by Annie Haynes
There was a pause; then the dancer laughed unsteadily. “What a fool you are, Jim! Why, if Lord Sandford chooses to give me diamonds, do you suppose I am going to refuse them? But as for anything else, haven’t I promised you—”
“Ay, and I’ll see you keep it!” Evidently Gregory was not going to be smoothed down. “’Tain’t going to be Basil Wilton over again, anyhow!”
“You beast!” There was a sound as of a heavy missile being flung across the room. “You keep a civil tongue in your head, Jim Gregory, or I don’t go a step to the Harrow Road to-morrow, do as you will!”
“Oh, yes you will, Cissie!” Gregory’s voice had dropped to a kind of rough pleading. “It—it isn’t altogether my fault if I cut up a bit rough sometimes. It drives me mad when I see you looking and smiling at other fellows! If—if I was sure of you it would be different. I should be that gentle and loving!”
“Ugh! I dare say you would, but I haven’t any use for that sort of thing.” The dancer’s tone was very scornful. “I’ll do what I said, but remember I won’t have any of your nonsense!”
“It will come, though, Cissie, it will come,” Gregory urged. It was quite evident to the listener that the man was unwontedly moved, that the dancer was correspondingly calm. Mrs. Perks continued to sob weakly. “I have waited for years and years,” the man went on. “I ha’ known my time must come at last, and come it has. But I’m not going to be done out of it by any lordlings!” with a sudden accession of fury. “When I saw him waiting at the stage door the other night I could ha’ stuck a knife into him with a will!”
“More fool you!” the woman responded with a laugh, yet Hewlett fancied there was a touch of real anxiety in her voice. “You would not have mended your cause by that, I can tell you!”
“Nor hurt it!” Gregory finished stolidly. “You are a-going to give me my way because you have got to, my girl! I don’t make no mistake about that, no more need you! Ten o’clock to-morrow morning, and see as you don’t keep me waiting!”
“That is enough!” There was a stir as if the dancer had kicked back her chair in a rage. “I shan’t stand much more of this, Jim Gregory, so I tell you! I have promised you. Best for you to be off while I’m in the same mind!”
“Ah—ah, I am going!” Gregory apparently bestirred himself. “Well, so long till to-morrow morning, Cissie! So long, Mrs. Perks.”
Hewlett held his breath, fearing that Mr. Gregory might elect to go out the back way, but in a moment he heard him open the other door and knew that that danger was passed.
The two women were left alone; there was a silence broken only by the sound of Mrs. Perks’s sobbing. At last the other spoke:
“I have brought my pigs to a pretty market! Stop that crying, Maria, or I shall do you a mischief! It aggravates me!”
“I can’t bear to think of it, Cissie! That Jim Gregory frightens me. Suppose he don’t keep his word after all!”
“Oh, he will do that for his own sake,” the dancer returned. “He hasn’t the wit to see—”
“What?” Mrs. Perks questioned breathlessly,
“That a few mumbled words can’t tie a woman down for ever,” the other finished. “I must be off now; Maria. I have got an early turn to-night. Shall you be there to-morrow?”
“No, no! I couldn’t bear it!” Mrs. Perks said huskily.
“All right, then! I shall see you later on. Good-bye! I am going to walk to Southwick Crescent and see if I can pick up a taxi.” There was another silence; the door into the hall opened again, then the dancer stepped back. “Don’t cry, old girl! I haven’t been much of a sister to you. You have no need to fret about me.” Then the door closed softly and Mrs. Perks was alone.
Hewlett stole silently up the stairs and back to Mr. Edward Wallace’s room at the top of the house.
Hewlett looked at him.
“I can’t make much of this, Simpson. Gregory has got some sort of hold over this woman, but what it is I don’t just see.”
Simpson hesitated.
“I know he has some sort of a hold, sir—I made out as much the other day—and it might be over her pretending to be Miss Spencer. I dare say Gregory has heard we are making inquiries about her, and of course he does not know that we can lay our hands on her at any minute.”
