Murder on the Liverpool Express (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 17)

by Frank Howell Evans

“Then it is there that I shall look for the maid. No doubt she preceded her mistress to the hotel or she will join her there very shortly.”

  “You must not make yourself known, of course? They might give you the slip. You have no authority to detain them, not in London.”

  “I will take precautions to stay out of sight. And if need be I can always appeal to the police.”

  “That would be the proper course, but you might lose valuable time. We will send one of our own people with you to assist you.”

  “Oh, very well. If that’s what you wish.” The Welshman readily assented, but Poiret could guess from the tone of his voice that the proposal was not exactly pleasing to him.

  “I will call in Officer Noble,” said the inspector and the policeman appeared to take his instructions.

  He was a stout, little man, with a barrel-like figure, greatly emphasized by the short coat he wore. He had small eyes buried deep in a big face and his chubby cheeks hung low over his turned-up collar.

  “Noble, listen sharp! This gentleman,” said the inspector, indicating Stewart, “is a member of the Liverpool police and has been so kind as to offer us his services. Accompany him to the Marlborough Hotel. Contact Sergeant Jones, who is there on duty.”

  “Would it not be sufficient if I went alone and made myself known to Sergeant Jones?” suggested the Welshman. “I have seen him here. I would have no trouble recognizing him.”

  “That is not certain. He may have altered his appearance. Besides, he does not know you are aiding us and might not be very willing to help you.”

  “You might give me a letter to take to him.”

  “I think not! We prefer to send Policeman Noble,” replied the inspector, briefly and decidedly. He did not like his obstinacy and looked at Poiret for support.

  “It was only to save time that I made the suggestion,” Stewart hastily added. “Naturally I am here to help you. Besides if I don’t find the maid at the hotel, I may have to look somewhere else and in that case Policeman Noble would no doubt render valuable assistance. He knows London, I don’t.”

  His words restored confidence and a few minutes later the two policemen, bonded by their jobs, left the station in an unmarked police car.

  “Et maintenant, what next?” asked Poiret.

  “That arrogant officer,” said the inspector. “That swashbuckling soldier, with his uncouth ways. I long to come to close quarters with him. He ridiculed me and said I knew nothing. We’ll see about that.”

  “You wish to interrogate him yourself, mon ami?”

  Poiret glanced at the inspector, but he stood up and went to the waiting room. When Lord Barry Henderson entered, he included all four men in one cold, stiff bow, waited a moment and then, finding he was not offered a chair, said with studied politeness, “I presume I may sit down?”

  “Pardonnez-moi,” said Poiret, standing up hastily and evidently a little ashamed of himself, “Please to sit.”

  “Ah! Thank you. Do you object?” continued the lord, taking out a cigarette-case. “May I offer one?” He held out the box affably.

  “I do not smoke on duty,” answered the inspector, rudely. “Nor is smoking permitted in this room.”

  “Come, come, I mean no disrespect. But if you will forgive me, I shall take three whiffs. It will help me keep my temper.”

  He was evidently mocking them. There was nothing remaining of the madman, when he was acting as the baroness’s champion and he was perfectly, almost insolently calm and composed.

  “You call yourself Lord Henderson?” went on the inspector.

  “I do not just call myself that. I am Lord Henderson, of the British Army.”

  “Retired?”

  “No, I am still on the active list.”

  “These points will have to be verified.”

  “Please yourself. You have already sent word to my barracks?”

  “Yes, but no one has come for you,” answered the inspector, happily.

  “If you don’t believe me, why do you question me?”

  “It is my duty to question you and yours is to answer. If not, we have other means at our disposal.”

  “Mon ami,” interjected Poiret, “please to permit me.”

  “I permit you, Poiret?” answered the lord, with the utmost courtesy, as he threw his half-burned cigarette on the floor.

  “Monsieur, Poiret he only asks of you the help in regards to this unfortunate event.”

