The Round Table Murders

by Peter Baron

  “That’s very kind of you,” Barbara laughed.

  “Perhaps you’ll show Mr. Kaye the garden, Barbara?” Ian suggested. “I have one or two letters to write.”

  She nodded, and her uncle made his escape to write letters that existed only in his imagination.

  The other two barely noticed his absence.

  “Of course, I’m not altogether unfamiliar with your name,” she said, as they strolled side by side looking at Ian’s ‘perennials.’ “Inspector Keating speaks of you frequently. I think he regards you as a kind of cross between Confucius and Mahomet.”

  Larry grinned by way of answer. It was the only reply he could make with any safety. Confucius created a little confusion in his mind. He realized that that sort of thing was going to be difficult to maintain. Discovering exactly what characteristics Keating had attributed to his superior, and adopting them, was decidedly going to heighten the zest of this impersonation. But the difference between zest and pest is slight.

  “Inspector Keating is rather a dear, isn’t he?” she continued. “He thinks there is no one quite like you.”

  “There isn’t,” Larry assured her. “I hope Sam painted me with a merciful brush.”

  “Very. Although he doesn’t approve of some of your friends. Notably Harry Stotle.”

  Larry did not rise to that bait very easily.

  “His name for Aristotle,” she explained, and he nodded.

  That was another little point to note. Mentally Larry cursed. The impersonation of a man who read Aristotle and resembled Confucius struck him as a precarious business.

  “But that wasn’t his best,” Barbara continued. “I think the prize winner was the ‘Odd Essay’ of Homer.”

  They both laughed at that, but only one of them really appreciated the joke, and that one was not Larry.

  Skillfully he changed the subject back to the vagaries of Keating. There at least he was on safe ground.

  “Sam’s a quaint old bird, but pretty astute,” he observed. “Do you know him well?”

  “Yes. He used to visit me frequently,” she answered, “but I haven’t seen him for some days.”

  “No. He’s been rather tied down by his work in the East End,” Larry observed, and this time it was only he who enjoyed the joke.

  They halted, and she sat down on a rustic seat facing the small ornamental lake. Larry, seating himself on the raised stone parapet that surrounded the lake, amused himself by tossing pebbles into the water.

  “He’s always given me the impression that you were a particularly mysterious person,” she continued. “I rather hoped I should meet you at the inquest. Were you there?”

  “Yes,” he admitted with perfect truth. “That you did not see me is due to the regrettable ‘mysteriousness’ you alluded to. That inquest was rather a nasty business. Clem Wade was a servant of your uncle’s, wasn’t he?”

  Her face clouded over. “Yes, and a very harmless man, too,” she replied. “I can’t think why any one should wish him dead. It’s all too horrible.”

  “You knew Clem?”

  “Yes, he used to regard me, well, rather amorously. That was a compliment, I suppose. I little thought he would meet his death in that manner.”

  She was silent for a few minutes. Then, “Do you think there is such a person as the Poacher?” she asked, “Or at least that he is in this neighborhood?”

  “I do,” he replied. “That is partly why I am here. That and other reasons. I want the Poacher badly.”

  She looked at him for some moments, and then blurted out, “You don’t think that my uncle is in any danger, do you?”

  Larry looked down and smiled.

  “No, I think your uncle is the one man who is not in danger from the Poacher,” he said, and changed the subject. He had seen Ian approaching through the trees.

  Barbara carried the memory of that remark, and the curious conviction that somewhere before she had encountered the eyes of the maker, with her for the rest of the day. They were certainly rather attractive eyes, dark brown and amusing, and the persistent thought that she had looked into them before worried her not a little.

  Fortunately for Larry’s peace of mind he was not aware of the photograph episode, and even more fortunately Barbara could not recall it.

  Larry also carried the memory of a pair of eyes, and a pair of lips, with him for the rest of the day. For the first time he found himself regretting his beard.

