“Sympathy, hell.”
“Yes,” he said. “Sympathy. How’d you like to have been a mother for three weeks and then be told it was all a mistake.”
The bill arrived next morning and I re-posted it the same night. My afternoon had been spent in the antique shops but I heard nothing about the mirror I’d regarded as mine. On the Sunday morning Frank rang to say there was no sign of it at the flat. I could see his grin as he said he’d had a great time with Queenie.
“Dancing till three,” he said, “out in the long grass at a Palais de Danse. Saw the lady home and didn’t even go in for a kipper. Just off now to Brazenoak. Any fresh orders?”
Only the old ones, I said, and he was telling me it was a shame to take my money. He did add that his girl’s Nosey Parker of the illustrated had a certain photograph and thought she could do something with it.
The tempo slackened still more. Nothing about Sivley and nothing about Matthews, and, what was more important, nothing noteworthy about Charlotte Craigne. On the Wednesday evening Frank rang me from the Oak.
“Some good news for you,” he said. “Nosey’s tracked down the photograph.”
“Good for Nosey, then,” I said.
“It was published in Haut Ton. Don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s a very Ritzy and expensive illustrated. Junior turns out to be the son of the Hon. Marigold Menham, and heir to the Wessborn title. Nosey says you can get a reproduction of any picture in Haut Ton by sending so much to their special department. They make packets out of it, she says. And that’s how Queenie gave birth to Junior.”
“My God, we’ve got her!” I said, and almost added Harper’s pet name. “To clinch it, you’d better get a record of the transaction at the Haut Ton department.”
“It might be risky work,” he said, “but I’ll see what can be done. And mightn’t we recall our Austrian man? We seem to have all we want.”
“Might as well cut down unnecessary expenses. I sent your people a cheque, by the way, and I’ve sent the bill to Queenie. The next thing is to collect her cheque. I’ll make an excuse to see her if she doesn’t send me it. But I’m most damnably grateful to you, Frank. You’ve put in some fine work.”
“All part of the Prince and Holloway service,” he told me. “But I’m glad that part has turned out so well. And, honestly, Mr. Travers, don’t you think I’m wasting my time here? Absolutely nothing doing except picking up gossip. Queenie’s coming down on Friday, but what can I do with her?”
“Have her watched every minute,” I said. “Put a special man on, especially at night.” Then I thought of something else. “Any chance of having a look in her bedroom before she comes down, in case that mirror’s there?”
He said he’d have a try. Mrs. Day might be induced to show an interested American over the house.
“As for leaving Brazenoak, you stay put,” I said. “I’ve got a hunch you’re in the right place. No news of Matthews?”
“Devil a sound.”
“Well, keep your ear to the ground. And, once more, thanks enormously. I beg your pardon; thanks a million.”
I suppose I ought to have been elated that that blackmail scheme had been finally uncovered. I tried forcing myself to be, and even then I couldn’t manage it, for deep down somewhere was a tremendous uneasiness. This is how I began to see things.
The blackmailing of myself had served its purpose and Charlotte would probably be highly amused if I confronted her with the full exposure. She wouldn’t even trouble to deny the trick she had played on me. And why? Because, as I must repeat, the purpose of that scheme had been achieved, and now she had no more use for me than last year’s hat.
Now follow the argument carefully. Frank’s theory, and subsequently mine, was that she was working with Sivley and had been a party to the deaths of her husband and stepfather. Therefore, if Charlotte could afford to dispense with me—and remember she had not rung me up since I returned to town—she must be absolutely sure that Sivley would never be caught, and could never testify against her. In other words, it looked as if we could never pin anything on her. It also explained why she had told the truth for once when she announced that she would have a quiet time in town. Why shouldn’t she have a quiet time when she had nothing to fear!
