by Molly Thynne
“Are you being really busy, or just making a job for yourself?” it asked.
Angela Ford skirted the chair and propped one shoulder against the mantelpiece.
Stuart sprang to his feet.
“I was merely frowsting,” he answered. “Have you anything better to suggest?”
“There is nothing better,” was her decisive answer. “As a matter of fact, I’ve grown tired to death of my own company. May I frowst with you?”
He dragged up a second chair and she sank into it.
“I’ve been sitting alone in my room sleuthing,” she announced gloomily. “You can take it from me it’s a rotten game! As the result of an hour’s hard work, I don’t mind telling you, in strict confidence of course, that I haven’t the remotest idea who stole Mrs. van Dolen’s emeralds.”
Stuart, remembering that many a true word is spoken in jest, was seized with a sudden inspiration.
“I suppose your brother didn’t take them by any chance?” he asked lightly. “I’ve been doing a bit of deducting myself, and he’s the only person who doesn’t seem to have produced a perfectly good alibi!”
He grinned in a way which, he hoped, conveyed the utter absurdity of the suggestion.
“Geoffrey?”
His heart leaped with relief at the amused incredulity in her voice. It was so obviously genuine.
“If Geoffrey picked an acid-drop off the pavement, he’d spend the rest of the day looking for the child that had lost it!” she said. “He’s one of those people with an over-developed bump of conscientiousness. As a matter of fact, he’s probably the only person in the hotel at this moment that honestly thinks Mrs. van Dolen ought to get her ghastly girdle back again. Personally, I think she richly deserves to lose it; but then, I should make a much better burglar than Geoff!”
“That’s that then,” said Stuart. “Which leaves me in precisely the same predicament as yourself. I do not know who stole the good lady’s emeralds, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not going to bother any more about them.”
“The point is rather, whether the thief is going to bother any more about us,” she pointed out. “I should hate to lose my pearls, you know. Neither do I wish to be murdered in my bed. Dr. Constantine seems to have made up his mind that it’s some one inside the house, and that he’s still here. It’s not a very cheering prospect.”
“The only thing to do is to lock our doors and windows, and leave Bates to ferret him out.”
“Or sleep with a poker under our pillows,” she suggested sweetly.
Stuart groaned.
“So that’s got about, has it? In self-defence I should like to state that the poker was Miss Adderley’s, and that she literally forced it on me. If I’d had my choice I should have taken something much heavier and more adequate.”
“I shouldn’t worry,” she said consolingly. “Every one thinks you were very brave.”
Stuart peered over the arm of his chair.
“I can see you grinning from here,” he assured her. “My hurt feelings are not in the least assuaged. Who was the reptile that gave me away?”
“I’m afraid it’s more or less in the air,” she answered. “I’ve been discussing the whole thing with Dr. Constantine, and I admit I did ask him if it was true. He was really very nice about it, you know. He told me, by the way, that the police have been all over the house. They even got that wretched chauffeur who’s laid up with lumbago out of bed and searched his mattress! Apparently half the servants have given notice, and poor Mr. Girling’s frantic.”
“The ‘police’ being one, Tom Bates, the village constable,” said Stuart, with a chuckle. “Have you come up against him yet? He’s a character, in his way, and no fool. According to Girling, he found more than he bargained for in the housemaid’s room!”
He told her of Bates’s discovery of his own photograph, after which the conversation drifted to other topics, and the atmosphere of the billiard-room became very like that of the ladies’ sitting-room next door, its outward and visible symbol being two heads visible over the backs of two armchairs, the crackling of the logs in the grate, and the soft, contented drone of two voices.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Stuart and Soames took a brisk walk, and were unaffectedly glad when it was over and they could shed their sopping clothes and thaw themselves by the fire. Bates was seen at intervals, stolidly intent upon his business. In answer to the Misses Adderley’s anxious inquiries he announced his intention of spending the night in the house, and the occupants of the “Noah’s Ark” retired to bed early, anxious to secure the night’s rest they felt that they deserved. In spite of the knowledge of Bates’s reassuring presence, most of them locked their doors carefully before putting out the light, and Stuart was awakened in the morning by the ineffectual efforts of the chambermaid to persuade the deaf Miss Adderley to unlock her door and admit her matutinal hot water, Miss Amy being, for the moment, in possession of the bathroom and in no position to explain the situation to her sister.
Stuart, congratulating himself on having at last succeeded in sleeping the whole night through, dressed and made his way downstairs. He was met in the lounge by Girling, and one glance at the landlord’s wizened countenance was enough to convey the fact that calamity had once more descended on the snowbound household.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” he began in a low voice, “but there’s more trouble. It’s the cars this time.”
Stuart’s thoughts flew to his most recent possession.
“Good Lord, man!” he exclaimed. “They can’t have taken those! Only a wizard could get a car away over these roads in the state they’re in.”
Girling permitted himself the ghost of a smile, but he was more seriously perturbed than Stuart had ever seen him.
