“I thought I was on the ground floor, but there’s a basement, and old Lamb has just let me down into it with a bump.”
He cast himself down on the floor beside Lee and laid his head against her knee.
“You don’t feel as if you’d like to kiss me and say a few nice womanly things like ‘Darling, we’ve still got each other,’ and, ‘It is always darkest before the dawn’?”
Lee smiled a little wanly.
“Peter, if I kiss you I shall probably begin to cry, and that would be about the last straw, because Lucy never stops, does she?”
“I shall divorce you if you cry.”
“You can’t divorce me till we are married.”
Peter pulled down one of her hands and put his cheek against it.
“ ‘A Bride’s Cynicism, or Modern Outlook on Marriage,’ ” he remarked. “You know, if Lucinda heard you talk like that, she’d have a fit. You’ve got a lovely, soft, cool hand.”
“Have I? I’m glad. What did the Lamb say that cast you down into a basement?”
“He’d had a report from Birmingham -about Aggie, you know-and it’s no good. She’s got a room in quite a respectable sort of lodging-house-been there about a week-and the police and at least three people are prepared to swear that she was there on Tuesday night, because she was taken ill and waked the landlady up at two in the morning, and the husband-the landlady’s husband, not Aggie’s-went round and knocked up a chemist to get some stuff made up for her. Some kind of a heart attack, and she’d run out of what she takes for it.”
“That seems very convenient,” said Lee slowly.
Peter twisted round so that he could look at her.
“Do you think it’s too convenient?”
She drew a long breath.
“I don’t know, but-two in the morning is such a frightfully difficult time to have an alibi for. Why should Aggie have one? It-it-feels queer to me.”
He sat right up.
“Darling, your head’s going round. Aggie was in Birmingham on Tuesday night having a heart attack unless (a) her respectable landlady, (b) her respectable landlady’s respectable husband, and (c) one Mrs. Coltham, who had the room next door and helped minister to the afflicted, are all perjuring themselves black in the face, and really there’s on reason why they should, because none of them had so much as set eyes on her a week before. They weren’t very enthusiastic about her either. Miss La Fay -she’s stuck to her stage name by the bye-Miss La Fay gave a good deal of trouble. They had nothing against her, but theatrical ladies weren’t really in their line, they said. So there we are-Aggie Crouch alias Rosalie La Fay is a wash-out. I shall have to concentrate on Miss Bingham.”
“There isn’t any news about Bobby Foster, I suppose?”
“Not yet. But it’s only a matter of time-they’re bound to get him. Besides, if there’s anything stupid he can do he’ll probably do it, and so will Mavis. There’s no news of her either.”
“You know,” said Lee, “I think Bobby did it. I mean, he wouldn’t if he’d been sober, but if he was pretty far gone when you sent him home at twelve, he probably didn’t in the least know what he was doing by two in the morning. He seems to have gone on having one drink after another, and by the time he got round here-well, he mightn’t really have known what he was doing, and all those things he’d been saying about knocking Ross’s head off and shooting him-don’t you see, the idea might have taken charge. People who wouldn’t hurt a fly when they’re sober do horrible things when they’re drunk.”
There was a knock on the outer door. Peter got to his feet.
“If it’s a policeman, Lucy’s lying down, you are completely prostrated, and I am raving. I shall give an exhibition performance of biting the hall linoleum.”
“I can’t bear another policeman,” said Lee-“I really can’t-not even the Pet Lamb.”
It wasn’t a policeman. It was Rush in his Sunday suit, and the black tie he had worn for the funeral. He was clothed in dignity and gloom, and had in his hand a small brass tray entirely covered with keys. The minute the door was fairly open he began upon a speech which bore every sign of having been rehearsed.
