The Murder in Torquay (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 9)

by Frank Howell Evans

  The maid leaned forward eagerly, her face red. There was a moment’s silence.

  “Listen! Listen!” Inspector Edgar exclaimed excitedly. “Here is a theory which accounts for all. Suppose, Mister Poiret that the woman was going to meet her lover, but the lover is the murderer. Then all becomes clear. She doesn’t run away to him; she opens the door for him and lets him in.”

  Both Poiret and Haven looked at Reece-Jones. How did he take the theory? Reece-Jones was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed, his face white and contorted with a spasm of pain. But he had the air of a man silently enduring an outrage rather than struck down by the conviction that the woman he loved was unfaithful.

  “‘Remember, Harriette, you can go to bed.’ That was it Sir,” the maid continued. “For her the fine clothes, the pleasure, and the happiness. For me—I could go to bed!”

  Poiret didn’t take notice of her outburst. He looked again at the description which Harriette Carter had written out. “So,” he said, “when this morning you suggested to the inspector that it would be advisable for you to go through Miss Rosette’s wardrobe, you found that nothing more had been taken away except for the white lace coat?”

  “That’s right, Sir. I put the lights out in her room and, as she had ordered me to do, I went to bed. The next thing I remember—a man with a little black moustache pressed a stinking towel on my face. The next thing I remember is the doctor standing over me and this kind policewoman supporting me.”

  She sank back exhausted in her chair and wiped her forehead with her handkerchief.

  “Thank you, Mademoiselle,” said Poiret gravely. “This has been a trying ordeal for you. But we are coming to the end. If you please, read this description of Mademoiselle Rosette again to make sure that nothing, it is omitted.” He gave the paper to the maid. “It will be advertised, so it is important that it should be complete. See that you have left out nothing.”

  Harriette Carter bent her head over the paper.

  “No,” said Harriette at last. “I don’t think I forgot anything.” She handed the paper back.

  “But,” Poiret continued suavely, “Mademoiselle Rosette usually wore a pair of diamond earrings, and they are not mentioned here.”

  It was as if the maid came back to reality. Something changed in her eyes. She looked at Baronet Reece-Jones and the inspector. She became more guarded. Reece-Jones made a movement. The maid looked at Poiret for a few moments without speaking.

  “It is not from me, Mademoiselle, that you will get the answer,” said Poiret.

  “I think she wore them,” she said doubtfully. “Ye-es—yes,” and the words came now firm and clear. “I remember well. Rosette had taken them off before her bath, and they lay on the dressing-table. She put them in her ears while I dressed her hair and arranged the bow of ribbon in it.”

  “Then we will add the earrings to your description,” said Poiret, as he rose from his chair with the paper in his hand. He folded the paper up and put it away in his pocket. “Let us consider poor Lady Charingbridge! Did she keep much money in the house?”

  “No, Sir; very little. She was well known in Torquay and her cheques were everywhere accepted without question. It was a real pleasure to serve Milady, her credit was so good,” said Harriette Carter, raising her head as though she herself had a share in the pride of that good credit.

  “No doubt,” Poiret agreed. “There are many fine households where the banking account, it is overdrawn, and it cannot be pleasant for the servants.”

  Haven added, “Must be hard for those poor souls trying to hide their masters’ bad credit from the servants of their neighbours.” Poiret looked at him silently for a moment.

  “Then it was certainly for her famous collection of jewelry that Lady Charingbridge, she was murdered? Where did she keep her jewelry?”

  “In a safe in her bedroom, Sir. Every night she took off what she’d been wearing and locked it up with the rest. She was never too tired for that.”

  “And what did she do with the keys?”

  “That I can’t tell, Sir. She put them secretly away.”

  Poiret turned to another point. “Mademoiselle Rosette, she knew of the safe and that the jewels were kept there?”

  “Oh yes!”

  Poiret nodded to her with a friendly smile. “Merci, Mademoiselle,” he said. “The torture, it is over. Of course Inspector Edgar will require your presence.”

  “But meanwhile I can go from this villa, Sir?” she pleaded, with a trembling voice.

  “Certainly; you shall go to your friends at once.”

