Missing or Murdered

by Robin Forsythe

  “White Bear, indeed,” he would often mutter; “it has been nothing but a white elephant to me!”

  On this October morning George Lawless was in a particularly irritable temper. He had cursed Terry, the barman, about the untidy appearance of the bar; Mary Standish, who was parlourmaid, housemaid, scullery-maid and barmaid all rolled into one, had come in for a share of his ill-humour, though he was always gentler in his speech with Mary than with any of his servants. Dick, who tended the garden, drove the buggy to the station for visitors and visitors back in the buggy to the station, groomed the pony and made himself useful and attentive in the garage, had actually sworn back at the “Guv’nor” and come to the verge of giving notice. It may be mentioned, however, that Dick had been on the brink of giving notice every day for the past ten years. George Lawless had, fortunately for his peace of mind, been unaware of this Damoclean sword.

  All this unpleasantness was due to the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of Henry Darnell, Lord Bygrave. On Friday night he had arrived; on Saturday morning he had gone out and never returned. On Monday Lawless had met the village constable and casually mentioned the matter; on Tuesday the sergeant had been informed; on Wednesday the affair had been bruited abroad, Scotland Yard called in and every one in England who read a daily paper knew that Lord Bygrave had mysteriously disappeared. Had Henry Darnell been a shopkeeper, or a postman, the affair would have been important news to a modern daily paper. That he was a well-known peer almost raised the mystery to the level of “Beautiful London Girl of Eighteen Missing” in terms of headline and public interest.

  George Lawless couldn’t for the life of him understand why Lord Bygrave should disappear, and he lost his temper thoroughly over the whole business. It was unsatisfactory and altogether unintelligible. People who stayed at the White Bear Inn, even though they were titled folk, were expected to behave like ordinary human beings in a common-sense, reasonable manner. Lawless was not annoyed that Lord Bygrave had gone without paying his bill; for in his room was a portmanteau with boots and clothes, and on the wash-hand-stand he had carelessly left a heavy, gold signet-ring with a crest cut in intaglio. On this property Lawless felt that he had a lien—it was quite sufficient security for a bed and breakfast. What had angered George Lawless was the behaviour of Police Sergeant Bailey. It had been inquisitorial. He had asked endless and seemingly irrelevant questions, and conducted himself with an air of importance and secrecy that were noxious to a degree—especially in an ordinary village police sergeant. When he had been about to depart he had informed the proprietor of the White Bear Inn that Detective-Inspector Heather of Scotland Yard would be down in the afternoon to make further investigations.

  “What the dooce does he expect to find?” George Lawless had asked irritably. “Does he suspect I’ve done the gent in?”

  Sergeant Bailey felt that this question was merely a verbal diffusion of pent-up irritability, and did not condescend to reply. When he had gone Lawless let himself go in a full-blooded effectual way that was comforting to himself but withering to the police force in general and to Sergeant Bailey in particular. Remembering the cause of the trouble, his mind reverted once more to Lord Bygrave.

  “These London folk—more trouble than they’re d—d well worth! Never satisfied with a decent bed and plain food, but always asking for something you ain’t got and wot’s not good for ’em in any case. Not that his lordship asked for much—in fact he went to the opposite extreme and asked for nothing, which is worse still. Then he’s one of them blokes who goes chasing butterflies like a kid of ten. Nice occupation for a grown man! S’elp me if I don’t think he wasn’t quite right in the head. And now he goes missing. ’Pon my soul, I don’t know what the country’s coming to!”

  In the afternoon Detective-Inspector Heather arrived, and at once sought out the landlord of the White Bear. George Lawless had by this time resigned himself to the inevitable. He showed the officer into his own little parlour, from which he used to emerge into the bar at stated times and on specific occasions. It was a small room, comfortably furnished, according to the indeterminate ideas of Lawless about furnishing, with a small window looking on to the garden behind the inn. Inspector Heather settled himself comfortably in an arm-chair and lit a pipe.

