The Crime at the ‘Noah’s Ark’: A Golden Age Mystery

by Molly Thynne

  “Did he find anything?”

  “He found a snapshot of himself, taken at the sports here last summer. It was in Bessie’s room, all dolled up in a silver frame. Bessie’s the head housemaid, and not so young as she was, and Tom’s been a widower this four years. Proper taken aback, he was, and it was all I could do to prevent Bessie packin’ her box and goin’ over to her mother’s, then and there! That’s all he found, so far as I know, but he wasn’t givin’ nothin’ away.”

  “What about Mrs. van Dolen’s maid?”

  “Been with her fifteen years. Mrs. van Dolen’s left her three thousand pounds in her will, provided she’s still in her service when she dies, and Carter—that’s the maid—knows it. She told me that herself. It wouldn’t be worth her while to steal. She’s worried herself sick over them jewels, so she tells me, Mrs. van Dolen bein’ so careless like.”

  “If her mistress had been bumped off now she might have had a hand in it,” reflected Soames.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say as she hadn’t got a motive for that,” agreed Girling thoughtfully.

  “That’s the lot, then,” said Stuart.

  “Except for Miss Hamilton,” Constantine reminded him. “Anything known about her?”

  Girling shook his head.

  “That I don’t know. She wouldn’t come gossipin’ to me naturally. But she don’t look that sort.”

  Later on in the morning he came to them to say that Bates would like a few words with Stuart and Constantine if they did not mind stepping into the office.

  Soames’s eyebrows shot up.

  “And he doesn’t want me! Pretty sinister, I call that. I have a suspicion that the net is closing round me,” he called after them dramatically. He was nearer the truth than he realized.

  “Sorry to trouble you, gentlemen,” was Bates’s brisk opening, “but it’ll make my job a bit easier if you could help me as to the identity of some of the people here. There’s Lord Romsey and his little lot, for instance. I understand that you’ve met them elsewhere.”

  Constantine smiled.

  “If it’s impersonation you suspect, you can wipe the Romseys off your slate. I’ve known them, on and off, for a good many years, and I can vouch for it that they are the genuine article. Mrs. van Dolen I know well by sight, though I suppose, in the circumstances, she hardly comes under suspicion. I’m afraid I can’t help you with the rest. While we’re about it, though, aren’t you rather taking us for granted?”

  Bates grinned.

  “If you’ll cast your eye over that copy of The Illustrated Monthly on the hall table there, you’ll find an uncommonly good photo of yourself, sir. Girling showed it to me this morning. As for Mr. Stuart, there’s been half a dozen portraits of him in the daily papers during the last few weeks. No, I ain’t got no doubts about you, but there’s a bare chance that some one else here may be passin’ under a false name, and any help you can give me I should be obliged for. This Mr. Soames, now. You couldn’t give me a line on him, I suppose?”

  Constantine shook his head.

  “I’m afraid not. But, if intuition and a pretty good knowledge of the world goes for anything, I think you can take it from me that he is what he claims to be. In any case, he is more likely to be able to prove his identity than any one else in the house. He must have business papers connected with his firm, and, if you ring them up, they can no doubt describe him adequately enough. And there’s his luggage. If he’s a commercial traveller, he’s no doubt got his cases with him.”

  Bates nodded.

  “Mrs. Orkney Cloude?” he suggested.

  Constantine hesitated.

  “I’ve got a little theory of my own concerning Mrs. Orkney Cloude,” he said at last. “But, so far, it’s based on such very flimsy evidence that I should prefer to keep it to myself. In any case, it has no bearing whatever on the murder or the burglary. If I am right, however, you can safely wipe her off your list of suspects.”

  Bates frowned and scratched his head with his pencil.

  “If that’s as far as you’ll go, sir, I can’t force you,” he said slowly. “That leaves the Misses Adderley and the two young men.”

  “You’re not going to suggest that either of the Misses Adderley hit Carew on the head and climbed down that rope afterwards!” exclaimed Stuart. “Why, the poor old things have been simply dithering ever since Miss Amy saw the man in the mask.”

