Dusty Death

by Clifton Robbins

  “Rather a lot of adjectives, sir.”

  “I think she deserves them, Henry. She knows a lot about me—”

  “Does she?”

  “Yes, Henry, too much.”

  “Good heavens, sir.”

  “Well, at any rate, I’d rather she didn’t know as much as all that. She knew I went to Mrs. Humbleby’s—”

  “Did she really?”

  “And I expect she knows a lot more. And she didn’t come to the chambers yesterday for nothing.”

  “I should think not, sir,” said Henry, with great conviction. “But I didn’t think you would be so impressed by her.”

  “I’m in the dark, Henry,” said Harrison. “That’s what worries me. I have no idea what she came for.”

  “She didn’t come to see you, at any rate, sir,” said Henry.

  “You’re right, Henry,” exclaimed Harrison. She found me out from you, didn’t she? Mind clearing’s a bit difficult after all, Henry. Very curious altogether. And she writes gossip for the newspapers. Pass me the picture papers, Henry, and we’ll see if we can identify her handiwork.”

  Henry passed the papers to Harrison who began to study the pages of paragraphs about persons, known and unknown, restaurants, fashionable resorts and a multitude of passing events which the miraculous seven-league-booted gossiper had been able to record.

  Suddenly Harrison whistled. “Henry,” he said. “We have discovered her handiwork with remarkable speed and pretty neat it is, too. Listen to this: ‘What had Geneva done?’ That’s the headline. ‘We hear that Clay Harrison, the barrister who spends most of his time getting the police out of difficulties—they should have presented him with an illuminated address for the Jermyn House affair—is making an expedition to Geneva. We would like to know what he intends to do in that cosmopolitan town. Perhaps he has discovered something naughty about the League of Nations. Lucky man, nobody else has.’ Pretty poor sort of humour, Henry, but how, in heaven’s name, did she know about Geneva?”

  “Are you certain she did it?” said Henry, in an awed tone.

  “Nobody else could have done it,” came the reply.

  “Then you told her more than I did, sir,” said Henry, triumphantly.

  “I told her nothing,” answered Harrison. “I even suggested that I didn’t intend going out of England for some considerable time.”

  “A remarkably interesting woman,” echoed Henry, rather maliciously.

  “I don’t like it at all, Henry,” said Harrison, gravely. “It may be only a guess, but if it is it is an exceedingly clever one. If it has anything to do with the job we’re on, we’re up against a pretty tough proposition. I can’t think why she should be connected with Mrs. Humbleby and yet it does look as if she followed Mrs. Humbleby to the chambers and then found out that they were mine. But if it’s anything to do with Mrs. Humbleby why this paragraph about Geneva? How did she find out, Henry?”

  “I’ll swear it’s nothing to do with me, sir,” said Henry. “I never spoke to her when she came out again. She smiled at me and kept on saying things but I was really frightened of her.”

  “I can believe that, Henry,’ said Harrison, with a laugh. “Well, it looks as if we can’t solve it at the moment by talking. That’s clear. Still I don’t like it. Mysteries may be in my line but I don’t like them about myself.”

  Harrison looked out of the window. The train was rushing through Kent and the pleasant landscape looked particularly gloomy under the dull sky. Henry felt as gloomy as the weather and read a magazine rather fiercely to take his mind off the inevitable Channel. Harrison’s brain was working evenly, going through the facts again and re-arranging them but the links were not strong enough to support a possible theory. Much as he disliked it, he felt he would have to wait for a great deal more material upon which to work.

  Luckily for Henry, the Channel crossing was not as bad as the omens had suggested. London weather is not always a guide to Dover and certainly no weather gives much of a clue to the moods of the Channel. The sea was slightly rough, “moderate” a forecast would say, and, although Henry thought discretion dictated the permanent occupation of a chair and the continual pulling at a much bitten pipe, Harrison amused himself by strolling about the deck. Some of his work had led him to deal with smugglers and he was speculating as to which of the passengers might be engaged in this practice—one of them he was certain he knew by sight—when he saw a pair of hands, through the open door of a first class cabin, drawing on a pair of gloves, jerk by jerk.

