by Annie Haynes
Stoddart was susceptible to the beauties of nature, and for the moment the man in him outweighed the detective. He could have consigned all criminals to the bottom of the sea. He would like to settle on a farm and till the soil, be done with this everlasting suspicion of his fellow-men that led him into the foul places of the earth, and feel no longer in a perpetual state of warfare.
He lit a cigarette absently and threw the match away; it lay flickering, poised on the long grass bordering the road, as he opened the gate and passed through.
Glancing down, he put his foot on it, but not before something that glittered from among the long, green blades reflected the flame and caught his eye. Instinctively he stooped to pick it up, and laid it on the palm of his hand, shining in the dying light.
It was a crystal bead.
On the instant the detective was again uppermost. He stared at it, surprised. He could: have sworn it was a bead from the broken string that lay among the police exhibits – the string thrown by Lady Medchester into the shrubbery, three of which she had slipped into Saunderson’s pocket. What did this mean? Surely she had not strayed so far afield that night – what would have been her object? Or had this single bead been dropped here by its rightful owner?
Stoddart pushed it impatiently into his pocket. Every new detail that cropped up and might be expected to throw light on the case only seemed to add to its perplexities. He turned to the right, heading for Medchester, then thought better of it and, re-entering the wood through the gate, retraced his steps until he came to a point where the footpath forked. Leaving the track he had come by on his left, he took the other, and skirting the spot where Mayer had been shot came out on the drive close to the lodge gates.
It had struck him it might be as well to find out whether Miss Tottie Delauney had ever owned a string of crystal beads.
In spite of an autumnal nip in the air the window of the front room was open, and, as the detective crossed the plot of grass with the path running up the centre to the front door, voices raised in discussion reached his ears. Mrs. Yates and her daughter were apparently in slight disagreement over something.
“If you can’t what the lawyers call substantiate your statements, my advice to you, Mary Ann, is to hold yer tongue,” was the injunction that drifted through the window to the inspector’s ears. “I don’t hold with putting things into a policeman’s head. Let them find it out for themselves – that’s what I say. I was saying to Mary Mayer when I went to see her in Medchester. ‘Mary,’ I said, ‘it’s no manner of use trying to keep anything from the police,’ I said; ‘you mark my words, they’ll find it out sooner or later without your help,’ I said, ‘and least said soonest mended,’ and that’s what I say to you –”
“How you do go on, mother!” her daughter’s voice broke in. “First you tell me to keep nothing from the police – then you tell me I talk too much. I’ve got nothing to hide; I told them all I could. If they don’t believe me I can’t help it. I say Anne Courtenay did my husband in, and I don’t care –”
The window was closed suddenly from inside as the inspector knocked at the front door. Mrs. Yates opened it.
“Oh, it’s you,” she remarked without enthusiasm. “Come in, sir – the inspector from Scotland Yard, isn’t it?” She showed him into the front parlour, where Miss Tottie Delauney was lying full length on a cretonne-covered sofa, looking at a picture paper. She sat up at sight of the visitor and nodded.
“I and Inspector Stoddart are old friends,” she said graciously.
It was always worth while to cultivate friendship with the mammon of unrighteousness, she had learnt that in her precarious profession; you never knew when a friend in high places mightn’t come in useful, and just now she was particularly anxious to placate the authorities.
“Like a cup of tea, inspector?” she invited. “I’ll boil a drop of water in no time, and I dare say you’ve walked a good step one way and another.”
“I don’t mind if I do, Miss Delauney,” was the ready answer.
Mrs. Yates pushed a chair towards him.
“No news yet about who killed poor Bill Mayer?” she asked as her daughter, ready to bestir herself when it came to her own interests, disappeared into the kitchen.
He shook his head. “Nothing to tell the world about; but we’re getting on. What a lot of trouble and anxiety we should have been saved if Superintendent Mayer had told you what he knew, Mrs. Yates.”
“It wasn’t my fault he didn’t,” Mrs. Yates replied reminiscently, “but he kept his mouth shut as tight as any oyster.”
