The Unseen Hand

by Edward Marston

  ‘What was her motive?’

  ‘She must have hated the other woman enough to commit murder.’

  ‘Most of us know when we’re hated, Superintendent. We tend to avoid the people who pose a threat to us. If the victim was aware of the danger Vesta Lyle represented, why on earth did she agree to visit the woman in the privacy of a hotel room?’

  ‘That’s what I wondered,’ said Keedy.

  ‘Then you’re both wrong,’ said Chatfield, tetchily. ‘In my opinion, our task is now much easier. Instead of looking for a third person who committed the murder, then abducted Vesta Lyle, we only have to search for the artist herself.’

  ‘We believe that she might also be a victim, sir.’

  ‘Then why hasn’t her body turned up, Sergeant?’

  ‘I can’t answer that.’

  ‘It’s because she was actually responsible for the crime.’

  ‘Once again,’ said Marmion, ‘I come back to the taxi she ordered.’

  When he repeated his theory that Vesta Lyle would never have ordered a taxi if she didn’t expect to use it, he at least had the reward of making Chatfield think twice. After referring to the notes he’d made during Marmion’s report, the superintendent took a different line in the debate.

  ‘Let’s talk about that ball,’ he said. ‘What was Vesta Lyle doing there in the first place?’

  ‘She was taking up an invitation from her cousin,’ said Marmion.

  ‘Surely it was one she’d be far more likely to refuse. Given her predilection for the company of decadent artists, she’d have thought the event would be unbearably stuffy.’

  ‘That was something I raised with Mr and Mrs Farrier. They belong to the county set. Their guest certainly didn’t. She was most at ease in a world where the rules of behaviour are, as you suggest, a little more fluid.’

  Keedy grinned. ‘Nude picnics on the riverbank, for instance.’

  ‘There wasn’t any nudity at the Hunt Ball, Sergeant. You saw that photograph of it. There was an air of formality. Everyone was wearing their best bib and tucker.’

  ‘Vesta Lyle wasn’t. She had to borrow a dress from her cousin.’

  ‘In other words,’ said Marmion, ‘she had to conform for once, and I don’t think she enjoyed that. Why did she do it? The answer, I think, lies in that photograph. She chose to stand next to Sir Godfrey Brice-Cadmore and to look at him in that way. For his part, he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember who she was when he singled her out of that group, but he felt that he somehow knew her. I do hope his relapse is only temporary. If and when he starts to recover,’ he continued, ‘the name of Vesta Lyle might somehow jog his failing memory.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Chatfield, face clouding, ‘there’s something you need to know, Inspector.’

  ‘Is it about Sir Godfrey?’

  ‘We had word earlier that he passed away in his sleep.’

  Marmion felt a stab of grief. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, ‘I am sad to hear that. I’m afraid that he’s another victim of what happened at the Lotus Hotel. It shattered him to learn that someone was pretending to be his wife. He was such a help to us.’

  ‘We can’t expect any more assistance from him.’

  ‘Then we must look elsewhere, sir.’

  ‘In which direction?’ asked Chatfield.

  ‘We need to know much more about Vesta Lyle,’ said Marmion, pensively. ‘The Farriers told us a great deal, but they admitted that they had no idea where the woman was most of the time. There were occasions when cards they sent to her home address in Paris were returned unopened. It’s apparent that she deliberately kept them in the dark about her movements, then popped up in this country when it suited her. Why did she do that?’

  ‘Perhaps she wanted to shock them,’ said Keedy.

  ‘From what we’ve heard about her, I think she’d enjoy giving them an occasional jolt. Look at that painting she gave them.’

  ‘I wish I could.’

  ‘You told me that her husband worked for the government,’ said Chatfield. ‘What exactly did he do?’

  ‘We don’t know, sir,’ said Marmion, ‘but that’s a good starting point. We need to find out a lot more about him and about the nature of their marriage.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Alphonse Dufays.’

