“Wonderful! Perfectly wonderful!” The major got up. “We can leave it like that then. And what do I pay you now?”
Hanson waved aside the suggestion. “Nothing at all, major! Quite unnecessary in your case. A tentative agreement perhaps on Thursday.”
One or two details and Franklin was out in the Haymarket again, and until he got back to his office and the ’phone, kept chuckling away to himself like a boy who’s just pulled off a super-practical joke on a gang of super-jokers. But when he rang up Wharton and gave him the news, he wished he hadn’t. The General’s voice sounded not in the least surprised and that was a pretty poor return for a morning’s hard work. Then Franklin consoled himself as usual. Wait till he heard the details at that three o’clock meeting! That’d make the old boy sit up and take notice!
* * * * *
With that failure to impress Wharton as a vague and very minor disturbance somewhere at the back of his mind, he went in later to see Travers and found him with a batch of midday editions.
“The very man I wanted,” said Travers, shoving the splash headlines under his nose. “Have you seen all this? But of course you have.”
Franklin had a good look, and his comment was oddly personal. “I see they’re keeping my name out of it.”
“Your name!”
Franklin spun him the yarn. His final comment might have been: “A week ago you wouldn’t have cared if all the boxers in England had blown their brains out and now you’re sitting there looking as if the world had come to an end.” What he actually did say was: “I suppose you haven’t had a chance to go round?”
Travers shook his head. “Far too busy. Mason’s just come in and he tells me there’s half London round the house—and the whole of the police. Come and tell me some more… and let me stand you some lunch.”
But when Travers had heard it all again and had asked every question he could think of, neither he nor Franklin was any nearer common sense. That suicide confession, for instance, seemed absolutely unplaceable.
“What’s your idea about it?” he asked.
“Very sketchily this,” said Franklin. “While France was at the evening show on Saturday, somebody broke into the house by the lounge and hid himself in the drawing-room. When France came in, this somebody shot him and carried his body upstairs and left a confession of suicide, ostensibly in France’s writing. The best is Cotter’s theory, except that Somers took the note to the lounge after he’d made the discovery, because he wanted to telephone to the police. The rest we don’t know till the analysis comes in of that stuff we got from the kitchen sink, but he might have had a brain storm and poisoned himself.”
“Carried the poison round all ready!”
“Don’t be funny, Ludo! I know that theory’s full of gaps. The golden-haired lady, for instance—and the man we heard in the house.”
“I suppose that couldn’t have been Somers? You heard the door slam, but that doesn’t prove he went out. He might have slammed it deliberately and gone back to the lounge. You said he was only just dead.”
“Possible—but why should he slam it?”
“Lord knows!” said Travers. “I was only trying to be helpful.” He frowned slightly, then took out his silk handkerchief. “Any chance of a look in, do you think?”
“I was just wondering. Wharton’s keeping me well in the background at the moment. But why not try through Claire?”
“Excellent! And didn’t you say you were going round there this afternoon?”
“Yes—four-thirty.”
“Then I think I’ll take your advice—pop in about four.” He started polishing his glasses. “There’s something I’d rather like to put up to you… something I’d been thinking about before all this happened. The trouble is… well, I don’t think you’ll thank me for saying it!”
Franklin was immediately interested—and curious. Whatever Travers had to say would moreover be so utterly remote from the set, official mind, that it would be bound to be provocative, even if it got nobody any forrader. “Spit it out!”
Travers fumbled with the glasses. “Do you know, it’s rather difficult.” Then he gave his very best smile. “You’re not going to be annoyed with me?”
“I shall be if you don’t hurry up and get it off your chest.”
Travers sighed. “Then don’t blame me. The—er—thing is this. When you told me about Hayles coming to see you on that detective-novel, local colour business, it didn’t somehow ring true—I mean Hayles’s story didn’t. It sounded more like an excuse. Not that he could have come to a better man—if he’d been genuine—because he couldn’t. Don’t mistake me about that. And then, after that, he fell in very readily, so it seemed to me, with your casually expressed wish—in common with several million Englishmen, myself included—to meet France personally. He even rang you up and suggested taking you to dinner. And where? Not with France. With the Claires!”
