“I suppose you mean it’s true something has happened at Nonpareil? We heard the caretaker there had murdered his wife, and then that the caretaker himself had been murdered. Is that it?”
“A Dr. Jones had permission to view the place. He has been found dead there,” Bobby answered briefly. “That’s all we know at present.”
“Well, why should you think we know anything about it?” demanded Claymore with rather more confidence this time. “We don’t. How could we? Why come asking us a lot of questions?”
“A lady’s shoe has been found on the Barsley footpath…” Bobby began, and when Claymore interrupted with a sharp comment: ‘Well, that’s not Nonpareil,’ Bobby continued without taking any notice of the interruption: “Miss Anson has hurt her foot. It is easy to hurt your foot if you’re walking—or running—in the dark on rough ground. A shot was heard coming from the direction of the Barsley path about the time Miss Anson was returning from work that way.”
“Yes, but, well…” protested Mrs. Anson, looking more disturbed and distressed than ever, and then subsided into silence, as once again she received a quick warning look from Claymore. Slowly, still picking his words with caution, Claymore said:
“Miss Anson hurt her foot here, in this room. She was taking off her outdoor shoes and she trod on a broken bit of crockery as she was getting her house slippers. She knows nothing about shots or anything that may have happened on any footpath. Is that plain enough?”
“Quite plain,” agreed Bobby amiably, “but I am afraid we never accept second-hand statements. I shall be obliged to see Miss Anson and question her personally. Her mother and her solicitor can be present if she wishes. But that can wait till she has a little recovered. I can understand what happened to-night has upset her. Before I go I will ask you both again: Are you quite sure you can tell me nothing?”
“No,” said Claymore, giving Mrs. Anson no time to answer. “We can’t. Perhaps it was one of your own lot, snooping round.”
Bobby ignored this, evidently only meant to be rude. He looked at Mrs. Anson, who shook her head, muttered something indistinct, and then again subsided into silence.
“You would be wise to think it over,” Bobby said.
Taking no notice of this remark, Claymore said to Mrs. Anson:
“I’ll stop here to-night. I can sleep on the floor or anywhere.”
“I think it will be as well,” Bobby approved gravely. “I do not know who it was we saw to-night, or what he wanted or why he came. But I think he meant mischief. Why?” He paused and went on slowly: “I think Miss Anson is in danger. Serious danger. Why? Did she see something it is necessary she should not tell? I beg you both to think very seriously what you are doing, for I am certain you could tell me more if you wished.” To Mrs. Anson he said: “You are the girl’s mother.” To Claymore he said: “You are engaged. I don’t think either of you would forgive yourselves easily if harm came to Miss Anson through your silence. I should not like to be you if that happens, and I think the danger’s real. I did not like the looks of that man we saw to-night.”
He waited, hoping for some response. None came. Mrs. Anson continued to look helpless, bewildered, frightened, that was all. Claymore still had the same air of sullen resolution.
“I’ll see no harm comes to Betty if I can help it,” he said briefly. “Then all I can do is to leave you to think it over,” Bobby said. “I hope you will have changed your minds before I see you again.”
He went away then, though fearing his hope was little likely to be realized, for he felt that whatever it was they knew, they had fully made up their minds not to tell.
He drove back to headquarters, and there received news of a fresh discovery, though one he had anticipated. The corpse of an unidentified man had been found in the Midwych canal, the cause of death being two bullet wounds in the back. The doctor’s report had not yet been received, but photographs had been taken, and the moment they were shown to Bobby he exclaimed:
“That’s Ned Doors—Lovey Doors they used to call him from a way he had of calling every woman lovey. An ugly, dangerous brute, but somehow women didn’t seem able to resist him. A wheedling, coaxing sort of voice, that made them think they had the brute tamed, only they hadn’t, as most of them found out in time. Last time I saw him he was in the dock at the Old Bailey. Burglary with violence, and lucky he hadn’t to face a charge of murder. In the canal, was he? Well, now, how did he get there? And how does that fit in—if it does?”
