“Sit down,” he said quietly. “There’s more in this than there seemed to be first go off. To begin with, what’s our hypothesis? There are only two possible ones. There is, of course, the real Virginia of the letters. She may have somehow or other tracked him down, shot him, dropped the pistol, stolen the letters, and taken herself off. That’s quite possible, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” said Virginia unwillingly.
“The other hypothesis is a good deal more interesting. Whoever wished to kill Giuseppe, wished also to incriminate you—in fact, that may have been their main object. They could get him easily enough anywhere, but they took extraordinary pains and trouble to get him here, and whoever they were they knew all about you, your cottage at Datchet, your usual household arrangements, and the fact that you were at Ranelagh this afternoon. It seems an absurd question, but have you any enemies, Mrs. Revel?”
“Of course I haven’t—not that kind, anyway.”
“The question is,” said Anthony, “what are we going to do now? There are two courses open to us. A: ring up the police, tell the whole story, and trust to your unassailable position in the world and your hitherto blameless life. B: an attempt on my part to dispose successfully of the body. Naturally my private inclinations urge me to B. I’ve always wanted to see if I couldn’t conceal a crime with the necessary cunning, but have had a squeamish objection to shedding blood. On the whole, I expect A’s the soundest. Then here’s a sort of bowdlerized A. Ring up the police, etc, but suppress the pistol and the blackmailing letters—that is, if they are on him still.”
Anthony ran rapidly through the dead man’s pockets.
“He’s been stripped clean,” he announced. “There’s not a thing on him. There’ll be dirty work at the crossroads over those letters yet. Hullo, what’s this? Hole in the lining—something got caught there, torn roughly out, and a scrap of paper left behind.”
He drew out the scrap of paper as he spoke, and brought it over to the light. Virginia joined him.
“Pity we haven’t got the rest of it,” he muttered. “Chimneys 11:45 Thursday—Sounds like an appointment.”
“Chimneys?” cried Virginia. “How extraordinary!”
“Why extraordinary? Rather high-toned for such a low fellow?”
“I’m going to Chimneys this evening. At least I was.”
Anthony wheeled round on her.
“What’s that? Say that again.”
“I was going to Chimneys this evening,” repeated Virginia.
Anthony stared at her.
“I begin to see. At least, I may be wrong—but it’s an idea. Suppose someone wanted badly to prevent your going to Chimneys?”
“My cousin George Lomax does,” said Virginia with a smile. “But I can’t seriously suspect George of murder.”
Anthony did not smile. He was lost in thought.
“If you ring up the police, its good-bye to any idea of getting to Chimneys today—or even tomorrow. And I should like you to go to Chimneys. I fancy it will disconcert our unknown friends. Mrs. Revel, will you put yourself in my hands?”
“It’s to be Plan B, then?”
“It’s to be Plan B. The first thing is to get that maid of yours out of the house. Can you manage that?”
“Easily.”
Virginia went out in the hall and called up the stairs.
“Elise. Elise.”
“Madame?”
Anthony heard a rapid colloquy, and then the front door opened and shut. Virginia came back into the room.
“She’s gone. I sent her for some special scent—told her the shop in question was open until eight. It won’t be, of course. She’s to follow after me by the next train without coming back here.”
“Good,” said Anthony approvingly. “We can now proceed to the disposal of the body. It’s a timeworn method, but I’m afraid I shall have to ask you if there’s such a thing in the house as a trunk?”
“Of course there is. Come down to the basement and take your choice.”
There was a variety of trunks in the basement. Anthony selected a solid affair of suitable size.
“I’ll attend to this part of it,” he said tactfully. “You go upstairs and get ready to start.”
Virginia obeyed. She slipped out of her tennis kit, put on a soft brown travelling dress and a delightful little orange hat, and came down to find Anthony waiting in the hall with a neatly strapped trunk beside him.
