“And what was she like while she was here? Happy? And what you’d call in good spirits?”
“Oh yes, sir. She was always a jolly one—Miss Dorothy was.”
“Quite so! And now just one little thing, Mrs. Doran. Saturday was remarkably foggy. How did Mrs. Claire get from the station?”
“The buses—they go right past. Look! There’s one now!”
“So there is!… And does Mr. Claire ever come here?”
“Oh yes, sir! He called once, with Miss Dorothy, in the car.”
“You known him long?”
“I knew him as a boy.”
“Really!” He appeared for a moment or two to be thinking deeply, then suddenly looked up and caught her eye. “I can’t understand it. An hour ago, Mrs. Claire told me she was sure she didn’t leave town till past nine. How could she have got here by ten, in that fog? She’d go by Tube to Paddington, then have to catch a train, then get a bus.” He shook his head perplexedly. “Of course you’d be prepared to swear to everything you’ve told me, in a court of law?”
“It’s all true!”
“I see.” He got as far as the door. “Just one other thing. Would you mind showing me the telegram you just received from Mrs. Claire?”
The question was out of the prepared and expected and her hand went instinctively to her bosom. She moistened her lips, looked at him, then let her eyes fall.
“Mrs. Claire sent you a telegram. She had to! She telephoned it to Maidenhead. You knew I was coming. You were actually dressing when I knocked at the door. May I see that telegram?”
She looked so genuinely frightened that he didn’t press the point. But distasteful as it was, the job had to be finished.
“You think you’d rather keep it. Well, perhaps it’s better. And one last word, Mrs. Doran; it’s a hard thing to say, but you’ve told me neither the truth nor the whole truth—”
“But she was here at ten!”
“I know! I know! That’s the vital point!” He nodded heavily. “Well, you must have it your own way. There’ll be the Sunday papers, with her picture in them. All the story for everybody to gloat over. People saying horrible things.”
She made no sign as she stood looking quietly at him. It was almost as if she didn’t understand, and yet her bosom rose and fell more quickly.
“And her husband—she’s probably fond of him, and he her—I wonder what he’ll think of it. More scandal probably—and a divorce case. You never know what men are going to do.”
At the door he turned for a final word.
“When Mrs. Claire sent you that telegram, she didn’t realise that I’d know about it… and that I should be able to get a copy, if I considered it necessary, as I most decidedly do. I wonder what she’ll say when she sees that telegram in my hand? When I go to her this afternoon—”
She came to life for the first time. The voice that had answered his questions so mechanically, suddenly became human. Her face was swept by overwhelming fear and terror. As she raised her hands, Wharton thought for a moment she was going to have a stroke—or go into wild hysteria.
“Oh, you mustn’t! You mustn’t!”
The features relaxed; the voice became pleading.
“Please don’t worry her again!… She couldn’t do any harm! She’s a good girl!… Please don’t!… Oh! you don’t know!”
“What don’t I know?” Wharton asked gently.
Her face coloured as she sank back in the chair. Her lips quivered—a pitiful sight for a woman as old, as respectful as that. Wharton came forward, shaking his head.
“There!… Don’t distress yourself, Mrs. Doran.… Just tell me. What don’t I know?”
She glared at him—a change so surprising that he drew back his hand sheepishly. Her voice shook with passion.
“Don’t you dare worry that poor lamb!… She’s not fit to be frightened! Don’t you dare!”
Wharton had a sudden glimmer of understanding.
“You mean… she’s going to—er—”
That broke her down. She fumbled in her bosom and with the handkerchief out came the telegram that fell unnoticed to the floor. When she looked up she could only nod the answer.
“Hm! I see.” said Wharton, rather helplessly. “And how long has she known this?”
The answers now came between the sobs. “Only a few days… for sure.… That’s why she… wanted to see… me.”
“Did her husband know?”
“N-no… they quarrelled about something.… She was going to tell him… after she’d seen me.”
