by Helen Wells
“Martha, you mustn’t allow yourself to become so excited,” Cherry said. “Naturally, you’re upset after the morning we’ve had. But please try to relax now.”
Martha smiled and was quiet. Cherry called to their driver to go more slowly and gently. They drove along hedge-enclosed roads, with meadows and woods beyond. After a few turnings, they came to the inn.
The Cat and Fiddle was small and weather-beaten and must have been there a very long time, Cherry thought. They entered a modestly furnished sitting room, where a pleasant-looking man in a sweater came to receive them. He said he was Mr. Munn, owner of the inn, and he would be pleased, as they requested, to furnish them with lunch. He saw immediately that Mrs. Logan was tired. “If you wish to rest, madam, we have vacant rooms now that the season is over.”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Logan had better lie down,” Cherry said, over her patient’s humorous protests. The innkeeper called, “Agnes!”
A tall, strapping, rosy woman wearing an apron came in. Mr. Munn instructed the maid to prepare a downstairs bedroom, and in a few minutes Cherry settled her patient there for a nap, closing the door. The innkeeper told Cherry that a hot lunch for them and their driver would be ready in about thirty or forty minutes.
“You might have a stroll in the garden, miss, or watch the telly,” he suggested, and disappeared toward the back of the inn.
Cherry wandered into the sitting room. At the far end sat a plump little woman, half swallowed up in a huge wing chair beside the fireplace. The instant she saw Cherry, she started to chatter. Cherry sighed. She would have liked a few minutes to herself, to catch her breath and think about the morning’s events. But the little woman—plump as a pigeon, dressed in an odd scramble of sweater, skirt, jacket, muddy walking shoes, handbag, ancient hat, eyeglasses perched on her freckled nose—was a determined talker.
“Bless my soul, a new guest! Quite rare here! I beg your pardon, but you and the other lady are Americans, I believe? I can always tell by your accent, though I fancy you can’t help having an accent.” She looked reprovingly at Cherry, who smothered a laugh. The woman went right on:
“You see, I myself am a permanent guest here, ever since my relations died. I’m the only one who resides here the year round. I daresay it’s a sort of distinction.”
“How do you do?” said Cherry, not knowing what else to say. Why, the poor old creature must be lonesome, marooned in this out-of-the-way inn year in and year out, with little to do or see. She was probably harmless for all her inquisitiveness.
“How do you do?” said the plump little woman. “I am Miss Pru Heekins. Most people call me Auntie Pru.” She reached out to shake hands vigorously with Cherry. Cherry shook hands and mumbled her own name.
“Welcome,” said the little woman. “Are you a great walker? Your complexion inclines me to believe so. Unless—It’s not rouge?” Cherry smilingly shook her head. “I myself am a great walker,” Miss Pru Heekins rattled on. “I know every road, every house, even every car in this vicinity, and what’s more, I am observant. Agnes, I am sure, believes I lead an idle, gossipy life, but Agnes is decidedly mistaken! Even when I am dozing a bit in this chair, or sitting outside napping in the sun, actually”—Auntie Pru leaned confidentially toward Cherry—“I am observing. Watching, listening, taking an interest.”
Cherry thought eavesdropping was the word for Auntie Pru’s curiosity. But she had seldom seen anyone so lonesome as this odd little leftover person. Cherry said, “Perhaps Agnes doesn’t think any such thing about you. In any case, don’t you worry about it.”
“Thank you, my dear, you are very kind. I noticed you were very kind to the lady with the bad arm, too. Is she your aunt?” Auntie Pru demanded. “You don’t appear the right ages to be mother and daughter, am I right?”
“Oh, you’re absolutely right,” Cherry said, gulping down another laugh. “I’m the lady’s nurse, while she is making a—a business trip.”
“O-o-oh, a nurse! No wonder you have some proper feeling for others,” Auntie Pru said. “Not at all like that other young woman staying here. She’s rather upstage, that young Mrs. Greene. Barely speaks to me, goes off for walks by herself, though you’d think she’d be glad to have company. Of course she did explain, when she arrived a few days ago, that she’s convalescent and came to take the country air. But do you think,” Auntie Pru asked aggrievedly, “that that is sufficient reason for not telling me even the simplest, smallest fact about herself? And we the only two guests here!”