“I should like to tell you the story of my life,” he remarked, “but it’s going to be rather a busy evening. Now this is what you’ve got to do. Call a taxi, have your luggage put on it, including the trunk. Drive to Paddington. There have the trunk put in the Left Luggage Office. I shall be on the platform. As you pass me, drop the cloakroom ticket. I will pick it up and return it to you, but in reality I shall keep it. Go on to Chimneys, and leave the rest to me.”
“It’s awfully good of you,” said Virginia. “It’s really dreadful of me saddling a perfect stranger with a dead body like this.”
“I like it,” returned Anthony nonchalantly. “If one of my friends, Jimmy McGrath, were here, he’d tell you that anything of this kind suits me down to the ground.”
Virginia was staring at him.
“What name did you say? Jimmy McGrath?”
Anthony returned her glance keenly.
“Yes. Why? Have you heard of him?”
“Yes—and quite lately.” She paused irresolutely, and then went on. “Mr. Cade, I must talk to you. Can’t you come down to Chimneys?”
“You’ll see me before very long, Mrs. Revel—I’ll tell you that. Now, exit Conspirator A by back door slinkingly. Exit Conspirator B in blaze of glory by front door to taxi.”
The plan went through without a hitch. Anthony, having picked up a second taxi, was on the platform and duly retrieved the fallen ticket. He then departed in search of a somewhat battered secondhand Morris Cowley which he had acquired earlier in the day in case it should be necessary to his plans.
Returning to Paddington in this, he handed the ticket to the porter, who got the trunk out of the cloakroom and wedged it securely at the back of the car. Anthony drove off.
His objective now was out of London. Through Notting Hill, Shepherd’s Bush, down Goldhawk Road, through Brentford and Hounslow till he came to the long stretch of road midway between Hounslow and Staines. It was a well-frequented road, with motors passing continuously. No footmarks or tyremarks were likely to show. Anthony stopped the car at a certain spot. Getting down, he first obscured the number plate with mud. Then, waiting until he heard no car coming in either direction, he opened the trunk, heaved out Giuseppe’s body, and laid it neatly down by the side of the road, on the inside of a curve, so that the headlights of passing motors would not strike on it.
Then he entered the car again and drove away. The whole business had occupied exactly one minute and a half. He made a detour to the right, returning to London by way of Burnham Beeches. There again he halted the car, and choosing a giant of the forest he deliberately climbed the huge tree. It was something of a feat, even for Anthony. To one of the topmost branches he affixed a small brown-paper parcel, concealing it in a little niche close to the bole.
“A very clever way of disposing of the pistol,” said Anthony to himself with some approval. “Everybody hunts about on the ground, and drags ponds. But there are very few people in England who could climb that tree.”
Next, back to London and Paddington Station. Here he left the trunk—at the other cloakroom this time, the one on the Arrival side. He thought longingly of such things as good rump steaks, juicy chops, and large masses of fried potatoes. But he shook his head ruefully, glancing at his wristwatch. He fed the Morris with a fresh supply of petrol, and then took the road once more. North this time.
It was just after half past eleven that he brought the car to rest in the road adjoining the park of Chimneys. Jumping out he scaled the wall easily enough, and set out towards the house. It took him
longer than he thought, and presently he broke into a run. A great grey mass loomed up out of the darkness—the venerable pile of Chimneys. In the distance a stable clock chimed the three-quarters.
11:45—the time mentioned on the scrap of paper. Anthony was on the terrace now, looking up at the house. Everything seemed dark and quiet.
“They go to bed early, these politicians,” he murmured to himself.
And suddenly a sound smote upon his ears—the sound of a shot. Anthony spun round quickly. The sound had come from within the house—he was sure of that. He waited a minute, but everything was still as death. Finally he went up to one of the long French windows from where he judged the sound that had startled him had come. He tried the handle. It was locked. He tried some of the other windows, listening intently all the while. But the silence remained unbroken.
In the end he told himself that he must have imagined the sound, or perhaps mistaken a stray shot coming from a poacher in the woods. He turned and retraced his steps across the park, vaguely dissatisfied and uneasy.
