by Molly Thynne
Fayre gave an exclamation of surprise.
“Sybil said nothing when I saw her.”
“She did not know. He telephoned yesterday saying he could get away earlier than he had expected and was going to motor straight through. I gather that he’s going to take Sybil back to town by car as soon as she’s fit to travel. He’ll be on tenter-hooks till she’s seen her own doctor, and I don’t blame him. I should feel the same myself. To tell you the truth, fond as I am of her, I shall be relieved to get rid of the responsibility. It’s touch-and-go when she has these attacks.”
“She’s better away from this business,” said Fayre thoughtfully. “I’d no idea until I saw her on Tuesday how much she’s taking it to heart.”
“She’s got a very weak spot for Cynthia. She’s a fascinating little minx and I fancy Sybil would have given a lot to have had a daughter of her own. What about Bridge, eh?”
Lady Staveley’s brother and a nephew had arrived the day before and they played until the arrival of Kean shortly before midnight. He had come without a chauffeur and had driven his car himself all that day and through a good portion of the night before. Fayre was amazed at his powers of endurance. If he were exhausted he certainly did not show it in the few minutes that he stood chatting with the four men, but he was impatient to see his wife and went upstairs almost immediately and Fayre did not get a chance to talk to him until after breakfast the next day, when he found him on the terrace, waiting for Gregg to put in an appearance. He was intent on getting his wife up to London as soon as the doctor would allow her to travel. It was evident that her collapse had been a severe shock to him and only her insistent messages on the telephone through Lady Staveley had prevented him from throwing up his work and traveling down post-haste to see for himself how she was. Even now his mind was full of her and Fayre was aware that his interest in what he had to relate was purely perfunctory.
It appeared that he had seen Grey and was fairly well posted as to what had transpired since his departure. Fayre told him the result of his inquiries about Gregg.
“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree,” said Kean frankly when he had finished. “The fact that the fellow knew Mrs. Draycott does not necessarily point to him as her murderer.”
“On the other hand, he’s the only person we have been able to discover who had a definite grudge against her.”
“Come to that, she was hardly popular with a good many people. And there’s the difficulty of the motor. You’ll find it a hard job to connect him with that.”
“Unless he faked the number on Stockley’s motor or changed cars somewhere.”
“In which case the crime was premeditated and, on your own showing, that is unlikely. A man does not detest a woman for years and take no steps about it and then, just because he happens to run across her staying in the same neighbourhood, devise an elaborate scheme to murder her. Psychologically, your theory doesn’t hang together unless we can discover some better motive than that of mere dislike. The best thing you can do is to take the story to the police; he will then be obliged to tell them where he was that night. He can’t take the line with them that he took with you, and I’ve a strong conviction that he will be able to produce a perfectly satisfactory alibi.”
“You advise me not to waste time in following it up, then?” asked Fayre, feeling more than a little damped.
Kean’s smile was so friendly that it was impossible to take offence.
“If you want my real advice, old chap,” he said, “I should say drop the whole thing and leave it to Grey and the police. Let Grey have a clear account of what you’ve done and he will deal with it. I’m not belittling your work: it’s been uncommonly good as far as it goes, and if Gregg is concerned it may prove invaluable; but it’s useless to pit yourself against experts or to try to act without proper authority. How did you get hold of this letter to Gregg?”
The question came with startling abruptness and Fayre stifled a sudden spasm of amusement as he realized that Kean was using professional methods on him.
“I took it out of his desk when I was waiting for him the other day,” he answered with rather exaggerated meekness.
“And put yourself in a very nasty position if he finds out, apart from the fact that, if he jumps to the fact that you searched his desk, it will be the easiest thing in the world for him to destroy any evidence it contains.”
“Do you suggest that I should have kept it?” asked Fayre, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
“I certainly don’t,” was Kean’s dry rejoinder. “But I should like to point out that if his desk had been searched officially the police would have kept the letter and we should have had our evidence to hand if we’d needed it. That sort of amateur detective work is all right in fiction, but it’s dangerous in practice.”
Fayre was left feeling rather sheepish and distinctly obstinate. He had taken his dressing-down meekly enough and, on the whole, he felt bound to admit that it was not undeserved, but he hadn’t the smallest intention of being warned off the course by Kean or any one else. And he still held to his theory about Gregg.
The rest of his day was spent as harmlessly as even Kean could have wished. Fayre sat for a time with Sybil, who was up and dressed and so much better that the doctor had sanctioned her removal, by easy stages, to London the following day. The various members of the house-party were in and out of the room most of the time, so that, to Fayre’s relief, there was no opportunity to broach the subject of the murder.
As he was dressing for dinner he received a visit from Bill Staveley. He was still in riding kit and had just returned from his call at Hammond’s farm.
“I’ve got your times for you,” he began, “and I found out what car Gregg was driving. A very cunning bit of work, I may tell you, on my part! I’m beginning to think I’ve got a natural gift for this sort of thing! If you imagine I’m just a sort of Watson, my dear Holmes, you’re entirely mistaken.”