“Perhaps she’s just reserved,” Cherry said, secretly admiring such resistance to Auntie Pru’s onslaughts. Cherry thought how Auntie Pru would enjoy herself when news broke of the robbery at the nearby Carewe Museum.
“Would you turn on the television?” said Auntie Pru. “Time for the news soon, you know. I never miss it.”
Cherry turned on the television set. Before the newscast came on, she went to have a look at her patient. Martha was asleep, so Cherry softly closed the door again and returned to the sitting room. Auntie Pru welcomed her back like an old friend.
They watched the newscast, which originated in London. After several items of major interest, a picture of the Shah and Lady Liddy flashed on the screen, alighting from a commercial airliner with other notables in a glare of flashbulbs. Cherry sat up with a start. The airport was Rome, and the broadcaster was saying:
“—Liddy arrived in Rome at midnight last night, after a visit to England. British reporters had not known of his departure from England, because of the suddenness of the Shah’s decision to visit art exhibits in Rome, which were scheduled to close soon. The Shah, interviewed in Rome, expressed his admiration for the art collections in London. Traveling on the same plane were Vice Admiral—”
Cherry did not listen to the rest. The Shah and his wife in Rome last midnight! So it was scarcely possible that they were here in the north of England at ten fifteen this morning. Then the Shah at the Carewe Museum this morning was an impostor—someone posing and acting a flamboyant role that, with a false white beard, was not too hard to fake—someone short and portly enough to resemble the Shah.
Short and portly, arrogant, left-handed—Cherry realized that the pretended Shah reminded her very faintly of someone. Who else that she knew was short and stout, bossy and conceited, and left-handed?
Why, Archibald Hazard was a great deal like that. But how absurd!
“Or is it so absurd?” Cherry asked herself. “Soon after Martha introduced Mr. Hazard to Pierre Selsam, the Selsam Gallery was burglarized. That might be a coincidence, of course. But isn’t it quite a coincidence that the fake Shah and his fake wife turned up at the Carewe Museum exactly when Martha and I were there?”
That meant the impostor knew in advance that the Carewe Museum would be open for these visitors on this date—and at this hour. Certainly it would be easier for the thief simply to show up at the same date and hour—rather than risk applying in advance for admission—and walk in the front door in the guise of a distinguished visitor.
“Who knew that Martha and I were to he admitted at this date and hour?” Cherry asked herself. Their families knew, of course. She did not recall any news account about Martha Logan’s trip that gave the exact date. Had she mentioned the date and hour to Peter, or to anyone else? Cherry thought back to her various conversations with Peter, then to the long conversation on the plane with Peter and Mr. Hazard. That was it! That was when Mr. Hazard had scraped an acquaintance with Martha Logan and egged her on to talking so much! Mr. Hazard had talked about the Carewe collection so knowledgeably, so amusingly that he had disarmed Martha—and led her into disclosing the date and hour of their appointment to view the Carewe collection.
So Mr. Hazard had made use of Martha. He had made use of her another time, now that Cherry thought about it! When he had entertained Martha and her at lunch in London, he had practically invited himself to go along with them to meet Pierre Selsam. The gallery owner had them on tour, and when they came within view of
the rear door, she remembered, he had mentioned the night watchman on duty in the alley. Cherry wondered, appalled, whether Hazard could have had anything to do with the Selsam Gallery robbery. But, she thought, anyone of the hundreds of visitors to the gallery could observe its layout. Anyone could read up on which paintings were the most valuable. Anyone who wanted to could observe when and where the night watchman patrolled, and when the police patrolled the neighborhood. No, her suspicion connecting Mr. Hazard with the Selsam burglary was farfetched.
Someone poked Cherry. It was Auntie Pru, red in the face with excitement. “You aren’t paying attention, my dear child! Listen—” She pointed to the television screen.
A regular broadcast had been interrupted so that an announcer could bring them a special bulletin—four paintings in the famous Carewe Museum had been stolen that morning.
