No Wind of Blame ih-1

by Джорджетт Хейер

  Hugh stood looking down at her, torn between a desire to laugh, and to box her ears. Finally, he laughed. "Vicky, you abominable brat! Tell your chauffeur to finish the shopping, and go home. I'll run you into Fritton."

  "How lovely of you!" said Vicky, with wholly deceptive effusiveness. "I expect if I had to choose between that and walking, I'd go with you."

  "Ha! a snub!" said Hugh.

  Vicky met his quizzical gaze with one of her blandest stares. Lady Dering walking briskly down the street with a shopping basket on her arm, had ample opportunity to observe her only son's expression as he stood looking into the celestially blue eyes of the prettiest girl in the county. She came to a halt a few paces away from them, and said in her cheerful, matter-of-fact way: "You look like two cats, trying to stare one another out of countenance. What's the matter?"

  Hugh turned quickly. A tinge of colour stole into his cheeks; he said with a touch of awkwardness: "Hullo, Mother! I didn't know you were coming into the village. I'd have given you a lift."

  "I hate men who neglect their mothers," said Vicky,sotto voce.

  "Walking," said Ruth Dering, "is good for my figure. How are you, Vicky?"

  Vicky looked piteously at her. "I was feeling quite extraordinarily well, but, if you don't mind my saying so, I think your son is utterly loathsome, which makes me feel quite quite sick in my tummy."

  "Oh, I don't mind what you say about him!" said Lady Dering cordially. "What's he been doing?"

  "Exercising superhuman self-control," said Hugh. "Come on, Vicky, don't be stuffy! are you going to let me drive you to Fritton, or are you not?"

  Vicky glanced towards his car, and shook her head. "Oh no! I dressed specially for a Rolls-Royce, and I wouldn't look right in an open tourer."

  Hugh grinned. "All right, Shylock! have your pound of flesh! I apologise for having spoilt your act. If there were any mud about, I'd eat it. Will that do?"

  Vicky looked at Lady Dering. There was a naive question in her eyes. Lady Dering said: "Really, you know, you couldn't expect him to say more. You'd better go with him."

  "Yes, but wouldn't you like him to drive you home instead?" asked Vicky.

  "No," said Lady Dering, wondering at the sound of her own voice. "No, my dear. I like walking."

  She was left standing outside the butcher's shop, with her knees trembling a little under her. She went into the shop, and told the proprietor, to his bewilderment, that she wanted six pounds of granulated sugar. A jumble of thoughts seethed in her brain. What on earth have I done? she asked herself. What will William say? I quite thought it was going to be Mary Cliffe, but it's obvious he means to marry Vicky. Of course that mother is impossible, but Geoffrey Fanshawe was all right. She's an heiress, too, not that one ought to care tuppence about that, but in these days, what can one do? At any rate, William thinks she's a beauty, and she isn't any relation of that dreadful Wally Carter!

  Rebuffed by the butcher, she had walked out of the shop, and was suddenly recalled to a sense of her surroundings by a strident motor-horn that made her jump. She found that she was in the road, with Dr Chester's car swerving across the street to avoid her. "Oh dear!" she said guiltily. "I'm so sorry! Oh, it's you, Maurice!"

  The doctor, pulling up with a jerk, leaned out to inquire with a note of considerable surprise in his voice whether she had joined a suicide club.

  "Dreadfully sorry!" said Lady Dering. "So stupid of me!"

  "Can I give you a lift?" he asked. "I saw Hugh going towards Fritton, a minute or two ago, with Vicky Fanshawe."

  "Yes, I know. No, I don't want a lift, thanks."

  He hesitated, and then said: "Is there anything in that, do you think?"

  The backward jerk of his head might have been taken to indicate almost anything in the street, but Lady I )ering did not pretend to misunderstand him. "My dear i plan, that's what bowled me over! Of course, I had begun't o have a faint suspicion, but I wasn't sure till this morning. I used to think he was rather attracted by Mary, but there's no question of that now!"

  "Do you mind?" he asked abruptly.

  "I don't know. It isn't what I'd have chosen for him, though in some ways I quite see - well, never mind! But all this horrid scandal! I can't think what my husband will say!"