  But he was nothing if not thorough. Before dinner he made an excuse to go down to the village, and returned with two books tucked inside his jacket. Fortunately his entry into the house with a bulging coat was unnoticed, and he reached the privacy of his own room safely, there to study Gurney Ben-ham’s Book of Quotations and another slimmer volume, “Ancient and Modern Classical Quotations”—an obscure work, by an even more obscure author, that the bookseller had begun to regard in the light of an heirloom.

  It had occurred to Larry that they were indispensable to his future safety. None the less a short perusal of the slimmer volume and an attempt to memorize Cicero at his best and brightest did nothing to increase Larry’s love of the role he had adopted, and within half an hour he had tossed the book aside. Strolling down into the library he dropped into an easy chair by the window and stared out into the dusk.

  More than once he glanced across at the lodge and speculated on his prisoner. He was beginning to wonder if he could safely congratulate himself on that piece of work. Kaye had the reputation of being a “slippery customer,” and the manner in which he had been tricked was so simple as to give Larry serious food for thought. That food would have been even more unpalatable had he witnessed the genuine Kaye’s movements at that moment.

  As a butler, the discharge of his duties entailed occasionally attending the front door, and to that fact Kaye owed the good fortune of intercepting a telegram. It was sheer luck that he should have been in the hall at the time when that particular telegram was delivered, yet he betrayed no sign when he saw his own name scrawled on the buff envelope.

  To the messenger’s “Any answer, guv.?” he shook his head, and closing the door, walked off to his own domain, the butler’s pantry. In its seclusion he weighed the telegram thoughtfully in his hand and debated. Obviously it could only be intended for Larry, since any telegram for himself would have been addressed “Crale.” It did not take him long to arrive at a decision, and the next few minutes were taken up by an experiment in which a kettle and the steam issuing from its spout played a great part.

  Within a few seconds he was reading the telegram, and what he saw made him smile, although the message could hardly be construed as humorous. He read it twice, and replacing it, sealed the envelope, and made his way leisurely in search of the rightful owner.

  He found Larry still staring into the dusk, and having delivered the telegram, made the straightening up of a few books an excuse for remaining. He was rather anxious to see Larry’s expression when he read that message.

  But the results were disappointing.

  The telegram was interesting enough to make Larry temporarily oblivious of the butler’s presence, but his expression revealed nothing but a vague interest. Yet the significance of the message might have justified a more startling reception.

  It read “Supt. Kaye. A train leaves Reigate for London at 8:15. Catch it.”

  The signature was even more interesting than the message, and for a full two minutes Larry stared at the two final words, “The Poacher.” Then he crumpled up the telegram and tossed it into the fire.

  “That will be all, Crale,” he said, and made his way to his room to dress for dinner.

  He was not a particularly interesting companion that night, and the game of Bezique that Ian had proposed tried his patience to the utmost, nevertheless, he played on until such time as he could reasonably retire on a plea of tiredness.

  For the first time he doubted the advisability—or, to be more accurate, the safety—of paying his nightly visit for the pur
pose of re victualing Brown. He paid the visit, but his right hand never left the automatic pistol in his pocket.

  Kaye, whose room at the end of the house allowed him a clear view of the drive and the roof of the lodge, watched him go. Ia fact, he had remained up solely for that purpose.

  He also saw Larry return and re-enter the house by the French windows. At least, he saw Larry begin to enter the French windows, and then it happened.

  A sharp report broke the silence, followed by the tinkling of glass. Larry sprang back and flattened himself against the outer wall of the house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  From exactly where the shot had come Larry did not know, neither did he make any immediate attempt to ascertain. The bullet had smashed a pane of glass less than an inch above his head, which hinted at tolerably good marksmanship and an unpleasantly close assailant. So close that he spent five minutes trying to make up his mind whether it was safe to investigate.

  When he at last moved it was the merest fraction of an inch, but it allowed him to look into the moonlit room. It also allowed him to see that the door leading to the hallway slowly opening. It was suddenly pushed wide to reveal Ian Teyst, in his dressing gown, and carrying in one hand a replica of the thing that Larry promptly leveled at him.

