“Oh!” said Roger again. “Then there’s nothing doing, I take it, in the confidence line?”
The inspector continued to chuckle for a moment; it pleased him mildly to score off Roger and he thought the latter deserved it. Even Anthony, in spite of his disappointment, could hardly repress a smile at that confident gentleman’s discomfiture.
Then the inspector proceeded to relent. “However, I’m not saying there isn’t any sense in what you said. There is. I know you’re not an ordinary journalist. I know what you did at Wychford and I’ve seen by your articles in the Courier that you really are interested in this sort of thing for its own sake. So as long as I have your word that you won’t publish anything that I want held up, perhaps I don’t mind letting you in on a thing or two that I should keep back from anyone else, and even talking the case over with you as well. Though mind you, it’s highly unprofessional conduct, as they say, and I should get into real hot water at the Yard if they ever came to hear of it.”
“I say, that’s awfully sporting of you, Inspector!” Roger cried with vast relief. “I quite thought you were going to turn me down. Yes, I promise you the Yard shan’t hear of it, and of course I won’t publish anything without your consent. It’s a purely personal interest, you know.”
“And you too, Mr Walton? You agree to that?”
“Rather, Inspector! It’s extraordinarily decent of you.”
“Then let’s hear about this clue of yours first of all, Mr Sheringham, if you please.”
Roger rose and went to the sideboard, from a drawer of which he produced the piece of paper, now almost dry. “I found this a couple of rocks away from where the body was lying. It may have nothing to do with the affair at all, of course, but there’s always a chance. There’s been writing on it, but it’s quite obliterated. Can you make anything of it?”
The inspector took the bit of paper and bent over it; then he held it up to the light.
“I’ll keep this, if I may,” he said. “As you say, there’s probably nothing in it, but I’ll send it up to our man at the Yard and I think he’ll be able to read it all right; at any rate, we can’t afford to neglect its possibilities.” He laid the paper down on a table nearby and leaned comfortably back in his chair again. “So now you can fire away, Mr Sheringham. I know you’ve got half a hundred questions on the tip of your tongue.”
“At least that,” Roger laughed, as he resumed his seat. “And I certainly would like to polish off a few of them in rather a hurry. I must get through to London on the telephone pretty soon and dictate my article, and I can take notes for it as we go along.” He rummaged in a side-pocket and produced a pencil and notebook. “Now first of all, are you sure in your own mind that it’s a case of murder and not accident or suicide?”
“Well, between ourselves, sir, I am. As sure, that is, as anyone can be in my line without absolutely convincing proof. But don’t say that in your article. I shouldn’t get further than ‘suspicious circumstances’ in that yet awhile.”
Roger nodded. “Yes. I quite see that. By the way, that scream rather clinches it, doesn’t it? I mean, if one allows that the distance of the body from the edge of the cliffs rules out any question of accident, the scream, equally, seems to rule out suicide. A suicide wouldn’t scream.”
“That was my line of thought exactly,” the inspector agreed.
“And you’ve also established the fact that she wasn’t alone. Have you got any ideas who the second woman was?”
“I’ve got my suspicions,” said the inspector guardedly. “I was up at the house for a goodish bit this morning,” he went on, delicately shifting the ground of discussion. “Have you been along there?”
“No, not to the house, though I heard you had.”
“You ought to go; I think you’d find it interesting. The household, I mean.”
“As a matter of fact, I haven’t felt quite hardened enough to my new profession yet. I don’t think I could butt in on Dr Vane and ask him for an interview just at present. Can’t you tell me about them and save me the trouble?”
“Well, I dare say I could. There’s not really much to tell you. But the doctor’s a queer stick. Big man, he is, with a great black beard, and spends most of his time in a laboratory he’s had fitted up at the back of the house. Research work of some kind. Bit brusque in his manner, if you understand me, and doesn’t seem any too cut up by his wife’s death – or doesn’t show it if he is, perhaps I ought to say.”
“Oh, he doesn’t, doesn’t he?”
