by Molly Thynne
Leaving a man to guard the stairs, Shand herded them into the lift.
“I think we’ll take de Silva first,” he said thoughtfully. “If Miss Summers is not in her aunt’s flat, it’s pretty obvious where we shall find her, unless they’ve managed to get her away, which I doubt.”
Arrived at de Silva’s door, Shand put his finger on the bell-push and kept it there. There was no response.
Then he knocked, shouting to de Silva to open the door, but there was not a sound from the flat.
“I’ve got the pass-key here, sir,” said the detective he had sent down earlier in the morning.
Shand took it, and in another second they were in the flat.
“Tell Lee to stay on the landing and keep his eyes open,” he flung over his shoulder as they entered.
He made for the sitting-room. It was empty, but on the table was a tray bearing drinks and the remains of a plate of sandwiches.
Shand went straight from there to de Silva’s bedroom. The door was closed and, when he tried the handle, it did not yield.
Wasting no time he put his shoulder against it and exerted his full strength. There was a sharp snap and the sound of splintering wood as the lock gave and the door flew open.
The room was in disorder. On the floor, near the big wardrobe, lay a closed suitcase. The doors of the cupboard were open, clothes were lying half out of the drawers of the chest of drawers by the window, and it was evident that de Silva had been disturbed in the act of packing.
Shand fell on his knees by the suitcase and snapped it open.
“Full,” he said. “He must have cleared in a hurry or he’d have taken this with him.”
Bolton, one of the detectives, appeared at the door.
“He’s not in the flat, sir,” he said. “We’ve made a thorough search. All the windows are closed and latched on the inside.”
Shand rose to his feet.
“Then he’s gone opposite,” he said. “Must have slipped across just before we came up in the lift. If he used the stairs they’ll have got him downstairs by now.”
An exclamation from Mellish made him turn.
The fat man was staring at a paper he had picked up from a table which stood beside the bed.
“There’s been some devilry here, Shand,” he said heavily. “This is Miss Summers’s will, though I’ll swear she never drew it up herself. I hope to God she’s all right.”
Shand peered over his shoulder.
“Has she signed it?” he demanded; then, answering his own question: “It’s still unsigned! Then you may take it she’s still alive. We’ll leave a man here, in case our friend comes back, and go over and have a few words with Lady Dalberry.”
They crossed the landing to the flat opposite. To Shand’s surprise the door was opened at once and by Lady Dalberry herself.
She was dressed for the street and was evidently on the point of going out.
“Oh, Mr. Mellish,” she began, “I am so glad you came back.”
Then her eyes fell on Dalberry.
“You have met, then,” she went on. “I have just been telling Gillie that Carol telephoned just after you’d gone to say that she was at Claridges after all. It appears—”
Mellish broke in ruthlessly on her explanations.
“Lady Dalberry,” he said, “we’ve reason to believe that Carol is in this flat. Will you let us in, please?”
Lady Dalberry laughed.
“Isn’t this a little foolish?” she exclaimed. “I have told you that Carol is at Claridges; you have only to ring them up at the hotel to find out if I am speaking the truth.”
“On your telephone?” suggested Mellish pointedly.
“Certainly,” she answered. “The man came and put it right just after I saw you this morning. It is at your disposal.”
She stepped aside to permit him to pass into the hall.
“There seem to be a great many of you,” she continued, with more than a hint of good-humoured contempt in her voice. “Are you all looking for that poor Carol?”
“It will save time and trouble if you will tell us at once where Carol is,” said Mellish. “If not, we must search the flat.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I have told you all I know about Carol,” she answered. “You will forgive me if I say that I think you are taking a great deal on yourself if you insist on breaking your way into my private apartments. I shall do nothing to prevent you, but that does not mean that I shall swallow the insult meekly. You may be sorry that you have taken this line, Mr. Mellish.”
She stepped past him and out on to the landing, Mellish instinctively following her.
Shand came forward to meet her.
“I have a warrant,” he said. “I advise you to make no trouble.”
She turned to Mellish.
