“Sorry,” I said, “but I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
“You don’t? Well, your Superintendent Wharton rang me to ask the same question a few moments ago.”
“Oh,” I said. “Just a little overlapping, I’m afraid. But would you mind telling me what you told him?”
“Oh, not at all,” she told me sweetly. “I told him I definitely hadn’t ’phoned and if I was pestered any more I’d complain to the right quarter. And the same applies to yourself.”
Then the line went dead. I went sheepishly back to my chair and with the none too reassuring knowledge that Wharton had been thinking along the same lines. But in a minute or two I had my arguments in line again. That she denied having rung Pelle was nothing after all. That she was a fluent and calculating liar I had no doubt, even if I was of the opinion that she had not been such a fool as to ask him to come to her office. On the other hand it would have been perfectly easy to use a false voice and lure him elsewhere. And how? Well, by saying the speaker was bedridden, for instance, and asking him to call and collect a valuable piece of jewellery for the Famine Appeal. Sir William, I remembered, had at first been annoyed at the thought of losing his train, but when he had heard the whole message he had quietened wonderfully down.
Now as far as Marion Blaketon was concerned, the killing of Pelle might have meant two birds with one stone. If everything the police suspected was correct, then she was in need of money, and she was the one person likely to know a good and safe fence. As for the other reason, that was where the manuscript came in.
She must have learned from Mavin, and the Clarion cutting, that Sir William was writing his autobiography, and at once she must have been in a state of considerable alarm. What if she herself was mentioned in it? Just the kind of thing she might expect that obstinate, blundering fool to do, and with what consequences? Disastrous ones, as I saw it. If he mentioned the family scandal that would speedily winkle Marion Blaketon out of that lucrative job with the Society. For she hadn’t changed her name, and, even if she had changed it it would have made no difference. While the original scandal had been hushed up and nobody suspected it outside the Yard, the probability was that she owed her position in whatever circles she frequented to the fact that she was Sir Leyland Frame’s daughter.
So far the arguments had gone well, but all at once there began to be complications. If she questioned Mavin he might have told her that there was nothing in the manuscript about a scandal. Or he might have put her off with prevarications, since he himself was very much between two stools. He daren’t antagonize Sir William; indeed, I didn’t see how he dared let Sir William know that he was even acquainted with that gentleman’s sister-in-law. All very complicated, as I said, and as my brain began to go in circles I suddenly caught sight of the clock. In five minutes I was due at Kenray’s shop, and at once I was grabbing my hat and overcoat and making for the lift.
Chapter VIII
ONCE MORE KENRAY
The shop was shut but the outer side door wasn’t locked, so I made my way up the stairs. A lighted lamp stood on a wall bracket and showed a door across the landing. I pushed the bell and who should open the door but Grace Allbeck. She looked pale and somewhat drawn, but she smiled at me in a way far more friendly than I deserved. I felt a queer kind of warmth, like meeting again a friend whom one has hoped somehow to see.
“Unpardonable of me disturbing you like this,” I said. “And is your headache better?”
“Quite better,” she said. “I have some special tablets and the headaches always go after a little sleep.”
“But they always leave you shaken?”
I said that because I could see that she was still nervy. Her fingers were moving restlessly and that poise which had so struck me was no longer there.
“Yes,” she said. “It makes one feel as if . . . as if . . .”
“I know,” I said. “I used to suffer from them myself. As if you’d been sandbagged.”
It was quite a charming and cosy little sitting-room we were in and through an opened door I caught sight of the little kitchen and some white tiles and a little electric stove.
“Your brother gave you my message?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “It was very good of you.”
“Yes, the world’s a small place,” I said. “But about that piece of jewellery. I’m going to sell it now if only to prove my bona fides.”
She told me laughingly not to do anything so foolish, but I said I would bring it in the next time I happened to be that way. I was taking a chance on Bernice but it seemed to me worth while. And I didn’t mean the money. I liked Grace Allbeck and somehow I wanted Bernice to know her. Good opinions seemed to me in that moment to be worth more than a piece of jewellery.
“Is Superintendent Wharton here?” I asked her, for in some strange way I’d forgotten what I was there for.
“He’s downstairs with my brother,” she said. “Would you like to come this way?” Then she was remarking what charming manners Wharton had.
She switched on a light and there were stairs that led down. I could find my way, she said, and indeed I heard Wharton’s voice before I reached the bottom. The lights of the shop were bright behind the black-out and there was George trying to look as if he knew something about the Sheffield candelabra that Kenray was showing him.
“Here is Mr. Travers,” said George at the sight of me. “I don’t think you’ve met Mr. Kenray.”
Kenray and I shook hands and at close quarters he was just the same quiet, unemotional and likeable man I’d seen from the fanlight.
“Travers is a busy man,” George said, “so perhaps we’d better do our little bit of business and be on our way.”
He put on his glasses and consulted his notebook, and all to gain time and create an impression.
“About this jewellery business,” he began. “How long is it since you were first called in as consultant?”
“About a couple of months ago,” Kenray said.
“As long ago as that!” Wharton seemed surprised. Kenray had nothing to add.
“And did you ever actually see any of the jewellery?”