“And Mrs. Mayer can’t help us,” Stoddart observed tentatively, thinking of the words he had heard through the open window, “not to go by the evidence she gave at the inquest. Never said anything to you, Mrs. Yates, that might lead you to think she knows more than she let on?”
Mrs. Yates, with a memory of certain inscrutable words let drop by her friend at their last meeting, flushed scarlet and turned her face away.
“Never,” she replied loyally. “I don’t believe Mary Mayer knows anything more than you or I do. She’d have told it quick enough if it would help to find out who’d murdered her husband.”
The rattle of tray and cup and saucer preceded Miss Delauney’s reappearance; she had taken advantage of her temporary retirement to remedy the day’s wear and tear with powder and lipstick, and it was the Tottie Delauney familiar to the music-hall world that smiled at him over the homely tea-tray. But she kept a wary eye on him as she poured out the cup of tea and supplied him with milk and sugar.
“I was in hopes you’d got news for us,” she said brightly. “You thought Bob Saunderson was speaking truth when he said our marriage was a sham, but I bet you know better by now. I’m an honest woman, I am – and I mean to have my rights.”
“Certainly you’ll have your rights. Every one in this case will get their rights in the end, no doubt. What we have to find out is – what are their rights?”
“Well, I know what mine are, anyway,” Miss Delauney replied with a toss of her henna-dyed head. “I shall be entitled to the half of all poor Bob left as his wife, as there aren’t any children to provide for, and there are those who’ll see I get it.”
“Did you know he had made no Will?” The inspector shot the question at her.
Miss Delauney dropped her eyes.
“No, I didn’t,” she replied after a perceptible pause. “I knew he hadn’t made a Will up to the time we parted company, but how was I to know what he’d done since? I knew nothing about his affairs. When I heard of the murder I came here to – to look round as it were. Why shouldn’t I? A wife couldn’t do no less in my opinion.” In moments of excitement Miss Delauney was apt to revert to the diction natural to her. “If you’ve come here to be asking questions again I’m sorry I gave you a cup of tea, that I am!” she cried, chin in air, hand on hip, a pose he felt sure had met with much applause on many a music-hall stage.
“Bob Saunderson mayn’t have been a pattern husband,” she went on before either of the others could speak, “but he wasn’t a bad sort take him all round, and I’ll thank you police to find out who did him in!”
“Now, now, go easy, Mirandy,” her mother murmured uneasily.
Stoddart smiled. “We shall have to find out who had a motive for doing so,” he said smoothly, and Miss Delauney subsided on the edge of a chair, a scared look creeping into her eyes. “But I didn’t come here to talk about the murder” – he put a hand in his pocket – “as a matter of fact, I looked in to see if either of you ladies ever had a string of beads like this?”
He placed the crystal bead on the table, “Where did you find it?” Mrs. Yates asked after a pause during which both she and her daughter glanced at it furtively as though suspecting a trap.
“At the edge of the wood.”
“Not mine,” Mrs. Yates said curtly. “I don’t hold with those sort of gewgaws. Waste of money, I call them.”
“I am sure,” the inspector suggested persu
asively, “Miss Tottie Delauney’s admirers don’t share that opinion, Mrs. Yates,” and he looked expectantly at her daughter.
“Mirandy likes a bit of colour,” Mrs. Yates put in hastily. “She had some beads like that only they was red as rubies and –”
“I’m not answering any more questions, mother,” the other said sullenly, “and I’ll thank you to keep your mouth shut too.”
“Well, somebody’s missing it,” the detective remarked, replacing the bead in his pocket.
Having got as much – or as little – information from the two women as he had hoped for, he walked off towards Medchester, not much the wiser for his pains.
He was greeted at the hotel door by Harbord.
“There’s a man asking for you,” he informed him; “wouldn’t talk to me – said he wanted the top boss of this here murder case. He’s to call again first thing tomorrow morning.”
“What sort of a man?”