“This is an added insult, Mr. Mellish,” she exclaimed, “which I shall not readily forget.”
With a dramatic gesture she pointed to the door.
“The flat is open,” she continued. “You are at liberty to go where you like. I am sorry I cannot accompany you, but I have an appointment and I am late already. I think you will apologize for this later.”
She turned towards the lift.
Mellish stepped forward to stop her, but, quickly as he moved, Shand’s hand descended first, with a grip like a vise, upon her wrist. He pushed back her sleeve and bent for a second over her arm.
“Hold her!” he cried, as she tried to wrench herself free.
Lee, who was standing behind her, pinioned her elbows and held them, in spite of her struggles.
Shand’s arm shot out once more. There was a furious ejaculation from Lady Dalberry, a frantic effort on her part to escape, and then Shand stepped back.
In his hand was a hat and, attached to it, a flaxen wig.
Mellish was staring at the man still writhing ineffectually in Lee’s grasp.
“My God, de Silva!” he exclaimed, in consternation.
De Silva’s answer was to step backwards with such suddenness that Lee was thrown off his balance. He stumbled, and as he did so his hold relaxed, and the Argentino wrenched himself free. Shand made a dash for him, only to receive a blow that sent him reeling.
It was Dalberry who tripped the fleeing man as he passed him and fell heavily on top of him, pinning him to the ground until Shand could reach him and snap the handcuffs on his wrists.
Dalberry scrambled up and stood staring at the man who lay, panting and cursing, at his feet.
“He’s not de Silva,” he exclaimed.
For the prisoner who, in spite of his absurd clothing, bore such an extraordinary resemblance to de Silva, was fair instead of dark, and his hair was so light as to be almost white.
Shand bent down and hauled him to his feet.
“Kurt Strelinski,” he said, “I arrest you on the charge of being concerned in the death of Eric Conyers. I have to warn you that anything you say will be used against you.”
CHAPTER XXV
Leaving Shand to dispose of his prisoner, Dalberry brushed past Mellish and hurried into the flat. He ran down the passage to Carol’s sitting-room. Finding no trace of her there, he tried the bedroom.
The door was shut, and when he tried to open it, he discovered that there was an obstruction of some kind on the other side. When he at last got it open and discovered Carol lying huddled on the floor, it seemed to him that his worst fears were realized.
He dropped to his knees by her side and tried to raise her. At his touch she shrank away from him, shuddering.
“Carol!” he cried, beside himself with mingled rage and anxiety. “What is it? Has that swine hurt you?”
At the sound of his voice she raised her head and looked at him. For a moment it seemed as though she were too dazed to recognize him, then the horror slowly faded from her eyes and gave place to an unutterable relief. With a sigh she let her head fall back on to his shoulder.
White with anger he unfastened the bandage round
her mouth and, with his penknife, cut the strips that bound her.
Her arms once free she clutched him, clinging to him like a frightened child.
“Hold me tight, Gillie,” she sobbed. “Don’t let him get me! Don’t let him come in here!”
He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed; but when he tried to put her down, she held on to him in a frenzy of terror.
“Take me out of this place before he comes back,” she begged piteously. “I can’t bear any more! Take me away, Gillie!”
He was still trying to soothe her, to make her understand that de Silva would never trouble her again, when Mellish burst into the room, closely followed by Shand.
Mellish took in the situation at a glance.
“We’ll borrow your car, Shand, if you don’t mind, for Miss Summers,” he said. “There’s no object in keeping her here, I suppose?”
Shand shook his head. He had picked up the strips of silk from the floor and was turning them slowly over in his hands, his eyes on the girl’s swollen wrists.
“The sooner she’s out of here the better,” he answered, in a low voice. “I’m glad I did not know that that devil had used these when I had my hands on him just now. How long was she tied up, do you know?”
Dalberry shook his head.
“I don’t know. She was bound and gagged when I found her. I can’t make her believe, even now, that she is really safe from that brute.”
Shand hesitated for a moment, then he took a stride to the door.
“Lee, just bring Strelinski in here,” he shouted.