Wharton left her there, sobbing quietly to herself, and made his way out to the car. But he didn’t return to the post office. If he guessed correctly in five minutes that nurse would summon up the pluck to slip out and ’phone. Either Mrs. Claire would speak for herself or confess to her husband, and whichever it was that came to him, the information would be voluntary. Moreover, Wharton was worried about that intimate information he’d received. There were things in it he didn’t understand and when the car swung into the main road, he gave the chauffeur new instructions. At two o’clock he was in his own house, having an unexpectedly good lunch—and putting certain vital questions to his wife.
CHAPTER XV
EXIT AN INVALID
It was about eleven-thirty when Franklin knocked at the door of Hayles’s flat in Curtal Square, St. John’s Wood, and was admitted by an elongated landlady sort of person—the housekeeper almost certainly. He had taken the preliminary precaution of ’phoning up and asking if he might call, and before she could leave the small living-room into which she had shown him he managed to get in his questions.
“I expect you’re the Mrs. Burgess who was good enough to speak to me over the ’phone on Sunday night.”
She said she was, and seemed rather flattered at the small attention.
“It was very lucky you happened to be in. You see we wanted Mr. Hayles so badly—he was the only one who could give us any information. He’d only just gone out as I rang you up, hadn’t he?”
“Only the very minute before!”
“Really! That was bad luck.… And he came in just on the stroke of four, didn’t he?”
“I think it was about then.”
“And I’ll bet you wanted to make him some tea!” said Franklin archly.
She smiled. “I did—only he wouldn’t wait for it. I remember now; just before four it was when he came in.”
“Good! And you’re sure Mrs. Hayles won’t mind seeing me?”
Mrs. Hayles was a woman of a vastly different type; tiny, silver-haired, fragile as a January snowdrop and obviously as delightful. The white, lace cap made her age seem greater than it was, and her voice was placid and quaintly formal.
“You came to see how Mr. Hayles was, Mr. Franklin?”
“Yes,” said Franklin. “I’m a friend of his. I don’t know if he’s mentioned me.”
“That was very kind of you.” She smiled gratefully. “Won’t you sit down?… I’m sorry to say he isn’t quite so well as we hoped; so restless and feverish—and he hasn’t any temperature!”
Franklin nodded sympathetically. “It was a terrible shock. Rest—that’s what he seems to want.”
“Sh!” She put her fingers to her lips. “His bedroom is just through there and the walls are not very thick.… As you were saying, it’s rest he wants.… And what a terrible thing it has been!”
“Too terrible for words. And apparently inexplicable.”
“You mean they—the police—have some idea why it all happened?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that. I believe they hope to give an explanation… of sorts… in the near future,” said Franklin lamely.
“Kenneth is always asking if there’s any news.” She shook her head sadly. “And it’s so distressing for everybody. Mr. Claire must be worried to death.”
“You know him very well?”
“Oh, yes! He and Kenneth… and poor Michael were boys together. They’ve all stayed with us at Ripl
ey Norton, when Mr. Hayles was alive. He was vicar there, you know.”
“Indeed!”
“And Mrs. Claire of course we know. How is she keeping?”
“Very upset, I believe.”
“I was afraid so. Such a sweet little thing I always think.”
“Isn’t she!” said Franklin. “Now I come to remember, I understood from Mr. Claire that she was so frightfully cut up that he insisted on her going down to the country.”
“Marfleet Parva?”
“Yes, that was it.”
She sighed heavily. “I do wish Kenneth would forget all about it. He simply won’t rest. He was just the same when he was a boy. Men never grow up, Mr. Franklin.”
“Not to their mothers!” smiled Franklin. “But—er—does he have to be sat up with all night?”
“The doctor said not. But what can we do? Still, we manage very nicely. Annie—Mrs. Burgess—and I are going to take turns to have the bedroom next to his, so we’ll be ready if he wants anything.”
