yes. My idea is that so far as your cousin and his wife were concerned, Chappell, the thing was a joke, just to give you a fright. Rather a gruesome joke, perhaps, but nothing more. He was home on business for a day or two and, with the help of somebody else, rigged himself up as a sham corpse. Then that unknown third person turned the joke against him most effectively by really killing him the third time. All we’ve got to do, therefore, is to find this mysterious person (which, with your cousin’s wife’s help, shouldn’t be difficult), and we’ve got the murderer.’
‘Joanna’s on her way home now, of course,’ Sylvia told me. ‘They expect her to arrive tonight or tomorrow. Mr Sheringham’s going down again to see her.’
‘I understand,’ I said slowly, though I was not altogether sure that I did. ‘And supposing that she says that Frank was with her all the time and our agent confirms that?’
‘Well, in that case there’s only one possible explanation: your identification was mistaken.’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t,’ I said. ‘And what’s more I’m equally sure that Frank was dead the first time of all – quite dead. I tell you, his face was icy cold and his heart wasn’t beating; I felt his pulse most carefully. It’s impossible that I could have been mistaken.’
‘That does make things a little more difficult,’ Sheringham murmured.
There was a gloomy little pause, which I broke to ask Sheringham what this fresh evidence was which the police imagined they had discovered against me. Apparently it amounted to the facts that, according to Jefferson, my chauffeur, the car had on each occasion shown every sign of having been deliberately tampered with (which Sheringham had expected), and by myself (which he had not); that the police had obtained my finger-prints from articles in the house and the finger-prints on the dagger corresponded with them; and that I had been heard to use threatening language as regards Frank – which so far as his escapades before marriage were concerned, was possibly in some degree true, though I could not in any way account for the finger-prints. ‘Whom are you going to send abroad for us, Mr Sheringham?’ Sylvia asked suddenly, when our discussion on these points was over.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about that. It must be someone who knew the dead man and all the circumstances. In my opinion the very best thing would be for Hugh to go and act as his own detective. We can easily lay a trail to make the police think he’s still in London, so the foreign forces won’t be warned.’
‘Hugh!’ Sylvia echoed in surprise. ‘Well, really, that mightn’t be at all a bad idea. Though as to detecting ... Still, I can do that part of it.’
‘You?’ we exclaimed in unison.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Sylvia serenely. ‘I shall go with him, of course.’
‘But, darling,’ I was beginning to expostulate.
‘Which brings me back to my real reason for coming up to London, Hugh,’ Sylvia went on with the utmost calmness. ‘It was so that we can get married at once, of course. Or at any rate, within the usual three days. It will have to be in false names, I’m afraid, owing to this fuss, but it’s just as legal and we can go through a ceremony again in our own names if you like after it’s all over. I’ve applied for the special licence already, in the name of—’
She began to giggle and dived into her handbag, from which she extracted a crumpled piece of paper. ‘Yes, Miss Arabella Whiffen. And you, darling, are Mr Penstowe Stibb.’
Chapter X
And so, in spite of my misgivings, Sylvia and I actually were married three days later. In my own defence I may say that when Sylvia has really made her mind up to a thing ...
How we got safely out of the country, while the police were feverishly chasing clues ingeniously laid by Sheringham to show that I was still in London, I do not propose to say. In the public interest such things are better kept quiet.
It was a strange honeymoon upon which we embarked, with its object of finding out whether or not Frank really had been abroad at the time when I had seen him (as I was now more convinced than ever that I had), lying dead in Horne’s Copse. Nor was there any time to lose. With only one night to break the journey in Bâle on the way, we went straight through to the Italian lakes. We did not, however, stay in Bellagio, where Frank had been (or said he had been), but at Cadenabbia opposite. For all we knew, we might encounter an English detective in Bellagio and we did not intend to remain in the danger zone longer than necessary.
We arrived at Cadenabbia late at night. The next morning, before crossing the lake to Bellagio, I received a letter from Sheringham, addressed to me in the assumed name in which we were travelling. Its contents were most disturbing:
DEAR STIBB,
I am keeping in close touch with S.Y. and they still have no doubt that London is the place. Meanwhile here is news.
Both the police and I have seen J. and she tells the same story to both of us: that her husband never came back to England at all, until the day before his death, when he had to return for a few hours to see in person to some business connected with the estate and left saying that he was going straight to you to ask you to put him up. That is bad enough, but this is worse. The police now think they have found a definite motive for you. They say you were in love with J. (Your late marriage, of course, would be put down to an act of panic.)
Now this information can have come from one person only, J. herself, so I tackled her about it. She was very reluctant to tell me anything but finally, while admitting the possibility that she might have been totally mistaken, did hint that in her opinion your attentions to her since her marriage have been a good deal more marked than one might have expected in the case of a man engaged to another girl. I need not tell you my own opinion that J. is a vain hussy and all this is pure moonshine due to her inordinate conceit; but I must admit that it would not sound at all a pretty story in court.
I am more than ever certain that everything now hinges on your being able to establish that F. was not where he pretended to be. So do your level best.
Yours, R.S.
P.S. J. is very bitter against you. She seems to have no doubt in her empty head that you did the deed.
‘Well, I am blessed!’ I exclaimed and showed the letter to Sylvia. ‘Really, I can’t imagine how Joanna can have got such an extraordinary idea into her head. I’m quite certain I never gave her the least grounds for it.’
Sylvia read the letter through carefully. ‘I never did like Joanna,’ was all she said.
It can be imagined that, after this news, we were more anxious than ever to succeed in the object of our journey. It was, therefore, with a full realisation of the fateful issues involved that we approached the Grand Hotel in Bellagio, which Frank had given as his address there.
