Mordby shot a quick glance at him. For a moment he seemed uncertain how to answer. Then recovering his poise, he smiled, shook his head, and replied with a composure John could not but admire:
“I have a great respect for Dr. Merewether. He has always seemed to me the perfect type of integrity. We went through the hospitals together, and I think I may say it is not my fault that we have not kept up our old acquaintance. The little rivalries of youth are not always forgotten when one grows older and wiser. I have long ago forgiven Merewether for once having been my rival; or rather I have realized that there is nothing to forgive. But I do not think he has forgiven me.”
The doctor rounded off his well-delivered little speech with a sigh. Christmas did not believe a word of it, for he knew Merewether well enough to know that he was the last man in the world to nourish a grievance for fifteen years or so, and the casual insolence with which Mordby treated his less-successful confrère had always been disagreeably noticeable. Still, it was an admirable speech, admirably spoken, and John realized that Mordby was not to be betrayed by bluff candour into any expression of his real feelings.
“Your interests lie so far apart,” murmured John thoughtfully, “that I shouldn’t have thought there was room for professional rivalry.”
“The rivalry was not professional,” said Dr. Mordby with ready amiability. “Though at the beginning of my career I did intend to be a surgeon. No. The rivalry was in the realm of—ah! sentiment, my dear Christmas. There was a certain beautiful young lady, a fellow medical student. And although she favoured neither of us, our feelings for one another were none the less bitter.” He smiled and sighed, as if both deriding and regretting the stormy days of youth. “She cared for neither of us, and she married neither of us, and for at least twelve years I have not seen nor heard of her. Yet the bitterness remains—on the one side. As for my side, though you may not believe me, I cannot at the moment so much as recall her name!”
Christmas did not believe him. Excellent as the story was up to this point, the last touch, intended as a guarantee of genuineness, betrayed unmistakably the faker’s hand. It was artistic; it was altogether too artistic. And as, still with the lingering smile of one who recalls his dead self, the eminent psycho-analyst moved away, John could not tell whether his whole story had been a fabrication or whether it were a skilful interweaving of truth and falsehood. The latter, he was inclined to believe, since the story sounded altogether too romantic and too unlikely for a man of Mordby’s intellect to make up on the spur of the moment.
Later in the evening, Imogen Wimpole, mistaking young Conway the engraver for a popular singer who was also present, persuaded him to “sing just one little song before people went away and John, who happened to be standing near Dr. Mordby, found further food for thought. With much enthusiasm but little tunefulness young Conway sang a song called “Phyllis is my only Joy.” At the opening bars the doctor’s slight habitual smile went out like a blown candle. Of course, young Conway’s cheerful bawl was enough to cause a change of expression on the face of any lover of music. But there was also the possibility that Simon Mordby remembered the lady’s name only too well.
Soon after this most of the guests took their departure, and John to his relief found himself alone in the smoke-laden, disordered room with his hostesses, Newtree and Sir Marion Steen. Imogen Wimpole yawned delicately and looked at the tiny watch on her plump wrist. The precious hours before midnight, which do so much to restore fatigued beauty, were gone beyond recall.
“Well,” she said complacently, “I think it went off very well, Serafine dear, though I never felt less like entertaining people in my life. And now I suppose you’re all going to talk about the murder.”
“You were a beautiful hostess, Imogen,” said her niece. “You did all my work as well as your own. But, darling, you really shouldn’t ask people like Peter Conway to sing.”
“I know,” said Imogen placidly. “I thought he was what’s-his-name. But it didn’t really matter a bit, because I’d told lots of people what’s-his-name was going to sing, and they all said how wonderfully he sang. Luckily, he’d gone home.”
“There was one person who wasn’t impressed,” said John. “And that was Dr. Mordby. When Peter began, he looked as if somebody were treading on his feet.”
“Probably somebody was, then,” said Mrs. Wimpole tranquilly. “It couldn’t have been Peter’s singing that made him look like that. Because he’s often told me music means absolutely nothing to him at all.”