  That gesture, thought Harrison, can only mean one young woman. He moved cautiously past the open door, and, as he passed, looked in as casually as possible. There, sitting at her most elegant ease, was Jeanne de Marplay, delightfully dressed and looking as fresh as presumably untroubled sleep could make her.

  Unfortunately she looked up at the very moment Harrison looked in.

  “Mr. Harrison, by all that’s wonderful,” she exclaimed, her eyes twinkling. “Come in here and talk to me.”

  “I should be very ungallant if I finished your quotation and said ‘Miss de Marplay, by all that’s damnable’,” he answered with a smile. “But it is a surprise—for me, at any rate. I suppose you knew I should be on this boat?”

  “How could I?” she replied, her eyes twinkling again. “You told me you had no intention whatever of leaving London, so really how could I?”

  “Miss de Marplay,” said Harrison, sitting down beside her in the cabin. “You are a very intelligent woman—”

  “I’m glad you appreciate me,” she answered. “We shall get along so well together. You are an unusual person, too. I think we’re sure to like each other.”

  “I expect we shall—if we understand each other.”

  “Understand each other?” she echoed, her eyebrows lifting with a rather exaggerated suggestion of innocence.

  “That is what I said. First of all, I want to know why we are meeting so accidentally in the middle of the Channel?”

  “That’s just a riddle which only Fate can answer, Mr Harrison. I cross the Channel and find you, who never intended to do so, on the same boat. I think you ought to explain, not I?”

  “Very well argued, Miss de Marplay, but you knew I was crossing the Channel this morning, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did,” she replied with the most engaging frankness.

  “And you put the paragraph in the newspapers this morning, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did,” she replied again.

  “Although I told you last night that I had no intention of doing so,” Harrison went on.

  “But it wasn’t true, was it?” she asked sweetly.

  “That was no reason for broadcasting it to the world,” he said, severely.

  “Personally I think it was,” she answered.

  “Suppose I didn’t want it known that I was going abroad?”

  “Then you should have told me yesterday and I wouldn’t have printed it to-day. It’s your own fault. You didn’t trust me and this is what happens. Better trust me next time. The whole world wants to know what Clay Harrison is doing—the whole world,” she added, with somewhat ironic emphasis.

  “Nonsense,” he said, shortly.

  “You are too modest, Mr. Harrison,” she replied. “I can prove it still more strongly when we get to Paris for you will find the same paragraph in quite a number of French newspapers—”

  “The devil.”

  “Possibly disguised as Clay Harrison, how am I to know,” she said, with a laugh of complete enjoyment. “You must be interesting or they wouldn’t print things about you, would they? Some people would pay almost a fortune to get the mentions in the press you are receiving to-day.”

  “I appreciate the compliment,” said Harrison, drily. “But I should prefer to do without it. Tell me, Miss de Marplay, why are you so extraordinarily interested in me?”

  “I’m a journalist,” was the answer.

  “That’s not enough,” he said.

&
nbsp; “Possibly not,” she replied. “But I’m afraid that’s all you’ll get. As you know more of me, Mr. Harrison, you’ll realise that I mainly like the truth and tell it. Not everyone believes me but that’s not my fault. I have a belief in the truth. Honestly I prefer the truth if I can possibly do it. But a woman has her reticences, you know.”

  “I appreciate that,” said Harrison. “But I am afraid, so modest am I, I cannot think I have any personal attraction for you. I must, however, respect your reticences. Still it looks suspiciously as if you were following me about—a thing which does not fit in with my estimate of a woman of your charm.”

  “You put it rather bluntly, Mr. Harrison,” she replied. “I do not like the charge of ‘following you about.’ Hadn’t we better say that, by a very curious coincidence we are both going to Geneva at the same time?”

  “You’re going to Geneva?”

  “Most assuredly.”

  “To write paragraphs about me?”

