Reflected Glory

by John Russell Fearn

  Thus dismissed, Barbara realized there was nothing more she could do. The Divisional-inspector saw her and the local inspector to the door and then returned to his desk. After thinking for a moment he raised the telephone and to the sergeant-in-charge in the next office he said:

  “Get me the Yard....”

  In five minutes’ conversation he had made matters clear to Chief Inspector Calthorp of the Yard’s C.I.D., and received his own instructions. Thereupon he left the office to begin his local investigations.

  Altogether his inquiry occupied the best part of a week, carried out in a completely unobtrusive way. At the same time, in London, detectives working under Calthorp’s orders, made their own inroads into the problem. It was a week and two days after Barbara Vane’s visit to Midhampton before Calthorp and the Divisional-inspector met in the Surrey headquarters to exchange notes.

  “Well, I’ve examined his flat and his studio myself, and not found anything,” Calthorp said, musing. “Seems to be little doubt of it now, Hayworth—that chap Hexley has completely vanished. Not only that, there are quite a few people inquiring after him—the renter of his studio, for one, and a man who is expecting a commissioned painting for another. The proprietor of the London flat is wondering what he should do about letting it and disposing of Hexley’s belongings if he doesn’t return soon.”

  “As I’ve mentioned, sir, in my reports,” the Divisional-inspector said, “my local inquiries revealed that Clive Hexley was last seen in Midhampton here—at the railway station on the Friday afternoon. That was the day he cut his hand.”

  Calthorp sat musing; he was a long-legged man, thin-nosed, partly-bald, with small eyes of an arctic grey shade.

  “Which means,” Hayworth said at length, questioningly, “that we must ask Miss Farraday a few things, sir?”

  “Exactly. The sergeant—” Calthorp glanced at Sergeant Dixon, his immovable henchman—“and I will be going over to Tudor Cottage shortly for a word with the young lady. You did say in your report that you have the impression she may be a bit ‘queer’?”

  “Yes, sir; basing my conclusions on what I have discovered in the district concerning her. Apparently she was born in Tudor Cottage and has lived there all her life. Her parents died two years ago and after that she went on living a secluded life. I have definitely established that her age is about twenty-five—not ten or twelve as she looked on the day Miss Vane and the local inspector found her. She’s also a writer of thrillers under the pseudonym of ‘Hardy Strong’—pretty horrific things from all accounts. What few people she has spoken to in the village—mainly trades people—all say they were impressed by her apparent extraordinary desire to make herself famous.”

  “I see,” Calthorp murmured, pondering. “Hardly grounds for considering her ‘queer,’ Hayworth.”

  “From all accounts, sir, that recent occasion was not the only time she’s been dressed up like a child,” Hayworth added. “I had a chat with two people, a man and a woman, who are local farmers around here. On different occasions last summer they each separate­ly saw what they took to be a girl of ten or eleven seated in the back garden of Tudor House—which you can see from an angle of the road—and she was playing with dolls and a doll’s pram. Of course it might have really been a child, even some relative of Miss Farraday’s, but I can’t discover that she has any relatives at all. So I’ll gamble it was Miss Farraday, dressed up once again.”

  “Hardly normal, but at the same time hardly crazy,” Calthorp reflected. “We have to be careful how far we go, Hayworth. Since she is a writer it is even possible that she carries realism to extremes, and to study out her effects puts herself in character. Just a guess, but it’s a thought. Best thing I can do is have a talk with her.... Incidentally, I checked up on the automatic, which, according to Miss Vane, Miss Farraday has. Miss Farraday has a license for it, as a protection for herself in her lonely home.”

  Calthorp got to his feet decisively and jerked his head to Sergeant Dixon. “Come on, Dixon, let’s see what we can get out of this young woman with the childlike notions....”

  They went out together to their official car and in his usual stolid silence Sergeant Dixon drove the seven-mile distance to Tudor Cottage. Drawing up outside the gate both men sat contemplating the quiet-looking house for a moment or two.

  “Any ideas, sir?” Dixon asked at last. “All sounds a mighty queer business to me.”

