Four Strange Women

by E. R. Punshon

  Lord Henry gave him a twisted smile.

  “Oh, she thought of that,” he said. “She thought of everything. She said she would keep a look out, and if you didn’t turn up by noon she would come herself to let me loose.”

  “Well, it’s noon now,” Bobby said, glancing at a clock on the mantelpiece. There was a knock at the door. “That’ll be the doctor,” Bobby said and went to open it.

  When he did so, it was Becky Glynne he saw standing there.

  “Oh, you, you,” he stammered, and she stared back at him with a dismay and a surprise equal to his own.

  “Oh, you, you,” she repeated, echoing him. Recovering slightly she said:— “It is Lord Henry Darmoor’s, isn’t it? I wanted to see him. It doesn’t matter. I’ll come back another time. I rang up but I couldn’t get an answer. I’ll come back.”

  She was turning to go but Bobby stopped her.

  “Were you here last night?” he asked, and the thought was in his mind that her famous ‘cannon ball’ service could have been well diverted to the swinging of a stocking filled for the occasion with sand.

  From within came Lord Henry’s voice in a shout:—

  “I won’t see any one, I tell you I won’t see any one.”

  Ignoring utterly Bobby’s question, though it had plainly startled her, Becky said:—

  “I will come another time.”

  She turned and began to hurry away. Bobby called to her to stop and made a step or two to follow her. As he did so a violent push from behind sent him staggering across the corridor against the opposite wall. His hat and his umbrella came flying after him and before he could recover himself the door of the flat was violently slammed. Lord Henry had seen and seized his opportunity.

  Ruefully Bobby picked up hat and umbrella. He felt it was no use knocking for re-admission and he had lost Miss Glynne, who had darted into the lift and was probably already out of the building. There was nothing for him to do but to depart also, deeply puzzled by this new development and as worried and uneasy as ever he had been in all his life. Again and again he was being faced with this problem of an unknown woman, whom he could never identify, about whom all information was always refused or else profession of ignorance made. And if he did seem to find some sort of trace or indication, invariably it was each time someone different to whom that trace or indication appeared to lead. Yet possibly all these hints and indications he had seemed to find, were all misleading, all the creation of his own too active fancy. It might be, for instance, that Leonard Glynne was not really living with any woman. The traces of feminine influence visible in his flat might merely be due to the passing presence of his sister. It might be that Becky shared the flat with him when she came to town. And her recent visit might be entirely unconnected with recent events. Lady May’s photograph was widely circulated and no doubt to be found in many odd places. Mrs. Reynolds might have fled from him merely to avoid further police questioning, and the woman who seemed so fond of singing Welsh songs might be merely an ordinary street singer. Nor was there any real proof, for that matter, that it really had been General Hannay whom Marsh had seen the other night. Possibly Marsh had been deceived by some chance resemblance, Miss Hannay had merely been offended at finding a policeman enquiring for her father, and some girl perhaps merely amusing herself with the impressionable little Mr. Eyton.

  Not that Bobby for one moment really believed all this, but his head was beginning to go round with the strangeness and the multiplicity of his thoughts. In the entrance hall he found the attendant he had spoken to in the corridor outside Lord Henry’s flat.

  “Lord Henry is in,” Bobby told this man, “but I don’t think he is in a fit condition to be alone. I persuaded him to let me ring up a doctor”— Bobby repeated the name and address of the doctor Lord Henry had mentioned—“so I expect he’ll be here in a few minutes. I couldn’t stay myself because Lord Henry wouldn’t let me, and I shouldn’t be much surprised if he didn’t refuse to let the doctor in. You might give the doctor my card and tell him what I say. I am quite sure myself Lord Henry needs attention.”

  The man, suitably impressed, promised to do as requested, and Bobby added carelessly:—

  “Oh, by the way, are you sure you didn’t recognize the lady who came in with him last night?”

  “Quite sure,” the man answered, and added:—“If there’s any funny work, I don’t want to be mixed up in it. End up with me getting the sack as like as not. If you want to know anything more, you go and see the manager.”