But I am an obstinate sort of person. Far more cunning ones than even Charlotte Craigne had slipped up, I told myself, and began a methodical review of the whole affair with the hope of finding some such slip. After a laborious hour I was left with two things. The disappearance of Matthews was the only tangible thing with which we might connect her. The other seemed at first more promising, but when I got to grips with it, it petered out to nothing. It was this, that Charlotte Craigne had taken me to Trimport so that I—a person of repute with the police—could prove if necessary that she had had nothing whatsoever to do with the deaths of her husband and stepfather.
There everything worked in, and perhaps you see how. She had never been suspected. Because of my statement and her own—and the two dovetailed—there had never been the slightest suspicion of any implication on her part. All the police had given was sympathy. I repeat again: the object of getting me to Trimport had been achieved and she knew she was henceforth safe.
But was she? What had she been doing during that considerable time when I was absent with Mason and the others on Trimport beach? I doubt if she could have got back to Brazenoak and returned, for that would have been incredibly risky, both for a mad drive in those narrow lanes, and because of my possible return at any moment. But mightn’t she have aided Sivley’s getaway? Mightn’t she have done other things of which I couldn’t at the moment think?
I told you that second idea was very nebulous, but there it is. And the whole thing was very disquieting. Sivley must have left the country, I thought, or else Charlotte must have met him in town. And she hadn’t met him unless she was too clever for Smith, and personally I was betting on Smith. And generally I was getting bored to tears in town, what with the depressing news in the papers and being alone and getting no new hunches about Charlotte Craigne. And then on the Friday morning she actually rang me up.
“How are you, darling? I’ve been frightfully busy, but I’m simply conscience-smitten at not having seen you.”
“I’m pretty fit,” I said. “And you’re having a good time, are you?”
“You sound very gloomy, darling? What’s worrying you?”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled. “All these crises get one down.”
She laughed. “Cheer up, darling, there won’t be a war. The papers say there won’t. Besides, I met an awfully important person the other day, and he’s positive. And sorry I must fly now, darling. Just running down to Brazenoak. All that tiresome business for the executors.”
Remember how sure she was about there being no war. It may come in handy when you start putting things together.
I didn’t know it, but my brief leisure was almost at an end, and the second phase of the action was about to begin. Ten minutes or so after I had hung up, the telephone bell went again. Who should it be but George Wharton.
“So you’re having a nice quiet holiday,” he said, after the politer preliminaries. “Nothing to do with yourself.”
“Haven’t I earned a holiday,” I demanded aggressively.
He ignored that. “Still, I’m glad you’re free. I told the Powers-that-Be that I thought you’d be available.”
“Available for what?”
“A real nice job,” he said wheedlingly. “Practically all beer and skittles—especially for you. A few days at a certain country spot, with a nice little pub as headquarters.”
You see how the crafty old hellion swindled me? Lured me into saying I had nothing to do, and then sprang the trap.
“To do what?” I asked none too pleasantly.
“The county people are worried about not getting their hands on a certain Mr. S., and they’ve put everything in our hands. This evening suit you for going down there?”
&nb
sp; “My car or yours?”
“You don’t get me in that hell-waggon,” he chuckled. “Perhaps we’d better go independently. We might want to use both cars.”
“I still don’t see what use I’m going to be,” I protested, though I was pleased enough at the prospect. “Unless you want me to crack your quips on.”
“But my dear fellow! You’ll be every possible use. Weren’t you on the spot, and don’t you know everybody?”
“Right-ho, George,” I said, and tried to make it wearily. “I’ll get down just before dinner. And the drinks are on you.”
You see why I was pleased? George represented supreme authority. While Frank and I could do little about those two ideas of mine, it would be very different if I could just hint about Matthews to him, and that Charlotte Craigne had been alone for best part of an hour. Wharton would worry the guts out of those two ideas like a pup with a shoe, and he’d have everything behind him.
I thought I’d wait till lunch-time before ringing up Frank, and then it so happened that he rang me instead.
“Glad you were in,” he said. “I’ve found the mirror!”
