Four Strange Women

by E. R. Punshon

  Only why?

  And was there any significance in the fact that old Mrs. Frayton, too, was interested in tennis—as indeed seemed to be all the women whose names had been mentioned, or with whom he had come in contact, during his inquiries? All, that is, except Mrs. Reynolds, the tragic wife of the missing chauffeur, and, of course, the Mrs. Jane Jones, who whomsoever she might be, was not, Bobby was well convinced, Mrs. Jane Jones.

  And of her, an uncomfortable and disconcerting impression was forming itself in his mind that now she had so completely disappeared nothing more would be seen or heard of her—unless indeed it pleased her to re-appear again of her own free will.

  A mistake, he supposed, to have let her go, and yet he did not quite see what other action could have been taken? The English law, he told himself moodily, is really very stuffy about detaining people, except for those good, plain, simple, straightforward reasons that appeal to busy, overworked magistrates.

  Bobby gave it up, but determined that as soon as time and opportunity served, he would go and have a chat with the Mrs. Reynolds now reported as living quietly with her sister in Cardiff, selling sweets and cigarettes. A placid life, Bobby thought, and one in no way calculated to make creeps go up and down any policeman’s back—or the back of any other person. He wondered whether to have copies of the Reynolds photographs sent to Devon to see if they could be recognized as of the man who had called at the garage there and given his name as Reynolds. Then he reflected that an identification, even if obtained, would be of small value after so long an interval and when there had been so brief an interview.

  Much inclined to wonder whether he had or had not secured useful information, Bobby went on from the Yard to Count de Legett’s address in Curzon Street, only to be told that the Count was at his office in the city. No difficulty was made about giving the office address or the name of the firm, Messrs. Perceval and Wilde, manufacturers’ agents, in which the Count was a partner.

  Bobby took himself accordingly to the city and on the way, since ‘manufacturers’ agents’ is a term that can cover many activities, decided it would be wise to call at the headquarters of the city police to see if he could get a word with a certain chief inspector, reputed to know more about shady financiers, share pushers, doubtful company promoters, and others of the kidney, than anyone else, even than any financial editor or journalist. When he knew whom Bobby wanted information about, the city chief inspector smiled broadly:—

  “Why, he has not been up to anything, has he?” he asked. “I thought he was quite a reformed character.”

  “Reformed?” Bobby repeated. “In what way reformed?”

  “Well,” the other answered, “reformed, you know, changed. That’s the word—changed. What are you staring at?”

  CHAPTER XIV

  HAPPINESS

  Bobby hesitated before replying, a trifle unwilling, unable indeed, to explain in what queer, ominous way that word ‘changed’ had sounded in his ears. The chief inspector was looking at him curiously. Bobby said:—

  “Sorry. It’s nothing. Only ever since this business began I seem to have been hearing of nothing but people being ‘changed’. And then the next thing is they’re dead and no one knows how or why.”

  “Baird case you mean?” the chief inspector asked. “You mustn’t let it get you down,” he said.

  “No,” said Bobby. ‘‘There are other things, too,” he said. “There was an old boy I was talking to the other day. He said nothing sent a man to the devil so quick as when the wrong woman got hold of him. Is there anything like that has changed this chap?”