“The cars are there all right,” he said; “but some one’s been in the barn during the night and slashed the cushions something cruel. At first I thought it was spite, but, seein’ the way everything’s turned out on the floor—tool-boxes and all—I’d say some one had been lookin’ for something. Bates is in there now. You’re the first I’ve seen, except for Dr. Constantine, and I can tell you I don’t relish breakin’ the news to the others. What Lord Romsey’ll say, I don’t like to think, and I’d give somethin’ for it not to have happened here, me bein’ responsible, as it were. I’m more sorry than I can say, sir.”
His distress was evident, and Stuart hastened to reassure him.
“You needn’t take it to heart, so far as I’m concerned,” he said. “My insurance will cover any damage of that sort, and I expect you’ll find that the others are in the same case. What the dickens was the fellow after?”
“Ask me another, sir,” was Girling’s gloomy rejoinder. “I suppose I had ought to have been more careful with the key, but nothing like the doings of the last few days has ever happened in this village before, and that key’s always hung where we found it this mornin’, on the nail inside the back door. The barn door’s solid enough, and it hasn’t been damaged. Accordin’ to Bates, whoever done it must have opened the door with the key.”
“How many cars are damaged?” asked Stuart.
“The six that were in there. Yours, Lord Romsey’s, Mr. Soames’s, Major Carew’s, the one that chauffeur that’s ill upstairs brought in, and the Ford we use for station work. By a bit o’ luck the others are all at the coach-builder’s in village, owin’ to there not being room for them in the barn. I sent a man up there to inquire, and they haven’t been touched. It’s a queer go, and that’s a fact.”
Stuart hesitated for a moment, then, with a glance at the drifting snow outside: “I’ll get something hot inside me first, and then have a look at the car. There’s nothing to be gained by going now. You say Bates is there?”
“Him and Dr. Constantine. Dr. Constantine came down about ten minutes ago, and as soon as he heard what had happened he went over. I don’t fancy Tom Bates was any too pleased.”
Stuart made a hearty breakfast in spi
te of the bad start to his day. Except for the Misses Adderley, who were established primly at their table in the window, he had the room to himself. They both bowed and expressed the hope that he had slept well, and, from their dignified calm, he concluded that they had not yet heard of the latest outrage.
He had almost finished when Constantine joined him. He looked chilled, and, for him, distinctly ruffled.
“This business is getting too much for Bates altogether,” was his comment as he sat down. “Yes, coffee please, and lots of it.”
Stuart indicated the occupants of the other table.
“I gather the news hasn’t spread yet,” he warned him.
Constantine nodded.
“There’ll be a fine commotion when it does,” he said, lowering his voice carefully. “If it wasn’t obvious that the perpetrator was looking for something, it would be a case of sheer malicious damage. Your car has suffered badly, I’m afraid.”
“Any damage to the engines?”
“None, so far as we can find out. Lord Romsey’s chauffeur has looked them over, and doesn’t think they have been touched. There was an indignation meeting of chauffeurs going on in the back regions when I came through just now.”
“It’s no good asking if there’s any indication as to who was responsible, I suppose?”
“None that I could see; but Bates is on his official dignity to-day, and intimated pretty clearly that he didn’t want any elderly gentlemen poking round. The truth is, he’s getting badly rattled. As soon as this snow clears he’ll have New Scotland Yard on his heels, and, so far, he’s got very little to show for his work.”
“I don’t blame him,” said Stuart. “He can’t arrest the lot of us wholesale, and, failing that, I don’t honestly see what he’s to do. Anyhow, he can’t prevent me from having a look at my own car, and I propose to do so after breakfast.”
“Accompanied by me,” asserted Constantine firmly. “My investigations were ruthlessly interrupted just now, and I intend to get my own back.”
Stuart realized, to his amusement, that the old man was genuinely annoyed at having been baffled.
“We’ll let him clear out and then we’ll do a little sleuthing on our own,” he said soothingly.
They waited in the lounge until they had seen Bates plod off through the snow in the direction of his cottage, then, having with some difficulty run the key to earth in Girling’s office, where, going on the principle of shutting the stable door after the steed had been stolen, he now kept it locked in his desk, they crossed the yard to the barn.
A glance was enough to show Stuart that the search, if search it were, had been thorough. Not only were the cushions of all six cars badly damaged, but the contents of every receptacle capable of holding anything had been turned out on to the floor of the barn.
Constantine wasted no time over the cars.
“This is what I want to see,” he said, making his way to a corner of the barn, in which stood an overturned sack. “I’ve no doubt Bates has been before me, though.”
The sack, which contained bran, was lying on its side, and at least half its contents had run out on to the ground. Constantine bent over it and plunged his arm into it up to the elbow.
“Nothing there,” he said philosophically, as he straightened himself. “It was too much to hope for. But it’s pretty clear what the fellow was after, and I’ve a strong suspicion that this is where he found it.”
Stuart stared at him.
“You don’t mean Mrs. van Dolen’s girdle?”
“It looks like it. In which case we’ve now got two sets of thieves to deal with. If some one has been instituting a search in this barn, whether it is for the emeralds or not, it stands to reason that some one else must have hidden something. That’s what has upset Bates! He has just realized that, while he was turning the inn upside down, the emeralds were probably here all the time!”