  “I don’t know yet. Still there’s one thing I won’t write a paragraph about. There’s a very charming restaurant in Paris, quite small, which very few English people know. If you will honour me by joining me there at dinner I certainly won’t write a paragraph about it.”

  Harrison chuckled. The de Marplay woman was certainly making things interesting. If she was definitely an antagonist, the fight was going to be a hard one but most enjoyable. Wit and brains and a pretty face. Harrison mentally tucked up his sleeves.

  “Well?” she asked, provokingly. “The pause does you little justice, Mr. Harrison. In anyone else I should have thought it bad manners but great investigators have to be cautious, don’t they? You surely don’t think I’m going to run you into a den of Apaches and end your glorious career at one fell swoop?”

  “The thought never entered my head until you put it there,” answered Harrison. “I’d trust myself anywhere with you, Miss de Marplay, but I was wondering whether I could get out of an appointment I had already arranged before leaving London. No, I really don’t think I can. I’m so sorry.”

  “Very well,” she replied. “There’s no doubt you will be sorry because you would have liked the place extremely. Still I shall see something of you in Geneva, I expect. Au revoir.”

  “Au revoir, Miss de Marplay,” said Harrison. “Oh, by the way, there is one question I must ask you before I go. How did you discover I was going to Geneva?”

  “My only answer is to give you a piece of advice,” she said, with a brilliant smile. “I know you will forgive my boldness, but don’t scribble on a blotting pad with your pencil when you are talking to anyone. You may give yourself away without realising you have done it.”

  “Thank you,” said Harrison. “That explains everything and makes me feel very humble. Again au revoir.”

  Harrison came out of the cabin and paced up and down the deck. Now he had no interest in his fellow passengers at all. The cogs in his brain were beginning to move and his interview with a fascinating lady had given him an ample feast for thought. He passed and repassed Henry, who, to all appearances, was quite comatose. Better, thought Harrison, to be sensible and seasick and get it over than live in such a state of apprehension but Henry could not be persuaded otherwise.

  As the boat neared Calais and safety seemed assured, Henry returned to the land of mortal affairs and rose from what might almost have been a funeral pyre of matches, so many had he struck in successful and unsuccessful attempts to keep his pipe alight.

  “Survived?” said Harrison, coming up to him.

  “Just,” was the laconic reply, spoken with an indignant look at the slightly heaving Channel.

  “Henry,” said Harrison, seriously. “Do I ever make notes on my blotting pad?”

  “Of course not, sir,” answered Henry. “That was one of your first pieces of advice to me. I used to draw faces on mine to while away the time and you said that, even if I could draw, you didn’t like it because it became a habit and I might write something down which I shouldn’t—without knowing I had done it. I don’t think I could do a thing like that but ‘safety first’ always and I’ve never done it since.”

  “You’re certain about me, Henry?”

  “Of course, sir. Why, you don’t even use the blotter to blot. Excessively cautious you are, sir.”

  “And yesterday, Henry, did you see my pad when you cleared up the chambers?”

  “Yes sir,” said Henry, emphatically. “Virgin, as you might say, sir, absolutely virgin.”

  “She’s a remarkable woman,” said Harrison. “But it was a rather obvious lie. Not quite clever enough, do you think?”

  “I don’t understand, sir.”

  “That’s how she knew I was going to Geneva; or rather, how she said she knew.”

  “I still don’t understand, sir.”

  “I’m sorry, Henry,” answered Harrison. “While you have been visiting the kingdom of the half-dead, I have been having a chat with Miss de Marplay.”

  “Good heavens,” said Henry. “You don’t mean to say she’s on the boat, sir?”

  “She certainly is, Henry, and she’s coming to Geneva, too.”

  “Oh, lord,” exclaimed Henry, looking around him fearfully. “That’s done it.”

  “Not quite, I hope,” answered Harrison. “But it adds to our store of knowledge, Henry, and that’s something. First of all, she’s definitely following me. She may know something about the Humbleby affair. I’m inclined to doubt that at the moment. That seems to me too strong a coincidence altogether. But she must be connected with the Gilbert Twining business. She wouldn’t want to follow me to Geneva if she wasn’t. She is giving herself away a bit, isn’t she, Henry?”

