by Sapper
“Afternoon, Mr Peters. I didn’t know you were on the train. Let me introduce Captain Drummond and Mr Darrell. Won’t you take a seat at our table?”
“Thank you, thank you,” cried the other. “With pleasure. I am really so worried and distracted over this shocking affair, coming so closely on top of the other, that I hardly know what I’m doing. I fear it will completely break up poor Mrs Marton. She idolised Bob.”
“It’s very sad indeed,” agreed Drummond. Such shocking bad luck. By the way, Mr Peters, I didn’t like to ask him personally, but perhaps you can tell me. My father knew a man called Hardcastle very well indeed a few years ago in South Africa. I was wondering if it was the same one.”
“I really can’t say,” answered the lawyer. “He may have been in South Africa – in fact I should think it is more than likely he was. He seems to have travelled extensively. All I know about him is that he wanted to rent Glensham House. And as we have been the family solicitors for years, he naturally came to us about it. I was a little surprised, I must admit. It didn’t strike me as at all the sort of place a man like him would want. But houses of that size are difficult things to let these days, especially so far away from London, and so I closed with his offer at once, though it was for a very short lease.”
“So he is not proposing to make his home there?”
“Dear me, no! He has taken it for three months only.”
“Then he certainly must be very wealthy,” remarked Drummond. “He’ll want a great deal of furniture to make it habitable.”
“No: all the remainder is stored in Plymouth, so that he won’t have to buy anything.”
“I hear that he is inventing some cinema gadget,” went on Drummond casually. “At least we gathered so from his daughter.”
“I know he is interested in the films,” said the lawyer. “In fact we did some business for him in that line. But I think he is a man with many irons in the fire.”
“I suppose you don’t happen to know anything about the legend of the house,” put in Jerningham.
“My dear sir,” said the other, “in my profession we deal with facts. Those give us quite enough trouble without going into suppositions. There is some legend, I believe – in fact, I think I once had it told me. But I pay no attention to that sort of thing at all, though from idle chatter I heard at the inquest today some idiot seems to have revived the story. And, of course, now I come to think of it, it was that that took you three young men over there in the first place.”
He smiled tolerantly.
“Well, well, it’s all very fine for people of your age. But when you come to mine you’ll find that flesh and blood cause quite sufficient worry, without chasing round after spirits.”
“Most old houses have some sort of legend attached to them, don’t they?” said Drummond. “Especially when they have secret passages as well.”
“Now that is a fact with regard to Glensham House,” said the lawyer. “The place is honeycombed with them. And, funnily enough, that is a thing that particularly attracted Mr Hardcastle. As an American he seemed to consider that no old English house was worth ten cents – I think that was his phrase – unless it had a secret passage.”
“Indeed,” murmured Drummond. “Well, – he seems to have got his money’s worth this time. Do you know the entrances to any of them?”
“I haven’t an idea,” answered the other. “And I can’t say that I want to have one. Between ourselves, as I don’t think I see a prospective tenant in any of you, the non-secret part of the house is sufficiently gloomy, to my mind, without worrying over anything else.”
He called for his bill.
“Well, I must be getting back to my carriage,” he continued. “I’ve got an hour’s work in front of me before we reach London. Good day to you, gentlemen: good day.”
“Interesting, that point about Hardcastle and the secret passages,” said Drummond, as the lawyer disappeared. “May mean something: may not. What about the other half, chaps? And then I think I’ll rejoin Pansy-face. I’d hate her to think my love for her had waned.”
But the Comtessa was immersed in a novel when they returned to their compartment, and save for one swift smile and a hope that the tea had been good, nothing more was said till the train reached Paddington. And then in the general rising their shoulders touched.
“You won’t forget the Custard Pot?” she murmured.
“I shall haunt the door,” he answered, “till I get arrested as a street nuisance. Let me take your dressing-case and I’ll see you into a taxi.”
“The car should be here,” she said leaning out of the window. “Yes: there’s the chauffeur.”
She beckoned to a man in livery who was standing on the platform.
“Au revoir, Captain Drummond. Don’t forget, Mayfair 0218.”
“The line will probably fuse,” he murmured as he strolled at her side towards the car. “Is your husband – er – in London?”
“Not at present,” she answered gravely. “He travels abroad a lot. Ah! chérie, let me introduce Captain Drummond – Madame Saumur.”
And for a space there was utter silence. For Drummond and a woman already seated in the car were staring at one another speechlessly, while the Comtessa looked from one to the other in growing bewilderment.
“Enchanté, Madame,” said Drummond at length. “It is a long time since we met, is it not? Saumur, did you say, Comtessa?”
“So you two know one another?” she cried.
“A rose by any other name, dear lady,” remarked Drummond with a smile. “Does Madame also adorn the Custard Pot?”
He stood back as the chauffeur closed the door, and bowed.
“If so my cup of happiness will be complete.”
“Posing as a statue, old lad,” said Darrell a few moments later. “Or watching the last of the loved one?”
“Madame Saumur, Peter,” answered Drummond dreamily. “Pansy-face’s girl friend. She was in the car. Madame Saumur, Peter: think of it.”