“Seeing as you’re master here now, Mr. Peter, and the police cleared out, thank ’eavens, I should like to know what about me and what about the keys. All here present and correct except Miss Lemoine’s that she’s took away with her, number four, and the Miss Holdsworths, number three, and Mrs. and Miss Tatterley, number two. They’ve taken theirs, though I’ve always said and always tells them that it’s not safe. Suppose there was a fire. Suppose there was these cat-burglars. ’Elpless-that’s what we should be. But all the others is here. Lady Trent, number six-I’ll say that for her, she always ’ands hers in and no bones about it. And Potters, ten and eleven, and Connells, number five-they left theirs with Mrs. Green for her to clean up after them. And that’s another thing that didn’t ought to be done, and I’d like to get that straight with you here and now, Mr. Peter-keys is my responsibility, and any of these daily women that’s got any cleaning to do, they can come to me for the key and ’and it back at the end of the day. But Mrs. Green, she got these keys direct, Potters’ and Connells’-had them for days and made fuss enough about giving them up. But I would have them, and when I told her I’d mention it to the police she give in. And give me her notice too, and won’t be no loss.”
“Hadn’t you better come in?” said Peter. “And what do you expect me to do with all these keys? I always lose my own.”
Rush came as far as the threshold.
“And when you speak about losing keys,” he said in his severest voice, “there’s a matter that I’ll mention. Mr. Ross, he lost one of the keys of his flat a matter of ten days ago. There’s three keys to every flat, all Yales, and Mr. Ross, he lost one of his.”
“How? I do wish you’d come in, Rush.”
“I won’t come no farther. In my opinion Mr. Ross left that key sticking in his door and someone pinched it. I’ve found it there before now myself and got sworn at for my pains.”
Peter took him by the arm, pulled him in, and shut the door.
“Look here, Rush, that might be important. Did you tell the police?”
“What’s the good of them? No, I didn’t tell them, but I’m telling you. And when Mr. Ross forgot himself and as good as said I’d been meddling with his papers, I said to him then, ‘Mr. Ross,’ I said, ‘what about that key you left sticking in the door? Someone took that key, and someone took it because they was a-going to use it’-that’s what I said. But now I’ve got something else to say. You find the one that took that key, and you’ll find the one that shot Mr. Ross.”
Peter made a queer sort of a face.
“A bit drastic, Rush. How do you make that out?”
“I don’t have to make it out. It’s as plain as the nose on your face, Mr. Peter. If I find the cat in the larder lapping up the milk, and come another day there’s the fish missing, well, I don’t have to make it out that it was the cat took both. You find who wanted a key to Mr. Ross’s flat and why they wanted it, and you’ll find out who shot him all right.”
Peter looked hard at him.
“Ross made a row with you about his papers. What exactly did he say?”
There was a momentary sparkle under the bushy eyebrows.
“Better not to say exactly, in case of Miss Lucy or Miss Lee being about.”
“Language?”
“Plenty. But what it come to was that someone had been turning over the papers in his despatch-box. I’d Peterson’s key whilst he had a day off. Mr. Ross was out all day, and he’d left his own bunch of keys lying on the writing-table. Mortal careless he was. And next day he had me in and said I’d been at his despatch-box-said his papers had been all turned over. And I reminded him then about the key as he’d lost, but he was past listening to reason, so I just turned my back and walked out. And there was that snivelling hen of a Mrs. Green a-listening on the landing, and I’ll go bail it was she as told the po
lice I’d been given the sack. And that’s what I’d like to know about, Mr. Peter. Thirty years I’ve been here barring the war, and I’m not taking no notice from no one, but if I’m not going to be trusted I’ll be giving you my notice now, and I’ll not be responsible for the keys any more.”
“Good Lord, Rush!” said Peter. “What do you expect me to do with your keys, or your notice either? Why, I remember you putting me across your knee and giving me half a dozen of the best when I broke Miss Lucy’s window with my catapult.”
Rush relaxed grimly.
“A proper young snip, you was! And it wasn’t the window altogether-you’d got me on the side of the head if I remember rightly, and if it had been my eye, where should I have been?”
Peter clapped him on the shoulder.
“Where you are now-porter at Craddock House, I expect. Get along on with you, and take your keys with you!”
