Bobby half wondered if this was meant as a warning to himself and to the police in general, though he did not much think so.
“Do people know?” he asked.
“They do at the business,” she said slowly. “One of the girls there, Grace Ellison, got to know. She’s a dear, but she can’t help talking. The duchess knew, too, of course. It was through Lord Harrowby that the duchess offered me a job. Then – Denis happened. So she sacked me. Naturally.”
“Was it through Lord Harrowby, too, that you went to Mr. Jessop?”
“No, it wasn’t,” she answered, with a swift emphasis that showed how much her fierce and lonely spirit resented any hint of dependence upon others. “Mr. Jessop knew of me. The duchess has a passion for jewellery. I think jewels are the only things she really loves. She has no children. Her jewels might be them. But she likes to make a change sometimes. She sells some and buys others. She understands jewels, and often she makes quite good bargains.”
“Has she had dealings with Mr. Jessop?”
“Not directly. She always goes to a firm in Bond Street. I think Mr. Jessop would have liked to get in touch with her. I suppose every firm wanted to, and didn’t see why the Bond Street people should have all her business.”
“But she kept to them?”
“Yes, always. Only I think that is really why Mr. Jessop offered me a job when he knew I was leaving the duchess. He had sold stuff to her and bought from her, too, but only through the Bond Street people. I met him two or three times when deals were being settled. I told him I was leaving, and he said he wanted a secretary and why not come to him. I think now he hoped to get in touch through me with her. What he said was he wanted someone who knew people, and through being with the duchess so long I have got to know lots of important people, and a good deal about them. It isn’t only cooks and housemaids who like gossip. There’s hardly a character in London I haven’t heard torn to pieces. Part of my job with Mr. Jessop is to go about as much as possible wearing jewellery we want to sell. It was an idea of his. I was to be a kind of travelling show-case, a mannequin in jewellery. At first people used to get awfully excited when they saw a girl they had known as a typist appearing at a first night or somewhere – a smart restaurant perhaps or a charity ball – wearing a row of pearls worth hundreds of pounds or diamond rings you could see sparkling all across the room. They are getting to know now, but at first all the little dears scented a first-class scandal. They simply came buzzing round. It was awfully funny how disappointed they were when they found the pearls and the rings were for sale, and they had to pretend to be interested all the same and let me book an appointment for them. I’m not allowed actually to sell or to let the things out of my possession, but I quote prices and say what wonderful bargains they are, and arrange times for the things to be seen and so on. It’s been quite a success. I rather like it. Denis hates it.”
“Why?”
“He sells motor-cars himself, or tries to, so I don’t see it’s any worse for me to sell jewellery. He says it’s dangerous. I suppose he thinks I may be kidnapped or something. I can take care of myself, and there’s not a scrap of danger if I’m careful. I don’t go to night-clubs wearing the big lines, you know – only wrist-watches and small stuff we are offering at double ordinary prices.”
“Have you shown the Fay Fellows necklace in that way?”
“No. I think I should draw the line at wearing a thing like that in public. I have gone to a first night wearing £20,000 worth of stuff. But that’s my record, and there was a private detective watching, and our own car to take me to and from Mayfair Square. Up to five figures’ worth I don’t mind, but over – well, I want precautions.”
“But you showed the Fellows necklace to the duchess?”
“Yes, but not wearing it. I took it in a brown paper parcel to show her by appointment. After the duke’s visit, Mr. Jessop got it firmly into his head she was sure to buy. Everyone knows how she loves jewellery. I told him there wasn’t an earthly. She hadn’t the money herself, and I knew the duke would never rise to it.”
“It’s worth £100,000, isn’t it?”
“The reserve price Miss Fellows put on is £50,000. That more or less represents the break-up value. Miss Fellows paid £100,000, but it was an extravagant figure even for that time. I expect partly it was a publicity figure; she got advertising value out of it. Now she wants a quick sale. Even as a break-up, it would take a long time to realise that figure – markets are slow enough still, in spite of the revival they talk about. You understand this is strictly confidential. I am only telling you because of what has happened to Mr. Jessop, and I suppose you ought to know exactly how things are. Our lowest price officially is £65,000. We still hope for that much, but we would take a lot less for a quick sale.”
“But at present you are standing out for £65,000?”
“Well, if we get that much our commission will be good and Miss Fellows will be exceedingly pleased.”
“Thank you,” Bobby said. “It’s a great help in an investigation if people explain how things stand – often prevents great waste of time. I’m sure my superiors will be grateful to you, too, for your help. Now, may I ask you a straight question? Have you told me all you know?”
“I think so, yes.”
“All you suspect?”
The question evidently took her unawares. Again she hesitated, though for so short a time it would have been perceptible only to someone, like Bobby, on the watch.
“Yes, of course, certainly,” she said then. “Besides, I don’t suspect anything”; and the thought came into Bobby’s mind that she lied with difficulty.
But he felt it was no good pressing her further now.