  “So I would,” Bobby answered, “only I don’t think there’s anything he could tell me—or you either for that matter.”

  The man looked relieved, and Bobby, in the act of turning away, shot out another question:—

  “Did you notice the lady’s shoes?”

  “Shoes?” the other answered staring. “No. Why? Why should I?”

  “Marble floor,” Bobby pointed out. “Heels of lady’s shoes rather go tap-tap on it, don’t they? I’ve noticed that. Did hers, do you remember?”

  “Well, I did notice,” agreed the man, “how quiet she went—there was no one else about, quiet time it was before the tenants come back when they’ve been out for the evening. I do remember now you mention it how quiet they walked across the floor, none of that tap-tapping from high heels.” He seemed suddenly to take alarm. “Look here,” he said, “I don’t know what’s on, but, police or no police, I’m answering no more of your questions. You go and see the manager, if you want to.”

  Bobby produced half a crown and handed it over. “What you’ve told me may be very important,” he said. “I don’t know yet and I don’t quite see where it fits in, but I expect I shall dream of high heels to-night.”

  “But she hadn’t high heels,” the attendant protested.

  I know, I know,” Bobby said as he hurried away.

  CHAPTER XXI

  DEDUCTIONS

  All this had taken so much time that Bobby’s very healthy appetite now asserted itself and he went to look for luncheon. This, he has always felt, was natural and defensible. Even detectives must eat. But he did linger over his meal longer than was absolutely necessary. Coffee and a cigarette are merely agreeable accessories. He knows they could very well have been dispensed with, and so have been saved twenty or thirty minutes that might, though of course also they might not, have meant so much. True, he had much to think over after his recent experience, but the time for thought was later on, not now when action was required. Also he proceeded to Count de Legett’s office by bus and even walked part of the way for the sake of his digestion. That, however, was natural, since taxis are luxuries whose appearance in an expense sheet is apt to cause a minor earthquake. Of course, had he known what urgency there was, a taxi there would have been, even if he had to pay for it himself, but on the whole he does not feel that, the cigarette and coffee apart, he can accuse himself of any waste of time.

  However, regrets are futile, as regrets always are, and the simple fact is that when he reached De Legett’s office, he found it smiling and excited, as gay indeed as an old- fashioned and extremely dingy London office can well be, and learnt that Mr. de Legett had departed about ten minutes previously, that his destination was unknown, but not his purpose, and that when he returned to work in a few days he would return as a married man and would introduce to his staff his newly-wedded wife whose identity, he had said smilingly, must, for certain reasons, be kept a secret till then.

  “We are all awfully excited at the idea of seeing her,” one of the clerks told Bobby. “He’s taken such pains to keep it dark.”

  “No one has any idea who she is?” Bobby asked.

  “Not the foggiest,” said the clerk. “He’s been as close as an oyster.”

  “No one knows where he has gone?” Bobby asked again.

  “Not the foggiest,” repeated the clerk. “We’re running a sweepstake—seaside, country, South of France, Italy, Switzerland, Paris, elsewhere, and two blanks, of which,” added the
clerk ruefully, “I’ve drawn one—just my luck.”

  Bobby thought grimly that there was yet another destination that to him, at least, seemed possible—the destination that had been reached already by others in strange and sinister procession.

  He left in a troubled and depressed mood, and it was now he began to remember that half-hour or so he had spent dawdling over coffee and cigarette. Now it seemed there was nothing to be done but wait and hope for some sign to show his fears were unfounded.

  He went back to Bond Street and there, after talking for a little to the commissionaire, he asked if he could see Mr. Higham. Permission was only secured with some difficulty, Mr. Higham not being much inclined to disturb himself for any official under the rank of superintendent at the least —chief constables and assistant commissioners preferred.