Then he crossed to the bed and bent over Carol.
“Do you remember me, Miss Summers?” he said, in his quiet, reassuring voice. “My name’s Shand. I spoke to you in the hall one evening. I’ve been after our friend de Silva for a long time, and now I’ve got him. He’ll never trouble you again.”
He put his hand gently on her shoulder and, with the other, made a sign to Lee, who was waiting in the doorway.
He felt the girl start and shrink as Lee stepped into the room with his prisoner. Standing between them and the handcuffed man, he went on:
“You see, you’ve nothing to be afraid of any more. In another half-hour we’ll have him under lock and key, and he and Lady Dalberry will have ceased to exist as far as you are concerned. Looks a bit different without his wig, doesn’t he?”
Carol nodded. She was still incapable of speech, but her colour was beginning to return and the fear was passing out of her eyes.
Shand smiled down at her.
“You’ve had a bad time,” he said gently. “But it’s over and done with now, and all you’ve got to do is to forget it. I’ll look after the rest.”
At a sign from him Lee removed his prisoner.
Shand drew Mellish after him into the passage.
“She’ll do now, I think, Mr. Mellish,” he said. “I should get her away from here, though. When she’s rested and fit, I should like to ask her a few questions.”
Shand’s opportunity came sooner than he had expected. Once under the friendly roof of the Carthews, Carol pulled herself together with a celerity that was little short of amazing. The doctor spoke darkly of “shock” and “after-effects,” but, when a mild sedative and a good night’s rest had done their work, even he was driven to admit that all danger of a serious breakdown was over. He raised no objection to a meeting between her and Shand, being of the opinion that, once she had been given an opportunity to discuss the events that had so terrified her, she would have a better chance of dismissing them from her mind.
Thus it was that, less than a week after the arrest of Strelinski, she found herself the principal guest at a select dinner-party in Mellish’s rooms at the Albany.
Dalberry and Shand were the only other people invited, and, at Mellish’s suggestion, all discussion of the business which had brought them together was shelved until after the dessert.
“Till then, we’ll look upon it as a slightly deferred coming-of-age party,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you to remind me that my jurisdiction is over. You can kick over the traces as much as you like now.”
“I’m rather off kicking, for the moment,” confessed Carol. “I must admit that there does seem something to be said for that ‘safety first’ policy that you’ve been rubbing into me ever since I can remember.”
Mellish looked doubtful.
“It’s a case of ‘the devil was sick,’ I’m afraid,” he said. “At present you’re only convalescent. Once you’re properly on your feet again there’ll be no holding you.”
Carol hesitated for a moment. When she did speak it was with an attempt at nonchalance that seemed slightly overdone.
“As a matter of fact,” she announced, stumbling a little over the words, “I have had to give up the career of glorious independence that I have been looking forward to for twenty-one long years. Circumstances have arisen …”
She broke off, blushing vividly.
“This is very interesting,” said Mellish gravely, “and your language is beautiful. Circumstances have arisen … ?” Carol relapsed into the vernacular.
“Oh bother!” she exclaimed. “The fact is that I came to the conclusion that I’d better have some one to look after me, and as Gillie seemed to want to take on the job, we … Well, we arranged that he should. And that’s that.”
“The idea being to get married as soon as possible,” put in Dalberry. “Any objection, Jasper?”
“Good heavens, no!” Mellish was beaming. “But you little know what you’re in for, Gillie. As for you, my child,” he went on, turning to Carol, “you’ll find you’ve met your match. He won’t give you your head as I did.”
“Speaking on behalf of the Yard, Miss Summers,” announced Shand, with a kindly twinkle in his eye, “I may say that the arrangement meets with our entire approval. You’ve been a bit on our minds lately, you know.”
“If it wasn’t for the Yard I shouldn’t be here, Mr. Shand,” said Carol gratefully. “As it is, you’re the only person I feel really safe with, even now.”
“The occasion seems to call for a toast,” said Mellish. “Fetch yourself a glass, Jervis, and wish Miss Summers and Lord Dalberry luck.”