  “At what time on Friday night did Mr. Darnell, or rather Lord Bygrave, arrive here, Mr. Lawless?”

  “About half-past nine. He came by the train arriving here at 9.15.”

  “Did he fill in the usual forms?”

  “No. After he’d had his supper I thought it was too late to trouble him with the forms that night, and he’d left the inn before I saw him next morning.”

  “When did he leave next morning?”

  “About half-past eight: he had breakfast at eight, and told Mary Standish that he’d be back for lunch.”

  “Ah, that’s important. He intended to return. Did you notice anything peculiar in his manner overnight?”

  “No. He seemed tired and after his supper drank a double whisky and soda and went to bed.”

  “You didn’t see him next morning?”

  “No. I was busy in the cellar. Mary waited on him and saw he had all he wanted for breakfast.”

  “Good. I’ll interrogate her later. I’d like to see his room. I believe you said he’d left his luggage?”

  “Yes, his bag is there just as he left it. No one has touched it.”

  “Anyone occupying that particular room now?”

  “No. No one has occupied it since he left. Mary Standish found this signet-ring on the wash-hand-stand the same morning. She told me about it and we left it there until next day. When Lord Bygrave didn’t come back I took charge of it.”

  “I’ll take possession of it for the present,” said the inspector, examining the ring closely. “I believe that’s the crest of the Bygraves.”

  George Lawless picked up a key from a table, and together the two men went upstairs to a room on the first floor. In a corner of the apartment stood a capacious leather kit-bag.

  “There’s his luggage—just as he left it. I tried it, to see if it was locked, but found that it was open. Nothing inside has been touched.”

  The inspector lifted the kit-bag and brought it into the centre of the room. Unfastening the straps he opened it and carefully turned out the contents on the floor. Shirts, collars, socks, underclothes, a safety razor and strop, tooth-brush, hair-brushes, soap, etc., a suit of light-coloured Harris tweeds, a pair of walking shoes, a pair of morocco slippers, pyjamas, a bunch of keys attached to a key chain and a pound tin of tobacco which had been broken formed the main contents. Inspector Heather had just arranged these articles on the floor when the door of the bedroom opposite opened and there emerged into the corridor Mr. Algernon Vereker, wiping his hands with a towel.

  “You lose no time, inspector,” he remarked. “I didn’t expect you down here to-day.”

  Inspector Heather smiled. “Can’t allow you too long a start, Mr. Vereker,” he remarked jocularly.

  “Oh, I haven’t left the mark yet. But I may as well jump off now. I see you are having a look through Bygrave’s kit. I’ll take an inventory too—as his executor I suppose I ought to, in case of eventualities.”

  Vereker, having dried his hands, threw his towel through the open door of his bedroom and came and watched the inspector making a detailed list of Lord Bygrave’s personal belongings.

  “Have you emptied the canvas pocket?” he asked.

  “Is there one?” asked the inspector in turn.

  “Oh, yes; rather neatly concealed. I’ve often borrowed that bag.”

  The inspector promptly examined the interior more carefully and, thrusting in his hand, produced a slim, well-worn notebook.

  “By Jove, a diary—I hope it’s modernly indiscreet!” exclaimed Vereker. “But it’s a foolish hope, I’m afraid—Bygrave was a gentleman.”

  The notebook, however, merely contained a mass of lead-pencil jottings, the rough unpolished notes of an ard
ent and patient naturalist, of bird life, etc. They were all dated and referred to observations taken in the Western Islands of Scotland during a holiday the previous year. The officer tossed it over to Vereker with a disappointed shrug of his shoulders.

  “An ordinary diary might have been of great use,” he said quickly.

  “Now, let’s start making brilliant deductions, inspector,” said Vereker.

  “Fire away, Mr. Vereker,” replied Heather, his eyes moving from one article to another on the floor as he jotted the items down in his notebook.