He looked back at the house, and whilst he looked a light sprang up in one of the windows on the first floor. In another minute it went out again, and the whole place was in darkness once more.
Ten
CHIMNEYS
Inspector Badgworthy in his office. Time, 8:30 a.m. A tall portly man, Inspector Badgworthy, with a heavy regulation tread. Inclined to breathe hard in moments of professional strain. In attendance Constable Johnson, very new to the Force, with a downy unfledged look about him, like a human chicken.
The telephone on the table rang sharply, and the inspector took it up with his usual portentous gravity of action.
“Yes. Police station Market Basing. Inspector Badgworthy speaking. What?”
Slight alteration in the inspector’s manner. As he is greater than Johnson, so others are greater than Inspector Badgworthy.
“Speaking, my lord. I beg your pardon, my lord? I didn’t quite hear what you said?”
Long pause, during which the inspector listens, quite a variety of expressions passing over his usually impassive countenance. Finally he lays down the receiver, after a brief “At once, my lord.”
He turned to Johnson, seeming visibly swelled with importance.
“From his lordship—at Chimneys—murder.”
“Murder,” echoed Johnson, suitably impressed.
“Murder it is,” said the inspector, with great satisfaction.
“Why, there’s never been a murder here—not that I’ve ever heard of—except the time that Tom Pearse shot his sweetheart.”
“And that, in a manner of speaking, wasn’t murder at all, but drink,” said the inspector, deprecatingly.
“He weren’t hanged for it,” agreed Johnson gloomily. “But this is the real thing, is it, sir?”
“It is, Johnson. One of his lordship’s guests, a foreign gentleman, discovered shot. Open window, and footprints outside.”
“I’m sorry it were a foreigner,” said Johnson, with some regret.
It made the murder seem less real. Foreigners, Johnson felt, were liable to be shot.
“His lordship’s in a rare taking,” continued the inspector. “We’ll get hold of Dr. Cartwright and take him up with us right away. I hope to goodness no one will get messing with those footprints.”
Badgworthy was in a seventh heaven. A murder! At Chimneys! Inspector Badgworthy in charge of the case. The police have a clue. Sensational arrest. Promotion and kudos for the aforementioned inspector.
“That is,” said Inspector Badgworthy to himself, “if Scotland Yard doesn’t come butting in.”
The thought damped him momentarily. It seemed so extremely likely to happen under the circumstances.
They stopped at Dr. Cartwright’s, and the doctor, who was a comparatively young man, displayed a keen interest. His attitude was almost exactly that of Johnson.
“Why, bless my soul,” he exclaimed. “We haven’t had a murder here since the time of Tom Pearse.”
All three of them got into the doctor’s little car, and started off briskly for Chimneys. As they passed the local inn, the Jolly Cricketers, the doctor noticed a man standing in the doorway.
“Stranger,” he remarked. “Rather a nice-looking fellow. Wonder how long he’s been here, and what he’s doing staying at the Cricketers? I haven’t seen him about at all. He must have arrived last night.”
“He didn’t come by train,” said Johnson.
Johnson’s brother was the local railway porter, and Johnson was therefore always well up in arrivals and departures.
“Who was here for Chimneys yesterday?” asked the inspector.
“Lady Eileen, she come down by the 3:40, and two gentlemen with her, an American gent and a young Army chap—neither of them with valets. His lordship come down with a foreign gentleman, the one that’s been shot as likely as not, by the 5:40, and the foreign gentleman’s valet. Mr. Eversleigh come by the same train. Mrs. Revel came by the 7:25, and another foreign-looking gentleman came by it too, one with a bald head and a hook nose. Mrs. Revel’s maid came by the 8:56.”
Johnson paused, out of breath.
“And there was no one for the Cricketers?”
Johnson shook his head.
“He must have come by car then,” said the inspector. “Johnson, make a note to institute inquiries at the Cricketers on your way back. We want to know all about any strangers. He was very sunburnt, that gentleman. Likely as not, he’s come from foreign parts too.”
