Cheshire glanced at his watch.
“Look here,” he said, “you will have to let Mrs. Florestan know that the car has been found.”
“We thought of telephoning her.”
“Don’t,” Cheshire begged. “Send an inspector round and let me go, too. And listen—have your people keep Florestan under observation, if he’s fool enough to go to the office in Holborn—which I’ll bet a hundred to one he won’t—but don’t arrest him. We don’t want any ordinary Police Court business here nor a word in the Press. If it gets out that Meldicott is the wounded man we can’t help it, but keep it secret as long as you can, especially if the doctors don’t pull him through.”
Melville nodded.
“I will do what I can,” he promised. “If anything happens to Meldicott, though, we must arrest Florestan if we can find him.”
“Yes, but do it in the way I shall point out,” Cheshire insisted. “Let my department or Mallinson’s handle this. I could get him twenty years as easily as snapping my fingers at the present moment, but there are things about that man—”
“All right,” Melville interrupted. “I quite understand. What puzzled me rather was the openness of it all—his wife ringing up and that sort of thing. Still, you come down with me to the Yard for a few minutes, then I’ll send you down to the West Kensington Police Station; you shall get the inspector who went round last night and go and talk to Mrs. Florestan. Give me that cup of coffee now, Admiral, and get ready. Mind if I use your telephone?”
“Go ahead. You will see me in two minutes as the perfect Police Inspector in mufti.”
He pressed the bell. Greyes presented himself almost at once, an overcoat on his arm and a hat in his hand. His master shook his head.
“Nothing of that sort, Greyes,” he declared. “I want the oldest dark suit I have—blue serge for choice—ordinary shirt, double collar with a black tie, rather thicker shoes than I generally wear; sort of rig-out I wore when I was down at Deptford for the week-end.”
“I understand perfectly, sir,” the man answered. “Am I to accompany you, sir?”
“Certainly not,” was the prompt reply. “I shall be back for lunch. Disconnect the telephone and don’t answer the bell. Anyone who wants me can think I am round at the Admiralty.”
Greyes, who very much disliked these independent expeditions, touched his hip pocket lightly. Cheshire nodded.
“I hate bloodshed in the morning, Greyes,” he said smiling, “but queer things are happening nowadays.”
CHAPTER IX
Table of Contents
Deborah Florestan, from the moment of her calm, unhurried entrance into the back parlour of Number 137, Colville Terrace, presented a problem to both of the men who were awaiting her. Inspector Douglas, who had spent his life at various London police stations, settled down to consider her from the strictly official point of view. Cheshire regarded her from an altogether different angle. To him she presented no ordinary problem. She had taken no pains to conceal or modify her somewhat unusual appearance. She wore, even at that comparatively early hour of the morning, a rose-coloured gown which followed almost too closely the lines of her ample and voluptuous figure. Her face was devoid of cosmetics. There was no sign of lipstick upon her lips. The massive coils of her hair were untidy and ill-brushed. She showed neither fear nor any particular interest in this unusual visit. She listened to Cheshire’s word of introduction with a slight air of boredom.
“Mrs. Florestan,” he said, “my name is Cheshire. I have a semi-official post at Scotland Yard. My companion, you will remember, came to see you last night.”
The woman inclined her head slightly and motioned them to a couch.
“Does it take two of you,” she asked, “to come and see me about my stolen motor car?”
“We are more interested,” Cheshire replied, “in your stolen husband. We should very much like to have a little conversation with him.”
“My husband is a man of regular habits,” she confided. “I expect he will be home to dinner to-night. What I do not quite understand,” she went on, “is why the police should be concerned in his doings.”
Inspector Douglas leaned back in his place with folded arms. He was content to let his more distinguished companion take the lead in the preliminary steps of this investigation.
“You see, Mrs. Florestan,” Cheshire continued, “as yet you have not had the latest information. Your car was discovered last night unattended outside St. George’s Hospital with a man inside who had been shot in the chest, and was, as he is even now, very near to death.”
“Someone must have stolen the car, then,” she said coolly. “My husband is not a murderer. He does not even look for adventures.”
“Mr. Florestan is engaged in the City, I believe?”
She nodded.
“He is with a firm of importers. Brown, Shipman & Co., is the name. Their offices are in Holborn.”
“Have they rung up yet to know why he has not arrived for business as usual?”
“Not yet.”
“Have you telephoned to them?”
“Why should I?”
Cheshire smiled good-humouredly.
“I am glad to see that you can take it so lightly, Mrs. Florestan,” he said, “but you must remember that your husband is missing. He left the car—presuming he drove it there—with the engine still running and disappeared, leaving an apparently dying man in the front seat.”
“The car must have been stolen,” Deborah Florestan repeated.
“At some stage during the evening that might have been the case,” Cheshire admitted, “but the fact remains that your husband drove it away from here having previously held a telephone conversation with someone of such importance that he locked the door upon his family. It went from here, without a doubt, under your husband’s control.”
“Does anyone know that?” she asked.
“Certainly,” he answered. “Inspector Douglas here has secured the evidence of the policeman who was on duty at the corner of the street. He saluted your husband and said good evening.”