  Bobby’s insistence prevailed in the end, and Mr. Higham, imposing, aged, and dignified, but still very alert, explained at once that in no circumstances except perhaps in the case of a direct order from the courts, would he even refer to any transaction with any client. Bobby pointed out that he already knew a good deal, and gave details to prove it. Mr. Higham retorted that if clients chose to talk about their own business, that was their own business, but made no difference to the absolute discretion his firm had always and would always observe. Under pressure, however, he agreed, and even admitted that it was puzzling, so far as so Olympian a person could be puzzled, that up to the present nothing had been heard of the missing Byatt sapphires or of those other pieces of jewellery disposed of by the firm in which Inspector Owen seemed so curiously interested. The diamond ear-rings and pendant stolen by the chauffeur, Ted Reynolds, who also had so mysteriously disappeared, had certainly not as yet been offered anywhere for sale. Nothing again had been heard of the wonderful diamond necklace purchased by Mr. Andrew White—a historic piece, of which even the stones would be recognizable should such a vandalism as breaking the necklace up have been perpetrated. Certainly there was nothing known to suggest it was in the possession of Lady May Grayson, for whom ostensibly it had been bought. True, she was known to have a passion for jewels, and a ring she sometimes wore was set with what looked very like the famous Blue John diamond, though she always declared it was only a replica. Naturally the point could only be decided by an expert examination which she had not offered and no one had a right to demand. Mr. Higham showed himself faintly displeased by Bobby’s knowledge of the fact that the late Mr. Baird, victim of the notorious Wychwood Forest tragedy, concerning which the more vulgar papers had recently published so many columns, had purchased from Christies through Messrs. Higham a very fine diamond and ruby bracelet.

  “A certain Personage,” said Mr. Higham impressively, “was negotiating for it. I impressed on Mr. Baird that nothing was to be said of the transaction until the end of this month. The Personage in question might have been—surprised”—Mr. Higham managed to convey the impression that the surprise of a Personage was an awesome thing—“that we had not allowed her further opportunity for consideration. Not, of course, that she would have availed herself of it, but she might not unreasonably have thought that her position entitled her to it.”

  “Quite so,” said Bobby, not much interested at the moment in any Personage or in what she thought her position entitled her to expect. “You have no idea what became of the bracelet?”

  “It has not come on the market, if that is what you mean,” Mr. Higham answered. “It is hardly our province—the destination of our clients’ purchases, I mean. Though I admit,” and here Olympus became almost human— “the more frivolous of our assistants occasionally gossip when some valuable piece purchased by Eminent Persons is heard of in the possession of—of ladies of somewhat irregular position. Naturally, such gossip is most severely regarded by the firm, and would entail instant dismissal if repeated elsewhere. To avoid such a risk is one reason why the more important transactions are handled by myself or one of my co-directors.”

  Bobby said he realized how necessary that was, and under further questioning Mr. Higham admitted that his intelligence service was of a very high working efficiency. Occasionally it had been found profitable to know when to hint to the lady of—er—unrecognized position that replicas of valuable jewellery, indistinguishable from the original to all but an expert, could be supplied at a reasonable figure, and the original itself purchased at a very liberal figure.

  “We have,” admitted Olympus, grown quite human now and indeed indulging in a sort of Jovian chuckle, “in our possession at this moment a fine piece we have twice over sold at a satisfactory figure and then re-purchased from the recipient—also at a satisfactory figure, supplying at the same time a perfect replica. Only the other day indeed a certain elderly gentleman of some standing came to see it—er—not unaccompanied—and appeared so favourably impressed that we have thought it prudent to prepare a fresh replica in readiness for eventualities. You understand, therefore, Inspector, how necessary it is for us to exercise an absolute discretion.”

  Bobby said he quite understood, and, continuing his questioning, learnt that the firm had trustworthy agents and connections all over the world. It was hardly too much to say that no important piece could be offered in any quarter of the globe without Messrs. Higham hearing of it. That applied especially to the Byatt sapphires and the diamond ear-rings and pendant. Naturally, since for them not only dealers but police were everywhere on the watch. Mr. Higham thought he could say quite definitely that neither sapphires nor ear-rings, nor pendant, could be shown, either publicly or privately, without his firm getting to hear of it.

  “As well,” said Mr. Higham, growing suddenly poetical, “hide the sun at noon as those sapphires.”