  “Then I must withdraw the ‘brilliant’; I was leaning on you for all the sparkle, inspector. But to business! I deduce Lord Bygrave was in a hurry on the morning of his departure.”

  “Good, Mr. Vereker. You came to that conclusion because he’d neither shaved nor washed his teeth. His razor and tooth-brush have not been unpacked.”

  “That’s brilliant but problematical,” remarked Vereker quietly, “because I know Lord Bygrave’s habits, and he always put his toilet articles back in his bag after using them when staying at an hotel.”

  “Then how did you infer that Lord Bygrave was in a hurry?” asked the inspector, glancing with interest at Mr. Algernon Vereker, who seemed lost in profound thought.

  “Mary Standish told me,” replied the amateur dryly, though I should have discovered it in any case from the fact that he forgot to put his ring on again after his ablutions. A man who habitually wears a ring must be in a hurry to omit so accustomed an action as resuming it after washing.

  “Ah, you’ve heard all about the ring?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen the ring all right. It was one of the first things Lawless spoke about when I arrived, and he knew I was on the trail.”

  “Anything else you can see?” asked the inspector.

  “M’yes—I estimate that Lord Bygrave smoked about an ounce of tobacco a day. That pound tin had to last him the fortnight. However, this is art for art’s sake—it won’t help us much. I also feel sure I shall finish the tin for him, unless he turns up and takes possession. I’m rather fond of this brand; it’s the only tobacco old Henry could enjoy.” Vereker produced an outsize in briars and began to plug it.

  Inspector Heather had now completed his notes and, rising from the floor on which he had been kneeling, made a keen survey of the room. Vereker also flung a searching glance in every direction.

  “Another beautiful but useless discovery,” he remarked. “Bygrave smoked a pipe of tobacco before going to bed or just before breakfast. He has knocked his pipe out in the fender, and there’s the dottle.”

  Picking up the dottle between finger and thumb, Vereker showed it to the inspector and then flung it back into the fire-place.

  The police officer walked over to a small writing-table and examined the blotting-pad lying on it. It had never been used, for not a mark was on its white surface save the price lead-pencilled in the corner.

  “Not much to be learned here,” he said. “I’ll now see Miss Standish and learn what she can tell me.”

  “Lunch with me, inspector. I have ordered for both of us. Standish waits on us, and you can then cross-question her. The beer here is most excellent—I’m afraid it has biased me in Lawless’s favour. I’ve almost ceased to suspect him of complicity in this business. Yet there’s the cellar to be searched. I ought to have gone down and made a thorough investigation—before tasting the beer. By the way, do you want to examine the contents of that kit-bag again?”

  “No, I think I’ve done with that,” replied the inspector.

  “Then I’ll lock it,” said Vereker, and taking out the bunch of keys, which had been thrust back into the bag, he locked it and slipped the bunch into his own pocket. “And now for lunch and beakers with beaded bubbles winking at the brim.”

  The two men descended to the dining-room, where George Lawless had done his best to have an appetizing lunch laid for his guests.

  Chapter Three

  Inspector Heather and Algernon Vereker sat down to a plain but substantial meal as devised by a man (with a healthy hunger) for hungry men. There was an excellent sirloin of beef, and Mary Standish had built up a salad with a sound foundation of beetroot, lettuces, onions and hard-boiled eggs, with an admixture of good Hartwood cream, and a crowning note of refinement in a nasturtium blossom or two.

  “This is altogether delightful,” remarked Vereker enthusiastically. “It’s an age since I ate nasturtium flowers—they’re a delicious adjunct to a salad, apart from pleasing the eye.”

  “That’s a nice bit of Stilton,” added Inspector Heather on a more solid note.

  At this juncture Mary Standish brought in a dish of steaming potatoes and two pint tankards of ale and set them down on the table.

  “If you want anything else, gentlemen, will you kindly strike the gong? The electric bells are not working to-day.”

  “Right you are,” replied Inspector Heather, settling down with a business-like air to the meal.

