by Sax Rohmer
“You are early afoot, Inspector?” Corcoran suggested: he knew the senior detective officer of the C.I.D. quite well, as he had practised at the Criminal bar.
“I haven’t been to bed yet!” Firth replied dourly.
“Great Scott! Loeder case?” The barrister modulated his long range voice.
“Yes, sir. A constable on patrol has found a leather folder — a sort of portfolio — in the area of a blitzed house in Mount Street; empty. It has been identified as the dead man’s property.”
“Mount Street. That’s near where the body was found, isn’t it?”
“Quite near,” said the Chief Inspector, a reply laconic and non-committal which Michael Corcoran, an enthusiastic criminologist, accepted as a hint that further inquiries would not be appreciated.
On “Treasure Island,” Dan Corcoran, in a deck chair, and Fay Perigal, seated on a bank of velvet grass, watched a kingfisher work the little stream, poised upon an overhanging branch. It was conveniently shallow here, cascading over clean pebbles, and its progress made a noise which resembled the gurgling laughter of a child. Sometimes, the kingfisher would turn, exposing his robin waistcoat and seeming to be listening to their conversation. Then, he would twist about again to dart, a shimmering gem, over the mirror of the water, as swiftly returning to his watching post.
The wheeled chair, which Toby had navigated down from the cottage, stood by, a basket which was strapped to it laden with magazines and periodicals. Corcoran, pipe in mouth, lay back, hands folded behind his head, alternately looking at the brilliant plumage of the bird and up into a dazzling blue sky. Fay was knitting a woollen pullover. She was off duty for the afternoon, but had chosen to spend it here on “Treasure Island.”
Insects hummed soothingly and thrushes searched for tit-bits at no great distance from them. A robin, who sometimes received donations (he had an especial weakness for milk chocolate) made a third in the party, and an emerald green dragonfly, fully three inches long, hovered by the bank, so that they could hear the curious crackling of its fairy wings, which, unromantically, reminded Dan, he said, of “someone fingering a wad of fivers.”
“How did Dick come to be up at Oxford with you, Dan?” Fay asked, breaking a long silence. “I mean, he is an American.”
“Dick was a Rhodes scholar, Fay. That’s how it happened.”
“You were great friends there, weren’t you?”
“Well, yes, rather. Our rooms were on the same stair. We went about nearly everywhere together; had similar tastes in sport. I was reading law, but I think I should have chucked it in any case.”
“Why? Didn’t you want to be a barrister?”
“Not particularly. The Learned Parent’s idea. But then he has a flair for it; something I never should have had. Any damn fool of a witness could tie me up in knots.”
Fay laughed, a burst of that happy laughter which belonged to her true self. But a moment later her gray eyes grew clouded.
“What was Dick going to be?”
“Oh, he was undecided. His people haven’t got much money, apparently; and he couldn’t bear the idea of going into business. I don’t quite know what he would have done, if Hitler hadn’t settled it for him.”
“You joined the Air Force together, didn’t you?”
“Absolutely — hand in hand. But, you see, I had a pilot’s certificate already. I’d been flying during my last year. Consequently, I pushed ahead rather quicker than Dick.”
“He’s a good pilot, though, isn’t he?”
“First class. He’s the right type, and he has the kind of cool nerve that doesn’t take unnecessary risks: level headed, which is more than I can say for myself.”
There was another long silence, of which the robin took advantage to extract a morsel from the grass close to Fay’s foot.
“Was Dick popular at Oxford?”
“Yes.” Corcoran transferred his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other by means of some conjuring trick performed with his teeth. “Girls could never quite understand him.”
“Why not?”
“Well — that straight steady look of his. They always felt he was sizing them up.”
“They were probably right.” Fay spoke in a wee, small voice.
“So I used to think, until you told me he had gone and made a fool of himself with some wench from a hairdresser’s. He doesn’t seem to have done a lot of sizing up in that case, does he?”
“No,” Fay said miserably. “Has he had much experience of women, Dan?”