“Just a moment!” interrupted Franklin. “Didn’t I impress upon you the fact that those three were really one? Didn’t I call them the Three Musketeers?”
“My dear old chap, I know you did! But that’s hardly the point. Hayles could have taken you to France’s dressing-room, or to his house. Once more don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting for the world that you are an unusual person to take to a ménage like the Claires’, because you’re not. You’re not the accepted type of professional detective. You’re a man of the world; you can move in any company—except perhaps that of the Bright Young People—and you’re obviously what the world calls a gentleman. Oh, no! I’m not flattering you at all. The truth is simply this. I thought it at the time a most unusual thing that Hayles should have asked you to the Claires, especially as France himself wasn’t dining there. The point then becomes, would you like my opinion as to why you were there, in view of what’s happened?”
“Carry on!”
“Well, France got the second anonymous letter on the Thursday. He probably thought it a lot of rot and so on, and then he began to think a bit. After all, why take risks? Why not at least take advice—”
“Hold hard a moment!” said Franklin, and told him about Usher. “He was having advice—and he’d got a bodyguard!”
“Don’t be too sure. You’re not certain as to what Usher was there for. Still, to go on. As soon as he thought of that taking of advice—perhaps he wasn’t satisfied with Hanson and Maude, and that again may be why he gave Usher notice—at any rate, as soon as he thought of it, you came into his mind as a first-class man who’d been in the public eye. So he said to Hayles, ‘There’s a chap named Franklin,’ and so on. ‘Run your eye over him and see what he’s like.’ Hayles’d say, ‘But how?’ whereupon France’d retort, ‘That’s your pigeon!’ Hence the milk in the cokernut.… After that, Hayles would report that you were an unusual and interesting sort of chap. ‘Right-ho then!’ France would say. ‘Bring him along!’ ‘Can’t be done!’ Hayles’d say. ‘You’re full up with engagements.’ ‘Right-ho then!’ France’d say. ‘Scheme it out to bring him along to Peter Claire’s to-morrow.’”.
Travers looked up rather anxiously. “Do you know,” said Franklin, “but I think you’re right!”
The other looked immensely relieved. “I wondered how it’d strike you. And of course you realise that that was why your profession wasn’t mentioned. France’d tell Hayles he wasn’t to say a word. That was probably why Hayles kept up that chatter with Dorothy Claire—to keep her off you.”
“You sure it wasn’t a conspiracy to put me at my ease?”
“Ease! My dear chap, you’re the very kind of person people love to talk to. Wouldn’t Mrs. Claire—to use what would probably have been her own words—have been most frightfully thrilled?” He paused for a moment, then went on with a quiet note of intensity. “Let me put it all to you. You said there was occasionally a tension in the air; that Mrs. Claire kept putting down the soft pedal; that Claire was off-hand or gnomic, and that Hayles was inane or volatile. When France came in, it was
like a climax. He sort of took possession and after that—Claire dropping out—everything went with a swing.… Was there a secret between Claire and his wife and did Hayles know it?”
“You mean, was there in that room the germ of the week-end’s happenings?” He thought for a moment, then laughed. “My dear fellow, you’re sitting there spinning all sorts of delicate and intricate webs… but it’s the design you’re interested in—not killing flies!”
Travers didn’t disagree. “That may be so. As you say, spiders spin. The flies do the rest!”
Franklin laughed again, then caught sight of the clock. “I say! I shall have to hare off like blazes. I’ll let you know what happens.”
“Do!” said Travers. “And give Wharton my love. It might help.”
“You bet I will,” Franklin assured him. “And I’ll tell him that bit about the flies. After being up most of the night, he’ll probably be amused!”
CHAPTER X
ABOUT IT AND ABOUT
When Franklin arrived outside the house, the crowd was still pretty dense and a couple of mounted policemen were keeping the roadway clear. The constable at the main gate evidently had his orders and as he passed Franklin through, the crowd stared excitedly.