“If you want real appreciation and encouragement let me suggest that you go and tell Edward all about it,” advised Fayre dryly. “Meanwhile, when you’ve finished wagging your tail, you might produce the proofs of your genius.”
Lord Staveley chuckled.
“So that’s how the land lies, is it? Was he very down on our little efforts? He always was a damned superior beggar.”
“I kept you out of it, which is more than you deserve. What did you find at the Hammonds’?”
“A brand-new baby, among other things, which was brought into the world by Gregg at eight-fifteen precisely, on the night of the twenty-third. They telephoned to him between four-thirty and five and he must have started almost at once and walked over to Whit-bury for the car. And I’ve no doubt he used some language, too, considering what a beastly night it was. After that things get more interesting. You say he left Stockley’s at five-thirty. Well, he didn’t get to Hammond’s till close on seven. Hammond was quite definite about that. He was in a bit of a stew because Gregg was so late.”
Fayre, who was busy with his tie, spun round with an exclamation. Staveley nodded.
“That’s a fact,” he said quietly. “An hour and a half to do thirty minutes’ run. Of course, he may have called somewhere else on the way, but, considering that Hammond’s message was urgent, it doesn’t seem likely.”
“What excuse did he give Hammond?”
“None, I gather, but I imagine things were pretty urgent by the time he got there. He just said he was sorry he was late and they were all in such a state of nerves by that time that nothing more was said. It’s the chap’s first baby and he seems to have thought the world was coming to an end. Gregg left about nine, which would bring him home just in time to get the police call.”
“Did you find out what car he turned up in?”
“Stockley’s. Hammond knows it well because they take in lodgers in the summer and they use Stockley’s cars. I couldn’t very well ask him about the number, but he didn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual.�
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“I wonder if the carter could have made a mistake?”
“Not likely. He probably knows Stockley’s cars. Every one does round here and he’d be practically certain to know Gregg, even if it was dark. You’ll have to rule out the garage car, I suspect. That is, if Gregg’s really implicated.”
Fayre sighed.
“Well, we seem to be getting somewhere at last,” he said. “Though Heaven knows what it’s going to lead to.”
“Do we break the glad news to Edward or not?” asked Staveley mischievously.
“I’m blessed if we do!” answered Fayre, with unexpected heat. “After all, it’s Grey’s job at present. I’ll write to him to-night.”
He kept his word and sent the solicitor a clear and concise account of all that had happened.
He was hardly to be blamed if there was a spark of malice in his eyes the next morning as he stood on the steps with the rest of the house-party watching the departure of the Keans. Sir Edward was too absorbed in the task of making his wife comfortable for the journey to notice anything unusual in his friend’s manner, but Sybil Kean gave him a moment of discomfort as she said good-by.
“I believe you and Bill are up to some mischief,” she said jestingly. “I advise you to keep an eye on them, Eve! They had their heads together after breakfast this morning—and look at them now!”
Fayre managed to retain an expression of bland innocence, but Bill Staveley was grinning openly.
“I thought so,” she went on quietly. “Always distrust Hatter, Eve, when he looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.”
At this moment, to Fayre’s relief, Kean joined her, his arms full of cushions, and together they went down the steps to the car.
They had hardly disappeared round the bend at the end of the long drive when Fayre was rung up by Cynthia.
“Tubby’s done it, Uncle Fayre! Didn’t I tell you he would?” Her voice was breathless with excitement. “I’m coming back this afternoon on the two-thirty. Will you ask Eve to have me met? I’ll tell you all about it when I see you, but we’ve traced the car, broken mudguard and everything!”
CHAPTER XV
When Cynthia stepped out of the train at Staveley Grange she found Fayre waiting on the platform. The station-master, an old friend of her childhood, bustled forward to receive her and she did not have an opportunity of unburdening herself of her news till she found herself alone with Fayre in the car on their way to Staveley.
“I’ve one disappointment for you, Uncle Fayre,” she began. “We’ve traced the car, but we haven’t got the rest of the number.”
For a moment he could not conceal his chagrin. He had been counting on that one invaluable piece of information ever since he had received her message the night before.
“Do you mean to say that two garages can have housed the car and neither have taken the number? It’s incredible!”
“This time it wasn’t there for them to take. The man said that the car came in with half the numberplate missing! It was broken clean across just after the number 7, and the owner said that he had been run into from behind by a lorry just outside Carlisle. Tubby had a talk with one of the cleaners who had had a good look at the car while he was working on it and he said that the number-plate was an aluminium one, the sort that will snap easily with a smart blow from a hammer. Except for the cracked mudguard there were no other signs of a collision, but there was paint, red paint, on the mudguard. He remembered trying to get it off. Tubby thinks it possible that the man broke the plate himself and that’s why the carter couldn’t see more than half.”
“Looks as if our friend, Mr. Page, must have done it soon after he left Stockley’s garage. They certainly said nothing about a broken number-plate there.”
“Tubby says he wouldn’t get far with only half a number-plate and, if he were stopped, we ought to be able to trace him.”
“Did the garage people describe the man at all?”