  He admitted, however, that these pieces, having been obtained dishonestly—there had been no authority to dispose of the sapphires and any purported sale or gift would be invalid, as the late Lord Byatt must have well known—might still be kept in concealment. Stolen pieces were sometimes put by for years. The actual thieves would sell them to a receiver for a mere trifle compared with their real value, and the receiver would keep them locked up in his safe till he thought active search was over and the whole thing more or less forgotten.

  “But we never forget,” said Mr. Higham in parenthesis. Ted Reynolds, for example, the chauffeur who had succeeded so cleverly in disappearing, had very likely sold his loot for fifty or a hundred pounds or so and the purchaser might still have the pieces in his possession. In a year or two he would make a journey to China or South America, and there dispose of them; for half or two-thirds their proper value perhaps, but at an enormous profit all the same.

  “Supposing that happened and the sale took place to some rich Chinese or South American, would you be likely to hear of it?” Bobby asked.

  “Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Higham firmly. “Jewellery is bought for display, it is displayed—and we hear.”

  “The odd thing,” Bobby remarked thoughtfully, “is that Ted Reynolds has disappeared too.”

  “Probably means,” Mr. Higham suggested, “that he has not as yet attempted to make a sale. I’ve known such cases. Men who have brought off a successful coup and then not dared to try to dispose of their booty. They may be tramping the roads, starving, begging, doing odd jobs, with pieces in their possession worth thousands of pounds they yet dare do nothing with. That may be the case here.”

  “It’s not only his loot,” Bobby observed thoughtfully. “Reynolds himself has vanished. We had recent photographs, we knew his friends, habits, family, he had no start—the theft was discovered at once. He had no passport. Yet we’ve never been able to find the least trace.”

  Mr. Higham smiled tolerantly.

  “Been too smart for you apparently,” he said. “But you may be sure of one thing—if those ear-rings and, or, the pendant turn up anywhere, we”—there was a faint emphasis on the ‘we’—“we shan’t fail to hear of it.” He added, Bobby accepting this snub to the police force of the country in meek silence:�
��“It is more difficult to guess what has happened to the diamond necklace Mr. White purchased. The ruby bracelet we sold Mr. Baird, too. I can’t imagine any woman in possession of either the necklace or the bracelet keeping it hidden. Her first instinct would be to visit a theatre or a restaurant and let all the other women see it. The pieces were paid for. Everything was in order. There might be some complication in the shape of a husband, but even so somebody would know and we should soon get to know too. Besides, that could hardly apply in both cases. I’m afraid I can’t think of any explanation,” concluded Mr. Higham, ceasing for once to look omniscient. “It’s a complete mystery to me.”

  “A mystery,” Bobby agreed, “and yet everything seems to link up.”

  “Link up, link up what, in what way?” asked Mr. Higham, and Bobby said he didn’t know, it was in fact what he was trying to find out, and therewith departed.

  Returning to his rooms, he occupied himself with writing out a full account of the day’s happenings for his own record, a briefer account for his customary report to Midwych, and then, these completed, he sat and brooded as uselessly as ever over them and the significance that might in them lie concealed.

  Later on, since he felt there was nothing in connection with the case wherewith he could usefully occupy the evening, he rang up Olive and asked if she would come and dine with him at a small restaurant near by, where the food was tolerable—the proprietor did his own marketing and his own cooking, and put no faith in refrigerators—and where they could be sure of a quiet corner in which they could talk undisturbed. For to talk over every aspect of the affair and so clarify the ideas running wild in his mind was the chief need Bobby felt at the moment.

  Not that Olive allowed any such discussion until the meal was over. Till then she kept the talk strictly to personal chatter, the increasing difficulty of selling hats, the distressing habit of going about without any hat at all which was slowly breaking her chief assistant’s heart, the unpredictable changes in style, and the proof of original sin provided by the evident innate depravity of all errand boys. Insensibly Bobby found his attention diverted from his own worries and presently he was listening with attention to some of Olive’s tales about the whims and fancies of her customers.