  “Oh, Sir, thank you!” she cried “It’s been too terrible.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Poiret soothingly. “A female policeman will put a few things together for you in a bag and she will go with you to your friends.”

  The maid moved suddenly. “Oh, not the police, Sir, I beg of you. I will be disgraced.”

  “These criminals, who killed your Mistress, they may come back for you.”

  “No!”

  “Inspector Edgar, be so kind and ask your policewoman to dress like the nurse,” He bowed to Harriette Carter, “and keep constant vigil at the side of Mademoiselle Carter.”

  Poiret turned towards the door. He opened the door and turned back to the policewoman. “We will send a cab for Mademoiselle Carter. Please to pack up a few things and bring them down. Mademoiselle Carter can follow, no doubt, without assistance.” And, with a friendly nod, he left the room.

  Haven had been wondering throughout the interrogation in what light Poiret considered Harriette Carter. Evidently Harriette Carter was cleared.

  They were descending the stairs. Baronet Reece-Jones, was not so easily satisfied. “You’re letting her go?” Poiret looked at the young man. “Poiret understands, Monsieur, that you hold strong views about Harriette Carter. Either she or Mademoiselle Rosette was the, how do you say, inside man. You see, mon cher Baronet Reece-Jones that if we leave her free, but watch her very, very carefully, so as to awaken no suspicion, she may be emboldened to do something—or others may.”

  Captain Haven agreed with Poiret’s reasoning. “That is quite true,” he said. “She might write a letter.” “Yes, or receive one,” added Poiret. “This sinister little drama, it is very interesting to Poiret. Just as much patience, just as much effort, just as much planning for this unimportant goal as a general uses to defeat an army. Yes, very interesting.”

  His eyes rested on Reece-Jones’s face for a moment, but they gave the young man no hope. He took the key from his pocket. “We need not keep this room locked,” he said. “We know all that there is to be known.” He inserted the key in the lock of Rosette’s room and turned it.

  “We will now,” said Poiret, “have a glance into the poor murdered woman’s room.”

  The room was opposite to Rosette’s. Inspector Edgar produced a key and unlocked the door. Poiret took off his hat on the threshold and then walked into the room. Downstairs, in the salon, only a chair had been overturned. Here there were signs of violence and disorder. An empty safe stood open in one corner; the rugs on the polished floor had been tossed aside; every drawer had been torn open, every dresser burst; the bed had been moved from its position.

  “It was in this safe that Lady Charingbridge hid her jewels each night,” said the inspector.

  Plainly, however, Poiret was not satisfied. “If that is so,” he said slowly, “then why has every drawer been ransacked? Why was the bed moved?” He moved fast suddenly. “Inspector, to lock the door—vite—from the inside. That is correct. Now lean your back against it.”

  Poiret waited until he saw Inspector Edgar’s back against the door. Then he bent down, put a handkerchief on the wooden floor and went down on his knees, examining with the minutest care the wooden floor. He put his head on the floor to catch the light on the floor, then he lifted his finger to his lips to indicate silence. He took a pocket-knife from his pocket and opened it. He bent down again and inserted the blade between the
cracks of the wood. The three men in the room watched him with intense excitement. A block of wood rose from the floor. He pulled it out, put it noiselessly down, and inserted his hand into the opening.

  Reece-Jones standing next to Haven uttered a stifled cry.

  “Silence!” whispered Poiret angrily. He pulled out his hand again. It was holding a green leather jewel-case. He opened it, and a diamond necklace flashed its thousand colours in their faces. He thrust in his hand again and again and again, and each time that he withdrew it, it held a jewel-case. Before the astonished eyes of his companions he opened them. Ropes of pearls, collars of diamonds, necklaces of emeralds, rings of pigeon-blood rubies, bracelets of gold studded with opals—Lady Charingbridge’s jewels were found. Poiret rose to his feet.

  “What an irony!” Inspector Edgar whispered. “The poor woman was murdered for her jewels. Nothing’s taken except what she wore. Only a few rings, Harriette Carter said.”

