“Did he stress that at all?”
“No, not really. It just arose in the course of ordinary conversation. He seemed to be speaking of France as a—well, as a sort of brother, not as an investment. And that reminds me. France had no relatives that Claire knows of. His mother was Russian—that is to say her mother was English and her father Russian—but France hadn’t heard anything of his mother’s people since the war. Claire said France spent a lot of time out there when he was young.” He clicked his tongue. “I remember now. It’s all in the book.”
“What book? Two Years in the Ring?”
“That’s it.”
Wharton had a look at his notes. “I shall have to read that damn book before I’ve finished.… Did Claire hint who the executors were?”
“Himself—and the bank.”
“That’s all right then. We’re seeing his solicitors to-morrow and we’ve seen the bank people… though not about that. Now I’ve got some real news for you. That U-trap analysis is in. Came a few minutes ago. You and Cotter were right!”
“Really!” Franklin was most excited. “They found cyanide?”
“The merest traces—but none in the decanter. Also Usher says the two bottles that were in the bathroom—liniment and some tonic—are still there.”
“Then Somers definitely didn’t commit suicide! I say, that complicates matters.”
Wharton grunted. “Or the other way about.… The only thing that worries me is this. We’ll say the whisky was poisoned in the decanter and that afterwards the contents were poured down the sink, the smell disguised with the chloride of lime, the decanter wiped and refilled, and the towel taken away. We’ll assume that the man you heard in the house broke in and laid that trap for Somers. Then tell me this. How did he know Somers was going to have a drink?”
Franklin shook his head. “I don’t know. It seems impossible. And why didn’t Somers smell the cyanide in the decanter or in his glass when he put it to his mouth?”
“I think we can explain that. Somers, so Usher tells us, had the snorter of a cold in the head. He probably felt pretty cold when he got here and slipped into the lounge to get himself a drink—which Usher says wouldn’t have been an untoward thing for him. He took a quick gulp before he smelt it, only it was too late. Then the rest spilt on the floor. Still, that doesn’t explain why somebody knew he’d be having such a drink—and at that time.”
“Mightn’t somebody have poured him out the drink?” suggested Norris. “I mean suppose Hayles was waiting here for Somers and offered him the drink, and then did the fake suicide business after he was dead.”
“How was Hayles to know that Somers was coming in without Usher—or coming in first? And why should Hayles want to kill Somers?”
Franklin suddenly hopped up. “I’ve got it! Or I think I have. France couldn’t smell very well!”
“How’d you know?” fired the other two together.
“Dunally broke his nose for him. It’s all in the book!”
“Blast the book!” said Wharton fervently. “You mean the whisky was meant for him?”
“That’s it! You send for Usher and ask him. When France was in training, he cut out drink altogether. When he was what he called in semi-training, he allowed himself one whisky and splash after his show. I heard him hint at it on Friday night and later the same evening I heard him explain it. That whisky was left doped for him!”
“Then he was meant to be killed on the Saturday night—before he actually was, and by a different method?”
“That’s it! And that poor devil Somers got the benefit of it.”
Wharton shook his head and sat frowning away, his eyes on the other end of the room. Franklin watched to see what would happen, but the comment, when it came, was disappointing.
“It’s all too complicated… at the moment. The doped whisky, the cut window, the probable murder by shooting the fake suicide, the man in the house, Somers and his tot, the second camouflage… and the suicide confession.” He wagged his head with ponderous deliberation. “We’d better sleep on it. When I’ve seen Mrs. Claire we’ll know all sorts of things… or we should do.” He got to his feet. “I should push off now, Norris, if I were you.”
Franklin got up too. “No more news yet?”
“Not yet—may be in to-night. They’re still on that pistol business… and there’s all Dyerson’s stuff. That reminds me. Norris! would you mind taking along with you when you go that new batch of specimens of France’s writing, and those signed autograph albums we got from Hayles’s room upstairs.” He turned to Franklin. “If Hayles could fake France’s signature, he might have faked that letter—the confession one.”
“What about the inquest?”
“We shan’t want you. Usher and Cotter’ll do all that’s necessary—with Menzies. The Press’ll start hollering but we can’t help that. What are you doing to-morrow, by the way?”
“Nothing very much. Why? Do you want something done?”
“Yes… this. What we’ve been thinking is that you, as a friend of Hayles, might call at his place tomorrow morning, see the housekeeper and pin her down to the actual times when Hayles came in and went out. There may be other questions that occur to me and if so I’ll send them round first thing in the morning. Then try and see his mother and suggest to her that as there’s such a lot to do, we can spare Usher to go over during the day to lend a hand. He can get his breakfast and supper here, and sleep here. It’s rather crude, but there’s just the chance we might get Usher planted there. And see Hayles if you get the chance. I’d rather like your opinion on what he’s really like.”
“You think he’s going to bolt?”
“Don’t think so—I mean, the doctor says he’s really ill. General purposes, that’s what we want him there for, don’t you think so? And you’ll do all that?”
“I’ll have a shot at it.” He hesitated for a moment. “Why don’t you make some use of Travers? He’s a friend of Hayles and he’d never be suspected… and he’s frightfully keen.”