  “No queerer than some problems we’ve tackled,” Calthorp told him. “Carry on; let’s see what we can do. If it becomes necessary I’ve a warrant entitling me to search. Depends on how co-operative Miss Farraday is.”

  “Granting she’s at home. If she’s scented danger she’s probably taken herself off.”

  In this, however, Sergeant Dixon was mistaken. Elsa Farraday, pale but entirely composed, no longer dressed in the guise of a child, opened the door to them. Her grey eyes studied them ques­tioningly.

  “Good morning, Miss Farraday.” Calthorp raised his soft hat. “I’m from the Yard—C.I.D. I’d like a word with you if convenient.” He displayed his warrant-card and added, “This is Sergeant Dix­on.”

  “Come in,” Elsa said quietly, and held the door wider.

  She closed it behind the two men and then motioned, into the lounge. They went in, glancing about them, seating themselves as she indicated chairs. She settled on the settee opposite them, still with that strange defensive light in her eyes.

  “I’ve been expecting this to happen ever since that fool of a local inspector called upon me,” she said presently.

  Calthorp cleared his throat. “The local inspector was cert­ainly indiscreet,” he confessed, “and I am glad that you exercised tolerance, Miss Farraday, in not reporting him to the Divisional-inspector.”

  “It’s not so much a matter of being tolerant, inspector. I realized that I would probably not get anything out of it if I did report him.... Anyway, that apart, what do you wish of me?”

  “The answers to a few questions, which I’ll make as brief as possible. Firstly, I think you should know that Mr. Hexley has, as far as our inquiries can establish, completely disappeared.”

  “I’m afraid that is a matter which doesn’t interest me.”

  Calthorp frowned. “But surely it should, Miss Farraday? You are—or were—engaged to him?”

  “No.” Elsa shook her head. “I broke it off...for private reasons.”

  “When, and where?”

  “Er—a week last Friday. It was at his studio in Chelsea—”

  “You quarrelled, perhaps?”

  “I didn’t say so,” Elsa retorted.

  “True, but you would hardly break off the engagement otherwise.”

  Checkmated, Elsa nodded slowly. “Yes, we quarrelled. Maybe it was mainly my fault. I did feel, though, that we could never make a success of marriage.”

  “What was the nature of the quarrel?”

  “Do I have to answer that?” Elsa asked quietly.

  “No.” Calthorp shrugged and smiled. “But I shall certainly find out the facts eventually. You can cut down time if you are willing.”

  Elsa was silent, gazing meditatively at the carpet.

  “Would it be about his inability to paint after him stabbing his hand?” Calthorp suggested, and the girl jerked up her head quickly.

  “H-how on earth did you know about that—? Oh, I see! Miss Vane told you, I suppose?”

  “She told the local and Divisional-inspector, and they in turn told me. I checked up on it in London through interviews with Mr. Draycott and Miss Vane. I think it might save time to say that you broke your engagement because Mr. Hexley believed he would not be able to paint again.”

  “Which you think was intolerably callous of me, I suppose?”

  “I am not concerned with the emotional issues, Miss Farraday,” Calthorp answered, unmoved. “Only in getting the facts. Am I right in my assumption?”

  “Yes. I don’t see what I have to gain by denying it.”

&nb
sp; Calthorp studied her for a moment and his eyes gazed beyond her to the room itself. For a second or two he considered the door with the shiny-headed screws down the sides but no change of ex­pression came to his long, inscrutable face.

  “Am I to understand, Miss Farraday, that you last saw Mr. Hexley at his studio a week on Friday when you broke the engagement?”

  “That is so, yes. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

  “You are quite sure of that?” Calthorp insisted.

  “Certainly I am! Why shouldn’t I be?”

  There was a pause. In a corner Sergeant Dixon was making swift shorthand notes.

  Calthorp continued: “We have the statement of the station-master at Midhampton that a youngish man, with his right arm in a sling, and answering Clive Hexley’s description in every way, got off the London-connection train last Friday week about three-thirty in the afternoon. I cannot imagine whom else Mr. Hexley would have wished to see in this district except you.”