  “Ah!” said Poiret. “Well, let us make sure!” and, taking the list from the safe, he compared it with the jewelry in the cases on the floor, ticking off the items one by one. When he had finished he knelt down again, and, thrusting his hand into the hole, felt carefully around.

  “There is the pearl necklace missing,” he said. “A valuable pearl necklace and the rings. She must have been wearing them. Messieurs, not to breathe a word to any living soul of what was found in this room. We will seal up in the laundry bag the jewels, and Inspector Edgar will take them to the police station for safekeeping.”

  Poiret looked into the eyes of his companions. “Can you see the scene?” he asked with a smile of excitement. He had forgotten Reece-Jones; he had forgotten even the dead woman. He was absorbed with the resolution of the mystery. His eyes were bright, his whole face vivid with life. Captain Haven saw the real man in that moment—and feared for the happiness of Baronet Jack Reece-Jones. Nothing would stop the human bloodhound Poiret now until he had reached the truth and put his hands on the culprits.

  “Can you not see it? The old woman, she is locking up her jewels in the safe every night before the eyes of her maid and then, as soon as she is alone, taking them out of the safe and hiding them in the secret place. Then picture to yourselves last night, the murderers, they open the safe and finding nothing, ransacking the room, and always finding nothing—rien de rien.”

  He took a laundry bag, which he had seen earlier from a dresser and put the cases containing the jewelry in them. He handed the bag to Inspector Edgar in dead silence. They went downstairs and stood in the hall looking out through the open door. Poiret lit a cigarette.

  The sound of wheels broke in on their silence. “The cab of Mademoiselle Carter,” Poiret said. “Let us see the poor woman safely off.”

  The policewoman, now dressed as a civilian came down alone carrying Harriette Carter’s bag. She placed it in the cab and waited in the doorway.

  “Perhaps Miss Carter’s fainted,” she said anxiously: “She doesn’t come.” She moved towards the stairs. Poiret took a singularly swift step forward and stopped her. “Why should you think that?” he asked, with a smile on his face, and as he spoke a door closed gently upstairs.

  Haven was puzzled. It had seemed to him that the door, which had closed so gently was on the first, not the second landing, where the maid’s room was. Poiret noticed nothing strange. He greeted Harriette Carter with a smile as she came down the stairs.

  “You are better, Mademoiselle,” he said politely. “One can see that clearly.”

  He held the door open while she stepped into the cab. The policewoman took her seat beside her. The cab turned and went down the drive.

  “Goodbye, Mademoiselle,” cried Poiret, and watched it drive away. Then he behaved in an extraordinary way. He turned and ran like lightning up the stairs. “Come, vite!” He screamed. The others followed on his heels. He flung himself against Rosette’s door and opened it. He burst into the room and ran to the window. He hid behind the curtain, looking out. With his hand he waved to his companions to keep back. They heard the sound of wheels creaking and rasping. The cab had just come out into the road. Just for a moment Poiret leaned out of the window, as Inspector Edgar, had done, and, like Inspector Edgar again, he waved his hand. He turned around and breathing heavily he looked around the room.

  Haven looked around the room too, but didn’t see anything he hadn’t seen on his previous visit to the room. He looked again. Something was out of place. Poiret nodded to no one in particular. Then Haven saw it and with his mouth open and his eyes rolling almost out of his head, he said. “Something’s been taken from this room.” Poiret looked around the room again and shook his head. “Non,” he said.

  “Well yes, Poiret,” Captain Haven insisted. “Oh, yes! On this dressing-table there was a small pot of face cream. It stood here, where my finger is, when we were in this room an hour ago. Now it’s gone.”

  Poiret burst into a laugh. “Mon cher ami Haven,” he said ironically, “You are trying too hard being a detective. The truth, mon ami, it exists; but you will not find it at the bottom of a pot of face cream. Now let us go. Because in the Villa Argyle, Messieurs, we have nothing more to do.” He walked out of the room and away from Villa Argyle in the company of Reece-Jones and Haven. Inspector Edgar, still carrying the laundry bag stepped into a police car and drove away.

