Dead to the World

by Francis Durbridge

  The Christopher letter – Number Three in the strange series of communications – was in his pocket. It was frustrating not to know whether it was blank like Number Two, or if it contained a code message like the first one. But they would know by late afternoon, since Hyde had taken the precaution of ordering an expert down from the Yard, complete with materials.

  Also in Holt’s pocket was a copy of the stolen signet ring. Hyde had put on a turn of speed and got things done during the night. A special messenger had delivered the duplicate ring by breakfast-time. Hyde had also detailed a couple of investigators to delve into Ashley Milton’s private life, and was himself making a personal check on the luxury yacht moored a few miles away at Newhaven. Ruth was spending the morning on some investigations of her own at Birling Gap. And with any luck at all, by midnight at the latest they would meet up with the elusive Vance Scranton himself. Wheels were beginning to turn at last!

  The Mustang rounded the crest of a hill and the College came into view. Dipping towards the village below, Holt caught sight of a group of riders on horseback. Antoinette had been on his mind and he slowed down to see if she was amongst them. But, rather to his disappointment, she was not. It consisted of young men, obviously students from the College. One rider recognised him and cantered towards the car, his fair hair blowing in the wind. It was Henri Legere.

  Legere called out a cheerful greeting as he came up.

  ‘Bonjour, Monsieur Legere,’ Holt replied. ‘Let me introduce you to Mr and Mrs Scranton.’

  The handsome young Frenchman bowed low in the saddle and beamed at the Americans.

  ‘I promised they’d meet some of Vance’s friends,’ Holt said, ‘but I didn’t know we’d be so fortunate as to bump into you en route. Tell me: when on earth do you find time to do any studying?’

  Legere emitted a rich peal of laughter. ‘It must seem that I am very lazy, Monsieur Holt. In fact I am taking a complete rest after some exhausting examinations.’

  ‘I see. Then perhaps you’d have time to call on Mr and Mrs Scranton during their stay down here and talk about Vance? They’re longing to chat with someone who was at the College with him.’

  ‘But naturally, I should be delighted.’

  ‘Good, that’s settled then!’

  Holt was about to let in the clutch when Legere leaned towards him and said quietly, ‘You have a moment, Monsieur Holt? I have something important to say to you.’

  It was a little awkward, but Holt excused himself to his passengers. Legere dismounted and led his horse to a convenient spot some few yards away.

  ‘Do you remember my mentioning to you, the first time I met you, that I share my rooms in Eastbourne with a Scotsman named Graham Brown?’

  ‘Yes, I think I do. You said he was away, visiting his parents, I believe?’

  ‘That is right. At least, that is what I thought. But I have received no news from him for over ten days and now I am worried. I thought perhaps he might have become ill so I telephoned to his father in Scotland.’ Legere paused dramatically and glanced towards the Mustang parked at the roadside. ‘Monsieur Holt, I am very worried. Graham did not go to Scotland. At least, he did not arrive there. His father was under the impression that he was here at the College.’

  Holt frowned. ‘It does sound rather odd, I must say. Have you notified the police?’

  ‘No, I thought I would wait until I see you again. But I expect Mr and Mrs Brown will get in touch with the police if they think it is necessary.’

  ‘Yes, I expect they will.’

  Legere began to climb into the saddle.

  ‘By the way,’ said Holt, ‘what’s Graham Brown like? Physically, I mean. Tall – short – fair – dark?’

  Legere considered for a moment. ‘How shall I say?… He has brown hair, he is of medium height … nothing very special about him. To look at he was a bit like Vance. In fact, I would say they were very similar. Well, I must go or I shall not be able to catch up the others. Au revoir, Monsieur Holt.’

  Holt stood watching thoughtfully as Legere rode away. He was a handsome man, full of Gallic charm, and he sat his horse well. It was quite possibly true, as Julie had declared, that the young Frenchman was Antoinette’s current lover. With a twinge of envy Holt put the thought out of his mind and strode back to the car.

  It was a disappointment to find that Professor Dalesford was not in his office when they arrived.

