“To-morrow being the sabbath, I won’t be able to fondle the dough till Monday, Algernon,” commented Ricardo.
“I’ll give you sufficient to tide you over.”
For some moments Ricardo looked at his friend with an affectionate but puzzled expression on his face.
“You’re a rum old stick, Algernon,” he said at length. “On most occasions you’re as careful as a French peasant, and then, on some thankless game like this, you’re a Jubilee Plunger. I’m not raising any objections to chucking your money about, mind you. I love ingratiating myself in a congenial atmosphere with the right kind of people, but your attitude leaves me guessing. I can’t understand a man spending his money through a proxy.”
“I’m busting it on my only hobby, Ricky. Thanks to my guv’nor’s financial genius, I’ve been left, as you know, with a very substantial income. My pictures, by an irony of fate, sell well, just because I don’t need the money. I live very quietly. I’ve no use for fine clothes. My flat’s not too expensive. I merely keep on old Albert because he’s such a trustworthy simpleton and would probably be selling matches if he wasn’t looking after me. My only extravagances are a little good wine, this detection, and lending you money which you intend to repay when you’ve written something bad enough to sell well.”
“I must say you’re very confiding, Algernon. The kindly way you put it brings a blush to my hardened cheeks. Still, the intention to pay you back’s a great driving force in my life. It urges me on to write a story that is a story. Bung full of human interest, sincere love, charm, and wish fulfilment. In the meantime, papa’s cheque is due and every time I see his illegible signature, it impresses me with the dignity and nobility of fatherhood. You shall have that cheque. You’ve been a good friend to me, Algernon, but I’m getting Uncle-Tom’s-Cabinish...”
“Among Thurlow’s papers, I’ve come across Miss Dawn’s London address—a flat in Clarges Street,” said Vereker, interrupting his friend and handing him a card. “Nice address for a young lady of limited means. You might nose round and see what sort of a place she runs.”
“By jove, Gertie Wentworth’s place is in the same block, Algernon,” replied Ricardo excitedly, as he glanced at the card. “Those flats are luxurious!”
“You needn’t trouble to call on Gertie Wentworth,” said Vereker with a frown.
“She may know something about Miss Dawn Garford,” suggested Manuel gravely.
“Not enough to repay me for the loss of my time and your sense of direction,” said Vereker, and paused to let the admonishment sink in. He was about to return to his task at Thurlow’s bureau, when he suddenly sat bolt upright in his chair.
“D’you hear anything, Ricky?” he asked excitedly.
For some moments Ricardo sat with all his senses alert and then, in a voice from which he could not restrain a note of awe, replied: “I think I hear the sounds of an organ. Do you?”
“That was my impression,” replied Vereker. “Let’s stop talking and listen.”
“Switch off the light, Algernon,” said Ricardo in a whisper. “If it’s a manifestation, darkness is more suitable.”
Vereker, rather to oblige his friend than with any faith in the efficacy of his suggestion, switched off the light and resumed his seat.
Both men now sat listening in the pitch-dark room, and as they strained their ears, there came in faint gusts the unmistakable sound of an organ being played with no mean skill. At times those waves of sound surged up with vibrant strength and then faded away again until they were barely audible. Rising from his chair, Vereker silently crossed the study floor, opened the door leading out on to the lawn, and stepped out into the starlit night. There, he was unable to detect any clue to the origin of the amazing phenomenon that was manifesting itself in the study. Rejoining Ricardo, who sat dumbfounded in the dark, he listened intently for some seconds and then proceeded from the study to the hall outside, closing the door behind him. Again he found that he had passed beyond the range of that weird music. Taking an electric torch from his pocket, he made his way to the steps leading down to the cellar and descended as noiselessly as possible. Opening the door of the cellar silently, he passed in and quickly flashed his torch in all directions. The bright circle of light danced over the walls and floor and flickered in reflection from the bottles stacked in the bins, but revealed nothing that could suggest the agency from which that strange organ recital sprang. With a growing feeling of awe, he passed from the wine cellar into the empty adjunct beyond. Here, everything was as he had seen it on his last visit; and he was about to retrace his steps, when he again heard the faint, far-off strains of an organ. Standing still, and overwhelmed with astonishment, he listened intently. The sound seemed to him to be trembling in the motionless air with increased volume; whole passages were at intervals clearly audible, and somehow those passages seemed very familiar to him. Passing round the cellar, at every few paces he placed his ear against the walls, but this device disclosed nothing and only left him more bemused than before.
