“You do, do you?”
Hood spoke with elaborate carelessness. “One of your logical conclusions, eh?”
But if he thought he was going to trap the Doctor into any further admissions, he was mistaken. Doctor Morelle merely smiled at him. “Going to seek Mrs. Latimer? Or will you be accompanying me?”
“I’m going to make sure of everything,” was the grim rejoinder. “I’ll tag along with you, yes. But if you’ll wait a second, I’ll have a man keep an eye on the lady.”
A thought struck him and he added: “And just to make doubly sure, I’ll put another man on to see Baron Xavier doesn’t suddenly check out of his hotel!”
“It might be a precaution,” Doctor Morelle agreed, non-committally.
A police-car bore them rapidly to Doctor Bennett’s house.
Doctor Morelle sat in a corner, upright and inscrutable, his hawk-like face betraying no vestige of eagerness or anticipation. Hood sat slumped back, frowning and gloomily chewing a pipe gone cold, obviously marshalling events and reviewing them in his mind.
Presently he said: “This isn’t a case with any political angle, I’m pretty sure, anyway. Crooks like our friends aren’t interested in politics unless there’s plenty of pounds, shillings and pence at the end of it.”
“Have you only just arrived at that conclusion?”
The Inspector shot Doctor Morelle a quick, suspicious look. But there was nothing in the Doctor’s expression to show whether or not he was indulging in sarcasm.
“With the murder of Zusky, and this Xavier chap being involved, I began to think it was,” he admitted. “I worked on those lines. But Gresham getting his this afternoon changed my opinion. Gresham was a crook. Mrs. Latimer’s on the shady side of the street, too.”
He gave a faint snort of ironic laughter. “We’ll find a nice fat crock of gold or something very like it at the end of this little rainbow,” he said, “if ever we do reach the end of it.”
The police-car pulled up outside the nursing-home. A clock near by was striking seven as Doctor Morelle and the Inspector got out of the car. Hood told the driver to wait for them, and followed the Doctor up the steps to the front door.
“Nice part, this,” he observed conversationally as they waited. He glanced up and down the street. The tall, fine old houses made an uneven pattern against the dark sky. A Rolls-Royce swept past with a purring whisper; a taxi honked impertinently, carrying a couple in evening dress to the theatre.
“Like a nice little flat around here,” Hood said. “Something not too expensive,” he added sarcastically. “About two thousand a year. . . .”
The door opened. The plain-faced nurse, who had earlier opened the door to Mrs. Latimer, looked at them in a scared way.
“I am Doctor Morelle.”
The Doctor spoke without any conscious attempt at grandeur. It was as if the mere pronouncement of his identity explained all. He stepped into the hall, the other beside him. “This is Inspector Hood of Scotland Yard. Doctor Bennett is expecting us.”
“Yes, Doctor Morelle.”
The nurse managed to produce a nervous whisper. She turned and led the way. “Will—will you come this way, please?”
She held open a door and they went in. She closed the door quietly behind them.
Doctor Morelle glanced around appraisingly. It was a pleasant, quietly decorated room, with cream walls and a dark, fitted carpet. Heavy yellow brocade curtains hung from the windows; under the crystal chandelier a graceful mahogany table gleamed.
Hood whistled softly.
“Reminds me of the waiting-room in a hospital on one of my beats—I don’t think! Green paint and whitewash——!” He broke off. “What’s the matter? Got a cold?”
Doctor Morelle gave him a disdainful look. His high-bridged nose was tilted as he sniffed the air delicately.
“There is an aroma which is not—ah—unfamiliar. I am trying to place it.”
The other wrinkled his nose and sniffed somewhat less delicately.
“All these dumps smell the same to me,” he remarked. “Ills and pills. This is not so strong as some. What sort of a smell?”
“Indefinable. Yet it lingers.”
Frowning, he gave the room a searching scrutiny. Then suddenly, with a slight exclamation, crossed quickly to the table and stooped down.
