“The sergeant,” said Emery, “is taking a bite in the kitchen along of me and Mrs. Emery. No offence, I hope.”
“Certainly not, no,” said Rudge, “I’m very glad he should.” Emery withdrew again, while the Inspector pondered on Sergeant Appleton’s superior enterprise and resourcefulness.
The gammon rasher—cut thick and well fried up—was brought in by Mrs. Emery, a little bird-like woman with snapping eyes and a masterfulness of manner which explained to some extent her husband’s crushed and wilted appearance. A single glance at the perfectly-cooked rasher with its accompanying green peas and chips explained another riddle. Evidently, Emery’s feeble-mindedness was the price the Admiral paid for Mrs. Emery’s culinary skill.
Rudge expressed his appreciation.
“And how I could bring myself to do it I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mrs. Emery, “with the poor master gone so sudden and Miss Elma away and the whole place in a uproar. Even the very smell of the meat seems almost ’eartless, as you might say. But there! that Emery is a man and man must ’ave ’is meat, if the ’ole world was to be swallowed up in Noah’s flood.”
“True,” said the Inspector, “we are a callous sex, I’m afraid, Mrs. Emery. It’s a great upset to you naturally. And with Miss Fitzgerald going away unexpectedly it’s all left on your shoulders.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Emery. “And when isn’t it left on my shoulders, I should like to know? A lot Miss Elma troubled herself about the house. Might be a man for all the help she was. Now the poor Admiral, he liked to have things pleasant about him, and for all he was sharp in his ways, it was a pleasure to serve him. Many’s the time I’ve had to speak sharp to Emery, for I could see as his shiftless ways was a hard trial to the master—but there! Emery’s but a poor creature, though he is my husband. The Admiral, he gave him notice to leave at the end of the month but there! I didn’t pay no attention. I just cooked him a nice dinner, such as he had a fancy for, and he said to me, ‘Mrs. Emery, tell that blistering swab of a husband of yours that he can stay on and here’s half a guinea for you to buy a bit o’ ribbon.’ He was a good master, and I’d say so if I was on my death-bed.”
“I’m sure of it,” said Rudge, sympathetically. He felt that he had unaccountably neglected Mrs. Emery. If you want the truth about a man’s character, he had always maintained, ask the servants. He now had two testimonies in the Admiral’s favour and he felt they were to be relied upon. Neddy Ware had echoed the opinion of the Admiral’s own crew—and a crew is seldom mistaken about its captain. And Mrs. Emery’s evidence agreed with theirs.
“I suppose,” he said, “that Admiral Penistone was a bit short-tempered at times, eh?”
“I don’t think none the worse of him for that,” retorted Mrs. Emery. “I’d rather a man was short-tempered than poor-spirited any day. And the master had a lot to put up with. What with Miss Elma treating him so bad, and his worries and one thing and another—”
“What worries were those?”
“Well, now, Inspector, I don’t know as I could rightly say what worries. But I did hear as he hadn’t been treated proper by the Admiralty when he was a young man, and he never rightly got over it. Something to do with foreign parts, it was, and he’d say that he’d get himself set right yet, if it took him a lifetime. But Miss Elma, she hadn’t no more sympathy with him than a man hasn’t when you’re fratcheted to death with babies.” Without pausing to explain this obscure comparison, Mrs. Emery went on still more rapidly. “She wouldn’t listen to a word, Miss Elma wouldn’t, just sat there looking as sulky as a cow and wouldn’t so much as put her hand to a duster or put up a vase of flowers to make the place look homelike. And sorry I’m sure I am for Mr. Holland, and him such a nice gentleman, if he marries our young lady, though what he could see in her I don’t know. It’s a miracle to me, with all these decent, sensible girls about that a man will always pick on the wrong sort, and as to being good-looking, I never could see it.”
“Well,” said Rudge, “it’s past praying for now. They were married this morning.”