  ‘And was he a civil servant?’

  ‘The Farriers were not sure. Having met him that once, they felt he must have been quite senior in the government. According to them, he was obviously well paid. He and his wife had a lovely house in the Paris suburbs, it seems. Is there any way we can get more detail about him from our French counterparts?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ admitted Chatfield. ‘Since the war started, normal channels of communication have disappeared. Everything is controlled by military necessity now. The French police have neither time nor inclination to deal with any random requests.’

  ‘They might if we stressed the importance our enquiry,’ said Marmion. ‘The information we got from them about Alphonse Dufays might help to solve a murder and explain what Vesta Lyle was doing in this country.’

  ‘Her late husband was only one of thousands employed by their government. As far as they’re concerned, he was a minor cog in a vast machine that is now straining all its sinews to fight a war. At this moment in time, nothing else matters to them.’

  ‘That’s a harsh truth but we may have to accept it.’

  Keedy snapped his fingers. ‘I’ve just remembered something.’ The others turned to him. ‘The murder victim was wearing clothing from Paris. Was she a friend of Vesta Lyle’s who’d come over from France?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Marmion.

  ‘In my opinion, it’s very possible.’

  ‘That’s why it’s so frustrating,’ cried Chatfield. ‘We have too many possibilities and no real certainties.’

  ‘We have one certainty, sir.’

  ‘I’m not even convinced about that.’

  ‘We have the name of the guest staying in that room at the Lotus.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The hotel register describes her as Lady Brice-Cadmore, a woman she met at a hunt ball four years earlier.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think Vesta Lyle had any time for the wife,’ said Marmion.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She went to that ball specifically to see Sir Godfrey.’

  ‘Why do you think that, Inspector?’

  ‘It’s because she asked for a copy of that photograph. Apart from the Farriers, everyone else in that group was unknown to her – with one exception. That’s why she stood next to Sir Godfrey Brice-Cadmore.’

  Nervous at the best of times, Millie Jenks was now in a state of almost continuous apprehension. She was terrified to go anywhere near the room where she’d made the grisly discovery and feared that it would haunt her for the rest of her life. When she’d first secured the job at the Lotus, she’d been filled with pride, yet it now seemed like a prison. Millie had thought of leaving but that would mean she was letting down Lena Gosling and the other people who had faith in her. It would also upset her parents who’d been boasting about their clever daughter’s job. In their eyes, even the tedious and unskilled work she did had a distinct lustre because it was in a hotel for the wealthy and titled. Fortunately, both her father and mother were illiterate so they wouldn’t have been able to read news of the murder. Her one source of comfort was that Lena Gosling had looked at all the newspapers ordered daily by the hotel and found no mention of Millie in any of them. She had at least been spared that torture.

  It was Lena who was still propping the girl up. When she found Millie loitering in the laundry room, she put an arm around her.

  ‘It’s no good hiding in here,’ she said. ‘If you have a problem, Millie, you simply have to confront it.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t, Mrs Gosling.’

  ‘It’s a challenge, I know, but I think you’re brave enough to face that challeng
e, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Would you do it if I was by your side?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘That would be cheating, anyway,’ said the older woman, dismissing the idea. ‘It’s something you have to do on your own.’

  ‘I’ve tried,’ whined Millie, ‘I really have. I’ve been there two or three times and, as soon as I see the door to that room, I feel sick.’

  ‘You have to fight against that feeling.’

  ‘I can’t, Mrs Gosling. My stomach starts churning and my legs turn to rubber. Then there’s this pounding in my head.’

  ‘All right,’ said the other, unwilling to cause Millie even more distress. ‘I won’t press you. Just remember what I said. Stop treating that part of the hotel as if it’s out of bounds. It’s getting late now. You go off to bed and make sure you get a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘I haven’t slept a wink since it happened.’

  ‘Give it time, Millie. It will get easier.’

  ‘But it hasn’t, Mrs Gosling,’ said the other. ‘It’s got worse.’

