“That’s quite recent,” he muttered. “I wonder if Winslade remembers whether it was done previous to his visit. It’s a point I must remember to ask him. I’m rather astonished that he failed to acquaint me with two such important facts as the open window and this broken banister rail.”
Extinguishing the lamp on the landing, Vereker passed down into the hall with a strangely bitter look on his curiously handsome face. Something that he had deduced from his search had evidently disturbed his usual equanimity, and his short, rapid steps betokened that he had suddenly picked up some unexpected thread and was eagerly following it up. Without any further examination of the house he passed out, closed the door behind him, and walked straight across to the rock-garden, which stretched from the circular gravelled space in front of the house to the stone wall dividing the grounds from the road. The light was fast waning and it was with difficulty that he made his way over the tangled plants, stepping on the boulders projecting through the growth. All at once he halted and struck a match to examine a displaced stone. Carefully raising it, he pushed it back into the socket from which it had been moved, and noted the bleached appearance of the rock plants on which it had been resting.
“Good, good!” he exclaimed to himself, and made his way rapidly to the wall at the point where it terminated at the front gate-post. Seating himself on the coping of the wall, he found just below him the top of the gas-lamp illuminating the road. Leaning forward, he extended his hand to see if the lamp was within reach and in so doing his wrist touched the scorching hot frame of the lamp and was rather severely burnt. With a stifled oath he quickly withdrew his hand, and the sudden movement, throwing him out of equilibrium, sent him hurtling into the rock-garden behind him. The back of his head struck a sharp boulder and for some moments Vereker was too stunned to move. Gradually, however, his senses returned, and picking himself up he scrambled on to the gravel drive and passed out of the front gates on to the road. Clambering up the standard, he made another careful examination of the gas-lamp, especially the side facing the boundary wall of the Mill House garden, and, having satisfied himself on a certain point, descended and entered his car. Without further delay he drove straight into Hartwood and put up once more at the White Bear Inn. George Lawless, in his brusque way, seemed pleased to see him again, and even ventured on conversation.
“No more noos of his lordship, sir?” he asked.
“No, Lawless, none so far, but of course at any moment Scotland Yard may let us know what has happened—they keep us in the dark at present for very good reasons no doubt.”
“My candid opinion, sir, is that his lordship is wandering about somewhere, having lost his memory. It seems to be the rage just now to lose the memory, though it never were when I was a boy.”
Having thoroughly agreed with Lawless in his theory, Vereker ordered some supper before retiring, and when Mary Standish brought in the meal he was quick to notice a worried and detached look on her face. He at once inferred that she suspected, if she was not thoroughly acquainted with David Winslade’s connexion with the strange disappearance of Lord Bygrave. Her curt manner also declared that she was none too pleased to see Vereker back at Hartwood, whereupon he deduced that any reference to the subject would fail to elicit any information that might prove useful. He smoked a cigarette after his meal, and retired—but not to sleep. As was his wont when absorbed in any subject, he lay awake with eyes closed and quietly pondered over his recent experiences and discoveries. His mind reverted again and again to the details of the story that Winslade had told him, and the more he analysed it the less credible it seemed. Told as it had been either with actual or well-feigned sincerity, it had at the time seemed extraordinarily strange, but probably true. Now, under close and cold examination, it appeared to Vereker as almost impossible.
In the first place it seemed to him contrary to all his knowledge of Lord Bygrave that the latter would resort to physical violence in a moment of fury. In unusual circumstances, however, there was no saying what any man might do, but even were this possible with regard to Henry Darnell, it was highly improbable. Secondly, what could have happened to the body of the man he was supposed to have killed. If there were no accomplice that body could not have been removed. No, this portion of the story was sheer nonsense. The only deduction he could draw, if Mr. Twistleton had actually been killed, was that Winslade had disposed of the body and was for some reason or other lying on this point. Yet another theory presented itself. Could Bygrave have framed this story for some hidden purpose of his own, and deceived Winslade? Finally, the whole story might be a fabrication on the part of Winslade to cover up his own tracks and gain time by keeping Vereker inactive. He finally fell asleep troubled in mind, for once again the threads of mystery which he had picked clear seemed to have become irretrievably tangled.
