The Man Without A Face

by The Man Without a Face (retail) (epub)

  “I think better in the dark,” said Harrison, rather uncomfortably.

  “I nearly decided not to go out at all,” continued Miss Williams; “but I assumed you had seen me and so there was no object in going straight back again. I thought the only thing to do would be to explain things directly I had a chance of talking to you.”

  She smiled innocently at him, and Harrison admitted to himself that, whether he had met her before or not, she deserved his highest admiration as a remarkably resourceful woman.

  The dinner was just finishing and Livia Marston had pushed back her chair and was coming towards them.

  “By Livia’s looks,” said Miss Williams, “it was you, Mr. Harrison, who hit Sir Jeremiah.”

  Livia came straight over to them and, touching Miss Williams’ arm, said, “Hurry up, and come along, Helen. I want to talk to you particularly.”

  “Very well, Livia,” said Miss Williams, rising. “I’ve had such a pleasant talk with Mr. Harrison.”

  “You always had the strangest taste, Helen,” said Livia, moving on and looking at Harrison as if he were some particularly ill-favoured reptile.

  Chapter V

  Impressions Of An Inquest

  Harrison and Henry did not get much time together until early the following evening, when they settled themselves comfortably in Mrs. Marston’s room.

  “A wonderful woman,” said Harrison to Henry, as he pulled at a cigar. “I should like to help her if I can, Henry.”

  “She’s got enough troubles at the moment, sir,” answered Henry, looking rather too self-conscious in a gaily tapestried armchair. “Husband and daughter, so to speak.”

  “Quite right, Henry,” said Harrison. “We must help her somehow.”

  “But why can’t we go upstairs, sir,” asked Henry. “Much more home-like—and I could have made the tea.”

  “I admit your virtues over tea-making,” replied Harrison; “but really this isn’t bad at all.” He helped himself to a second cup. “And, besides, Miss Williams still occupies the room above us.”

  “She can’t hear through the ceiling, sir.”

  “But she’s a good climber, Henry,” said Harrison, “and I’m taking no risks. I told Mrs. Marston that I must get somewhere quite undisturbed, and she arranged for me to be here.”

  “I don’t see the difference, sir—really I don’t. I should have thought you would have been more likely to be disturbed here, if anything.”

  “Mrs. Marston has told the household she is resting here and mustn’t be disturbed,” answered Harrison. “As a matter of fact, her maid is on guard somewhere near the door to keep anyone from coming in. And I have another reason, too—young Bamberger.”

  Henry sat up and looked at Harrison with wonder.

  “Yes, young Bamberger is coming here to see me,” said Harrison. “As I particularly do not want anyone else in the house to know about it, he will seem to have come to visit Mrs. Marston. The maid has instructions to show him in here, and that’s that.”

  “You are being very cautious, sir, if I may say so,” commented Henry.

  “One has to be with Miss Helen Williams about,” answered Harrison. “Whether I have seen her before or not, we have already recognised each other as born enemies. I personally think she’s a worthy antagonist, and I trust she thinks the same of me. We are definitely fighting one another, but the difficulty is that I do not know what I am fighting about. I may have one or two wild guesses, but I confess to you, Henry, I am a long way from the truth at present.”

  “It’s all very mysterious, sir.”

  “It’s more than that, Henry, because we have no idea what the mystery is. I am certain that woman is up to something here, and that’s about all I am certain of.”

  Harrison sat and smoked for some minutes in silence. Then he looked at Henry. “Note-book and pencil?” he queried.

  “Yes, sir,” answered Henry, settling down to take notes.

