Outrageous Fortune

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Yes. I want to make a statement—I came here to make one.”

  Major Anderson opened the door behind him.

  “Come into my study. Jock, you’d better take Kitty and Miss Leigh home.”

  Caroline turned piteous eyes on him.

  “Major Anderson, please let me come in. I want to make a statement too. I know some of it better than he does.”

  She came up to him. He surely couldn’t have the heart to keep her out. She blessed the inspector when he said,

  “I think we’d better have her in, sir.”

  And then there were four of them in the small smoky room, with its neat writing-table and its comfortable shabby chairs. Caroline sat down on one of them, and the door was shut. The inspector was speaking to Jim.

  Caroline shut her eyes. She felt odd and light, like a soap-bubble that is just going to fly away. Everything shook a little—the chair, the floor, her own body, her thoughts. She shut her eyes.

  When she opened them again, the inspector was sitting at the writing-table. He had a sheet of foolscap before him and a pen in his hand. Jim was sitting opposite to him, and Major Anderson was standing with his back to the mantelpiece. He was frowning as Caroline opened her eyes. He said,

  “Before you make a statement I had better tell you that Mr Van Berg is expected to recover consciousness any time during the next few hours.”

  The inspector dipped his pen in the ink. It was not for him to interrupt the Chief Constable, but he was full of disapproval. The law had been complied with; Mr. Randal had been warned. Let him make his statement. If he ran his head into a noose, so much the worse for him, and so much the better for the law.

  Major Anderson’s frown deepened. He had known Jim Randal since he was eight years old. He had dined at Hale Place four times a year for fifteen years. He had kissed Caroline in her perambulator. He didn’t care a damn for the inspector. He was going to do his duty, but he wasn’t going to stretch his duty. He wasn’t going to have Jim Randal bucketed into making a statement without knowing what he was up against.

  “One moment, Inspector,” he said. “Now, Randal—you say you want to make a statement. Before you do so I think you ought to know that I saw Mrs Van Berg this morning.”

  “Yes?”

  “She says that on the night of the sixth of August she came down between eleven and twelve o’clock to get a book. She heard voices in the study, and she now says that she recognized one of them as yours.”

  “Yes,” said Jim—“I was there. I think you had better let me make my statement. There really isn’t any time to lose. Meanwhile let me tell you that the man who shot Elmer Van Berg and lifted the emeralds is Jim, or Jimmy, Riddell, and I left him twenty minutes ago having an interview with his wife up at St Leonard’s Tower. Here’s his description. Five-foot-eight or so—slim—wiry—two teeth missing in front—long nose—long chin—palish—between thirty and thirty-five—”

  “Jimmy the Eel!” said the inspector.

  “Well, you’d better look slippy or he’ll get away. His wife’s maiden name was Nesta Williams. She’s a cousin of the housekeeper at Packham Hall, and she’s living with a brother, Tom Williams, at Happicot, Sandringham Drive, Ledlington End.”

  The atmosphere in the room had changed.

  “Jimmy the Eel!” said the inspector under his breath. Then, “We’d better get hold of him. Excuse me, sir.” He lifted the telephone and spoke into it.

  They waited until he had finished. Jim looked at Caroline and nodded reassuringly.

  The inspector was giving instructions about Jimmy the Eel. Jim struck in once.

  “His original idea was to get to Glasgow, lie low there for a bit, and then get abroad. But I think he’s more likely to hang around here now—you’ll see why presently.”

  The inspector nodded and went on with his instructions. Presently he hung up the receiver.

  “Now, Randal,” said Major Anderson.

  “Well,” said Jim, “I landed at Liverpool on the first of July—but if you’ve been taking an interest in me, I expect you know that. I was in the wreck of the Alice Arden on August the eighth, and until about half an hour ago I hadn’t the remotest idea of what had happened between those two dates—” He paused, and added, “with one exception.”

  A wave of excitement swept over Caroline. The colour rushed to her cheeks. The room stopped trembling.

  “Look here,” said Jim, “can I tell this my own way? I’ll sign a formal statement afterwards if you want me to, but I’d like to tell it to you first just as it happened. Can I do that?”