  “Indeed, I’m quite ready. If there has been any unpleasantness, it was surely not of my making, but rather of that man there.” The lord pointed to Inspector Watkins rather dismissively and nearly started a fresh argument.

  “Oui, oui, Monsieur, please to concentrate on the matter at hand. It was told to Poiret,” said the little man, after fingering a few pages of the statements in front of him, “that you are the friend of the Baroness Bluemayne?”

  The lord raised his eyebrows.

  Poiret added quickly, “She has told to us so herself.”

  “It was very kind of her to call me her friend. I am proud to hear she considers me a friend.”

  “How long is it that you have known her, Monsieur?”

  “Four or five months, in Liverpool.”

  “Did you visit her at her house?” asked Watkins.

  “If you mean, was I permitted to call on her on friendly terms, yes.”

  “Did you know all her friends?”

  “How can I answer that stupid question? I know whom I met there. That’s all.”

  “Did you meet Monsieur Sykes among the friends of Madame?”

  “Sykes, Sykes? I cannot say that I have. The name is familiar somehow, but I cannot recall meeting the man.”

  “Have you never heard of Mersey & Sykes, the bankers?” interjected Watkins.

  “Ah, yes, of course. I must say, though, I’ve had no dealings with them. No, I have never met Mr. Sykes.”

  “Not even at the Baroness’s?”

  “Never, of that I’m quite sure, now.”

  “Still, Monsieur, it was told to us that he was the frequent visitor at the house of Madame.”

  “That is perfectly incomprehensible to me. Not only have I never met him, but I have never even heard the baroness mention his name.”

  “It will come as a surprise, then, to be told that he visited her apartment in Roscoe Street on the very evening of her departure from Liverpool. He called, was admitted, was alone with her for more than an hour.” Inspector Watkins did his best to get a rise out of the soldier, but he failed utterly.

  “I am surprised, sir, astounded, really. I called there myself about four in the afternoon to offer my services for the journey and I too stayed till after five. I can hardly believe it.”

  “I have more surprises for you, milord. What would you say if I tell you that this Sykes, this intimate friend, was the man found murdered in the sleeper?”

  “Can it possible be? Are you sure?” said Lord Henderson, mocking. “And what do you deduce from all this? What do you imply? The baroness did it? Absurd!”

  “I respect your chivalrous desire to stand up for a lady, who calls you her friend,” continued Watkins, red in the face, “but we are police officials first and sentiment cannot be permitted to influence us. I have good reasons for suspecting that lady.”

  “May I not know those reasons?”

  “Because she was the only woman in the carriage, you understand, between Leicester and London.”

  “Do you suspect a female hand, then?” asked the lord, evidently more interested and impressed than he was willing to admit.

  “That is our thinking.”

  “And you are certain that this lady, a refined, delicate person, moving in the highest society, was the only female in the carriage?”

  “Monsieur, please to tell to Poiret, what other woman could have been in the compartment? After it halted in Leicester, the train it did not stop till it reached London.”

  “On that last point you are quite mistaken, I as
sure you. So why not on the other also?”

  “The train, it stopped between Leicester and London?” asked Poiret, unconvinced. “Nobody, they have told that to Poiret?”

  “Possibly because you never asked. But it is nevertheless the fact.”

  Poiret looked at the inspector, who himself hurried to the door and called in the conductor. The lord only smiled, but he laughed outright, when the still half-dazed conductor, corroborated the statement immediately.

  “At whose order was the train stopped?” asked the inspector as Haven nodded his head approvingly.

  The conductor could not answer the question. Someone must have rung the alarm-bell, otherwise the train would not have stopped, he explained. Yet he, the conductor, had not done so, nor did any passenger come forward to admit giving the signal.

  “This it is important,” Poiret confessed. “Do you have any idea, who it could be, Monsieur?” he went on to ask the lord.

  “That is surely the inspector’s job to find out. I have only mentioned the fact to disprove your theory. But if you wish, I will tell you how it strikes me.”