  “I’m not going to dictate, Henry,” said Harrison. “You will just jot down notes of essential points as we go along.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  “The inquest was exceedingly interesting, Henry,” said Harrison. “Don’t put that down. That’s for yourself. I didn’t really realise the power of the Marstons in the land until I went to it. In the dining room there was the old coroner, a little afraid of his job, who did his very best to make it as easy as possible for Marston.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I am certain he felt like a very honoured guest in the house,” continued Harrison. “He apologised quite humbly to Marston for being there at all, but, of course, the law—which, after all, makes England a habitable place—demands that an inquest shall follow a case of sudden or violent death, and the law must be obeyed. He seemed to imply that the law was not made for such exalted personages as William Marston, it was really only to cover smaller fry like himself and the rest of the county, but the William Marstons must set an example in these matters. It was a kind of study of English democracy from the county angle.”

  “It makes my blood boil,” said Henry, viciously.

  “It shouldn’t,” said Harrison. “That’s England, whether you approve or not, Henry. You’re too much of a Londoner to see it. Then he gave a little dissertation for the edification of the Press, on the tragic circumstances of the case. A little picturesque but good, all the same. Tragedy swooping out of the clear sky of a joyous afternoon consecrated to a very happy family occasion. Here he almost bowed to Miss Livia Marston—”

  “She was there, sir?”

  “Yes, all the time, Henry, spending most of it looking daggers at me. It was even more unfortunate,” he said, “because he gathered that the engagement of Miss Marston and Sir Jeremiah Bamberger’s son was likely to be announced as a climax to the day’s events. Here Mrs. Marston looked at him and he got worried and said ‘perhaps you would prefer the Press not to mention that?’ but Livia gave her mother such a glance that Mrs. Marston shook her head and the coroner smiled feebly on the company and went on again. Believe me, Henry, I have never quite seen anything like it.”

  “I don’t know how you stood it, sir.”

  “Dr. Manning was the first witness of any importance, and he described how the accident must have happened. Of course, he was very sympathetic to William Marston and, from the brief observation I myself had made of the wound, did not describe it with the utmost accuracy.”

  “That’s important, sir.”

  “In what way, Henry?”

  “I don’t know, sir, but it doesn’t sound right.”

  “Henry, I value your judgment, and it may be important from all sorts of points of view, but your reason is pretty useless. After all, the doctor only minimised the weight of the blow. Possibly he thought that it wasn’t fair on Marston to suggest he had given a much harder knock than he had intended. Still, he was inaccurate in other points, too. He said that Bamberger’s heart might have given way under the shock. He didn’t actually say the heart was weak, but he allowed the coroner to infer it, and when the coroner himself jumped at this as a good point, he didn’t deny it. So when the doctor’s evidence was finished we were left with the impression that Bamberger died from an ordinary blow from William Marston: a blow which might not have affected any other man—of course, none of us likes being hit on the head, as the coroner observed to give a little lightness to the proceedings—but which proved fatal to a man with a heart as weak as Bamberger’s.”

  “And you didn’t agree, sir?”

  “It’s not quite what the doctor said yesterday, Henry, that’s all,” replied Harrison. “Then came William Marston’s turn. The coroner began to exude kindliness. Marston looked fearful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man look so haggard and nerve-stricken. Really terrible. The coroner started by talking of his painful duty, and I thought for a moment that William Marston was going to jump up and throttle him. I should have sympathised if he had. But he kept his self-control remarkably well. He answered a
ll the questions clearly and concisely, although one could see the commotion going on inside him. He admitted he was to blame.”

  “Did he?”

  “Absolutely. Possibly he hit Bamberger too hard. Here the coroner intervened and said that Marston was very chivalrous, but really there was no need to go as far as that. Marston looked quite murderously at the coroner and said he was trying to describe what actually happened. The coroner was duly crushed. But he was certain that the thick wig would protect Bamberger’s head. If Bamberger had not stumbled as the blow came down it would have been all right. But something happened, Marston did not know what, and, instead of hitting Bamberger full on the top of the wig, he hit him on the side of the head. Even then he did not realise anything serious had happened. ‘Of course not,’ said the coroner, comfortingly, and received another unpleasant look from Marston. In their rehearsals Bamberger had made the fall amusingly realistic, and to Marston he was only repeating a very excellent piece of acting. The coroner opened his mouth but thought it wiser to say nothing. Of course, Marston added, directly he knew something was wrong he did all he possibly could, but he might say that he would have given anything for it not to have happened, and the ghastly memory of such an act, even if it was unintentional, would be with him as long as he lived.”

