by Molly Thynne
Events followed each other in an almost uncanny sequence. When he reached the club he was handed a card by the porter, who told him that a gentleman was waiting to see him, and the name on it, to his astonishment, was that of Gregg. Fayre found some difficulty in collecting his thoughts as he went in search of his visitor and led him to a secluded corner of the almost deserted library.
The conversation opened awkwardly, for Gregg seemed to be labouring under an acute attack of embarrassment.
“Very good of you to see me after what happened,” he began clumsily, his manner even more abrupt than usual. “Fact is, I made a blithering ass of myself the other day and I’ve come to say so. Hope you’ll accept an apology.”
“That’s all right. I expect I must have seemed an infernal busybody,” said Fayre hastily. “I’m only too glad you’ve come to look on me in a more friendly light. Are you a tea-drinker or would you prefer something else?”
He waited impatiently while the servant supplied their needs. When he had gone Gregg, as he had hoped, came directly to the point.
“You asked for an explanation the other day,” he said bluntly. “If it hadn’t been for my infernally hot temper I should have given it and saved us both a lot of trouble. Well, I’ve come to give it now.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, his tea cooling unheeded by his side.
“It’s a bit difficult to know where to begin, but you may as well have the whole story. I did know Mrs. Draycott, as you guessed, but that was before she married Draycott. I give you my word that, until I saw her lying dead at Leslie’s farm, I’d never set eyes on her since the week after she ran away from Baxter in 1916. I knew she was staying at Staveley, of course, but I fancy she avoided me there. Anyhow, I never saw her and I was glad of it, for it wasn’t an acquaintance I was anxious to renew. When that chap, Brace, asked me if I knew her, I denied it on impulse. If you ask me why, I’m blessed if I know. I hated her and everything to do with her and the time I had known her, and I suppose it was a sort of blind endeavour to put it all behind me. Anyway, as soon as I’d done it, I knew what a fool thing it was to do, but there was nothing for it then but to stick to what I’d said. How you got onto the fact that I’d ever had anything to do with her, I don’t know, but it was cursed awkward for me and I’m not surprised you got the wind up.”
“It was an accident, more or less, helped by your own obvious dislike of her. You made a mistake there.”
“I know. I was rattled over the whole thing and I’ve no doubt I gave myself away. You see, I had more than one reason for wishing to keep out of it. For one thing, I knew that my statement that I had never seen her looked fishy, to say the least of it, and then there was the boy.”
He paused, evidently trying to sort out his story. Then, catching sight of Fayre’s face of bewilderment:
“I expect it all seems an unholy muddle to you. I’d better get back to the beginning. Miss Allen, as she was then, was at St. Swithin’s with me, as you probably know by now. She married my special pal, Baxter, and I can assure you I did my best to put a spoke in her wheel there. It was no good, however; Baxter was almost insane about her and wouldn’t listen to a thing against her, and, knowing what I knew about her, it made me pretty sick, as you may imagine. So much so that, after they married, I saw very little of them.
“I’d got a big, very poor practice then and was too busy, anyway, to look up old friends. Then one day he turned up, half demented, and told me she’d gone off with Draycott and left him with their small boy on his hands. To make a long story short, he ended by divorcing her after trying in vain to get her back. I went to see her myself, much as I disliked her, the day after Baxter’s visit to me. I found her at a hotel with Draycott and she laughed in my face when I tried to get her to return to her husband. After the divorce he went to pieces altogether and I had my hands full, I can tell you. When he got past work I persuaded him to come to me with the boy, and he died soon afterwards in my house. I’d got fond of the little chap by then, and I stuck to him, there being no other relations he could go to. He’s at a preparatory school now and going to a public school next term. That’s the principal reason why I didn’t want my connection with this business to come out. I gave him my name and he’s supposed to be my nephew and, for his sake, I don’t want to drag up the past now.”