“Well, I never,” said Mrs. Emery. “That’s what your sergeant was looking so sly about! ‘There’s a surprise in store for you, ma’am,’ he says, ‘but I’ll not tell you,’ he says, ‘for you’ll be hearing it soon enough.’ Fancy! But if that isn’t just like Miss Elma, before her poor uncle’s cold as you might say, the ’eartless ’ussy! And surprised I am at Mr. Holland doing such a thing, but there! Anything she said he followed like a lamb with a blue ribbon round its neck, but them big fellows is often the meekest when it comes to a woman.”
“You think Mr. Holland is very fond of Miss Fitzgerald, then?” suggested Rudge. Would he ever get to the bottom of the relations between this pair? No two people seemed to agree about them.
“Fond he was,” said Mrs. Emery, “and is, I’ve no doubt, though how long it lasts is another matter. She took it cool enough, but that’s her way. Herself and her fancies, that’s all that young lady ever was in love with, if you ask me, and he’ll soon find it out. Things look different when you’re married. Artful she was, too, leading him on and putting him off as the fancy took her. But as to caring for him, no, and the master knew that as well as anybody. If he’d been alive they wouldn’t have got married so easy, and that’s a fact, but to go right off and join their ’ands over his dead body, as you might say, is what I shouldn’t hardly have thought Mr. Holland capable of.”
“H’m!” said the Inspector. He was trying to remember how long it took to get a special license. He seemed to remember dimly that it required at least a day’s notice. “Maybe they had planned to get married to-day in any case.”
“Then they ought to have altered their plan,” replied Mrs. Emery. “Disgusting, I call it. But I shouldn’t wonder if they had, come to think of it. Maybe that’s what Mr. Holland was so anxious to see the Admiral about last night.”
“Oh, yes. He rang up from Whynmouth, didn’t he?”
“He did. I took the message myself. Wanted to see the master very urgent. I said as him and Miss Elma was over at the Vicarage and wouldn’t be back till late—for I expected they’d stop to eleven o’clock or such, playing cards or something of that. The Vicar don’t mind playing cards for all he’s such a man for services and saints’ days, but that’s only to be expected, for fancy dress and candles is not what you could call religion, don’t you think so yourself? Well, I said to him, they won’t be back till eleven, I said, saying what I thought right at the time, which I couldn’t be expected to know they would be early that night of all nights. One can but act for the best. So I said, why not go over to the Vicarage, but Mr. Holland says, ‘no, he’ll leave it and perhaps he might come up later.’”
“And did he?”
“Not that I know of, but there, I’m a sound sleeper, thank God, and need to be, the work there is in this house. Emery, he’s supposed to do the cleaning, but half the time I has to do it after him, and as for Jennie, she’s a good girl but run off her feet by Miss Elma as won’t do step or stitch for herself. Cooking is what I was engaged to do and with Miss Elma breakfasting in bed and getting up at all hours, I’ve only got one pair of hands.”
“Quite so,” said Rudge, “and very capable ones I’m sure they are, Mrs. Emery.”
“I’m sure I said when I come here as I ought to have a kitchen-maid under me, with all these brick floors. That’s the worst of these old-fashioned houses. But I’ve no complaint of the Admiral, for a rich man he was not, not but what she might have done something to help him if she had liked, for she’s got plenty, so I’m told. And what she did with her allowance it’s difficult to say, not that it’s any of my business, for it’s not, but nobody can’t help their thoughts. And spend it on dress she did not, nobody could say that against her, barring an evening frock now and again, or a handsome coat. But them’s not the things as takes the money, as you’ll know well enough if you’re a married man. It’s the shoes and gloves and bags and stockings and jumpers. And I’m
sure Miss Elma bothered as little about them as a young lady could do. That French maid she had, she used to complain dreadful of the shabby way Miss Elma went about.”
“Ah, yes—the French girl. What was she like?”
