Bobby put aside the papers he had been reading with such care, now and again as he did so making a brief note.
“You certainly went into it pretty thoroughly,” he remarked. “Jolly good thorough work, if I may say so. People don t realize the amount of work that goes into a case like this with nothing to show for it in the end but an open verdict. I wonder how many statements you took?”
“Never counted ’em,” said the inspector, looking a little pleased at Bobby’s remarks. “Must have been well over a hundred, though.”
“I see,” Bobby continued, “it’s pointed out there’s no record of strangers or suspicious characters being seen in the neighbourhood, except for this one story about a woman on a motor-cycle no one seemed very clear about.” He consulted his notes. “She was seen by two different people on different days apparently, but always so muffled up, goggles and all that, no description could be given. Once she was seen actually at the cottage, putting up her cycle outside; once on her motor-bike going in the direction of the cottage; and once near the cottage, doing something to her cycle, some adjustment apparently. Not much to go on. No one noticed the registration number, of course.”
“They never do,” said the inspector. “We did our best to follow up that line. Wash out. The newspaper boys were keen on that angle. Some of ’em tried to work up mysterious woman slant. They couldn’t. Not enough material.” Bobby reflected that if newspaper men had been unable to make a story for lack of material, material must indeed have been scanty. He said presently:—
“It’s a queer yarn, this muffled-up woman cyclist tale. What’s queerer still, the same sort of story has cropped up again. A mysterious muffled-up woman cyclist was seen near Mr. Baird’s caravan and we can’t get track of her.”
“Funny,” agreed the inspector. “But where does it get you?”
“I wish I knew,” Bobby answered. “I would give a lot to know. I don’t like it one little bit. I see at the inquest it was mentioned that White had been getting rid of a lot of money. So had Baird. Mr. White’s friends can’t think what he was doing in a lonely cottage down here. Mr. Baird’s friends have no idea what made him suddenly take to caravanning in the heart of Wychwood Forest.”
“Oh, well,” argued the inspector, “people often enough think they would like a spell in the country—get tired of town life. White had been splashing his money about and nothing to show for it, but he had plenty left—what he spent was no more to him than half a crown would be to you or me. What about your Mr. Baird?”
“He had pretty well cleared himself out apparently— almost all his capital gone except for a few hundreds. Nothing to show what he did with it except that he bought some very valuable jewellery—a swell bracelet at Christie’s. No one knows what he did with it. The motor-cycle woman might be able to tell us if only we knew who she was. Mr. White bought an extra swell diamond necklace in Bond Street. And no one seems to know what he did with that, either.”
“Does seem,” agreed the inspector uneasily, “as if it was much the same thing happening all over again.” Bobby did not answer. He felt cold suddenly, as though at the chill breath of some unknown horror. It was as though he groped in a mist where things vague and dreadful lurked, things threatening and unknown, evil things whereof yet he could obtain no clear knowledge, that might indeed, for all the proof he had to show, be compounded only of imagination and coincidence. Yet it was no imagination that three men had died, died alone with nothing to show how or why. He looked up and saw that the Welsh inspector had taken out his handkerchief and was wiping his forehead. He said:—
“It’s—funny.” He seemed to find the word inadequate. He said:—“I mean to say—” and once more paused. He fell back on the first word. “Funny,” he said, “that’s what it is. Funny.” Then he said defensively:—“I don’t see what else we could have done.”
“More do I,” agreed Bobby, “and what’s more, I don’t see what else we can do now. If we could identify the motor-cyclist lady, it would be something, but she seems to have vanished ‘without trace’. I suppose you don’t remember any one named Reynolds mixed up in it in any way? A chauffeur, probably. Know any one like that?”
The inspector shook his head.
“There’s Reynoldses I know,” he said, “but none who could have had anything to do with it, and none of them chauffeurs, or likely to be. Why? Any one of that name in your Baird case?”
“No,” Bobby answered. “The name cropped up in another connection.”