“The man that hath no music in his soul,” began Sir Marion, and then, suddenly perceiving that the quotation in the circumstances was an unfortunate one, left it unfinished, and exchanged with Serafine a smile at his own embarrassment.
“Lord!” said Serafine with vigour, when her aunt had wandered away to tell the servants to go to bed. “How I hate that man Mordby!”
She flung her cigarette violently into the fire as though she were flinging a brick-bat at Mordby’s head, and shivered, and drew her shawl around her as though she felt cold, although indeed the room was extremely warm.
“What a poisonous tongue!”
Sir Marion and Newtree smiled a little at the lady’s violence, and John remarked gently:
“Well, my dear, you certainly encouraged him to use it.”
She dropped into a chair and looked broodingly at the lire.
“I know,” she said abruptly. “I was a fool, I suppose. But last night in the cab coming home, he kept hinting and skirting round—oh, you know what, John! Of course we all talked about the murder all the way home. And he—oh well, you heard him, Sir Marion!”
She looked appealingly at the philanthropist, who nodded sympathetically.
“And so,” went on Serafine, “I wanted to make him come out into the open and say what he thought—or pretended to think, instead of just hinting at it, the old serpent. I thought then we could—oh, stop him somehow! I didn’t know he’d seen—” She caught herself up sharply. “I didn’t know he was going to say he’d seen so much.”
She stopped suddenly on an overwrought, uncertain note. There was a silence.
“Sir Marion,” said John slowly, “did you notice anything unusual in the demeanour of any of the people at Newtree’s last night?”
Sir Marion looked thoughtfully and pityingly at Serafine. Finally he said diffidently;
“I noticed what I suppose everybody who was present at the dreadful scene must have noticed; that Dr. Merewether was much more cut up at the sight of the murdered man than one expects a doctor to be on such an occasion. But I confess that I have never before seen a medical man confronted with the body of a man who has been murdered. And I did not think much of the matter. I merely thought that doctors were, after all, more subject to human emotion than novels and so on would lead one to suppose.”
He placed the tips of his fingers together, studied them thoughtfully for a moment, and then looked interrogatively at John. John was about to speak, but the elder man went on:
“As I told you this morning, John, I have no sympathy at all with the—the impersonal sort of interest you and many others take in cases of this kind. I feel the horror of the thing too much to be able to treat it as a kind of game of chess. Yes, yes,” he said with a smile and an upraised hand as John was about to protest, “I know already all that you are about to say. I know that justice must be done. I know that the murderer cannot be allowed to go free. I know that neither you nor anybody else interested in the detection of crime is responsible for our penal laws. I know that you would not hurt a fly. I know, in short, that I am a sentimental old juggins. I am merely stating my personal feelings when I say that I would rather help a murderer to escape than give him up to be hanged. Come,” went on Sir Marion in a half-jocular tone that did not disguise his real earnestness, looking with his air of gentle, bird-like intelligence from one to another, “are we not all alike in this? If he were in your power, would any one of you give a murderer directly up to the l
aw without a qualm of conscience? A murderer is not necessarily a monster. I think a learned gentleman told us last night that we are all potential murderers. I do not say that I altogether agree with him. Still, there is undoubtedly some truth in the assertion.”
There was silence for a moment or two after Sir Marion’s diffident voice had ceased. Then John said gravely:
“You must remember, Sir Marion, that in pursuing the guilty we clear the innocent of suspicion.”
“I was coming to that,” said the great financier gently, looking from one to another of the little group around the fire. “From what I have heard this evening, I gather that suspicion is falling heavily, in some minds at least, upon an innocent person—a person, rather, whom we all believe to be innocent.”
Serafine looked up quickly.
“Then you believe him innocent, Sir Marion?”