  Algernon Vereker, however, remained standing until Mary Standish had left the dining-room, for if anything in the world could disturb his equanimity it was the sudden birth of an inspiration to paint.

  “A portrait, inspector, a portrait!” he exclaimed. “Now, I’ve been looking for such a face for years—an uncommonly beautiful face. How often the words are used, and how seldom charged with meaning save to an artist.”

  “How about her young man?” asked Inspector Heather with a heavy wink.

  “There’s something in what you say, inspector,” continued Vereker, “but, as an artist, I want to paint her face, and he doubtless wants to kiss it. She’s radiant!”

  “You’re already losing interest in the Bygrave case, Mr. Vereker,” remarked the inspector. “I’m afraid you’re a painter and not a detective. This salad’s uncommonly beautiful too.” He laughed as he helped himself to a liberal portion.

  “No, I’m working steadily away on the case, inspector. It has not been out of my mind for a moment. You know that modern psychology has knocked the bottom out of the old theory that you can’t think of two things at once—ay, and do them.” Algernon Vereker’s face was temporarily eclipsed by an upturned tankard.

  “She’s got the nicest nose I’ve ever seen on a woman,” he continued on reappearance. “That’s saying something; for my sister Marjorie’s took some beating.”

  Inspector Heather smiled; noses, to him, always bordered on the ludicrous. They suggested colds and comedians and Ally Sloper, and something to punch. They were as much a portion of stock British humour as kippers, landladies and mothers-in-law—but that anyone should have, so to speak, a taste in noses verged on sheer lunacy.

  Vereker could see that his enthusiasm was unintelligible to his companion and, rising from his chair, walked over to the gong and struck it lightly.

  “Can’t see too much of a beautiful thing,” he remarked, and when Mary Standish appeared he turned to Heather. “I think coffee and cigars would assist us over the mental strain of further brilliant deductions.”

  “Not a bad idea, but I prefer my pipe,” replied Inspector Heather.

  “Well then we’ll cut out cigars, because I, too, prefer my briar, and now, while you seek any information you require from Miss Standish, I’ll go and get that tin of Bygrave’s tobacco.”

  Algernon Vereker left the room and went upstairs to Lord Bygrave’s room. He pulled the bunch of keys from his pocket, looked at all the keys carefully and examined the leather buttonholed tab at the other end of the chain. Then, opening the kit-bag once more, he extracted the tin of tobacco, filled his pouch, relocked the bag and returned to the dining-room, where Inspector Heather was still interrogating Mary Standish.

  “You say Lord Bygrave hadn’t shaved before breakfast?” he asked.

  “I’m sure he didn’t, sir, because he hadn’t that fresh look which distinguishes a cleanly-shaved man. The can of hot water which I left at his door had not been used, and I don’t remember seeing his shaving requisites on his
dressing-table.”

  “You bear me out,” replied Inspector Heather, glancing at Vereker.

  “That’s something you’ve extracted,” remarked Vereker quietly. “I don’t see that it’s vital, but it at once confirms the fact that Lord Bygrave was extremely agitated or in a most unusual hurry. He was the most leisurely of men in his actions as a rule; for an eight o’clock breakfast he would rise at six. Still I repeat that he always returned his toilet articles to his dressing-case every time after using them when he stayed in an hotel. It was merely an idiosyncrasy: I don’t even remember whether he had a reason for it. However, in this instance it doesn’t matter, for I think we can take it for granted that he hadn’t shaved if Standish is so positive about it.”

  “Now, Miss Standish, did you see him with a pipe in his mouth on the morning of his disappearance?” asked the inspector.

  “Good, Heather, good. You’ve forestalled me in the question,” interrupted Vereker.

  “No. He asked for a cigar after breakfast, but after looking at the various brands we stock he decided not to smoke at all. He used the words: ‘I think I’ll give it a miss this morning.’ Whether he changed his mind before he left and lit a pipe I can’t very well say, because I was too busy with my work to take any further notice of his lordship.”