Reflected Glory

by John Russell Fearn

  “Quite easily,” the stage manager agreed. “There’s nothing in the property room which we consider worth locking up.... I’d like to know,” he added, “what all this implies?”

  “To be candid,” Calthorp answered dryly, “so would I! Many thanks for the knife, sir—and your co-operation. Come on, Dixon.”

  Once more they returned to their car and then the sergeant asked a question.

  “Why the knife, sir? We don’t know that Hexley was stabbed. In fact we don’t know a dam’ thing about him. He may not even have been murdered!”

  “Quite true,” Calthorp agreed, “but at least we have one thing we can settle when we get back to the office—whether or not the affair that morning was an accident or not. The knife we’ve got should prove that. If it does jam, then we may safely assume that the whole thing was an accident.”

  “Then, sir, why did you ask all those questions about anybody—meaning Draycott I suppose—being able to get at the knife without difficulty?”

  “I’ll explain that later. Drive back to the Yard, will you?”

  “Not Miss Vane’s place?”

  “She can wait until later. I want to get this knife to work.” Dixon nodded and switched on the car’s ignition. He drove swiftly back to the Yard through the busy traffic, then he and the chief inspector went up to their small, dingy office overlooking the Thames Embankment.

  “Now,” Calthorp breathed, throwing up his hat on to the peg and then settling in his swivel-chair. “Let’s see what we can get out of this.”

  He tugged the knife out of its envelope and examined it care­fully.

  “What about fingerprints?” Dixon asked, but the chief inspector shook his head.

  “It’ll be smothered in them. Nothing useful to be gained in that direction.”

  “It’s beautifully made,” Dixon said in admiration, and watched his superior drop the knife experimentally, point downwards, to the blotter. Each time the blade shafted back neatly into the ornate hilt.

  “Seems all right,” Calthorp said, musing, and Dixon took it from him.

  “Uh-huh.” The sergeant inspected the highly polished blade and the general design, then he held, the knife above the wooden floor and dropped it down. It remained there, its point jammed into the boards.

  “It—it stuck!” he exclaimed, startled—and the chief inspec­tor sat staring at it fixedly.

  Reaching out he yanked the knife free of the floor, then holding the blade in his handkerchief he began to work it up and down. Once or twice in the process it stuck, then freed itself.

  “That settles it,” he declared, tossing the knife on the desk. “It was an accident—which means that Draycott and Miss Vane have both spoken the truth. Even had they known beforehand of this dagger’s dangerous tendency to jam, which I doubt, they could not have known when it would do so, could never have planned it so that it hurt Hexley in the way it did. Further, as I understand it Hexley took this knife and examined it of his own free will, striking at his palm with it. Nobody told him to, or even put the idea into his head.”

  Calthorp became silent, considering the knife fixedly.

  “So at one sweep we can discount Draycott and Miss Vane?” the sergeant asked.

  “Well, I don’t know about that—”

  “But you just said—”

  “I said we’ve proved that they spoke the truth about the accid­ent, but that doesn’t mean that between them—to pay Hexley out for deserting Miss Vane for Miss Farraday—they didn’t ‘take care’ of him somehow. Only there is one rule that I have found infal­lible, Dixon— If people under suspicion are truthful in one in­stance they usually are in every instance, just as the lying wit­ness always remains a liar. That being so I am inclined to think that when those two said they did not have anything to do with Mr. Hexley’s disappearance they were again speaking the truth.”

  “What, then, do you imagine Draycott might have done with this dagger?”

  “It occurred to me that if he did happen to know a trick way of controlling the blade he might have adopted it to kill Hexley with. In other words, the modus operandi of a very clumsy murder­er. He could have handed the knife in as faulty, knowing that it would be consigned to the property room. He would have relied on the assumption that everybody would say the knife had been there all the time. Since nobody could prove otherwise it would have been quite a nice plan. But I guessed wrong. This knife is far to erratic to be used to kill anybody.”

  “And we don’t know that Hexley was stabbed,” the sergeant pointed out.