Chapter XXXI
When he had shut the door behind Rush Peter turned round, began to cross the hall, and then suddenly stood still. A couple of minutes went by before he said just under his breath, “I wonder-” And then, “well, we’ll have a look-see.”
Next moment he was pulling Lee up out of her chair.
“Shake off dull sloth and come along with me! I want to go through Ross’s despatch-case, and it’s just as well to have a witness.”
“I thought the police had been through everything.”
“They have, my child, and made neat lists. I don’t think I’m going to find another will, or a confession that he was going to commit suicide with his left hand, or anything like that, but Rush has got a yarn about a missing key and Ross having taken it into his head that he had been routing round amongst his papers. Just imagine how he went through the roof. And now he’s quite sure that the person who pinched the key and messed up the papers is the person who shot Ross. So I rather thought I would go through the despatch-case and see whether there was anything there which might-well, I don’t see what it might do.”
“If there was anything there, the police would have found it.”
“It might be something which didn’t mean anything to the police.”
They went into the flat and lifted the despatch-case on to the table.
“You know,” said Lee, “I can’t think what you expect to find. If someone did take Ross’s key and come in here to look for some paper or other, well, they’d have taken it away, wouldn’t they?”
“If they found it,” said Peter, trying keys.
He found the right one and threw up the lid, disclosing a tray with some odds and ends of jewellery, a gold pencil-case, an old-fashioned fob and seals, a small ivory snuffbox, and a thin bundle of letters in a rubber band. Peter took them out.
“Two notes from Mavis. I wonder how fond he was of her-there’s no accounting for tastes.”
“Peter, don’t read them.”
“I wasn’t going to. But as a matter of fact anybody could. They’re only answers to invitations-nothing to them at all-a couple of lines, and her name scrawled all across the page. You know, that does look as if he’d rather gone off the deep end about her. You don’t keep the ordinary social note locked away like that unless you’ve got it pretty badly.”
Lee stood by the table frowning.
“I don’t like it,” she said “-other people’s letters. Peter, don’t!”
He said very seriously, “I think I will, Lee. I’ve got to clear this thing up in my own mind.”
The next letter was on stiff paper and typed.
“From old Prothero-
‘Dear Mr. Craddock,
In pursuance of our conversation on the morning of the tenth instant, I would beg to urge upon you very seriously the necessity of providing against an intestacy. The unsettled property which passed to you under your mother’s will has so greatly appreciated in value on the termination of the long-term leases granted by her grandfather, the late Mr. Margetson Ross, that I cannot believe that you will any longer delay to make testamentary dispositions of what amounts to a considerable fortune.
Yours sincerely,
Thos. Prothero.’
“Old Prothero says Ross really was going to play. The conversation, I gather, was all about Aggie, and good nippy things like-did he really want her to scoop the lot if he walked under a bus on his way home, or words to that effect. Prothero is shaken to the core at the idea of old Margetson Ross’s unearned increment going into Aggie Crouch’s pocket. Well now, to proceed… There are two or three more letters from Prothero about the falling in of those leases-and that’s all here.”
The second tray held quite a number of letters put up in small bundles and neatly docketed-Ada; Stella; Pat; Linda; Ninon; Marie.
Peter whistled softly.
“Bit of a lad Ross-wasn’t he? I don’t really think these can have anything to do with the affair, but you never can tell.”
“There won’t be anything there,” said Lee wearily. “How can there be? If someone shot Ross to get back some letter or paper, well, they wouldn’t come away without it, would they?”
“I don’t know,” said Peter. “They might if they were frightened-or disturbed. But anyhow that wasn’t what I had in my mind.”
“What did you have?”
“I don’t quite know,” he said.
There seemed to be nothing of importance in the letters. Ninon wrote in French, and Ada could not spell. Stella was frankly out for a good time and as much money as she could get. Pat had finished on a blazing row. The date was the year before last-and a great deal of water flows under that sort of bridge in eighteen months. Linda used the pathetic stop, and it was noticeable that only two of her letters had been preserved. Pathos wouldn’t go at all well with Ross.
Peter dropped the packets back.
“As you say, nothing there. And the rest are just business things by the look of them.”