Scarcely visible in the shadow and against the dark carpet, lay a slender glove. He picked it up and held it delicately to his twitching nose. Inspector Hood watched him in blank amazement.
“You ought to go careful,” he grunted. “You might catch something!”
Doctor Morelle frowned and held out the glove to him. The other took it gingerly, then sniffed with enthusiasm as a faint, remembered fragrance arose from it. He looked startled.
“Mrs. Latimer, for a million!”
The Doctor nodded grimly. “She has been here today.”
Hood pursed his lips.
“Looks like it all right. Not that she would have been allowed to see Albany——”
“Don’t underestimate her. She is not the type of woman to leave here without fulfilling whatever purpose she came to achieve.”
The door opened and Doctor Bennett came in. The nurse appeared in the doorway behind him, her eyes anxiously scanning Doctor Morelle and the Scotland Yard man. “I am somewhat disturbed,” Doctor Morelle began. “A Mrs. Latimer has called here today. I trust she was not allowed to see your patient?”
Bennett smiled and shook his head.
“There are strict instructions that nobody may see him. Even Miss Carfax has been barred, though I am, as a matter of fact, expecting her at any moment.”
“You are quite sure of this?”
The other betrayed some resentment at Doctor Morelle’s insistence.
“My orders in regard to my patients are obeyed implicitly, as I expect yours are.”
He glanced to where the nurse stood as if rooted by the door.
“You might reassure Doctor Morelle on that point,” he said to her coldly.
Her plain face went red, then white, her eyes were startled and scared. Too late she was beginning to realize the enormity of her ghastly mistake in allowing her glamorously persuasive visitor to overrule her.
“Well?”
Bennett glanced at her in surprise. Doctor Morelle’s thin lips tightened. Slowly the nurse came forward, her eyes now turned upon him as if in hypnotic fascination.
“A Mrs. Latimer called here today, did she not?” Doctor Morelle asked icily.
She nodded wretchedly.
“She begged to be allowed to see him. She—she was in love with him. She said she was leaving for America tonight—that she would never see him again. She pleaded with me——”
Doctor Morelle gave an exclamation of nauseated disgust, and waved the other back as if her approach was unendurable.
“Spare us the more sickly details.” His gaze bore upon her. “You permitted her to see Sir Hugh Albany?”
“Only for a minute or two.”
“Long enough! You were in the room with her, of course?”
The woman gulped and looked as if she devoutly wished the floor would open up and swallow her.
“I left them alone—for a minute,” she muttered, her voice no more than a whisper. “I had to. She—she made me!”
“Under threat of instant death, I suppose!”
Doctor Morelle addressed Bennett:
“It might be as well if the staff here was reorganized somewhat.”
Inspector Hood, who had been chewing his pipe-stem thoughtfully, hands clasped behind his back, interjected mildly:
“How is Albany, anyway?”
“Well enough for you to see,” Bennett said, curtly. “Providing you don’t ask too many questions.” To the wretched nurse he added significantly: “I shall have more to say about this,” and led Doctor Morelle and Hood out.
Albany gave them the listless, disinterested look of one too ill to have any care for outside matters, then
he asked faintly:
“Where is Miss Carfax? You said she would be here——–”
“She will be,” Bennett spoke reassuringly. “We told her it would not be possible for her to see you until this evening. She understands that.”
Hood said, quietly:
“Sorry to trouble you at such a time, I’m sure. I am Detective-Inspector Hood of Scotland Yard. This gentleman is Doctor Morelle.”
A faint smile touched the patient’s pale lips.
“Heard about you, Doctor . . . . Been thinking of coming to see you, matter of fact. Thought you might give me some help. . . .”
“You are the one most able to help us in this investigation,” Doctor Morelle replied. “I do not propose to trouble you now with details—unless there is any question you wish to ask relative to anything especially worrying you.” He paused. The other made no comment.
“In the sitting-room of your Jermyn Street flat,” the Doctor proceeded, “is a picture called the Purple Lake. Can you tell me where the subject of that picture is located?”