“Amazing!” he soliloquized. “I must have a good look into this to-morrow.”
He had hardly uttered the words, when the faint music ceased altogether with disconcerting abruptness. Now an oppressive silence reigned, and the damp, musty air of the cellar seemed to grow chilly and sinister. His mind reverted to the séance in which he had taken part with Ricardo and Miss Thurlow. He remembered the cool wind that had apparently blown through the dark study without any explicable source of origin; he recalled the loud and vibrant tapping that had resounded from the table and the surrounding wainscoting. He called to mind Ricardo’s narration of his strange experiences; of seeing actual materialization; of hearing several loud voices speaking together; of witnessing the movements of objects beyond the possible reach of the medium. His scepticism was badly shaken, and with a faint but undeniable inrush of dread, he hastened from the empty adjunct into the wine cellar proper and reached the outer door. He was about to pass out and close the door, when, regaining control of his feelings, he experienced a sharp spasm of annoyance that he had allowed himself to be overcome by an unreasoning fear of the unknown. With an air of resolution, he quickly retraced his steps and, glancing along the tickets affixed to the woodwork of the bins, drew out a bottle of choice claret. Thrusting it in his pocket, he left the cellar, quietly closed the door, and ascended to the study. There he found that Ricardo, having switched on the light, had calmly resumed his reading of the history of Yarham.
“Well, Ricky, what do you make of the elfin music?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to make of it, Algernon. I’m almost certain it has nothing to do with departed spirits.”
“Oh, this is surprising from you. I expected to find you entranced when I opened the study door. What’s your objection to the theory that it’s a linking up with something beyond the veil, or with some musician in Summerland, as they call it?”
“In the first place, there’s no medium present, which is unusual to say the least of it. Again, neither you nor I are psychic. Somehow I feel certain there’s a natural explanation of the business if we could only tree it.”
“The music seems rather familiar to me. Did you recognize it?”
“Yes, I did. The invisible organist was playing snatches from Haydn’s ‘Four Seasons.’ I twigged it when he tried over the bass song, ‘From out the Fold the Shepherd Drives.’ My musical memory’s none too bright, but I’d put my only dress shirt on that. He must be a Victorian spook.”
“Ah yes, now I recollect. This is excellent. Haydn, yes, Haydn, now I’ve got it!” said Vereker with a certain note of jubilation. “I think that’s worth a good bottle of claret between us. Will you go down into the cellar and fetch one?”
“Not to-night, Algernon, not to-night! I don’t mind seeing wonders with solid human beings to right! and left of me, but I jib at saying, ‘How d’you do’ to a grisly horror in the gloom of a wine cellar.”
“You’re not scared, Ricky?�
� asked Vereker, glancing at him with some surprise.
“Scared be hanged!” exclaimed Ricardo, jumping to his feet with a laugh. “I was just seeing if you’d volunteer. You looked rather green about the gills when you returned to the room. Name your tipple and I’ll go and fetch it. I’d wrest a bottle of the worst Lisbon wine from the hands of a matricide’s ghost!”
“You won’t need to. I’ve brought a delightful claret back from the cellar with me. Go and get a couple of glasses.”
Flinging aside his book, Ricardo disappeared. A few minutes later he returned with the glasses and a corkscrew and laid them on the study table.
“Now let’s enjoy ourselves quietly, Algernon,” he said. “The subject of spectres is taboo from now onwards. It’s very nearly bedtime. I’m not easily scared, but I simply can’t sleep with my head under the bedclothes!”