“I’m thinking,” said the other. “What about it?”
“She was Irma, Peter: our long-lost Irma Peterson.”
“Irma!” cried Darrell incredulously. “Rot, man!”
“Do you suppose I’d make a mistake over her?” said Drummond with a grin.
“Did she say anything?”
“Not a word. We were both so flabbergasted for a moment or two that we gaped at one another like a couple of codfish. Then I made some fatuous remark and they pushed off.”
“What an amazing thing!” said Jerningham, as they got into a taxi. “How is it going to affect matters?”
“In this way, Ted. There’s no earthly use now in our playing a canny game. We can still pretend, of course, that we agree with the verdict today, but we can’t fool her into thinking we’ve dropped the matter. She knows us a great deal too well to believe it for an instant.”
“And she didn’t speak at all?”
Drummond shook his head.
“Not with her tongue. But just as the car drove off she gave me one look that said volumes. It was as clear as if she had shouted it through a megaphone. It’s a fight to a finish this time.”
Chapter 5
They drove to Ted Jerningham’s club, and one of the first members they met in the smoking-room was the man they wanted. He was reading an evening paper, and the instant he saw them he gave a hail.
“Ted, old lad, come here. Of all the amazing things I’ve ever known this wins in a canter. Fancy you being mixed up in this performance.”
“Evening, Dick,” said Jerningham. “I want you to meet Drummond and Darrell.”
“The three musketeers complete,” grinned the other, and then grew serious again. “It’s a pretty damnable business, isn’t it? I suppose this account is accurate?”
Drummond, who had skimmed through the report, nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “That just about gives the finding of twelve good men and true, and to that extent, therefore, it is accurate.”
Newall stared at him.
“Are you implying that there is some inside information going around which is not mentioned in the report?”
“Is there any spot that we can go to, Ted,” said Drummond, “where there will be no chance of our being overheard?”
“Sure bill,” he answered. “The small card-room is bound to be empty.”
He led the way to the lift, and the others followed with Newall, who was still carrying the paper in his hand. And, having ordered a round of the necessary, he closed the door.
“Now we shan’t be disturbed,” he said. “Get on with it, Hugh.”
“Right oh!” answered Drummond. “Now then, Newall, we’ll take the whole bally hurdle in one. That story as given in the paper you’re holding is a lie from beginning to end.”
“What on earth do you mean?” cried the other. “You aren’t telling me that Bob Marton is still alive, are you?”
“No, not that. What I am telling you is that he was not murdered by Morris, the escaped convict.”
“Then who the devil was he murdered by?”
“Before we go into that have I your word that what we’re going to tell you won’t go any further?”
“Yes,” said Newall, “you have.”
“Good! Then Marton was murdered by one of the trio Hardcastle, Slingsby and Penton – or by all of them.”
“My dear sir,” stuttered Newall after a pause, during which his eyes almost came out of his head, “you’re pulling my leg. What under the sun should they want to murder Marton for?”
“That,” said Drummond, with a faint smile, “is where we hope you’ll be able to help us.”
“I say, Ted,” cried the other, “is he really being serious?”
“Absolutely, Dick. It’s an extraordinary yarn, but you can take it from me that every word is gospel truth.”
Briefly, but at the same time omitting nothing, Drummond gave him the story, and the lawyer listened with increasing amazement. But at the end he shook his head.
“Sorry,” he said, “but I fear you haven’t convinced my legal mind. It’s quite clear that you believed the yarn this convict spun to you, but what I’m asking myself, in view of the well-nigh inconceivable alternative you suggest, is whether you weren’t deceived by him yourselves.”
“I expected you to say that,” said Drummond quietly. “And it was the realisation that everybody would think that that made us say nothing about it. Nevertheless, Morris did not deceive us: what he said was the truth.”
“But, damn it, man,” cried Newall, “what possible motive could there have been for such a thing? Hardcastle, a perfectly good American millionaire – why should he want to put Bob Marton out of the way? It’s preposterous: it’s – it’s inconceivable, as I said before.”
“There is no important document, or something of that sort, missing from the office, is there?”
“Nothing: nothing at all. Why, as far as I know, there isn’t a document in the office that is worth a tanner to anyone else. Honestly, you fellows, I think you’re after the wrong fox this time with a vengeance. And if you don’t mind my giving you a word of professional advice, you’d better be damned careful. What you’ve said to me is safe – it won’t go beyond me. But there’s such a thing as libel, and a story like that renders you liable to thumping damages.”
“You need have no fears on that score,” said Drummond. “We aren’t going to mention it. We didn’t say a word about it even to old man Peters. One question, though, Newall. However much we imagined over what Morris said to us, there is no doubt over Marton’s remarks to me. How do you account for those? Who are the ‘they’ he was terrified of?”
“I confess that defeats me,” said the other slowly. “Of course he was in a rotten condition of nerves.”
“Rotten enough to imagine some non-existent beings?”
Dick Newall lit a cigarette thoughtfully.
“It’s a poser, I admit,” he remarked. “You say he mentioned this woman Comtessa Bartelozzi by name?”