“Name means nothing to me,” said the inspector. “Even if there was anything queer about Mr. White’s death—or about your Baird case—I don’t reckon we shall ever know. Dead end, if you ask me.”
“Looks like it,” agreed Bobby.
“Well, there you are,” said the other. After a pause he added with an air of finality:—“And that’s that.”
“So it is,” agreed Bobby again, “only we don’t want any more queer, unexpected deaths of rich young men living alone in cottages or caravans with unknown ladies on motorcycles buzzing about in the distance.”
With that he expressed his thanks for the assistance given him and took his leave. What with his long cross-country journey and his talk with the Welsh inspector it had grown late. He found a modest hotel, and, after a meal, spent the rest of the evening making out a list of the other hotels in the neighbourhood. A forlorn hope, of course, but it was just possible that inspection of their registers might show a name that in the light of fuller knowledge might be suggestive in a manner not previously apparent. More especially did Bobby intend to pay attention to any one accompanied by a chauffeur Unfortunate that chauffeurs’ names are often not given.
For it still stuck in Bobby’s mind that the story of the chauffeur with the field-glasses on Dartmoor might have its own significance. What had, naturally, specially interested him was the coincidence of the name given in the Devon garage about the time of young Lord Byatt’s death with that of the absconding chauffeur said to have been seen near the Mountain Street hall. Already he had rung up London asking if all details of the Reynolds case could be got ready for him. A tiny light, he thought, or rather hoped, in the mirk of the bewildering darkness that surrounded these cases, and one that had to be followed up, even though it might and probably would prove the merest will-o’-the-wisp. Anyhow, it would have to be followed until it led somewhere or died away in insignificance.
Searching the hotel registers was, of course, a routine job the county and borough police forces would have put through thoroughly, efficiently and more easily, had they been requested to do so. But that would have meant the delay inseparable from all official proceedings that have to be explained and approved according to the accustomed routine. Also Bobby thought that in the doubt and obscurity enveloping a case in which he did not even know what truth it was he sought, what goal he aimed at, there might be some slight faint indication to be noticed that routine would over-look but that yet might have its own importance. In the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king; in complete ignorance and darkness, the faintest gleam may show the true path.
All that day, a wet and dreary day, he pursued doggedly his tedious task, once as he passed near a bank aware of a feeling of envy for the clerks within who at least had definite figures to add up to a certain assured total—totals, too, different in every separate account—while he had to add up facts of which he was ignorant and was forced always in his search of these hotel registers to arrive at a conclusion monotonously the same—nothing of interest. In none of these lists of visitors during the days about and before the date of the discovery of Andy White’s body, was there anything he could discern in any way bearing on the investigation.
The report he sent to Superintendent Oxley that evening ran briefly and simply:—
‘Visited hotels in districts named to inspect registers. No result.’
Oxley read it, shrugged his shoulders, and filed it away, thinking to himself as he did so that probably this young
busybody from London was merely out for a joy-ride. Oxley didn’t much believe in all this sort of free-lance running about away from all official supervision. His idea of police work was solid routine done on the spot and directed by superior officers from headquarters.
But the report he received the next morning ran:—
‘Have found in hotel register examined this morning names of two persons who may be connected with case. Am returning to London to-morrow.’
“That’s to-day,” reflected Oxley, “and why doesn’t the young man say what names and what hotel and where it is? Keeping it all to himself. Well, I suppose it’s the chief’s responsibility, giving him a free hand like this. Their affair, not mine.”
He had orders to make no mention of Bobby’s reports to Colonel Glynne, save in case of extreme and urgent necessity. Nothing of that sort here, Oxley supposed, and so he filed this report away with the others, expressing dissatisfaction only by a series of grunts and a certain display of ruffled temper during most of the rest of the morning.
