Dana Vaughan became transformed from a woman to an actress. Her features took on an expression of lofty disdain, and her eyes blazed fiercely at Knollis. “You appear to have a bee in your bonnet,” she said frigidly. “May I ask how you arrive at the four-year notion?”
“Simply,” Knollis replied. “I am thinking of the theme of The Hempen Rope.”
Her hand went to her throat in a protective gesture. “The—theme! I don’t profess to understand, Inspector.”
Knollis clasped his hands and leaned across the table. “It seems that I must refresh your memory, Miss Vaughan. The play deals with a society lady who marries beneath herself in the social sense. She is immediately faced with the jibes and cold shoulders of her previous friends, but rides out the storm on the satisfaction of her husband’s love for her. She then discovers that he was at one time an assistant executioner in an American gaol. The rest of the play deals with her efforts to resolve the situation, and ends with her murdering the person who informed her of her husband’s late profession. The working-out of the situation does not concern me in the least, but I do assert that the main theme is based on the life of Mildred Manchester, albeit the positions of the main characters are reversed.”
Dana Vaughan slowly nodded. “There is a certain resemblance of situation,” she admitted, “but then you must remember, Inspector, that the number of situations available to the dramatist and the writer is low—thirty-six to be exact, and not all of those are allowable or desirable as dramatic material. A mere handful are used over and over again. No dramatist can truthfully say that the theme of a play is original, because whether he is conscious of it or not he is working on ground already well covered by his predecessors.”
“That much I understand,” said Knollis, “but coincidence is one thing I do not believe in.”
Dana Vaughan nodded again. “Coincidences, Inspector, although not allowable in drama, do happen in real life. Further to the argument, I must remind you that I am an actress, and that the play was written by Leslie Danvers!”
“And you are Leslie Danvers,” said Knollis.
She tensed herself as Knollis shot the statement at her. “So you know that as well. . . .”
“I have already told you, Miss Vaughan, that the Yard has unique sources of information at its disposal, although no great brain-power is needed to get beneath the nom de plume of a playwright. I don’t know why you wish to hide your identity as the author of the play from me, but I do assure you that I know a great deal about you, and also about Mrs. Manchester, and Mr. Brailsford.”
“Brailsford,” she said slowly. “You know plenty about him? Then you have the advantage of me, Inspector. The man puzzles me . . .”
“I am sure that he does,” Knollis said cynically, “but for the moment we are discussing your knowledge of Mrs. Manchester’s parentage. I suppose you will admit now that you knew Mrs. Manchester’s secret many years ago?”
“Ye-es,” she answered. “There would appear to be no point in denying it, would there? I was told by Desmond Brailsford.”
“How long ago, Miss Vaughan?”
“Oh, about four and a half years ago. I was taking a Mediterranean cruise, and Brailsford forced his company on me. He tried to impress me by pointing out various well-known, and not so well-known, personages who were on board. Among them was Mildred—she was single then, and calling herself Martin. He told me who she was. He said that he had visited some house where she had been engaged as governess-companion—although how he had discovered her secret I can’t say.”
“Manchester was on the same boat?” asked Knollis.
“Oh yes, Freddy was there, throwing his money about and trying his damnedest to push into the various sets which wanted none of him. He had tacked himself securely on to Mildred long before we made the home port.”
“And your interest in Mildred Marlin?”
Dana Vaughan shrugged her shoulders. “I may as well tell the whole of the truth now that I have started. I had written two plays as Leslie Danvers, and they had been well received. I wondered if there was anything in Milly’s personality, plus her past, which might provide dramatic material. That is the way of it, Inspector; we live on the blood and tears of the people who pay to see us.”
“You engaged her friendship?” Knollis suggested.