“Then up till now,” she observed, “that policeman seems to be the last person who saw him.”
“Precisely. Mrs. Florestan, have you any idea from whom that telephone message came?”
“Not the slightest. I never interfere in my husband’s concerns.”
“Do you think that he is engaged in any private business as well as being in a situation with Messrs. Brown, Shipman & Co.?”
“I have no idea.”
“The motor car,” Cheshire went on, “was fitted with a set of bogus plates. Have you any idea as to the reason for that?”
“None whatever,” she replied with a shade of contempt in her tone. “I should think that there was no reason. I should think that the car was stolen last night and the bogus plates attached.”
Cheshire nodded appreciatively.
“Quite a feasible notion, Mrs. Florestan,” he agreed. “The car I noticed was a Daimler—a very expensive model.”
“I know nothing about cars.”
“Do you know what your husband’s income is?”
Mrs. Florestan’s interest in the conversation seemed to be waning. She stifled a yawn, however, and shook her head.
“He is a very secretive man.”
“How much does he allow you for housekeeping?”
The question seemed to amuse her faintly.
“He makes no allowances,” she said. “I ask him for money when I want it.”
“Do you know what his salary is?”
“Fifteen hundred a year.”
“Quite a good salary,” Cheshire remarked, “but still, that Daimler model is listed at over two thousand pounds.”
“I am quite sure,” Mrs. Florestan told them, “that my husband would never pay that amount for a car.”
“Has he any intimate friends or relations?”
“Neither. He is on the committee of the Golf Club but he seldom goes there except on
Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings. We go to a picture palace sometimes on Saturday nights. He has no vices that I am aware of and he spends every evening, when he is not travelling, at home. He is, I suppose, as near as you can get such a thing, a model husband.”
“Do you ever see his correspondence?”
“If I do,” she answered, “I never look at it. He receives very few letters.”
Inspector Douglas, who had been listening intently, took advantage of a slight pause on his companion’s part to intervene.
“Do you know of anything in your husband’s life, Mrs. Florestan,” he asked, “which could account in any way for his being called up on the telephone last night, locking you all in the dining room while he spoke, taking out the car, and disappearing without a word or a message to you?”
“Nothing whatever,” was the quiet reply. “That is why I am expecting every hour to hear something from him. I have just ordered dinner for half-past seven. I feel quite sure that he will be here. I really do not see what you are worrying about.”
“Are you not rather ignoring the serious incident of the dying man found in your car and the fact that it was driven either by your husband or someone else to St. George’s Hospital last night?” Cheshire enquired drily.
“The car was stolen without a doubt,” Mrs. Florestan answered. “It must have been stolen, because of the false plates that you say were attached.”
The two men exchanged glances. Inspector Douglas, with a word of excuse, left the room.
“You will forgive us, I am sure, Mrs. Florestan,” Cheshire explained, “but my companion has gone to find your maidservant. It is his duty to make a complete search of the house and of your husband’s belongings. You have, I trust, no objection.”
“Why should I have any objection if you think it necessary? The maid can show him the various rooms. I do not think that there is a locked drawer or cupboard in the house.”
She rang the bell. The maid appeared almost at once.
“Rosa,” her mistress directed, “go and find the other gentleman from the police who is wandering about the house somewhere. Show him into any room he wishes to visit. Begin with your master’s bedroom and the little pigsty he calls his study. He is looking for something which I hope he will find.”
Rosa disappeared with a half-muttered ejaculation.
“I hope you won’t mind putting up with my presence a short time longer,” Cheshire said.
“Stay as long as you want to,” Mrs. Florestan invited indifferently. “I shall take the dog for a walk at twelve. I have nothing to do until then. I think you might spend your time to better purpose, though, than to keep badgering me with stupid questions. Surely you could be more entertaining than that if you chose.”
She rose to her feet, helped herself to a cigarette from a box on the table and offered it to Cheshire with a faintly inviting smile. He shook his head politely.
“Gaspers,” she commented, as she lit one and returned to her chair. “Not much class but I cannot stand Turkish tobacco. Ask me some more questions if that’s all you can think of to talk about.”
“You are very kind,” Cheshire acknowledged. “If I seem inquisitive, believe me it is only with the idea that something you might tell me, combined with what I already know, might help me towards relieving your anxiety at your husband’s absence.”
“I am not in the least anxious,” she declared carelessly. “He will be home at half-past seven. He has not been a quarter of an hour late for years—when he comes back at all. Perhaps that is what makes him so tedious.”
“You have been married long?”
“Fifteen years.”
“Any children?”
“Two. They are at school. They come home for the week-end every half-term. They were here last night.”
“Have you ever lived abroad, Mrs. Florestan?”
“What a question!” she cried. “Is my English not good?”
“Perfect,” was the quiet reply. “Yours is just the question a foreigner might ask, though, and not an Englishwoman.”
She looked at him quite steadily for a moment. It was then he noticed the peculiarity of her eyes—eyes that might have been beautiful in passion or if lit with real interest but which seemed heavy and sombre in ordinary conversation.