“The Windermere police,” the announcer went on, “report that a man posing as Shah Liddy gained admission with his wife. While his wife feigned an attack of illness, thus distracting the guards’ attention, the man cut four priceless paintings from their frames and smuggled them out in a bulky topcoat he was wearing. The couple made their getaway in a rented black Bentley, driven by a chauffeur in regulation uniform—”
Auntie Pru clutched Cherry’s arm. “A black Bentley, did he say! Why, I—” She babbled something unintelligible.
The announcer was saying, “Whoever the thief is, he is an art expert. The Gainsborough he took is the finest example of—”
Art expert, Cherry thought. Mr. Hazard is not really an art expert, but he knows some fundamental facts about art and art history—and the market value of great paintings. … Then it dawned on her that the dowdy little woman beside her was wildly excited.
“I saw a black Bentley on a road near here,” she chattered, “while I was taking my usual long morning walk! Oh, dear, an American might not understand—the Bentley is one of those frightfully expensive cars, only a few rich persons can afford them. No one around here has one, or I would know it. You can be sure my eyes popped,” said Auntie Pru, “when I saw a Bentley on our country roads! At nine thirty in the morning! And that’s not all!”
Nine thirty that morning, on a road near here … The Shah and his wife had arrived at the Carewe mansion in a black Bentley at about ten fifteen. …
The special bulletin ended. Cherry turned off the television set, to pay full attention to her companion.
“My goodness,” Auntie Pru said importantly, “I had better ring up the police! I have a duty to report having seen that particular car, haven’t I?”
She marched over to a writing desk on which stood a pay telephone, her back erect, eyes glistening. Cherry could not spoil her fun by telling her the police were coming soon to The Cat and Fiddle, anyway.
“This is The Cat and Fiddle’s only telephone,” she advised Cherry. “Agnes has openly hinted that I listen to other guests’ telephone conversations on this telephone. However, I told Agnes this is a public room. I can’t help it if—Hello! Operator? … I want to speak to the police!”
Auntie Pru’s triumphant glow faded as the police took her information and cut short Auntie’s long-winded conversation. Then she listened, perked up again, and hung up with a flourish.
“Some detectives are coming here to consult me, if you please!” Auntie Pru bounced down into the wing chair. “And that’s not all I can tell the police! I say, now that I think of it—Shall I tell you what else I saw?” She scarcely waited for Cherry’s reply. “I saw Mrs. Greene, you know, that uppity blond young person who has been staying here—Well, I wasn’t exactly following Meg Greene,” said Auntie Pru, “it simply happened she was walking ahead of me on the road, a good bit ahead. And then, down the road comes this black Bentley. It stops for Meg Greene, and in she hops as smart as you please. Not a moment’s hesitation—you’d think they had made an appointment. Then away they went and passed me on the road.”
“Are you certain you saw this?” Cherry asked, a little stunned.
“Certainly I’m certain!” Auntie Pru Heekins snapped.
“You said Meg Greene is blond?” Cherry repeated. “Rather thin and frail looking? Medium height?”
“Why, dear me, yes! How did you know?”
“I—uh—I may have met her,” Cherry said. “Did you see the chauffeur and the fake Shah in the car?” Cherry asked. “With a white beard.”
“Didn’t see either of them,” Auntie Pru reported firmly. “I did see a heavyset man driving the Bentley. He was wearing sunglasses and a hat. He sounded his horn when I didn’t jump out of the car’s way as fast as he would have liked.”
The driver might have been Mr. Hazard, Cherry thought. Where had the uniformed chauffeur been? That question could wait, though—Auntie Pru was talking away at a great rate about Meg Greene.
“As I told you, this lah-de-dah Mrs. Meg Greene,” said Auntie Pru with a sniff, “came to The Cat and Fiddle a few days ago, Wednesday last I believe it was. I happen to know she had made an advance reservation by telephone, from London, but that’s incidental, isn’t it? Said she needed country air and walks. In fact, immediately after she arrived, she took quite a long walk. Such airs as Mrs. Greene gave herself! Nobody was good enough to walk with her, though I offered in the friendliest way,” said Auntie Pru. “No, she needs must always go alone. So I took my walks by myself. Once I came within sight of her unexpectedly—when I reached a crossroad, she was up ahead—and do you know what she was doing?”