It was in a well known, even fashionable resort not far from the scene of the Andy White tragedy that Bobby had found in an hotel register the name of a Count Louis de Legett, and, more interesting, that of Leonard Glynne. They had been together, for the bill had been made out to the Count and paid by him. What, Bobby asked himself, had young Glynne been doing there with a companion at that particular time? Was there any reason to suppose that the woman motor-cyclist could be Becky Glynne? Not very pleasant thoughts, but thoughts all the same to follow up, as indeed was his mission and his duty.
Having thus found something that might or might not turn out to be of real significance, Bobby decided to abandon further effort to trace a chauffeur named Reynolds, who indeed might very well have been neither named Reynolds nor a chauffeur, or, if he were either or both, yet have no connection with the Byatt affair, and to return to London by the next available train. He got to town just in time to tumble into bed—he had eaten on the train—and next morning he presented himself at the Yard where he found: firstly, that no report had been received from any quarter of any street singer answering to the description given of Mrs. Jane Jones; secondly, that all the information available concerning the Reynolds case was ready for him; thirdly, that nothing was known of any Count Louis de Legett, though the directory gave someone of that name as having an address in Curzon Street.
Bobby’s reactions to these three several facts were, first, an uneasy fear that he had allowed Mrs. Jones to slip through his fingers and that possibly she had disappeared finally. He had thought at the time that it would be easy enough to keep track of her. Naturally the police tend to keep an official eye on such vagrants. But if she had changed her way of life and retired, so to say, into privacy, it might well prove impossible to find her. Secondly, he decided to devote himself at once to a careful study of the Reynolds case. Thirdly, he would, as soon as possible, look up Count de Legett and have a talk with him. Perhaps ask him outright what business had taken him to that neighbourhood about the time of Andrew White’s death and what was his relation to Leonard Glynne.
The study of the papers relating to the Reynolds case showed that it appeared of small interest, presenting no out-standing features save that of the entire failure to trace the fugitive chauffeur. ‘Probably left the country’ one note ran. Nor had any trace of the stolen jewellery been discovered, though the ear-rings were distinctive, and would lose much of their value if broken up, and the pendant was a diamond of a most unusual emerald green tint to which it owed most of its value and that naturally any dealer would recognize at once.
“Got into a panic and chucked ’em down the drain most likely,” observed the Yard man who produced the papers for Bobby’s examination.
“Might be that,” agreed Bobby, remembering the well known case years ago of a pearl necklace worth £50,000 that in the end the thieves deposited in the gutter of a London street as the only way of getting rid of it—much work for small reward, as was remarked at the time. Yet Bobby remembered also in a worried way that the sapphires of Lord Byatt, the superb diamond necklace purchased by Andy White, also seemed to have disappeared. For a moment a crazy vision came to him of some lunatic collector of precious stones who employed agents to buy rare specimens and then murdered the agents and hid the jewellery. A fantastic idea he forgot almost as soon as he conceived it. “All the same,” he added, frowning in a queer concentration of thought, if so vague a mental disturbance as was his at that moment could be called thought, “if only we knew where the stuff was—”
He paused and the Yard man said cheerfully:—
“Then we should know a good deal more, shouldn’t we?”
Bobby laughed and agreed, though there was still in his mind as it were a little distant whisper murmuring that if only the problem of what had become of the jewellery could be solved, then all would be solved.
The Yard man was saying:—
“Beat us how Reynolds managed his get-away. We had a full description, photographs and all.” He indicated a series of half a dozen, showing Reynolds in various attitudes and in different attire. “But we never got a sniff of him. Kept an eye on his wife, his friends, his relatives, for months. Nothing doing. They seemed all as puzzled as we were. A complete fade out.”
Something of a feat, this complete ‘fade out’, for it is not easy for one whose description, habits, friends are all known to the police, to escape their search.
“He was married, then?” Bobby said.
The Yard man nodded.
