In At The Death

by Francis Duncan

  ‘But he was—interested—in the ladies?’

  ‘Doctor Hardene’s private life wasn’t any concern of mine. I was paid to act as his housekeeper.’

  ‘I’m looking for an explanation for that fifty pounds a month,’ Boyce said quietly, and waited.

  Tremaine watched the changing expressions in the housekeeper’s face. She said, at last:

  ‘I—I suppose I ought to tell you. He’s dead, anyway, and it’s your job to find things out. I didn’t say anything about it while he was alive. He was always kind to me and it wasn’t any of my affair. But there were things I didn’t like—things no self-respecting woman could agree with.’

  ‘We’ve found a note-book of the doctor’s, Mrs. Colver—a diary, to be accurate, which he seems to have used for his personal appointments. Did you ever hear him mention anyone called Elaine?’

  ‘Elaine?’ The housekeeper looked puzzled. She frowned, and then shook her head slowly. ‘No, I never heard him speak of anyone of that name.’

  ‘He was seeing a good deal of her all through the year. At least once a week and more often it was twice.’

  Understanding came into her face then.

  ‘Oh, so that was her name!’

  ‘You mean he never told you?’

  ‘No. I knew what was going on, of course. I knew that he was going out to see a woman—it was obvious enough, the trouble he took, more than he usually did. But he never said who she was.’

  ‘I take it in that case that she never came here to the house?’

  ‘There was something funny about it. That’s why she was never here. I knew from the start that there was something that wasn’t straightforward and he gave it away once. He got to talking seriously when he came back one night—he did sometimes; he knew that he could talk to me. Well, I—I said what was in my mind about all his goings-on. I asked him why he didn’t get married, and it was then that he told me she was married already.’

  ‘Married, eh?’ Boyce pulled at his chin. ‘So that was the reason for all the secrecy. He had to take care he didn’t get mixed up with any scandal, naturally. Being a doctor it was more important to him than to most.’

  ‘He knew what he was doing,’ she said, with just a trace of vindictiveness in her manner. ‘He’d always take the car and they’d meet somewhere quiet and then go out of Bridgton.’

  ‘Risky, though. Never know when there’s somebody about who’ll recognize you even though you may not realize they’re anywhere in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘He was the sort to take risks. If he wanted something he’d go after it and wouldn’t trouble about what it might cost.’

  She stopped and bit her lip, as though she had been led into saying more than she had intended. Boyce shrugged.

  ‘Sometimes it pays, sometimes it doesn’t. As a rule that’s where we come in. That’s all, Mrs. Colver. I’m sorry you can’t tell us any more about this rather elusive lady called Elaine, but I’m obliged to you for your help. I think we can make a guess as to where some of that fifty pounds a month went. I don’t know what your personal plans are,’ he added, ‘but I take it that you’ll be wanting to stay on here at least for a day or so until things are sorted out. After that——’

  He broke off, leaving it to her to finish.

  ‘It’s all been so sudden,’ she said. ‘I haven’t had time to think out what to do. Of course, I shan’t be able to stay here long. I suppose the house will have to be sold.’

  ‘That will depend on the will—if he made one.’ Boyce looked enquiringly at his sergeant. ‘What about it, Witham? Any note of his solicitors?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ve got the address and telephone number. As a matter of fact, I believe they rang up today—must’ve seen the news in the paper. One of the local men’s still standing by, although it’s pretty quiet now. You saw him when you came in, of course. He’s got the full list.’

  ‘Tomorrow will do for the solicitors—probably gone home now, anyway, and there don’t seem to be any relatives to go into a panic about whether they’ve been left anything. We’re keeping a man in the neighbourhood all night, Mrs. Colver,’ Boyce went on, turning. ‘Not that we’re expecting trouble, but under the circumstances I daresay you’ll be glad to feel you aren’t being left completely on your own.’

  ‘You needn’t worry about me,’ she told him, a little bitterly. ‘I’m used to looking after myself. A widow soon has to get used to doing that.’