  Julie Benson, looking somewhat flustered, began stabbing buttons on her internal call-box in a nervous attempt to trace the Professor’s whereabouts. She did not invite them into Dalesford’s room but kept the three of them waiting in a small anteroom where she evidently did her work. After a series of fruitless telephone calls she jumped up, announced that she was going to look herself, and ran from the room.

  ‘She seems in an awful tizzy,’ Mr Scranton commented, scratching his close-cropped head in a puzzled manner.

  His wife shot him an amused glance. ‘Robert sometimes you’re very obtuse! Don’t you realise what an ordeal it is for a girl to meet the parents of the boy she’s engaged to – or rather, was?’

  ‘You mean she’s scared of us?’ said Scranton with good-natured bewilderment.

  ‘Unless it’s Mr Holt who’s sending her into such a tizzy,’ Mrs Scranton added coyly. ‘I can well imagine the disastrous effect he has on young female hearts.’

  Holt appeared not to have heard her comment. He was engrossed in peering through the striated-glass panel into the Professor’s office. He straightened up, turned the handle, and said as he entered the room, ‘Either the Professor is a remarkably untidy man or else … Yes, rather as I thought: he’s had a visitor.’

  The first thing that had caught his eye was the fancy clay pencil-jar, smashed into three pieces like a split coconut. The rest of the room looked as though a gang of teenage hoodlums had been to work on it. The Scrantons gasped, and a moment later they heard a shriek from Julie Benson.

  Holt turned round sharply and said, ‘Please spare us the customary fainting fit, Miss Benson – there really isn’t time! Tell me how this could have happened. Haven’t you been outside in the anteroom all morning?’

  Julie looked deathly pale. She gulped and shook her head. ‘No. It must have happened while I was … The Professor always allows me a coffee break … I must have been gone longer than usual.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Nearly … nearly half an hour.’

  ‘Didn’t you look into his office when you got back?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ She gestured helplessly towards the internal call-box. ‘I buzzed him to tell him I was back, and when he didn’t answer I just got on with the pile of letters he’d given me. It never entered my head that … Oh, Mr Holt, where is he? What’s happened? What were they looking for, these hooligans?’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t know, Miss Benson?’ Holt said harshly.

  She shook her head, looking miserable. Her eyes began to flood with tears.

  Scranton stepped gallantly into the breach. ‘Mr Holt, can’t you see the poor kid’s upset? It wasn’t her fault, she wasn’t here when all this happened. A blind man can see that Miss Benson didn’t have any need to tear the Professor’s room apart if she wanted to find something.’

  The American’s solid common-sense calmed Holt. The signet ring had not been specifically mentioned, but what he had in a general way pointed out was completely logical. If Julie was Vance’s accomplice in the scheme to regain the ring she would hardly have wrecked the room before Holt’s arrival at the College. In fact, she would have been more likely to present him with the opportunity to deposit it by showing him straight into the Professor’s room. He felt a little ashamed of his anger and diverted his energies to finding Dalesford. With Julie’s help at the internal phone, some of the students who were not in the lecture halls were summoned and search parties were organised.

  It was Holt who finally found him.

  Dalesford, apparently dazed and in pain, was lyi
ng face down in the rose garden, partly hidden by some tall rose bushes still in bloom. His hands were tied behind his back with the thin leather strap torn from his binoculars. His spectacles lay in fragments on the gravel path near by.

  Holt lifted Dalesford’s head and wiped away some of the mud with his handkerchief.

  The Professor moaned and opened his eyes, without recognition. ‘I haven’t … got it, I tell you … Please leave me alone … I don’t know anything about … the ring.’

  ‘Dalesford!’ Holt hissed, shaking the limp figure gently and speaking in a low voice. He was anxious to gain the Professor’s attention before any of the search parties should find them. ‘I’m a friend, Dalesford – I’m Philip Holt – don’t you recognise me?’

  The Professor gave a low groan and said something about his broken spectacles.

  ‘Who was it?’ Holt questioned him, urgently. ‘What did they want?’