“But I gather that the two of them didn’t hit it off any too well together. That seemed the idea among the servants, anyhow. I had all of them up and questioned them this morning, of course. Then there’s his secretary, a dry stick of a woman with pince-nez and short hair, who might be any age between thirty and fifty, and a cousin of Mrs Vane’s who’s been living there for the last few months called Miss Cross. That’s the girl who’s come into all the money, as I expect you’ve heard.”
“And the girl who was the last person apparently except one to see Mrs Vane alive,” Roger nodded. “Yes, I’ve seen her, had a chat with her in fact.”
“Oh, you have, have you? And what did you think of her, Mr Sheringham?”
“I don’t know,” Roger hedged. “What did you?”
The inspector considered. “I thought she was quite a nice young lady,” he said carefully, “thought perhaps a bit deeper than one might think – or than she’d like you to think, maybe. Did you get any information from her?”
“Look here, Inspector,” Anthony burst out suddenly, “just tell me this, will you? Do you really honestly think that –”
“Shut up, Anthony, and don’t be tactless!” Roger interposed hastily. “Did I get any information out of her, Inspector? Nothing more than you got yourself, I fancy. She told me that you’d been putting her through it.”
“She’s a very important person in the case,” said the inpector with an apologetic air. “Last one to see Mrs Vane alive, as you said just now.”
“I didn’t say that exactly,” Roger remarked drily; but let it pass. “And you got no further impression from her than that she was a nice young lady and might be a bit deep?”
“Well, I didn’t say that, sir,” ruminated the inspector. “No, I wouldn’t say that at all. I got the impression that she wasn’t overfond of that cousin of hers, for one thing.”
“Wasn’t fond of her cousin?” Roger cried in surprise. “But Mrs Vane had been extraordinarily kind to her. Taken her to live with them, paid her a generous salary probably for doing nothing, made a will in her favour! Why, she owed Mrs Vane a tremendous lot!”
“Are we always overfond of people we owe a tremendous lot to?” asked the inspector pointedly.
“I’m sure,” Anthony began stiffly, “that Miss Cross –”
“Shut up, Anthony! But why are you so sure about this, Inspector? You must have something more to go on than just impression.”
“I have, sir. What I learned from the servants. Mrs Vane and Miss Cross used to quarrel quite a lot, I understand. It seems to have been a matter of common talk among the servants.”
“Of course, if you take any notice of the gossip of servants,” said Anthony with fine scorn, “I dare say you’d –”
“Anthony, will you shut up or have I got to send you to bed? For goodness’ sake, help yourself to another drink and keep quiet.”
“You’ve seen Miss Cross too, Mr Walton, I take it?” observed the inspector mildly.
“Yes, I have,” Anthony said shortly.
“A very pretty young lady,” commented the inspector with vague application.
“Oh, by the way!” Roger exclaimed suddenly. “I was very nearly forgetting the most important question of all.”
“And what’s that, Mr Sheringham?”
“Why, to ask you what you’ve got up your sleeve in the way of clues. You admitted this afternoon there were some things you wouldn’t tell me.”
“One,” ac
knowledged the inspector with a smile. “That’s all. A coat-button.” He felt in his pocket and produced a light blue bone button with a white pattern, about an inch and a half in diameter, which he held out on the flat of his palm. “This was found clenched in the dead woman’s hand.”
Roger whistled softly. “I say, that is a clue and no mistake! The first really definite one there’s been, except those footprints. May I have a look at it?” He took the button from the other’s outstretched hand and examined it intently. “It wasn’t one of her own, by any chance?”
“No, sir; it wasn’t.”
“Have you found out whose it is?” Roger asked, looking up quickly.
“I have,” replied the inspector contentedly.
Anthony’s heart almost stopped beating. “Whose?” he asked in a strained voice.
“It’s a button off a sports coat belonging to Miss Cross.”
For a moment there was a tense silence. Then Roger asked the question that was burning a hole in his brain.
