The Shadow In The House

by Maxwell March

  “Mrs de Liane,” he said, “you are an astute businesswoman, and I think you will understand me if I put the situation to you in the following way. You have private information which you do not hesitate to use to send the shares of a company in which I am interested slowly further and further down. Now I think—correct me if I am wrong—that the very very discreet letter which I received from you two days ago could be interpreted to mean that your memory is not reliable in these matters and that you could be trusted to forget this interesting piece of information which you have if your mind was—shall we say—diverted by the knowledge that a very large sum of money had been transferred from my banking account into yours. There’s a rather ugly word for that, you know.”

  Eva de Liane rose to her feet, walked across the room, opened the door, peered out of the windows and satisfied herself that both she and her visitor were not overheard. Then she resumed her seat and smiled at the man disarmingly.

  “One has to be so careful in business,” she said, adding impudently, “I dare say you find that too.”

  Lord Tollesbury checked an exclamation.

  “Can you answer my question now?” he enquired.

  Mrs de Liane hesitated. “Well … shall I say that you seem to be quite as intelligent as I thought you were?” she said.

  “You admit it?”

  “What a very ugly word! I think you are intelligent. Let’s leave it like that.”

  The man bowed ironically. “Very well then. This is my answer to that letter. I too have private information about another affair, and one which intimately concerns you and your family. I am able to prove that the girl who has married your son and who is reputed to be an heiress to a considerable fortune is nothing more or less than an impostor, a creature used by you to take the place of the real girl, who is dead. If this information should get into the right hands your position would be very precarious, Mrs de Liane. You are an old woman, and a term of imprisonment would rest very heavily upon your shoulders. Well, how do we stand now?”

  He had been watching the woman narrowly as he spoke and was disappointed. She showed no sign of faltering. Her colour was unchanged, and her eyes were still dancing. When he finished she laughed.

  “It’s a very interesting story,” she said, “and one that will amuse my family.”

  He shook his head at her. “I’m not a fool, Mrs de Liane. I should not come to you with a story like this if I did not know it was true. Certain enquiries have been made in Australia, and it may interest you to know that the girl who is masquerading as Marie-Elizabeth Mason does not resemble in any way the real Marie-Elizabeth Mason, your niece and your ward.”

  Mrs de Liane shrugged her shoulders.

  “That would be very extraordinary if it were true,” she said, “and naturally no one would be more interested in such a discovery than I—or more astonished.”

  The emphasis on the last word made him look up.

  “Oh, I see, that’s your game, is it? You’re going to blame it all on the girl—the innocent little girl who tricked you. Oh, very clever, Mrs de Liane! Very clever indeed! But you won’t get away with it, you know. Suppose I go straight to Latcher? What then?”

  Mrs de Liane yawned. “Lawyers move so terribly slowly,” she said. “Have you noticed it? It’s so different on the stock market, isn’t it? Such a lot of damage can be done in a few hours in money matters while lawyers are still writing letters and debating whether they can ring up the police with safety. I was talking to my broker on the telephone just before you came,” she added, apparently as an afterthought.

  Lord Tollesbury’s face grew dark.

  “Is that your final answer?”

  Mrs de Liane smiled. “You’re dying to get to a telephone, aren’t you?” she said. “I’m so sorry I can’t lend you mine. There’s one in the village, only of course they often take such a time to get through. Still, I mustn’t keep you if you want to go. It must be nearly closing time on Change.”

  The man towered above her.

  “You’re playing with fire,” he said. “I’m a very rich man, and I’ll smash you. I’ll smash you whatever it costs me.”

  “I wonder …” said the little old lady.

  He had reached the door when her quiet voice arrested him, and now, with his hand on the knob, he turned and looked at her.

  “What do you wonder?”

  Mrs de Liane smiled. “I wonder if you are so very rich,” she said deliberately. “You put practically all you had in Cosmos, didn’t you? Thank you for telling me this amazing story about the bona fides of my daughter-in-law. I must ask my lawyer to go into them.”

  The man was very pale, and the bones stood out on his thin face, making it very like a skull.