Chapter Thirteen
Next morning, after breakfast, Ricardo brought out his car from the garage, fixed his suit-case firmly in the dicky and stepped into his seat at the wheel.
“Now remember, Ricky, strictly business is the order of the day. When you’ve got the information I want, and any other knowledge you can pick up, return as quickly as possible. Speed is paramount,” said Vereker.
“I get you, Algernon. Built-up areas and mandatory regulations cease to be. I refuse to apply my brakes till I hear the windscreen splinter. Au revoir,” replied Ricardo, and with a sustained blast from his horn, disappeared down the drive.
An hour later, Vereker entered the village and crossing the green, called at the Yarham cobbler’s tiny shop. The cobbler, sitting at his last, was driving nails with monotonous rhythm into the sole of a shoe, using a heavy file as a hammer. On Vereker’s entry he looked up, extracted half a dozen nails from his mouth, and rose from his seat.
“Yes, sir,” he said inquiringly.
“I wonder if you can give me some information, Clarke,” said Vereker. “Among your customers, is there a lady who wears size three in shoes?”
Simeon Clarke scratched his head vigorously, as if to rouse a sluggish memory, and replied: “I can only remember one at the moment and that’s Miss Garford, sir. She has a wonderful small foot for a lady of her build.”
“No one else?” asked Vereker.
“Not as I can recollect at the moment, but my memory is getting shocking bad.” Turning round to his assistant, he asked: “D’you know any of our lady customers as wears size three in shoes, Jasper?”
Jasper, in turn, tried to recollect with an air of complete vacancy. “No,” he replied, “can’t just think of no one. There’s Crazy Ann takes fours. You don’t mean she by any chance?”
Jasper was told rather brusquely that the question didn’t refer to size fours and therefore not to Crazy Ann.
“Who’s Crazy Ann?” asked Vereker, amused.
“She be one of the maids at the rectory,” explained the cobbler, and there the matter ended.
With a puzzled air, Vereker left the cobbler’s shop and called on the church organist. The latter denied having practised on the church organ the previous night and didn’t know of anyone who had. Satisfied with this information, Vereker returned to Old Hall Farm, He spent the greater part of the day photographing, developing, and enlarging finger prints, and at the conclusion of his task, began a careful comparison of the prints. It was not long before a satisfied smile crossed his features, and he exclaimed with some excitement:
“The poltergeist was certainly not Miss Thurlow or any of the servants in the house. That’s something definite at last!”
He had barely made this startling discovery, when a maid announced that Inspector Heather had called and would like to see him.
“Well, Heather, how’s the hunt proceeding?” asked Vereker on entering the drawing-room.
“Damned slowly, Mr. Vereker. Very little headway since I saw you last, and I don’t want any more verdicts about some person or persons unknown. Have you had any luck rummaging among Mr. Thurlow’s papers?”
“Came across something that’ll interest you. It concerns your friend Ephraim Noy. Here I have a peculiar letter from Noy to Thurlow. Read it and tell me what you think of it.”
Vereker passed the letter to the inspector and watched his face while he read it. But Heather was not a man to disclose his feelings readily, and when he had finished his perusal, he handed the letter back to Vereker.
“Looks as if Noy was trying to twist the old boy’s tail. I wonder if the dodge proved successful.”
“I can’t say definitely, but it looks like it, Heather. A week after the date of that letter, Thurlow drew a cheque for five hundred in favour of Ephraim Noy.”
“That’s interesting, Mr. Vereker. It looks suspicious, but you never know. Thurlow was a generous man and might simply have been helping an old business pal over a big stile. You see, it was years ago since they had any business connections with one another, and Thurlow probably knew nothing of Noy’s racketeering exploits in America. We’ve got further information from the American police, and find that Noy participated in bumping off several members of a rival gang in the booze racket. He managed to keep out of the clutches of the law on that count, but it shows he’s a man who doesn’t stop at murder. I’ve been trying to tighten the net round him, but so far without success. What have you been doing yourself?”