  “It must have been somebody else,” Elsa replied, shrugging. “Clive—that is, Mr. Hexley—is not the only man on Earth with his right arm in a sling. If on the other hand it was him, then he certainly did not come here.... Why can’t you believe what I say?” she asked impatiently.

  “I have not said that I don’t,” Calthorp answered.

  Again the silence whilst Elsa contemplated him in grim suspic­ion; then she said:

  “It surprises me, Mr. Calthorp, that you don’t ask the most important question of all. You must be all burned up with curiosity about it— Why was I dressed up like a child in a room full of miniature furniture when Miss Vane and the inspector found me?”

  “I am concerned, Miss Farraday, with the whereabouts of Mr. Hexley—not with the actions of your private life,” Calthorp responded. “Unless you think that your—er—‘impersonation’ might help to explain things in some way?”

  “Not in the least. I dress like that when I wish to concentrate, and I go into that room with the small furniture to do it. There is nothing more significant in it than that. Some people bite a pencil, others dig gardens, still others go for long walks.... I dress as I was at ten years of age because the mental condition thus produced enables me to think freely without undue responsibil­ity.”

  “Most interesting,” Calthorp said, without altering his tone in the slightest. “Er—regarding the accident which Mr. Hexley had. Do you believe it was an accident—or intentional?”

  “Intentional. I haven’t the least doubt of it. I believe it was arranged by Miss Vane because she was bitterly resentful of the fact that I had, so to speak, taken Mr. Hexley away from her.”

  “I see. And there is nothing more you can tell me, Miss Far­raday?”

  The girl thought for a while and then shook her head. Calthorp nodded and rose to his feet, smiling in his impersonal fashion. Sergeant Dixon snapped the elastic back on his notebook and thrust it in his pocket.

  “Sorry I troubled you, Miss Farraday,” the chief inspector apologized. “All a matter of routine, you understand?”

  “Of course.” Elsa rose, shook his extended hand, and saw him and the sergeant as far as the front door. When they had gained their car Dixon waited for a moment, his eyes questioning.

  “I take it, sir, that you didn’t think it was worthwhile mak­ing a search of her place?”

  “For what?” Calthorp asked quietly.

  “Well, I—” Dixon rubbed his ear. “I don’t exactly know. Might have been some sort of clue.”

  “I don’t think we’d have gained much, Dixon. No, I shall not indulge in any searching until I’m perfectly convinced that Miss Farraday has definite guilt attaching to her. At the moment we have nothing which can prove her story wrong, even though we can have our private suspicions about it.”

  “I think she’s a liar,” Dixon said bluntly.

  “Maybe; but unfortunately we cannot act just on that assumption. What we are going to do is return to London and have further inter­views wish Mr. Draycott and Miss Vane—”

  “But we’ve done that already!”

  “Only sketchily, before we had the full details together with Miss Farraday’s reactions. Doesn’t it occur to you, sergeant, that if Hexley has been murdered, and his body mysteriously spirit­ed away, there was a good deal of motive both on the part of Draycott and Miss Vane? More so, indeed, than on the part of Miss Farraday. We have only Miss Vane and Draycott’s word for it that the knife incident was an accident. If, as Miss Farraday seems to think, it was deliberate, then it points to the real depths of jealousy to which Miss Vane, aided by Draycott, can sink. A woman who could do that would not hesitate at murdering the man who had been stolen from her.”

  “Wouldn’t she be more likely to murder the woman who had stolen him, sir?” Dixon hazarded.

  “It’s possible—but don’t forget the old saying that ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ It might well be that Miss Vane, realizing Hexley had deserted her for another woman, developed a sudden homicidal hatred of him—and perhaps killed him, with assistance from Draycott.... Mind you,” Calthorp added, “all this is pure theory, and I’m ready to have it exploded sky high. But it has to be taken into account before we really start to think of Miss Farraday as the culprit.”

  “I suppose you think she was telling the truth about her little girl act?”

