The Silk Stocking Murders

by Anthony Berkeley

  Pleydell’s eyes gleamed. “Is that so? Then I think I may forgo my private vengeance. Yes, of course you’re right, Sheringham. This is a police matter. But do you know how hard it is to realise that simple fact? All this time I’ve looked on it as my matter, my matter, and nobody else’s. I tried to get the police to move (you were there yourself), and it seemed that they did nothing. I——”

  “Oh, yes, they jolly well did,” Roger interrupted. “They’ve put together a perfect case against Newsome; and this will clinch it. Don’t you worry, Pleydell; the police have been busy all right.”

  “I’m very glad to hear it. But I shan’t rest till he’s under lock and key. Think—any moment he may attack some other unfortunate girl.”

  “That’s all right,” Roger said soothingly. “Didn’t you hear me make sure of that? You can depend on it that I’m going to keep him under my eye for the short time he’s still at liberty.”

  “Thank you. I would have done so myself if you hadn’t. Now about these two girls. I agree that Surrey might be unwise. Where do you suggest?”

  “The Piccadilly Palace,” Roger replied at once. “They’ll be far safer in a big, noisy place like that than in a smaller one. I’ll take them there myself.”

  Pleydell nodded. “Excellent. Ring me up about them this evening, will you? It’s very good of you to undertake all these duties, Sheringham. I feel I’m shirking my share. But as it happens to-day is a very busy one with me, and though I’d gladly shelve everything if I can be of any real use, I will be extremely grateful if you can take on the smaller duties for me.”

  “Of course,” Roger said heartily. “That’s quite all right. You push off at once, if you’re busy. There’s nothing at all for you to stay for. I’ll see to everything.”

  And that, I suppose, Roger reflected as Pleydell went, just about sums up the Jewish outlook. They’d give up everything in the world to save the life of a dying friend, or even to ensure that he had a really luxurious funeral if he wanted one; but that doesn’t prevent them from asking the undertaker for a cash discount. And why should it? We call it callous, but it’s only practical. That’s our trouble; we can’t distinguish between real and false sentiment. And the Jews do.

  But it had been a nervous ten minutes, for all its aftermath of peaceful moralising.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  THE TRAP IS SET

  WHEN Gerald Newsome, obedient to discipline but not unresentful, arrived at the Albany that evening, he found a surprisingly cheerful trio awaiting him. Kensington, apparently, had vanished from the map. Certainly it seemed that neither Roger, Anne nor Miss Carruthers had the slightest intention of going to such a foolish place. In the Albany they were going to dine, and the Albany had been commanded to do its best for them.

  “I must apologise for talking to you like a sergeant-major, Jerry,” Roger said to his bewildered guest, whom he took the opportunity of waylaying in the hall. “But I could see that Pleydell was thirsting for your blood, and I had to get you out of the way before he began drawing it.”

  “My blood? What on earth for?”

  “Because he holds very strong opinions about you, my poor Jerry. He’s quite convinced that you’re the villain of this piece, and I knew’ it wasn’t the least use trying to shake his convictions. I had to humour him by pretending to agree with him. At present we’re both gloating over your impending arrest to-morrow.”

  “Good Lord!”

  “Well, really one can’t blame him,” Roger pointed out. “In addition to all the other evidence against you, we’re now faced with the fact, to be explained away somehow, that you are really the only person who could have attacked Anne. He thinks you jumped out of your little cubby-hole, complete with whiskers and gold-rimmed spectacles, and simply fell on her.”

  “Damn the fellow!” said the indignant suspect.

  “No, as I said, one can’t blame him. But you’re safe from him here, I fancy; though he did mention that he was itching to get his fingers round your throat. Now that’s enough shop till after dinner. Anne’s got to recover completely during the evening, and I want to take her mind off this business completely. I’ve unhooked the telephone, and we’re all under orders to talk of nothing but frivolities till further notice. Now come along and have some of your cocktails.”

  “Anne? Is she here?”

  “She is. And so is my excellent friend, Miss Carruthers.”