“What?” said Cherry, picturing these lonely, empty country roads.
“There stood Meg Greene, in the middle of the road, sketching and scribbling something on a piece of paper. Now! What do you think of that?”
Cherry thought Meg Greene—if she were the same young woman who had posed as Lady Liddy—might have been sketching a route for the getaway car. But Cherry did not say so to Auntie Pru, for it was only a strong suspicion, not yet fact. Anyway, Auntie Pru’s question was rhetorical; she rushed on:
“Another time after that—yes, I admit I was inquisitive enough to follow Meg Greene, you know, at a discreet distance,” said Auntie Pru. “Well, she walked all the way to the village, and do you know what she did there? She mailed a letter. Pshaw, she could have left her letter on the tray in the lobby for Mr. Munn to post as we all do—”
Didn’t Meg Greene want to leave her letter in full sight, Cherry wondered, where Auntie Pru or anyone else could read the name and address? Or did Meg Greene just want a reason and destination for a long walk?
“And that’s not all!” Auntie Pru crowed, delighted by Cherry’s interest in her story. She pointed a stubby finger. “I want you to notice particularly that telephone! And that writing desk!”
It was an ordinary telephone, and an old writing desk covered with a desk blotter. Beside the inn’s one telephone, the desk held an old fountain pen in a stand. Auntie Pru confidentially advised Cherry that the pen was leaky, then remembered her main point—the telephone.
“I can tell you it was quite an event, my dear! Lucky for me I was in this room at the time,” Auntie Pru said. “It’s rarely enough anyone rings up here from the village or occasionally from Chester—hardly ever from London—and Meg Greene’s husband telephoned her here from Edinburgh!”
Why Edinburgh? He could be there on a business trip, Cherry told herself. And was the man who had telephoned the same man who drove the Bentley?
Since forty-five minutes after getting into the car with him Meg Greene had posed as Lady Liddy, it seemed likely the short, portly man had assumed a white beard and the Shah’s personality. Was that short man really Meg Greene’s husband, or just a fellow thief? Cherry wondered why he had telephoned the blond girl, and—Cherry asked Auntie Pru—when.
“Let me see, it was Saturday evening. Day before yesterday. And I’ll tell you something else interesting—Meg Greene took no walks last Saturday. I fancy she was waiting in for her husband’s telephone call. Well! The telephone rang, and as I was sitting
nearby, naturally I ran and answered it. Operator said ‘A call for Mrs. Greene from Edinburgh!’ I fetched her, then I sat down and didn’t budge from this chair while she and her husband had a bit of visit. I was pretending to read, you see. Unfortunately,” Auntie Pru said in disappointment, “I couldn’t make out what he said, because what she said was awfully brief—rather tight-lipped, closemouthed, you know? If I had a husband, I would talk to him more nicely than that.”
Cherry asked, “How do you know it was her husband?”
“Oh, she said as much to me and Mr. Munn and Agnes, after she hung up.” That proved nothing, Cherry thought. “She wrote down something he told her, too,” Auntie Pru recalled, and Cherry pricked up her ears. “First, she listened quite a long time, and said ‘Repeat that.’ Then she said ‘Righto. I’ll remember that.’ Then she listened again and said ‘Repeat that slowly, will you, while I write it down.’ So she took that leaky pen and wrote—”
“She did!” Cherry exclaimed. She sprang up to take a look at the desk blotter.
The blotter was fairly fresh, with here and there an ink blot, and snatches of reversed handwriting. By using her compact mirror, Cherry was able to make out a few words or parts of words, but they made no sense, and anyway, here the ink looked faded. The freshest, most recent-looking entry—and this was in a different hand from the other writing on the blotter—appeared to be an address. No, a telephone number—Muir 2361. Cherry wondered whether it was an Edinburgh number, since the call to Meg Greene had come from Edinburgh. Cherry copied the telephone number in a small shopping notebook in her purse. The attention of the police should be directed to this blotter.