  “I’ve no idea. It sounded logical enough. Frankly I don’t consider it an important enough angle to worry about.... Get moving, Dixon. Sooner we get back to London the better.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Terry Draycott was in his dressing room, removing the make-up of the matinee from his features, when the chief inspector and Dixon entered, in response to his call to come in. He turned from the mirror with its horseshoe of lights and looked at them in surprise.

  “Oh, it’s you, inspector— How are you? Afternoon, sergeant.”

  Both men nodded but ignored the chairs to which Terry motioned.

  “This won’t take long, Mr. Draycott,” Calthorp said. “I’m just on a checking-up tour.... In regard to that knife with which Mr. Hexley injured himself—you did say it was a trick knife and that by some mischance it jammed, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right. I’m using a different one now. I reported the matter to the stage manager.”

  “I understand. And where is the knife now?”

  “I suppose he has it. I can ask him for you—”

  “No, never mind. I’ll see him as I go out.... Tell me, Mr. Draycott, do you still insist that that incident with the knife was an accident?”

  “Of course!”

  “It seems to me,” Calthorp said slowly, “that you could not have had a very great regard for Mr. Hexley—chiefly because he threw Miss Vane on one side for Miss Farraday. You, apparently, holding Miss Vane in high esteem, would not feel kindly towards Mr. Hexley on that account.”

  “You’re quite right, I didn’t. I thought he played her a dirty trick, and I told him as much—but that doesn’t alter the business with the knife. Please remember, inspector, that I had only brought the knife with me that morning. I didn’t even remember it until I had been in the studio for a few minutes, nor did I know beforehand that Mr. Hexley had switched his attentions to Miss Farraday. You don’t suggest that I suddenly decided to fake an accident, do you?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything, but you could have known ahead of time from Miss Vane that Mr. Hexley had transferred his interest to Miss Farraday. Maybe even when she asked you to bring along the knife so she could examine it.”

  “No.” Draycott shook his head. “It was several days before when she asked me about the knife, before Mr. Hexley had met Miss Far­raday. I didn’t see Miss Vane in the interval, so of course I didn’t know about him having left her in the cart for Miss Farraday.”

  “Mmmm.” Calthorp picked up a jar of cosmetic, examined it ab­sently, then put it down again. His cold grey eyes fastened on Terry Draycott’s half made-up face. “Mr. Draycott, at
approximately three thirty in the afternoon of last Friday week, Mr. Hexley was seen at Midhampton railway station, after which he vanished. Can you give me an account of your movements from that time until now?”

  “That’s impossible,” Terry answered flatly. “Just think how much time has elapsed!”

  “I’m aware that my request may present difficulties, but in your professional capacity, Mr. Draycott, you should have a good idea of your movements. Most of your time must be taken up at the theatre here. As for the rest of the time— Well, I’m asking you to fill in the blanks. I don’t expect you to do it whilst I wait. When you’ve thought it all out let me have a detailed list at the Yard.”

  “Which means I’m under suspicion or something?” Terry asked bitterly. “Let me tell you, inspector, that I’ve never seen Hexley since be left the doctor’s on the morning of his accident, after having had his hand dressed.”

  “I am quite prepared to believe it, Mr. Draycott—but just let me have a statement of your movements, all the same.... Now, where do I find the stage manager?”

  “His office is on the right of the passage-way as you go out. The stage doorman will show you if you’ve any difficulty.”

  “Right. Much obliged. Sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Draycott.”

  Calthorp did not have any difficulty. His official status en­sured that the faulty knife was immediately obtained and handed over to him. With it in a cellophane envelope he looked at the stage manager pensively.

  “When was this knife handed to you by Mr. Draycott?” he asked.

  “Er—” The manager frowned and considered. “It was a week last Friday—in the afternoon before the matinee. We tested the blade once or twice, and it jammed. So we discarded it.”

  “And where has it been in the interval?”

  “Lying in the property room. We’ve a big cupboard there where we keep a pile of effects like that.”

  “I suppose anybody could have got to it in the meantime without much difficulty?”