  “Quite so. I based my theory on the belief that when found his body would have been found to have been stabbed. Now we have to look further....” Calthorp glanced at the clock. “Have some tea sent in, will you? I’m more than ready for it.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Until the tea had arrived and the sergeant pouted it out, Calthorp remained lost in thought, jotting down notes for his own satisfaction on the scratchpad; then presently he tossed his pencil aside in annoyance.

  “Y’know, Dixon, we’re simply barking up a gum tree!” he declar­ed. “In fact we’re presented with an almost impossible task. We don’t even know if our man is dead—or, if he is, how he died. We don’t know whether it was stabbing, strangling, shooting, or our old friend the blunt instrument. Mmmm—shooting,” he repeated, and chewed a sandwich slowly.

  “Meaning Miss Farraday’s automatic?” the sergeant questioned. “You have the authority to make her turn it over if you want.”

  “Yes—and an infernally long time after the possible event, in which period she has had ample opportunity to replace any missing bullets and clean the barrel. No, that’s a blind alley.... It is the missing body that has us legged down. We can’t even accuse anybody of murder without the body. Just hold an inquiry, think all the suspicious things we can—and move on. Case uncompleted. So says the law.”

  There was a long silence before the sergeant spoke again. “Since we have sort of eliminated Draycott and Miss Vane—at least for the moment—that leaves us either with Miss Farraday as the possible culprit, or some outsider whom we’ve not yet encountered. Or there is also the possibility that with the shock of his injury, added to by Miss Farraday’s callous breaking-off of the engagement, Hexley suffered a sudden attack of amnesia and is wandering around somewhere.”

  The chief inspector shook his head.

  “Amnesia isn’t the answer, sergeant. The moment this business first reached my notice I had Hexley’s full description and photo­graph—taken from a snap at his flat—circulated, which meant that police throughout the country would be on the watch for him. A man in his condition, with a badly hurt hand, could not have gone unnoticed by everybody. And his photograph appeared in the daily papers too.... No, I’m quite convinced, more so than I have ever been about anything, that he is dead. And I’m pretty well sure that he has been murdered. It’s just an instinctive feeling without proof, unfortunately.”

  “Then in the absence of any other person with a motive, sir, we have to assume that Miss Farraday is the murderess. But how did she do it—and, even more puzzling, why?”

  “I’ll be hanged if I know why, even though it does seem pretty clear that she could not have held Hexley in anything like the regard she pretended when she broke the engagement the moment she knew that his power to paint had been destroyed. Presumably she saw the disappearance of the chance of marrying a famous man, to say nothing of the money that went with it.... But whether her emotions were so upset as to make her wish to murder him is another matter. Doesn’t seem logical somehow.”

  “Assuming that she did wish to murder him,” the sergeant insisted, “what do you think she perhaps did? Remember, she is a writer of thrillers and must have a pretty good idea of all kinds of in­genious dodges.”

  “As I see it, Dixon, she could have done one of a number of things. We have more or less proved that Hexley was in her dis­trict before his disappearance. He could have gone to see her. She co
uld have shot him, hit him over the head, or even perhaps have strangled him, though I doubt it considering her slender build. After that— Well, we just don’t know. She perhaps disposed of the body somehow. Buried it—or even dismemberment and burning isn’t out of the question in such a lonely spot.”

  The sergeant chewed steadily for a moment or two, then he shook his head doubtfully.

  “Somehow, sir, I can’t picture that woman burning or dismember­ing a body. Besides, according to criminal annals, it’s always the men who think of that gruesome angle.... Suppose she perhaps shut the body up in a cupboard, or something? Until the hue and cry has died down?”

  Calthorp started and nearly dropped his teacup.

  “Great heavens!” he exclaimed. “Of all the blundering fools!”

  “Sorry, sir. Only a suggestion—”

  “No, no, I’m the fool—not you! I’ve just remembered. Whilst I was talking to Miss Farraday I noticed a door in the lounge, secured down the sides with eight screws, four a side. They’re new, I think—certainly shiny. You wouldn’t notice them because your back was to that door whilst you were taking notes.”