“I see that,” said Fayre sympathetically. “In fact, I’m beginning to realize now how you must have cursed my interference.”
“Your butting in as you did was a calamity, from my point of view, and, like a fool, I lost my temper and tried to bluff it out. You see, I’d concealed his identity with a good deal of care and I began to see myself in the witness-box and photographs of the little chap in the papers, all my trouble gone for nothing, as it were, and I saw red.”
“Does the boy know he’s Baxter’s son?”
“He knows his name was Baxter originally, but he wouldn’t connect his mother with Mrs. Draycott. He thinks she died before he came to me with his father. I never tried to conceal his parentage from him; in fact, I’ve done my best to keep the memory of his father alive as he was before he let himself go to pieces. Fortunately the little chap was too young to notice much in those days. No, it was his mother I was afraid of. She’d got no legal claim on the boy, but I knew her. She was a greedy woman where money was concerned and an infernally clever one. Even when Draycott was alive she was eternally hard up and there was very little she’d stick at to raise money. I never saw her again, as I said, but I kept track of her and, from what I heard, I’m pretty certain that, if she’d known where to find the boy, she’d have put the screw on me, little as I should have been able to give her. She knew I’d do a good deal to prevent her from getting at him. She was an attractive woman and a good enough actress to make a very pretty and affecting scene if she’d chosen to look him up and play the fond mother. She’d have got round him, I’ve no doubt, and she knew I couldn’t afford to risk that. That was why I changed his name and I was very careful not to talk openly of where he was. You must remember that she detested me and, apart from the money, she was quite capable of going and worrying the boy out of sheer spite.”
“She wouldn’t descend to blackmail, surely,” protested Fayre.
He had disliked Mrs. Draycott and everything that he had since heard of her had been to her discredit, but he found it difficult to believe that a sister of Miss Allen should have sunk low enough for blackmail.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Gregg shrewdly. “She came of good stock and was brought up according to the traditions of her class, but, believe me, when a woman’s once started on the downward slope she gets pretty callous about what she does. I give you my word that, bad as the shock of finding her dead was, it had less effect on me that night than the discovery that she was Miss Allen’s sister. I realized then, for the first time, the sort of people she had sprung from and I came very near to giving myself away, I was so surprised. Oddly enough, in spite of the name, I had never connected them with each other.”
“You say you kept an eye on Mrs. Draycott. Does that mean that you were in touch with any of her associates? I don’t mind telling you that we’re still at sea as to the motive of the crime.”
“I can’t help you there, I’m afraid,” answered Gregg frankly. “There was an old servant of hers who took up dressmaking and to whom she always went when she wanted anything of the sort. I believe she had some arrangement with her, too, by which she used to send her cast-off dresses to sell on commission. I used to go and see the woman every now and then and she’d give me the latest news of Mrs. Draycott. She worked for her, but she’d no reason to love her and she liked the boy and was ready to do him a good turn. But she only saw Mrs. Draycott at intervals and knew none of the people with whom she foregathered.”
“You can think of no one yourself who owed her a grudge?”
“There must have been plenty, but I don’t know of any one in particular. I’ve told you my reason for wishing
to keep out of her clutches. She failed with me, but she probably succeeded with others. There’s motive enough, if you want one.”
“Blackmail!” said Fayre thoughtfully. “It seems incredible, but the idea has its possibilities. In that case, there ought to be papers of some sort among her effects.”
“They’re all in Miss Allen’s hands now,” volunteered Gregg. “And what’s more, she’s in town. She’s been going through some things her sister kept at the bank and she wrote to me yesterday to say that there were some old letters of Baxter’s that she thought I might like to have and offering to send them to me. From something she’s found she’s got onto the fact that I know where the boy is and she proposes to make over to him what money her sister left. As straight as a die, Miss Allen is, and I’ve written to thank her. It seems that she thought he was in the hands of Baxter’s people until now. You might go and see her, but she’s not the kind to give her sister away.”