  "I shouldn't worry about the scandal. Neither of the girls has anything to do with that."

  "Well, I wish it could be cleared up. Do you know if the police are any nearer to reaching a solution?"

  "No, I'm afraid I know nothing. Hugh seems to be the one the Inspector from London has taken to his heart. Doesn't he know anything?"

  "If he does, he hasn't told me. I shouldn't think the Scotland Yard man would take him into his confidence. I haven't met him: is he any good?"

  "It's hard to say. He doesn't give away much. We shall have to wait for results."

  This was what Inspector Hemingway was doing, somewhat to the surprise of the local Superintendent, who told Sergeant Wake that he couldn't for the life of him make out what kind of game his chief was playing.

  "If you were to ask me," he said severely, "I should say you'd enough material to work on right under your nose here, without going off on any wild-goose chases. However, doubtless I'm wrong."

  Sergeant Wake did not consider it incumbent upon him to deliver any opinion on this point. After a great deal of painstaking research, he had succeeded in bringing to light one witness, in the shape of a twelveyear-old boy, who had seen a white sports-car, with black wings, upon the road to Kershaw on Sunday afternoon. The boy's notions of time were too vague to be trusted, nor had he observed the white car's driver; but he seemed to be quite sure that the car was travelling towards Kershaw, a circumstance which certainly tallied with Prince Varasashvili's story.

  "What's more," said Hemingway, when this was reported to him, "it isn't likely there's more than one white sports-car with black wings in this district. I reckon that lets his Highness out. If he wants to go away, he can; but get his address, in case of accidents."

  "He told Inspector Cook he hadn't got one," said Wake dubiously.

  "Then he'd better think one up!" said Hemingway.

  The Prince, however, discovered disconsolately flicking over the pages of a book in the doctor's pleasant library, was so relieved to hear that his presence in Stilhurst was no longer necessary, that he made no bones at all about divulging his address, but informed Sergeant Wake that he had a pied-a-terre in a private hotel in Bloomsbury. The Sergeant wrote it down, and the Prince said that for himself he would be very glad to be in London again. "I find it does not suit me, this English country life," he announced. "One stifles, in fact! There is no conversation; it is not amusing."

  But when he informed his host of his imminent departure, nothing could have exceeded the grace with which he assured him that these days spent under his roof would remain in his memory as some of the most pleasant in his whole life.

  The doctor said something conventionally civil; and, in answer to an anxious inquiry, advised the Prince most strongly not to adventure his person within the precincts of Palings.

  "But it is absurd!" the Prince said. "It is seen that I had nothing to do with Carter's death! Rather it is Mr. Steel whom the police suspect, is it not so?"

  "I really can't say," replied Chester stiffly.

  "I wash my hands of the affair!" said the Prince. "But I must tell you, since you have been to me so extremely kind, that if it is Mr. Steel whom the police suspect, I must be glad, for he is not, after all, de nous autres, and I have had some fears that you, my friend, might suffer a little unpleasantness."

  The doctor looked up quickly. "I?"

  "But, yes!" smiled the Prince. "An absurdity, you say, but I find that your English police are very stupid, what you call thickheaded. Ah, pardon! It is ridiculous, without sense! Yet when one considers how I have been suspected, for no reason, except that I was out in Vicky's auto, one must be prepared for the police to suspect you, who were also not at home."

  "I was
out on a case," said Chester, his eyes stern under his frowning brows.

  The Prince made a deprecatory gesture. "But of course! Do I not know it? It is merely that these policemen '

  "Nor," interrupted Chester, "do I know what conceivable motive I could have had for murdering one of my patients!"

  "My friend!" The Prince flung up his hands. "I am sure you had none! I am sorry that I spoke of it, but indeed it seemed to me that you must have thought of it yourself. It is forgotten! Do not fear that I shall speak of it!"

  "If you're wise, you won't," said Chester grimly. "I could hardly afford to let such a statement go unchallenged. We have a law of libel in this country."

  "Absurd!" murmured the Prince. "You mistake me, I assure you! Without doubt, the police know you too well to concern themselves with your movements."