“Certainly,” said Drummond. “He mentioned her in connection with his trouble, and she is Hardcastle’s daughter.”
“What is she like to look at?”
“Extraordinarily attractive. If you happen to frequent a night club called the Custard Pot, you may have seen her there.”
“What’s that?” cried the other. “The Custard Pot! Why, she must be the woman I saw there with Bob Marton one night. I pulled his leg about it next day, and he got quite shirty about it.”
“Had Hardcastle been to your firm then?”
Newall stared at him.
“Yes, he had. Hardcastle came to us about two months ago, and this incident I’m talking about was last week.”
“Seems strange that Marton didn’t tell you who the lady was,” said Drummond. “Look here, Newall,” he went on quietly, “I know our story must seem a bit thin to you. For all that, it’s the truth. Young Marton was foully murdered by Hardcastle and his bunch, and up to date they have got clean away with it. There is some big crime in contemplation: what it is I know no more than you. But Marton knew, and that’s why they outed him.”
A waiter entered, and came up to Newall.
“You’re wanted on the telephone, sir,” he announced.
“I’ll come back at once,” said the lawyer, rising. He followed the man from the room, and Drummond turned to the other two.
“I don’t blame him in the slightest for being sceptical,” he remarked. “So would we be in his place. And it only shows what the result would have been if we’d put it forward at the inquest.”
“Would it be any use telling him about Irma?” suggested Darrell. “Birds of a feather and that sort of idea.”
Drummond shrugged his shoulders.
“She would only be a name to him,” he said. “He’s had no first-hand experience of her little ways. Still, it’s a possibility, Peter.”
And at that moment Newall returned with a worried expression on his face.
“It’s a very strange thing,” he said, “in view of what we’ve been talking about, but my uncle has just rung me up. And quite obviously something is wrong. It’s getting on for eight o’clock, and unless it was serious it could surely have kept till tomorrow. I’m going round to see him at once. Will you fellows be dining here?”
“They can feed with me,” said Jerningham.
“Right: I’ll come back as soon as I’ve seen the old man. Of course it may be nothing at all, but it’s the first time I’ve ever known him do such a thing.”
He left the room, and Drummond rubbed his hands together.
“I wonder if that means we’re on the track of something,” he said. “Your pal seems a cheery sort of bloke, Ted: I hope he won’t be as close as an oyster if he finds out anything.”
“So do I, old boy,” answered Jerningham. “On that point we’ll just have to wait and see. But one can’t expect him to tell us much if it’s a secret concerning one of the firm’s clients. Anyway, what about some food?”
There was no sign of Newall during dinner, and it was not until after ten that he came into the smoking-room and ordered some sandwiches. A glance at his face showed that something had happened, but he said nothing until the waiter had brought them. Then abruptly he turned to the other three.
“It is my turn now,” he said, “to ask you to promise that you won’t pass on what I’m going to tell you.”
“You have it,” answered Drummond.
“Whether I ought to say anything about it at all is doubtful,” went on Newall, “because, as far as I can see, it ha
s no connection with Bob Marton’s death. I mean it doesn’t in any way bear out your theory as to who murdered him. At the same time, since we have been discussing him confidentially, it may interest you to know that five thousand pounds’ worth of bearer bonds, which were deposited with us a little while ago by a client, are missing. They should have been in his father’s safe – a safe to which Bob had access, and their loss only became known to my uncle today when he was going through the contents. At first he thought old Marton might have taken them down to his house in Surbiton, though it would have been a very unusual proceeding. And so, though the funeral is not till tomorrow, he went down there himself this afternoon to see if he could find them. A particular reason for the haste is that the client who left them with us is now back in London, and she may want them at any moment. Well, they’ve gone: vanished completely. And since the bare idea of suspecting old Marton is simply laughable, I’m sorry to say that it looks as if it was proof of what you were saying about young Bob. There’s no one else who can have taken the damned things. As you can appreciate, it’s a most unpleasant thing for the firm, for though our client will suffer no financial loss – we shall naturally ante up the five thousand – yet she may cut up nasty. You know what women are in matters of that sort – especially foreigners.”
Drummond leaned forward suddenly in his chair.
“Newall,” he said quietly, “I’m going to ask you a question which you may think gross impertinence. What is the name of this client?”
“That I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” answered the other. “It can have no possible bearing on the matter, can it?”
“Then I will draw a bow at a venture,” continued Drummond. “I can’t help it: I’ve got a hunch. Is it by any chance Madame Saumur?”
The lawyer started and stared at him.
“I see that it is,” said Drummond quietly. “Boys, this affair grows more mysterious every moment.”
“But do you know her?” cried Newall.
“Do we know her?” Drummond laughed gently. “Yes, Newall, we do, though not under that name. Many times in the past have we enjoyed a merry roundelay with her, and you can take it from me that she is one of the most dangerous criminals alive today. And to complete the circle, so to speak, when the Comtessa Bartelozzi arrived at Paddington this afternoon, Madame Saumur was there to meet her. And it was that fact that made me ask you.”