  “Great Scott! Then—then we’re not going to Kensington after all?”

  “Where is Kensington?” queried Roger blandly.

  And the result was a very cheerful little dinner-party and, so far as one could see, the complete recovery of Anne.

  One thing Newsome was surprised to learn, and that was that both the girls were going to spend the night under their host’s bachelor roof.

  “I tried to get rooms at the Piccadilly Palace, you see,” Roger explained lightly, “but the place was full up. And if it’s safety that’s wanted, what could be safer than the Albany? Why, the place is a veritable fortress at night.”

  “Shop!” said Anne, and Roger bowed his head.

  But when the two girls had gone into the sitting-room and Roger and Newsome were left alone, Roger dropped the bantering air he had worn all the evening and became very serious indeed.

  “This is a perfectly damnable business, Jerry,” he said, “and I simply don’t know what to do about it. We’ve got to get that man under lock and key somehow, and pretty quickly too. Anne’s life isn’t worth a halfpenny if we don’t, I’m convinced.”

  “I say,” Newsome gasped. “Is it really as bad as that?”

  “Well, I may be exaggerating, of course, but I don’t think so. And then there’s your arrest to-morrow. That’s bound to stop police activities for a time, till they do find out that you’re the wrong man.”

  “And you haven’t any idea at all who this damned man is who disguises himself as a solicitor?”

  “Well, I don’t mind admitting that I have got a theory now. But it’s really only a theory. And I may be miles off the track. I don’t know.”

  “Can’t you get hold of any evidence to support it?”

  “None, that I can think of; at least, not without a search-warrant. And even then almost certainly none either. I can’t prove it, though I feel in my bones I’m right.”

  “Who do you think it is?”

  Roger hesitated. “Well, I don’t think I’ll say that yet, even to you. But I’ll tell you that if I published my theory in The Courier there’d be such a shout of laughter throughout the entire country that my ear-drums would immediately burst. And you, Jerry, would probably be shouting as loud as any of them. I’m afraid that at first hearing my theory might sound, to put it mildly, a trifle fantastic.”

  “But do you think you’re on the right lines?”

  Roger got up and began to pace restlessly up and down the room. “I think so. In fact, I’m almost sure. When the idea first occurred to me, only a little time ago, I nearly laughed at myself. But I’ve applied every conceivable test since then, and it seems to stand up to them all right. It stretches the probabilities here and there, it’s true, but not into impossibilities by a long chalk. Oh, damn it, I’m certain I’m right. But I can’t prove it! And I’ve simply got to, if you’re to marry Anne and bring up a family of small Jerries.”

  “What!” exclaimed his astonished audience “I say, Roger, you don’t think—I say, she wouldn’t think of——Good Lord, do you really think she——”

  “Stop blethering! We’re up against the stiffest proposition either of us has ever encountered, not excluding the War, and you sit there and bleat like a sheep about would she, and do I think and does she think, and do I really think. Do I really think? My hat, I’ve got to really think to-night, I can tell you. And so have you, so begin at once.”

  “Oh, hell!” muttered the discomfited swain, and lapsed into silence.

  Roger continued to prowl.

  “I remember saying once that Sc
otland Yard’s methods would never solve this case,” he burst out after a minute or two, “but that French ones might. I still think I’m right about the first part, but French methods haven’t proved very successful yet, have they?”

  “Was that a French method this afternoon?” asked Newsome, almost timidly.

  “As French as a haricot bean,” said Roger shortly. “And if only the brute hadn’t been wearing his whiskers, we’d have got him by now.”

  “I say, I’ve been wanting to ask you ever since: how on earth did he get away?”

  “Thought he’d done the job, and was going down the stairs when he heard me bounding up like a bull elephant. If I’d been in carpet-slippers I’d have run straight into him. As it was all he had to do was to step aside, into a bathroom or anywhere, wait for me to pass, and then walk calmly out.”

  “And you knew something was up because the ten-minutes’ bell didn’t ring? By Jove, it was lucky that was arranged.”