“The devil you have!”
“Yes. I worked that gag I thought of and we arrived at Queenie’s bedroom. I admired the view and Mrs. D. told me the two wardrobes were locked—I had admired one of them—and that Queenie had given strict orders nothing was to be touched till she came down again. I’d left my camera downstairs purposely, and I said I ought to take a picture of the view from the window. ‘Don’t you bother, sir,’ says Mrs. D., and goes down for the camera. I tried some keys on a wardrobe and, boy, did I get a kick when I saw that mirror! Tucked away behind some frillies.”
“Fine work, that,” I said. “No danger of Mrs D. letting on you were in there?”
“Never a bit. Didn’t I say Queenie had given strict orders? Mrs. D. wouldn’t let her know.”
“Any chance of getting hold of the mirror?”
“Any chance?” He snorted. “You give the word, Mr. Travers, and I’ll have it the first night after Queenie goes—if it’s still there.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “A bit too risky perhaps. I’ll talk about it later. And you’re not lunching with Queenie then?”
“Going to tea,” he said. “Still some strawberries in the Manor gardens.”
“Then save some for the Oak,” I said. “I’m coming down for dinner to-night.”
When I told him about Wharton he gave a cynical chuckle. I had a very early tea, with no strawberries, and at four o’clock was on my way. Though I didn’t see it in quite that way, the second phase had begun.
III
—AND COMES OUT HERE
CHAPTER XI
THE OLD FIRM
Wharton and I reached the Oak within five minutes of each other, which means that I almost caught him up. He had booked rooms for us both, and it didn’t feel too bad to be staying at that excellent pub at the public expense. Of Frank there was no sign and I guessed he was having a long session at the Manor. George and I had a clean up and then drinks in his room to wash the dust from our gullets, and in that half-hour before dinner he told me a good many things. He admitted that they weren’t his own, but reports he’d collated from Venter and the Trimport police. This is what the official sleuths had so far unearthed.
Sivley had taken a tiny bungalow at Trimport, giving the name of Shipleigh. The bungalow had been advertised unfurnished, in the local papers, and the estate agent’s young clerk—it was a small, two-man firm—recognised Sivley from his photograph. A quarter’s rent had been paid in advance and the key handed over, and that was on the morning after the day of Sivley’s departure from Brazenoak.
Sivley had come by motor-bike, though the clerk had only heard it and not seen it. No finger-prints were found in the bungalow, except one of Sivley’s on a dirty tin plate off which he had doubtless had a meal, but there were marks of his motor-bike tyres in the sand outside the back door, and some drops of oil. The bungalow had no neighbours within two hundred yards. Both it and they were comparatively secluded being set in the woody scrub with which all that hinterland abounds, but this particular bungalow was of a type that Trimport strongly resented, with flimsy walls and pink asbestos tiles. It lay in that hinterland exactly a hundred and fifty yards back from the beach and to the west, which was handy for the getaway. As for the weapon Sivley used, it needn’t have been a rifle of large calibre since he had been lucky enough to hit his man either in the heart or near it. Nor need he have been a particularly good shot, for Craigne had presented a magnificent target. No empty cartridge case had been found.
There was also no sound of his motor-bike leaving. Perhaps he had parked it a little distance along the road, which would have been somewhere not too far from my car, and I pricked my ears at that, remembering how Charlotte Craigne had been alone for well over half an hour. In any case, Wharton said, Trimport was a great place for motor-bikes. All the young pip-squeaks in the place were always dashing about on them, and generally with wenches on the pillions. Moreover, when Sivley made his getaway all eyes were still on Craigne’s boat, and hardly anyone realised a shot had been fired.