  Bates laughed.

  “I’m not worrying about them,” he admitted. “But I can’t seem to make much of that Mr. Melnotte, and twice this morning I’ve run into Mr. Trevor and Miss Hamilton with their heads together. Very hard at it, they were, and it’s a fact that Miss Hamilton had as good a chance at those emeralds as any one, besides knowing where they were kept and all.”

  For the life of him Stuart could not resist a swift glance in Constantine’s direction. But the old man looked the picture of innocence. Evidently he did not propose to inform Bates of the scene between Carew and Trevor in the passage, and, with a rather guilty feeling of relief, Stuart decided to keep what he knew to himself.

  “After all, it’s not an unnatural arrangement,” Constantine pointed out. “People tend to fall into couples in a hotel like this, and they are the two most likely to pair. If Miss Hamilton had an eye on the emeralds she must have had many opportunities to take them, judging by the way Mrs. van Dolen seems to have left them about. Why either she, or, for the matter of that, Mrs. van Dolen’s maid, should have chosen to work under such disadvantageous circumstances I fail to understand.”

  “I see your point, sir,” agreed Bates. “Whoever did it, had this one chance and took it. That Mr. Melnotte now. He had the next room to Major Carew and above Mrs. van Dolen’s. There’s a door between the two rooms, though it’s locked and the key’s missing. Mr. Melnotte says he’s never seen the key, and Girling admits that the door hasn’t been opened, to his knowledge, for the last two years or more. He can’t remember when he last noticed the key. Still, Mr. Melnotte may have used it. He’s young and active, and, according to Mr. Girling, he was fair bowled over at the sight of the body.”

  “It was an unpleasant sight, you know,” suggested Constantine mildly. “However, I hold no brief for young Melnotte. I can only give you the impression he has made on me. He’s one of those unfortunate people whose nerve goes back on them in an emergency, and I should say he’d got an abnormal dread of physical violence.”

  “Meaning he’s a coward,” put in Bates stolidly.

  Constantine smiled.

  “That’s what we should have called him in my young days,” he admitted. “But there’s a good deal to be said for the more modern theory. I don’t know what his origin may be, but I’ve an inkling that he’s had a hard fight to reach his present position. We’ve no idea what kind of childhood he may have had, and when or how his nerve was broken. I travelled down from London with him, you know, in a motor-coach. It was an unpleasant journey, and we had one or two very nasty skids. Melnotte was literally sweating with terror all the way. I didn’t like it myself, which, I suppose, made me feel a kind of sympathy for him. He’s badly frightened now, but not of the police, judging from what he said to me this morning. He wanted to know whether it was true that you were going to spend the night here, and seemed to be of the opinion that your proper place, if you did, would be on the mat outside his bedroom door!”

  “He may be putting it on, sir,” suggested Bates.

  “He may, but I find it very difficult to believe that he would be capable of carrying through that very unpleasant business last night. However, I can only give you my own impressions.”

  Bates rose to his feet.

  “I’m much obliged, gentlemen,” he said. “If there’s anything else that occurs to you, perhaps you’ll let me know.”

  He followed them out of the room and disappeared through the swing door that led to the back regions. Stuart strolled into the lounge, and was immediately aware of the hovering figure of Miss Amy Adderley. A little s
mile crossed his face at the thought of her as one of Bates’s possible suspects.

  “Can I speak to you for a moment, Mr. Stuart?” she asked anxiously. “Somewhere where we shall not be interrupted.”

  Considerably mystified, he assured her that he was at her disposal, and suggested that they should make use of the deserted coffee-room.

  She led him across the room and drew him into the big bow-window. He pulled a chair out from the table for her and watched her with concealed amusement as she sat down, casting an anxious glance in the direction of the big screen that concealed the service-door.

  “Can you tell me if the police-officer is still in the house?” she asked, her voice hardly above a whisper.

  “I think so. I was with him a minute ago. You’re not nervous, are you?”