“Worst of these cases,” he said soberly. “She wouldn’t believe it at first. Stuck to it he was innocent. When she couldn’t believe that any longer, took the line he was really innocent, only he had been made a tool of. Seemed to suspect another woman, but couldn’t name any one, or else wouldn’t. Anyhow, we could get nothing out of her.” He added musingly:— “I shan’t soon forget the way she sat there, pale as death, hardly moving, making creeps go up and down your back the way she stared. She had to clear out of the cottage where they had been living and went off back to her people in Cardiff. She made sure and so did we, he would try to get in touch with her, but apparently he never did, or if he did, it was managed so cleverly it was never spotted.”
“Is she still there?” Bobby asked.
“In Cardiff? I believe so. She lives with her sister and helps in the shop—sweets and tobacco, quite a good little business, it seemed.”
Bobby took a note of the Cardiff address, asked if it could be arranged for him to have copies of the Reynolds photographs and was promised them.
“Don’t think you are going to dig the chap up, do you?” the Yard man asked with a touch of amusement in his voice and Bobby smiled deprecatingly and remarked that once a case began to take twists and turns you never knew where those twists and turns were going to lead you. Then he remarked:—
“You said Mrs. Reynolds had to leave the cottage where they had been living? Do you mean it belonged to her husband’s employer?”
“Yes. Nine Elms Park. In Berkshire somewhere I think. Belonged to Mrs. Frayton. She wasn’t half peeved we never got her stuff back. Threatened to write to The Times about it, and she did go to the Home Office to complain about our inefficiency. Kicked up no end of a fuss, the way these important people do when things don’t happen just as they want. We did our best.”
“Who is Mrs. Frayton?” Bobby asked. “Any one special?”
“Oh, her old man was an M.P. once and they own a lot of land where they live. She’s an Honourable, though she don’t use it. Her pa was Lord Byatt.”
“The devil he was,” exclaimed Bobby, startled.
“Lord Byatt he was,” retorted the Yard man. “Why bring in the devil?”
“Because,” said Bobby slowly, “I think the devil is not very far away. Rather, I think he is very close indeed. It was Lord Byatt who was found dead in a car on Dartmoor some time ago, and there’s evidence a chauffeur who gave his name as Reynolds was hang
ing about more or less at the same time.”
The Yard man rubbed his head.
“I don’t see the connection,” he remarked.
“More do I,” agreed Bobby. “I suppose the Lord Byatt who was Mrs. Frayton’s father would be the grandfather of the Dartmoor Lord Byatt. That would make Mrs. Frayton his aunt. If the Reynolds I heard of is the same Reynolds as the one Mrs. Frayton employed, what was he doing on Dartmoor and why didn’t he come forward?”
“If he was getting ready to pinch some jewellery, most likely he wasn’t too keen on coming under our notice,” observed the Yard man.
Bobby supposed that might be the case. An idea had come into his mind. A wild, improbable idea, perhaps, but a possibility.
“Do you know where Mrs. Frayton was at the time?” he asked. “What sort of woman is she? did you ever see her?”
“Did I not?” said the Yard man with feeling. “It was my job to smooth her down when she called to raise hell because we hadn’t her diamonds all ready to hand her on a plate. Always pick on me for the tough jobs. Fat old body, about sixty, and thought all the world was there to do what she wanted. She had gone to the south of France for a day or two to see about some tennis tournament arrangements. For all she’s so fat and rheumaticy now, she used to be a dab at the game, and it’s still her hobby, running tournaments and all that. She came back full tilt though when she heard what had happened. Oh, well, I suppose no one would like to lose a good few thousand pounds worth of jewellery.”
There died in Bobby’s mind the idea that for one brief moment he had entertained. A woman described as a fat, rheumaticy old body, about sixty, could not be the mysterious feminine motor cyclist who appeared so hazily on the outskirts of these various deaths, seen vaguely for a moment or two, then vanishing into the unknown.
But if his employer had been on the continent at the time, Reynolds—if it were the same man—would have had a greater freedom of action, could easily have known something of young Lord Byatt’s movements, and could equally easily have made some excuse to use his employer s car in order to follow to Dartmoor.
Four Strange Women Page 14