That was the first time Franklin had seen the house properly—a two-storeyed building much like a country vicarage and evidently a Georgian survival. Curiously enough, its private road was different from the usual half-moon. On entering the gate you kept parallel to the main thoroughfare, then cut back sharply towards the house; in other words, the shrubbery was in the shape of the metal knob of a malacca cane. Moreover, whoever had planted it must have had his own ideas as to privacy. From the main road, except for its upper windows, the house was invisible since even then its laurels, hollies and privet made a screen which the eye could hardly penetrate.
As Franklin entered the dining-room and Usher closed the door behind him, Wharton emerged from the lounge with a man whom Franklin knew he had seen somewhere before. As soon as Wharton mentioned the name, he knew where—in the picture pages of the press and on the news bulletins of the screen.
“Fred! here’s somebody I’d like you to meet. Mr. Franklin… Fred Dunally.”
Franklin smiled. “Glad to see you, Mr. Dunally. I’ve seen your photo often enough.”
Dunally’s weatherbeaten face sort of crinkled to a smile.
“We can’t help that, sir.”
“Fred came along to help us,” explained Wharton. “We picked him up at Ipswich this morning. He’s just off to the National Sporting Club.”
“Got to meet Lord Weatherlie and the Committee, sir. I hear they want eight of us as bearers at the funeral… and I suppose I’ll be one.”
The tone was genuinely regretful that Franklin’s question was almost instinctive. “He was a good sort?”
“He was that. A real sport, sir. When he beat me, sir, he had me mesmerised from the start; I knew I was beat before I left my corner.” He shook his head. “We shan’t see another like him. A regular gentleman, sir, and one of the old sort like what you read about. A regular toff, sir, that’s what he was—and no more swank about him than there is about you and me.”
They saw him off at the door, then Wharton nodded his head reflectively. “He’s a good chap—Fred. I’ve known him for years, when his ears were as smooth as yours. Where d’you think he’s off to now?”
“National Sporting Club, you said.”
“Yes, but first of all he’s going to have another look at France. Curious sentimental sort of morbidity those people have!… still, it does him credit.”
“Do you know what I thought as I watched him go down the path?” asked Franklin. “I thought to myself. There goes what might have been a very pretty solution to a mystery. Ex-heavyweight champion kills rival, and so on.’ Only he strikes me as the last person in the world to kill anybody.”
“He wouldn’t kill a kitten!” said Wharton. “But come along in. We’ll have a pow-wow with Norris.”
Inside the lounge, the fire looked cheerful. Outside there was a raw drizzle and the brown paper over the hole in the far window gave the room a cockeyed sort of look.
“Where’s that pussy-footed valet?” asked Wharton.
“In the kitchen all right, sir!” said Norris, and conveyed a wink to Franklin. “He won’t poke his nose out of there.”
“Hm! Well, as I was telling Norris, things aren’t breaking any too well. France and Somers were complementary, so to speak. If either had been alive, we’d have had quite a lot of information about the other. As it is we’ve merely got Usher. Hayles is in bed with a breakdown.”
“Really! As bad as that!”
“Well, the doctor says he’s to be kept quiet and the last thing to do is to remind him about this case. His housekeeper’s there, and his mother’s due this afternoon. Claire’s taking away the correspondence and getting a man to see to what’s urgent. Of course we’ve got Hayles’s key to his room! that’s something.”
“Claire did come round then?”
“Oh, yes! spent best part of an hour here. Fine looking fellow!”
“Isn’t he? Regular guards’ officer type. They say he’s the best driver in England at the moment.”
Wharton gave his usual grunt. “He’s welcome.… He won’t break my neck. By the way I asked him very tactfully about Hayles. He laughed!” Wharton looked quite indignant. “He seemed to insinuate that France did all what you’d call the managerial work himself. Hayles seems to have been sort of found a job—had to make himself generally useful.”