  He saw her swallow suddenly, and knew that she was frightened, but she drew herself up with a pathetic assumption of dignity.

  “My sister and I have talked it over,” she said coldly, “and we have come to the conclusion that, as we never travel with anything of any great value, it is hardly likely that any thief would be likely to molest us. No, I wasn’t thinking of myself. When that policeman asked me this morning about the man I saw the night before last, I naturally told him everything I could remember. It was only afterwards that I discovered that my sister had had a very peculiar experience during the night.”

  “Last night, do you mean?”

  She nodded.

  “What time was that?”

  “I should have said early this morning,” went on Miss Adderley, with maddening deliberation. “She thinks it was shortly after four, but she cannot be certain, as she had looked at her watch some time before and is not sure how much time had passed since then. It was getting on for four o’clock when she looked at the time. After that, she lay awake for some time, she thinks, trying to get to sleep. Then, finding it useless, she got up and went to her dressing-table for a sleeping-powder she sometimes takes, very much against my advice, I may say. It is a habit I detest, in spite of the fact that she is acting under her doctor’s orders.”

  She paused, and Stuart almost groaned aloud in his impatience.

  “On her way back to bed,” she went on at last, her enunciation growing slower as she became more impressive, “she drew aside the curtain and glanced out of the window to see if the snow had stopped. Of course, properly speaking, I realize that she ought to see the police-officer herself about this, but, owing to her deafness, she felt she would rather that I explained matters to him first.”

  Stuart could contain himself no longer.

  “I understand. Very wise of you,” he interrupted ruthlessly. “But what did your sister see, Miss Adderley?”

  Miss Adderley’s voice dropped so low as to be almost inaudible.

  “She saw a man, carrying an electric torch, cross the yard and enter the hotel,” she whispered dramatically.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Leaving Miss Adderley drifting excitedly among the tables in the empty coffee-room, Stuart departed in search of Bates. Having drawn all likely places in vain, he returned to the lounge, only to meet him coming in through the front door with Girling. The clothes of both men were heavily powdered with snow.

  “We’ve had one bit of luck, anyway,” was the landlord’s greeting.

  Bates thrust out his hand and disclosed a large key.

  “Lying in the snow underneath the balcony,” he volunteered. “I’m going up to try it, but I’ll wager it’s the key to Major Carew’s door. That settles one point for us. The chap must have chucked this away after he’d shinned down the rope, and then got back into the hotel through Mrs. van Dolen’s room. She found her door unlocked, if you remember.”

  “Plausible enough,” agreed Stuart. “But that doesn’t get us anywhere.”

  “It helps us this far,” asserted Bates. “It’s an inside job, and if those jewels are hidden anywhere in this house, I’m going to find them! Meanwhile, we’ll try the key.”

  He was already on his way towards the stairs when Stuart stopped him.

  “Don’t be too sure about that,” he said. “Some one was seen getting in at the back door shortly after four this morning.”

  Bates swung round.

  “What’s that?” he exclaimed. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it!”

  Stuart made a gesture towards the coffee-room door, behind which a female form was to be seen hovering expectantly.

  “Miss Amy Adderley is waiting to have a word with you,” he said. “It seems that her sister saw a man from her window.”

  Leaving Bates moving ponderously in the direction of the coffee-room, he went upstairs to his room. It seemed to him high time that he made an effort to marshal his own impressions into some sort of order, a task only to be attempted in solitude. One glance into his bedroom showed him that here, at least, this was denied to him. The fire had only just been lighted, and was smoking dolorously. On the rug beside it lay a dustpan and brush, evidence that the housemaid was still in possession.

  Waiting only to collect his pipe and tobacco-pouch he departed to the upper regions in search of a spot more suitable for meditation.

  Peering round the door of the little room Miss Adderley had christened “the ladies’ sitting-room,” he perceived the crowns of two heads, barely showing above the back of a small sofa drawn close to the fire, and recognized the low, absorbed voices of Miss Hamilton and her knight-errant, Trevor. Evidently that little episode was already bearing fruit. With a silent blessing he withdrew and cautiously reconnoitred the billiard-room next door. To his surprise it was empty, and, with a sigh of relief, he drew a big armchair up to the blazing fire, filled his pipe, and set to work to sort out his impressions.

