“Wait!” said Lucas. “You’re now trying to get us to believe that this KJB Agency is behind the Murch affair.” Anthony looked at him. “Oh, my dear fellow! Because I gave you two separate cases I didn’t mean that the two affairs weren’t bound up.”
Lucas grunted.
Pike said: “If there’s anything, sir, it’s something big. They were taking a chance on this Mr Garrett.”
“Big!” said Anthony and laughed.
Lucas threw down his pencil. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Anthony. He said:
“I still don’t see what we can do. If you want me to say that you’ve convinced me that there’s something going on that oughtn’t to be going on I will say it. But—what can we do?”
Anthony stood up. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “But later. . . . Good-bye and thanks for bearing with me.”
Two men were left staring at a closed door. Lucas sighed and picked up his pencil and began upon another horse’s head. He said without looking up:
“I suppose he’s right. Damn him!”
CHAPTER XII
BIG BEN was sounding the first stroke of noon when Anthony nosed his car out of the Whitehall entrance to Scotland Yard. It was six minutes past the hour when he pulled it up in Stukeley Gardens and jumped out and slammed its door behind him. Half a minute later he was seated at the writing table in the library. And then bodily activity ceased while his mind raced, swiftly but orderly tabulating those things which he must do. . . .
The door opened softly and Lucia came in. He looked at her and smiled and reached for the telephone and began to dial a number. She crossed the room and stood by his chair. He turned to speak to her but immediately was checked by an answer from the telephone. He said into the mouthpiece:
“Hello. . . . Dyson? . . . Gethryn here. . . .”
Dyson said: “Everything going by the book. We were all set just after ten. We missed one, while Harris was getting things fixed. But we caught all the others. He says the light’s good. Any further orders?”
“No,” said Anthony. “Carry on.”
Dyson hung up his receiver and turned. He was in a small room whose furnishings proclaimed it as coming under the head “bed-sitting.” There was a couch against one wall, spread with an orange-hued cover which incompletely disguised its nocturnal purposes; then a wardrobe of white-painted deal, one armchair, two ordinary chairs, a Jubilee chiffonier, a table and an insecure-seeming bookcase containing old periodicals and a nearly complete set of the works of Bulwer-Lytton. These were the normal trappings; but today there were more—a tripod of black wood and bright steel, set up in the one large window, and atop of it was what seemed a black rectangular box. Behind the tripod knelt a man. In a chair beside him, reading a pink paper, sat Flood.
Dyson came across the room and stood close behind the kneeling man and looked out through the window onto the cheerful, sunlit little stretch of Brabazon Road, South Kensington.
In the library of 19A Stukeley Gardens Anthony Gethryn twisted in his chair and looked up at his wife and saw that she was smiling.
She said: “He’s been conscious. Nurse says that he suddenly came round and spoke to her. That was just after you’d gone out. He was in pain, so she gave him the injection that Doctor Holmes left. He’s sleeping now.”
“Good,” said Anthony. “I could bear to see Avis.”
Lucia stood up. “I’ve phoned her already. Nurse said he’d sleep for five hours at least. . . . But all the same I——”
Anthony said: “I do perceive here a divided duty. , . . Bring her in here as soon as she comes!” He smiled up at his wife again and reached once more for the telephone. “And now, woman, stand not upon the order of thy going.” Once more he began to dial—the same number as before.
“Quite the Napoleon!” Lucia pulled a face at him and dropped a kiss upon the top of his head and was gone.
Anthony got his number. He said into the telephone:
“Mr Flood, please. . . . Hello, that you, Flood? . . . Yes. . . . Yes. . . . I’ve got Lucas to take notice, because Lady——”
“Ballister has killed herself,” said the telephone. “I saw that. I wondered——”
Anthony interrupted: “Don’t, you’re right. Here’s your job: Shove a discreet paragraph into as many of this evening’s papers as you can to the effect that Mr Thomas Sheldon Garrett, distinguished young American playwright and author of Wise Man’s Holiday, et cetera, so on and blah, had a severe fall in the street (locale unmentioned) yesterday. He was found by Samaritans and is now lying—concussed, unconscious and seriously ill—in the nursing home of Doctor Travers Hoy lake in Welbeck Street. Pitch it in as strong as you can. Give a definite impression that it’s most unlikely that he’ll live. . . . No visitors allowed of course. . . . That’s all you’ve got to worry about. I’ve already fixed things with Hoylake and the nursing home will know what to do if there are any calls. Repeat, will you?”
The telephone cackled briefly.
“Right!” said Anthony. He put back the receiver and rose and crossed to a far corner of the room and stood looking down, with distaste, at a small table upon which stood a typewriter. After a moment he sat before the machine and put paper in it and began with great speed, considering the use of only one finger upon each hand, to type. . . ,
He sat back after thirty minutes and sighed relief. He picked up the five pages and put them into order and scanned them. He read:
DEAR LUCAS : Belated apologies for my intolerable manners this morning. But I had—or thought I had—to be rude before you would really give me your attention.