“Was Miss Cross wearing the coat when she went out for her walk with Mrs Vane?”
“She was, sir,” replied the inspector with a more serious air than he had yet displayed. “And when she got back to the house that button was missing from it.”
chapter seven
Sidelights on a Loathsome Lady
“I tell you I don’t care!” Anthony almost shouted. “To say that girl had anything to do with the wretched woman’s death is too damned silly for words!”
“But I’m not saying so,” Roger pointed out patiently. “I don’t think she had, in spite of everything. What I am saying is that we can’t dismiss the possibility of it in this cocksure way just because she’s got a pretty face. The inspector isn’t–”
“Blast the inspector!” observed Anthony savagely.
“Blast him by all means, but, as I was saying, he isn’t by any means a fool, and it’s quite obvious what his opinion about Mrs Vane’s death is at present. After all, you must face the fact that the evidence is absolutely overwhelming.”
“If his opinion is that Miss Cross murdered her cousin, then he is a fool,” growled Anthony finally; “and a damned fool at that.”
It was the following morning, and the two men were walking along the top of the cliffs to keep their appointment with Margaret Cross. The inspector had betaken himself to bed on the previous evening soon after the bursting of his bombshell, and the discussion between Anthony and Roger had lasted well into the small hours of the morning, broken only by an interval of half an hour while Roger telephoned through to the Courier. It was still raging.
Anthony had refused point-blank to consider even the possibility that Margaret had not spoken the exact truth in every detail or had wilfully suppressed any material fact, while as for the only logical deduction to be drawn from the facts as they were then known, he would rather have been torn in pieces by red-hot pincers than admit it within the category of bare feasibilities. To Roger, who was no less anxious that the girl’s name should be cleared, but had a livelier conception of the difficulties in the way of doing so, this attitude was a little trying. To Anthony’s final remark he forbore to reply, only sighing gently to himself. It required an effort of will, but no good purpose would be served by quarrelling with Anthony, and Anthony was very ready to quarrel with someone. They traversed the rest of the journey in difficult silence.
Margaret Cross was waiting for them by the little ledge, her face anxious and bearing the marks of a sleepless night.
“Oh, I am glad to see you!” she exclaimed as she shook hands with Roger. “Really I feel as if you were the only friend I’d got in the world.”
“Don’t forget me, Miss Cross,” Anthony smiled, shaking hands with her in his turn.
“No, of course not,” said the girl in a voice that was neither enthusiastic nor chilling – just indifferent; and she snatched away the hand that Anthony was manifestly attempting to press and, turning ostentatiously back to Roger, began to question him eagerly as to whether anything fresh had transpired.
Over Anthony’s face passed an expression such as might have been seen on the face of a dog which has put out a paw to toy with a fly and discovered it to be a wasp – hurt and yet puzzled. As Margaret Cross continued to display to him only her back the puzzled part of his expression gave way to resentment; as she made no effort to include him in her eager conversation, but on the contrary quite pointedly ignored him, resentment and chagrin alike were swallowed up by sheer annoyance. As ostentatiously as herself, he strolled a few paces away and began to amuse himself by throwing stones over the edge of the cliff. Anthony was sulking.
Had he been a little wiser, he might have felt flattered. As it was, how could he be expected to guess that to a young lady who is accustomed to pride herself not a little on her self-reliance and strength of mind, the thought of having been such a sloppy little idiot as to weep on the shoulder of a complete stranger and actually grovel before the protective feel of his unknown arm about her, might possibly be a singularly ignominious one? In which case, of course (so the older and wiser Anthony might have complacently assumed), her resentment, directed naturally against himself as the witness of her humiliation, would be only complimentary. But Anthony was neither older nor wiser.
“I say, Anthony, come and listen to this!” called Roger, who had a shrewd idea of the way in which the wind was blowing.
Very nonchalantly Anthony strolled across. “Yes?” he said in a voice that was neither rude nor frigid – just bored.
