by Peter Baron
“My dear man,” she protested, “what do I know about interviewing butlers? There have been so few in my pure young life. I shouldn’t know what to say.”
“Oh, be a sport,” he urged. “The procedure is quite simple. Ask him—er—if he’s had any experience and that sort of thing, and if he’s got good references, or if he’s given to liaisons with cooks.”
“Could you see the ex-butler to a duke pouring out his guilty passion into Mrs. Greer’s large and over-acquisitive ears?” she demanded.
“Hardly,” he answered, but that “over-acquisitive” had shaken him. For Barbara to even suspect Mrs. Greer of any misdemeanor whatever was dangerous. He made a mental note to warn the old lady.
“Then I can take it that you will see Crale?” he asked.
“All right. I’ll see him,” she agreed. “I shan’t engage him if he looks the clandestine liaison type. I shouldn’t like to expose Mrs. Greer to the sordid side of life.”
He didn’t like that. There had been nothing but light raillery in her words, but the tone in which she had uttered them struck him as peculiar.
“I’m afraid you’ve been listening to Keating,” he said slowly.
“Haven’t seen him for days, but you must agree that the worthy Mrs. Greer behaved a little curiously recently.”
He let it go at that and Barbara herself made no further reference to the matter, but nevertheless Ian felt a certain sense of uneasiness as he left the house that morning.
So did Barbara. Interviewing butlers was not her strong point and an hour later she regretted her decision to interview this one. “Mr. Crale” when ushered in by Mrs. Greer confirmed her worst fears. He was essentially what she felt an ex-butler to a Duke should be. Very correctly garbed, a little portly, and exceedingly smooth of face. It was rather a cherubic face, she reflected, but the mask of respectful serenity awed her. She felt almost as though their positions were reversed—as though she were the supplicant and he the employer.
“Er—won’t you sit down, Mr. Crale?” she invited uneasily.
“Thank you, madam.”
Worse and worse. His voice was absolutely a masterpiece of modulated respect—pleasant but placative.
She made three bad breaks and then blurted out, “Of course, you’ve had considerable experience, Mr. Crale?”
His expression indicated politely that he would not have applied for the position in any other circumstances.
“Considerable, as you say, madam,” he agreed and for a moment she thought that his eyes twinkled amusedly. The next moment she was sure that they had not. They fixed themselves gravely on her.
“I served many years with His Grace the Duke of Banff, as I had the honor to tell you in my letter, and previously with some of the best English families.”
She looked suitably awed.
“And your reason for leaving His Grace?” she asked.
He eyed her thoughtfully, albeit respectfully.
“His Grace, madam, was of somewhat unsettled habits. At my time of life globe-trotting is no longer a pastime that my heart—or my feet—will allow me to enjoy.”
Barbara suppressed a mischievous desire to add “or your figure.” Instead she said, “His Grace traveled?”
“Precisely, madam. It was a little disturbing—never knowing whether our next night would be spent in Lucknow or Labrador—figuratively speaking.”
He went on to describe service with other gentlemen and produced references. Within a few minutes Barbara realized that she was dealing with a force that she could not control. She never quite knew how she arrived at her decision to engage Crale. It was induced in her by a sort of persuasive suavity that emanated from him. At all events she found herself trying to arrange terms.
“And you are prepared to accept our—“ she had been going to say “wage,” but in connection with the courteous Crale it seemed sacrilegious, and she substituted “offer?”
“Perfectly, madam. When would you wish me to take up my duties?”
“Oh—er—at once.”
“That will be admirable, madam—forgive me, but I do not know your name.”
“Miss Teyst,” she answered. “Are you a nervous man, Crale?”
“Hardly, madam. His Grace slept with a firearm under his pillow and carried it continually during the day. There were occasions when it went off.”
“I wasn’t thinking of firearms,” she replied. “This house has rather a peculiar atmosphere. Nothing one can trace but—well—local agencies have been unable to find local people to take the position.”