  “De Legett? but he’s not going to the devil, it’s the other direction this time. At least, that’s what it looks like. Reformed character. Fact. These last months he has—well, changed, if it doesn’t give you the willies when I say so. He used rather to go the pace—wine, women, and song sort of bird. You know. Though if that had been all we should never have heard of him. But he was getting mixed up with a shady set in the city. There was one scheme they had on hand—a daisy. We never had to go into it officially because it never came to a head. Nearly but not quite. We were all set to pinch one or two of ’em on a preliminary charge and Mr. Count de Legett would have been the first. Then something happened. Got wind we were on to them most likely. It was called off. We kept an eye on ’em all the same and presently we got to hear the same game was being started again, only in a new form and smarter than ever. Looked like being one of those swindles just on the edge it’s old Harry to prove or even to stop. We had a conference about it and no one knew what we could do. Might have run our heads into an action for libel. It looked as if we would have to let her rip till they made some slip up—if they ever did, and it was plain they were going to be jolly careful. Next thing we knew was the whole thing had been called off again. I wondered what was up and I went to a bit of trouble to get a chance to ask the bird who had thought the scheme out in the first place. He was so mad he spilt the whole thing. De Legett had developed scruples—‘gone pi’, was how the chap put it, and you ought to have heard the way he said it. De Legett told ’em to chuck it, and if they didn’t then he would blow the whole thing to the big financial papers. We both felt sure De Legett was playing his own hand. Well, he wasn’t. What came out was that he was going to get married; that the girl was an angel on earth, same as they all are, bless ’em; that he felt he had to be worthy of her; and all the rest of the sloppy talk that just naturally oozes out of a man when it gets him on the point of the chin that he isn’t fit to kiss the earth she treads on. Doesn’t last long as a rule, because he soon gets to know the angel has a tongue of her own—fingernails, too, sometimes, with a good sharp point to ’em. So far, though, it seems to be lasting all right with De Legett. He just sheds sweetness an’ light all around, raises salaries before he’s asked, wine, women and song cut out for good, works like a horse trying to pull his business together. It’s a sound, old established affair—manufacturers’ agents— but it had got into a rut, and he’s going hammer and tongs to get a move on it.”

  “Is it his own?”

  “Managing director. It’s a private company—Perceval, Wilde, and Co. Perceval’s dead, but his widow’s a director and attends meetings. I don’t suppose she counts for much. Wilde is oldish and a bit of an invalid, so it is really De Legett’s show. I believe Wilde was getting uneasy over some of De Legett’s activities, and was even talking of having a show down, but he seems quite happy again now De Legett’s turned over a new leaf.”

  “Queer story,” Bobby said meditatively.

  “Queer world,” said the chief inspector as one who knew. “Any idea who the girl is?” asked Bobby.

  The chief inspector shook his head.

  “Never went into that,” he said, “not our affair. But now you mention it I remember hearing his staff was boiling over with curiosity. Neither Mr. Wilde nor Mrs. Perceval had any notion who had worked the miracle and De Legett wouldn’t say. I gathered Mrs. Perceval was extra keen on knowing because she wouldn’t have minded taking on the job herself—reforming De Legett, I mean. She seems rather a lively young widow by all accounts.”

  “Does she ride a motor-cycle?” Bobby asked abruptly.

  “Not that I know of. Quite likely. Plenty of ’em do—girls, I mean. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Bobby answered, slightly ashamed of the fresh idea that had for the moment again fantastically flashed into his mind. “Thanks awfully for what you’ve told me. I’ll push on and see if I can get a few words with De Legett. I may get some sort of pointer from him. He was practically on the spot about the time of Mr. White’s death.”

  “Not much to go on, have to be careful how you put it,” the chief inspector warned him. “I thought you were on something different when you asked about him. One of my contacts told me he’s raised quite a good lump of money recently—some thousands. Rather looked as if he might be starting his old games, but up to the present there’s been nothing to suggest anything l
ike that. Possibly he wants a good round sum for marriage settlements.”

  “I suppose he is really a count?”

  “Oh, yes, that’s genuine enough. It does sound a bit fishy, counts being what counts often are when they drift about London. But he’s in the reference books. They got the title in the eighteenth century from some continental johnny and they claim one of our kings gave permission for its use. No documentary evidence, but the title has been used in a direct line from father to son for a couple of centuries or so. Good enough, I suppose. Not legal of course, in law he is just plain Louis de Legett, commonly known as Count, etc. You can’t call the title a fake in any way.”

  “No,” agreed Bobby. “Well, I’ll push along and thanks again.”