  When she had gone the Yard man swivelled in his chair to face Mordecai Tremaine.

  ‘Reactions, Mordecai?’

  ‘Speaks well, Jonathan. Sounds rather as though she’s known better days. It’s made her—hard.’

  ‘That was my verdict, too. She didn’t like Hardene as much as she’s tried to make out.’

  Boyce’s next move was to go out to the reception room where the local detective was still waiting by the telephone in case any further calls should come through. He ran quickly down the list; most of the enquiries seemed to have been made by various organizations, either medical or political, with which Hardene had been associated. The time the call had been made had been added in each case.

  He glanced at his watch.

  ‘Nothing in the past hour and a half, I see. You might as well knock off. The housekeeper can deal with anything else that comes along. We’re past the point when we might have picked up something useful anyway. The news is cold now.’

  He was on the point of folding the list to place it inside his note-book when he noticed that one entry differed from the others. The time had been written in, as also the fact that the call had originated from a public-box, but no name was given.

  ‘Hullo, what’s this? Couldn’t you find out who rang up?’

  He put his finger on the entry in question, indicating it to the detective.

  ‘She wouldn’t give her name, sir.’

  ‘A woman, was it?’

  ‘It was a woman’s voice. She started asking what had happened to the doctor but when I tried to find out who she was she wouldn’t answer—just said that she was one of Doctor Hardene’s friends.’

  ‘What was her voice like?’

  ‘Wouldn’t like to be certain about it, sir,’ the man returned slowly. ‘You know how difficult it is to place people on the telephone, but I’d say she was young. Educated, too—by the sound of her.’

  Boyce raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question and the other explained.

  ‘Local accent’s pretty strong, sir. Daresay you’ve noticed it already. She didn’t have it. She was pretty worked up though—frightened, I’d say. I tried to keep her while I got the call traced, but she was wise to me and rang off. I got the address of the call-box she was using and one of our patrol cars went there right away, but there was no sign of her by then. Sorry about it, sir.’

  ‘You did the best you could,’ Boyce said. ‘No fault of yours. Corner of Prince Avenue and Kinley Gardens. That far from here?’

  ‘About a mile I’d think, sir. In Druidleigh but getting in a bit towards the city.’

  Tremaine had been following the conversation. He touched Boyce on the arm.

  ‘What time was the call put through?’

  ‘Couldn’t have been long after we’d left this morning,’ Boyce told him. ‘About ten-thirty. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ he added.

  ‘Elaine?’

  ‘Mysterious lady,’ Boyce said. ‘Could be.’

  They went back into Hardene’s surgery and they were still there some twenty minutes later, Tremaine with the blue diary in his hand and Boyce studying the bank statements, when they heard the telephone ringing and after a short interval Witham put his head around the door.

  ‘Call for you, sir,’ he said to his chief.

  Boyce went out. Tremaine heard his voice, muffled by the intervening wall, speaking to the person at the other end of the wire. The conversation lasted several minutes and when at last Boyce returned his face bore the excited expression of a man who had imp
ortant news to tell.

  ‘That was Parkin,’ he announced. ‘His men have been checking up on Masters. It’s true enough that he didn’t get home until eleven o’clock—a constable on patrol happened to see him turning into his gateway—driving his own car—but the rest of his story just falls apart. He didn’t go anywhere near the Venturers’ Club last night.’

  Tremaine’s eyes widened. He put up a hand to straighten the pince-nez now perched precariously indeed on the end of his nose.

  ‘Dear me, Jonathan, that sounds as though it might be very awkward for him.’

  ‘It certainly does,’ Boyce said grimly. ‘If friend Masters wasn’t at the Venturers’ Club at the time when somebody was busy knocking Hardene on the head with a lump of rock, just where was he?’

  He sat down at the surgery desk and took out his note-book. Tremaine watched him as he entered methodical comments on the next available page. When next Chief Inspector Boyce paid a call upon Jerome Masters that gentleman was in for a bad time.