  One of the perquisites of his rank was that Marmion had a police car to take him home. At the end of a very long day, he and Keedy were being driven to their respective addresses. Rain was bucketing down and a gusty wind was hurling it at the windows of the vehicle.

  ‘It’s a nasty night out there,’ said Keedy.

  ‘I know, Joe. It’s in weather like this that I start wondering how Paul is getting on. Does he have shelter? Is he warm and safe? I hate the thought of him being huddled under a hedge somewhere and getting soaked to the skin.’

  ‘Don’t worry about him. He’s a survivor. The army toughened him up. He’ll pull through somehow.’

  ‘I hope so. It’s such a worry.’

  ‘Then it’s a credit to you that you never talk about it when we’re at work. I’m not sure that I could block it out the way that you can, Harv. It would gnaw away at me.’

  ‘I deal with it my way,’ said Marmion. ‘I’ll make a bargain with you. I won’t mention Paul if you promise not to talk about NUPPO again.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ agreed the other. ‘But that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about the union.’

  ‘I accept that, Joe.’

  ‘Let’s talk about Vesta Lyle. She fascinates me.’

  ‘We must get more information about that husband of hers. They seem to have had a very strange marriage.’

  ‘What do you think he made of her nude painting?’

  ‘If he loved her enough to marry her, he must have approved of her work. Most husbands in his position would feel proud of his wife.’

  ‘But very few of us would be in that position,’ said Keedy. ‘How would you like it if your wife disappeared to Poland for an exhibition?’

  ‘If she earned a lot of money there, I think I could cope with her absence. She could pay to get our roof fixed before the winter.’

  Keedy laughed. ‘It was a serious question.’

  ‘Then the serious answer is that I don’t know. We’re dealing with people from a different class, Joe, and the husband is from a different country. He and his wife have their own set of rules. It’s not for us to sit in judgement on those rules.’

  ‘Vesta Lyle lives with a man who obviously has a good income. Most wives in that position wouldn’t even consider working.’

  ‘She’s the odd one out.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she use her married name?’

  ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘Do you think she’s still alive?’

  ‘I’m certain of it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Marmion shrugged. ‘I can’t explain it.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll get an explanation tomorrow,’ said Keedy. ‘Now that we’ve released her name to the press, everyone in the country is going to know that Vesta Lyle, a famous artist, is wanted in connection with a murder. We’ll have the eyes of a nation looking for her.’

  ‘I wish that were true. Unfortunately, it isn’t. The eyes of the nation are too busy scanning the skies for the next air raid or looking at the Channel ports in case there’s a German invasion. We’re competing with the war, Joe. That’s what people will read about tomorrow.’

  Ellen Marmion was perplexed. After the unexpected visit of Rene Bridger, her decision to ignore the lecture by Quentin Dacey had been thrown into doubt. She was now tempted to go, after all. There was someone to accompany her now and that was reassuring. Rene had changed her mind completely and that had a strong effect on Ellen’s judgement. Should she do the same? Her mind was like a pendulum, swinging to and fro at regular intervals. It was dizzying.

  In a bid to get away from making a decision, she picked up her library book and started to read it, trying to shut out everything else. It was a well-intentioned failure. With one novel in her hands, she found herself thinking about the previous one she’d read. The Invasion of 1910 kept forcing its way into her consciousness. There was no escape. After hours of wavering, she made a resolve. No matter how late her husband came home, she would stay awake to speak to him. Unable to make up her own mind, she would turn to him to do it for her.

  When she went to bed, therefore, she put on her dressing gown, left the bedside light on and started on her library book again. Her plan worked. Now that she’d elected to discuss the situation with her husband, she was able to concentrate on her novel and enjoy its sunlit world of romance and drama. Ellen was at last content.