“Tramp, if you ask me. Three days’ growth on his chin, and looks as though he wouldn’t recognize a piece of soap if he saw it.”
“Umph,” the inspector muttered, and added under his breath, “What I want to meet is somebody who’ll tell me whom those beads belong to.”
CHAPTER 22
Inspector Stoddart’s visit left an atmosphere of uneasiness at the lodge.
Miss Delauney’s antagonism to His Majesty’s police force, developed during a career that had more than once been within bowing acquaintance with the Law Courts, was instinctive and ineradicable. She distrusted policemen, from the man on point duty to the Chief of the C.I.D. In her opinion they were a prying, meddling crowd, making a still more difficult problem of life, which Providence, or some other potent authority, had already made sufficiently complicated.
It might have afforded her a modicum of consolation had she known that she had puzzled the inspector. It was true she had not claimed ownership of the vagrant bead, but neither had she denied it. His knowledge of the subject had remained exactly where it was. On comparison it was found to match the police “exhibit” in every particular, and was without doubt a part of the necklace thrown by Lady Medchester into the shrubbery under the erroneous impression that it belonged to Anne Courtenay. When he laid it on the table in full view Miss Delauney had not flickered so much as an eyelash – he had watched her carefully. It appeared to convey nothing to her at all; nor to her mother, who was presumably less experienced in histronic display.
However, it was not through the question direct he hoped to get the coveted information; although the clue of the bead necklace had been kept from public knowledge, guilt would be on its guard, and it would be by some side-track that the owner would be detected.
From small beginnings great results may arise.
Is there a more trite observation than that in the English language? But like other similar axioms it is none the less true, and if Inspector Stoddart could have foreseen what was to result from the fact that Harbord spent the following night wide awake, owing to an aching tooth, he would have received that information with more interest when it was offered to him in the morning by the sufferer.
As it was, although not wanting in sympathy, after suggesting an early visit to a dentist in Medchester, he considered the situation adequately dealt with and proceeded to other business, including the promised visit from the tramp overnight. When by eleven o’clock the man had failed to appear, the inspector, deciding with indifference he had changed his mind, settled down to deal with certain reports, and saw his colleague depart in search of relief from one of the most cruel torments to which human flesh is heir.
In the meantime trouble had been going on at the Hall.
Lord Medchester had put his foot down. In spite of persuasion amounting almost to tears on the part of his wife he absolutely refused to have a wedding-party at Holford. If Mr. Maurice Stainer was not in a position to give his sister a suitable send-off, then let Harold himself do it from Gorth, of which he was now sole master.
“But,” Lady Medchester remonstrated, “it’s unheard of for the bride to be married from the bridegroom’s house!”
“It will also be unheard of that she is married from mine – because she won’t be,” his lordship replied grimly, and chuckled at his own retort. “’Pon my soul – not so bad – what?” he laughed again. “But I mean it, Min,” he added, sobering down. “I won’t have Miss Sybil Stainer playing the star part in any show under my roof. And that’s that!”
He left the room, followed by Lady Medchester’s despairing eyes, until the door, sharply banged, hid him from view. She sat for a moment as though turned to stone.
The door reopened to admit the new Lord Gorth. He was scarcely recognizable as the former Harold Courtenay. In appearance ten years older, his face was white and drawn, his eyes dull, the sparkle of youth in them faded. Little lines showed at the corners of his eyes and his hands moved restlessly. He walked listlessly across the room and dropped into a chair.
“Dick says he won’t have the wedding here, Harold,” Lady Medchester said, looking at him anxiously, “and I’m afraid it’s final. Do you think you could persuade Sybil to be married quietly, here at the village church, or even at a London Register Office? And I suppose I may go as far as to promise a wedding cake and a glass of champagne here after it. Surely as long as she is married she needn’t care how the ceremony is performed?” Her voice was bitter, but Harold did not seem to notice it. “I suppose Anne wouldn’t let the marriage –” she began tentatively, but broke off as Harold’s eyes suddenly lost their apathy and flamed into indignation.