  Poiret bowed, with a smile.

  “The fact that the train was halted means little. That is the normal way for a nervous passenger to act after such an event. But to deny the act is suspicious. The only conclusion should be that there was some reason for stopping the train.”

  “And the reason, Monsieur, it would be…”

  “Come, come, you must see it yourself, surely! What else but to afford someone an opportunity to leave the carriage.”

  “But, Monsieur, how could that be? You or at least some of you would have seen that person, especially then. The aisle, it was full of the passengers.”

  “My idea is and it’s only an idea, understand, I’ve seen nothing with my eyes, that the person had already left the compartment.”

  “Left? How?”

  “Escaped through the open window of the compartment, where you found the murdered man.”

  “So you saw an open window, then?” the inspector asked quickly.

  “Yes, I entered the compartment, when the conductor raised the alarm. It occurred to me immediately that someone might have gone through it.”

  “But no woman could have done it. To climb out of an express train going at full speed would be an impossible feat for a woman,” said the inspector, doggedly.

  “Why, in God’s name, do you keep harping upon a woman? Why should it be a woman more than a man?”

  “Because, Monsieur…” It was Poiret, who replied, but he paused a moment at a dismissive gesture from Inspector Watkins. “Because,” went on the little detective, “because evidence was found in the compartment,” and he held out the piece of lace and the scrap of beading. He added quickly, “You have seen these or one of them or something like them before, Monsieur? Poiret, he calls upon you, he demands, non, he appeals to your honour, Monsieur Henderson, to tell to him what it is you know.”

  The lord sat for a time staring hard at the bit of torn lace and the broken beads. Then he spoke, “It is my duty as a soldier to withhold nothing. It is not the lace, because that I could not swear to, but I think I have seen these beads or something exactly like them, before.”

  “Where? When?” asked Watkins, springing to his feet.

  “They formed part of the trimming of a dress worn by Baroness Bluemayne.”

  “Ah!” The same word was uttered simultaneously by the three men, but each had a very different meaning. Poiret was deeply interested. The inspector was triumphant. Haven’s was full of indignation, as if he had caught her red-handed.

  “Did she wear it on the journey?” asked Poiret.

  “As to that I cannot say.”

  “Come, come, sir, you were with her constantly. I insist on being told.” This was said in a fierce tone of voice by the now jubilant Inspector Watkins.

  “I repeat, that I cannot say. To the best of my recollection, the baroness wore a long travelling cloak. The dress with those bead ornaments may have been underneath. It was not during this journey that I saw the beads.”

  Here Poiret turned and whispered to Inspector Watkins, “The policewoman, she did not discover the dress.”

  “How do we know the woman examined her thoroughly?” he replied. “Here we have direct evidence as to the beads. At last the net is closing around this fine baroness.”

  “The beads,” said the detective aloud, turning to the lord, “they were found in the compartment of the murdered man. Please to explain this.”

  “I? How can I explain it? And we still haven’t decided if someone left the carriage.”

  “Please to explain, Monsieur?”

  “The baroness, as we know, never left the carriage. As to her entering this particular compartment at any previous time, is highly improbable, rather insulting, I would say.”

  “But she and Monsieur Sykes were the close friends.”

  “So you say. On what evidence I do not know, but I dispute it.”

  “Then how could the beads get there? They were her property, worn by her,” interjected Watkins.

  “But not necessarily on this journey. Suppose she had given the dress to her maid, for instance. I believe ladies often pass on their things to their maids.”

  “Ah,” grumbled Watkins, “it’s all presumption, theories. The maid has no involvement in this case.”

  “Then I would suggest that you involve her without delay. She is to my mind a rather curious person.”

  “You have spoken to her, Monsieur?”

  “I had seen her at the Baroness’s place in Liverpool and I nodded to her when she came first into the carriage.”