  ‘I don’t understand … a ring … I know nothing about it …’

  ‘What were you doing out here in the first place?’

  ‘I … had a free period … between classes … Oh, I feel dreadful …’

  ‘I thought that must be why you had the binoculars with you. Here – let me untie your hands. How did it happen?’

  ‘Something … in the bushes … hit me from behind … terrible pain … I must have passed out … When I came to, they were searching me … in my pockets …’

  ‘Who was searching you? Tell me – what did they look like?’

  ‘I don’t know … They smashed my spectacles. I can’t see a thing without them … They twisted my arm behind my back – the pain was terrible, I can’t stand pain … They were looking for a ring, that’s all I know. I must have passed out again. Next time I came to I was lying in the mud. I heard horses, and then I must have—’

  ‘You heard horses? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. Not near. Quite far away. But I had my ear to the ground, I heard hoof-beats distinctly … Oh dear, I think I’m going to be sick!’

  Dalesford rose to his feet and tottered towards a hedge. A moment later he was seen by one of the search party and students began to converge from all directions. There had just been sufficient time for Holt to make a reasonably thorough examination of the ground in and around the rose garden; a search that, despite soft earth, had failed to reveal a single impression of a horse’s hoof.

  Holt stood at the window in the small functional office belonging to the Secretary of the College and watched the clouds race across the sky. He was waiting for his call to Eastbourne to come through, having deposited the Scrantons with Julie so that he could make his call in complete privacy.

  He had to make up his mind what he was going to tell Hyde. Had it been sheer coincidence, meeting Henri Legere on horseback like that? If it had not been coincidence why had there been no hoof-marks near the rose garden? How valid was the Professor’s impression of the sound of horses? On a windy day sound could travel far and, even if it had been Legere’s group which he had heard, they might easily have been a long way off. And why would Legere want the ring anyway; indeed, how could he have found out where it was to be left? Legere could well he perfectly innocent. He had certainly made no attempt to conceal himself when Holt’s car had topped the brow of the hill and the file of riders had come into view. But if it was, in fact, the Frenchman who had been responsible for the incident, it was clear that he could not have been the pickpocket at the restaurant. Only one thing now stood out more clearly than before: the signet ring was an object of great desirability in the eyes of several people.

  Almost as though he had been able to read Holt’s train of thought, Inspector Hyde’s first words when the call came through referred to the ring. But the information was the last thing in the world that Holt had expected.

  ‘Before you tell me your news, let me get a word in edgeways,’ the Inspector began. ‘The ring’s been returned! We’ve got it back.’

  ‘Good God! I can’t believe it!’

  ‘It’s true. It’s been handed in.’

  ‘By whom, for God’s sake?’

  ‘By Jimmy Wade. He brought it this morning.’

  ‘Jimmy Wade! I might have guessed! He’s got a pair of hands like a conjuror!’

  ‘Not so fast,’ Hyde cautioned. ‘He says he was merely bringing the ring for Milton. It seems one of Milton’s waiters was cleaning under the table where you sat yesterday and found it there.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Holt snorted. ‘I certainly never dropped it. And even if I had, how would Milton have known that—’

  ‘He says the waiter is a very observant fellow and noticed you showing the ring to Julie Benson and the others. He therefore assumed it was yours.’

  Holt sighed. ‘I don’t know who’s the bigger liar, Milton or Wade. What the devil are they playing at?’

  ‘We may know sooner than you think. At least we’ve cleared up one aspect of this baffling case. We know who was actually murdered in Vance’s study.’

  ‘Ah! May I make a guess?’

  ‘Waste of time. The dead boy’s parents identified his body this morning. They came down by fast train from—’

  ‘From Scotland,’ Holt cut in. ‘Their name is Brown. Vance Scranton killed his fellow student, Graham Brown, and nearly succeeded in passing off the body as his own – God knows why, though! Am I right?’

  ‘How do you do it, Holt? Inspired guesswork again?’

  ‘No. I met Henri Legere riding on the Downs when I was on my way to the College. He put the idea into my head.’ Holt gave an account of the meeting, and went on to describe the dramatic events which had followed.