“I never met Dr. Merewether before last night,” replied Steen levelly. “I know nothing whatever about him. Yet I do believe him innocent. Or rather, shall I say, I believe him to be an upright, honest and courageous man, and I feel that even were he proved guilty of this crime I should not modify my opinion of him. I should feel that he must have had some justification. I will not say that I am utterly convinced he is innocent. But I say that if he is guilty I hope the crime may never be brought home to him. You, I take it,” he turned to Serafine, “are completely convinced of his innocence?”
Serafine hesitated, and replied at last huskily:
“I feel as you do, Sir Marion.”
But Newtree cried almost scornfully, in tones of the most utter conviction:
“Merewether! Merewether might kill a man, if the man deserved killing, but he’s absolutely incapable of stabbing him in the back! If he told me himself he’d done it, I shouldn’t believe him!”
Sir Marion went on:
“If there is anything I can ever do to assist our friend, I hope that I may be given the chance to do it. I do not know when I have felt more drawn to a man at a first meeting. I only wish I could produce evidence which would immediately clear him of suspicion. That’s beyond my power, alas! But I am a rich man, and I have a certain amount of influence. If there is ever anything I can do, either to help you prove Merewether’s innocence, or if the worst happens, to give him a good defence, you have only to call on me, Mr. Newtree. By the way, John, has anything been heard of the mysterious stranger who passed us in Greentree Road? I can’t help feeling that a clue to the mystery lies there.”
“We haven’t found him yet,” said John, “but we have found a new witness to his presence in Greentree Road last night, and he becomes even more mysterious. For, according to the crossing-sweeper in Shipman’s Mews, he altered his mind soon after leaving you and decided to go to Primrose Hill.”
“Primrose Hill! Why, that’s in the opposite direction!”
“Quite so. The crossing-sweeper gave it as his opinion that Hanwell was the place he was really bound for.”
Sir Marion smiled.
“Let me know how the affair progresses, John. I shan’t feel easy in my mind until I know that our friend Merewether is safely out of the wood.”
So saying he took his departure, and soon after John and Laurence rose to go.
“John,” said Serafine, speaking in a low voice, while Newtree was making his adieux to Imogen Wimpole, “is there really a possibility that Dr. Merewether will be arrested?”
“Not the slightest, at the moment,” replied John with a cheerfulness which he did not altogether feel. “There’s really no evidence against him at all, except the one rather serious fact that for some reason known only to himself he chose to say that he had seen Frew alive at a time when the medical evidence proves that he was dead. This is certainly serious, but it does not necessarily go to prove that Merewether killed Frew. Don’t worry, Serafine. As Newtree said just now, men like Merewether don’t stab their enemies in the back.”
“How does he know?” she asked sombrely. “How can anyone tell what another person may be driven to do?”
“Ah, my dear,” said Christmas, “you’re letting the horrible thing that happened last night get on your nerves. You’re building up a tragedy on the strength of Merewether’s momentary nervousness. Why, he wasn’t the only one. Mordby certainly lost his nerve pretty completely for a moment, and Laurence went the colour of cheese, and I don’t think I showed any great sangfroid. Yet we’re not all murderers. Any man might seem a little off-colour at being suddenly confronted with what we saw in Frew’s rooms last night.”
Serafine brushed this well-meant explanation aside.
“Not so much so. Not a doctor, anyhow. Certainly not Dr. Merewether. You can’t deceive me, John. You said all that just to cheer me up.”
John looked gravely at his old friend, noting how some sudden strain had aged her strong, humorous face, robbed her of the brilliance and animation which gave her such an air of timeless youth, and made her look what she was—a strong and over-energetic woman wearing fine and thin with the approach of middle age.
“Serafine,” he said gently, and hesitated. Her keen black eyes, set in bistred rings, held his moodily for a moment. Then she smiled, not very mirthfully, and answered the question he had not asked.
“I’m sure I don’t know, John. I mean I don’t know why I should take this morbid interest in the affairs of a perfect stranger. I can only say that I do. I—I liked Dr. Merewether. He interested me. He seemed to me to be built on a larger scale than most of us—a tragic scale. I suppose that’s why I feel that this particular tragedy may be his tragedy.”