“Yes—and I am frank about it now. The friendship endured beyond the period of the cruise, and I began to see her as she really was, a tragic figure. Someone has said that tragedy is not what people do, but what happens to them, and it seemed to me that life had made a great deal happen to Mildred. She had never had a chance. From the point of view of a reader or a playgoer she was a sympathetic character, and as we play on sympathy and empathy—feeling for and feeling with a character—I went ahead with The Hempen Rope. She had not told me her secret, and I was satisfied that I was betraying no confidences. All I knew of her came from outside. Well, I wrote the play, and it went into production. It was well received, and I played in it for three and a half years. Milly told me her story, and the thing began to work on my nerves. I began to feel that I had in reality betrayed a confidence, and rationalised my conduct. It was impossible for me to break my contract, and so I feigned a nervous breakdown and slipped out by the back way as it were.”
“And now,” Knollis nodded, “you are supposed to be convalescing at Baxmanhurst. What is your real reason for coming here?”
Dana Vaughan lifted her eyes and gave Knollis a direct glance. “You really want to know, Inspector?”
“I asked you,” he stated bluntly.
“I am watching over her, protecting her.”
“From whom?”
“Both Fred and Desmond.”
Knollis gave a deep sigh. “Please continue, Miss Vaughan.”
She took a deep breath, and rushed the words as she answered: “Desmond Brailsford is blackmailing her—and I can’t prove that statement!”
“Explain your reason,” said Knollis. “Perhaps I can help you to sort out your suspicions.”
“I—I can’t explain myself,” she replied lamely. “Up to the time of Fred’s death on Tuesday there was a peculiar atmosphere in this house. It was a house of undercurrents—oh, I know all this will sound silly to a man of the world like yourself who deals only in hard facts, but I am susceptible to atmosphere, and I know that something evil was at work. I know it! If I name both Fred and Desmond as the authors of it I am merely guessing—or using a woman’s intuition. Please don’t laugh at me, Inspector!” she pleaded.
“You hinted that Brailsford was blackmailing his—his hostess,” said Knollis, and bit his tongue for the slip it nearly caused him to make. “Have you any facts whatsoever to substantiate your suspicions? I am in no way ridiculing your intuitions, but a charge of extortion must be based, obviously, on some fact, no matter how trivial.”
Dana Vaughan jumped up from her chair and paced the room, her hands clasped before her. “I have a variety of reasons for reaching my conclusions, Inspector. For some reason or other, Fred would not allow her to go into town, even with myself or himself as escort. At least once a week she would hand me a cheque in the privacy of her room and ask me to cash it for her. It was always made payable to me, and the sums ranged from twenty-five to fifty pounds. I would return from town with the notes, hand them to her, and that was that as far as I was concerned. She never spent a penny herself, for Freddy paid all household bills by cheque. Her dressmaker, manicurist, coiffeur—they all came from town to Baxmanhurst, and Freddy again paid by cheque. I suspected that the money was going to Desmond, but could not prove it until a fortnight ago, when I made a small dot with a pencil point on each of the notes I drew from the bank. Later that same day I asked Desmond if he could give me three pound notes for six ten-shilling ones, giving as my reason that they were bulging my purse. He obliged me. Two of them were marked with a pencil dot. Wait a minute—”
She went to the dressing-table and returned with her handbag. She took her purse
from it, and from the purse produced a handful of pound notes, the top two of which she detached and handed to Knollis.
“The dots are in the top right-hand corner, Inspector. As far as I am concerned, those two notes prove conclusively that Milly is paying Desmond for—what? Perhaps you can suggest a reason, Inspector?”
Knollis smiled dryly, and shook his head. “I haven’t a notion. This is a brand-new development as far as I am concerned. Perhaps you have a suggestion, Miss Vaughan?”
“Well,” she replied, at last coming to a halt before him, “I can only suggest that he is holding the secret of her parentage over her head, and threatening to expose it if she does not pay up. The exposure would make her position untenable in this district.”
“Miss Vaughan,” said Knollis; “in your opinion, did Fred Manchester know that his wife was Marlin’s daughter?”
“I don’t know,” she said with hesitation. “It would explain his refusal to let her go out, wouldn’t it? If he did know, he wouldn’t want her to be recognised.”