She found herself blushing under that gently inquiring gaze.
“Perhaps I am over susceptible to impression,” she hurried on, “but your predecessor—”
“——was murdered. Quite. I understood that from the local paper. A very painful affair, but unlikely to affect me, madam.”
He rose, and she rang the small bell on Ian’s table.
“You would like to go to your room, and change?”
“Thank you, madam. Will you be dining in?”
“Er—no. Mr. Teyst will be in to dinner.”
With a nod that she tried to make casual she dismissed him to the care of Mrs. Greer, who waddled off with her portly charge in tow.
In the seclusion of his own room, “Mr. Walter Crale” sat down and enjoyed the joke. In twenty years, Superintendent Kaye had been many things, but until that time, never a butler. The possibilities he foresaw had their perils. Perils in the overcoming of which a small volume on “Deportment for Domestics” was to play a great part.
Nevertheless he came through the first ordeal—that of serving Ian’s dinner—successfully. Chiefly because Ian was not a particularly keen observer of Deportment in Domestics. Besides his mind was occupied with an attempt to remember where he had seen the butler before. On three successive occasions their eyes clashed, and on the third Ian sat back and looked steadfastly at “Crale.”
“Have I ever met you before, Crale?” he asked abruptly. “Possibly, sir. You were perhaps a guest of His Grace, or of Mr. Winterton at some time?”
“No. I have seen you recently, but not at the houses of either of the gentlemen you mention.”
“Possibly at the inquest on my predecessor, sir?”
Ian looked down at his plate. The word “inquest” had supplied the necessary link, and in a flash he had placed his man. Although he had no definite proof, he was practically certain that “Crale” was the man he had seen at the foot of the drive on the night that Clem met his death.
It gave him something to think about, and throughout the rest of the meal, which was one of the most uncomfortable he had even eaten, he kept his eyes rigidly averted from the butler. “Crale,” on his part, executed his dudes quietly and efficiently and retired.
He left behind him a very alert gentleman. To say the least of it Ian was curious. There might, of course, be nothing in the theory, and any one of a number of coincidences might have explained the butler’s presence in the drive that night, but Ian followed a profession in which the long arm of coincidence played a small part. Peculiar “coincidence” usually had a bearing on one’s existence, and this one prompted him to detain Kaye as the other was on the point of leaving the room, after having deposited a cup of strong black coffee at Ian’s elbow.
“I’ll have that in my room, please,” he said, and Kaye followed him across the hall and into his study. As Ian seated himself he looked across at the other.
“Were you always a butler, Crale?” he asked, selecting a cigarette from the silver box at his elbow.
“No, sir.”
“Indeed. What else have you been?”
Crale lighted a match and held it to Ian’s cigarette before replying.
“A footman, sir,” he answered coolly, and there was just the faintest hint of derision in his tone. Ian noted it, and his next question was almost brusque.
“And before that?”
“A hall boy, sir. Will that be all, sir?”
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br /> “Yes, thanks, that will be all.”
As soon as he was aware that he was alone Ian took the opportunity of verifying Crale’s references by a telephone call to the town house of the Duke of Banff. Fortunately the noble gentleman was at home and answered the telephone in person.
Kaye, who overheard the conversation, smiled placidly. He knew that his credentials were quite satisfactory, but was wondering privately how his ducal cousin—several times removed—was taking this new development. His Grace had never approved his cousin’s first choice of career—that of the Force—and neither had he been overwhelmed with joy at Kaye’s announcement that he was going to adopt a butler’s livery. To be asked to testify to the efficiency of the man wearing that livery would probably induce him to write a letter of remonstrance in the grand manner to his erring cousin.
Kaye’s eyes flickered humorously as he walked out into the garden to have a cigarette. He was not blind to the significance of Ian’s telephone conversation, but until then was unaware that he had been observed in the drive on the night that Clem died. For that was the only occasion when Ian could have seen him. He himself had seen Ian appear at one of the upper windows and dodged away into cover in the hope that he had escaped detection. Apparently he had failed.