CHAPTER XI
HONOURABLES
Next morning there was, of course, much dull desk work to be seen to, the reading and annotating of reports, the drawing up of lists of matters needing attention, the checking and comparing of results obtained, and all that mass of necessary spade work which it is so easy to dismiss impatiently as red tape, into which same red tape it is indeed only too apt to degenerate.
All this, too, had to be gone through with Inspector Payne, who had the actual charge of the investigation in detail, even though Bobby advised and directed its general course. An important point Payne brought up almost at once was that Constable Burton, formerly of Eton, had recognized Major Hardman, and had even exchanged reminiscences with him of various Etonian escapades.
“So we can take it he is O.K.,” said Payne, “and then, of course, there’s that alibi—he was in Broken Reed’s company when they both heard the shot fired.”
“There’s that,” Bobby agreed, “but all the same I think you might put through a call to the Yard and ask if they can scratch up any information about Hardman. After all, even an Old Etonian can turn out a wrong ’un, even if it doesn’t happen very often. The only thing you can be sure of is that if he does go wrong, he goes very wrong indeed. A general rule. The better the opportunity missed, the worse the fall. Leading case. The garden of Eden. So see if the Yard can tell us anything. And I think it would be a good idea if you got Miss Hardman’s birth certificate and that of her brother. For one thing it might be as well to have his name.”
“Didn’t Major Hardman mention it? Frank, I thought?” Payne asked, and added: “You don’t think that young man can be behind all this?”
“Oh, I’m not thinking anything at all at present,” Bobby declared. “A general principle, that’s all. Check up on everything. First maxim of C.I.D. work.”
“Oh, yes, sir, I always tell my men that,” Payne agreed. “I always tell them that’s the first thing to remember.”
“Good idea,” approved Bobby. “What about Parkinson?”
“He admitted the walking stick we found at Nonpareil was his,” Payne replied. “Made no difficulty about it. He says he supposes he must have forgotten it there. He missed it, and his story is he left the Union Club, where you asked him to wait, because he thought it might be at a friend’s house, where he had made a call. There was no one at home, so he got no answer. No confirmation either that that is where he really went. I pressed him about how he got on with Dr. Jones. He admitted what he called a certain divergence of view. I asked him why Dr. Jones had gone to Nonpareil by himself the second time. He said he didn’t know, but he had had a feeling all the time that Dr. Jones wanted to get rid of him. So I said, if it was like that, why had Dr. Jones taken anyone with him in the first place? Why hadn’t he been alone all the time? Parkinson said they were there jointly as equal representatives of the National Super-normal Research Society, and that it was through the society they got permission to visit Nonpareil. The agents would naturally have given permission to view, but not to spend the night there. Parkinson said their society always wanted at least two investigators on every job—to check up on each other, I take it. Parkinson couldn’t suggest any reason why Jones should have wanted to get rid of him and be alone. It was a kind of general feeling he had that Jones was excited and wrought up and wanted to quarrel, so as to make Parkinson push off in a huff. Parkinson had clearly been huffy all right enough. The whole story sounds a bit squiffy to me, and we don’t know Jones’s version.”
“No, that I’m afraid we shall never know,” Bobby said thoughtfully. “What it comes to is that possibly all that ghost-hunting business was merely an excuse, and that Jones had some other, some secret reason for wishing to visit Nonpareil. And if Parkinson began to suspect as much, then that might have led to a quarrel, possibly with fatal results. It’s a possible theory, weaker cases have been brought into court. Not yet watertight, though.”
“Getting that way,” Payne suggested.
“The beginnings of a case,” Bobby said. “That’s all. What we want to know is what was Jones’s real reason—assuming there was one, and that the ghost-hunting was only an excuse. Any ideas?”
Payne shook his head.
“Not at present,” he said. “We may dig it up, though.” He went on: “We’ve got very good plaster casts of footprints in Mrs. Anson’s garden. No dabs on the window frame, though—gloves, most likely. But the plaster casts aren’t likely to be much help. They show a new, unworn number nine, heavy working boot. Any number of men in Midwych wearing the same sort of thing. Nothing distinctive.”