I know you well enough to be sure that your last remark to me meant that you were going to play. Therefore I send you this:
We know that the KJB Domestic Agency is not the innocent affair which it seems. However, so far, we have nothing which would be sufficiently concrete in the minds of the ordinary muttonheaded British jury (and the D.P.P. if it comes to that) to bring a charge against KJB and those behind it. Therefore, do not let us make the frightful mistake of’warning them. This, as it is, is an upside-down case and must therefore be treated with upside-down methods. Whatever KJB (and those behind it) may have already done must be left for the moment, for we cannot stop that; but if we play our cards properly we may stop whatever they are going to do. Below I list some general and some particular lines for us to follow:
A. GENERAL
I. Do not by any overt act let anyone know, in connection with the Ballister case or otherwise, that there is any curiosity upon the part of the police in regard to KJB.
2. Exercise your “influence” with the coroner to see that the above applies to him too.
3. To effect (1) and (2) above properly, insure that the routine inquiry at the Ballister house is handled by someone who knows what we are really after and not by some intelligent and pushful peeler who might stumble upon something accidentally.
4. Above all do not let any official body, under any pretence Dr for any reason, go anywhere near the KJB office.
B. PARTICULAR
I. Put a good man on to Travers Hoylake’s nursing home in Welbeck Street and follow anyone who calls there to ask after Garrett. (Garrett is still in my house. He is recovering. But, following my policy of not frightening KJB at all, I am having a notice put in this evening’s papers to the effect that Garrett is in the nursing home, unconscious, and is not expected to recover, his injuries being due to a jail.)
2. Get in touch with Hoy lake (who knows what’s required) and tell him who his operator is to call at the Yard directly she receives any telephonic inquiries at all for Mr Garrett. Also, if possible, arrange with the Exchange to keep a record of the numbers from which calls about Garrett to the nursing home are made.
3. Put a good man onto Miss Letitia Lamb, of Number 1 Llewellyn Street. He should not approach her personally but should find out, if possible, whether she is as innocent of entanglement with KJB and/or Janet Murch as her name and appearance (vide Flood)
would appear. Has she a good record? Has she ever been in any way connected with undesirable persons, employment or happenings? (A purely precautionary measure, this. I feel sure Lamb is all right; but we must doublecheck.)
4. The same in regard to Mrs Claude Kenealy, of 97 Stockbrook Road, Richmond, Surrey—the woman whose bulk and fur coat, she says, saved Garrett from a tubular death.
5. Try and find the. present whereabouts of Mrs Bellows, of 148A Iron Court, Stockholm Lane. This is the reputed aunt of Janet Murch. A few days before we obtained this address through Lamb Mrs Bellows went suddenly and excitedly and mysteriously to Scotland—or said that she was going to Scotland. I have had rough inquiries made at the possible departure stations and also in the neighbourhood but these have got nowhere.
6. Get someone (I hope it is Pike) who has been in on the official inquiry into the Ballister suicide to tell me about and/or present to me all the concrete collected evidence in the matter. As soon as possible.
7. Have a search made in Records (if you haven’t already) for Janet Murch. (It will probably be abortive but should be done.)
8. Ditto for Evans—the man used as a threat in the conversation which Garrett overheard in Notting Hill teashop and which started the affair. There will, of course, be thousands of Evanses but it might be well worth while to see if any of these have been connected with any nefarious doings in any way bound up with the domestic agency business in general or domestic service in particular.
9. Similar inquiries about the KJB Agency itself, though these are almost certain to be abortive.
10. Send me as soon as you can (if possible by White, who will bring this to you) the reports of Garrett’s two interviews at the Yard with Andrews and Horler on the nineteenth and twentieth of last month.
11. Try and find out, very discreetly, who the man was that left Ballister’s house just before I saw Lady Ballister—i.e. at about three o’clock on Friday, the thirtieth of last month. What’s his name and business? Whom did he see? Had he ever been to the house before? (I have no specific reason for wanting to know about this man except my favourite one of general oddity).
12. If—but only if—you have a very good man making the Ballister routine inquiries get him to find out, without giving away interest in the concern, how many servants in the house within the last year came from KJB.
Thank you kindly, sir. Bear with me and get the quickest action possible.
Anthony came to an end of his reading and rose and took the sheets to the writing table and signed the last of them and pressed a bell.
2
Sheldon Garrett opened his eyes, for the second time this day, upon surroundings which were strange. The room was full of the grey-blackness of dusk about to turn to night but this melancholy pall was shot through with red and cheerful and flickering reflections which told of a large fire. He was barely conscious of his body. His eyes told him that he was in a bed but he did not feel the mattress beneath him nor the clothes above him. He was numb and glad to be so. . . .