“I’ve been mighty busy on a ghost hunt, Heather. The night before Miss Thurlow left for London, a woman got access to this house after everyone had gone to bed. She moved all the ornaments and a lot of the furniture into other positions in Thurlow’s study, and got away again without being seen.”
“How did she get in?”
“I don’t know yet. Miss Thurlow, thinking she heard noises during the night, came down to investigate. She tried all the doors and windows herself and found every window closed and all the doors locked. She put the rearrangement of the study furniture down to a poltergeist!”
“Bless my soul, and what’s that!”
“A mischievous spirit, Heather,” replied Vereker with a laugh.
“In this year of grace, too! Do you believe that rot, Mr. Vereker?” asked Heather impatiently.
“No, I don’t. This ghostly visitor, I must tell you, left the print of a woman’s shoe in chalk on the study carpet. Also I’ve got her finger prints on some of the ornaments. She was a bit too material for a poltergeist.”
“Was it one of the servants or Miss Thurlow herself?” asked the inspector.
“No; that’s the mysterious part about it. The finger prints are not those of anyone in the house. The size of the shoe is a three, and that doesn’t correspond with the shoe of any of the ladies here.”
“Then there must be some method of getting in and out of this house other than by doors or windows,” declared Heather emphatically.
“I agree, Inspector, but I haven’t discovered the method yet. I must admit that I haven’t made a thorough search for that secret trap-door. I’ve been so busy in other directions that I haven’t had time. Another remarkable thing happened last night which comforted me considerably.”
“I wish something would comfort me. What was it?”
“Ricardo and I heard the mysterious music which Miss Thurlow spoke about. We couldn’t find out how the magic was worked. I questioned the church organist this morning and found that he wasn’t playing the church organ last night.”
“But this has nothing to do with our case; it’s all so irrelevant, I simply don’t know what you’re driving at, Mr. Vereker.”
“I feel certain it’s going to have something to do with our case. Otherwise, I wouldn’t trouble myself any more about it. What pleased me about hearing the music was that it proves that such a phenomenon did occur on the night of Thurlow’s disappearance. I was half afraid that Miss Thurlow’s story was pure moonshine, a figment of her lively imagination. To return to the poltergeist business in the study, I’m convinced that a human being played that trick. But what was her motive? I don’t thin
k for a moment that it was merely a practical joke.”
“The ghost business has often been played to scare a person out of a house,” remarked the inspector casually.
“So I believe,” said Vereker, and at that moment the muscles of his cheek hardened, because Heather had shrewdly hit on one of his own secret convictions.
“Anybody want to buy the property?” asked Heather, lighting his pipe.
“Yes, Orton of Church Farm wants to buy. He frankly told me so himself, but he’s not a woman with a size three foot.”
“Why don’t you pump the village cobbler? It’s an unusual size, and he might be able to tell you right away.”
“I did, Heather. The only woman that he could name was Miss Dawn Garford, or rather Mrs. Button, and she wasn’t in Yarham that night as far as I could ascertain.”
“There have been faked footprints, I believe, in criminal history,” continued Heather, “but I’ve never come across an actual case and don’t know anyone who has. They really belong to the world of the detective story writer. I know this Miss Dawn Garford benefits under Thurlow’s will, but I can’t connect her up with his murder in any way.”
“Heather, that’s just where my methods score. From my observations in this Yarham case, I’ve slowly pieced together a very amazing story. There are some nasty gaps still waiting to be filled in, but they won’t wait long. Mere facts lead to the ordinary process of deduction, but unless you can make a big intuitional jump, those deductions frequently get you nowhere. You’ve made fun of my barleycorn, you’ve pooh-poohed the spirit music, the poltergeist and so forth, but I’ve fitted them into a complicated scheme of things. You may as well own up that I’ve got you whacked to the wide, and hand me over my packet of ‘Players.’”
The Spirit Murder Mystery Page 16