“If you can call it a description. It was very like Stockley’s. I think it must have been the same man. Tall and thin, with a heavy coat and goggles that he did not take off. He brought in the car on the evening of the twenty-third, about eight-thirty and took it out again on the twenty-sixth, but they are not certain of the time. Tubby says he’s sure that the man was trying to avoid observation or he wouldn’t have gone to that garage. It’s a rotten little place almost on the outskirts of Carlisle and it’s not near a hotel or on any of the direct routes north and south. It’s the last place any one would leave a car if he were just passing through. Tubby had an awful hunt before he found it.”
“Page must have been in Carlisle from the twenty-third till the twenty-sixth, then. I wonder where he went after that? Probably south to London. The chances are that he didn’t dare risk having the mudguard mended in Carlisle, in which case there is a bare chance that we may trace him by it on the London route. And, as you say, he’d have to do something about the number.”
“As for that, he could use a temporary number, but it would be more noticeable than an ordinary number-plate.”
“I’ll send a line to Grey to-night and see if he can get onto anything at his end. He’ll know better how to set about it than I do. Frankly, I still think this man, Page, may have nothing whatever to do with the affair. He may have had his own reasons for lying low. After all, there’ve been several cars stolen in the north during the last few weeks. It’s becoming a regular profession and he may have been working his way to London with some car he had taken. We’ve got very little to go on.”
Having decided not to take Cynthia into his confidence on the subject of Gregg’s complicity, he could not give her his real reason for doubting the importance of the Page clue. Argue as he might, he could not manage to connect the doctor with the strange car, and if he was at the Hammonds’ farm from seven till nine on the twenty-third he could not possibly have been in Carlisle at eight-thirty.
Cynthia was gazing at him in astonishment.
“But, Uncle Fayre, the car was seen coming away from the farm just after the murder was committed, and you know that that lane doesn’t go beyond the farm. It must have been coming from there and there are hardly liked to have been two cars with Y.0.7. on the number-plate and a cracked mudguard. You can’t rule the car out altogether!”
“The tramp may have been lying. We haven’t cleared him yet, remember,” objected Fayre.
“The carter’s honest enough, anyway, and he backed up everything the tramp said. After all, the real description of the car came from him. And you’ve always said you were sure Mrs. Draycott was driven to John’s.”
“I still think she was driven there, but we can’t afford to ignore the fact that cars have been known before now to turn up a blind lane and come back in a hurry, after finding out their mistake and that’s what this car may very well have done. I’m all for tracing this man Page, if we can, but I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that he found a car already at the gate of the farm when he got there and that all he did was to turn round and go back the way he had come. I’m only trying to save you from possible disappointment, my dear.”
“In that case, we’re just where we were before,” sighed the girl, her hopes cruelly dashed.
Fayre suddenly realized that, in his determination not to be diverted from his pursuit of Gregg, he had allowed himself to wound and discourage Cynthia. He was conscious, too, that his case against the doctor was getting lamentably weak and that only his native obstinacy prevented him from admitting it.
“My dear, what nonsense!” he exclaimed remorsefully. “Don’t you see the immense importance of getting in touch with the one person who was actually on the spot at the time of the murder, even if he didn’t actually commit it, and, mind you, I don’t say that he didn’t. For all we know, though, he may have seen the thing happen and it’s hardly possible that he didn’t hear the shot. If we do get him, it will be your doing. You’ve been invaluable.”
Cynthia had been watching him closely.
“I believe you do mean it,” she said at last, “and are not saying it just to comfort me.”
The car drew up before the broad double flight of steps that led to the great oak doors of Staveley, and Cynthia prepared to get out.
“But I would most awfully like to know,” she added over her shoulder, “what you’ve got up your funny old sleeve.”
With that she ran up the steps and disappeared into the house, leaving Fayre staring in front of him, a comic picture of dismay.
“Bless the women!” he ejaculated as he prepared to follow her.
He made for the library and entrenched himself firmly behind the Times; but he wasn’t to escape for long. Less than ten minutes later he heard Cynthia’s voice in the hall and then her quick, light step as she came into the room. He buried his nose deeper in the leading article.
There was a protesting creak from his chair as she settled herself comfortably on the arm and placed a slim white hand between his eyes and the print.
“I did play the game, didn’t I, Uncle Fayre?” she murmured softly. “I never asked a single question. Don’t you think I deserve a lump of sugar?”
“What do you want now?” he asked, trying in vain to speak gruffly. Cynthia in her wheedling moods was doubly dangerous.
“Supposing we were to nip back into the car and run over to the Cottage Hospital, just you and me. If we go at once we shall be back in plenty of time for tea.”
“And may I ask what you propose to do there?”
“Sit in the car while you go in and see the tramp. Please, Uncle Fayre! If you do I promise I won’t bother you to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“What do you suggest that I should say to the tramp when I do see him? He’s told us all he knows already.”
“I don’t believe he has. I’ve been thinking that, if he was really lying there all that time, he must have seen any one else who came up the lane and, if you really think the Page man hasn’t got anything to do with it, then somebody else must have driven to the farm while the tramp was there. How did Mrs. Draycott get there, if the Page car didn’t bring her?”