He stared at the ceiling. His eyes saw what they looked at but they seemed heavy and sluggish and unwilling to move when his half-benumbed mind ordered them. But his ears were preternaturally sensitive. There came to them magnifications of every sound. . . . A very faint, very muffled rumbling of traffic. . . . A very loud, very sharp crackling of hot coals. . . . The creaking of wood as a body shifted its position in a chair. . . . A very faint sound of voices from somewhere beneath him in this house. . . . And then, imperiously imposing itself atop of all these sounds, the crackle of starched linen. . . .
His mind ordered his muscles to raise his head from the pillow and turn it to his right. But no movement resulted—only a stab of pain which, starting at the base of his skull, sent fiery fingers to every nerve in the whole of him. . . .
A mist came over his sight and he was dimly conscious that sweat had broken out all over him. He lay still . . .
Preceded by a louder crackling of starched linen, there swam into his vision the upper half of a white-clothed woman. She bent over him, putting a dry hand, hard surfaced yet softly fleshed, upon his sweating forehead. Flickering rays from the fire struck sparks of light from the panes of glass which hid her eyes. She said:
“And how are we feeling?” Her voice was soft and devoid of all humanity.
He said, thick and low:
“Bit sick, eh? . . . Head hurts. . . . Where’s this?” The words were not so much reflections of his thought as essays in the difficult exercise of speech.
She took the uncomfortable hand away from his forehead and straightened herself with another rustling and stood looking down at him. She said something; but his mind, wrapped up in its own affairs, did not trouble to interpret the words. He said:
“Mrs Bellingham? . . . Where’s she? . . . What house is this? . . . Call up Colonel Gethryn. . . The effort of so many words brought out beads of cold sweat upon his face. But he went on. “Colonel Gethryn . . . The number’s—I can’t remember. . . . Mrs Bellingham—St John-4383. . . . She’ll tell . . .”
Another crackling of linen as once more she bent over him. Her mouth pursed itself and there came from it a sshushing sound. She said:
“Don’t talk now! You’ll only hurt yourself if you do. Lie quiet and everything will be all right!” She picked up his right hand, which lay outside the bedclothes. Her fingers fumbled for his pulse and, holding the wrist, she looked at a watch upon her own.
3
“You’re sure,” said Anthony, “that these are all we need to worry about?” He tapped with pencil butt upon the paper which lay upon the writing table before him. He looked across at the big chair in which his visitor sat.
Avis Bellingham nodded. “I don’t think there can be any more. I used to know the whole family.”
Anthony chewed the end of his pencil for a moment; then began to write. He came to an end and read aloud:
“ ‘Pay no attention reports seriousness of illness stop Perfectly all right stop Business reasons stop Telephoning by end of week love Tom.’ ”
He sat back in his chair and looked at his visitor. “All right?” he said.
She nodded again. She said: “If—do you really think he’ll be able to telephone . . . I mean, that he’ll be——”
Anthony smiled at her. “Of course. He’ll——” A knock upon the door interrupted him. “Come in,” he said.
The nurse made rustling entry. She stood just within the doorway and folded her hands and ranged her spectacles upon Anthony. She said:
“I am sorry to disturb you, Colonel Gethryn, but Mr Garrett has awakened. He is in pain but I cannot give him another injection until Doctor Holmes has been. I endeavoured to find Mrs Gethryn but I am told that she is out. I must keep Mr Garrett quiet, however, and he keeps on asking me to ‘call up’ Colonel Gethryn or someone called Avis. He keeps saying .this latter name.” She was silent for a moment while the eyes behind the glittering glasses flickered momentarily towards Colonel Gethryn’s visitor, who had made a sudden movement but who now was still again. She said: “I could only keep Mr Garrett quiet by promising to go. . . .”
Anthony had listened enough. “Quite,” he said, “quite! This is Mrs Bellingham, whom Mr Garrett wants to see.” He looked with deliberately expressionless face at Avis. “If you wouldn’t mind going up . . . ?”
Mrs Bellingham rose with admirable slowness to her feet. There was more colour than usual in her face. She looked at Anthony and smiled and moved towards the nurse and the door. She said:
“Good afternoon, Nurse. . . . If I can be of any help . . .”
Anthony turned his chair back to face the table and picked up the draft cablegram and reached for the telephone.
4
The opening of the door sounded in Garretts ears like a battery of artillery. But he had learned; he did not try to raise his head. He lay still and his breath came faster.
And then Avis was bending over him.
He looked up at her without movin
g his head. Slowly his eyes focused their sight so that every detail of her face was clear. Her eyes were very blue and very soft and they shone. Her lips moved as if she were going to speak but no sound came from them. They remained parted a little, so that behind the redness of their lovely curve he could see the whiteness of her teeth. He smiled, now heedless of the pain which the stretching even of these few muscles sent stabbing through his head. He was going to speak; to say her name at least—but he found, suddenly, that he was seized by a childlike and painful constriction of the breath. The smile stayed upon his face but, unbidden, smarting moisture came into his heavy eyes. . . .
Then a starchy rustling; a bump; and the unctuous, unnecessary voice of the nurse.
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