  “Yes,” said Major Anderson. “Carry on.”

  “Well then, I was in the wreck of the Alice Arden, and I understand that I was taken to the Elston cottage hospital, where I kept on repeating the name of Jim, or Jimmy, Riddell. They weren’t sure at first whether I was saying Riddell or Randal, so they sent out a broadcast message with both names. Next day Mrs Riddell rolled up, identified me as her husband, and carried me off to Sandringham Drive. I don’t remember any of this myself, but I gather that that is what happened. Now I come to what I do remember. I woke up next day in a perfectly strange room. A perfectly strange young woman came in and assured me that my name was Jimmy Riddell, and that she was my wife. Well, it was a bit of a knock-out. I couldn’t contradict her, because as far as having any memory was concerned I might have been a new-born baby. The only thing I remembered—and I didn’t know whether I was remembering it or not—was someone holding up a string of square green stones under a bright light. That kept on getting clearer and clearer all the time—I used to see it whenever I shut my eyes. And there was a fog, and a voice talking in the fog—talking about the emeralds and Jimmy Riddell. It worried me to death, because I couldn’t make out whether it was my own voice or not.” He paused.

  Major Anderson said, “This is a most extraordinary story, Randal.”

  The inspector said nothing. His light, rather prominent eyes remained fixed on Jim’s face.

  Jim went on again.

  “I’ll cut it as short as I can, but you’ve got to understand the sort of state I was in. Nesta Riddell showed me a marriage certificate. She said we’d been married on the twenty-fifth of July at the Grove Road registry office in London, and she told me that I had shot Elmer Van Berg and stolen eight very valuable emeralds on the night of the sixth of August. She wanted to know what I had done with the emeralds. She said I was on the Alice Arden because I was on my way to Glasgow. She said I’d hidden the emeralds before I went, and she wanted to know where they were.”

  Major Anderson took a step forward.

  “Really, Randal, I don’t know whether you hadn’t better see a doctor. This is the most extraordinary story!”

  The inspector shifted his light stare to the Chief Constable.

  “I think I should let him go on, sir.”

  Jim Randal laughed.

  “I know it sounds extraordinary, but I’m perfectly sane. I’d like to go on if I may.”

  He went on.

  “I went to the public library and read up the Van Berg Case. I couldn’t believe I’d gone to see a man as a friend, talked with him, had drinks with him, and then shot him.”

  Major Anderson made an abrupt movement. Jim turned towards him.

  “Bits of my memory were coming back. It was like seeing pictures—little brightly lighted pictures. I could see myself drinking with Elmer Van Berg. I knew that I called him Elmer, and that his wife’s name was Susie. And when I remembered all that, I got the wind up, because it seemed as if I must have done it—and there were my finger-prints on the glass I’d used. I fairly got the wind up. I saw a poster, ‘Man Wanted by the Police,’ and my one idea was to get out of Ledlington. Well, I started out across country without any idea of where I was going. I kept trying to think things out, but it was all a muddle. The most damning thing was that Nesta Riddell really did think I’d got the emeralds—there was no mistake about that.”

  Major Anderson coughed.
The fellow was incriminating himself, getting deeper and deeper every minute. Temporary insanity—that would be the best line for the defence to take. Unpleasant business—very.

  Jim restrained a smile and went on.

  “I wandered about, and I slept a bit, and then I got into country which seemed familiar. To cut a long story short, I fetched up at Hale Place, and when I got there I remembered everything except the time between the first of July and the thirteenth of August—which was when I waked up at Happicot.”

  The inspector made a note of the dates.

  “I got into the house and I stayed there. You can understand that I wanted time. I made up my mind to wait for a week and see what happened. You see, there were several things that might happen. I might remember—or Elmer Van Berg might recover consciousness—or the police might lay hands on the real criminal. I knew I was exposing myself to suspicion, but I decided to wait. For one thing, I still wasn’t sure whether I wasn’t Jim Riddell.” He looked from one to the other. “Have you got that clear? Except for some very compromising flashes of memory which gave me pictures of the emeralds and of Elmer, my recollections stopped short at July the first. There was all July and a bit of August for me to have called myself Jimmy Riddell, turned crook, married Nesta Williams, burgled the emeralds, and shot Elmer Van Berg. You see my point?”