“On the off chance,” Bobby said, “see if you can hear of any man about there having bought a new pair of boots lately. See if anyone can remember what shoes that nephew of Major Hardman’s was wearing. Though his are more likely to have been the ones of the Hardman garden incident. You might get a pointer that way. Not very likely, but everything has got to be tried. What is the connection between heavy working boots in the Anson garden and light city shoes in the Hardman garden?”
“Perhaps none,” said Payne.
“Probably none,” corrected Bobby, “but when you are groping in a fog you have to grope everywhere.”
Payne said that was so, and went on to discuss the doctor’s report. Not that it contained much of value to the investigation. Death was due to two bullet wounds in the back. Death had not been instantaneous, but had occurred before the body was placed in the canal. There had probably been a good deal of bleeding. There were various other details, but none likely to be very helpful, and to them Payne added on his own account a few more.
“Pockets empty,” he said. “Nothing to help identification. If you hadn’t recognized him, sir, we might have had a good deal of trouble to find out who he was.”
“Oh, no, an old con.,” Bobby said. “All information neatly docketed at the Yard—photos, finger-prints, all complete. Anything about the Marmaduke person—the chap who calls himself the Honourable some thing, claims to be an art expert, and apparently took several hours at Nonpareil to find out that the statuary there was only fit to be broken up for road making?”
“Yes, sir,” Payne answered. “I got through to the agents. They say the card to view was given to the Honourable Marmaduke Clavering, a son of Lord Grandlieu. They didn’t know him at all, issued the card on general principles. There is such a person, a younger son of Lord Grandlieu. I looked him up in Burke. Of course, it doesn’t follow it’s really the same man. Anyone can take anyone else’s name. I got his address in the ’phone directory, and rang up, but couldn’t get through. Quite likely this man’s a fake, and if he is we shall have a job tracing him.”
A knock came at the door, and a constable appeared.
“Gentleman to see you, sir,” he announced. “Name of Clavering.” He consulted a card he was holding. “Mr. Marmaduke Clavering,” he said, and concealed a faint smile of amusement at a first name so comical.
“Good,” said Bobby. “Ask him to come in, will you?”
There arrived a well-dressed—too well-dressed for war time, Bobby considered—youngish man, apparently about thirty or so, but giving an odd impression of being much younger than he looked. Plump and rosy—too plump and rosy for war time, Bobby considered—with a cherub-like face, he had wide, innocent blue eyes, that seemed to look out upon the world in perpetual surprise, and a small, pouting mouth he never quite closed. He had, indeed, a little the air of an overgrown baby, and the smile he bestowed upon Bobby was the smile of a trusting child.
“So sorry if I’m intruding,” he said amiably, adjusting a monocle he seemed to have great difficulty in keeping in position. “It’s really the officer in charge of the Nonpareil case the papers are full of I wanted to see, and I understand you’re the Deputy Chief Constable, the Honourable Robert Owen, isn’t it? A son of Lord Hirlpool, I suppose?” Bobby gasped. He wished to speak, but for the moment his feelings were too strong—to be put down as an ‘Honourable’ indeed. A bit too much, he felt. And had there not been a subtle tone of underlying suggestion that as an ‘Honourable’ he must be, of necessity, incompetent, a mere figurehead, owing his position solely to string-pulling and influence? It was an impression confirmed when Mr. Clavering continued, still beamingly:
“You know, the bloke who does the work. No good worrying you.”
Bobby, for once not quite equal to the situation, decided to ignore this. He said:
“I gather you are the Honourable”—and how bitterly he pronounced that unlucky word—“Marmaduke”—and with what cold contempt he pronounced that unhappy name—“Clavering, described as an art expert,” and how clearly, and not in the least subtly, did his tone convey his belief that an ‘Honourable’ must owe any such reputation as he might possess solely to string-pulling and influence, being of necessity an incompetent pretender.
“When Honourable meets Honourable—” murmured Mr. Clavering, who seemed to be quick enough in the uptake to have guessed something of Bobby’s feelings—“how does the quotation go?”