  He was not quite right, for Inspector Cook, pondering still over the case, had remembered that Chester had not been in his house at the time of the murder, and had thought fit to mention this circumstance, though reluctantly, to Hemingway. His own chief, Superintendent Small, snubbed him immediately. "The doctor was called cut on a case, as might happen to any doctor," he said. "What reason would he have to kill Carter, that's what I should like to know?"

  "Only that he's very friendly with Mrs. Carter - to put it no higher," replied Cook. "Mind you, sir, I'm not saying there's anything in it, for I'm sure I haven't anything against Dr Chester, and I know he's highly respected. But it just flashed across my mind, in a manner of speaking."

  "You'd better forget it," said Small. "Pack of rubbish!"

  "Yes, sir," said Cook, rather woodenly.

  "That's all right," interposed Hemingway. "I'm always grateful for a bit of help. I wouldn't like you to think I haven't taken the doctor into account, because I have. But so far I haven't had so much as a smell of a motive. That isn't to say I won't have, of course."

  "Are you looking for one?" asked Small, staring at him.

  "High and low," responded the Inspector promptly. To his Sergeant, a moment or two later, when they were alone, he added: "And that's truer than what old fat-face thinks. At least, when I say I'm hunting high and low, what I mean is that some other mug's going round Chipston making a fool of himself. I'm what you might call the brains behind the organisation."

  "Do you mean you're expecting to find that Chester's the heir to the old mad woman's money?" demanded Wake, startled out of his customary stolidity.

  "The secret of being a highly efficient officer," said Hemingway, fixing him with a quelling look, "is on the one hand never to expect anything, and on the other never to be surprised at anything either. You remember that, my lad, and you may do as well as I have. I don't say you will, because your psychology's bad and you haven't got vision, but you may. What's the time?"

  "Going on for four o'clock," replied Wake, swallowing these strictures with a visible effort.

  The Inspector frowned, and lit a cigarette from the stub of his old one. "If Aunt Clara isn't something Carter saw in an opium-dream, I ought to be hearing from the Chief pretty soon."

  The call from. London came through five minutes later, and the Sergeant, informed that Superintendent Hannasyde wanted to speak to Inspector Hemingway, handed over the receiver to his superior, and tried to look as though he were not listening. He soon abandoned this detached attitude, for the half of the conversation which he could hardly have helped hearing was too maddeningly tantalising to be ignored.

  "That you, sir?" said Hemingway. "I've been getting what you might call a bit jumpy. Did they find anything?…They did?… You don't say!… On no, I'm not surprised: I thought they would… They got what?… Oh, trustee! Yes, I get it. Was he able to tell us who the present heir is?… Nice work, sir! Let me have it!"

  The Sergeant, stealing a glance at him, saw his face stiffen. He had been lying back at his ease in his chair, but he sat bolt upright all at once. "Say that again, Chief!" he requested. "What name did you say?… You don't mean it? Well, I'll be Good God!… Convey anything to me! Yes, it does!… What's that?… He doesn't know what?… The address! Oh, he doesn't, doesn't he? Well, that's where I'm one up on him, because I do!… Yes, right here, under my nose!… No, it's got me gasping around like a landed fish… Not a breath!… Not so much as a whiff of suspicion! Right out of the picture!… Here, tell me this, sir! What's the sum total of this precious fortune… What, pounds? I'd do a murder myself for that… Finished? No, nor anything like it, but I will be, don't you fret, sir!"

  He laid the instrument gently down on its rest, and drew a long breath. Across the table, his eyes met the Sergeant's avid gaze. "I wouldn't have believed it!" he said, and shook his head. "But a hundred thousand pounds! Is that a motive, or is it a motive? Do you know who's the heir, to that little nest-egg, Wake?"

  "No!" almost shouted the Sergeant. "I do not, sir, but I'd like to!"

  "White," said Hemingway. "Mr. Harold White, my lad."

  There was a moment's astonished silence. The Sergeant broke it. "But he couldn't have killed Carter, sir!"

  "If he didn't, I'll resign from the Force," said Hemingway.

  "But, Inspector, you saw the spot where he was standing when Carter was shot! It wasn't within sight of the bridge! It wasn't anywhere near where the gun was found!"

  "He wasn't within forty yards of where the rifle was found," agreed Hemingway. "More like fifty, from what I remember. This bird is a pleasure to deal with!"