  He got no response, Major Anderson wore a worried frown. The inspector’s face was perfectly blank; he might have been thinking deeply, he might have been on the point of dropping asleep. Neither his heavy features nor his pale stare gave the slightest clue to what was passing in his mind. He had written half a dozen words on the sheet of foolscap which lay before him. His pen remained poised.

  Jim went on speaking.

  “During the time I was at Hale Place the house was twice entered—”

  “Entered?” said Major Anderson sharply.

  Jim nodded.

  “There’s a room there called the Blue Room. It has five windows like slits. The burglar came straight to this room on both occasions. The first time I surprised him. He charged me and got away. The second time he got what he had come for—the emeralds.”

  “What?” said Major Anderson.

  “The emeralds were at Hale Place?” said the inspector.

  “They were hidden in the Blue Room. He got away with them, and I followed him to Hinton by the field path. He caught the last train into Ledlington, and I just missed it. I came on in the morning and watched for Mrs Riddell—I had some information which led me to suppose that he had come to her for money, and that she would meet him with it, probably after dark. I watched the road all day. In the evening Miss Leigh met me. She had her car, and thanks to her I was able to follow Mrs Riddell when she came out. She had taken her brother’s motor-bicycle. We followed her to St Leonard’s Tower. Miss Leigh remained in the field, whilst I went on to the ruins. I overheard an interview between Mrs Riddell and the man. They quarrelled. She had parked the money somewhere, and absolutely refused to hand it over unless he showed her the emeralds. In the end he gave way. They were on one side of the Tower, and I was on the other, with one of those narrow slits between us. He struck a match, and there were the emeralds dangling about a yard away from me.” He paused.

  “Well?” said Major Anderson.

  Jim laughed.

  “I grabbed them.”

  He dived into a pocket and flung a glittering heap of green and pearl upon the inspector’s foolscap.

  “There they are!” he said.

  XXXV

  Major Anderson came forward and leaned on the table. Caroline looked up from the tangle of green and pearl and saw his face. Something that was written there brought her to her feet. She came and stood by Jim, and as she put a hand on his shoulder, the inspector said,

  “Well, sir, I think that settles it.”

  Caroline began to shake. Why had Jim told them all those things? They weren’t going to understand. The things they were thinking were like a fog in the room. She felt as if it were stifling her. Jim’s hand came up and covered hers. It was strong, and warm, and heavy. He said,

  “Go and sit down, Caroline.”

  And then, to the inspector,

  “You’d better let me finish. I’ve only got half way.”

  “Let him go on,” said Major Anderson in a hard, tired voice. It was a good thing old James Randal was dead. Nice woman Mrs Randal. Not many of her sort left nowadays—sweet voice; pretty ways; womanly. That was it—not many womanly women left. A good thing she’d gone—a thing like this would have killed her. The fellow must be mad of course. A damned bad business.

  He watched the inspector pick up the shining heap. It straightened into a double pearl-strung chain linking the eight square emeralds so lightly that they seemed to hang in the air. They were as magically green as a black cat’s eyes. The inspector let them fall upon a piece of blotting paper.

  Major Anderson went back to the fireplace and said curtly,

  “Go on, Randal.”

  Jim moved his chair back a little. He wanted to be able to address the Chief Constable without appearing to ignore the inspector.

  “Now we’re really going to get down to it. I snatched the emeralds and made off just about as hard as I could go, and all in a flash, whilst I was running, my memory came back. You know the way a blind goes up with a click. It was like that. I won’t bother you with how we fetched up here. I want to tell you what I’ve remembered. To start with, I wasn’t Jim Riddell, and I hadn’t married Nesta Williams. My business over here was to try and interest various important people in a new steel process which I had invented. Elmer Van Berg was one of them. He’d been nibbling at it out in the States, where I’d known him pretty well. He’s the sort of man who gets red-hot keen about a thing and then drops it—not a stayer—you’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot. Well, he’d cooled off. On the sixth of August I had a telephone conversation with him. When he heard that certain other people were interested in my process, he warmed up a bit. I can’t mention names, because it’s all very confidential. The upshot of the talk was that he wanted me to go down and see him. Well, I was leaving for Scotland next day and I didn’t want to put off going, so I went down by train to Hinton and walked over to Packham. I was glad to get the exercise.”