“Well—” Corcoran seemed to reflect— “I don’t really believe he has. He is what is known as a New Englander. I’m not quite sure, myself, what a New Englander is; but Dick is one. I gather that they take women rather seriously.”
“That’s a pity.”
“Well, it depends on what sort of women they take seriously. Oh! it’s all beyond me. Cheer up, Fay.” He reached out and patted her arm. “There’s a wise old saying which may be new to you: ‘Every cloud has a silver lining!’”
Fay burst out laughing again, and laid her knitting down. “You are a clown, Dan,” she cried— “but a perfectly dear clown. How did Dick get on with your father?”
“Oddly enough, they have never met. Whenever the Learned cropped up at Oxford, somehow he always missed old Dick, and Dick would never come to stay, on vacations, because he said he hadn’t the means to return hospitality. A queer fish. But I’ll bet my boots they get along like anything when they do meet.”
“I simply cannot make out what has become of him, unless—” Fay drew a long breath— “he has gone off and married her.”
“What! the hairdresser? Oh, chuck it! I can make a better guess than that. He has found out, as you found out, that she is something of a jumble sale, and he’s too much ashamed of himself to ... Hullo! who approaches?” He sat upright, staring in the direction of Rosemary Cottage. “The station taxi, unless these old eyes deceive me.”
Fay sat up, too, a heightened color discernible in her cheeks; then was heard a masterful, penetrating voice: “Come back and collect me sharp at five. I count on you.”
“Ye gods!” said Dan, “it is the Learned Parent!”
And indeed it was Michael Corcoran, K.C. in person. Towering, mentally and physically, over Corporal Toby, who presently appeared in the capacity of guide, saying, “This way, your honor,” he approached “Treasure Island,” arrayed in flannel trousers, a brown check coat, and other units of a sporting character.
“Hullo, Dan! I’ve left a big dull case to my junior and dashed down to inspect.”
“Hullo, dad! Glad to see you.”
“Hullo, Nurse Fay!”
“Hullo, Mr. Corcoran!”
“I count myself worthy to be called Mike.”
“I simply wouldn’t dare!”
Michael Corcoran, away from Court and chambers, exhaled an infectious gaiety which reminded Fay of the mysterious Dr. de Brion. They were firm friends, and Corcoran senior from the first had entered with boyish delight into the mapping out of “Treasure Island.”
“Couldn’t we have tea here on Cape of the Woods?” he presently suggested. “I’ll lend Toby — Ben — Gunn a hand.” He stooped and picked up a newspaper open at a page which bore the headline: “Sir Giles Loeder Mystery.” “Which reminds me, while we are on the subject of pirates and other criminals, I’ve got a tip straight from Scotland Yard about the Loeder murder. Shall we talk about murders? I love ’em.”
“Yes, if you like,” said Fay, but her smile was a pretence.
“The police have found a leather case, belonging to Sir Giles, empty, in a damaged house in Mount Street. They are practically certain, now, that he was murdered for his money.”
“Poor man,” Fay murmured. “I wonder why he was carrying money about like that?”
“My own idea,” said Corcoran, “but I stand to be corrected, is that Loeder was on his way home from a gambling party. I knew him only slightly, but I feel sure he was addicted to that sort o
f thing. Used to be a keen patron of the Turf, and there were rumors at one time that he was riding for a cropper ... Well, Dan, it’s good to see you looking more like the old bonny boy.”
He dropped down on the grass beside his son, squeezing Dan’s arm. Fay quietly crossed the little bridge, intending to make preparations for tea. Half way over, unseen by either, she suddenly stood still. A tall, slim figure in Air Force blue, that of a man who had not come through Rosemary Cottage but who had entered by the side gate, was approaching “Treasure Island.” He saw Fay at the same moment that Fay saw him. He, too, stood still.
An intuitive observer — and Fay, as her cousin, Marcus, maintained, was acutely intuitive — would have judged that the steady eyes beneath straight brows which watched Fay, were the eyes of one who saw, and recognised, The Promised Land, one who had grasped a stupendous, a dazzling truth — too late.
