If Moresby had paid his visit to Roger Sheringham with any hope of tapping that gentleman’s brains, he went away disappointed. Rack them as he might, Roger had been unable to throw any effective light on the affair.
To tell the truth Roger was inclined to agree with the chief inspector’s conclusion, that the attempted murder of Sir William Anstruther and the actual death of the unfortunate Mrs Beresford must be laid to the account of some irresponsible criminal lunatic, actuated by a religious or social fanaticism. For this reason, although he thought about it a good deal during the next few days, he made no attempt to take the case in hand. It was the sort of affair, necessitating endless enquiries, that a private person would have neither the time nor the authority to carry out, which can only be handled by the official police. Roger’s interest in it was purely academic.
It was hazard, two chance encounters, which translated this interest from the academic to the personal.
The first was at the Rainbow Club itself. Roger was lunching there with a member, and inevitably the conversation turned on the recent tragedy. Roger’s host was inclined to plume himself on the fact that he had been at school with Beresford and so had a more intimate connection with the affair than his fellow members. One gathered, indeed, that the connection was a trifle closer even than Sir William’s. Roger’s host was that kind of man.
‘And just as it happened I saw the Beresfords in their box at the Imperial that night. Noticed them before the curtain went up for the first act. I had a stall. I may even have seen them making that fatal bet.’ Roger’s host took on an even more portentous aspect. One gathered that it was by no means improbably due to his presence in the stalls that the disastrous bet was made at all.
As they were talking a man entered the dining room and walked past their table. Roger’s host became abruptly silent. The newcomer threw him a slight nod and passed on. The other leant forward across the table.
‘Talk of the devil! That was Beresford himself. First time I’ve seen him in here since it happened. Poor devil! It knocked him all to pieces, you know. I’ve never seen a man so devoted to his wife. Did you notice how ghastly he looked?’ All this in a hushed, tactful whisper, that would have been far more obvious to the subject of it, had he happened to have been looking their way, than the loudest shouts.
Roger nodded shortly. He had caught a glimpse of Beresford’s face and been shocked by it even before he learned his identity. It was haggard and pale and seamed with lines of bitterness, prematurely old. ‘Hang it all,’ he now thought, much moved, ‘Moresby really must make an effort. If the murderer isn’t found soon it’ll kill that chap too.’
He said aloud, somewhat at random and certainly without tact: ‘He didn’t exactly fall on your neck. I thought you two were such bosom friends?’
His host looked uncomfortable. ‘Oh, well, you must make allowances, just at present,’ he hedged. ‘Besides, we weren’t bosom friends exactly. As a matter of fact he was a year or two senior to me. Or it might have been three. We were in different houses, too. And he was on the modern side of course, while I was a classical bird.’
‘I see,’ said Roger, quite gravely, realising that his host’s actual contact with Beresford at school had been limited, at the very most, to that of the latter’s toe with the former’s hinder parts.
He left it at that.
The next encounter took place the following morning. Roger was in Bond Street, about to go through the distressing ordeal of buying a new hat. Along the pavement he suddenly saw bearing down on him Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming. Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming was small, exquisite, rich and a widow, and she sat at Roger’s feet whenever he gave her the opportunity. But she talked. She talked, in fact, and talked, and talked. And Roger, who rather liked talking himself, could not bear it. He tried to dart across the road, but there was no opening stream. He was cornered.
Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming fastened on him gladly. ‘Oh, Mr Sheringham! Just the person I wanted to see. Mr Sheringham, do tell me. In confidence. Are you taking up this dreadful business of poor Joan Beresford’s death? Oh, don’t—don’t tell me you’re not!’ Roger was trying to do so, but she gave him no chance. ‘It’s too dreadful. You must—you simply must find out who sent those chocolates to that dreadful Sir William Anstruther. You are going to, aren’t you?’
Roger, the frozen and imbecile grin of civilised intercourse on his face, again tried to get a word in; without result.