“I am quite ready to submit to your cross-examination,” she drawled. “You have explained why you are making it and I am satisfied, although I think you could be a much more amusing companion if you chose. Let me ask you one thing for a change, however. Do you think that I know things about my husband which you do not?”
“That seems to me to be one of the possibilities of the situation,” Cheshire admitted.
“You think that he is a bad man, perhaps—that he killed or almost killed the passenger in his car?”
“Alas, we have not got nearly as far as that yet, Mrs. Florestan,” her visitor replied. “We have to find out from the firm where your husband is employed whether he has any friends or acquaintances likely to have got him into trouble, or whether they could throw any light upon this mysterious Sunday-night message. We have heard what you have to say about your husband. We have to make enquiries now in other directions. It will be a long time, I fear, before we shall be able to tell you just what has happened to him and why.”
“Drop in about dinner time and I may be able to relieve your mind,” she said confidently.
There was a puzzled look on Inspector Douglas’s face as he re-entered the room a short time later. Deborah Florestan, who was smoking her second cigarette, smiled across at him a mirthless challenge.
“Well, Mr. Inspector,” she said, “you have found out that my husband is a wicked man—yes? You have found out why he could afford to buy an expensive motor car and pay only seventy pounds a year for his house?”
The Inspector smiled good-humouredly.
“Can’t say I hoped for much, Mrs. Florestan,” he replied, “but I must confess that we have drawn a complete blank. Quite a model chap, your husband. Everything in his rooms neat and tidy. A special box for the letters written by the children from boarding school. Heaps of receipts. No bills. All wonderful.”
“A very careful man, my husband,” she agreed. “Now you must try and find out who it was who telephoned from the call box at Charing Cross soon after eight o’clock last night, and also where my husband left the car and who stole it. Plenty of work for you still, Mr. Policeman, but not here.”
“Madam is making fun of us,” the Inspector observed. “Nevertheless, I must congratulate her. She possesses the perfect husband. As she remarks, our work has not begun yet.”
“Mrs. Florestan seems quite convinced that he will be back in time for dinner,” Cheshire confided. “She suggests that we drop in and see him somewhere about half-past seven.”
Inspector Douglas nodded.
“From what I have discovered of his daily life, in the contents of his secretaire, his wardrobe, his diary and his account books,” he pronounced, “I do not think he will be five minutes late.”
“Then this,” Cheshire remarked, with a slightly more friendly note in his tone, “will be only au revoir, Mrs. Florestan.”
She smiled, dismissing them both with a wave of the hand.
“Certainly come if you are so anxious to meet my husband,” she said, addressing herself to Cheshire. “Bring the Inspector, too, if you must, but I should think that one pair of eyes would be enough.”
It seemed to Cheshire that there was something mysterious, almost challenging, in the faint smile which so completely changed her expression. He answered her promptly, however.
“We will make it enough,” he told her. “I will leave the Inspector at home.”
CHAPTER X
Table of Contents
Mr. James Brown, senior partner in the firm of Brown, Shipman & Co., who in their lighter moments proclaimed themselves as being importers or exporters of anything from disused razor blades to live elephants, quaked visibly as he sat behi
nd his desk in his beautifully furnished office and gazed at the card which his clerk had just presented.
“Admiral Guy Cheshire,” he read out. “What the devil does this mean, Hobson? What does anyone want here from the Admiralty? That must be Florestan’s business.”
“I have no idea, sir,” the serious young man in heavy glasses replied. “He came in a taxicab and handed in his card at the Enquiry Office. He desired to see a partner in the firm.”
Mr. Brown dabbed at the beads of moisture upon his forehead with a large silk handkerchief.
“No sense in keeping him waiting, anyway,” he observed sharply. “Show him in, Hobson. Can’t imagine why I gave Mr. Leonard the afternoon off. Playing golf on a Monday, indeed! Show the Admiral in.”
Cheshire, in his unimposing mufti, although quite a distinguished figure, was nothing alarming to look at. He came in very civilly, removed his hat as he entered the office, and bowed to the elderly gentleman seated at the desk.
“Mr. Brown?” he enquired.
“That is so. That’s my name. Mr. James Brown. I see that you are from the Admiralty.”
Cheshire waited until the door was closed.
“Well, yes, Mr. Brown. I have some connection, too, with one of the minor branches of Scotland Yard. A little matter has come to our notice which seems to need some sort of explanation and I thought you might help.”
“We’ve not been doing anything wrong, eh?” Mr. Brown demanded nervously. “We have a large business with branches in Singapore, all over the East, India, Egypt, and connection in practically every country in Europe. No one is more careful than we are as regards what we buy and what we sell. There’s a lot of opium been changing hands lately—”
Cheshire interrupted with a smile.
“That is not the business I’m on at all, Mr. Brown,” he assured him. “It is something much simpler.”
“We can’t be responsible for everything that happens in these faraway places, of course,” Mr. Brown declared in a slightly relieved tone. “Take a seat, sir. Take a seat.”
The visitor accepted a chair by the side of the desk, placed his hat on the carpet and loosened his overcoat.
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