  “What train did you take?” said the inspector.

  “The eight-twenty. It got into Hinton at ten-fifteen. I believe it is due at ten-ten. I walked over to Packham, and it took me about an hour and a half. I went round to the library and knocked on the window, and Elmer let me in as we had arranged. We talked, and we had drinks, but we didn’t come to any agreement.”

  “Did you quarrel?” said the inspector.

  “It depends on what you’d call a quarrel. We didn’t agree. If you don’t agree with Elmer, he tries to shout you down. There’s nothing in it, but it’s noisy while it lasts.”

  “You parted on bad terms?” said the inspector.

  “Oh no, we didn’t—he blew himself out and calmed down. We had another drink. He told me about all the shows they were going to, and about the emeralds. He said his wife was going to wear them at the Rackingtons’ in a day or two—tableaux for some charity—so he’d got them in the house. He asked me if I’d like to see them, and I said yes. He took them out of his safe and showed them to me. That was the bit I remembered—his hand under the light, and those eight thumping big stones. I said they must be worth a fortune, and he said they were. Then I said good-night and went out the same way I’d come in. I let myself out. He was over by the table swinging the chain on his finger and worshipping it. He’s crazy about stones.”

  The inspector spoke again.

  “You left him like that?”

  “I left him like that. No, I haven’t finished—not by a long chalk. I’d missed the last train handsomely, so I walked into Ledlington.”

  The inspector’s eyebrows twitched.

  “You walked into Ledlington?”

  “I did.”


  “Twenty miles?”

  “Why not? I told you I was short of exercise.”

  “Mr Van Berg didn’t ask you to stay the night?”

  “Yes, he asked me.”

  “Why didn’t you stay?”

  “I didn’t want to. I wanted to get back to London—I’d my boat to catch.”

  “So you walked to Ledlington?”

  “Yes. I took the first train on up to town and went on board the Alice Arden. You know about the wreck, so I can skip all that. I was washed overboard and flung up on a piece of rock. I don’t know why I wasn’t battered to bits—there was an awful sea running, and a fog, so that you couldn’t see your hand before your face. It didn’t take me long to find out that the tide was coming in. I didn’t think much of my chances, because I didn’t think my rock was above high water mark. I could hear people shouting and screaming. I shouted as loud as I could. Presently something bobbed up and hit me. It was a man. A wave fairly slung him at me, and I grabbed him. At first I thought he was dead, but he wasn’t. He began to cough and choke, and curse and cry. He was out of his head with terror. I held on to him, or he’d have been off the rock a dozen times. The fog was so thick that I couldn’t see him, and he couldn’t see me, and, as I said, he was clean out of his wits with fright. I couldn’t make out whether he thought he was dead, or whether he was just afraid he was going to die. Anyway he was talking-crazy. I don’t think he ever stopped, and it was all, ‘Jimmy Riddell,’ and, ‘Eight green stones—like a kid’s green beads.’ He must have said that hundreds of times. It was like having a gramophone record going round and round in your head. I couldn’t stop him—he just went right on: “Jimmy Riddell,’ and, ‘A kid’s green beads,’ and, ‘No one knows where they are except me.’ And then a piece about, ‘Five windows—like slits—’ and, ‘The finest emeralds in the world.’” Jim paused and looked from one to the other. “Do you see? I said it was like a gramophone record going round in one’s head. Well, that’s just what it was. All those things he kept on saying stuck in my mind, and when I’d lost my memory and didn’t know who I was, there they were, and I didn’t know what to make of them. I said them in my sleep, and they made Nesta Riddell think I knew all about the emeralds.” He pushed back his chair and got up. “I can’t tell you anything more. That’s the last I remember—being on the rock, and the tide coming up. They say they found me on a ledge, but I don’t know how I got there. And I suppose Jimmy Riddell must have been picked up by the life-boat. He wouldn’t have given his real name.”