‘I was horrified when I heard of it—simply horrified. You see, Joan and I were such very close friends. Quite intimate. We were at school together—Did you say anything, Mr Sheringham?’
Roger, who had allowed a faint groan to escape him, hastily shook his head.
‘And the awful thing, the truly terrible thing is that Joan brought the whole business on herself. Isn’t that appalling?’
Roger no longer wanted to escape. ‘What did you say?’ he managed to insert, incredulously.
‘I suppose it’s what they call tragic irony. Certainly it was tragic enough, and I’ve never heard anything so terribly ironical. You know about that bet she made with her husband of course, so that he had to get her a box of chocolates, and if he hadn’t Sir William would never have given him the poisoned ones and he’d have eaten them and died himself and good riddance? Well, Mr Sheringham—’ Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming lowered her voice to a conspirator’s whisper and glanced about her in the approved manner. ‘I’ve never told anybody else this, but I’m telling you because I know you’ll appreciate it. You’re interested in irony, aren’t you?’
‘I adore it,’ Roger said mechanically. ‘Yes?’
‘Well—Joan wasn’t playing fair!’
‘How do you mean?’ Roger asked, bewildered.
Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming was artlessly pleased with her sensation. ‘Why, she ought not to have made that bet at all. It was a judgment on her. A terrible judgment, of course, but the appalling thing is that she did bring it on herself, in a way. She’d seen the play before. We went together, the very first week it was on. She knew who the villain was all the time.’
‘By Jove!’ Roger was as impressed as Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming could have wished. ‘Chance the Avenger, with a vengeance. We’re none of us immune from it.’
‘Poetic justice, you mean?’ twittered Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming, to whom these remarks had been somewhat obscure. ‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it? Though really, the punishment was out of all proportion to the crime. Good gracious, if every woman who cheats over a bet is to be killed for it, where would any of us be?’ demanded Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming with unconscious frankness.
‘Umph!’ said Roger, tactfully.
‘But Joan Beresford! That’s the extraordinary thing. I should never have thought Joan would do a thing like that. She was such a nice girl. A little close with money, of course, considering how well off they were, but that isn’t anything. Of course it was only fun, and pulling her husband’s leg, but I always used to think Joan was such a serious girl, Mr Sheringham. I mean, ordinary people don’t talk about honour, and truth, and playing the game. Well, she paid herself for not playing the game, poor girl, didn’t she? Still, it all goes to show the truth of the old saying, doesn’t it?’
‘What old saying?’ said Roger, hypnotised by this flow.
‘Why, that still waters run deep. Joan must have been deep, I’m afraid.’ Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming sighed. It was evidently a social error to be deep. ‘I mean, she certainly took me in. She can’t have been quite so honourable and truthful as she was always pretending, can she? And I can’t help wondering whether a girl who’d deceive her husband in a little thing like that might not—oh, well, I don’t want to say anything against poor Joan now she’s dead, poor darling, but she can’t have been quite such a plaster saint after all, can she? I mean,’ said Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming, in hasty extenuation of these suggestions, ‘I do think psychology is so very interesti
ng, don’t you, Mr Sheringham?’
‘Sometimes, very,’ Roger agreed gravely. ‘But you mentioned Sir William Anstruther just now. Do you know him, too?’
‘I used to,’ Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming replied, with an expression of positive vindictiveness. ‘Horrible man! Always running after some woman or other. And when he’s tired of her, just drops her—biff!—like that. At least,’ added Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming hastily, ‘so I’ve heard.’
‘And what happens if she refuses to be dropped?’
‘Oh, dear, I’m sure I don’t know. I suppose you’ve heard the latest?’ Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming hurried on, perhaps a trifle more pink than the delicate aids to nature on her cheeks would have warranted. ‘He’s taken up with that Bryce woman now. You know, the wife of the oil man, or petrol, or whatever he made his money in. It began about three weeks ago. You’d have thought that dreadful business of being responsible, in a way, for poor Joan Beresford’s death would have sobered him up a little, wouldn’t you? But not a bit of it; he—’
‘I suppose Sir William knew Mrs Beresford pretty well?’ Roger remarked casually.
Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming stared at him. ‘Sir William? No, he didn’t know Joan at all. I’m sure he didn’t. I’ve never heard her mention him.’
Roger shot off on another tack. ‘What a pity you weren’t at the Imperial with the Beresfords that evening. She’d never have made that bet if you had been.’ Roger looked extremely innocent. ‘You weren’t, I suppose?’
‘I?’ queried Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming in surprise. ‘Good gracious, no. I was at the new revue at the Pavilion. Lady Gavelstoke had a box and asked me to join her party.’
‘Oh, yes. Good show, isn’t it? I thought that sketch The Sempiternal Triangle very clever. Didn’t you?’
‘The Sempiternal Triangle?’ wavered Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming.
‘Yes, in the first half.’
‘Oh! Then I didn’t see it. I got there disgracefully late, I’m afraid. But then,’ said Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming with pathos, ‘I always do seem to be late for simply everything.’
Once more Roger changed the subject. ‘By the way, I wonder if you’ve got a photograph of Mrs Beresford?’ he asked carelessly.
‘Of Joan? Yes, I have. Why, Mr Sheringham?’
‘You haven’t got one of Sir William too, by any chance?’ asked Roger, still more carelessly.
The pink on Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming’s cheeks deepened half a shade. ‘I—I think I have. Yes, I’m almost sure I have. But—’
‘Would you lend them to me some time?’ Roger asked, with a mysterious air, and looked around him with a frown in the approved manner.
‘Oh, Mr Sheringham! Yes, of course I will. You mean—you mean you are going to find out who sent those chocolates to Sir William?’
Roger nodded, and put his finger to his lips. ‘Yes. You’ve guessed it. But not a word, Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming. Oh, excuse me, there’s a man on that bus who wants to speak to me. Scotland Yard,’ he hissed in an impressive whisper. ‘Good-bye.’ He dived for a passing bus and clung on with difficulty. With awful stealth he climbed up the steps and took his seat, after an exaggerated scrutiny of the other passengers, beside a perfectly inoffensive man in a bowler hat. The man in the bowler hat, who happened to be a clerk in the employment of a builder’s merchant, looked at him resentfully: there were plenty of quite empty seats all round them.
Roger bought no new hat that morning.
For probably the first time in her life Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming had given somebody a constructive idea.
Roger made good his opportunity. Getting off the bus at the corner of Bond Street and Oxford Street, he hailed a taxi, and gave Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming’s address. He thought it better to take advantage of her permission at a time when he would not have to pay for it a second time over.
The parlour-maid seemed to think there was nothing odd in his mission, and took him up to the drawing room at once. A corner of the room was devoted to the silver-framed photographs of Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming’s friends, and there were many of them. Roger, who had never seen Sir William in the flesh, had to seek the parlour-maid’s help. The girl, like her mistress, was inclined to be loquacious, and to prevent either of them getting ideas into their heads which might be better not there, he removed from their frames not one photograph but five, those of Sir William, Mrs Beresford, Beresford himself, and two strange males who appeared to belong to the Sir William period of Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming’s collection. Finally he obtained, by means of a small bribe, a likeness of Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming herself and added that to his collection.
For the rest of the day he was very busy.
His activities would have seemed, no doubt, to Mrs Verreker-le-Flemming not merely baffling but pointless. He paid a visit to a public library, for instance, and consulted a work of reference, after which he took a taxi and drove to the offices of the Anglo-Eastern Perfumery Company, where he enquired for a certain Mr Joseph Lea Hardwick and seemed much put out on hearing that no such gentleman was known to the firm and was certainly not employed in any of their numerous branches. Many questions had to be put about the firm and its branches before he consented to abandon the quest. After that he drove to Messrs. Weall and Wilson, the well-known institution which protects the trade interests of individuals and advises its subscribers regarding investments. Here he entered his name as a subscriber, and explaining that he had a large sum of money to invest, filled in one of the special enquiry forms which are headed Strictly Confidential.