  Captain Haven was daydreaming. People were pointing him out. “That man was present during the investigation at Villa Argyle,” he seemed to hear people say. “What interesting things he could tell us, but will he?” And that question turned over and over in his mind while he ate his lunch at the Hotel Bay Torbay casino. Baronet Reece-Jones was silent. Poiret wrote a letter between the courses. Something he normally never did as he took food very seriously. He moved his plate over the letter as he wrote it. It would have been impossible for either of his guests to see what he had written, even if they had wished. Haven, indeed, did wish.

  Poiret pointed the address on the envelope out to a waiter and sent the waiter, a banknote richer out of the restaurant. Then he turned with an apology to his guests.

  “Now tell me, mon cher Haven, what you make of the case. What Monsieur Reece-Jones thinks—that is clear, is it not? Mademoiselle Rosette is not the guilty one. But you, Monsieur Haven, you are neutral. What is your opinion?”

  Captain Haven was intensely flattered by Poiret’s request, and he proposed to do himself justice. “I will write down the important facts of this mystery,” and he held up his hands. Poiret amusedly gave him what he wanted. The pen and a piece of paper. Haven proceeded to write down the following points:

  (1) Rosette Dereham made her entrance into Lady Charingbridge’s household under suspicious circumstances.

  (2) By devious methods she acquired an extraordinary influence over Lady Charingbridge’s mind.

  (3) Rosette Dereham wore the most expensive clothes.

  (4) It was Rosette Dereham who arranged that Emerson, the driver, was in Exeter on the Tuesday night—the night of the murder.

  (5) It was Rosette Dereham who bought the rope with which Lady Charingbridge was strangled.

  (6) The footsteps outside the salon show that Rosette Dereham ran from the salon to the car.

  (7) Rosette Dereham pretended that there was going to be a séance on the Tuesday, but she dressed as though she was expecting a lover.

  (8) Rosette Dereham has disappeared.

  These eight points make clear Rosette Dereham’s complicity in the murder.

  Poiret read the paper slowly. At the end he nodded his head in approval. “Now we will see what Monsieur Baronet Reece-Jones has to say,” he said, and he offered the paper to Reece-Jones, who throughout the meal had not said a word.

  After reading the paper carefully the Baronet put the paper on the table. Reece-Jones smiled rather wistfully at his friends. “Rosette Dereham was to have married me this week.”

  “I’m sorry, old boy.”

  “I don’t blame you, Haven. These are fa
cts, and, as I said. I can face facts.” He buried his face in his hands. Poiret took up Haven’s paper and read it through again. “Bon,” he said pleasantly. “But the questions, which are most important, which alone can lead us to the truth—how do they come to be omitted from your list, Captain Haven?”

  Poiret asked the question in a serious tone. But Haven was none the less aware of the teasing behind the solemn manner. “Who was the man, who took part in the crime? Ah, if we only knew that! Who was the woman? There was the accomplice in the house—perhaps two? Secondly the woman, she came to the house with Lady Charingbridge and Mademoiselle Rosette between nine and half-past nine. Thirdly, the man came later, but before eleven, opened the gate, and was admitted into the salon, unseen. That also we can safely assume. But what happened in the salon? Ah! N’importe quoi.”

  Reece-Jones took his hands away from his face. “We talk theories,” he cried desperately, “But we are not one inch closer to the man and woman who committed the crime. We have to search for them and find out where Rosette is.”

  “Oui, but how shall we find them, Monsieur Reece-Jones?” said Poiret. “Take the man! We know nothing of him. He has left no trace. He may be in London, Brighton or Southampton already. He may be in this very room, where we are enjoying our luncheon. How shall we find him?”

  “I know. But it’s so hard to sit still and do nothing.”

  “Yes, but we are not sitting still,” said Poiret. Reece-Jones looked up with a sudden interest. “While we have been eating here Inspector Edgar has been making the inquiries. Lady Charingbridge and Mademoiselle Rosette left the Villa Argyle at five, and returned on foot soon after nine with the strange woman, named Evelyn. And there is Inspector Edgar himself.”

  The inspector walked to the table.

  “I say, inspector,” exclaimed Haven. “We have Harriette Carter’s description of the strange lady. We must advertise it.”