“That may have something to do with it,” Hewlett assented thoughtfully. “Curious she should turn out to be Mrs. Perks’s sister! Well, the next thing for me to do is to go round to Mr. Lockyer and tell him what we have heard. It may be useful, or it may not. I shall have to go over it a bit before I make up my mind.”
As Mr. Hewlett went downstairs he noticed that the door of Mrs. Perks’s sitting-room stood ajar; he even caught the sound of a low sob.
“Now does she know anything, or does she not?” he soliloquized. “The husband was all right, but I don’t feel so sure of her. And yet—well, it is a puzzle altogether!”
In Edgware Road he took a cab to St. James’s Street. Septimus Lockyer was at home and expecting him.
“Any news, Hewlett?” the K.C. asked as he drew a sheet of blotting-paper over a note he had just written. Hewlett looked a little depressed.
“I have overheard an interview between Miss Cécile De Lavelle and Gregory and Mrs. Perks, sir; but I’m not sure that it sheds much light upon matters. Here are my notes, if you can make them out.”
Septimus Lockyer held out his hand for the book and studied it in silence for a minute, his brows drawn together, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the table. At last he looked up.
“I think this is just what we wanted, Hewlett.”
“Is it, sir?” The detective looked thoroughly at sea.
Septimus Lockyer nodded.
“Yes, you have done good work over this case, Hewlett. But for you I doubt whether the Grove Street Mystery would ever have been elucidated. I shall see that your share of it is heard of in the proper quarter. If I have been more fortunate than you in tracking down the real criminal at the end it is merely because the luck has been with me. All the real hard work—the tracing of Evelyn’s Spencer’s identity— was done by you. Now for what time did Mr. Gregory make this appointment? Ten o’clock in Harrow Road. Humph! May I trouble you to pass me that directory, Hewlett?”
The detective did as he was asked. His mind was in a more chaotic state than ever. He was unable to see what possible bearing upon the Grove Street Mystery the conversation he had overheard was likely to have. It seemed to him that it might refer to something very different.
Septimus Lockyer lifted the blotting-paper, took out the note he had written, tore it in two, and tossed it into the fire. Then he went over to the telephone and carried on a colloquy of which Hewlett could only catch stray sentences.
Coming back, he took a fresh sheet of paper, and, seeming for the moment to forget the detective, scribbled a hasty note. Presently, however, he threw it across.
“Read that, Hewlett.”
The detective took it blankly, and read:
Dear Inspector Hudger,
You will be glad to hear that Mr. Hewlett and myself have succeeded in discovering the secret of Grove Street. I shall be delighted if you will call upon me about nine o’clock this evening. Will you have your men in readiness to make the arrest—say at the corner of Gray’s Inn Road—at ten o’clock to-morrow morning? A subsequent arrest will have to be made later in the day.
I am yours faithfully,
Septimus Lockyer.
“Well?” the K.C. interrogated as the detective looked up.
“I am beginning to understand what you mean, sir,” Mr. Hewlett said slowly, “but I don’t quite see now—”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
MR. LOCKYER rang the bell and despatched his letter; then he crossed over to one of the big easy-chairs near the fire and motioned the detective to the other.
“Draw it up, Hewlett, and help yourself to a cigar; you will find them at your elbow. It may be as well to get our explanation over before Hudger arrives. Wel
l, in the first place”—putting the tips of his fingers together and gazing over them reflectively into the fire—“it is largely a matter of deductions. From the first I was positively certain that neither Basil Wilton nor his cousin, Lord Warchester, had anything to do with the murder; I knew them both, and felt sure of them in spite of everything. And things did look pretty black for one or the other at one time—I’m not blaming you for thinking as you did, Hewlett. There remained Gregory. Of him I was doubtful, but I could conceive no adequate motive; and Lady Warchester’s testimony showed that he, at any rate, had nothing to do with the placing of the pistol in the dead girl’s hand. Yet his manner was unconvincing, so also was Mrs. Perks’s; I felt sure that both of them knew more than they would say. Then one day an illumination came to me. Mrs. Read had spoken of a handbag that Evelyn Spencer had carried when she left her house on the morning of her death. Now there was nothing of the kind found in the studio, though it was possible she had left it at a cloak-room. Anyhow, the idea was worth considering. I paid Mrs. Read a visit. She remembered perfectly well that Miss Spencer told her she was putting a few valuables in the bag that she didn’t dare to trust to the boxes she was forwarding. Mrs. Read remembered being shown the ruby cross, which Miss Spencer said had belonged to her mother, that very morning of the 11th of May—the day Evelyn Spencer met her death—as well as a quantity of papers which the girl put in the pocket of the bag with the case containing the cross. Now I had seen that cross, and knew that it had come down to my niece, Mary Davenant, Evelyn’s mother, from her grandmother. I had seen it on the neck of the false Evelyn at Warchester, and I knew that it was among the proofs of her identity offered by her to Mr. Hurst. Ah, that simplifies matters, does it not?” as the detective with a sharp exclamation sat upright in his chair.