Finishing his cigarette he returned to the pantry and completed his duties under the critical eyes of Mrs. Greer, who was seated in the only comfortable chair that the room possessed, munching fruit.
“Good for rheumatism,” she explained, starting on her fourth apple. “No one knows what I suffer from rheumatism and other complaints. I’ve had ‘em all at one time and another.”
“Personally I should say that you were a martyr to consumption,” Kaye said sympathetically.
The suggestion appealed to Mrs. Greer, but being unaware of the symptoms of that disease she trod warily.
“Consumption?”
“Yes, excessive consumption,” said Kaye regarding the dish of fruit pointedly.
Mrs. Greer did not see the point and rambled on unsuspiciously.
“And slaving here doesn’t do me any good. Time was when I didn’t work at all. Had me own private income, but the war—“ she sighed profoundly. “You weren’t always a butler, were you?”
“No,” Kaye replied. “As I had the honor to explain to Mr. Teyst—I was once a human being.”
She scratched her nose. It was not ladylike, but it stimulated thought.
“You don’t look the domestic service type. You’re like me—reduced in circumstances. Now, if my husband was alive——.”
“You’d be no better off,” Kaye interrupted quietly.
She suspended further thought stimulation to look up sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“Simply that if ‘Flash’ were alive at this moment he’d be enjoying one of the concert parties arranged by the Governor of Princetown for the entertainment of his guests.”
“‘Flash’,” she panted. “When did you hear that name?”
“The last time I heard of ‘Flash’ Sam Greer,” he answered, “he had two weeks to live.”
“What d’ye mean,” she screamed suddenly. “What do you know about him?”
“‘Flash’,” said Kaye deliberately, “tried to break into Berkeley’s Bank in Lewisham. He stole a police uniform and posed as the man on that beat. Unfortunately he forgot one thing. Lewisham is in the ‘P’ Division, and Sam was wearing the uniform of a man belonging to the ‘W’ Division. The bank caretaker spotted the Divisional letter on Sam’s collar and tumbled to the game. In the scrap ‘Flash’ wounded the caretaker fatally, and was caught at Southampton.”
She half rose and stared at him with panic in her eyes.
“You know a lot about it,” she said fearfully. “Who are you?”
“Does that matter?” he asked, but even as he spoke he saw recognition dawning in her eyes.
“You’re the fellow I saw standing at the end of the drive on the night—“ She broke off panting and stared wildly at him.
“Whatever you saw you can keep to yourself,” Kaye retorted coolly, “or I may be tempted to ask what you know about the death of Clem Wade!”
She fell back limply in her chair.
“Gawd—I never did it, honest,” she whispered, “and I won’t breathe a word not even to Ian. Honest—I never did it. You believe me, don’t you?”
Kaye looked at her thoughtfully and then walked out of the kitchen without answering.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Detective Sergeant Brown had no vices and only two virtues—a conscientious regard for duty and a love of fresh air. For the last two hours he had been able to gratify neither of those virtues. Seated in his superior’s private room at the “Red Lion” he reflected coldly on Superintendent Kaye’s lack of either of the virtues referred to.
To sit in a chair and smoke for three solid hours was not Brown’s idea of a conscientious regard for duty and neither did it betray any particular love of fresh air. But no one had ever accused Superintendent Kaye of an overwhelming desire for fresh air. Both his doctor and his insurance company had advised him against taking it in the daytime or in excessive quantities—both with the object of prolonging his life.
He was fond of saying that he had reached the age of forty-seven because he had never made a move in broad daylight when there was the slightest possibility of making the same move by night. And there was a certain amount of truth in the statement. The gentlemen who had waited for him with airguns were legion.
All of which Detective Sergeant Brown appreciated, but none the less it irked him. So much so that his irritation became apparent to his superior. Kaye grinned whimsically across at his tall and rather good looking assistant.