She was silent for a moment, her long fingers plucking at the fringe of her shawl. Then suddenly she shrugged her shoulders so that her shawl slipped down over her arm. She smiled straight at John, as if she had determinedly shrugged off trouble with the yellow silk.
“You’re dying to point out to me that the murder of one perfect stranger by another perfect stranger needn’t rob me of my beauty-sleep,” she said. “And although you kindly refrain from doing so, I’ll take the idea to heart, all the same.”
“I’m not dying to do anything of the kind. Certainly I don’t like to see you looking so tired.”
“And old—eh, John? Tragedy disagrees with me, I know. I’ll try to leave it alone and stick to comedy, which is certainly more in my line. Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone. Upon my soul, John, there was never a truer thing said in worse verse!”
Chapter XI
My Dear Watson
“How would you like to live in Primrose Hill, Laurence?” asked John Christmas conversationally the next morning, as the two friends took their seats on the top of a bus bound for Highgate. John had made an early raid on Madox Court and firmly detaching Newtree from pencil and paper had lured him out on what he called a tour of detection. The day being fine, with a bright sun and a slight exhilarating frost in the air, Newtree had not been altogether unwilling to come, although he had asked plaintively, with a conscience-stricken glance at his drawing-board, whether John couldn’t do his detecting by telephone. On being firmly assured that this was impossible, he had given way to pressure and his own inclinations, and sallied forth with his friend into the sunshine.
“On Primrose Hill, I suppose you mean,” he replied now, in a slightly carping tone, having just been reminded by the sight of a newsbill at a street corner that he had not yet thought of a subject for the week’s political cartoon. “People don’t live in Primrose Hill.”
“Do they live on it?” asked John in the tones of the earnest seeker after information.
“Well—as a matter of fact they don’t live on it, either,” said Newtree. “You know as well as I do that Primrose Hill is a sort of mound of earth with grass and trees and a few railings on it. There aren’t even any primroses.”
“Dash it!” expostulated John gently. “If the inhabitants of the district can’t live in Primrose Hill or on Primrose Hill, where do they live?”
“What does i
t matter?” asked his friend rather irritably. “They live round it, or near it, or by it or in its neighbourhood, I suppose. They live in St. John’s Wood or Camden Town.”
“Then if a person asked you the way to Primrose Hill you’d think he wanted to climb up it and look at the view?”
“Not necessarily,” said Newtree testily. “He might want to go to a house in St. Edmund’s Terrace or somewhere and ask for Primrose Hill because it’s a good landmark. But look here, John, if you’re thinking of inquiring at every house in the neighbourhood of the hill for a cross-eyed gentleman in a fez, I’m not coming with you. Life’s not long enough. Besides, you won’t find him there.”
“Why not? He asked the crossing-sweeper the way to Primrose Hill.”
“Obviously he meant to say Golders Green, and made a slip.”
“Exactly. He meant to say Golders Green, and he did not mean to say Primrose Hill. But when he lost control of himself for a moment, he said what he did not mean to say. I don’t propose to make a house-to-house search in the neighbourhood of Primrose Hill, because, as you say, it would take too long. But I shall certainly not inquire for him in Golders Green, because it is the last place on earth in which I expect to find him.”
“I believe you asked me at the beginning of this idiotic conversation how I should like to live roundabout Primrose Hill,” said Laurence. “Are you thinking of presenting me with a bijou residence there, or what? Because I’m quite comfortable in Madox Court, thank you, and Primrose Hill doesn’t attract me in the least, in spite of the fact that it’s near the ancestral home of my friend John.”
“Eh?”
“The Zoo.”
John expostulated.
“This is not the way that Watson speaks to his friend Holmes.”
“Holmes didn’t take Watson away from a pile of work just to sit on top of a bus and talk like a house-agent. If this happens often, I probably shall end up in the neighbourhood of Primrose Hill, in the new Steen home.”
The Studio Crime Page 13