He passed to another line of thought.
“I wonder what Cyril can have spotted.”
Colonel Sanderstead went over the case again in his mind, trying to see where a missing piece of evidence could have come in. The paper-knife, the broken show-case, the open window and the latchkey he dismissed as outside the question.
“That leaves . . . the automatic pistol. H’m. That was never traced. I wonder, now. Suppose it was hers and Cyril recognized it. He had a good look at it, I remember. He may have noted the number of it and said nothing about that. Perhaps he gave it to her himself when Hilton began to be a nuisance. It’s the sort of toy one might give to a girl to make her feel she had something to fall back on in case of need; and at the same time it’s too much of a toy to do any great harm except by a sheer accident. That fits in neatly enough. It doesn’t make things any clearer, certainly; but it would slip into its place without a wrench, anyway, if that idea’s correct. It agrees with her being there in the car that night; and it would account for Cyril keeping his mouth shut so tight.”
He refilled his pipe and continued his speculations.
“Question is: ‘What am I going to do next?’ She ought to be warned about that automatic—if it is hers; or else she may be doing something a little too smart, just as she did with the tyre.”
It was some time before he could make up his mind as to the best line of action; but at last he came to a decision.
“That’s what I’ll do. It can’t do any harm, anyway. I’ll see about it to-morrow.”
On the following afternoon the Colonel’s car stopped at the door of the police station and he went inside to interview the constable. In order to divert attention from his main object, he had devised an excuse for his call; and when that was disposed of, he talked for a while on indifferent matters before coming to his real business. At last he ventured to touch on this.
“By the way, Bolam, what happened to that automatic pistol that we found at Swaythling Court? Have you still got it, or did the county police take charge of it?”
“I have it here, sir. They looked at it and made a note of the number; but they didn’t take it away.”
“Could I have a look at it, Bolam?”
The constable retired to another room and returned with the little weapon wrapped in paper and neatly labelled. The Colonel took the package from him and undid the string. As he unfolded the cover, he feigned to be a little in doubt.
“I wonder if I could borrow this for a day or so, Bolam? The Hubbard case is over and done with, now; so this thing is not needed any longer. I’m interested in automatics at present, and I’d like to see whether these tiny ones are liable to jam. I don’t suppose there would be any great harm in my taking charge of it for a short time, eh? I’ll give you it back in a day or two. I may want to fire a shot or two from it; but that won’t matter now, since the police have got all they want from it.”
“No, sir. I see no reason why you shouldn’t have it, so long as I get it back again.”
“I’ll give you a receipt for it now, if you’ll let me have a piece of paper.”
With considerable relief at having achieved his purpose so easily, the Colonel scribbled a receipt and passed it over to the constable. For a few minutes more he stayed, turning the talk to indifferent subjects, so as to divert the constable’s attention from the pistol; then, putting the weapon into his pocket, he returned to his car and drove off.
“And now for the awkward part of the afternoon,” he said to himself as he turned up the road leading to High Thorne and Carisbrooke House. He had telephoned earlier in the day to Stella and knew that she would be at home, waiting for him.
Colonel Sanderstead was by no means lacking in tact; but in this particular case he had already decided that bluntness would be the best policy. He intended to force himself as an ally on Stella, whether she wished for his help or not; and he did not propose to approach the thing cautiously. Far better to brusque matters, he thought, and bring things to a head at once, so that she should know almost immediately where he stood. He had no heart for sapping and mining in a case of this kind. Rush tactics would take her off her guard and disclose his own position without long explanations. No sooner had the maid closed the door behind him and got out of earshot than he took the tiny pistol from his pocket and held it out to Stella in his open palm.
“I’m here as a friend, Stella. Understand that. Now this is your pistol, isn’t it?”
Stella Hilton grew a shade paler and her eyes seemed to darken as the pupils dilated; but she looked the Colonel straight in the face as she replied:
“Yes, it’s mine—at least I had one like it.”
She put out her hand and took the automatic from Colonel Sanderstead’s outstretched palm.
“It is mine. There’s a scratch on the sliding part.”
She lifted her eyes again to the Colonel’s; but he could read nothing definite on her face. A slight arching of the eyebrows, a faint tension at the corners of the lips was all that betrayed emotion.
“Well?” she demanded, as he hesitated over his next phrase.
“Where did you get the thing originally?”
Stella, the Colonel noticed, did not pause before she replied:
“Cyril gave it to me long ago—shortly after the outbreak of the war. He said he thought a girl ought to have something to protect herself with; one never knew what might happen. And he taught me how to shoot with it.”
“And you’ve had it ever since? When did it go amissing?”
Again Stella answered without the faintest hesitation:
“I lost it on the night of the affair at Swaythling Court.”