Franklin nodded. “That’s just what I wanted to speak to you about,” and he outlined the Usher proposition and the help he could be in scores of ways. “You’ll both be worn out if you go on like that,” he said severely. “Let me send Usher round at once.”
But there were objections he hadn’t thought about. A man in the house would have to be fed, whereas women could look after themselves and subsist on little. Also the flat was so small that three people would be tumbling over each other. And a final objection.
“You see I could have brought one of my own maids from Ripley, only I knew we could manage.”
As she spoke, Franklin seemed to catch a sound in the bedroom. He listened. “Isn’t that him moving?” She listened too. The sound, whatever it was, had stopped.
“I don’t think so. He generally knocks when he wants anything.… He was asleep just before you came in.” She laughed at the sudden thought. “So he actually doesn’t know you’re here!”
“Sleep’s what he wants.… A pity you can’t get him down to the country. Very charming round that way, I imagine.”
“Ripley? Yes, it’s still unspoiled. We’re quite near to Wokingham, of course… but really delightful country. Kenneth spends nearly every week-end down there, when he’s not too busy.”
“Why don’t you get him down there now?” asked Franklin. “It ought to put him on his legs in no time, getting out of doors for walks this frosty weather… and you to look after him.” He smiled. “Do you know, the prospect almost makes me wish I had an illness—a very tiny one, of course—so that I could get down there myself!”
She began to smile, then couldn’t resist the reproof. “We must all be thankful for the health we have given us.” Then she rose. “Shall I see if he’s still asleep?”
“I say, don’t bother. I’ll come round some other time when he knows I’m coming.”
“I’ll just give one little peep!” She smiled to him as she moved quietly out of the room. Franklin looked at his watch. Twenty minutes—and gone like five! Then he heard her voice in sudden alarm.
“Annie! Annie!… Come here, Annie!”
There was a scurry of the housekeeper’s steps and the sound of quick voices. Then Mrs. Hayles came back to the room, all agitation.
“Oh, Mr. Franklin! He’s gone! Whatever shall we do?”
Franklin sprang up. “Have you looked in all the rooms?”
Her face suddenly seemed very worn and helpless.
“Oh dear! I’m so frightened!”
Out on the landing the housekeeper was looking just as bewildered.
“What about his clothes?” asked Franklin. “See what’s gone!”
He followed her into the bedroom and watched her search. The clothes he had last worn were gone, and his overcoat and a bowler hat. For a moment Franklin was puzzled; then had an idea.
“You’d better go and see how your mistress is. She looked to me as if she were going to faint.”
So did the housekeeper for that matter. Franklin stood looking round the room, waiting for the sound of voices. Then he put his knee on the bed and leaned across. That bed—clothes still warm as he thrust his arm down—lay alongside the wall of the room in which he’d been talking. With his ear tight against it, he listened.
“He’s only gone for a walk, ma’am. He’ll be back again in a minute.”
“Oh, Annie! You know how ill he was…”
He slipped quickly out of the room and taking his cue from the overheard conversation, added his assurances. Undoubtedly it was merely a walk. Mr. Hayles had suddenly felt better. He’d said nothing because he didn’t want to alarm the women or hear their objections. Then another idea, which he was careful to camouflage.
“What about the doctor? When do you expect him?”
“He said about three, didn’t he, Annie?”
“Then Mr. Hayles has probably gone round to see him himself! Shall I ’phone… or run round? I think I’ll run round, if you give me the address.”
Had the doctor been further away than the other side of Curtal Square, Franklin would have been too late. As it was, the conversation took place on the pavement by the side of the car. The doctor was decidedly perturbed. His patient had been in a highly strung condition; trembling, in fact, on the edge of a breakdown; all nerves and far too ill to be moved—at least for some days—or he’d have had him away to the country. What he feared now was loss of memory, or at the best some sort of panic, with the amnesia to follow.
“What’s the best thing to do?” asked Franklin. “Those two women are nearly frightened out of their wits.”
The other thought for a moment. “I think I’ll slip round at once and talk to them.”