“That was running through my own mind,” said Knollis. “Now can you suggest any reason why he should have been, well, murdered? It is a horrible word, but the correct one.”
Dana Vaughan covered her eyes with her hands. “It is awful! I think you must excuse me now, Inspector.”
“Certainly,” said Knollis, rising. “I would like to ask you one question before I leave you . . .”
She uncovered her eyes, and stared somewhat wildly, perhaps fearfully at him.
“Why did you go down to the Green Alley on Tuesday evening?”
“Must I answer that?” she asked in a low voice.
“Either now or later, Miss Vaughan. Either now or at the eventual court proceedings—and I am a discreet man!” said Knollis.
“We-ell, Freeman told me that Sir Giles was there.”
“Yes, Miss Vaughan?” Knollis said gently.
“He had gone when I reached the alley, but I hung around for a few minutes, and then walked into the hurst, hoping to see him. I did not, so I returned to the house, and to my room.”
“Ah!” said Knollis. “So you would see the axe?”
“Yes,” she replied. “It was leaning against the wall of the annexe, close by the doorway.”
“And the newspaper? You saw that?”
She nodded. “It was pushed behind the spout that runs down the wall.”
Knollis coughed discreetly. “Miss Vaughan, may I suggest that Sir Giles is your second reason for visiting Baxmanhurst?”
She looked him full in the face for a second, and then lowered her gaze to the floor. “Yes, Inspector, you may, but I am afraid that Giles is not aware of it. I’m afraid he sees in me a woman some years older than himself—which I am not, although my experience may be greater.”
She fought for a short minute to control her features, and then an expression of intense hate lighted them. “Giles doesn’t see me,” she whispered, “and meanwhile I have to endure the persistent attentions of Desmond—the swine! I can’t get away from him because I must be near Giles. It’s hell! Hell, I tell you! And one day I’ll do something to him!”
“Similar to what was done to Fred Manchester,” Knollis said with a nod.
Dana Vaughan blinked. “To Fred Manchester? I didn’t kill him, Inspector—but I think I know who did! And if I could prove it . . .”
“You think that Brailsford did it, don’t you?” said Knollis.
Dana Vaughan’s hands fell to her sides, and she sank into a chair. “I can’t prove it,” she said simply.
CHAPTER XIV
THE TACTICS OF KNOLLIS
Ellis was seated at the breakfast-table when Knollis entered the dining-room at the Crown on the following morning. He looked up and smiled a good morning.
“Travelled all night?” Knollis asked as he joined him at table.
Ellis shook his head. “Landed at one this morning, but decided not to wake you.”
“For which relief, much thanks,” said Knollis. “What kind of luck did you have, if any?”
“Quite fair, but nothing startling,” Ellis replied. “Want to hear it now?”
“I think not. We are due to confer with Colonel Mowbray at nine o’clock, and you may as well tell it then and save yourself the agonies of a second recital. This porridge is quite good, isn’t it?”
“It is for peace-time,” said Ellis. They both propped up their morning papers and disappeared behind them.
The nine-o’clock conference resolved into a three-sided discussion, although the Chief Constable, Colonel Mowbray, was desperately anxious for Knollis to say that he was within sight of the end of the case. Knollis refused to commit himself. “The case is ended when we have arrested our man, and have enough evidence to satisfy the Director of Public Prosecutions. We haven’t reached that point yet.”
“But you must have some idea,” protested the Chief Constable.
“Maybe,” Knollis replied, “but ideas unsupported by facts have never been legal tender in the police world. Anyway, sir, I think we should hear the results of Ellis’s trip to London.”
The Chief Constable shrugged, and grumbled. “Oh well, if you wish it that way!”
“Let’s have it, Ellis,” said Knollis.
Ellis laid a pack of large envelopes on the table.