The inspector nodded his head with great sagacity, as though to imply that that was the sort of wide-awake man he was—not to be caught napping under any consideration.
The car passed in through the park gates of Chimneys. Descriptions of that historic place can be found in any guidebook. It is also No. 3 in Historic Homes of England, price 21s. On Thursday, coaches come over from Middlingham and view those portions of it which are open to the public. In view of all these facilities, to describe Chimneys would be superfluous.
They were received at the door by a white-headed butler whose demeanour was perfect.
“We are not accustomed,” it seemed to say, “to having murder committed within these walls. But these are evil days. Let us meet disaster with perfect calm, and pretend with our dying breath that nothing out of the usual has occurred.”
“His lordship,” said the butler, “is expecting you. This way, if you please.”
He led them to a small cosy room which was Lord Caterham’s refuge from the magnificence elsewhere, and announced them.
“The police, my lord, and Dr. Cartwright.”
Lord Caterham was pacing up and down in a visibly agitated state.
“Ha! Inspector, you’ve turned up at last. I’m thankful for that. How are you, Cartwright? This is the very devil of a business, you know. The very devil of a business.”
And Lord Caterham, running his hands through his hair in a frenzied fashion until it stood upright in little tufts, looked even less like a peer of the realm than usual.
“Where’s the body?” asked the doctor, in curt businesslike fashion.
Lord Caterham turned to him as though relieved at being asked a direct question.
“In the Council Chamber—just where it was found—I wouldn’t have it touched. I believed—er—that that was the correct thing to do.”
“Quite right, my lord,” said the inspector approvingly.
He produced a notebook and pencil.
“And who discovered the body? Did you?”
“Good Lord, no,” said Lord Caterham. “You don’t think I usually get up at this unearthly hour in the morning, do you? No, a housemaid found it. She screamed a good deal, I believe. I didn’t hear her myself. Then they came to me about it, and of course I got up and came down—and there it was, you know.”
“You recognized the body as that of one of your guests?”
“That’s right, Inspector.”
“By name?”
This per
fectly simple question seemed to upset Lord Caterham. He opened his mouth once or twice, and then shut it again. Finally he asked feebly:
“Do you mean—do you mean—what was his name?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Well,” said Lord Caterham, looking slowly round the room, as though hoping to gain inspiration. “His name was—I should say it was—yes, decidedly so—Count Stanislaus.”
There was something so odd about Lord Caterham’s manner, that the inspector ceased using his pencil and stared at him instead. But at that moment a diversion occurred which seemed highly welcome to the embarrassed peer.
The door opened and a girl came into the room. She was tall, slim and dark, with an attractive boyish face, and a very determined manner. This was Lady Eileen Brent, commonly known as Bundle, Lord Caterham’s eldest daughter. She nodded to the others, and addressed her father directly.
“I’ve got him,” she announced.
For a moment the inspector was on the point of starting forward under the impression that the young lady had captured the murderer red-handed, but almost immediately he realized that her meaning was quite different.
Lord Caterham uttered a sigh of relief.
“That’s a good job. What did he say?”
“He’s coming over at once. We are to ‘use the utmost discretion.’ ”
Her father made a sound of annoyance.
“That’s just the sort of idiotic thing George Lomax would say. However, once he comes, I shall wash my hands of the whole affair.”
He appeared to cheer up a little at the prospect.
“And the name of the murdered man was Count Stanislaus?” queried the doctor.
A lightning glance passed between father and daughter, and then the former said with some dignity:
“Certainly. I said so just now.”
“I asked because you didn’t seem quite sure about it before,” explained Cartwright.
There was a faint twinkle in his eye, and Lord Caterham looked at him reproachfully.
“I’ll take you to the Council Chamber,” he said more briskly.
They followed him, the inspector bringing up the rear, and darting sharp glances all around him as he went, much as though he expected to find a clue in a picture frame, or behind a door.
The Secret of Chimneys Page 8