“It does, indeed!” Hewlett agreed emphatically. “The dolts we were not to think of that!”
“Well, it was a point that I fancied needed clearing up,” Mr. Lockyer went on. “Then—and here I had Lord Warchester’s help, which was not at the service of the police—I learned that at one time Cécile De Lavelle was the friend of Basil Wilton, and that he had deserted her for Marie—Evelyn Spencer. There I found my motive, inadequate possibly, but still more obvious, it seemed to me, than in the case of any of the three who have been suspected by the police. Then, when I could not help noticing that the false Evelyn had apparently no fear of the real Evelyn turning up, I argued that the probabilities were that she knew of the other’s death.”
“I believe you are right, sir,” said Mr. Hewlett. “I think you are, but beyond the ruby cross, which she might have become possessed of in some other way, this is not evidence.”
Septimus Lockyer nodded.
“Quite right, Hewlett! Trust you for seeing the weak points in a story! You supplied me with two important clues—one when you told me that Mrs. Perks came from Saxelby, in Leicestershire, and that her maiden name was Shirley. I went down there and found that there had been two sisters Shirley; one—the elder—was undoubtedly Mrs. Perks, the other I could not help recognizing as my quondam niece, Miss Cécile De Lavelle. After that I had an interview with Basil Wilton, who told me that Cécile De Lavelle had been furious when he transferred his affections to Evelyn. She had vowed vengeance on them both; it was partly that fact that made Evelyn consent to her marriage with Basil being kept secret. For some time Basil and his wife travelled, using the name of Wingrove. Wingrove was the name that his cousin Paul had occasionally used in Paris when exhibiting. It was a family name, and the two associations combined to recall it to Basil’s memory when he wanted a pseudonym. When he was summoned to England on account of his mother’s illness, for a time they lived together; then a quarrel ensued and Evelyn refused to live with her husband until he acknowledged their marriage. As a result she took rooms in Highgate, and he went back to live at home, later on renting the studio in Grove Street in the name of Wingrove, in the hope that she might return to him there.”
“I see, sir,” the detective said slowly: “We were hoping to get valuable information from Mr. Basil Wilton, but we were given to understand that at present his condition would not admit of an interview.”
“Ah, there you were handicapped!” Septimus Lockyer said gravely. “Now I am a privileged person. As I say, luck has been with me; nevertheless all the hard work has been done by you.”
Hewlett felt in no mood to be soothed by the great lawyer’s praise. Later on no doubt it would recur to his memory pleasantly; at present he could only remember how very near he had been to the solution of the secret of Grove Street and yet how very far from the right path his suspicions had wandered.
“You said I had unconsciously given you two clues, sir,” he observed at last. “One that Mrs. Perks was a native of Saxelby. Would you mind telling me the other?”
“The other?” Septimus Lockyer repeated carelessly. “Oh, that was with regard to Gregory! I could not make him out for a long time. From the first I felt sure that if he did not commit the murder himself he knew who did. I inclined to the latter opinion, but the problem that presented itself to me was why had he kept silence? When you told me of his love for Cécile De Lavelle, of which you heard from Miss Merivale, I began to see my way. The interview at which you assisted to-night has removed my last doubts; Gregory is using his guilty knowledge to force Cécile De Lavelle into a marriage with him. I have just telephoned to the registrar, and he tells me the names have been hung up for the last three weeks at the office, and the marriage is to take place to-morrow morning. Doubtless had he known of her whereabouts all this time he would have brought forth his weapon sooner. Now he has had his way; in return for his promise of secrecy she has promised to marry him at the registry office in Harrow Road at ten o’clock to-morrow. Why do you look so grave, Hewlett? Don’t you agree with my theory?”