  As Ian stared around him Larry stepped into the room, and for one long minute they glared into each other’s eyes. Then Ian’s lips parted in a faint smile and he slipped the automatic he carried into the pocket of his dressing gown.

  “What happened, Kaye?” he asked.

  “I’m wondering. I heard a noise and came down to trace its source. When I opened the window someone took a pot at me.”

  “You mean that this someone was in the room when you entered it?”

  Larry shrugged. It was the safest way of answering. For obvious reasons he could not give the true explanation, but he both could and did return Ian’s suspicious stare.

  “You got down there pretty close on the heels of that shot,” he challenged, and stepped closer. “See anyone?”

  “No. I heard the shot,” Ian answered. “If I had known the target I might not have hurried so much. You can dismiss the idea that I fired at you. I’m not a fool, Kaye, and only a fool would fire at a busy—and miss him.”

  “Let’s have a look at that gun,” snapped Larry, and plunging his hand into the pocket of Ian’s dressing gown suddenly recollected his role. “Got a license for this?”

  “Naturally.”

  Larry examined the gun quickly, satisfied himself that it had its full complement of cartridges, and returned it.

  “We’d better search the house,” he said briefly, and stepped into the hall, followed by the other.

  He was just in time to see Barbara, with Mrs. Greer in attendance, appear in the upper gallery that surrounded the hall.

  “What on earth was that noise?” Barbara galled down.

  Larry looked up at her, and decided that she made rather an attractive picture standing there. She was wearing a blue velvet kimono over the paler blue silk pajamas, and he could just glimpse her daintily pink feet vanishing into blue furry moccasins.

  “I must apologize for disturbing you, Miss Teyst,” he said, with a warning glance at Ian. “I heard a noise and came down to investigate. Unfortunately I tripped over a chair and blundered into the window, breaking a pane of glass.”

  Mrs. Greer, looking like a banshee, mumbled something about “guilty consciences and uneasy heads.”

  “But that report?” Barbara persisted.

  “That, I think, was a shot, Miss Teyst,” said a quiet voice from the other end of the gallery, and all four turned to see the butler fully dressed and carrying a pistol, standing at the open door of his bedroom.

  Larry, at a loss to explain the speaker’s tactless revelation,

  but aware of Barbara’s sudden look of fear, hastily plunged into the breach.

  “You keep pretty late hours, don’t you?” he asked pointedly.

  Kaye shrugged.

  “I did not feel like turning in, so I sat up and read,” he answered, and turning to Ian added, “by candlelight, sir.”

  Ian was not particularly interested in electric light saving. He found his butler an altogether more absorbing study.

  “Did you—see any one?” he asked slowly.

  “No, sir,” answered Kaye. “After the shot I allowed some time to elapse before I ventured into the corridor; I have a wholesome respect for firearms.”

  “You only carry one yourself when you read, eh?” Larry asked.

  “No, sir. The habit was acquired during my service with His Grace—the habit of carrying a revolver, not reading. His Grace hunted all kinds of game and traveled in queer places—although it appears that the carrying of weapons in civilized places can be justified.”

  “What makes you think it was a shot, Crale?” Barbara asked, and Larry interfered promptly to prevent a further tactless revelation.

  “He doesn’t think so. He’s simply been reading Phillips Oppenheim late at night. The noise was made by the chair I overturned.”

  “All the same I don’t see why he’s fully dressed,” she protested. “One usually reads in bed.”

  “As I said, I did not feel like turning in, Miss Teyst. Something in the night air, I suppose. Mr. Kaye seems to have been a victim also.”

  That got home, as he intended it to, but Larry covered a momentary confusion easily.

  “I don’t think you need worry, Miss Teyst. I can assure you that Crale was mistaken.”