  “A very complete story, sir,” said Henry.

  “Very,” echoed Harrison.

  “What do you mean, sir?” asked Henry.

  “Completer than it was yesterday,” answered Harrison. “And we must leave it at that. That may be only natural. He was stunned when he realised what had happened, and his memory is obviously much fresher to-day.”

  “You don’t really think that, sir?”

  “It’s logical, Henry, at any rate,” replied Harrison. “My own thoughts are anything but logical at present. Let’s get back to the inquest. Then they called Miss Livia. A kind of formal business just to prove who was organiser of the show and the idea of the scene in question, the cooking-ladle and all that. The coroner did suggest that it was a dangerous sort of scene and that people who organised such shows should really refrain from including acts of violence, because pretending was all very well but accidents did sometimes happen, as this case proved.”

  “l should think that pleased Miss Livia,” said Henry, with a chuckle.

  “She muttered something like ‘Nonsense’ or ‘Old fool’ or a similar remark, but no one really heard it, so that passed off all right. The real note of discord appeared when young Bamberger asked if he could say something.”

  “What happened, sir?”

  “Well, the coroner looked at him with a stony glare until someone told him who Bamberger was, and then he smiled in the most fatherly manner and said ‘Certainly, my poor boy.’ Young Bamberger, looking very uncomfortable but sticking to his guns—I must say I like the look of that young man—said that all he wanted to say was that there was no sign of a weak heart about his father. He was sorry to have to take any part in the proceedings at all, but he felt he must say that.”

  “That made Marston feel uncomfortable?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Harrison, “but the coroner was furious. He must have thought that this was a kind of sinister accusation against his beloved Marston. He asked young Bamberger rather sharply if he was contesting the evidence of Dr. Manning. Young Bamberger said that, of course, he wasn’t, but his father had had his heart examined by a London specialist only a few weeks before and was told that it was as sound as a bell—nothing wrong whatsoever. Manning jumped up, but the coroner motioned him to sit down again. It was his inquest and nothing was going to interfere with his running it. Again he adopted the kindly mother-love tone to young Bamberger and explained that he sympathised with him very deeply. There was no reason why any of them should doubt either the specialist or Dr. Manning. The men of medicine understood the human body and it was their job as laymen to bow to their opinion. He knew Bamberger meant no reflection on Dr. Manning’s character, but he also knew that the young man had no intention of setting his opinion on medical matters against that of the doctor. Was he right?”

  “Marvellous, sir,” said Henry. “Of course everyone agreed he was right.”

  “Young Bamberger didn’t say anything, so he gathered he was right. He added that as a coroner he was perfectly satisfied, and facts have to be pretty clear, he hinted, for any coroner to be in that delectable state. Thus was peace restored, but it was nearly broken again, Henry, because of a certain Clay Harrison.”

  “What did you say, sir?”

  “Nothing, Henry,” was the reply. “It may sound quite unlike me, but that was my contribution.”

  “But how did that affect the inquest?”

  “Well, Henry, the coroner was just going to round things off when Mrs. Marston looked at me and then at him, and boldly explained that they had a great London detective in the room who was down there by sheer chance for the play and had been able therefore to get an impression of the whole tragic business. He had even been one of the first to see poor Sir Jeremiah after the accident. Both she and Mr. Marston wanted everything cleared up in the most thorough manner possible, and she thought, if Mr. Clay Harrison had anything to say, it might be an excellent thing to hear it.”

  “Splendid woman,” said Henry.