Further and closer questioning would be for his superiors if they thought it advisable. Besides, time for reflection might make her inclined to be more open – and more time, too, might provide surer ground on which to base a further interrogation.
They were still standing facing each other, and it was easy to see that she was lost in deep and troubled thought. Quite suddenly her feet began to move; she lifted her arms slightly; there came again upon her that strange grace and lightness of bearing she had shown before, as if somehow she lifted herself from the solid ground into the air. Bobby thought for a moment that she was going to begin dancing once more, and possibly it was the involuntary astonishment in his eyes that made her remember and stop.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Ever since I was a child somehow I have always danced my thoughts.”
“Do you dance in public?” he asked.
The question seemed to surprise her.
“Do you pray in public?” she countered.
A little disconcerted, he did not answer. He understood vaguely that for her the dance was the way whereby she could put herself in unison with that Real which lies behind all Appearance, as is for others prayer, or contemplation, or even action – or sometimes, for a time, drink or drugs. She began to move towards the door.
“Denis will be wondering what’s up. He’ll be doing something violent soon if we aren’t careful,” she said. “That is, if he’s still there, poor lamb.”
She opened the door admitting into the tiny vestibule and then the outer door. Over her shoulder Bobby saw that Denis Chenery was still there, leaning against the corridor wall opposite, his arms folded and with a very grim and resolute expression that suggested he was holding himself in a restraint that might not last too long.
“Denis,” she said to him, “Mr. Jessop has been murdered.”
“I thought there was something like that,” he observed coolly.
“You can tell him all about it,” she said to Bobby, who had followed her. “Good night, Denis.”
She went back into the flat, and Bobby had a vision of her making again in solitude the dance her vehicle of thought and contemplation. Denis said to Bobby:
“Know who did it?”
“We have certain information,” Bobby answered cautiously. “
You knew Mr. Jessop?”
“I’ve only seen the blighter once. Quite enough, too.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“I didn’t like the job he gave Miss May. Might have landed her in a hell of a hole. She might have got murdered herself. I didn’t think he was straight.”
“Why?”
“I just didn’t think so, that’s all. Too fond of keeping things to himself. I knew he had been showing stuff to the Duchess of Westhaven on the q.t. – trying to lead her on. Hilda didn’t know that, but I did. If he’s got himself done in, as likely as not it was because he was up to something.” Bobby thought that quite probable. But something else Denis had said interested him more.
“Do you know what it was he had been showing the duchess?” he asked.
“Oh, that swagger necklace of theirs; thought he could let her in for buying it. Of course, she hadn’t the coin, and the duke wasn’t likely to spring it.”
“How was it you knew?”
“Charley Dickson told me – the bounder that took on Miss May’s job. He seemed to think it very funny. He said Jessop had been at Hastley Court the day of a big garden spree there was there, and at their London flat as well, only on the strict q.t. Struck me that meant Jessop was up to funny work of some sort.”
“Did you tell Miss May?”
Denis shook his head.
“No good,” he said. “Besides, I didn’t know. It might have been O.K. My idea was Jessop was trying to plant the necklace on her without the duke knowing.”
Bobby thought the idea possible, though he did not see exactly where it led. Nor could he afford to spend any more time just then asking questions more or less at random. At any rate, he had now in his mind some idea of the background against which the victim had moved, and at the moment it was more important – or so his superiors would probably think – to get in touch with Mr. Jacks as soon as possible. If Mr. Jacks arrived home before Bobby got there, and rang up Scotland Yard to ask why he was being inquired for, Bobby would certainly be asked to explain his delay in reaching Bayswater. Besides, it was really the business of his superiors to decide the lines interrogations should follow, and Denis, moving towards the automatic lift, remarked:
“Someone will be making a row if we stand gassing here.”
Bobby, following him, said:
“I must get on to let Mr. Jacks know what’s happened. But you might give me your card. I expect our people will want to see if there’s anything more you can tell them.”
“Don’t suppose there is,” Denis remarked, but produced his card accordingly, and the lift conveyed them downwards to the street.
CHAPTER 7
MR. JACKS IS AFRAID
As Bobby had known to be the case before, the bark of headquarters proved worse than its bite, and a cruising police car had been told to look out for him. It picked him up accordingly soon after he left Hilda May’s flat, its occupants in a very discontented mood.
“Orders to look out for a bird called Wynne,” one of them grumbled, “and they give us a description to fit half London. Seem to think there’ll be a label, ‘Wynne – wanted,’ on his back. Murder case, isn’t it? And what are you got up like that for? Gone back to uniform for keeps?”
Bobby explained briefly the circumstances, and how his uniform was the outcome of a not very brilliant plan to get near the watchful T.T. Mullins without rousing his suspicions, filled in as best he could from the brief glimpse he had had of him the scanty description supplied of Wynne, and then relapsed into silence, for his long interview with Hilda had left him in a very worried and doubtful frame of mind.
He had a troubling memory, for instance, of that expression she had used when she had spoken of herself as “outside the law,” a phrase, as it seemed to him, of so many implications.