“I’ve been telling Miss Cross about the coat-button. It may not be quite playing the game with the inspector, but I really think it’s only fair that she should know.” He turned to the girl. “And you say you must have lost it on that walk?”
“Yes, I must have lost it on the walk,” the girl said in puzzled tones, “but where, I haven’t the least idea. All I know is that it was on when I started, and I noticed that it was off when I got back. It might have dropped simply anywhere. How it got into Elsie’s hand I can’t imagine. Mightn’t she have picked it up and been meaning to give it back to me?”
“That does seem the only possible explanation,” Roger agreed. He did not think it necessary for the moment to point out that as Mrs Vane’s subsequent steps would hardly have covered any of the ground that she and Margaret had passed over together, the explanation was not very probable.
“Oh, Mr Sheringham, I do wish I could get away from this dreadful atmosphere of suspicion!” cried the girl suddenly, her strained nerves overcoming for the moment her self-control. “It’s really getting almost unbearable! Every fresh fact that comes to light only makes it worse. I shall really begin to think of jumping over the cliff myself if something doesn’t happen soon. And they’re evidently beginning to talk in the village already. Mrs Russell cut me dead outside her own house this morning.”
“Dear Mrs Russell!” Roger murmured. “Wouldn’t I like to flay the hag. Christian charity, I suppose she calls that. But look here, don’t you give way before any nonsense like that, Margaret, my dear.” Roger invariably addressed every unmarried lady below the age of thirty by her Christian name after the briefest possible acquaintance, it accorded with his reputation for mild Bohemianism, and it saved an awful lot of trouble. “We’re going to see you through this, Cousin Anthony and I. So keep your chin up and let all the old cats go to the devil!”
Margaret turned away for a moment, biting her lip. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said in rather a shaky voice. “I really can’t think what I should have done if I hadn’t met you two, Mr Sheringham.”
“Roger!” exclaimed Roger briskly. “For Heaven’s sake do call me Roger, Margaret! Only people who owe me money call me ‘Mr Sheringham’. It has a nasty, sinister sound.”
“Very well, then,” the girl smiled. “Thank you – Roger!”
Roger drew a breath of relief as he saw the threatened tears disappear before his calculated nonsense. “And this is Anthony,” he went on w
ith mock seriousness. “Let me introduce you. Anthony, Margaret. Margaret, Anthony. Now shake hands and tell each other what a lovely day it is.”
“How do you do, Anthony?” Margaret said gravely, a little smile dancing in her brown eyes; and somehow she managed to convey the impression that she was sorry for having made a pig of herself ten minutes before, that this was her apology and that would he please forgive her?
“How do you do, Margaret?” said Anthony, taking the slim fingers in his great paw; and the slight pressure he gave them said perfectly plainly that it wasn’t his place to forgive anything; wouldn’t she rather forgive him instead for sulking in that childish way, for which he was heartily sorry?
So that was all right.
“Why stand up when we can sit down?” Roger remarked, observing the results of his tactfulness with some satisfaction; and he set a good example by throwing himself at full length on the springy turf. The others followed suit.
“Now what we’ve got to do,” he went on, lying on his back and puffing hard at his pipe, “is to form an offensive and defensive alliance of three. Your job, Margaret, will be to get us any information we want about the household and so on, and mine to put that information to the most advantageous use.”
“What about Anthony?” asked Margaret.
“Oh, he’s the idiot friend. He came down on purpose to be it. We mustn’t do him out of that, or he’d be awfully disappointed.”
“Poor Anthony!” Margaret laughed. “Roger, I think you’re horrid.”
“Not horrid,” Anthony said lazily. “Just an ass. But pretend not to notice it, Margaret. We always try to ignore it in the family.”
“Reverting to the topic in hand,” Roger observed, unperturbed, “there’s one thing that I really must impress on both of you. Rather a nasty thing, but we’ve got to face it. From the facts as we know them at present, there’s simply only one deduction to be drawn; if we want new deductions, we must have new facts.”
Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery Page 6