  “Partly, I was just going on that account, when suddenly the alarm signal went off. The fellow must actually have stepped on it himself, of all ironical things. Thank heaven for that, at any rate. Anne might have been dead now if he hadn’t. The luckiest accident!”

  “My hat!” Newsome breathed. “But, I say, it’s funny that, isn’t it? I thought the idea was that he’d found out about the arrangements, and wanted to eliminate Anne in spite of them. He evidently hadn’t found out that one.”

  “So it would seem,” Roger said absently. “Oh, Jerry, my excellent but thick-skulled Jerry, isn’t there anything you can suggest? We’ve got about eighteen hours to get this creature, and it would take me about eighteen weeks to collect enough evidence to prove my case in the orthodox way, even assuming I could do so at all, which I very much doubt. Because we’ve got to remember that this fellow is just about as cunning a maniac as there’s ever been.”

  “Any other sort of French method?”

  “A trap!” Roger mused. “We ought to set a trap for him. If he can’t be found out, he must be made to give himself away. How?”

  “They debated this matter in silence.

  Suddenly Roger halted in his stride. “Supposing,” he said slowly, “supposing we staged a—— Could it be done? Good Lord, I do believe it could. It’s a horrible risk, but really… Well, it all depends on Anne. I must… Oh, yes, I think that might work. It’s our only possible chance, anyway.”

  “What, Roger?” Newsome asked, bulging with curiosity.

  “Another leaf from the French notebook. Look here, run along and ask Anne to come in here, Jerry, will you? And then stop in the other room and make charming conversation to Moira. Everything depends on what Anne’s got to say.”

  “But what is the idea, man?”

  “I’ll tell you when I’ve talked to Anne. Quick, Jerry, I’m simply bursting with excitement.”

  “Roger, you are the most irritating devil,” grumbled Mr. Newsome, but went.

  In a moment Anne arrived. Roger, sitting on the edge of the table, contemplated her with professional rather than human interest. Yet the human interest she might have been expected to arouse was quite strong.

  “You wanted me, Roger?” she said.

  “Yes. How are you feeling now, Anne? Pretty well recovered?”

  “Oh, yes, thank you. My head still aches a bit, and my throat is a little sore, but otherwise I’m quite recovered.”

  “I wonder what you’ll be feeling like to-morrow morning,” Roger said.

  “Perfectly all right, I should imagine. Why?”

  Roger got up and conducted her with ceremony to a chair. “Sit down, Anne. We’ve got to hold very serious converse. I want you to realise this first of all: as long as this man is at liberty and unsuspected, your life, to put it frankly, isn’t worth fourpence. In fact, I put it at a halfpenny to Jerry just now.”

  “Oh!” said Anne, wide-eyed.

  “Moreover, if he isn’t laid by the heels actually by midday to-morrow, your Jerry will be arrested; and I can tell you that once a suspect is arrested it’s no easy matter to get him released.”

  Anne nodded. “Yes?”

  “Well, it seems to me that it’s up to us to get him before it’s too late. You and I, Anne. We’re the only ones who can do it. And neither of us can do it without the other. Most of all, I can’t do it without you. No,” Roger corrected himself, “that’s not true. I could with Moira, I suppose. But we’ll talk about that later.”

  “Oh! You’ve got a plan, Roger?”

  “I have, my child. A perfect brute of a plan. I hate and loathe my plan, but I’m blessed if I can see another. And it ought, with any luck at all, to work. But before I tell it you, I want to make this clear. If this man remains at liberty, not only you, but dozens of other girls are in deadly danger. You realise that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I want to ask you this question; in order to provide me with a chance (and it’s only a chance, mind) of catching the beast, are you prepared to risk your life?”

  “Yes, Roger.”

  “I don’t mean a slight risk. I mean a really dangerous risk, with the chances possibly balanced against you. I shall take every possible precaution, naturally, but there aren’t many I can take. You must realise that first of all.”