A faintly perplexed expression crossed the other’s haggard features.
“Funny you should ask that. Been thinking about it before you came in. Someone—someone—has asked me that same question already. Can’t quite remember, though——–”
“Mrs. Latimer!” exclaimed Hood. “That’s what she was after——!”
Doctor Morelle silenced him as Albany sighed and began muttering incoherently to himself. The Doctor eyed him narrowly, glanced at Bennett, who reached out and with sensitive fingers took the mumbling figure’s wrist.
Chapter Thirty-Six – The Getaway
“I’m—I’m——all right,” Albany muttered faintly. “What was it you were asking?”
“The origin of the picture called the Purple Lake.”
“Oh, yes.” His eyelids flickered and closed again, but he continued: “It was painted by my father. The lake at Stormhaven Towers. At sunset, trees round it make it look purple.” His voice trailed off.
“You received a telegram from a certain Stefan Zusky,” Doctor Morelle resumed, “making an appointment at your flat with him and Baron Xavier. In that telegram was a reference to the Purple Lake. ‘If anything happens see Purple Lake’, it said. Have you any idea what that reference means?”
A short silence, then: “I know it’s something between Zusky and Xavier, but that’s all,” was the muttered reply. “Zusky had to clear out of his own country. I offered to let him stay at Stormhaven Towers as long as he liked. He’d have to fend for himself. There were no servants . . .” Again he broke off, to ask, more urgently: “Sherry? Is she all right? Why isn’t she here . . .?”
“Miss Carfax is perfectly safe. She is with my secretary. You have no need to worry.”
“You here—and this chap from Scotland Yard—what’s happened?”
“Stefan Zusky kept that appointment at your flat last night, and was shot dead. We are investigating his murder.”
“Zusky dead!”
“The assailants subjected your flat to a close search. Can you suggest to us what they might have been seeking?”
Again a pause.
Albany closed his eyes. He opened them and said quietly: “Might have been chap named Gresham, looking for my diary—though I don’t know how he could have known about it . . .”
A little hiss of anticipation escaped Doctor Morelle’s thin lips. The other continued:
“I—I’ve been trying to break with him and Cleo Latimer. They’d got a hold on me—I unwittingly involved myself with Gresham in a swindle on a friend of mine. It was too late for me to do any good anyway, and I was afraid the scandal might mean I’d lose Sherry.”
Once more his eyes flickered open and closed again.
“Then I discovered Gresham and Cleo were nothing more than a couple of blackmailers. I told them I was through and gave them twenty-four hours to get out of the country before I went to the police. I was prepared to tell all I knew against them myself.”
Doctor Morelle nodded thoughtfully to himself. Then:
“That was the motive, then, for Gresham’s attempt on your life? To silence you?”
“I suppose so. It was a lucky escape for me. I don’t remember what happened after the shot. I think I hid in a garage and he must have been unable to find me. I was in a pretty bad way, but I had a dim recollection of a Doctor Bennett living near by—I’d once been to his house with a friend of mine—and I started off to him. It was dark by then and I don’t know how I made it, but I did. That’s—that’s just about all I can tell you . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Must you ask him any further questions?” Bennett cut in quietly. “He’s already talked long enough.”
“Just one or two more, if I may.”
“Make them brief, please.”
“I’m—I’m all right,” Albany muttered, as if with renewed strength. “Glad to help all I can.”
“It would appear you acted as an intermediary between Baron Xavier and this person Zusky?” Doctor Morelle asked him.
“Xavier wanted him kept under cover for some reason. I don’t know why—he said he didn’t want to bother me with his political troubles that wouldn’t mean anything to me anyway.”
“You passed on the contents of the telegram to the Baron?”
“I gave him the message over the ’phone.”
“You’re sure it was Baron Xavier to whom you spoke?”
“Positive.”
“Do you believe it possible anyone else could have intercepted the message between the time of your receiving the telegram and Zusky’s arrival at your flat?”