Then he went to the Rainbow Club, in Piccadilly.
Introducing himself to the porter without a blush as connected with Scotland Yard, he asked the man a number of questions, more or less trivial, concerning the tragedy. ‘Sir William, I understand,’ he said finally, as if by the way, ‘did not dine here the evening before?’
There it appeared that Roger was wrong. Sir William had dined in the club, as he did about three times a week.
‘But I quite understood he wasn’t here that evening?’ Roger said plaintively.
The porter was emphatic. He remembered quite well. So did a waiter, whom the porter summoned to corroborate him. Sir William had dined rather late, and had not left the dining-room till about nine o’clock. He spent the evening there too, the waiter knew, or at least some of it, for he himself had taken him a whiskey-and-soda in the lounge not less than half an hour later.
Roger retired.
He retired to Merton’s, in a taxi.
It seemed that he wanted some new notepaper printed, of a very special kind, and to the young woman behind the counter he specified at great length and in wearisome detail exactly what he did want. The young woman handed him the book of specimen pieces and asked him to see if there was any style there which would suit him. Roger glanced through it, remarking garrulously to the young woman that he had been recommended to Merton’s by a very dear friend, whose photograph he happened to have on him at that moment. Wasn’t that a curious coincidence? The young woman agreed that it was.
‘About a fortnight ago, I think my friend was in here last,’ said Roger, producing the photograph. ‘Recognise this?’
The young woman took the photograph, without apparent interest. ‘Oh, yes. I remember. About some notepaper too, wasn’t it? So that’s your friend. Well, it’s a small world. Now this is a line we’re selling a good deal of just now.’
Roger went back to his rooms to dine. Afterwards, feeling restless, he wandered out of the Albany and turned down Piccadilly. He wandered round the Circus, thinking hard, and paused for a moment out of habit to inspect the photographs of the new revue hung outside the Pavilion. The next thing he realised was that he had got as far as Jermyn Street and was standing outside the Imperial Theatre. The advertisements of The Creaking Skull informed him that it began at half-past eight. Glancing at his watch he saw that the time was twenty-nine min
utes past that hour. He had an evening to get through somehow. He went inside.
The next morning, very early for Roger, he called Moresby at Scotland Yard.
‘Moresby,’ he said without preamble, ‘I want you to do something for me. Can you find me a taximan who took a fare from Piccadilly Circus or its neighbourhood at about ten past nine on the evening before the Beresford crime, to the Strand somewhere near the bottom of Southampton Street, and another who took a fare back between those points. I’m not sure about the first. Or one taxi might have been used for the double journey, but I doubt that. Anyhow, try to find out for me, will you?’
‘What are you up to now, Mr Sheringham?’ Moresby asked suspiciously.
‘Breaking down an interesting alibi,’ replied Roger serenely. ‘By the way, I know who sent those chocolates to Sir William. I’m just building up a nice structure of evidence for you. Ring up my rooms when you’ve got those taximen.’
He strolled out, leaving Moresby positively gaping after him. Roger had his annoying moments.
The rest of the day he spent apparently trying to buy a secondhand typewriter. He was very particular that it should be a Hamilton No. 4. When the shop people tried to induce him to consider other makes he refused to look at them, saying that he had had the Hamilton No. 4 so strongly recommended to him by a friend, who had bought one about three weeks ago. Perhaps it was at this very shop? No? They hadn’t sold a Hamilton No. 4 for the last three months? How odd.
But at one shop they had sold a Hamilton No. 4 within the last month, and that was odder still.
At half-past four Roger got back to his rooms to await the telephone message from Moresby. At half-past five it came.
Capital Crimes: London Mysteries Page 31