“I’m calling on her to-morrow, but, as you say, it’s hardly a subject one can broach.”
His heart sank as he remembered the papers Miss Allen had told him she had burned and the hot flush that had risen to her cheeks when she spoke of them.
Gregg buttoned his coat preparatory to departure.
“I’ve told you all I know,” he said. “But I doubt if it’s been much help to you. There’s one thing more that you might think worth following up. A fellow I know saw Mrs. Draycott in Paris in 1920, three years after she married Draycott. Draycott was in Egypt at the time and she was with a man whom this friend of mine, Lloyd, was unable to identify. He was an old friend of Baxter’s and knew that I should not be sorry to have a hold over her, so, after he’d run across them three or four times, he followed them to their hotel one night, but her name was not on the register and he couldn’t trace the man. He believes they were staying together under assumed names. I kept his letter, thinking I might bluff her with it if we ever came up against each other. I give you the story for what it’s worth and I’ll write down Lloyd’s address for you and send him a line asking him to tell you what he knows, if you think it’s worth while to look him up. But I warn you, he doesn’t know much. It’s possible, however, that if she went to Paris with this man, she may have put the screw on him later.”
He scribbled an address on the back of a card and placed it on the table.
Fayre picked it up and slipped it into his pocket-book.
“Anything’s worth while at this stage of the game,” he admitted thoughtfully.
He stood hesitating, considering his next move. Knowing Gregg’s quick temper, he found considerable difficulty in clothing the question that was trembling on his lips in a form the other would not immediately resent, but he knew that he could not let the man go until he had an answer.
“I wish you’d tell me one thing,” he said at last.
“Fire away. I’m not going off the deep end again, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” answered Gregg with disconcerting intuition.
“Can you give me your movements from, say, five onwards on the evening of the murder? I’ve a good reason for asking.”
Gregg looked genuinely surprised; then his lips parted in a rather grim smile.
“I’m blessed! You’ve got it all pat, haven’t you? If was about five when I left the house and I bet you’re perfectly aware that I went straight to Stockley’s garage at Whitbury and hired a car. Mine was out of commission. You’ve been putting in some hard work, Mr. Fayre, and if you don’t know already that I went on to Willow Farm on a maternity case, I’ll eat my hat. However, you shall have the whole program. I picked up the car at Stockley’s at about five-thirty and made straight for Hammond’s, that is, the Willow Farm. There’s a little village, you may or may not know, about three miles from Whitbury on the Besley road. I was going through when a boy ran out of one of the cottages and yelled something at me. I stopped the car and shouted back that, unless it was urgent, I could not see any one just then. Mrs. Hammond’s a delicate little woman and I was anxious about her. However, it was urgent. A wretched baby had pulled over a kettle of boiling water and scalded its legs and one arm. It was in a bad way and it was over an hour before I got away, with the result that I didn’t get to Willow Farm till close on seven. I left Hammond’s somewhere about nine, drove home and went on, almost immediately, to Leslie’s farm.”
Fayre stood observing him with some chagrin. It was obvious that the man was speaking the truth, and, in any case, his story would be easy enough to verify. “I don’t mind telling you,” he said ruefully, “that you’ve just cheerfully demolished my best clue. If it wasn’t for John Leslie I would tell you, quite honestly, that I’m uncommonly glad. As it is, I feel rather cheap. I’d got all your movements except for the hour lost on the way to Willow Farm. You must admit that it looked suspicious, taking into account the fact that Mrs. Draycott met her death somewhere about six-thirty.”
Gregg stared at him for a moment.
“Good Lord!” he burst out. “I don’t wonder you’ve been nosing about after my black past. I’d no idea you’d got me cornered like that!”
He dived into his pocket and produced a pencil and an old envelope.
“If you don’t mind I’ll add the name and address of that unfortunate baby! You’d better verify my statement and, while you’re about it, have a look at the scar on the kid’s arm. I’m proud of the way that healed, I can tell you.”