Franklin was reminded of something. “Isn’t that in the book?—about France having his own original ideas about fixing up contracts and so on?”
“What book’s that?”
“Two Years in the Ring. France and Hayles collaborated in it. You mean to say you haven’t read it!”
Wharton snorted, then changed the subject. This time it was Franklin who winked at Norris.
“What’s all this about our friend in the kitchen?”
Franklin told him in detail. “Good work!” was Wharton’s only comment. Franklin failed to catch Norris’s eye, then made his question as casual as possible.
“What did Usher have to say for himself?”
“Haven’t asked him! Unless Hanson releases him, he’ll only tell a pack of lies.… Also we’re expecting the result of an inquiry to come through. What name was that you gave?”
“Forrest. Major Forrest.”
“Norris, ring up Hanson and Maude and say Major Forrest wishes to see Mr. Hanson most urgently at four thirty. Make sure he’ll be there—then ring off.”
“Something else you might like to know,” he told Franklin when the receiver was hung up again, “and that’s how we stand. First about France. His turn at the Paliceum was over at 9.15 and he left the building at 9.45. Nothing seems to have happened while he was there except that he received a telephone call just before 8.00. As soon as he left the building, he stepped into the fog and how he got to this house we haven’t been able to trace. He didn’t call at the Claire’s because he knew they’d be away, as Claire told us this morning. Also if he came straight here, it fits in with the time Menzies gave.”
“Exactly!” said Franklin. “But do you know, I’ve been wondering a lot about that man we heard in the house and I’ve thought of something else since last night. Usher and I both took it for granted it was France. Just come here a second, will you, and have a look through this window.”
He manipulated the General to the left-hand side window.
“Now then, look out there! You can see the kitchen light. I know you couldn’t do that last night, but the point is this. Yesterday afternoon this window couldn’t be said to overlook anything, because of the fog; all the same it might be said to overhear the kitchen door. And remember that except when Usher spoke to me first, we spoke, as I told you, very quietly. Very well then. Take the events as they occurred. Somebody who’d no right to be in the house heard me kno
ck at the front door. He therefore prepared to bolt out the back way—”
“Why?”
“Because he knew that at any moment servants or the owner might arrive. However, to go on. He got ready to bolt out of the window—the way he’d come in. Then he heard Usher call out to me, and thinking it was himself that was being spoken to, bolted like a rabbit for the other way out—the front.”
“And he had time to shut the lounge door after him?” asked Norris.
“Why not? It’s instinctive. You try it and see.”
“And the blind was still down as Usher left it on the Saturday?”
“Why not? He hadn’t got so far as getting out of the window. He was at the window.”
Norris looked at Wharton. The General took up the argument. “You’re assuming that the marks we found on the window were footmarks.”
Franklin looked surprised. “Naturally!”
“But they weren’t! They weren’t made with a boot at all. All we can say is that they’re scratches. We daren’t go so far as to rely implicitly on their having been made to imitate a boot mark—though that’s almost certain.”
“In other words there’s no proof that anybody actually did come through that window!”
“That’s right.”
“Then why make the cut to get at the fastener, if the window wasn’t opened?”
Wharton shook his head. “We don’t know if the window was opened or not. All we know is what I told you. If anybody did get in, he made no mark. On the other hand, this mark is here—looking as if it might be a footmark… only it isn’t.”
“If I might suggest something,” said Norris. “Mr. Franklin hinted at two things. First, that whoever was in the house, or shall we say whoever got into the house while he was temporarily away, knew he’d be alone. Now, how could he know that unless he were Hayles? Who else’d know the servants weren’t due back till four o’clock?”
“Anybody might!” put in Wharton quietly. “France might have told half London for all we know.”
“Well, I suppose that is so, sir.… And then, secondly, Mr. Franklin said whoever was in the house would want to bolt because at any moment somebody might be coming in. Now if you substitute the words ‘at four o’clock’ for ‘at any moment,’ things look different.”
Dead Man Twice Page 11