  “That may be intentional.”

  “True, Henry,” replied Harrison. “But she doesn’t know what I know and so to give oneself away at all might be a mistake. She mixes truth and lies together in the most astonishing way. The blotting pad idea, even though it was fairly ingenious, was a pretty useless lie. But I shouldn’t be surprised if what she said about the newspaper paragraphs was true.”

  “She did put that in?”

  “Oh yes, Henry, and gloried in it,” said Harrison, with a laugh. “I must admit she rather had me there because I had tried to put her off and she had printed the truth. But what is more important, she said it will be in the French newspapers, too. She seemed quite certain of it.”

  “How could she be, sir?”

  “That I can’t explain, Henry, although I have a few vague ideas. She said the whole world would be interested to know what I was doing—and in rather a curious tone, too.”

  “She’s very flattering, sir.”

  “I don’t like the flattery, Henry,” said Harrison, solemnly. “She’s not thinking of the whole world, Henry, she’s thinking of Geneva. There’s someone in Geneva she particularly wants to know that I am on my way. A newspaper paragraph is a brighter idea than a telegram and the Paris newspapers will be in Geneva before we shall, Henry, so the someone will know all about it and be ready for us when we arrive.”

  “That must be right, sir,” said Henry.

  “I’m certain it is, Henry,” answered Harrison. “It’s going to be complicated and every clue she gives is intended to complicate it a bit more unless we can make our own use of them. Still, Henry, here’s Calais, and you must admit things are moving a little.”

  “I wish it wasn’t her, sir,” said Henry, rather sadly.

  “So do I,” replied Harrison. “She’s too good a companion. But we’ve got our job to do and that’s that. And don’t forget, Henry we must be doubly careful about blotting pads in future.”

  Chapter V

  The Face Cream

  The journey from Calais to Geneva was mainly uneventful. Harrison had somewhat of a qualm when he settled down to his dinner at the restaurant of the Gare de Lyon that the de Marplay woman might appear there at any moment. There was no sign of her, however, and Harrison was almost disappointed. He knew he was going to see a g
reat deal more of the woman before his business was finished, if ever, and he wanted to have a good knowledge of his antagonist before he really settled down to the struggle. Antagonist there was no doubt she was although Harrison, in recollection, found it sometimes hard to believe. But everything she had done, up to the present, had been against him and also there were certain inflections in her voice which she either could not control or did not take the trouble to suppress.

  Harrison also objected to a woman being in the business at all. He had had dealings in queer cases with women before and had not liked them. When all is said and done on the equality of the sexes—and he reflected that a great deal had been said and done recently in this direction—a woman had a distinct advantage in anything crooked. There was just a little chivalry left in the world and a woman of that type made it one of her assets. When a woman mixed lack of feelings with superfluity of brain she was likely to be most difficult—more unscrupulous than the most unscrupulous of men—and, in many ways, willing to take the most amazing risks. Possibly the de Marplay was not a really intelligent person and did not get into the highest class but Harrison had an uneasy suspicion that she was fairly well up on the list.

  He even dreamed of the woman in his sleeping berth. That annoyed him, too. He was not used to dreaming. He was vividly conscious, however, that all night she was somewhere near him in the same coach. She had not appeared again for him to see but he knew she could not be far away. And again he felt that he had miscalculated. She was not going to give him the opportunity of knowing her better. Except in her own way. He would stay in the background. It might have been wiser to accept the invitation to dinner, after all.

  Geneva and still no sign of her. Henry was revelling in being on dry land among people of such an obviously inferior race. He ordered the porters about in the most individual pidgin English and, surprisingly enough, managed to obtain very efficient service thereby. The result was that they were in the customs room before any of the other passengers.

  As Henry started to undo the strap of a case, however, another passenger, preceded by a number of handbags carried by a porter, bustled in and had the luggage dumped right up against that belonging to Harrison, which was somewhat ludicrous, considering that they were, at that moment, the only two occupants of the room.