  “New screws?” the sergeant repeated quickly.

  “So I believe....” Calthorp finished drinking his tea hurried­ly. “It’s just possible we may have alighted on something, ser­geant. We’re going back to see Miss Farraday right away.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Early this same evening Elsa Farraday had a visitor. At a ringing on the bell about six-thirty she opened the front door to behold a young man with a homely face and serious brown eyes standing in the porch. At the gate was a two-seater.

  “Clem!” Elsa exclaimed, surprised. Then her expression changed. “What do you want, anyway?”

  “To talk to you.”

  “Concerning what? Judging from what you said when you met Clive Hexley and me in the lane a week ago you never wanted to see me again.”

  “Well—at that time that was how I felt,” Clem Hargraves admitted. “But I’ve been having some serious conversation with myself since then, and I’ve also been seeing the newspapers, I have the feeling that you may be in something of a spot. With Clive Hexley having disappeared so mysteriously, I mean.”

  “So?”

  “So being your near-as-damnit fiancé before he came into the picture, I decided I might at any rate still be your friend and try and help you out if I can.”

  “Well....” Elsa hesitated. “I suppose I shouldn’t ask you in—but there’s nobody to see and I must talk to somebody. So—”

  She stood aside and motioned. Clem entered the hall, tossed his bat on the hallstand, and then followed the girl into the lounge. Seating himself as she motioned to the settee he prof­fered his cigarette case.

  “Now, start talking,” he suggested, when her cigarette was lighted. “You know me well enough, Elsa: I’m a good listener. That is, talk if you can forget my bad temper that evening. Honestly, whatever may have happened between you and Hexley, I’m still in love with you, and I always shall be.”

  “That’s good hearing,” Elsa said slowly, her grey eyes deeply serious. “I’m willing to admit, Clem, that I probably made a fool of myself and treated you most shamefully into the bargain.”

  “Forget it,” he smiled. “We all make mistakes. Anyway, what has happened to Clive Hexley? You of all people, engaged to him, surely ought to know?”

  “I ought to, but I don’t. And I’m not engaged to him any long­er. You see, I broke it off—”

  “You did?” Clem interrupted eagerly. “Why? Did you find out that he wasn’t any good?”

  Elsa was silent. Clem’s expression changed as he hunched for­ward.

  “Well,” he said, “whatever the reason, never mind. Just as long as you did break with him.... What I’ve been trying to figure out is where you fit into the scheme of things. Have the police been making inquiry?”

  “Only today. No accusations, no direct threats—no anything, but just the same I’m convinced that they think I had something to do with Clive’s disappearance. Apparently the police think that because a man of Clive’s description was seen at Midhampton station on the day I returned here from London after breaking off my engagement with him.”

  “And what are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know.” Elsa looked absently in front of her. “But I’m pretty worried about it, as you can imagine.”

  “Why should you be if you didn’t have anything to do with it?”

  “If I didn’t?” she repeated, her eyes widening. “Do you mean by that that you think—”

  “Lord, no, of course not! Only a manner of speech.... Look here, since that’s the position, why on earth do you try and fight the situation all by yourself? You were quick enough about getting engaged to Hexley and, no doubt, had you gone through with the thing, would have been just as quick to marry him. Why can’t you do the same as far as I’m concerned? Then I’d be able to shoulder the responsibility as well?”

  “I’m—I’m not so sure that I want that, Clem.”

  He stared, at her. “But why not? What’s wrong with me? You’ve known me for years and we’ve often been together. Surely now it is more important than ever for me to share your troubles?”

  “Yes, perhaps so, but....” Elsa made a restless movement. “For various reasons I don’t feel now that I want to get married. I don’t think you’d understand even if I tried to explain.”

  “You can start to—”

  A ringing at the front door bell stopped Clem Hargraves. Elsa looked up in surprise, glanced at the clock, and then rose. Going through the hall she went and opened the door. Clem got up slowly as she returned in advance of two men—one tall, in a lounge suit; the other in official police uniform with three stripes on his sleeve.