“I took your cigarette case—which I will return—and had photographs taken of Brailsford’s prints. He is not known at the Yard, but I brought the photos along in case. They are in the envelope marked A. While this was being done, I went and sought out Miss Vaughan’s doctor. He was a bit starchy at first, but eventually consented to come clean with the main details of her illness. He says that she was suffering from overwork and nerve strain. Her main symptoms were occasional lapses of memory, and a tendency to talk to herself when she thought she was alone—a matter he learned from her maid. She further complained that she was having a succession of nightmares, which appeared to consist of distorted and garbled versions of the play she was in, and which, she told him, were horribly real and not at all like a play. I asked him what she meant by that, and he said that according to her description it was as if the murder was taking place in real life, and not on a stage. There were none of the footlights or other impedimenta of the theatre. He says that her condition was alarming, and he prescribed a bromide and a complete absence from the stage for a period of not less than six months.”
“Interesting so far,” commented Knollis.
“I asked him about the alleged attack on the maid,” continued Ellis, “and he said there was ample evidence that it had, in fact, taken place. La Vaughan herself telephoned him in the middle of the night. When he got to her flat he found the maid in a collapsed condition, and bearing marks on her throat which indicated that someone had tried to strangle her. La Vaughan admitted that she was responsible. Her story was that she had suffered a particularly gruesome nightmare, and awoke to find herself trying to snuff the maid. It was then that he ordered the complete rest.”
“And the maid?” asked Colonel Mowbray.
“I dug her up after a fair amount of trouble—and help,” said Ellis. “She is now employed by Greta Fairchild, who has taken La Vaughan’s part in the play. She was very reluctant to talk, but I managed to persuade her that I was acting on Vaughan’s behalf, or at any rate in her interests. . . .”
Knollis smothered a smile.
“. . . and she came clean. Vaughan had tried to strangle her in the middle of the night, and it was her struggles that had roused Vaughan from her trance, sleep, or what have you. Vaughan was horribly shocked by what had happened, and rang for the doctor. The maid was fond of Vaughan, and consented to keep it quiet because she loved her—after Vaughan had promised her twenty quid, paid for a holiday, and promised to find her a new employer.”
“Darn queer story,” said the Chief Constable.
“It now gets queerer,” said Ellis. “I went along to see Miss Fairchild, and a fair child she is. I wouldn’t mind t
aking her out to dinner.”
Colonel Mowbray chuckled. “You did say dinner?”
“I said dinner, sir,” Ellis replied innocently. “I went about the interview in a roundabout way, and found out what I wanted to know. The sum total of her story is this. A week before the strangling took place, La Vaughan asked Fairchild how she felt about stepping into the part. Fairchild was her understudy and wanted nothing better. She says that she was overjoyed. She jumped at the opportunity—and then Vaughan said there was a condition; she must take Flint, the maid, into her employ. Fairchild hesitated over this, and then realised that she would be able to afford it on the increased salary.”
“Sounds like a spot of premeditation,” said the Chief Constable as he breathed on his monocle and fished a silk handkerchief from his pocket.
“There is one other factor,” said Ellis, “to be taken into consideration. Vaughan offered her the use of the flat for six months. A week later, the strangling takes place, the doctor orders the complete rest, Vaughan offers her the job with Fairchild and Vaughan packed to come to Baxmanhurst.”
Knollis nodded. “It all fits in very nicely. Vaughan has admitted that she faked the illness to come to Baxmanhurst. She couldn’t break her contract any other way without it being detrimental to her career. Her avowed reason for coming to Baxmanhurst is that she wanted to protect Mildred from Desmond Brailsford and Manchester.”
The Chief Constable smiled for the first time during the interview. “That wraps that part of the case up very nicely. You’ve done a good job of work, Ellis. Now, Knollis, you left instructions last night for several jobs, and the results were on my desk this morning. There was, as you suspected, a minute trace of chloral hydrate in the wrapped bottle you sent in, and two sets of prints, imperfect ones, but still prints.”
He threw a set of photographs across the table.
“Here are Temple’s prints, taken last night. He has definitely handled the bottle. I’m now wondering if the other set may have something about them akin to Brailsford’s, in Ellis’s photos?”
The Threefold Cord Page 16