Certainly, as she stood there on the rustic bridge, wide-eyed, pale, but a vision of perfect youth, any man possessed of common discrimination must have paused to pay homage. Yet there was more than this in the face of the man who watched her: there was a yearning tenderness, there was despair. Fay broke the silence with one word:
“Dick!”
He answered with another monosyllable: “Fay!”
The spell was broken. Fay’s glimpse into a tortured soul had made her heart beat almost suffocatingly; Dick was fighting with emotions more complex than any he had known. A shout from Dan Corcoran brought those two troubled spirits to earth.
“Dick, by all that’s wonderful! Ye gods, man! Where have you been? Come over here and explain yourself!”
Dick Kershaw managed to smile. He stepped upon the bridge and grasped both Fay’s hands. “Fay, my dear,” he said, looked into her eyes, and passed on.
Dan was standing up, pipe still between his teeth, and Michael Corcoran had risen also. He stared hard at Kershaw: he was striving to remember where he had seen him.
“I’ll take no excuses,” Dan shouted. “We want a detailed account of your movements, Flight Lieutenant Kershaw, since you left Ashbrown. My father will conduct the examination.”
“So this is Dick,” said Michael Corcoran.
“I am very happy to meet you at last, sir.”
And as their hands clasped, Michael Corcoran remembered that morning at Sawby’s coffee-stall, remembered the disorder which had marked Kershaw’s appearance, and buried the memory deep. He was proportionately astounded when Kershaw, meeting his regard steady eyed, added: “I have seen you before. But you may have forgotten.”
“Indeed — where was that?”
“At a coffee-stall somewhere near Bond Street, very early one morning, sir — the morning following the death of Sir Giles Loeder, to be exact.”
“Oh, yes, let me see, I do seem to recall—”
“I had no idea who you were at the time, or I might have asked your opinion.”
“My opinion of what?”
Fay stood just behind Dick Kershaw, listening. A tense note in his voice, a quality in his bearing, warned her of something to come — something of which she was afraid. Dan, facing Kershaw, had recognised this, also.
“Well, sir — your legal opinion. You see, I killed Sir Giles Loeder ...”
20
Murder Confessed
“Fay, dear, can I hope you will understand if I ask you to leave me with Dan and Mr. Corcoran for a few minutes?” Dick Kershaw’s voice was steady but his hands were tightly clenched— “I mean, for your sake.”
Fay had grown ivory pale, pale as on that night when entering the lobby of Lord Marcus’s house she had found a dead man on the couch. “I believe, Dick,” she replied quietly, “it might be better if I stayed. What you have just said, of course, came as an awful shock ... But I think I know quite a lot of the rest.”
Michael Corcoran, one difficult to surprise, stood amazed, looking from face to face. It was Dan, whose tones betrayed how profoundly this news had staggered him, who intervened.
“It’s true, Dick. There isn’t time to explain; but I think Fay knows why you did this thing.”
“What’s that?” Kershaw’s clear eyes were turned in Fay’s direction. “You know? How do you know?”
“Well, Dick, I suppose it was fated that I should know. An Air Force officer (I was never introduced to him) was talking to someone just behind me in a crowded corner at Julie’s party on the very night that it happened. He seemed to know quite a lot about—” she paused before pronouncing the name— “Rita Martin. I simply couldn’t avoid hearing. I didn’t want to listen a bit, but I had to. And he said that you were — entangled with this girl, and that she—”
“Yes?” Dick prompted gently.
“That she was Giles Loeder’s mistress, and was—” she made a tiny moue, a mere ghost of its true self— “just playing you up. He said, if you ever found out, he didn’t know what would happen. He meant if you ever found out that Loeder was keeping her. It was late by this time, and as soon as ever I could get away, I did. So, although I wasn’t prepared for this, I don’t think you can have anything to say that I shouldn’t hear. Of course, it was a blow, Dick, because — well, I hated to think that you might ruin your life. And when, right on top of it, I found Sir Giles lying dead—”
“You found him!” Kershaw exclaimed, and took a step towards her.
“Yes. I know it hasn’t been in the papers, but — well, what’s the good of talking about it now?”