The Colonel heard the reply with very mingled emotions. On the one hand, he was relieved. Stella was obviously doing the thing he had expected from her, telling the plain truth without any subterfuge, although she must realize the seriousness of her admission. That he had been prepared for; it was all of a piece with her character: and yet it was reassuring to know that he had not misread her. This was a bigger thing than she had ever been up against before; and it delighted the Colonel to find that she stuck to the plain truth without any qualifications. She might easily have pretended that she couldn’t recognize the pistol; one automatic is exactly like any other of the same calibre and make. But on the other hand he had heard her admission with something akin to fear. Before she spoke, he had been trying to persuade himself that he was off on a false trail and that Stella probably knew nothing about the inner history of that night at Swaythling Court. Somebody else might have taken her car there. But from her manner he could see that she was deeper in it than that. He resolved to get at the root of the thing as quickly as possible. It was kinder to do that than to keep her on the strain by rambling round the subject.
“So you were at the Court yourself that night?”
“Yes.”
Colonel Sanderstead paused before putting any further questions. As he did so, it struck him that for the first time in the case he had got a witness who seemed prepared to answer frankly. This was a very different business from the butler’s hang-dog look. He had bent his eyes to the automatic in Stella’s hand; and now as he looked up again, he found her scrutinizing his face. She met his eye and that forced him into further speech.
“I’m not here as an inquisitor, Stella. I’m quite sure, before you tell me anything, that you’ve nothing to be ashamed of. But the fact is, I feel that you’re in an awkward corner and two heads are better than one. As it happens, I seem to be the only person who has put two and two together and seen that they make four; but somebody else may be cleverer than I am, and one must be prepared for things. In a dirty business of this kind, one can’t tell what may turn up; and I came to you because I want to help if it should become necessary. So far as I know, nobody else has any idea that it was your car that came to Swaythling Court that night; in fact, it’s more than possible that no one else will ever know. But it might come out. . . .”
; The Colonel found that he was wandering into the very by-paths which he wanted to avoid. He broke off short and began again:
“I’ll tell you exactly what I know. I know that your car was at the Court some time after half-past ten that night. And I know that this automatic of yours was found in the hall just outside the door of Hubbard’s study on the morning after his death. Except for myself, no one, I think, has any idea that a car was there at all that night; and I don’t believe that anyone else recognized this automatic as yours. I’m not a detective. It’s no business of mine to investigate the affair. There will probably be no further investigation at all. But in case the matter goes any further, I feel that you ought to know that you can be quite frank with me if you want to. Nothing that you say will go any farther without your explicit permission. And I’m very worried over the business. That changing of the tyre that you did at the Manor the other day wasn’t altogether a good thing. If I’d been anybody but an old friend who knew you to the backbone, it would have made me more than suspicious about you. You acted in too much of a hurry there. And it’s just that kind of thing that makes me want to help if I can. To tell you plainly, Stella, I’m afraid that you may do something else of the same sort that might lead to trouble; and I want to come in as an adviser, if you’ll let me help. You don’t need to tell me anything that you don’t wish to, but I want you to let me give you advice in any moves you make in future. But it’s just as you like. If you don’t want me, you’ve only to say so; and we’ll agree to forget all this.”
Stella played with the pistol for a moment or two; then she made a gesture inviting the Colonel to sit down. She seated herself on the nearest chair so that they did not require to raise their voices much above a whisper.
“I’ve nothing to conceal in the matter—nothing, I mean, that would do any real harm if it came out. It would be unpleasant to have one’s private affairs talked about; but beyond that, I’ve no reason for keeping silent. You believe that, don’t you?”
The grey eyes looked straight into his; and the Colonel nodded assent. His experience was wide enough to tell him when a person was speaking the truth; and in this case it was clear that he was not being misled.
“I’m going to tell you the whole story. I quite see that you might easily jump to wrong conclusions; and I wish to be quite frank about it. I’ve nothing to conceal in the affair; and since you’ve got so much already, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t hear the rest. From what you’ve told me, I can see that you might easily have put a bad interpretation on things. It was just like you not to do that. And it was like you to offer to help me. I’ve had rather a rough time, you know, and one can appreciate a thing like that.”
The Colonel looked uncomfortable.
“Anybody would do the same,” he protested.
“No, some people would have done something very different. But I know you like your toast dry, so I won’t say any more about that.”
“Eh? What’s that? Dry toast?” demanded the Colonel, who felt rather out of his depth.
“No butter, you know,” Stella explained. “You don’t care for flattery; though in this case it isn’t flattery, only the plain truth. You’re not the kind that sees a girl in a bad position and sets to work to make it worse, like some people. But I’d better go on with the story.”
The Colonel nodded assent. His mind had been greatly relieved by that incident. If Stella could find it in her heart to talk nonsense at this stage in the affair, it was clear enough that things could not be very bad.
“You know, of course,” Stella continued, “that this man Hubbard made his money by blackmailing. That came out at the inquest; and of course everybody hereabouts read it in the papers. But I knew it a good while before that. It may surprise you, but he tried to blackmail me. Me! You may well look surprised.”
The Colonel was more than surprised. The idea that Stella Hilton could by any chain of circumstances have fallen into the hands of a blackmailer seemed incredible to him: and he showed that in his face.
“Nothing in it, of course,” he hastened to interject.