  Hyde listened intently, only allowing himself an occasional startled exclamation.

  ‘Are you coming out here, Inspector?’ Holt asked when he reached the end of his story.

  ‘Yes. I ought to see Dalesford, that’s obvious; and I think I’d better have a talk with this Frenchman. There are a lot of odd coincidences that he can start explaining.’

  ‘True enough. But you can’t get away from the fact that it was he who took steps in the first place to contact Graham Brown’s parents.’

  Hyde gave a disbelieving grunt. ‘It would have come to light sooner or later anyway. He was just trying to earn an easy credit. You’ll think a lot less kindly of Henri Legere when you hear what Ruth was able to dig up at Birling Gap this morning.’

  ‘Has she been to see Antoinette again?’

  ‘No. Antoinette’s neighbour.’

  ‘But she hasn’t got a neighbour! Antoinette lives in the middle of a field. The nearest house is at least two hundred yards away!’

  ‘That’s the neighbour,’ said Hyde dryly. ‘I’ll leave Ruth to tell you the details. Did you get the Christopher letter from Scranton?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll give it to you when you get here.’

  ‘You won’t be there to give it to me. I’ve got a special job for you and Ruth. Is there anyone at the College who’s absolutely reliable?’

  Holt thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I think so – the Secretary. I’m phoning from his office now.’

  ‘Good. Leave the letter with him and I’ll pick it up.’

  ‘Fair enough. Now, what’s this job you’ve got for us? Don’t make it a long one – I’ve got a date with a murderer at midnight, don’t forget.’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten. Listen – I’ve been out to take a look at Ashley Milton’s yacht at Newhaven. It’s called the Sunset – a beautiful vessel, you could sail round the world in it. It’s festooned with radar and radio masts and depth-sounding equipment, far more than is usual for a private boat in these parts. Some shore-hands I got talking to say its engines are unusually powerful too.’

  ‘It sounds a luxurious toy for a man who’s been paying out hundreds of pounds in blackmail,’ Holt remarked.

  ‘Quite so. We’re probing into Milton’s finances. That may prove very illuminating.’

  ‘Did you get on board the Sunset?’

  ‘Th
at’s just it; I couldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The crew would have recognised me. There are four men in all, and at least two of them are old lags.’

  Holt whistled. ‘That doesn’t sound in keeping with the stylish Ashley Milton, does it? I suppose you want Ruth and me to clamber aboard and snoop around?’

  ‘Not clamber, dear chap – just slip. It would be better not to let the crew know of your intentions. The ones I saw are rather a rough lot, I’m afraid.’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘I’m sorry about Antoinette, really I am,’ said Ruth in a small voice as Holt drove with dangerous speed towards Newhaven. She glanced at him nervously. His face was set in very hard, almost cruel lines.

  ‘Come off it, Ruth. You never did like her—’

  ‘I won’t pretend I did. But I also don’t happen to like horrible old men acting as Peeping Toms. I actually saw him leaning out of the window with his telescope, which is why I decided it might be worth while making his acquaintance. Nasty lecherous old man – fancy having nothing better to do in life than spy from two hundred yards away on the activities of your neighbours!’

  ‘It’s a popular national pastime,’ said Holt dryly.

  ‘I think it’s detestable!’

  ‘It’s proved very handy for us.’

  Ruth sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose we ought to look at it in that light. Not only did the old man see Henri Legere leave Antoinette’s bungalow on horseback on the morning of the accident, but he “happened” to be watching with his spyglass one day and saw a young blonde climb through Antoinette’s bedroom window. That could tie up with what she said about an amateur burglary.’

  ‘A young blonde? Could it be Julie Benson?’

  ‘Yes, but looking for what? Nothing was stolen.’

  ‘The ring, perhaps.’

  ‘That’s just guesswork.’

  ‘Inspired guesswork, as Hyde would say. Lesser mortals call it intelligent deduction. Anyway, Legere’s in the hot seat, now, with a devil of a lot of explaining to do. My car brakes, for a start.’