“‘They also serve who only stand and wait’,” he said and added “even if they only sit. The quotation is Milton’s—the amendment, mine.”
Brown was not interested either in the quotation or the amendment. The only amendment that he could think of was that they should adjourn forthwith.
“Well, I can’t see any point in hanging about this beastly hotel, sir,” he said defensively. “If you’ve got it all nicely wrapped up for the Poacher, why not let him have it where it’ll do him most good? The odds are if you stick round here he’ll smell a rat and sheer off.”
“Not he. He thinks he’s secure, and so he is up to a point, but ‘prosperity engenders sloth,’ as Livy has it. When our friend becomes slothful I shall step in and his little game will be up.”
“So will your number,” grunted Brown. “The Poacher’s a gunman and you offer a pretty good mark.”
Kaye dreamily watched a smoke ring dissolve. “ ‘He who fears death has already lost the life he covets’,” he quoted lightly. “You ought to read Cato, Brown, he elevates.”
“I don’t want elevation, I want air,” said Brown.
Chin in hand, he pondered his grievances, and having arranged them in chronological order was about to fire them at his superior when a knock on the door dislocated the opening speech for the plaintiff. Crossing the room, he opened the door with unnecessary violence.
The waiter who stood outside backed a trifle before Brown’s scowl and some of the expectancy vanished from his expression.
“Mr. Crale, sir?” he asked proffering a letter.
Brown took the letter and tossed it surlily to Kaye.
“Will that be all, sir?” ventured the waiter and “Yes it will,” snarled Brown and slammed the door.
Kaye, an amused spectator, slit the envelope and disclosed a smaller one addressed to himself under his correct name. Opening that in turn he read the brief note it contained.
“Dear Kaye,
“This is where I come out strong. Our friend Larry has gone north and I’m interested. I’ll write when there’s some definite news, from
“Yours
“S.K.”
Superintendent Kaye laughed softly.
“Poor old Sam. I must tell Storm to stop forwarding S
am’s letters. They make me laugh too much, which is bad for the waist line. Read that, Brown.”
Brown took the letter disinterestedly but speedily forgot his grouch.
“Looks as though the Inspector had got a line on Wade, sir,” he offered. “In which case we can’t do much good down here—stuck in this darn hotel.”
“No you don’t,” retorted Kaye. “We’re staying here, but it certainly looks as if I can’t rely on Inspector Keating’s assistance. Which is a pity, because Sam, if a very much misunderstood man, is a very useful person.”
He rose to his feet. So did Brown, hopefully.
“Going for a breather?”
“Yes, alone,” Kaye answered. “I want to punt round Ian Teyst’s house for a bit. Go out if you like. Try and get in by ten. I may have something for you to do.”
Gathering up his hat he sauntered out and went down to the lounge.
At the booking clerk’s desk he asked for a copy of the “Reigate Courier” and running a finger down the advertisements allowed his finger to rest finally on one that appeared to interest him.
It was the advertisement that Barbara had inserted the day before, and turning, Kaye surveyed himself in a glass over the desk. He came to the conclusion that Keating had not been far out in his statement that he, Kaye, was absolutely “cut out for a butler.” The reflection seemed to cause him some amusement, but he continued to be amused for some moments after the original cause had passed from his mind.
He strolled to the door, taking care that his sidelong glance in passing did not rest too long on the figure of the gentleman in a brown suit lounging in front of the small electric fire.
Larry, stroking his newly-acquired beard, was unaware of that brief scrutiny. At the moment he was rather wrapped up in himself. His identity was very effectively concealed and there was nothing to suggest that he was anything but the artist that he posed as. Nothing except his eyes—and who was interested in a man’s eyes?
Nobody but Superintendent Kaye. It was his trade. He had caught but one glimpse of the “artist’s” face, but it had been sufficient. For while he could not remember the beard, he could not forget the eyes. Superintendent Kaye specialized in eyes. Nothing was hidden from his own.