  “And on the journey, you spoke to her frequently?”

  “I? Dear me, not at all. I noticed her, certainly, I couldn’t help that. She seemed to make friends rather quickly, if you understand what I mean.”

  “Pourquoi? With whom?”

  “With the conductor to begin with. I saw them together in Leicester, in the dining compartment at the bar. Then there was the Welshman. The man, who was in here before me. Even, indeed, with the murdered man. She seemed to know every one of them.”

  “I say! Do you imply, sir, that the maid did it?” asked Haven.

  “All I’m saying is that she was constantly in and out of the carriage and more or less quite intimate with several of the passengers.”

  “Including her mistress, the baroness,” put in Inspector Watkins.

  The lord laughed pleasantly.

  “I presume most ladies are on intimate terms with their maids. They say no man is a hero to his valet. It is the same, I suppose, with the fair sex.”

  “So intimate,” went on the inspector, with malicious emphasis, “that now the maid has disappeared lest she might be asked inconvenient questions about her mistress.”

  “Disappeared? Why no! Are you sure?”

  “She cannot be found.”

  “It is as I thought, then. She must’ve left the carriage!” cried Lord Henderson, with so much vehemence that the others were startled out of their dignified reserve.

  Watkins shouted back, “Explain yourself, sir! What in God’s name do you mean?”

  “I had my suspicions from the start and I will tell you why. In Leicester the carriage was empty. As you may have heard, everyone except the baroness, went to the dining compartment for coffee. I was one of the first to finish and I strolled a little on the platform to get a few whiffs of a cigarette. At that moment I saw or at least I thought I saw, the end of a skirt disappearing into the sleeper. I thought it was the maid, Coleen, who was taking her mistress a cup of coffee. Then my uncle came up, we exchanged a few words and entered the carriage together.”

  “Through the same door as that through which you had seen the skirt enter?”

  “No, by the other one. My uncle went back to his berth, but I remained in the corridor to finish my cigarette. The train had left Leicester Station by then. Everyone but myself had returned to his berth and I was o
n the point of going into my compartment and lying down again for half an hour, when I heard the handle of a door turn.”

  “Which compartment?”

  “The empty one with berths 11 and 12. It was next to the baroness’s. Not only was the handle turned, but the door was also partly opened.”

  “Was it not the conductor?” asked Haven, excitedly.

  “Oh, no, he was in his seat at the end of the car. I know so, because he was sound asleep, snoring. I could hear him.”

  “Did any one come out of the vacant compartment?”

  “No, but I could swear that I saw the same skirt, just the hem of it, a black skirt, sway forward beyond the door, just for a second. Then the door was closed again quickly.”

  “What was it that you concluded from this?”

  “I supposed it was the maid and that she wished to be near her mistress as we were approaching London and I had heard from the baroness that the conductor had complained about her presence in the sleeper. But what I wanted to make clear was that there was a reason for stopping the train.”

  “You think so,” Inspector Watkins said, with a scarcely concealed sneer.

  He had made up his mind that it was the baroness, who had rung the alarm-bell, in order to allow her maid to escape.

  “So you have the impression that someone, presumably this woman, got off the carriage during the stoppage?” he asked.

  “I suspect it, certainly, but whether it was or not, I must leave to your obvious superior judgment.”

  “A woman climbing out of the train like that? Humbug!”

  “You have, mon ami, examined the exterior of the car?” asked Poiret.

  “Of course, once, but I will do it again. The outside has no foot-board. Only an acrobat could escape and then only at the peril of his life. A woman? That would be absurd.”

  “But if a woman left the compartment, her only way is to climb down, so there must be marks on the side of the train, right Poiret? Unless she disappeared into thin air,” remarked Haven.

  “She might have.”

  “Monsieur?”

  “The roof,” said Lord Henderson. “I’ve looked out of the window many times, when smoking. It would be nothing for a man, nor much for a woman if assisted to escape onto the roof.”