“Well, yes . . . once,” said Kenray. His words were even more deliberate than usual, as if he was careful of committing himself. “I thought it necessary to call personally at his office and he showed me a couple of things that had come in that very morning. He was taking them later to his bank.”
“Valuable, were they?”
“A pair of single stone drop ear-rings, and a ring,” said Kenray reminiscently. “Quite nice stuff. Might have been worth five or six hundred.”
“That Miss Chaddon was there?”
“Oh, yes,” said Kenray, and very non-committally.
“What did you think of her?” Wharton asked. “Strictly between ourselves.”
Kenray’s shoulders moved slightly.
“As typists go these days she seemed fairly efficient.”
Wharton grunted. I justified my presence by cutting in with a question.
“Just how long have you known about that attaché-case, Mr. Kenray?”
“You mean about his taking the jewellery down in it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well,” he said, and frowned in thought. “I suppose I first had an idea about three weeks ago.”
“As long as that,” said Wharton again. “Do you mind telling me about it again?”
“I thought it about time the proceeds were realized,” Kenray said. “If any extras came in, I thought they might go into an ordinary sale. When I rang Sir William about it, he didn’t agree. Then I asked if I might do my valuation of what had been sent and he wanted me to wait a week or two and do everything together. I said I’d come round if he rang me and then he said the valuation would be at his house. But I think I told you about that.”
“There you are!” said Wharton to me. “Sir William talking over the telephone and that secretary of his taking it all in. She tells her pals. Mav
in knows and he tells his pals. He might just as well have put an advertisement in the papers.” He heaved a sigh, and then his remark was a subtle question. “Still, there you are. We can’t expect everyone to be as discreet as that sister of yours. She knew all about it, but I’ll bet a new hat that she never said a word to a soul.”
“She knew just as much as I’ve already told you, and no more,” Kenray reminded him quietly. “But she’s just as much in this business as I am, Mr. Wharton. If I didn’t trust her, then I couldn’t trust myself.”
“Exactly,” said Wharton heartily. “Anyone can tell she’s a fine business woman. And a most charming lady too, if you’ll allow me to say so.”
He took out his notebook again, had another look at it, and gave a grunt as he replaced it.
“Well, now I’ve got to do something that I hate doing, and I hope you won’t take offence. It isn’t my doing exactly. I give you my word for that.”
There followed the old, old formula about alibis and how the innocent ought to welcome inquiry, and the variation of a frank admission that Kenray had reason to resent such inquiry.
“You see how it is,” Wharton said. “As Travers here knows; some Big Pot or other will be bound to ask where you were that evening, If I say I don’t know—well, that won’t do me any good, or you either.”
But Kenray was already moving towards the foot of the stairs.
“Grace! . . . Will you come down for a minute?”
We heard her coming. Wharton began expostulations, but Kenray waved them aside. It was he who explained to her what Wharton wanted.
“Where you were?” she said, and looked rather puzzled. “But that’s simple. You were here!”
“Tell them all about it, my dear,” Kenray said gently.
“But there’s nothing to tell. You came in very tired. Let me see now. It was getting on for five o’clock and I thought you looked a bit grey, so I brought you a cup of tea. You said you’d have it in the office so I turned the stove on.”
“That’s right,” Kenray said. “You said it wasn’t more work I wanted but a quiet nap, and you were right. I did have a nap. As a matter of fact I had a good sound sleep. What time was it when you woke me, Grace?”
“Just gone six,” she said, and smiled. “But I peeped in once before that and you were sleeping so comfortably I didn’t disturb you.”
Kenray smiled too.
“Well, there we are. After that—”
“We don’t need any after,” Wharton cut in. “It isn’t me you’ve satisfied. I didn’t need any satisfying. The thing is I’ll have an answer if any busybody asks questions.” His voice took on a syrupy quality. “Might I have a look at that office of yours?”
“Why not?” asked Kenray, unperturbed as ever, and the three of us went along the passage.
It was a comfortable little office with the usual furnishings. Silver and bric-a-brac stood on the desk top and among the books and files of the shelves.
“A bit untidy,” Kenray said, “but I like it like that. Every dealer does.” His voice lowered as he looked about. “My sister always wants to have it tidied up. This is her doing, by the way,” and he pointed to the antimacassar kind of cover on the back of the easy chair. “That’s the chair I had my nap in.”
He might have gone on to add that there was the electric stove, and there the side-table on which his tea had stood, but again Wharton was expressing himself as more than satisfied. And he said that any Big Pot who poked his nose into the matter of Kenray’s alibi would get a rap over the knuckles, however big he was.
He waited till we were back in the shop and with Grace Allbeck again, before he put his next question.
“Haven’t you a man here? You told me, I think, that you had one.”
“Yes,” Kenray said. “Fulcher’s his name. Tom Fulcher. Been with us for years.”
“A good fellow, is he?”
“There isn’t a better,” Kenray said. “I believe he’d cut off his arm for either one of us.”
“Well, I’d better have a word with him,” Wharton said regretfully. “It’s all red tape but it’s got to be got over. Is he handy?”
“He’s in his room,” Grace Allbeck said.