“Girl?” said Mrs. Emery. “They calls ’em all girls nowadays. But if ever she sees forty again, I’ll be surprised. A nice little thing enough, to speak to, and spoke English beautiful. But I don’t like a maid as is too intimate with her mistress. I’ve seen Miss Elma catch that woman’s eye sometimes, when the master happened to be a bit put out and looks pass between them which did not ought to pass between persons in their stations of life. Let servants stick together and masters stick together—that’s my motto, but for young ladies to be taking their maids into their confidences about the master of the house is unbecoming, to my way of thinking. It’s my belief there was some trouble about it, or why did Ma’amselle go off so quick without her wages? There’s the front door bell, who’ll that be, I wonder? I hope Emery is answering it, as it’s his place to do, but he’s that flustered with all this. You’ll have noticed, I dare say, as his head’s not very strong. Now, I’m different. I’m one of the noticing sort. I may have been only a month with the Admiral, but a woman that’s experienced—and I’ve been in many places in my time—don’t take long putting two and two together. Oh, I could size up Miss Elma all right. Ah! Emery has remembered his duty for once, I’m glad to say.”
The door opened and Emery poked in his melancholy head.
“Here’s two newspaper gentlemen waiting to see the Inspector.”
Rudge was about to consign the newspaper gentlemen to a warm spot, when it occurred to him that all God’s creatures have their uses. He glanced at the card held out to him, and observed that it bore the magic words, Evening Gazette.
“I’ll see them,” he said, shortly.
The two newspaper gentlemen were ushered in—a breezy man with a cropped head and horn-rimmed spectacles, the upper portion of whose face appeared to have been darkened by some ineffectual form of sunburn application (“all handsome men are slightly sunburned”), and a morose man with a camera.
“Now,” said Rudge, “how did you boys get on to this?”
Cropped-head grinned.
“Information received, eh, Inspector? ‘If it’s not in the Gazette then it hasn’t happened yet.’ We had it on the streets in the twelve-thirty. Do your best for us, won’t you?”
“Well,” said Rudge. He thought for a moment and then gave them as much information as he thought was bound to come out in any case.
“That’s O.K.,” said Cropped-head. “Now, as regards yourself, Inspector. Our readers will want to know all about you. Perhaps you would be good enough to come and be photographed in the boat-house? Adds interest to the picture, you know. Well, that’s awfully good of you. It won’t take a minute. Is that the Admiral’s boat? Just point carelessly towards it. That’s fine. Make a good picture, eh, Tom?”
Rudge, in spite of himself, felt rather flattered.
“We shall say, of course, that you have the case well in hand and that there’s obviously no need to call in Scotland Yard. Just so. Now, how about this niece? Could we get a word with her at all?”
“No,” said Rudge. “As a matter of fact,” he added handsomely, “I don’t mind telling you something about her.”
The reporter was eagerly attentive.
“She went off to London this morning,” said the Inspector impressively, “and got married—to a man called Arthur Holland, a trader, from China.”
“Did she? Quick work. That’ll make a good story. Why the haste?”
“I can’t tell you that yet. But look here. If I let you have that story exclusively, will you do something for me?”
“Sure thing.”
“I want to find out about Admiral Penistone’s past career. Why he sent in his papers at forty-three, and why he rejoined the Navy afterwards and all about it.”
“Oh! I can tell you something about that,” the reporter laughed. “I got that out of a man I know in the Chinese Embassy. The old boy got into trouble in Hong Kong in 1911. Some private matter. Something to do with a woman. One of the things that aren’t done by naval officers. He was requested to send in his papers. No public scandal—you know the sort of thing. My man didn’t know all the details, but he promised to get them for me. I’ll let you have anything I get hold of. I dare say we shan’t print it all, because some of the parties may be alive, but I’ll send you the dope on the whole thing. And, I say—if there’s anything coming along that you feel you can let us have straight from the gee-gee’s mouth, you will, won’t you? That’s a bargain.”
Rudge agreed readily enough. This was a great deal more hopeful than unwinding red tape from the Admiralty. Trouble in Hong Kong in 1911? That explained matters. No doubt as Penistone was a smart officer they were glad enough to let him rejoin in 1914. But it would have made a difference to him, naturally. Soured the old boy’s temper a bit, no doubt. Was it possible that the murder was the aftermath of that old affair? It seemed a long time to keep up resentment, but where Chinks were concerned you never knew. And, by the way, Holland had lately come from China. What was that Mrs. Emery had said about Holland? He had said he might walk over to Rundel Croft after eleven. Suppose he had done so?