Jervis’s habitually solemn face creased into a thousand wrinkles.
“One of the happiest occasions I can remember, sir,” he murmured confidentially—“if I may say so.”
It was not until they were comfortably settled round the fire in the study that Mellish introduced the subject that was of such absorbing interest to all of them.
“I think, if you don’t mind, you had better take the platform, Shand,” he said. “You’ve got the whole story unravelled now, and it’s complicated enough, goodness knows.”
Shand cleared his throat.
“We’ve got it pretty clear now, I think,” he began, “partly from Strelinski’s own confession, and partly from what we’ve been able to get from America. He’s owned up to the impersonation of Lady Dalberry, and told us, more or less, how it came about, but, of course, denies having had any connection with either of the two murders. There’s no doubt, however, that he worked the whole business, from beginning to end, single-handed, and an uncommonly pretty piece of roguery it was.”
He rose to his feet and stood facing his audience.
“The facts, as we have been able to reconstruct them, are, roughly, as follows. When Lord and Lady Dalberry set out for the coast from their ranch in the Argentine, they were not, as has been generally supposed, accompanied by a maid. That maid was a fiction of Strelinski’s to account for the presence of the woman’s body on the scene of the motor accident. The inquest was held in a small and remote town, far from Lord Dalberry’s ranch, otherwise the deception would have been impossible. The disfigured body found lying under the car was, of course, that of Lady Dalberry. Lord Dalberry was driving the car himself, without a chauffeur, and he and Lady Dalberry put up at a small town, little more than a village, for the night. At the in
n there, Lord Dalberry got into conversation with Strelinski, who had been travelling with a third-rate theatrical company. The tour had been a frost, and Strelinski found himself stranded, absolutely on his beam ends, without even the money to pay his way to the nearest big town. Practically the only thing he possessed was a bag which contained his make-up and a couple of wigs. Lord Dalberry took pity on his penniless condition and offered him a lift as far as he cared to go. There seems every reason to believe that the accident was a genuine one, because, at that period of the affair, Strelinski had nothing to gain by the death of the man who had befriended him; but when he realized that he was the sole survivor, and that Lady Dalberry’s body was mutilated beyond recognition, he was quick to take advantage of the fact. He admits that the people at the inn had heard of Lord Dalberry’s unexpected accession to the title, and been interested enough to discuss the matter with him. What he learned from them, combined with certain things he had read in the papers at the time of the accident to the airmail, convinced him that he stood a fair chance of success if he tried to impersonate Lady Dalberry. He had the contents of her luggage to choose from, and, with the help of his own wig and make-up box, he was able to dress the part before help arrived. It was pure bad luck, from our point of view, that Lord Dalberry should have been carrying in the car a dispatch box containing all his most important papers and, what was of even more value to Strelinski, full and carefully kept diaries—small pocket affairs, but with a whole page to each day. It had apparently been his habit to keep these diaries ever since his school-days, and we found eleven of them at de Silva’s flat at the Escatorial. He declares that he started the impersonation on an impulse, merely with the intention of getting hold of Lord Dalberry’s ready money and anything else of value that might be in his luggage, trusting to luck to get away with the loot before he was found out. It was only after his first night at the hotel to which he was taken, a night spent in going through the papers he found in the dispatch box, that he conceived the idea of carrying the thing through on a much larger scale. The two things that decided him were the fact that Lady Dalberry was unknown to any one on this side of the Atlantic, and the discovery of the whereabouts of Miss Summers. Curiously enough he had worked for a film company in which Miss Summers’s father had a controlling interest, and he had been with it at the time of Mr. Summers’s death. There he had heard a great deal of gossip concerning Miss Summers and her enormous inheritance, and was now to discover her close connection with the Dalberrys. It was with the determination to get hold of Miss Summers that Strelinski came to England, and it was with this intention that he decided to double the part of Lady Dalberry with that of de Silva. He admits that he hoped to marry Miss Summers, in his character of de Silva, and his failure to make a good impression on her ended in the wrecking of all his plans.