  It was only natural that his thoughts should stray first in the direction of the couple next door. Miss Hamilton, as Bates had pointed out, was the one person in the house, with the exception of Mrs. van Dolen’s own maid, who had easy access to the emeralds. And young Trevor was, so far, an unknown quantity. True, everything pointed to his own account of himself as being correct, and his youth and apparent ingenuousness, at any rate, were in his favour, but there was no reason why he and Miss Hamilton should not have known each other before, and nothing to show that they had not been acting in collusion. Stuart had the novelist’s trick of summing up and pigeon-holing people according to their various types, and he had already endowed Miss Hamilton with the conscientiousness, method, and mediocrity of brain that so often goes to the making of an excellent secretary. Trevor he had put down as the more intelligent of the two, but both of them seemed to him singularly lacking in guile. However, in view of the circumstances, it seemed only reasonable to consider them as possible suspects, and, leaving them on the list, he turned his attention to the other inmates of the “Noah’s Ark.”

  The Romseys, Constantine, and Mrs. van Dolen herself he passed over. Of course, any one of these people might, for some fantastic reason, have taken the emeralds, and, so far as Mrs. van Dolen was concerned, jewels carrying heavy insurances had been “mislaid” by their owners before now; but, working as a psychologist rather than a policeman, he found it difficult to entertain the idea of their guilt seriously. And yet, in view of certain knowledge that he had not seen fit to share with either Constantine or Bates, he found it difficult to dismiss Geoffrey Ford entirely from his speculations. Which, by a natural sequence, brought him to Mrs. Orkney Cloude, whom, unfortunately for the task he had set himself, he both liked and admired. An apparently rich women travelling, curiously enough, without a maid. That was all he knew of her, except for the disquieting discovery that she was on fairly intimate terms with some man in the hotel, and was at pains to conceal the fact. When he had first surprised the little scene on the stairs, he had jumped to the amazing conclusion that her companion on that occasion was Lord Romsey. Since then, however, he had realized how closely Geoffrey Ford’s voice resembled that of his father. It was certainly far more likely that Ford, unknown to his
family, should be having an affair with Mrs. Cloude, than that Lord Romsey, stupid and vain though he undoubtedly was, should be carrying on so undignified an intrigue. Given that this was the case, and that Angela Ford had discovered it, the conversation Soames had overheard might very well be a quite innocent one. At which point he set himself to the consideration of Soames.

  Here again he was hampered by his liking for the man; but, he reminded himself, of all the people in the hotel, Soames was most fully equipped with those qualities that go to the making of a successful crook. And, looking back, he realized that it was Soames, all along, who had taken the initiative. He it was that had practically forced his acquaintanceship on the two other men, he it was who had consistently contrived to throw suspicion on Geoffrey Ford, and, later, had argued plausibly enough in favour of the possibility of Melnotte’s guilt. And Soames had known of the emeralds on the night of his arrival at the inn. Constantine himself had described them to him.

  Stuart, who was becoming conscious of an increasing distaste for the job he had set himself, turned his thoughts to the last person on his list—Felix Melnotte. Though he held no brief for this exotic individual, he was inclined to endorse Constantine’s estimate of his character. Unless he were an uncommonly good actor, it seemed inconceivable that any one so noticeably lacking in courage and intelligence should be capable of the cold-blooded and ruthless performance of the night before.

  With a sigh he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and hitched his chair nearer the fire, conscious that, as an investigator, he was cutting a pretty poor figure. If either Mrs. Cloude or Soames were involved in the murder, he would prefer, he told himself frankly, to be well on his way back to London before Bates laid his heavy hand on their shoulders. His mind drifted off on to the draft of an article entitled “Do Novelists make good Detectives?” and, with the help of a pencil and the back of an old letter, he was making a really good thing of it, when a voice behind his chair startled him.