“Nothing. At least no truth in what he said. But there was enough in his story to do harm, more harm than I care to think about.”
“Let’s hear about it,” demanded the Colonel.
Stella’s expression changed.
“I can’t tell you about it just now. You’ll simply have to take my word for it. Wait for a month or two, when it’s all past and gone, and I’ll tell you the whole thing. But just now I don’t want to talk about it. All I can say is that he had got hold of something without a spark of harm in it; and he had twisted it into a form that made it the most serious thing in the world for me. You know me well enough to take my word for it; and I really can’t say anything more about it for the present.”
“It’s no business of mine,” the Colonel hastened to say. “Tell me when you like and as much as you like. I’m only trying to help you; not to poke my nose into affairs that don’t concern me. And I may as well say bluntly that if Hubbard had published anything against you, I shouldn’t have believed a word of it, no matter how nasty it looked. You’re not the kind that does things you’re ashamed of.”
Stella nodded her thanks.
“He tackled me personally in the first place. Once I happened to meet him on a lonely by-road and he took his chance then. Of course, I was thunderstruck when I heard the interpretation he was putting on things—some of the things I didn’t even know about myself at the time. I was absolutely taken aback. I didn’t know what to think or what to do. He saw that; and I think he thought he had got away with it. I know that the surprise of the thing shook my nerves; I was quivering—I mean physically shaking—and he saw the state I was in. What would you have done?”
“Kicked him for the good of his soul,” snarled the Colonel as he conjured up in his mind the picture of the girl and the blackmailer on that unfrequented road.
“I couldn’t very well do that. I temporized, as best I could on the spur of the moment. Remember, I was in rather a state of nerves—it had all come so suddenly and he had managed to let me see what it meant. So I told him I would think over it and see him again.”
Stella paused and looked down at the little automatic which she still held in her hand.
“I went home and thought it over. He seemed to have the whiphand of me. If I didn’t knuckle down, so far as I could see, he had it in his power to hit me very hard. And the worst of it was that no one could touch him if he did hit me. I can’t explain what it was; but he could have done all he threatened and legally he was within his rights. I could see no way out of it. In the end, I decided to play for time as long as he would let me do that. I met him again and told him I didn’t believe he could do anything. He got rather nasty; but finally he smoothed down a little and said he would produce enough evidence to convince me. We met a third time; and he brought with him a signed statement by some maidservant, witnessed by himself and that butler of his. And at that point I couldn’t help seeing the game was up: he had me absolutely in a vice. There was no way out at all.”
“Why didn’t you consult me?”
“I was terrorized. You know how one broods over a thing until it seems to swell up and cover the whole horizon of one’s mind? Well, that was what he managed to make me do. He had the knack of suggesting things that made me wake up in the night and think, until I couldn’t get to sleep again. I’ve never had such a miserable time as I had then. And there were other things to worry me, too. It was about that time that these letters were stolen; and in addition to Hubbard I had that man prowling about here, cross-questioning my servants, and spying continually. Really, it’s no great wonder that I wasn’t able to look at things calmly just then.”
The Colonel’s face expressed the sympathy he felt.
“I can’t understand,” he said, “why you didn’t come to me. I don’t blab about my friends’ affairs. I think you might have trusted me to look after that brute for you.”
“I couldn’t,” she replied, definitely; but her glance thanked Colonel Sanderstead for his intentions.
“Now we come to the last stages of the affair,” she continued. “He evidently began to see that I was trying to gain time; and he made up his mind to cut me short. He let me know that if I didn’t come to terms—his terms—immediately, he meant to do something drastic. And he was going to be paid for his trouble in any case. If he didn’t get his price from me, he’d get it from someone else; so either way he stood to gain. That put him on velvet, as he said himself. And if he got his price from this third party, the whole thing would come out—that was the bargain—and I would be done for. Can you imagine how I felt! I was desperate.”
Again she fondled the little pistol in her lap.
“Now I’m coming near the day of the Swaythling Court affair. The next thing I got from him was this.”
She walked across the room and took from a tiny safe an envelope which she handed to the Colonel. Inside it was a single sheet of unheaded typewritten paper:
I think that the matter can be arranged without any monetary payment if you will come to see me at 11 p.m. on 30th September. I shall be alone; and we shall not be disturbed. Use this latch-key, as there will be no servants in the house.
A WELL-WISHER.
The Colonel’s brow darkened; and he read the letter a second time. One meaning was plain enough. And then, by some obscure mental conjunction the word “Paraldehyde” leapt up in his mind. “Paraldehyde”—“knock-out drops”—that suggested something. Stella’s story was convincing enough; and the Colonel knew he could take her word for it that Hubbard had been “making a case” against her. But if the blackmailer had been able to induce her to go to Swaythling Court at night and had given her paraldehyde—in coffee, say—he could have let her sleep there until morning; and then he would have had a real hold over her. That would have been the crowning stroke fro m Hubbard’s point of view. There would have been no question of a faked-up case after that. The trouble would be real enough.
Death at Swaythling Court Page 20