  “You’ll find it all O.K. with him at present,” the chief inspector repeated. “Just now he wouldn’t touch with a barge pole anything he thinks his girl mightn’t quite approve of. It takes some chaps that way. A girl mayn’t say a word or know a thing about it and yet somehow she can make you see it all differently. You know,” said the chief inspector thoughtfully, “that Kipling chap had it all wrong—it ought to be, down to Gehenna or up to the stars, he travels the fastest who has a girl poking him on. It’s funny,” said the chief inspector, “it’s damn funny, but it’s so. Lord knows how they do it. I don’t.” In a sudden burst of confidence he leaned nearer to Bobby and almost whispered:— “If it hadn’t been for my old woman I wouldn’t be here. Taking the wrong turning, I was, like the girl in the play, and she yanked me back. That Kipling bloke, he didn’t know his onions, not for nuts he didn’t. But then he was a poet and only looking for a rhyme likely as not.”

  Bobby agreed that that was only too likely, poets also being what poets are, and made his way forthwith to the offices of Messrs. Perceval and Wilde. He found them in an ancient, rather out of the way alley not far from St. Paul’s. They hadn’t a very prosperous appearance, but then in the city of London, among all places in the world, it is never safe to judge by appearance. The staff did not seem very large, and Bobby had no difficulty in obtaining an immediate interview with Mr. De Legett—Bobby noticed that here the ‘Count’ seemed dropped and the reference was always to ‘Mr.’ De Legett. He noticed, too, that while he was in the office the telephone never rang, and in a modern office the number of phone calls is often a fair indication of the amount of business done. Still the clerks seemed to have enough to occupy them, and Mr. De Legett’s desk, when Bobby was shown in, indicated a fair measure of activity by the number of the various documents strewn about it. ‘A sound but not progressive business’ had been the chief inspector’s description and Bobby thought it seemed accurate.

  Sub-consciously he had been expecting to see some one of the foreign manner and appearance appropriate to the title of count. He saw instead a very typical young Englishman, with the high cheek bones and imperious nose of his kind. The only difference lay in his large, imaginative eyes, and a small round chin not often allied with a dominant and beak-like nose. In every other respect, in his neat, well-fitting attire, his carefully groomed appearance, his air of efficiency and authority, he bore the unmistakable stamp of the British public school and university that either forms a boy to its own mould or breaks him in the process. These impressions, however, Bobby was but half conscious of at the moment, he formulated them only later in thinking over the interview. What attracted his attention at the moment was first the very pleasant, friendly, welcoming smile with which the young man greeted him, and secondly the fact that on the mantelpiece, between a small clock and a large calendar exhorting the world to ‘Do it now’, stood a photograph of Lady May Grayson.

  It was about the only object in the room that was not strictly business-like. The phone, the filing cabinet, the shelf of reference books, the basket trays for letters answered and unanswered, all alike were such as can be seen in almost every city office. The interest Bobby showed in the photograph and that he did not attempt to hide, apparently did not attract De Legett’s attention. Possibly he was used to seeing his visitors’ eyes drawn to that presentation of feminine beauty, a little out of place in this efficient looking office. Evidently he had hoped that Bobby’s call had some connection with a business proposition and he appeared both very surprised and a little bit disappointed when Bobby began to explain his errand.

  “I saw something about it in the papers,” he agreed. “A man named Baird, wasn’t it? Poor chap. Hard luck.” He paused and Bobby had the impression that he was contrasting Baird’s luck with his own, and that this contrast made him more sympathetic to the other’s tragic fate. “Some chaps do seem to get it in the neck, don’t they? I suppose we can’t all be—” He paused then and did not finish the sentence, and Bobby felt convinced he had been about to say ‘—like me’, and then had felt that seemed too much like gloating over the contrast he was drawing inwardly between what had happened to Baird and his own good fortune.

  “I thought perhaps there were one or two points you might be able to help us in,” Bobby said.

  “Me?” exclaimed De Legett looking now very bewildered. “Good lord, how?”

  “I think you knew Mr. Andrew White?”

  “I don’t think so, not that I can remember,” De Legett answered, looking more and more puzzled. “Who is he? In what connection? Client, do you mean?”