“No good at all, Fay,” Dan Corcoran said. “Also, quite beyond the point. Don’t you agree, sir?”
“I am afraid,” replied Michael Corcoran, “that I am not at the moment in a state of mind nicely to judge of the value of what Fay may have to tell us. I know very little of the facts. The papers have been unusually reticent, even for war time. But if, as I understand to be the case,” he turned to Dick Kershaw— “you require my legal advice, I am at your service.”
“Thank God!” exclaimed Dick Kershaw. “Thank you, sir.”
“But not at all. You have appealed to me. And I am quite sure that your astounding statement must conceal other facts which have an important bearing upon the case. But I certainly agree with my son that your own account should come first. Do you insist on remaining, Fay?”
“If you please,” said Fay, and thanked him with the faintest of smiles.
“In that event, let us all sit down. Perhaps, Kershaw, you would give us your story from the beginning.”
Fay, rarely removing her glance from Dick Kershaw’s face, resumed her former place on the grass. Michael Corcoran sat down beside her, and appreciating, for he had a profound knowledge of human nature, something, if not all of the situation, put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring hug. Dan settled himself in the wheel chair, and Kershaw, leaning back upon a rail of the bridge, faced them, clasping the woodwork on either side of him tensely, so that his knuckles showed white. Toby, holding one shoulder higher than the other, had retired.
“Maybe it makes it a bit easier,” Kershaw began, “to find that you, Fay, and you too, Dan, know something about what a fool I have been. How you came to be mixed up in this thing, Fay, is beyond me. I don’t think—” he lowered his eyes for a moment— “I would have dared tell you any of this, if you hadn’t heard about Rita Martin. There is no need to go into the dreary business of how I met her, and all that, and I can’t explain to you any more than I can explain to myself why I so completely lost my head over her.”
He bit his straight underlip and stared down into the water. For a few moments there was no sound but that gurgling laughter of the little stream.
“Anyway, although I don’t believe it seems reasonable, and perhaps it isn’t, the whole fabric I was building crashed in a single night, in fact, in a single hour. I can’t say who the man was whose conversation you overheard, Fay, but I have since found out that quite a number of my brother officers who go around town rather more than I do, knew I was being led up the garden. I suppose I am one of t
hose fools who needs to see a thing with his own eyes before he can believe it. Well, that proof came my way.”
He paused again, as if to collect his ideas, or it may have been to recover control of himself.
“Various rumors had reached me: I expect they were intended to reach me. I had been rather under the weather; nothing serious, as I told you, but the fear of going limping around for the rest of one’s life is rather a nervous ordeal; so perhaps it’s likely I was a bit on the morbid side. At any rate, when I got sick leave, I made up my mind to settle these doubts once and for all.”
In a casual way, but none the less obviously as a prop to his composure, Kershaw took out his cigarette case, automatically offered it, but was met with shaken heads. He selected and lighted a cigarette. The picture in Michael Corcoran’s mind was completed. It was thus, almost exactly, that Dick Kershaw had acted that morning at Sawby’s coffee-stall.
“I was to have met Rita directly I got away from Ashbrown, but I had formed another plan. I didn’t go to any likely hotel, and I kept out of your way, too, down here; I avoided the club as well. I went to a cheap and dreary place at the back of Lancaster Gate, which one of our fellows had told me was the dullest pub in London, where one simply never met anybody but dead-beats and has-beens. He was right. That didn’t matter: I only wanted some place to sleep. There’s a café in King’s Road, Chelsea, and I remembered that from the window tables it was easy to see the door of the apartment house in which Rita lives. Sitting there, I waited for her to come back from Simone’s. She came in a taxi. If I had not been what I am — a blind fool — I should have wondered before about her way of life. She always travelled in taxis, and her apartment, now that I began to think about it, could hardly have been kept up on a hairdresser’s salary. Anyway, I waited there, drinking more cups of coffee. It was getting dark, but I knew I couldn’t miss her.”
Memories of the ordeal through which he had passed were beginning to influence his voice, his bearing. Fay had been thinking how tired he looked; now, she thought with great poignance and distress that he appeared positively haggard.