  9

  DISTURBING INCIDENT BY NIGHT

  A LONG TIME ago Mordecai Tremaine had read somewhere that Haroun Al Raschid, the great caliph of Bagdad, had been in the habit of wandering incognito at night through the streets of the city he ruled in order that he might the better become acquainted with his people. Tremaine, in whom there dwelt both a strong sense of romance and an intense interest in people and things, had ever since then regarded the caliph as a man whose example might well be followed—at least in that one particular respect.

  One of his pleasures was to stroll idly through the crowded places of any city in which he might happen to be, studying the men and women whom he passed and wondering what they might be and whither they might be bound.

  There was, of course, little danger of his identity being unmasked by an awestruck bystander, despite the embarrassing fame that had attended his excursions into crime detection; in that his adventures had perforce to differ from those of the caliph.

  It was a harmless enough entertainment, and if sometimes his deductions led to his giving the most innocent of citizens the most horrifying of intentions, his victims were blissfully unaware of the characters he had bestowed upon them.

  A strange city—or at least a largely unfamiliar city—offered opportunities which were irresistible. Tremaine left Chief Inspector Boyce wrestling with his reports at their hotel and set out in search of excitement of the soul.

  The thought was not consciously with him as he walked down the narrow cobbled street in which their place of lodging was situated; he knew better than to allow sentiment to intrude upon the grim business which had brought him to Bridgton. But nevertheless, it was Tremaine the romantic, rather than Tremaine the relentless man-hunter, who made his way towards the bright lights and the crowds of the city’s centre.

  There was, perhaps, another reason that took him abroad, although this also he would not openly have admitted. Murder was an ugly, furtive affair of twisted passions and evil motives; when you were pursuing it you came inevitably upon blackness of heart and mind.

  This was a kind of antidote; something that helped to restore the balance in favour of sanity and goodness. In the lights, restricted though they still were in these days, there was something with which to oppose the dark forces of evil, just as the wand of the fairy confronted and discomfited the demon; the sight of young lovers, hanging upon each other’s arms and with happy smiling faces, even though they might be within his vision for no more than a brief instant before they had passed him for ever, did something to lift the despair from his heart. They were a blessed reminder that the world was not made up of dark places and evil deeds.

  He walked on, without a fixed purpose save that of absorbing the saving atmosphere of humanity living and moving around him. He passed the bridge where the ships came into the heart of the city and went on along the road at the side of the ornamental gardens that had recently brought a whisper of the countryside and a restful splash of colour into the midst of dust, grey buildings and gyrating cars.

  Just ahead of him he saw a neon sign running along the top of a tall building in which several lights still blazed, although the ground floor was in darkness. He quickened his steps despite the fact that there was nothing more to see.

  So this was the office of the Evening Courier. Tremaine could never pass a newspaper office without an absurd surge of emotion and a hastening of his pulse that belonged to idealistic adolescence rather than to a sober and experienced citizen of his years.

  When he drew level with the building he stopped in the shadows by the wall. The presses were silent now; the last edition had long since come hurtling to the despatch room to be distributed by motor-cycle, van, and train to the corners of the region of which Bridgton was the hub.

  He looked up at the lighted windows. It was strange to think that into this quiet, almost empty building, news might be coming at this very moment of happenings in far-off places of the world.

  There was a movement near at hand. Two figures emerged from the darkened entrance. He heard the door close behind them.

  They stood on the pavement for a moment or two after they had come out and he was able to see that one was a girl and the other a man. He heard the girl speak in a low, troubled voice. He could not distinguish what she was saying, for she was turned partly away from him, but there was something familiar in her tone that made him peer at her more closely.

  He recognized her then. It was Margaret Royman. A match flared briefly as her companion lit a cigarette, and Tremaine, who had been on the point of approaching her to make himself known, instinctively held back. The man was Rex Linton!

  They moved slowly away from the doorway and he heard her voice quite plainly.