“I won’t have Anne asked. My God! hasn’t she done enough?” he began furiously; then pulling himself together at the surprise in Lady Medchester’s face, “Anne has suffered more than you think – dragged into all this muck. I dare say she would have the wedding from her house if I asked her; but I am not going to ask her.” He went on more quietly, “I’ll speak to Sybil. If she understands that Cousin Dick definitely refuses I dare say she’ll be reasonable.”
Lady Medchester looked as though she hardly agreed with him.
“Life plays funny tricks sometimes,” he went on after a pause. “I suppose it’s one’s own fault.”
“You shouldn’t be saying that, with the world at your feet – money, title, marriage – what more do you want?” She smiled ironically. “A veritable fairy dream, the world would say.”
“A damnable nightmare!” he retorted.
“Then why are you doing it?” she asked curiously.
He looked at her uneasily and rose to his feet.
“Why are you trying to persuade Cousin Dick to have the wedding from here?” he asked abruptly. “You don’t want it. You don’t like Sybil.”
The colour faded from his cousin’s face.
“We have to do things we don’t want to do sometimes,” she replied evasively. “But you must speak to Sybil and persuade her to give up the idea of a big show. She shall stay here if she likes and you can be quietly married at Holford Church, and go straight away for the honeymoon after we’ve drunk your health. Dick can’t object to that.”
Harold nodded gloomily.
“Her marriage will then have the seal of our approval,” she went on, “which, after all, is what she wants – and her brother can give her away.”
He moved towards the door. “Needs must when the devil drives, I suppose. I only hope I may get Sybil to see it. If she’ll be reasonable I’ll marry her in three weeks if she likes, instead of sticking out for the two months I bargained for.” And he flung out of the room before his cousin had time to remark on the un-bridegroom-like remark.
For some time there had been a tacit understanding between these two; although not comprehending the other’s secret, the mutual knowledge that neither was any longer a free agent had established a link between them of a sort.
Minnie Medchester smiled rather grimly as she resumed the letter-writing at which she had been engaged when interrupted by her husband’
s ultimatum. Harold’s task of persuading his ladylove into what he had called a reasonable frame of mind was not going to be a light one. She had had more than one experience of Miss Stainer’s tantrums when things went wrong, and she did not envy him his mission. It had become a sort of idée fixe with Sybil, this godmothering of her by the Medchesters. It was odd she should have sufficient intelligence to realize her prospective neighbours in the county were not likely to hail her with enthusiasm as a suitable wife for Lord Gorth, and yet should fail to understand that the seal of Holford Hall’s approval would never be sufficient to outweigh her own shortcomings. The county would probably have none of her in any case, though all the Medchesters in the world were to take her by the hand.
But this was hardly a line of argument possible for the man who was going to marry her to adopt, and Harold quailed, as many a better man has quailed, at the prospect of tackling an angry woman.
His fears proved to have been unnecessary. Either a fragment of common sense had penetrated the thick skin of her self-esteem or the desire for publicity on her wedding day had evaporated.
“I’m sick of Minnie’s waverings this way and that – one day assuring me she has that husband of hers on the end of a string, and the next that he has put his foot down and isn’t taking it up again. What does it matter, anyway? Once I’m Lady Gorth it’s me who’ll be calling the tune” – grammar was not Sybil Stainer’s long suit – “and they’ll be ready enough to dance when I tell them. And I’ll make ’em dance too!” she added viciously, while the man listening to her shivered inwardly at the crude vulgarity of her outlook.
Through his own manoeuvring they were standing on the lawn in full view of the house; no lover-like demonstrations could be expected of him out in the open.
“We’ll be married just as soon as you can get a licence,” she went on.
To strike while the iron was hot had always been her idea when dealing with her own interests, and this suggestion of Harold’s had its advantages. Less chance of slip ’twixt cup and lip, perhaps, and a speedy marriage would bring Anne to her bearings. No use to kick against the pricks then.