  “Chief Inspector Calthorp and Sergeant Dixon, Clem,” Elsa introduced, in a flat, hard voice. “This is Mr. Hargraves, gentle­men, a very great friend of mine.”

  “How are you, sir?” Calthorp acknowledged; then he glanced at the girl. “I’d be glad if you could spare me a few moments, Miss Farraday. Private matter.”

  “I’ll go,” Clem said. “See you some other time, Elsa.”

  “Yes—all right,” she responded, hesitating; and with a nod to the two men Clem left the lounge, swept up his hat from the hall­stand, and departed.

  Through the window Calthorp’s cold grey eyes watched him go down the front path.

  “Well, gentlemen?” Elsa asked, seeming as though she were making an effort to compose herself. “Won’t you sit down?”

  “I hardly think it necessary,” Calthorp responded. “I expect to be moving about.” He produced a search-warrant from his pocket and handed it to her. “My authority, Miss Farraday, for searching this house.”

  Her cheeks reddened. “What on earth for? What do you imagine I’m hiding?”

  “I could hardly know, unless you care to tell me—but my in­quiry has reached the point where a search of this house becomes necessary. Behind that screwed-up door, for instance—and also in that room with the miniature furniture.”

  Elsa threw the search warrant on the table and gave a bitter smile.

  “Very well, search,” she invited, shrugging. “I don’t think it will avail you much.”

  Calthorp motioned his hand and Sergeant Dixon produced a short, strong screwdriver from his uniform pocket. Turning to the door he set to work on the eight screws, removing them one by one and putting them methodically on the seat of the chair beside him.

  Elsa stood watching, tight little lines setting the corners of her well-shaped mouth. Calthorp’s impersonal eyes contemplated her now and again; then he turned and gave the sergeant a hand to pull the door open, the screwdriver levering down the side.

  It opened abruptly and Elsa turned away and, looked out of the window onto the untidy back garden. Calthorp and Dixon found themselves gazing into a dark, dank-smelling space.

  “Torch,” Calthorp instructed briefly, and pro
ducing a small one Dixon switched it on. The beam settled on a stone stairway leading downwards.

  “Think we should?” Dixon murmured, with a glance at the girl’s back. “She might screw the door up on us!”

  “Easily settled,” Calthorp said, and turned, raising his voice. “Miss Farraday!”

  “Yes?” she enquired, without looking at him.

  “I’d like you to lead the way down here, please. This is your home and I wish to give you every chance to—”

  “Go by yourselves!” she interrupted harshly, without turning.

  Calthorp reflected, turned back to Dixon and said quietly, “Okay, we’ll risk it.”

  The sergeant nodded and went down the steps warily, his torch beam waving. Calthorp glanced back as he followed, but there was no sign of Elsa in the doorway, its outline sharply clear in the streaming late evening sunlight.

  The steps took a sharp leftward turn halfway down and ended in a wide, utterly dark cellar that obviously went under the whole length of the house. On one wall was a rusty old door, on the other a grimed and cobwebbed wooden one, apparently belonging to a cupboard. On the floor lay a film of coal dust.

  “A coal cellar, sir, at one time,” Dixon said. “Long time ago too, judging from this iron door....” He went over to it and flashed the torch beam on it. “Rusted in, so there doesn’t seem to be much use in looking for a body behind it.”

  “Only lead outside to a grating or something,” Calthorp told him, and fingering the filthy knob of the wooden cupboard door he pulled it open and peered inside. There were two shelves, with some old object pushed in the back of the lower shelf. Cert­ainly no sign of a body, even had there been room.

  “Blank,” Calthorp said, sighing, and closed the door up again. “All right, let’s get back upstairs.”

  They returned to the lounge and found Elsa still standing with her back to them, gazing outside. As Calthorp closed the door with a thump and motioned Dixon to replace the screws he asked a question.

  “Why do you keep this door screwed up, Miss Farraday?”

  She turned, strain still showing in the lines of her mouth.