Obviously Holland and Elma must be got hold of. They would have to be subpnaed for the inquest in any case. He must tackle the coroner about that. A little job for Sergeant Appleton. He returned to the house and despatched his subordinate with a note. Hardly had he done so when the telephone rang.
Mr. Edwin Dakers was on the line. He was indeed grieved and horrified to hear of the Admiral’s death. He thought he had better come down to Rundel Croft at once. As Miss Fitzgerald’s trustee and representative, it would be necessary for him to see her without delay. Doubtless she was greatly upset by this melancholy occurrence.
“I haven’t noticed it,” replied Rudge, with a sort of grim satisfaction. “In fact, no sooner did Miss Fitzgerald hear of her uncle’s death than she went up to town and got married to a Mr. Holland. I should be glad, sir—”
“What!” said Mr. Dakers, in a tone so aghast that it seemed to shake the instrument.
Rudge repeated his information.
“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Dakers, and paused for such a long time that Rudge began to think he had fallen dead with horror. Then he said:
“This is very unfortunate indeed, Inspector. I am more than shocked. I am horrified.”
“It certainly looks a bit unfeeling,” said Rudge.
“Unfeeling?” said Mr. Dakers. “It may be most gravely prejudicial to her monetary interests. Can you tell me where to find her?”
“They were staying at the Carlton, she said,” replied Rudge. “Miss Fitzgerald—that is, Mrs. Holland—” (Mr. Dakers groaned faintly) “mentioned that they were going to a dance this evening. I should be glad, sir—”
“A dance at the Carlton?” interrupted the lawyer. “She must be out of her senses. T’chk, t’chk, t’chk. Most distressing. I am not quite clear upon the point of law involved, but if I remember rightly, the Master of the Rolls held in the case of—dear me! I think I shall have to take Counsel’s opinion. In the meanwhile I thank you very much for apprising me of these events. I shall go and see my client immediately, and—”
“I hope you will, sir, and I should be very glad if you could persuade her to come back at once. Mr. and Mrs. Holland will be subpnaed, of course, but in the meantime it would be desirable—”
“Of course, of course,” replied Mr. Dakers, “most unfortunate and unbecoming. I shall make a point of advising her to return home without delay.”
“Thank you, sir, and I should be very glad, sir, if I might have a word with you at some time myself. There are one or two little matters which I should like to have cleared up, in connection with a document we have here.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Dakers. “Yes?”
“In connection,” pursu
ed Rudge, “with a copy of a will, sir, made by John Martin Fitzgerald in 1915.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Dakers. His voice sounded cautious. “Yes. Yes, I see. In what way, precisely, are you interested in that will?”
Rudge coughed.
“Well, sir, in a general way, as you might say. There’s a brother mentioned in it, for example, and one or two other points that might be of interest.”
“Yes, I see. Well, Inspector, I think the best way will be for me to see you myself. I will endeavour to bring Miss Fitz—that is, Mrs. Holland, down with me, but in any case, I shall arrive at Lingham to-night. Where shall I find you?”
“I shall be at Rundel Croft, sir.”
“Very well. I will telephone you when to expect me. When are you holding the inquest?”
“I should think the day after to-morrow, sir.”
“Yes. I shall be there, of course, to represent Mrs. Holland. I think I should have been notified of this matter earlier. How is it that you did not ring me up till one o’clock?”
The Inspector would have liked to say that it was not his business to notify the solicitors of suspected or suspicious persons, but he replied meekly that he had been busy and had only just had time to digest the contents of the will.
“It is unfortunate,” he added, “that Mrs. Holland did not herself acquaint you with the state of affairs.”
“It is; very,” replied the lawyer, dryly. “Very well, Inspector, we will leave it like that.”
He rang off.
“And that’s that,” thought Rudge, discontentedly. “Nothing for it I suppose but to wait for the old blighter. Still, if he brings the Hollands back, that’s something to the good. It’s a pity there seems to be so little one can get on with. Hollands gone to town, Denny gone to town. Well, what about those cuttings?” He had not yet looked through the file of newspaper cuttings. They might perhaps suggest something in connection with Penistone’s mysterious past. Or there might be other papers of interest.
The Floating Admiral (Detection Club) Page 11