  After dropping Keedy off at his flat, the police car drove on through the driving rain. It was well past midnight now, but Marmion was not weary. His mind was still buzzing with ideas relating to aspects of the case. Though he didn’t entirely agree with the inspector, Chatfield had more or less given him a free hand. Marmion could take whatever initiatives he wished. That was a positive bonus in an investigation where he had to think on his feet and make snap decisions. What made everything so difficult for the detectives was that he and Keedy were outsiders. They were dealing with a hotel frequented almost entirely by female members of the aristocracy, and searching for an artist whose way of life was a mystery to them. To make matters even more complicated, the artist, Vesta Lyle, had lived in France for years in a highly unconventional marriage. The case was mired in mystery.

  When the car pulled up outside his house, Marmion thanked the driver, got out and dashed through the rain to the front door. Letting himself into the house as quietly as he could, he hung up his hat and raincoat then padded softly upstairs. Light was showing under the door of the bedroom. Opening the door gingerly, he saw that Ellen was fast asleep with an open book across her lap. He tiptoed across to her, removed the book gently from its position, then pulled the blanket up over his wife. He placed the book on the bedside table then reached under the pillow for his pyjamas.

  It was a typical night at the Marmion household.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Though she usually slept soundly at the hotel, Griselda Fleetwood had a disturbed night and rose much earlier than usual. By six o’clock, she was already on the prowl. When she came down into the lobby, she saw Rogan seated behind the reception desk. At the sight of the owner, he leapt to his feet.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Fleetwood,’ he said.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you up at this hour.’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. I know it must seem like closing the door after the horse has bolted but I simply had to get out of bed to check everything.’

  ‘That’s my job.’

  ‘What sort of a night has it been?’

  ‘It’s been very quiet, Mrs Fleetwood.’

  ‘Is there anything at all to report?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I only had to let one guest in after midnight. I wish it was always like this. Mr Chell asked me to do my rounds more often and that’s exactly what I did.’

  ‘Good.’ About to move off, she was nudged by a memory. ‘Oh, I know what I meant to ask you. H
ave you seen anything of Maitland, the young porter we took on not long after we first opened?’

  ‘I haven’t seen Ian Maitland for years.’

  ‘Mrs Gosling says that he’s now working at the Roath Court.’

  Rogan feigned surprise. ‘Is he? I didn’t know that.’

  ‘So you’ve never seen him lurking around here?’

  ‘If I had, I’d have reported it to Mr Chell.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘By the way, as I was coming downstairs, I thought I heard the front door being unlocked.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Fleetwood, you did. The newspapers are delivered early. I brought them in.’ Bending down behind the desk, he brought up a small pile of them and set them on the counter. ‘I’ve barely had time to glance at the front pages, but I did notice that there was something about the Lotus on most of them.’

  ‘Let me see,’ she said, grabbing the first newspaper.

  ‘They’ve found out the name of that lady who was staying here.’

  Absorbed in a front-page article, she was no longer listening. The Lotus was given coverage second only to the latest war report. Griselda gritted her teeth as she read on. Casting one newspaper aside, she snatched up another then worked her way steadily through the pile. At length, she looked up in despair.

  ‘They make this place sound like a death trap,’ she protested.

  ‘Ignore them, Mrs Fleetwood.’

  ‘Don’t they realise how much damage they can do to us by printing this kind of drivel? It’s monstrous.’

  ‘The police know who our guest really was, that’s the main thing.’

  ‘Vesta Lyle,’ said Griselda, before tossing the last newspaper aside. ‘Who the devil is she? And why didn’t the police tell me as soon as they knew her name? It’s a conspiracy, that’s what it is,’ she went on, cheek muscles taut. ‘Fighting against the press is a hard enough job, but I have to take on the Metropolitan Police as well now. Just wait until I see Inspector Marmion.’

  Unaware that his name was being taken in vain, Marmion was at that moment stirring in his sleep before coming fully awake. Through one bleary eye, he was just in time to see his wife putting a cup of tea on the bedside table. He murmured his thanks.