  “Suppose I paid you?” he said contemptuously. “I should have to go on paying. Look here, Mrs de Liane, this is the brutal truth. Perhaps you haven’t been so very far out in your guessing. Do you know what happens when a man who has been blackmailed is bled white? The blackmailer goes to jail. Perhaps you’ve demanded what isn’t there, Mrs de Liane.”

  “Perhaps,” said the old woman judiciously. “But I don’t think so. After all,” she added, surveying the tips of her tiny buckled shoes, “one always has to take risks, doesn’t one?”

  Tollesbury grinned mirthlessly. “Does your daughter-in-law know the risk she’s taking?”

  Mrs de Liane shrugged her shoulders. “Dear Mary,” she said. “She’s such a nice girl. I really couldn’t believe she would do anything dishonest—unless, of course, I had absolute proof.”

  Lord Tollesbury strode out of the house. His car was speeding down the drive at a considerably faster pace than it had entered when Mrs de Liane walked slowly into the library, where her elder son awaited her. At the sight of her face he rose to his feet from the armchair by the fire.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing,” said Mrs de Liane. “He was not quite frightened enough to be reasonable, that’s all.”

  She spoke brightly, but there was a thoughtful expression in her eyes, and when the telephone bell rang she went over to take up the instrument mechanically, a preoccupied expression on her face.

  At the first sound of the voice on the other end of the wire, however, she was alert and interested. Her eyes had narrowed, and Edmund, watching her, saw with sick apprehension the colour slowly ebb out of her cheeks.

  “My dear Mr Latcher, how very extraordinary!” she said, her voice retaining by a superhuman effort much of its old spontaneity. “Really? Are you sure? How terrible! Yes, she’s here—in the house. What shall I do? No no no, we don’t want a scandal. Oh, but how awful! This is dreadful—dreadful!”

  Her voice quivered, and there were actual tears in her eyes.

  “You must advise me. What shall I do? … Yes, I know it’s very awkward—awkward for all of us, you too. … Keep her here until you come in the morning? All right. … Don’t alarm her? No, of course not. Of course not. … What? For my own sake? My dear Mr Latcher, for all our sakes! I can’t believe it. … Goodbye.”

  She had hardly put down the receiver before Beron had caught her by the shoulders. His face was pasty, and beads of sweat had appeared upon his forehead. He shook her in his terror, hardly realizing what he did.

  “He knows!” he said, his voice cracking horribly. “He knows! What are we going to do? How can we get away? Oh my God!”

  “Edmund, pull yourself together.” Mrs de Liane was as white as he, but her lips were firm and her voice studiously controlled. “Tollesbury hasn’t told him—someone else knows. We must work very quickly.”

  “But what can we do?” The man’s face was ludicrous with terror.

  “Lie,” said the old woman calmly. “The girl deceived us. That’s the only way.”

  “But they’ll find out. There’s so much proof. We’re done. They’re going to get us.”

  “Wait—wait.” The little voice cut through his hysteria. “Latcher won’t be here until the morning
. No one but an old-fashioned lawyer would be such a fool as to have phoned. There’s still time. The girl must take the blame. She can stand for everything.”

  “But the police’ll make her talk.” There were tears of pure fear in the man’s eyes. “And when she talks they’re bound to prove some of her story. She’ll talk—she’ll talk!”

  Mrs de Liane raised her hand and laid it over his mouth. She looked very small and very gentle standing there in her grey silk gown, the white curls framing her sweet pink-and-white face, but there was a strange power in her blue eyes.

  “Yes,” she said, and there was something in her voice which sent a thrill of fear through even the man who knew her better than anyone else in the world. “Yes, my dear. Mary must take the blame. That means the police must take her. But does it occur to you, Edmund, that when they take her she may not be able to talk?”

  He gaped at her, but she silenced his unspoken question.

  “We must hurry, my dear boy,” she said. “We haven’t very much time.”

  The two stood looking at one another, the woman so frail and yet so oddly dominant, and the man so weak in his fear for all his physical heaviness.