Kenray was moving towards the stairs. The last thing I wanted was for Tom to see me, so I stayed put.
“Perfectly lovely those candelabra,” I said.
“Aren’t they fine!” she said. “We don’t often touch that class of thing, but I simply couldn’t resist them. They’re going to America.”
“But you’re not taking them?”
She smiled. “No. I’m a stay-at-home Jill. Mr. Kenray will probably be going in about a week’s time. He’s expecting the permit almost at once.”
“Aren’t they liable to get scratched in transit?” I asked, fingering the lovely smoothness of the stems.
“They’re most carefully wrapped,” she said.
“In cotton wool?”
“Gracious, no!” she told me. “That’d be unobtainable these days.”
From a cupboard she produced some ordinary newspaper. That of The Times, though better paper, wasn’t so good as that of the Clarion, she said, and proceeded to illustrate. Certainly the flimsier paper folded much more softly, though it wasn’t really a fold but a twist. Then the twisted paper was wrapped wound the delicate scroll work and it was as if it was covered by a cushion.
“Like everything else, so simple,” I said. “But let me show you what a fine detective I am. I’ll bet you read The Times and your man Tom reads the Clarion.”
“But I could have guessed that,” she said, and then Wharton was heard calling from the head of the stairs. In a way I was sorry to go. I liked talking to Grace Allbeck and we had just arrived on the fringes of something near to intimacy.
“Duty calls,” I said, and waved her to the stairs.
She laughed back at me and said she didn’t believe I was a detective at all. I begged her not to give me away to Wharton, and by then we were nearing the landing.
“Thought you were in a hurry,” Wharton told me accusingly. Then he was saying good-bye to Grace Allbeck.
“I didn’t tell you, Mr. Kenray,” he said as his hand went out again, “but you’ll probably have a communication in the morning from the Powers-that-Be. They’ll ask you to get a valuation of the missing jewellery from the actual donors. I’ve got a spare list you can have if it’s any help to you.”
“Sorry, but it just can’t be done,” Kenray said. “That job would take days.”
Wharton gave a nudge and a wink.
“Yes, but the India Office pays.”
Kenray shook his head.
“That may be, but I expect to be in New York in ten days’ time.”
“Well, it’s their headache,” Wharton said resignedly. “Afraid Travers and I have been a bit of a headache too.”
“Mr. Travers is a very charming sort of headache,” Grace Allbeck told him, and on that blushful note I said my own good-byes. Another minute and we were out on the pavement.
There was a little restaurant just round the corner and Wharton thought we might do our talking there instead of going to the Yard. It was still short of half-past five but neither of us had had a real tea.
“Well, I’m bound to admit I was wrong about Kenray,” he said. “He’s got a regular Rock of Gibraltar of an alibi.”
“Personally I’m pleased he’s out of it,” I said. “I’m not saying, ‘I told you so,’ but honestly, George, he never was the type for murder and theft.” Then I had to add something else. “But what’s worrying you about Kenray?”
“I’m not worried,” he said, and then went off at what looked like a tangent. “That’s a funny thing about our game. You learn everything you can about a person and watch him under a microscope, and when you’ve finished you don’t know what’s a clue and what isn’t.”
I nodded, and feelingly.
“For instance,” George went on. “Kenray’s going to the States in ten days’ t
ime. A nice chance to take that jewellery, if he has it.” He held up a pontifical hand to check my comment. “I know he’s liable to be searched by Customs, but then again he mightn’t be. And that’s not all. I saw that man of theirs. Nice old boy he was, just as you described him. And where was he on the particular evening? Not there. He was with his sister at Woolwich. She wasn’t well and he’d been given half a day off. Which reminds me.”
He made an entry in his notebook, and doubtless to have Tom Fulcher’s alibi checked.
“I know they’re trivialities,” he said as he put the notebook away. “The main thing is that Kenray’s out.”
“Very definitely so,” I said. “The only problem now is, where do we go from here?”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “There was something I was wanting to ask you. I know. Just why did you ask Kenray how long he’d known about that attaché-case? It struck me as if you’d had some sort of brainwave.”
“Let me ask you a question first,” I said. “Something had been done about the actual sale of that jewellery, hadn’t there? Wasn’t it tentatively arranged for this day week?”
“That’s right,” he said. “It didn’t need advertising except in next Monday’s papers and to the trade. Kenray probably wanted the sale over before he left for the States. Maybe he would have made some purchases.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And so that Blaketon woman’s time was getting short.”
“What do you mean?”
I told him. For three weeks she’d been working on Doris Chaddon and Mavin, and that was why I’d put that question to Kenray. Two birds with one stone, I said, and told him about the autobiography.
“We’ve got something there,” George said, and set down his cup of tea just as it was at his Ups. “We’ll try and break that alibi of hers first.” Then up went his hand. “But wait, though. She wouldn’t do the job herself. I’ll lay a fiver she had a dozen crooks up her sleeve. She’d pass one the wink to collar that case.”
“Then where does the killing come in?” I said.
“He never was intended to be killed,” he told me. “He had an abnormally thin skull, hadn’t he? The killing just happened.”
The Case of the Corporal's Leave: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 10