  Barbara looked down sleepily. “I suppose you’re right, but I woke up suddenly and the noise startled me. Anyway, I’m dying to get back to bed. If you really must mooch about the house at night, Mr. Kaye, do please carry a torch in future. All the best detectives do.”

  ‘With which barbed shot she turned and walked back along the corridor.

  Larry bowed and looked meaningly at Ian.

  “Something in this Poacher idea, eh?” he asked softly.

  “Possibly, but it was your blood he was after, not mine.”

  “What I want to know,” interrupted Mrs. Greer belligerently from above, “is if an honest woman can sleep in peace——”

  “An honest woman can,” Kaye interjected as he passed her on his way downstairs. “Good-night.”

  She glared at him angrily and bounced off in the direction of her bedroom, leaving him to join Larry and Ian in the hall.

  “Well, what do you want?” Larry demanded.

  “Merely to see if our friend the Poacher left any useful due, sir.”

  “Who said anything about the Poacher?”

  Kaye regarded Larry innocently.

  “Is there any doubt in your mind as to the identity of your assailant, sir?” he asked.

  “Poacher—assailant—shots—you’ve certainly been reading Oppenheim,” Larry said.

  “And what the devil do you mean by scaring my niece, Crale?” Ian demanded angrily.

  Kaye smiled deprecatingly.

  “Scaring, sir? I merely answered her question, truthfully. After all, an overturned chair doesn’t leave a smell of cordite, sir.”

  He sniffed suggestively.

  “Have it your own way, only don’t blurt these things out. You’ll scare the women.”

  “Anything could scare Mrs. Greer, sir.”

  “Never mind that,” Larry broke in. “We’ve lost whatever chance we had of catching our elusive friend. This place ought to have been searched before he got away.”

  “I don’t think you would have found many traces of—the person in question, sir,” Kaye answered. “The Poacher covers his tracks very effectively.”

  “All the same the place ought to be searched,” Ian protested. “He can’t have got far yet.”

  “Always supposing that he went anywhere.” This from Kaye with a peculiar emphasis that made Larry look at him sharply.

  “Yes, that shot was fired from this room, not from the garden,” he said. “In fact, I shouldn�
��t be altogether surprised if this turned out to be an inside job.”

  His gaze wandered curiously from Ian to Kaye, but it was the latter who challenged him.

  “And I should be surprised if it turned out that it was not.”

  His tone was quite impersonal, but both his hearers detected an undercurrent.

  “I think I’ll look at that gun of yours, Crale,” Larry said slowly.

  Kaye tendered the weapon he held, and there was a sly smile on his face as he watched Larry examine it. Larry discovered the reason for that smile when he found that the automatic was unloaded. He returned it with a scowl and looked suspiciously at Kaye as the other switched on the lights of the morning-room and crossed to the window.

  “I think we might possibly trace the bullet, sir,” he suggested to Ian, who had followed him. “We should then know definitely if it was fired from inside the house.”

  If he was aware that Larry was watching him intently he gave no sign of it as he passed out into the garden.

  Both of them saw him throw away a piece of twig which he had picked up by mistake, but neither of them saw him deftly palm something else. The something else was a cartridge case.

  He walked about for a few moments and then re-entered the room, “Nothing there, sir.”

  “All right, that’ll be all from you,” said Larry. “Ill see you in the morning,” and in that he was correct.

  The circumstances of the meeting were peculiar.

  Larry had left the house before the rest of its inmates were down, partly because he wanted to feed the captive Brown, but more particularly because he wanted to make a trip into the town and had no intention of being overlooked. It was particularly essential that his visit to a shop where they sold, among other things, periscopes, should not be observed. Which was a pity, because it was observed.

  Leaving the shop with the periscope carefully hidden beneath his coat he ran straight into the arms of Superintendent Kaye. It was a meeting that surprised only one of them. Kaye, entirely unperturbed and decidedly the family retainer, produced a telegram and proffered it to Larry.

  “This came after you left, sir,” he said coolly. “It was thought that it might be urgent—in view of your profession—so I came out to try and find you.”