  “What are you going to do?”

  The words came slurred together from between the thick lips, and Edmund Beron’s small eyes were contracted into little pin points of terror.

  “Edmund, Edmund—” there was strength in the old voice, and the small white hand which Mrs de Liane laid upon her son’s arm gripped his flesh with solid pressure—“pull yourself together. There’s nothing to be afraid of—yet. Go home. Tell Jane that Richard will sleep at your house tonight.”

  “Richard? What are you going to do?”

  A faint smile appeared upon the small, soft mouth.

  “All in good time, my dear,” she said. “All in good time.”

  There was something terrible about the smile, and the man put up his hands in a little involuntary gesture, as though he would hide it from his view.

  “Sometimes you frighten me,” he said.

  Mrs de Liane laughed. “What a sweet boy you are!” she said.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Red Tape

  “MY DEAR SIR PETER, while I appreciate your obvious efforts to help me in every way, really I must protest! I am a professional man, and it is not at all proper for me to discuss a client’s business with a—a stranger.”

  Little Mr Latcher strode about the hearthrug in his slightly old-maidish office like a very small tiger in a large cage. His sparse hair was rumpled into unusual disarray, and he blinked nervously every time he peered at his excited visitor.

  Peter Muir-David rose to his feet. A remarkable change had taken place in his appearance during the last few days. He looked pale and exhausted, and his cheekbones stood out prominently in his haggard face.

  “I know, sir,” he said in a tone which was meant to be conciliatory but in which exasperation was very thinly veiled. “I appreciate your attitude, believe me. It’s quite right, quite understandable, and perfectly proper in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. But you must believe me when I tell you that this is the exception. A girl is in danger, serious danger, and when I ask you to throw discretion to the winds and come with me immediately to Heronhoe I know what I’m asking you. This is no time to hang about, Mr Latcher. Something’s got to be done at once.”

  Mr Latcher bristled, and the faint colour burned in his sallow cheeks.

  “This is outrageous,” he said. “If I didn’t know you for a man of intelligence, Sir Peter, I’m afraid I really should have to ask you to leave my office and—and—er—take your hands off my affairs. I’ve done all I can possibly do at the moment. Acting on the unofficial information I received from you I have—ah—instigated certain enquiries, and I do intend to travel down to Bedfordshire tomorrow morning. Indeed, I think I may tell you without breach of good faith that I have already notified a—er—certain lady who shall be nameless that I intend to visit her in the course of tomorrow morning.”

  “You what——?” The words burst from Peter’s lips, interrupting Mr Latcher’s nervous flow. “You’ve told Mrs de Liane that you’re going down there tomorrow morning? You’ve warned her? Good heavens, d’you know what you’ve done?”

  The horror-stricken words coupled with the young man’s expression impressed Mr Latcher in spite of himself. Nevertheless he stood his ground.

  “I am a very much older man than you are, Sir Peter,” he said, “and perhaps you will forgive me if I tell you that in the course of a very long and I hope not undistinguished career I have never lost my head. In legal affairs one must move circumspectly and with deliberation.”

  “In legal affairs, yes. But this is a matter of life and death.” Peter was trembling. His face was pallid, and his hands, thrust deep into his pockets, were clenched. “Look here,” he went on with a sudden burst of confidence, “you believe that Mrs de Liane is a very honest, straightforward woman who may have been the dupe of an intelligent swindler. I know you are wrong, but I cannot prove it to you in the little time that is left to us. All I ask you is to give me the benefit of the doubt. Come down with me at once and start your enquiries. If you are right no harm will have been done, but if I am right—and I know I am—then a great wrong may be averted, possibly a great crime.”

  “This is most melodramatic,” said Mr Latcher, calmed in spite of himself. “I’m willing to help you in every way, Sir Peter, but I really don’t see how you come into this affair at all. Am I to understand that you have a personal interest in—ah—Mrs de Liane junior?”

  Peter winced at the name. “She is—actually married to him?”