“Hm! May do… if the worst comes to the worst.” He went off at a hasty tangent. “Come and see me about tea-time to-morrow and tell me what’s happened. I’ll be away all day myself—Reading and one place and another—but Norris’ll be here if I’m out.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Wish I could get a really decent murder; middle of July, down at Margate.” Then he grunted and motioned to the door. “Better say good-night to Mr. Travers.”
* * * * *
Just after midnight Franklin was yawning his way to the outer door of Travers’s flat, with his host hovering round in final attendance.
“Well, we’ve had the hell of an evening, Ludo! What’s the bard say? ‘Supped full of horrors’ or something. Well, don’t go making noises in your sleep.”
Travers smiled feebly. “As a matter of fact I’m not turning in just yet. I rather thought I’d have another try to think something out.”
Franklin stiffed a yawn. “Got a new idea?”
Travers shook his head.
“You’re a weird bird,” went on the other. “Now I come to think of it, I believe you went all over that house while we were in the lounge.”
“Oh, no! Not all of it!” protested Travers. “Only the rooms which looked interesting. Er—Usher was very helpful.”
“You weren’t in the cloak-room, were you? I thought I heard somebody there.”
“Well—er—not in it exactly. Sort of had a look round.”
“You’d better not tell that to Wharton or Usher’ll get his tail twisted good and plenty.” He yawned—a good one this time. “Well, cheerio, Ludo!”
“Good-night, old chap!”
Travers shut the door and poured himself out the tiniest of drinks. Then he opened a drawer of the bureau and took out two books in brightly coloured jackets—The Madison Gardens Mystery and The Fighting Chance, both by Kenneth Hayles.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PRETTY LADY
Wharton’s Tuesda
y plans, as given to Franklin, were carried out in rather a different way from what he expected. Reports came in which made modification necessary. Moreover, Norris was not available, and as it was part of the General’s method to keep what might be called the big features of a case in the hands of himself or his immediate understudy, there was nothing left for it but to go to Harrow himself. About this new matter and the way it became available, were certain unusual features.
The trailing of Lucy Oliver began when Detective-Sergeant Lawrence arrived in Cambridge on the Sunday night, ready for an early morning start. In an old directory he located an Oliver, tobacconist, in Wychwood Street, just off Jesus Lane, but inquiries there found the shop in new hands. Oliver had died two years previously and as he was a widower, the two younger children had been taken over by an aunt, while the third—the daughter Lucy—had secured a situation in a tobacconist’s shop at Felixstowe.
The time was then eleven and it was three o’clock before Lawrence reached the seaside town. His idea that the shop would probably be a stylish one, proved correct. At the second which he tried, he learned that Lucy Oliver—or Lucille as she now called herself—had been engaged there as an assistant but had left a year previously, and, so the proprietor informed him, without asking for a reference. Where she was at the moment he hadn’t the least idea. Then, to counterbalance that piece of bad luck, another girl assistant knew the address of her room—76, Providence Street.
Then another check. The landlady, according to a neighbour, had gone to Dovercourt for the day and Lawrence was left to kick his heels till seven o’clock. Then he got his information. Miss Oliver was marrying a gentleman who, strangely enough, was called Oliviere, and she had left an address to which letters were to be forwarded. What was more, the landlady found it—The Malplaquet Hotel, Bloomsbury. Lawrence sprinted to the station and caught the last train for town, where he arrived too late to carry on with inquiries.
Early in the morning he was at the hotel—a boarding-house affair just off the Square. The manageress remembered Mrs. Oliviere and moreover turned up the address to which she had been requested to forward any letters—“Ivycourt,” Joyland Avenue, Harrow.
Just after eight he was outside the house—a tiny detached villa in all the bravery of modern brick and timbering; quite secluded and overlooking a recreation ground. A handy milkman gave him the information he wanted. It wasn’t a Mrs. Gray living there; it was a Mrs. Oliviere. Young? The milkman winked. And, he confided, he’d never seen the husband. Thereupon Lawrence hurried to the nearest ’phone and at the very moment that he was put through to Wharton, the General had finished reading a perfectly independent report and his face, as he received Lawrence’s news, showed signs of extraordinary interest.
In the locked drawer of the writing table in France’s room there had been found on the Sunday a cheque book for a private account at the Baker Street Branch of Barclay’s Bank. On two of the counterfoils appeared payments of fifty pounds to X. For that inquiry, and only after a preliminary talk by Wharton over the ’phone, a specially tactful person—Inspector Eaton—was sent down. Further information was suggestive. France’s private account had been at the St. John’s Wood Branch; this one was a super-private account. The X of the counterfoils was a Mrs. Oliviere.
“Were they paid out over the counter here?” asked Eaton.
“No! At our North Harrow Branch. Mr. France asked me to arrange that. I imagined he didn’t want any inquiries.”
“You don’t know anything about her?”
The manager shook his head.