  “Roger,” Anne said earnestly, “at present I’ve only got one aim before me. I’ve left home to achieve it; I’ve planted myself in a new world which I really don’t like at all; I display myself ever night in public in the minimum amount of clothing the censor will allow, which I simply detest—and all to gain my object, the discovery of my sister’s murderer. Of course I’ll take any risk you like.”

  “Anne,” said Roger fervently, “I am about to kiss you.” And he did so.

  “So now,” said the blushing Anne, having been duly kissed, “perhaps you’ll tell me what this plan of yours is.”

  Roger did so. But this time he was careful not to mention his supposed identification of the murderer. It was an important part of his plan that Anne should be in ignorance of who her attacker had been. If Roger shared his suspicions with her, she could hardly avoid the infinitesimal gesture or glance that would put him on his guard; and the whole point of Roger’s plot was surprise.

  Anne listened intently. “Why,” she said, when he had finished, “there’s no danger in that.”

  “You think so?” said Roger grimly. “And supposing I didn’t rescue you in time, or there was a struggle, or anything unforeseen happened?”

  “I shall be quite content,” said Anne, “to trust myself entirely to you, Roger.”

  “You darling!” said Roger. “But you realise that it’s going to be quite damnably uncomfortable, to put it at the very least? I may have to leave you till you’ve actually lost consciousness, if the psychological moment doesn’t arrive before, you know.”

  “Oh, it’ll be horrible, of course,” Anne said, with a prim little smile. “I shall simply hate it at the time, and probably I shall be quite unnecessarily frightened as well. But none of that matters. If you think there’s a good chance of catching him in this way, then you can do just what you like with me. Besides,” she added in a lower tone, “just think of all the other lives I may be able to save through a few minutes’ discomfort.”

  They discussed the details for some time, and then Anne was ordered off to bed. Moira, who was far too excited by all these stirring events to remember her carefully acquired refinement and had been in consequence a much more amusing companion than ever before, was summoned from the sitting-room and given strict injunctions that Anne was to be got to sleep at once and caused to sleep all night long.

  “Like hell she shall!” affirmed Sally Briggs, (late Moira Carruthers). “If I have to sit up all night singin’ at her.”

  As soon as the two men were left alone, Roger fulfilled his promise and told Newsome of his intentions. He had expected Jerry to be difficult, and Jerry was difficult. Very difficult indeed. He had many things to say, and he said them all
.

  Finally Roger took a peremptory line. “Very well, Jerry,” he said. “If that’s your attitude, you can’t be present. This thing’s going through; Anne’s said so, and it’s her responsibility, not yours. I was going to ask you to take on the responsibility of rescuing her when I give the word; but if I can’t trust you to sit still through it all, however horrible and dangerous it seems to you, until I do give the word—why, then I simply won’t have you present at all. I’ll stage it the day after to-morrow instead, when you’re safe in jail.”

  After which, of course, Mr. Newsome could put up no further fight.

  “And now,” said Roger, “I’ve got just a little telephoning to do.”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE TRAP IS SPRUNG

  THE party from Scotland Yard was the first to arrive the next morning, for Roger had asked them to come at half-past eleven, whereas the rest were not expected till twelve o’clock. It was with an air of disapproving amusement that Chief Inspector Moresby, Superintendent Green and the Assistant Commissioner himself greeted their host and consented to imbibe the glasses of old pale sherry which he had prepared to soothe their feelings.

  “Now remember,” he said, having seen a portion of the sherry safely down on its soothing path, “remember that you’re here quite unofficially. It isn’t because you’re from Scotland Yard that I’ve asked you to come and watch my little cat-and-mouse act. Nothing of the kind. It’s simply because Sir Paul Graham, Mr. Green and Mr. Moresby are friends of mine and I thought I’d like to have them to my party.”

  “Humph!” said Superintendent Green, unsmiling.

  “Ah!” said Chief Inspector Moresby, smiling.

  “Sheringham, you’re incorrigible,” said the Assistant Commissioner, also smiling. “But I don’t approve, you know.”