  “Oh, without a doubt.” The little solicitor seemed to derive a certain amount of satisfaction from the announcement. “I have seen the marriage certificate—unless you wish me to believe that that too is a forgery.”

  Peter ignored the thrust. “Mr Latcher,” he said, “do you find the new Mrs de Liane is amazingly extravagant with her new fortune?”

  “That’s an unpardonable question, Sir Peter.” Mr Latcher coloured and bridled at the enormity of the indiscretion. All the same, Peter could see by the anxiety which had crept into his little grey eyes that he had not been far out with his guess.

  “It might be very awkward for everybody,” he went on, pressing his point home, “if any great inroad was made upon the fortune before it was realized that a mistake had been made. The question of good faith might come up and all sorts of things.”

  “My dear sir!” Mr Latcher, now thoroughly roused, positively bounced with rage. “To come into my office, insult me to my face! I tell you I was grateful for your first hint and I’m having investigations made, and when I receive the results of those investigations I shall act, but not before.”

  Peter looked at him helplessly. “I implore you,” he said. “I shall go down there myself, of course, but without your authority I shall be very useless. What can I do, an outsider? It’s in your interests to make use of every assistance I can give you. You know who I am, you know I’m a person of repute most unlikely to lead you on a wild-goose chase. Why won’t you trust me? Since you’ve actually warned that woman absolutely anything may happen.”

  “If you’re suggesting anything in the way of physical violence,” murmured Mr Latcher primly, “I think I may say that even if the utterly unthinkable had occurred and—ah—a certain lady had considered taking such a ridiculous course, my warning must have scotched any such attempt. After all, imagine her position, my dear sir—her legal position—if anything should occur to the girl in the meantime.”

  Peter laughed bitterly. “Mr Latcher,” he said, “your innocence terrifies me. Very well, if you won’t come with me I’ll go alone, but I think you’ll be very sorry.”

  Mr Latcher’s acid reply was cut short by the ringing of the telephone bell on his desk. He picked up the instrument, and Peter, looking at him carefully, saw a flicker of interest in his pale eyes as he recognized the voice on the other e
nd of the wire.

  “Yes,” he said guardedly, “yes. I—ah—I’m not alone at the moment, but if it’s very important … Oh, I see. Yes, well, I’m waiting.”

  Peter could not hear the indistinct murmur of the instrument, but he could and did see Mr Latcher’s changing expression. The little man’s guard was completely broken down. His pale eyes widened, his eyebrows rose until they seemed in danger of disappearing altogether, and the colour came and went in his sallow cheeks.

  “Really!” he said at last. “You—you have proof, you say? … What? … But this is incredible! … Oh yes, I know, I know. Go on. … What hotel? … Oh, I see. … Yes, I’ll come along at once. I—ah—have a very valuable witness here. I’ll bring him along if I can.”

  He hung up the receiver at last and stood for a moment wiping his forehead with a trembling hand At last, and with considerable deliberation, he turned to Peter.

  “I hardly know what to say,” he said in a strangely quiet voice. “It may be that I owe you a sincere apology, Sir Peter. Dear me!” He sat down at his desk. “I think I must take a glass of water, if you don’t mind.”

  Peter waited with impatience while the little man poured himself a drink from a cut-glass carafe on the desk. When he had drained his glass Mr Latcher dabbed his lips with a large white pocket handkerchief.

  “That was a message from my confidential clerk, Lane,” he said. “A remarkable fellow, wonderfully efficient and more tenacious than any detective. He has just made a very extraordinary discovery. I want you to come with me at once to the Hotel Splendide.”

  Peter stood his ground. “No. I’m going straight to Heronhoe.”

  Mr Latcher put out a hand appealingly. “Come to the Hotel Splendide first. If the discovery Lane thinks he has made proves to be correct not only you and I but half Scotland Yard will go to Heronhoe within the next three hours.”

  Peter leant forward. “What is it? What have you found?”

  Mr Latcher shook his head. “No,” he said. “You’re a valuable witness. I dare not put any suggestions into your mind. Come with me at once, and then, if it is true and the utterly miraculous has occurred, we will go to Heronhoe.”