  “The coroner did not think so. He had to be courteous to Mrs. Marston and he thanked her for her suggestion, but, although he and such country folk could not claim the penetrating intelligence of Mr. Harrison, who doubtless had performed miracles of sensational detection, he thought their native common sense was sufficient to deal with a problem of this simple character. While appreciating the offer, he felt it unnecessary to call on Mr. Harrison, although he was certain Mr. Harrison would not follow the example of so many detectives in fiction—here he smiled as if sure of the proper reception of a polite jest—and find a mystery where none could possibly be discovered. Even Marston almost smiled at that. Miss Livia was obviously more than satisfied. Mrs. Marston was duly sat upon and Clay Harrison was silent.”

  “I should like to meet that coroner,” said Henry.

  “I don’t think you would,” answered Harrison. “He might almost be described as dangerous. Then he found that it was a case of death by misadventure, was sympathetic with both families, and would only conclude by saying that he really thought that by a certain age—which he did not specify—people should give up indulging in private theatricals of such a character.”

  “What would you have said, sir,” asked Henry, “if you had been called upon?”

  “Exactly the same, Henry,” was the reply. “Nothing at all. What was there to say? It was obviously a case of accidental death, wasn’t it? I waited a moment while the others went out of the room and, when I followed, I saw Miss Livia giving Miss Helen Williams an animated description in the corridor. Strange how that young woman objects to me. She was undoubtedly giving a glowing account of my discomfiture, and, as I passed, Miss Williams gave me a malicious smile. I should have said a triumphant smile if I did not think such a word entirely out of place. Still, Miss Livia being occupied in this way gave me a chance to get hold of young Bamberger, who was waiting in the hall for her. He showed no particular inclination to be pleasant either, but I believe he did realise how important I thought it was that I should have a quiet word with him, and I even eventually persuaded him to come along here as soon as possible.”

  “Is that all, sir?”

  “Just one thing more, Henry. The butler. Now in most of the thrillers I have seen on the stage, the butler is a very sinister character. This one was the very reverse. An old family servant who had possibly been with the Marstons in some capacity all his life. He sat by the door of the dining-room during the inquest—as a kind of sentry, I suppose. The point is this, Henry, I never saw a man look so uncomfortable during the proceedings as he did. He looked nervously at the coroner and then at Marston and then at the floor. The whole time he seemed to be on tenterhooks. Most extraordinar
y!”

  “He may have been very attached to Mr. Marston, sir,” said Henry. “A servant like that would feel almost as bad as his master about it.”

  “I thought of that, Henry,” answered Harrison. “But I don’t think it was quite that. He seemed to me to have some sort of vague fear. He certainly had something on his mind, and when I had finished with Bamberger in the hall he started coming up to me. Then he seemed to think better of it, and he turned quickly round and made full speed for the servants’ door. The poor old thing really was in a nervy state. I want to know why.”

  “You could ask him, sir,” said Henry.

  “I doubt whether that would do any good,” replied Harrison. “I suppose I must wait until he feels like it, and then it may not mean anything. And now, Henry, what do you know?”

  “Miss Williams’ things are packed and she is leaving this evening.”

  “Was she annoyed when they told her to stay until after the inquest?”

  “Her maid said she was, sir. Thought it was all nonsense and had upset all her plans.”

  “Where is she going?”

  “Magenta Hotel, West Kensington.”

  “Good!” commented Harrison. “Anything else?”

  “I went to the ‘Sun,’ sir. The foreigners had gone. They went at lunch-time yesterday in a car. That seems to be all.”

  “What about the ‘Head’?”

  “I asked the landlord about him, sir, but he couldn’t tell me anything. The foreigners persuaded him to go bed before the man arrived. They said they would let him in and lock up the front door. The landlord wasn’t very keen, I gathered, but he said, rather feebly, that one has to be tactful with these foreigners.”

  “Threatened him, I suppose?”

  “That’s certainly what it sounded like, sir,” said Henry. “The landlord being rather curious, got up in good time and took along some tea to the ‘Head’s’ room. As you might have expected, there was no ‘Head.’ The bed had been slept in, but the foreigners explained that he had had to leave early as well, so they let him out as well as let him in.”