He held out his hand with a friendly smile. Fayre took it, and as he did so, his old dislike for the man vanished once for all.
“By the way,” he said, “what made you come along to-day to bury the hatchet?”
Gregg laughed.
“Because I made up my mind I wasn’t going to be ballyragged by any damned lawyer! As you may imagine, it’s not a story I care to dwell on and I decided that if I’d got to tell it it should be to a human being. And I was beginning to feel that I owed you an apology, too. So when Sir Edward Kean rang up this afternoon and tried to bully me into making an appointment I temporized and then, ten minutes later, rang up his house, feeling pretty sure a servant would answer. Luck was with me and I got the butler at the other end and he gave me your address, after which I came straight along to you. Pity you asked! I rather hoped you’d think it was spontaneous!”
So this was Kean’s doing! Kean, who had requested Fayre to keep Grey from butting in and making a mess of things!
CHAPTER XIX
On his way to keep his appointment with Miss Allen, Fayre called at Kean’s house in Westminster, where he was assured by the butler that Lady Kean’s improvement “was maintained.” That solemn functionary had recovered his professional manner and looked a different person from the harassed and very human individual who had mistaken Fayre for a Harley Street specialist on the night of his mistress’s illness. Fayre, observing his native pomposity for the first time, realized how complete his collapse had been and liked him the better for it.
Before going on to Miss Allen’s hotel he dropped into a florist’s and ordered a great sheaf of flowers to be sent to Lady Kean. Remembering their old days together in the country he chose simple, country flowers rather than the heavy-smelling hot-house blooms that were pressed on him by the saleswoman. He had an idea that they would please her and he knew that she would understand and appreciate the spirit that had caused him to select them. He enclosed a short note bearing his good wishes for her speedy recovery and then, on a sudden impulse, he bought another, smaller bunch and carried it away with him.
He produced his offering a little shyly on his arrival at Miss Allen’s. It was a long time, he realized, since he had done this sort of thing and the very act seemed, somehow, to emphasize the fact that neither he nor the recipient were in their first youth. Miss Allen, however, was troubled with no such misgivings and was frankly delighted with the gift. Ringing for vases she set herself to arrange the flowers with the appreciative care of one who really loves them. Fayre sat watching her as she moved about the ugly hotel
sitting-room and decided that Greycross must be a pleasant house to stay in and its owner a delightful hostess.
She was putting the finishing touches to her last vase when tea was brought in.
“Pour it out, will you, Mr. Fayre,” she said in her decisive way, “while I clear up this mess. Lots of milk and no sugar for me, please.”
She disappeared into the next room, her hands full of paper and wet foliage, and came back carrying a good-sized dispatch-box.
“We’ll have a go at this after tea,” she said as she sat down and observed the results of her handiwork. “Mercy, how different the room looks! Those flowers are a breath of the real country. You’ve chased London out of the window, Mr. Fayre!”
“London isn’t so easily chased out as that, I’m afraid. It makes me ache to get away from it. It’s all very well for the young, but for people like myself it’s grown a little overwhelming. So many of the old landmarks are gone and life seems to have grown amazingly hectic in such a short time. I dare say it’s partly a question of contrast. The East’s noisy, but it’s a place of leisure. I’ve lost the habit of moving quickly.”
She nodded appreciatively.
“I know what you mean. It takes me the same way. I spend my life among plants and animals and I’m beginning to realize how slowly and surely nature progresses. Everything else, nowadays, seems anything hut slow and appallingly insecure. At least, that’s my feeling, but then I’ve crossed Piccadilly at least half a dozen times to-day and I’m wondering why I’m still alive. The moment my business here is finished I shall make for home again. What are your plans, now that you are back in England for good?”
“A little place somewhere in the country, just large enough to hold a few friends and a dog or two. If possible, some fishing. Then I shall settle down and cultivate my garden and write a dull book about India.”