In the morning, when he awoke, he resumed his speculation and as he was buttoning his collar his face brightened, and he suddenly exclaimed:
“A ray of light, a ray of light!”
He finished dressing hastily and without waiting for breakfast left the inn on foot and walked briskly across to the cow-pond, the point at which Lord Bygrave had left Winslade.
“Exactly ten minutes walk,” he soliloquized, glancing at his watch and, taking a seat on the stile, lit a cigarette. On throwing down the match, his eye caught sight of a small shining disc in the morning sunlight. Thinking it was a coin he stooped to pick it up. It was merely a trouser button, but on that button was something which momentarily startled him. It bore the inscription, John Wilkes, tailor, Bond Street, W.
“Bygrave’s tailor!” he exclaimed with suppressed excitement. “This is surely more than a coincidence! Apparently he lost it when crossing the stile.”
Placing the button in his pocket, he walked quickly back to the White Bear, and with an air of briskness, which always betokened with Vereker a sense of satisfaction, ordered his breakfast. After breakfast he took leave of Lawless, and on entering the yard where his car was garaged he met Mary Standish. A glance at her face showed that she had slept ill, and her eyes bore the red and swollen appearance of recent weeping. It flashed through Vereker’s mind that she might possibly wish to speak to him; but in this surmise he was mistaken, for on seeing him she turned aside and hurriedly disappeared into the kitchen. Without further delay he took out his hired car and drove back to Fordingbridge. Having returned the car to Layham’s, he discovered that he had an hour to wait for a train to London. A sudden thought struck him that he had sufficient time to see a doctor about his badly burned wrist, which, owing to the friction of his cuff, was becoming severely inflamed. Some liniment and a bandage sufficed to relieve irritation and, catching his train with some minutes to spare, Vereker ensconced himself in a corner seat and fell fast asleep.
When he awoke again he glanced at once out of the carriage window, only to discover that he had been asleep for a very short time and that there was now another passenger in the carriage fast asleep, with a felt hat pulled well down over his face to exclude the light from the lamp overhead. Vereker glanced casually at the man’s burly figure and discovered to his surprise that it was shaking in an unaccountable manner. Then the felt hat seemed to be thrust further forward by a backward motion of the head and fell on the floor, disclosing the face of Detective-Inspector Heather, who was shaking with laughter.
“Well I’m damned!” exclaimed Vereker, laughing in turn. “You again, Heather. I really believe you are shadowing me now.”
“Hardly that, Mr. Vereker,” replied the detective genially, “but there’s such a thing as the convergence of two parallel lines if we are to believe the latest theories of people who wish to put Mr. Euclid in his place.”
“I’m too conservative to believe any new theory, Heather. Euclid was always good enough, I might say too good for me. By the way, have you laid hands on Mr. Drayton C. Bodkin yet. I bear him a distinct grudge for having deceived me so thoroughly.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Drayton C. B
odkin, we’ve got him all right.”
“Good, how did you catch him, and where?”
“Well, to let you into a very great secret, Mr. Vereker, we never lost sight of him for a moment.”
“Splendid, Heather, there are no flies on Scotland Yard, to use one of Mr. Bodkin’s own phrases. Where did you run him to earth?”
“He came right to Scotland Yard after leaving 10 Glendon Street.”
“What an ass!” exclaimed Vereker.
“Not by any means. He’s one of our brightest men. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
“Very little, I should say,” remarked Vereker with supreme sang-froid, “but he errs on the side of inquisitiveness. Did he tell you I was a very informative young man?”
Inspector Heather smiled wryly. The only thing he could tell me about you, Mr. Vereker, was that you kept as nice a drop of whisky as any man he knew.