“There isn’t one,” snapped Bobby, “and I’m not an Honourable or Lord Hirlpool’s son or…”
“My mistake,” murmured Mr. Clavering as Bobby paused not quite knowing what else to deny. “I remember now. But your father only did the trick by two minutes, didn’t he? Youngest of twins, and but for the grace of those two minutes, you, too…” He paused and beamed more than ever. “Besides,” he added, “wasn’t there a story that the nurse got the babies mixed, and as likely as not your father was really the eldest, and you ought by rights to be his lordship yourself?”
“A wholly unfounded tale,” declared Bobby coldly, “and not a shred of evidence to support it. Mere scandal. Never mind all that. You are Mr. Marmaduke Clavering…”
“Generally known as ‘Bill’,” interposed Mr. Clavering. “Marmaduke after an uncle who added injury to insult by not leaving me a penny when he died. True, he hadn’t a penny to leave.”
“Occupation—art expert,” Bobby went on. “You mean professionally, as a business?”
“I do,” agreed Mr. Clavering. “I don’t buy or sell. But I value and I advise. And I charge for my advice. Charge high, too. My fees,” said Mr. Clavering putting his eyeglass up and speaking with much complacence, “have been described as outrageous. Daylight robbery. Of course, when I’m on a job for Solomon I have to be more careful. Solomon knows a thing or two, the old sinner. You know Solomon? You don’t? Art dealer. King Street. W.1. Claims to be the biggest man in the racket, and I daresay he is.”
Bobby waved Mr. Solomon aside. In point of fact he had heard of old Mr. Solomon, who every now and then hit the headlines by presenting the country with some specially rare and valuable work of art, and who was said to have attained his present position at the head of his profession by an unflinching and unwavering honesty which so bewildered and disconcerted all his competitors that from contests with him all of them retired utterly defeated. But all that was quite irrelevant to the present inquiry, and Bobby continued:
“I understand your object in visiting Nonpareil was to form an opinion on the value of the sculpture there?”
“One has to see before one can be sure,” said Mr. Clavering. “World proverb No. 1.”
“It took you some time to decide, didn’t it?” Bobby asked, and could not keep a certain note of superiority out of his voice as he remembered how a single look had been enough for him.
Mr. Clavering had been screwing his cherubic face into od
d grimaces as he tried to keep his eyeglass in position. Now he let it drop as he looked at Bobby with a touch of surprise in his manner. He said: “You mean any fool could see at once they were all appalling fakes?”
“Well, you hardly need to be an expert to see that, or to take half a day about it, either,” retorted Bobby.
“No, no,” agreed Clavering, still evidently impressed, “only one doesn’t expect police johnnies…”
“And one doesn’t expect…” began Bobby hotly, and then paused. An irritating person this, with his innocent airs, his silly eyeglass he couldn’t even hold in place, his even sillier name—Marmaduke, what can be expected from a Marmaduke? All the same, Bobby was beginning to feel there was more in him than his chubby, cherubic countenance showed, than appeared in his wide, innocent blue eyes, with their look of perpetual surprise. In his most official tone, he continued: “Mr. Clavering, this is a police matter and what I want to know…”
But again Mr. Clavering interrupted.
“Been getting in each other’s hair, haven’t we?” he said. “Not my fault I’m an Honourable. Not your fault you’re a near Honourable. Almost worse, that, if anything. Forget it, shall we? What you want to know is what I know. What I want to know is if the Dr. Jones the papers say has been found dead at Nonpareil is the Dr. Jones who is a brother-in-law of Wilkinson, Morgan and Tails, the big Mayfair Square picture dealers? Because if he is, possibly what he was after wasn’t so much a ghost as a Vermeer that might run to six figures if you landed the right American millionaire.”
CHAPTER XII
MOTIVE
Payne was the first to break the silence that followed on an announcement received by Bobby with troubled consideration and uttered by Mr. Clavering with a reverence, as he spoke the name Vermeer, that one felt was not habitual with him. Payne repeated the name more briskly, and with no reverence at all.
“Vermeer? Oh, yes,” he said. “Dutch artist. I remember seeing one of his things at a London exhibition years ago. Top notch. ‘Delft’ it was, showed the place in a sort of soft light.”
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