Albany thought for a moment, then:
“I lost the telegram after Gresham put me out. Probably he found it. It wouldn’t mean anything to him. He knew nothing about Zusky or Baron Xavier——”
“And Mrs. Latimer?”
The other gave a startled gasp.
“She—she knew them both. She met them in the South of France two years ago. . . .”
His voice was fading once more, and Bennett stepped between him and Doctor Morelle.
“No more!”
Followed by Inspector Hood, Doctor Morelle quitted the room, deep in thought.
“Didn’t it occur to him it was all very odd?” the Inspector muttered, following close behind Doctor Morelle. “I mean, all this business going on between the Baron and this Zusky chap? You’d have thought he’d have wondered a bit what it was all in aid of.”
The Doctor regarded him coolly.
“That’s easily explained. They were close friends—though they had not seen much of each other lately—and Albany accepted Baron Xavier’s actions as a matter of course. He realized he was involved in complicated political problems which were no concern of his. If he could help his friend in any way, he was only too glad to do so.”
“I wonder,” Hood grunted, “if he knew whether the scheme Xavier was planning to pull off with Zusky involved any money?”
“In my opinion, he has been completely frank with us,” was Doctor Morelle’s judicious reply. “His account of his relationship with Gresham and Mrs. Latimer seemed to me to have been offered with sincerity and cognizance of an unfortunate lapse on his part. He is obviously not a strong character, but he had undoubtedly attempted to overcome his inherent weakness, even to the extent of risking his life for the sake of his principles.”
“And his girl,” Hood added succinctly.
The Doctor regarded him with faint displeasure.
“It is conceivable that Miss Carfax exerted an influence upon him, that caused him to appraise afresh the sinister significance of the situation in which he had involved himself.”
Hood nodded.
“You mean facing up to those two bright beauties and telling ’em he was going to see they’d get what they’d been asking for—unless . . .?”
“Words to that effect,” Doctor Morelle said, drily. But the other missed the sarcasm as he massaged his chin thou
ghtfully.
“Which still seems to leave us with the Purple Lake business,” he muttered.
They went on downstairs.
“I’ll rope in our friends the Baron and Mrs. Latimer right away,” Inspector Hood said. “And I’ll get on to Haywards Heath and have ’em send a couple of men to keep an eye on Stormhaven Towers till we get down there——” He broke off.
They had reached the foot of the stairs as there came a sharp, insistent ring at the front door. The nurse appeared and hurriedly admitted two plain-clothes officers. Hood glanced at the faces of the two men sharply.
“Well,” he demanded, “what’s new?”
While he advanced upon them, Doctor Morelle lit a cigarette and examined the end of it with an air of absorbed interest. The first plain-clothes man was saying:
“He’s gone, sir. Checked out of the hotel an hour before I got there.”
Hood grunted grimly.
“What then?”
“Not much. Left no forwarding address. He came back in the afternoon for a little while. His private secretary paid the bill after Baron Xavier had gone.”
Hood grunted again, then turned inquiringly to the second man.
“Mrs. Latimer’s flat appears to be shut up,” he said. “I checked with a mechanic working at a garage near by. He knew her and said he’d seen her leave in her car about six o’clock. She was dressed for travelling, and he noticed a light suit-case she put in the back of the car. An Invicta, registered number CMC 498, hooded tourer, painted black.”
“Anyone with her?”
The man shook his head.
Inspector Hood glanced at Doctor Morelle. The Doctor tapped the ash off his cigarette, said to the first detective:
“You say the Baron’s secretary paid the bill? Had he remained behind?”
“No. They’d both hopped it.”
Doctor Morelle regarded him with a faintly disapproving expression before turning to Hood.
“In which case we have no further time to lose,” he murmured. “I suggest you do not bother with telephone calls to Haywards Heath, but that we reach Stormhaven Towers with all possible speed. I will just telephone Miss Frayle to be ready, and we can pick her up without loss of time——”
Menace for Dr. Morelle Page 20