She had spoken, too, of Denis Chenery as if she had a certain fear of his “violence” of temperament, as if she were not sure how far his self-control was to be trusted. And he, on his part, had spoken of the dead man with what was plainly a deeply felt anger and resentment.
Then, too, it appeared that Denis was in an extremely difficult social position – a probable heir to great possessions who yet was not likely to enter into his inheritance for many years; who might, indeed, never do so. Bobby thought it a cruel situation for any young man, and one likely to affect any character except the strongest. Of course, it could and should have been alleviated by some sort of recognition and allowance made by the present holder of the title and estates of Westhaven, but that, Bobby gathered, had not been done, and, in fact, the general reputation of his grace of Westhaven did not suggest that any idea of the kind was likely to occur to him.
Nor did Bobby forget the further complication that, in spite of Hilda’s denial of any engagement, the two young people were evidently on terms of intimate friendship, and that it was this friendship that had cost Hilda her post. Even if their graces of Westhaven saw no necessity to supply a possible heir with any allowance, at least they considered themselves entitled to interfere with his matrimonial plans. Unjust, of course, and injustice, it has been said, makes even wise men mad. Certainly, then, the movements of the two young people that night would have to be carefully investigated, for it was a possibility to be considered that the knowledge Hilda undoubtedly, and Denis most probably, possessed of the Fay Fellows necklace, and the interest taken in it by duke and duchess, had suggested to Denis at least a means of alleviating the difficulties of his position.
Then, in addition, what had Hilda meant by her uncompleted exclamation: “Oh, Denis, have you?”
Had he – what?
Bobby did not much like the looks of the answer that presented itself to his mind. Though he did not phrase it in so many words, the psychological situation seemed to him charged with too many explosive elements to be regarded with any degree of comfort.
“Here you are,” said the driver of the car, drawing up before one of those solid, solemn Victorian houses that still give to Bayswater squares their air of immovable respectability. ‘Hop out and we’ll go look for Wynne – and hope we do.”
Bobby paid this jest the expected tribute of a laugh, said “Thank you” for his lift, and then knocked at the door of the house.
He was expected, and the manservant who opened the door relieved him by saying that Mr. Jacks had not yet returned, but was not likely to be much longer. He was not a late gentleman, Bobby was assured. He was given a seat in the hall, and most of the household staff, either not yet retired to bed or risen therefrom for the occasion, surrounded him in an effort to find out what it was all about, his telephone call having plainly caused much excitement.
Bobby resisted these blandishments firmly, and, to his relief, was not long exposed to them, the sound of a car drawing up outside heralding the return of Mr. and Mrs. Jacks, and sending the domestic staff into hasty retirement.
Mr. Jacks was a tall, thin, worried-looking man, his hair quite grey though he was hardly yet middle-aged, with small excited eyes, and very straight thin lips, tightly compressed over a small round chin – an unstable mixture, Bobby fancied, of obstinacy and impulse, a man likely to follow a determined line of conduct with extreme firmness until he swerved from it to follow another quite different line with equal vigour and resolve. A man, too, generally persuaded that his own conclusions must be right; not that that is exceptional.
“Hullo,” he exclaimed, the moment he caught sight of Bobby. “Burglars at Mayfair Square again?”
“Oh, how – dreadful,” said from behind him his wife, a small, round, fat, good-tempered-looking woman.
“No, sir –” began Bobby, but Mr. Jacks did not allow him to continue.
“Didn’t get in, eh? You scared them off first? Very smart, of course, though I suppose it’s what we pay rates for.”
“It’s nothing –” began Bobby, intending to say that his errand had nothing to do with burglary, but again Mr. Jacks interrupted.
“Well, then, if it’s nothing, w
hy come bothering at this time of night? Not that I should mind much if it were something. We’re insured up to a couple of thousand, and there’s never more than that value outside the strong-room. Puzzle all the burglars going to get in there. Barnes,” he added to the manservant, “give the constable a glass of beer, and then we can all get to bed.”
“Mr. Jacks,” said Bobby firmly, “a man has been found shot, and has been identified as Mr. Jessop, said to be your partner. My orders are to ask you to come with me to identify the body.”
Mr. Jacks stared at him, and there came into his eyes a look of sudden terror, of panic almost. Mrs. Jacks screamed, and gave signs of contemplating hysterics or fainting. There was some confusion for a moment or two. Barnes went running for a glass of water; one or two maids appeared from the upstairs landing, where they had probably been listening. Jacks did not seem to notice his wife, or the maids fussing round her. He was evidently holding himself in strict control, and yet his hands were shaking, his whole body, indeed, trembling. He said, as if hoping for a reassurance he yet did not in fact expect:
“Jessop? It can’t be! Are you sure?”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and stared at his wife, with the maids murmuring sympathy and proffering help. Bobby wondered if this was because he did not wish his face to be seen. He said over his shoulder:
“It can’t be Jessop – must be a mistake.”
Mystery of Mr. Jessop Page 6