Vereker burst into loud laughter. “He was the thirstiest detective I’ve ever played host to.”
At this juncture the train ran into Waterloo Junction, where Inspector Heather, after a warm handshake, was about to leave Vereker when his eye suddenly caught sight of the bandage around his burned wrist.
“Hello!” he exclaimed, unable to conceal a look of surprise. “What on earth have you been doing to your wrist?”
Vereker was at once on the alert. Had Heather guessed by any chance how he had come by his injury? It was impossible, but nevertheless he was determined to disclose nothing to the astute inspector.
“Oh, merely a sprain,” he said carelessly.
“How did you manage that?” asked Heather, with what appeared to be inordinate curiosity.
“Oh, one of Layham’s old cars backfired when I was starting her,” lied Vereker glibly.
“Well, good-bye for the present. We shall meet again shortly, no doubt,” said the detective, and departed with a strangely puzzled look on his face.
“Now I wonder what’s pricked old Heather’s curiosity about my injured wrist?” asked Vereker of himself when alone again, and for some moments he gazed at the bandage and pondered. Then, with a sudden start, he exclaimed: “Good Lord, fancy my having forgotten! But it’s impossible—there’s no connection, no motive. Yet it’s a strange coincidence; no wonder it intrigued Heather!”
Vereker was lost in thought. It had been revealed to him in a flash how keenly observant the detective officer was and how little escaped his marvellous memory. He was so absorbed in reverie that it was some time before he was aware that the train had arrived at Charing Cross Station.
Chapter Fourteen
Before returning to Glendon Street, Vereker was obliged to visit his flat to resume once more his disguise of the Rev. Passingham Patmore that he had so rapidly discarded before catching the train to Fordingbridge Junction. He felt, however, that it would now be unnecessary to play the rôle of a cleric much longer—this indeed might be the last occasion. He would call again at Mrs. Parslow’s, get the few things he had taken there, pay his bill and return once more to his flat. He felt there would be little else to do at Mrs. Parslow’s. Farnish would hardly call there again, and, to a certain extent, he had placed Farnish and knew fairly well the extent to which the trusted old butler was involved in the Bygrave case. Nor did he think that Winslade would venture to visit Glendon Street in the hope of meeting Lord Bygrave. Winslade would, as he himself had said, make no further move without hearing from his uncle, to whom he looked for future instructions.
As Vereker strolled lazily westwards his mind reverted to David Winslade with increased uneasiness. The shaky story he had retailed gathered further sinister significance from Mary Standish’s attitude and distressed frame of mind. Vereker would have given something to know just how much she was cognizant of with regard to her lover’s connexion with the disappearance of his uncle. Enough indeed to perturb her unduly. And why tears and depression without some very grave reason? All along Vereker had had, in spite of his former belief in Winslade, some haunting suspicion that he might be inculpated. In every crime there was motive, sometimes unintelligible to the normal mind, but still a motive. Of all the persons connected with the Bygrave mystery, Winslade was the man who would benefit most by his uncle’s disappearance. Vereker had hastily thrust this from his mind during the initial stages of his investigation, but gradually every other line of inquiry had broken down under his keen inspection and flung him back ruthlessly on the one which was most distasteful to him. For, in spite of himself, he liked Winslade and could not readily bring himself to believe that he had had any hand in the disappearance of his uncle against the latter’s will.
The difficulty now was to pursue this line of inquiry. Winslade had been trapped into a visit to Glendon Street, and had on the spur of the moment concocted a story which cleared himself and branded his uncle as a murderer. If it had not been deliberately thought out beforehand it seemed a clever impromptu fabrication. There were two methods which Vereker felt he might pursue. He must either try to discover what had become of the body of Mr. Twistleton, if he had been killed, or Mr. Twistleton alive. In his own mind, from certain deductions he had made after his visit to the Mill House, he was convinced that Mr. Twistleton was alive. Should he discover Mr. Twistleton he would soon arrive at the true part played by David Winslade in the perplexing drama. If Winslade and Twistleton had acted in collusion to ensure Lord Bygrave’s disappearance the problem would then be solved. The second line to pursue was to keep a very guarded eye on Winslade, and through him discover Lord Bygrave’s whereabouts.