  ‘You don’t think they’ll find out?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Rex Linton returned confidently. ‘There isn’t a chance of it.’

  ‘But the Chief Inspector—the one from Scotland Yard—looks as though he won’t let anything slip past him. And there’s the other man with him—Mr. Tremaine. Isn’t he the same man who’s solved a lot of other cases?’

  ‘It’s the same Tremaine all right. There couldn’t be two of them. He must be the innocent-looking old bird who was with the Chief Inspector when I was talking to him this morning. His name wasn’t mentioned.’

  Mordecai Tremaine felt a prickle of indignation. Innocent-looking old bird indeed! This young man needed to watch his manners or he would be finding himself in difficulties!

  ‘I’m frightened,’ Margaret Royman was saying. ‘I know it’s stupid of me, but I can’t help it—I just am.’

  Rex Linton put an arm around her.

  ‘You’re letting it get you down, darling. There’s nothing to worry about—absolutely nothing. Everything’s going to turn out all right.’

  They turned together, Linton’s arm still around the girl’s waist, and moved off along the pavement—fortunately in the opposite direction to the anxious Tremaine, now pressing himself back against the wall in the shadows, anticipating discovery and feeling far from happy. His relief as he watched them go was mixed with the feeling that his evening had been ruined and the mood of contentment destroyed beyond recall.

  The knowledge that Margaret Royman and Rex Linton were apparently in love with each other should have pleased his sentimental soul; they were a presentable young couple and he should have regarded it as a highly desirable discovery. But the air of secrecy, of conspiracy even, was too much a confirmation of his doubts earlier in the day to enable him to find any pleasure in what he had seen.

  Margaret Royman had not told all she knew. She had something to hide. Tremaine shook his head sadly and pushed back his pince-nez. It was all very distressing.

  His depression must have been evident in his face, for Jonathan Boyce, looking up from his work, gave him a meaning glance when he returned to the hotel.

  ‘What’s the trouble, Mordecai? Didn’t the night air of Bridgton agree with you? Or couldn’t you fin
d any evidence of love’s young dream?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Tremaine returned. ‘I did find some. I saw Miss Royman.’

  ‘Very nice, too.’ Boyce nodded appreciatively. ‘I admire the lucky man’s taste. Who is he?’

  ‘Rex Linton,’ Tremaine said, and Boyce sat up with a low whistle.

  ‘Our dashing young reporter, eh! The plot thickens.’

  ‘I’m afraid it does,’ Tremaine said unhappily. ‘I saw them coming out of the Courier office. I couldn’t help hearing something of what they were saying to each other, and it was clear that Miss Royman at least is worried about your finding out too much.’

  ‘And Linton?’

  ‘He acted as though he wasn’t so concerned, but that might just have been because of the girl.’

  ‘I suppose it is a case of young love?’

  ‘Oh yes. He put his arms around her and it was obvious that they’re on very close terms.’

  ‘Well, I’ll certainly accept your evidence in a matter of that sort! It looks,’ Boyce said, ‘as though we’re going to have yet another line of enquiry—as if we didn’t already have enough to be going on with. The trouble with a case like this is that the more you dig the more digging you find you’ve given yourself to do.’

  Boyce was still very much engaged with his report, as was obvious from the papers scattered around him. Tremaine sat down on the other side of the gas-fire and tried to take his mind off Margaret Royman by thinking about all the other people whom he had met or heard about during the day.

  It was quite a list. He took paper and pencil and jotted down their names, allowing his thoughts to drift around each of them as he wrote it down.

  First, of course, there was the principal character in the drama, who, although no longer moving upon the stage was the mainspring of the entire piece. Graham Hardene. A middle-aged medical practitioner with a comfortable practice in a pleasant suburb of a provincial city. Unmarried, no financial worries as far as could be ascertained; in fact, no troubles of any kind except possibly the fact that he’d been carrying on an affair with a married woman—although it didn’t look as though it had been causing him any qualms of conscience.