Wharton, informed over the ’phone, made one of the few slips of his life in that he saw no connection between Mrs. Oliviere and Lucy, as he thought of her. His instructions to Eaton were that the woman must be located so that Usher could be brought along on some pretext or other to attempt an identification with the woman of the Tuesday night. That was harder than it sounded. The Harrow Branch had no information and the name wasn’t in the Directories. With his only clues the name, and the probability that the house was one of those mushroom growths which the Directory had failed to catch in its panting progress, Eaton was lucky to be knocking at the door of “Ivycourt” at about nine o’clock on the Monday night. The door was opened by a smart-looking maid.
“Mrs. Cross in?”
The maid shook her head. “Mrs. Oliviere lives here.”
“But this is ‘Ivycourt’!”
“Yes, but Mrs. Oliviere lives here.”
“That’s very annoying. I was sure she was living here. Have you been here long?”
“Only a year.”
“Ah! that accounts for it. By the way, I called here last Tuesday evening and couldn’t make anybody hear.”
“What time was that?”
“Just before seven.”
“I was going to say; we were out till nine, but we were in after then.”
Eaton thanked her and moved off. His report, left at the Yard, didn’t reach Wharton’s hands till just before Lawrence ’phoned. Ten minutes later, the General, in the wedding garment intended for the Marfleet visit, was on his way to Harrow. The story, romantic though it was, seemed perfectly credible. Those novels—wholesome and eternally triangular—which his wife read, insisted, he remembered, that a man’s real sweetheart was his first. The amorous progress of Lucy Oliver, too, seemed clearly defined; even her acquisition of a married title—the escape from the odour of patchouli to the odour of sanctity—was a perfectly natural haven of shelter, if not the full matrimonial port of rest.
The maid opened the door. Wharton gave his most disarming twinkle.
“May I see Mrs. Oliviere?”
“She isn’t… isn’t down yet, sir. What name is it, please?”
“She’ll know who I am. A very old friend. May I come in and wait?”
The maid, slightly flustered, showed him into a small sitting-room overlooking a modest garden. In a minute she was back again.
“Mrs. Oliviere isn’t very well this morning, sir, and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to see you… and what name was it, please?”
“She’ll see me all right,” said Wharton confidently. “Tell her a friend of Mr. Oliviere’s.”
The maid gave a quick look. In ten minutes, however, the mistress appeared—in a brown and gold dressing-gown. Wharton looked surprised. This was a woman scarcely out of her teens; slim, petite, graceful and alluring as a first-class mannequin; with perfect rosebud mouth, glorious eyes, and hair of a rich brown colour. At the first sight of him, she looked nervous, and Wharton had to assume that paternal manner that went so well with the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and the straggly moustache.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Oliviere. Won’t you sit down? Too bad of me worrying you as early as this.” He saw the frightened look become a puzzled one as she sat on the edge of the chair, hand clutching the collar of the gown.
“I don’t want you to be worried when I tell you who I am… Superintendent Wharton of Scotland Yard.”
The name seemed to convey nothing to her. “Scotland Yard? Did you want to see me about something?” After the face, that voice was disappointing and colourless.
“I want you to help me,” smiled Wharton, and paused. “Tell me, Mrs. Oliviere, were you a… great friend of… the late Michael France?”
The voice was now nervous. “Y-yes, in… in a way.”
Wharton nodded kindly. “Please don’t distress yourself about these questions. Everything you and I are going to talk about is never going to be known outside this room. Everything’s in confidence, only as you realise, now Mr. France is dead, certain things have to be cleared up and that’s where you can help us. Have your maid in while I talk to you, if you like.”
“What was it you wanted me to do?”
“Well, in the first place, wasn’t it you who called at twenty-three, Regent View, last Tuesday evening?”
Her face coloured up; then what happened was what he might have anticipated. For the next ten minutes he wa
s consolatory and admonitory by turns and it was only when his panacea of “a good strong cup of tea” had been brought in by the maid that the conversation resumed a spasmodic course.
But in those ten minutes Wharton’s views had undergone a considerable change. What he saw now was the same seductive person but devoid of background and insipid of mind; a woman with a Park Lane body and a provincial accent; easily summoned emotions that took the place of balance and poise. Add a tendency to cling, a partiality for the amorous and an appreciation of the things that make life comfortable, and there was the girl with whom France had got entangled five years before. Wharton’s own attitude responded to the reaction.
“In other words, you were jealous. Mr. France hadn’t been to see you for a fortnight and you thought he was carrying-on with some other woman. Any particular woman?”
“I saw something in the paper.”
She found her handbag and took out a cutting from one of the picture papers; France walking with a woman in a racing paddock.
AT KEMPTON PARK
Mrs. Peter Claire, wife of the well-known owner, with Michael France, the famous boxer.
“So that’s Mrs. Claire!” thought Wharton, and had a good look at it. He passed it back. “Seen anything of the sort before?”
“Yes; I saw another in one of the papers.”
“I see. And you’ve never been round to Mr. France’s house—except last Tuesday night—ever since the day he took you there when you first came to London?”
“No!… never I haven’t!”
“And he wasn’t pleased about it?”
“N-no. He came round the next day and… and he didn’t half give it me.”
“Hm! And where did you spend this last week-end—say from Saturday evening onwards?”
“Mabel and me went to the pictures—”
“In all that fog!”
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