“That’s very good of you. And would you mind telling his mother that I’ll be round later to see if there’s any news.”
Not that he was expecting any news. What was worrying him was what had been in Wharton’s mind when he gave him that job of trying to plant Usher in the house. Extraordinary how the General would tell you so much and no more—till he made up his mind that the moment had come to let out another microscopic portion of news! Precautionary perhaps, but damn bad for results, that working for a man who merely let you catch glimpses of his mind. For instance, Usher had distinctly said that Hayles was suspicious of him—he was even positive about it—and yet Wharton was, as it were, deliberately irritating Hayles by what he couldn’t fail to recognise as a barefaced attempt to have him spied on.
Still, that wasn’t helping much at the moment. The thing was, where was Hayles likely to be? Suppose as soon as he heard through that flimsy wall a voice which he knew only too well, he stuck his ear against it, heart in his mouth and wondering just what was in the wind; then just what would he have heard? There’d have been the questioning of Mrs. Burgess, the announcement that the police hoped to have news; that Usher ought to be in the house… and that he (Hayles) ought to be got away to the country. Franklin grunted to himself. Suppose Hayles had really had a hand in those deaths at Regent View, what had his thoughts been like during the hours he had been lying in that bed? He must have been going through hell. There’d been the restlessness his mother had noticed; the waking up in the night and thinking about it all; the ever-present dread of the awful drop and the breaking neck; no wonder he’d panicked and taken to his heels! And where’d he gone? Surely to the place he’d heard suggested—his native village. If the panic and the illness both were faked, Ripley Norton would be a reasonable excuse if the law demanded one. In any case, Wharton had better be told at once. His idea had probably been that Hayles was curled up like a rat in a hole and that the presence of one man and the mention of another would be the pair of ferrets that would start him; and if so, Wharton wouldn’t be surprised at the news and might even have laid his plans accordingly!
He looked at his watch. Better wait a little longer—say till two o’clock—to see if Hayles really did turn up again. Moreover, both Wharton and Norris would be away.
At the very end of his lunch, a newsboy came shouting along the pavement by the small restaurant where he sat over his coffee and he slipped out and bought a paper. There was the inquest—a verbatim report; everything smooth and according to the schedule Wharton had laid down. There were pictures that spoke of the enterprise of the press—crowds outside the court and—so abrupt as to be a shock—the face of France himself, with its gloriously alert and slightly supercilious expression. For the first time, Franklin felt a sudden surge of infinite pity. Life became for the moment a thing of unutterable sadness and a topsy-turvy business that led nowhere. There was France, with his happy-go-lucky acceptance of things and his cynical laugh that nobody could have taken seriously, and—strange shifting of thought—outside there that damnable mist that looked like becoming another fog. Then he caught the eye of the waitress, paid his bill and went round again to Curtal Square.
* * * * *
At the office he got going on some enlargements of Hayles’s photos from Two Years in the Ring. Next he tried to get hold of Wharton and Norris, and finally, tired of his own introspective company, strolled along to the Financial Department.
“Hallo!” said Travers. “Come along in! Heard all about the inquest?”
“Only the report. Why? Did you go?”
“Managed to sneak in. Nothing particular—except the crowds. I couldn’t help wondering what a hole-and-corner business it’d have been if it’d been only that poor old devil Somers.”
“Human nature!” said Franklin laconically. “When’s France’s funeral? To-morrow?”
“I believe so. His uncle’s former place, somewhere down in Berkshire. Probably be half London there. Still, there we are… as you say.” He broke off abruptly. “How’d you get on with Hayles?”
“That’s what I partly came along for,” said Franklin; “to get it off my chest,” and he gave an account of the morning’s adventures. Travers had no advice to give and no solution to suggest.
“What I was wondering was this,” said Franklin. “Should I send one of my own men down there—to that Ripley Norton place? It’d save time. You see, Wharton couldn’t otherwise get anybody down there till to-night. The trouble is, it seems rather like butting in.”
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