Wharton said, too, that there had been a tip that Sivley might be with Rogerley; in fact he admitted that Mr. Franks had put the idea in his mind. But Rogerley’s place had been watched and nothing had happened. As for why the trainer had come to Brazenoak, and at a busy time in the racing season, the reason was given that he had hoped to find Craigne there. Craigne owed him a considerable sum of money, and since the winnings from the first faked telegram had never been recovered, Rogerley hoped Craigne would be in the funds. And if Craigne himself wasn’t there, then he made no bones about admitting that he’d intended to approach Craigne’s wife or his stepfather-in-law.
“I saw him myself about that,” Wharton said. “He was a liar. I saw it in every word he said. But what’s the use? I can’t prove it.”
There was no need for me to mention Matthews, for George mentioned him himself as an inheritance from Venter. Venter had even got Mrs. Craigne to send on the actual note that Matthews had written.
“You and I might do worse than go to the Manor after dinner and try to check up on the signature,” George said.
“But who could have forged it?” I asked with a fine assumption of indignation. “Surely you don’t suspect Mrs. Craigne?”
“Of course not,” George said, and didn’t rise to the hint. “But it’s an essential document, isn’t it? It’s got to be certified as genuine.”
He then told me that Matthews hadn’t gone to his usual spot in the Isle of Wight, and was then demanding why he should have gone there. That was a sideways cut at me for having suggested it to Venter. Then he admitted that the note read far more as if Matthews were suffering from delusions.
“I made that suggestion too,” I said. “Now I come to think of it, however, I’m of the opinion that if he had a breakdown it was an uncommonly sudden one. The brain doesn’t snap in an afternoon.”
“Then where is he?” Wharton demanded with utter unreasonableness.
“Ask me another,” I said, and suddenly I knew that I might have said “Probably dead!” For if Matthews had seen Charlotte Craigne and Sivley, then his life wouldn’t have been worth a lot. Probably Charlotte set Sivley on him. After two killings Sivley wouldn’t scruple about a third. Mind you, that was a tremendous idea, and at the moment it merely flashed through my mind, though I thought about it a lot in the course of the next few hours. What I then hoped was that Wharton would hit on the same idea. If only the body of the butler could be found, then he might work back to Sivley and even to Charlotte Craigne.
I think that was really why I didn’t hint to him about her having been alone near that bungalow for quite a time on that fatal Saturday morning. Also it was my new policy not to know too much about anything, or before I was aware of it I’d be giving myself away.
“What do you think about that?” Wharton was saying.
/> “About what?” I said, and pulled myself together.
“Why about seeing old Mrs. Sivley?”
“A very good idea,” I said. “But didn’t I hear the gong go? I don’t know about you, but I could eat a couple of meals.”
As we got up to go I was telling him about Widger, giving it of course as village gossip. George grunted, but halted nevertheless on the stairs to make a note in his book. When he got to the lobby, there was Frank. He could assume quite a dignity when he liked, and now there was something exquisitely natural in his surprise at the sight of Wharton and me, his smile, and the quiet way his hand went out.
“My, my, my! Two excellent surprises! How are you, sir? And you, Mr. Travers.”
Wharton’s face was beaming too. I never knew him cotton on so quickly to anyone before. Maybe he thought he was being friendly on behalf of the British Isles.
“Have a drink,” Frank said. “What shall it be?”
“We’ve just had our ration,” I told him. “But you join us at dinner. Mrs. Porter will fix a table for three.”
“How much longer are you staying here, Mr. Franks?” asked Wharton as the first course arrived.
“That’s hard to say, Superintendent,” Frank began. Wharton held up a warning hand.
“Mr. Wharton down here. I don’t want to broadcast what I’m here for.”
“Mr. Franks is a man of discretion,” I put in. “I expect between ourselves, he’s a pretty shrewd idea what we’re here for.”
“I guess I’m not going to let that part of it interest me,” Frank said. “You two gentlemen have been mighty good to me in one way and another, and I guess it’s your company I’m interested in, not your business. All the same,” and he smiled ruefully, “I reckon I ought to have had more sense. You see, I always wanted to be a detective myself.”
The Case of the Magic Mirror: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 14