But under the business papers a final packet came to light, quite unbelievably labelled “Miss Bingham.” Peter stared at it incredulously.
“Darling, am I seeing things, or does this docket say what I think it does?”
“It says, ‘Miss Bingham,’ ” said Lee, looking over his shoulder.
“Gosh!” said Peter.
He removed the rubber band. There were three letters. He unfolded the first and read aloud:
“ ‘Dear Mr. Craddock,
I really fail to understand your letter. I am no gossip, but I conceive that I am entitled to my own opinion.
I remain yours truly,
Wilhelmina Blngham.’ ”
The date was June 15th of the current year. “This,” said Peter, “is highly intriguing. What had Miss Bingham been no gossip about?”
“Mavis and Ross, I should think,” said Lee.
“We have now a second letter dated June the twentieth.
“ ‘Dear Mr. Craddock,
I am quite at a loss to understand your tone. I have never received such a letter in my life, and I shall most certainly consult my solicitor. I do not know what you mean by talking about slander. I am sure I have never said anything but the truth, and if that is an offence it is not my fault.
Yours truly,
Wilhelmina Bingham.’ ”
“She was beginning to get rattled. And here, in number three… Oh Lord, I think-yes, I’m sure she must have been to her solicitor. Listen to this!
‘Dear Mr. Craddock,
I much regret that any remarks of mine should have been reported to you as reflecting upon your character, or on that of any other member of a family with which I have been on terms of close friendship for years. Since you desire me to say so in writing, I acknowledge that I was misinformed. I regret the words attributed to me-you do not tell me who your informant was-and I hereby tender you a sincere apology for anything I may have said. I hope that you will be satisfied with this, and that you will now relinquish any idea of taking legal proceedings.
Yours truly,
Wilhelmina Bingham.’ ”
“I wonder what she said,” said Lee.
Peter laughed.
“I think one can guess. I begin to have some respect for Ross. Well, I’m afraid I don’t think she would have gone the length of shooting him to get these letters back.”
Lee said “No-” in a doubtful voice, then turned on him with sudden passion.
“Peter, it’s horrible! We’re all suspecting each other-we’re ready to suspect anyone! A thing like this puts the clock back about a million years, and we’re all in the jungle again with everyone’s hand against everyone else. I should be glad if it were Miss Bingham, and so would you. Doesn’t it show what this has done to us already? She’s never done us any harm.”
“Speak for yourself, darling,” said Peter coolly. “Personally, I consider her a menace-Wilhelmina the Unwanted.”
Lee steadied herself, gulped, and said,
“Sorry, Peter. I didn’t mean to do that. What are you going to do with the letters-tear them up or give them back to her?”
Peter grinned.
“Which do you think she’d like least? She must be wondering about them, you know. I might ring her up and say, ‘Fly! All is discovered.’ Or I might write a polite little note beginning, ‘Dear Miss Bingham-’ ”
Lee grabbed his arm and pinched it severely. With her left hand she pointed at the door. It was opening slowly. Round the edge of it appeared Miss Bingham’s fuzzy fringe, her marked dark eyebrows, her firm red cheeks, and her jutting upper lip. The sharp eyes darted their inquisitive glances at Lee with her hand on Peter’s arm, at Peter and the open despatch-case with its tumbled papers. She showed all her teeth in an ingratiating smile and said brightly,
“The outer door was ajar, and, do you know, I thought I heard my name. I hope I don’t intrude.”
Lee pinched again, because she was so dreadfully afraid that Peter was going to say “You do.” She said hurriedly,
“Oh, no, of course-we were just sorting some papers.”
“Oh, yes-naturally. So nice of you to help, Mr. Renshaw. But don’t you find it very trying-a great strain? The very room in which such a shocking crime took place. But perhaps you are not psychic. All the Binghams are intensely psychic. My grandmother, who was a Bingham of the younger branch and married her cousin-dear me, what was I saying? Oh! Why, Mr. Renshaw-are not those my letters? I-yes, surely!”
The Blind Side Page 16