The detective hesitated.
“Yes, sir, I do as far as it goes. The worst of it is that it is a theory—that so far we seem to have but little evidence to prove it. We might justify an arrest, but I am afraid we could not obtain a conviction without more proof.”
Septimus Lockyer nodded thoughtfully.
“Quite right, Hewlett! You mean that we must have definite evidence to offer with regard to Cécile De Lavelle’s being actually on the spot at the time the murder took place.”
“That is what I mean, sir,” the detective assented. “And proof that Gregory was in a position to know anything with regard to the murder.”
The K.C. did not answer for a minute.
“Gregory himself will supply the necessary evidence to-morrow,” he said at last, without raising his head.
“Gregory?” The detective looked at him. “I don’t understand—”
Septimus Lockyer gave a curious little laugh.
“I have been thinking out my scheme since you came in; I don’t think it will miscarry. When Gregory finds that his bride does not appear to-morrow morning, when he discovers, as he imagines, that he has been made a fool of—for you must remember it is evident that Cécile had eluded him once already—when he is arrested as an accessory, I fancy we shall find him ready to tell us all he knows.”
“And she—I suppose you will arrest her before? But then will she not send to him—let him know somehow?” questioned Hewlett, looking puzzled.
Mr. Lockyer puffed at his cigar.
“I think my plan will provide for all that. A taxi sent by Gregory will arrive at the veiled dancer’s rooms in Islington at nine-o’clock to-morrow morning; it will take her by a circuitous route to the corner of Gray’s Inn Road, where it will stop at a signal from two police officers, who will then enter and make the arrest, driving their prisoner safe to Scotland Yard. In the meantime Gregory will be kicking his heels outside the register office in Harrow Road, and —you know the vengeance he vowed if the girl played him false again—he will be ready to turn King’s evidence when he is arrested. Oh, I don’t think our case will present any extraordinary difficulties now! What
do you say?”
Hewlett’s face cleared as if by magic.
“Say? What can I say, sir, except that it is a grand scheme? I believe you will carry it through all right.”
“I believe we shall,” Septimus Lockyer assented. “The watching of Gregory shall be your part, Hewlett. See that he is looked after until he is safely in the hands of the police. And tell Mr. Edward Wallace to keep an eye on Mrs. Perks—we shall want her too. I think that is all.”
Hewlett took the hint and rose.
“I will put things in train now, sir.”
“Perhaps it would be as well.” The great K.C. held out his hand. “It has been a tough bit of work, but I think we have managed it very well together—you and I.”
“You are very good, sir!”
Nevertheless, the chagrin on the man’s face was patent to Septimus Lockyer’s keen eyes. Hewlett walked slowly along Piccadilly towards Charing Cross. He had a modest couple of bachelor rooms in Buckingham Street. It was expensive, perhaps, but it was on the spot for his work. Cowham, who was a married man, lived out at Streatham and grew flowers and vegetables in his spare time. The senior partner had always been of the opinion that it would not do for both of them to cultivate the domesticities. He had never been better pleased with his proximity to the scene of his labours than on this particular night; it was sufficiently near for Inspector Hudger, after his interview with Septimus Lockyer, to come in and talk over the plans for the next day—sufficiently near for Hewlett himself to go to his office and get out his notes of the Grove Street Murder and go over them for the hundredth time. How was it that he had missed such a very obvious solution? he asked himself despairingly over and over again. It seemed to him now, looking back, that from the very moment he found out that Evelyn Spencer had been murdered his attention ought to have been directed to her impersonator. Now that he knew how it had occurred, Wingrove’s flight was so easily explainable that he was inclined to underrate the suspicion to which it had given rise.