  “He was the head of a big firm in the food products line,” Bobby explained. “He was found dead in a cottage in Wales—”

  “Oh, of course,” De Legett interrupted. “I remember that all right. Made quite a fuss at the time. No one could make it out. But we had nothing to do with his firm— quite out of our line of country. I never met him personally either. He was in a much bigger way, you know.”

  “There were certain features in the case that are curiously like some of those in the Baird case,” Bobby continued.

  “Yes. Well?” De Legett said, with the same air of untroubled but friendly interest. He added, as Bobby did not reply at once:— “I haven’t seen much about Baird’s death. I just skimmed it through. Poor blighter. The paper was trying to hint at murder, but it sounded to me more as if he had done it himself. I remember about Andy White though. If you had said Andy White instead of Mr. Andrew White I should have known at once who you meant. He was always called Andy White. I happened to be in the neighbourhood just about the same time, and I remember being asked if I had seen anything of him. I shouldn’t have known him if I had, and anyway I had no idea he was hanging about there.” Bobby found himself wondering whether the frank and ready admission was a proof of innocence or whether it had been made because of a guess that the fact was already known and could not therefore be denied.

  “Was there any connection, private, business, in any way whatever, between your presence in the locality and Mr. White’s?”

  “Good lord, no. I’ve told you I didn’t know the chap from Adam. Look here, what’s all this about?”

  He still appeared to be quite unperturbed, though a good deal puzzled. His manner was perfectly friendly, too; that of a man confidently expecting a reasonable and satisfactory explanation to questions which he did not at the moment understand.

  “It’s merely this,” Bobby explained. “I am trying to clear away the non-essentials so as to get at what really counts, if I can. I would like to say, please, with all the emphasis I can, that I’ve a reason for my questions, even though you think I’m being impertinent. Impertinent in the sense that they may prove not—pertinent, is likely enough. But not impertinent in the sense of being mere cheek. So I hope you will answer them as fully and freely as you can. If you will give me that help, it may be a very great help indeed.”

  “Well, fire ahead,” De Legett answered, “though I haven’t the foggiest what you’re getting at.”

  “Mr. Leonard Glynne was with you at that time?”

  “That’s right, but what on earth?”

  Bobby lifted a hand to check him.

  “What was the reason for your meeting?”
>
  “Business,” answered De Legett briefly. He was keeping his temper admirably, but a faint note of impatience sounded now in his voice, to remind Bobby that friendly and amiable as so far he had been, his temper was beginning to wear. “Why ask me? Why not ask Glynne?”

  “For one thing, you are in London and Mr. Glynne lives in Midwych.”

  “He has a place up by the Edgware Road somewhere,” De Legett answered. “He’s often there.”

  Bobby received this information with no sign of interest, even though it startled him, for the Edgware Road vicinity was beginning to acquire for him a sinister significance. “Can you give me the address?” he asked.

  “Well, I think you had better ask Glynne himself,” De Legett answered. “I’m not even sure now where it is exactly—though I daresay I’ve got a note of it somewhere. Still, I think you had better ask him.”

  “Who was your business with?”

  “Well, what do you suppose? I’ve just told you that’s why Glynne and I met.”

  “You mean it was business between your two selves? But why meet at an hotel in Wales instead of here in your office, especially if Mr. Glynne has a London address, too?”

  “It was more convenient, that’s all. I run up north fairly often to see my principals and nose around for any chance there may be of a new agency. Glynne knew I was in Liverpool for a day or two and knew it wouldn’t be much out of my way for me to stop off where he said. He was helping a Mrs. Frayton run a tennis tournament on the Welsh coast at the time, so it was handy for him, too.”

  “Mrs. Frayton? Did you say Mrs. Frayton?” Bobby asked.

  “Yes. What about it. Why?”

  “I remembered the name, that’s all,” Bobby answered slowly, while to himself he wondered what the meaning might be of the strange way in which this case seemed ever to go round and round in circles. “There was a big jewellery robbery, wasn’t there?” he asked.