He brushed the bran from his clothes, and came over to where Stuart was standing by his car.
“If the emerald girdle was the objective,” he went on gravely, “it is now probably back in the hotel; and if there really are two lots of people in the house, both set on getting it, some very unpleasant things are likely to happen within the next few days. One of these people we know to be ruthless in his methods, and, from the look of these cars, the other is not any too squeamish.”
Stuart nodded.
“And, like a street row,” he said, “the onlooker is likely to get hurt! And the thieves can’t, either of them, get away. In fact, until the snow clears, we seem to be for it. I’m not sure that I care for this Corsican atmosphere! If Bates is going to do anything, I wish he’d do it.”
“Bates is as much at sea as any of us. He swears the emeralds are not in the house. He searched my room at my request this morning before I came down to breakfast, and he tells me that the other members of the party have asked him to do the same to them. He is positive that he will draw blank, and I agree with him. The servants have already been through it. In fact, after their first revolt, they were anxious to be searched. And I think we may take it that there’s nothing here,” he finished, with a glance at the havoc that had already been wrought in the barn.
And the thief can’t get away; therefore, where are they?” finished Stuart flippantly. “There’s always the snow, of course.”
“Which may melt in a night,” Constantine reminded him. “Too unsafe. No, it looks as if they were actually in some one’s pocket at this moment.”
At idea struck Stuart. He turned on Constantine excitedly.
“Unless no one knows where they are!” he exclaimed. “Has it occurred to you that Carew may have taken them originally? Supposing it was he who went down the rope and robbed Mrs. van Dolen? He may have succeeded in hiding the emeralds before he was surprised by the chap who killed him. We’ve all taken it for granted that he was an innocent victim until now. What if he were the thief?”
“There’s no real reason why he shouldn’t have been,” admitted Constantine. “Especially in view of this recent development. The idea did occur to me, and I dismissed it for various reasons, none of which were really very convincing. The truth is, I find it very difficult to picture him in the role of a successful burglar. Also, I cannot bring myself to believe that he was not genuinely drunk that night, in which case he was physically incapable of carrying out anything of the sort. Also remember, he was undoubtedly attacked while in bed, probably before he was properly awake. Given that his assailant knew that he had taken the emeralds earlier in the evening, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that he would have allowed him time to hide them and go quietly back to bed, or that, having done so, he would have killed him without first making some effort to find out what he had done with his booty. A more stupid, clumsy, and unnecessary murder it is difficult to imagine, and, from the neatness with which he has covered his tracks ever since, it does not look as if we had a burglar to deal with.”
“He may have taken it for granted that Carew had the girdle concealed in his room,” suggested Stuart.
“He may, but you have got to take into account the fact that, if he knew Carew to be a thief, he must have been on the watch when he took the girdle. If Carew did hide the thing in this barn, the other man must have known of it. It would have been the simplest thing in the world for him to have waited till Carew was asleep, and then have come here and abstracted it. Honestly, I think the theory that he used Carew’s room, and only attacked him because he woke unexpectedly and threatened to raise the alarm, is the only one that holds water, but I am not rejecting the alternative theory entirely. The whole thing is so mysterious that almost any explanation may be possible. The one thing that does seem clear to my mind is the fact that some one, other than the thief, is after the emeralds. Whether he found them last night, or whether they are still in the hands of the person who originally took them, or, as you suggest, they are so securely hidden that neither party knows where they are, is at present a mystery.” Stuart indicate
d the damaged cars.
“Supposing all this has no bearing whatever on the robbery?”
“You are at liberty to suppose what you like,” was Constantine’s rather tart rejoinder. “I, personally, refuse to believe that it hasn’t.”
As they left the barn he stooped to examine the lock of the heavy door. Then in silence he followed Stuart back to the inn; there he made a careful inspection of the lock of the door leading into the yard. This time he inserted the tip of his little finger into the keyhole.
“Smell that,” he said, holding out his hand. “It’s oil. The barn door has been well oiled, too. Our thief was a gentleman of forethought.”
Some hours later Stuart, sitting on the edge of his bed, watching Bates deliberately and painstakingly going through his possessions, remembered his words, and was seized with the horrible conviction that the thief might easily have planted the girdle on any one of the unsuspecting occupants of the “Noah’s Ark.” His attitude from then onwards until Bates closed the last drawer of his bureau, was that of the traveller who watches the Custom-house officers at their work, acutely aware of the fact that, at any minute, they may stumble on the cigarettes he has hidden in his portmanteau. His relief when the constable thanked him and departed was whole-hearted. He discovered afterwards that Soames had been assailed by the same misgivings, and had even gone so far as to institute a hurried search of his own effects before Bates arrived on the scene.
As Constantine had predicted, Bates found nothing, but he succeeded in so thoroughly upsetting the feelings of the Misses Adderley that Miss Connie was reduced to tears and took to her bed.
On his way to dress for dinner Stuart met her, a distraught apparition in a dressing-gown, clasping a sponge in one hand and a large bottle of bath salts in the other, being assisted along the passage by her sister.