While Sylvia engaged the reception clerk in a discussion regarding terms for a mythical stay next year I, as if idly, examined the register. My heart sank. There was the entry for the date in question. ‘Mr and Mrs Francis Chappell’, unmistakably in Joanna’s handwriting. Apparently they had only stayed for two nights.
Concealing my disappointment, I turned to the clerk. ‘I believe some friends of ours were staying here last May. English, of course. I don’t suppose you remember them. The lady was very dark, with quite black hair and her husband was just about my build and not at all unlike me in face, except that he had a scar just here.’ I touched my right temple.
‘Was he a gentleman of fast temper – no, quick temper, your friend?’ asked the clerk, who spoke excellent English, with a slight smile.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Occasionally perhaps he is. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing. It was nothing at all,’ said the clerk hastily. Too hastily, for it was evidently something. ‘Just something that displeased the gentleman. Quite natural. Yes, Signor, I remember your friends very well. Their name is Chappell, is it not? And they went on from here to Milan. I remember he told me he got the scar playing cricket when a boy. Is it not so?’
‘It is,’ I said gloomily.
‘You have a very good memory,’ remarked Sylvia.
‘It is my business,’ beamed the clerk, evidently pleased with the compliment.
Disconsolately we made our way back across the lake to our hotel, where Sylvia vanished indoors to write a letter.
Rather to my surprise, considering how urgent our business was, Sylvia refused to go on to Rome the next day, nor even the day after that. She had always wanted to see the Italian lakes, she said and now she was here she was going to see them all. And see them all we did, Lugano, Maggiore and the rest at the cost of a day apiece. It was almost a week later before at last we found ourselves in Rome.
And there it seemed that our inquiries were to meet with just the same fate. The conversation with the hotel clerk was repeated almost word for word. Did he remember my friend? Certainly he did and again by name as well as behaviour (Frank seemed from the hints we had had to have travelled across Europe blazing a trail of fiery temper). There was no doubt at all about his having been there. Even the scar was once more in evidence.
Sylvia drew something out of her bag and pushed it across the counter. I saw what it was as she did so. It was a small but excellent photograph of Frank himself.
‘Is that anything like Mr Chappell?’ she asked, almost carelessly.
The clerk took the photograph up and looked at it carefully. ‘It is like him, just a little. But it is not Mr Chappell himself, as the Signora well knows. Oh, no.’
Sylvia glanced at me. ‘I knew you’d need someone with you to do the real detecting,’ she said calmly, though her eyes were dancing.
Chapter XI
But that was not the end of my surprises. Sylvia was contemplating the clerk thoughtfully. ‘Are you ever able to get away from here for the weekend?’ she asked. ‘A long weekend?’
The man shook his head regretfully. ‘No, never. We do not have the English weekend in Italy.’
‘Oh!’ said Sylvia.
‘Only a week’s holiday in a year we have. My holiday begins in three days’ time. I shall not be sorry.’
Sylvia brightened. ‘Look here, how would you like to go to England for your week’s holiday, all expenses paid?’
The man’s voluble answer left no doubt of his liking for the idea. Sylvia arranged the details with him there and then.
‘My darling,’ I said, when at last we were seated in a café a few streets away and could talk properly, ‘what on earth is it you’re doing and how did you know the man with Joanna wasn’t Frank at all?’
She gave me a superior smile. ‘It didn’t strike you as curious, Hugh, that both those men remembered Frank so well, what with his temper and his scar, about which he was so confidential, and the rest? It didn’t occur to you to wonder whether they remembered all the visitors at their hotels quite so thoroughly? It didn’t strike you as though Frank had almost gone out of his way to be remembered at those two places so clearly?’
‘Go on. Rub it in. No, it didn’t.’
‘Poor lamb! Well, why should it have? You haven’t got such a suspicious mind as I have. But all those things struck me. Also the fact that it was Joanna who signed the register. Very fishy, I thought. So I wrote off to Mr Sheringham to get hold somehow of a photograph of Frank and send it to me poste restante at Rome.
That’s why I insisted on staying so long on the lakes, to give it time to arrive.’
‘Well, well,’ I said. ‘I’m quite glad I married you. So what is our programme now?’
‘I must write to Mr Sheringham at once and tell him what we’ve discovered and that we’re bringing the witness back with us in two or three days’ time.’
‘But why are we doing that?’
‘I’m not going to let him go off on his holiday where we can’t get hold of him,’ Sylvia retorted. ‘Besides, aren’t there things called affidavits that he’ll have to swear? Something like that. Anyhow, Mr Sheringham will know, so to Mr Sheringham he’s going.’
And to Mr Sheringham, three days later, the man went. I think I have already hinted in this chronicle that when Sylvia makes up her mind to a thing ...
Sheringham seemed scarcely less pleased to see him than us. He handed him over to Meadows with as much care as if he had been made of glass and might fall into pieces at any moment.
As soon as he had gone and Sylvia had received Sheringham’s congratulations on her perspicacity, I asked eagerly whether anything further had come to light at this end of the affair.
Sheringham smiled, as if not ill-pleased with himself. ‘I think I’ve made some progress, but I’d rather not say anything just at the moment. I’ve arrived at one decision, though, Chappell, and that is that you must now come out in the open.’
‘Stop skulking?’ I said. ‘I shall be only too pleased. I’ve nothing to hide and I dislike this hole and corner atmosphere I’ve been living in.’
‘But is it safe?’ Sylvia asked anxiously.
‘On that we’ve got to take a chance,’ Sheringham told her. ‘Personally, I think it will be. In any case, since getting your letter I’ve arranged a conference here this evening. I’m going to do my best to bring everyone into the open and with any luck developments may result.’