  "Look here, sir!" besought the Sergeant. "Setting that aside, isn't it a fact he was hoping to get money out of Carter for his little land-racket? Why, he'd even started negotiations to buy the land, let alone bringing Jones up to the house to talk business with Carter!"

  The Inspector stabbed a forefinger at him. "Bringing him up to the house to make a disinterested witness! All that shady stuff about the building estate was dust, my lad, dust to be thrown in our eyes!"

  "But I don't see that you can say that, sir, honest I don't! I mean, the thing couldn't be done! Unless - why, do you suppose the son was in it, too?"

  "That long-haired nincompoop?" said Hemingway. "Not he!"

  "Well, if you won't have him in it, how was it done, sir?"

  "I don't know," replied Hemingway, "but if I didn't have a lot of yapping going on in my ear, I might be able to figure it out!"

  The Sergeant relapsed into silence. Hemingway presently brought his gaze to bear on that offended countenance. "That hair-trigger pull," he said.

  "Yes, sir, I know. I've been thinking about that, too. I've heard of guns being fired by the opening of a door, but this was out in the open, in full view of a couple of people who hadn't a thing to do with it - for you won't tell me Jones or Miss White were mixed up in the murder!"

  "That's an idea," said Hemingway. "The opening of a door. Not bad, Wake, not at all bad! But you're wrong: it won't do. There couldn't have been any sort of string tied to that gate on to the bridge, because for one thing it would have been seen, and for another the rifle was about twenty yards off."

  "I didn't think there was anything tied to the gate," said the Sergeant. "I admit it looks queer, White being the heir to the old lady's money, but I've met some odd coincidences before, and it's possible he doesn't even know he's the heir."

  "If you've met any coincidences as odd as a chap getting himself bumped off when he's on his way to visit a relation of his, whose only hope of collecting a hundred thousand pounds is to see to it that the first chap hands in his checks before the present owner of that hundred thousand, you ought to write a book," said Hemingway.

  "Relation! He was so far removed that not even Carter knew what kind of a fortieth cousin he was!"

  "That's all right," replied Hemingway. "Mr. Dering was explaining the Law of Intestacy to me this morning. It would take too long to tell you about it now, but it's perfectly clear. Now, you just consider White's position, and stop making a lot of narrow-minded objections. The old lady's over eighty, by what the Chief just told me, so it's safe to say
she isn't for this world much longer."

  "She might go on for another five years, or more," said the Sergeant. "They say mad people are often very healthy."

  "All the better for White if she did. You don't suppose lie wants her to die until Carter's murder has been forgotten, do you? Oh no! He takes a long view, does Mr. Harold White. By rights, we ought not to have known anything about mad Aunt Clara. If it hadn't been for Carter's way of lugging her into the conversation whenever he wanted money off his wife, I dare say we shouldn't. Maybe that was just one thing White didn't happen to know about. Now you answer me this! If Aunt Clara had kicked the bucket before Carter did, who'd have come into her money? Not White, my lad! Oh no! Miss Cliffe would have got the lot, because Carter had made a will on a half-sheet of note-paper, and had it witnessed, too. Unless Carter died before his aunt, White hadn't a hope in hell of ever seeing a penny of that fortune."

  The Sergeant was slightly shaken. "I grant you it looks black," he admitted. "But how could he have done it, sir?"

  "That," said the Inspector, "is what we are going to find out."

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Sergeant looked, if anything, more sceptical than ever, but Hemingway was paying very little heed to him. "The man I want is Cook," he said. "I want to know every movement White made from the moment Carter was seen approaching the bridge. Cook took all those first depositions."

  "Yes, sir, but, as I remember, Jones and Miss White corroborated everything White said."

  "Of course they did! Don't you run off with the idea that I'm thinking White's movements weren't as advertised! The point is, that as soon as it was established that he was out of sight of the bridge, and within a few steps of Jones and Miss White, no one paid a lot of heed to his subsequent movements."

  "Subsequent movements?" repeated Wake slowly.

  "You don't suppose the gun up and fired itself on its own, do you? If White's at the bottom of this, there must have been some kind of mechanism used, which, mark you, White disposed of before Cook reached the scene."