There were, however, many little facts which pointed to a much more complex solution of the mystery, but for the time being he chose to keep them in reserve. Those facts would not sufficiently cohere to give him a definite conception of the whole business, but as every day passed he seemed to acquire a clearer view. One or two links were missing in the chain of deduction; should he alight on them, he felt that he could swiftly bring matters to a head. There was nothing for it but perseverance and unlimited patience. On arriving at his flat he was surprised to find that some one was in occupation. As he thrust his latch-key into the lock he heard the sound of movements inside, and on opening the door a pronounced odour of frying steak and onions assailed his nose.
“Who’s that?” came a voice from the studio beyond.
“Who the devil are you?” asked Vereker, a smile flitting across his features, for the voice was familiar to him.
“Look here, Vereker, it’s most inconsiderate of you to turn up like this! I’m afraid I can’t put you up in your own flat at present—there’s no room; you’ll have to go to an hotel. Will you kindly come to Mahomet, for Mahomet can’t come to you; he’s busy with a steak and onions. I wouldn’t spoil them for a ransom—my reputation as a cook— Damn the fat, it scalds like the devil!”
Vereker passed into the studio to find Ricardo, enveloped in his painter’s overall, busy over the stove with a frying-pan.
“Lord, what a stench! By the way, how did you manage to get in, Ricky?”
“Got the key from Stimson—spun him a yarn that I had your permission and so forth. I’d have written to you, but didn’t know just where you were.”
“Have you been kicked out of your digs in Oliver Street?”
“No, my dear old landlady has retired on her ungodly profits; given up the house and gone to live by the wild waves.”
“I suppose there’s some difficulty in finding a new place nowadays?”
“One unsurmountable difficulty: I’ve no money until the governor sends me my monthly cheque. It was a bit of luck my meeting Aubrey Winter yesterday. I hovered about the door of his club about tea-time, and indirectly he bought me this steak and onions. It’s a ghastly world for a literary genius.”
“You’re an improvident devil, Ricky. I suppose your last bean was swallowed by the peach you were raving about the last time I met you.”
“Molly Larcombe, do you mean? Ah, well, de mortuis nil—” replied Ricardo sadly.
“Good heavens, you don’t mean to say she’s dead!” remarked Vereker with surprise.
“No, not in the accepted sense. Only she’s dead as far as I’m concerned. After I’d taken the trouble to fall madly in love with her and proposed, she’d the callousness to tell me that she couldn’t possibly marry a man who hadn’t at least a thousand a year. I believe she’s fond of me, but as she put it, rather unkindly, I think, it wouldn’t be quite fair of me to expect her to wait until the twenty-first century. Lord, but I wish I had that wrist-watch I bought her in a moment of bewildered infatuation!”
“Unromantic thought, Ricky.”
“Perhaps; but look at the pabulum it represents. A man must have food. At present I can do without romance as represented by the modern young woman. Henceforth I’m a cynic, Vereker. No more calf-love for me. The chrysalis that might have burst into an amorous poet shows a grave disposition to become a mere degraded, case-hardened man of the world. I shall write novels in the French manner yet.”
“Never, old son, never; you’re incurable. How long do you intend to stay here?”
“Until the financial horizon clears, Vereker. I can easily make myself a comfortable bed in the studio; I’ve got two overcoats, and my portmanteau makes quite a serviceable pillow. Do you think I’d be in your way?”
“In my way, Ricky? You know me better than that, old man. Make yourself at home; there’s an army camp-bed and bedding parcelled up in my dressing-room. We can feed together if you’ll give a hand at the cooking. When we get tired of our own culinary efforts we’ll go down to Jacques. Are you doing any work?”
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