The Case of the Magic Mirror: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  Wharton was politely amused.

  “Yes, sir,” Frank went on. “I guess you two gentlemen will find this amusing, but I once took a mighty expensive correspondence course in the arts of detection.” The smile became more rueful. “Guess we’ve all felt in need of a hobby, only mine was a bit more . . .” He evidently couldn’t find the word. “Guess I’ve got myself all balled up.”

  “You people in the States are ahead of us in a lot of things,” Wharton said generously, “and the art of detection’s one of them. Rather a high-flown title for a job like mine.”

  “Look here, George,” I said, as if suddenly inspired. “Why shouldn’t we make use of Mr. Franks? Diplomatically, I mean. He’s the most popular man in these parts nowadays, and especially well in with everybody at the Manor. A great friend of Mrs. Craigne, for instance.”

  Wharton was actually looking interested.

  “I guess that’s some kind of flattery,” Frank said with the same rueful smile. “I admit I had tea with Mrs. Craigne this afternoon, and I’ve just seen her on her way back to town, but that doesn’t qualify me for Mr. Travers’ nice remarks. But thanks for the publicity, Mr. Travers.”

  “Mrs. Craigne was at the Manor?” Wharton asked.

  “Just a quick visit,” Frank said. “A few personal belongings she wanted to get to her flat in town.”

  “You’ll be interested to hear that Mr. Franks may be having boxing lessons from Harper,” I told Wharton.

  “Another hobby?” asked Wharton.

  “Not exactly. I laze about here and I eat and drink and I ride everywhere. That doesn’t do a man’s figure much good. But I reckon these lessons will have to be postponed. A day or two and I’ll be humping my pack. There’s a whole lot more of this country I want to see before I sail for home.”

  Wharton, patriotic to the point of jingoism, was promptly advising on what to see. I said he’d left out Canterbury. The first place I’d take any stranger to was Canterbury, I said, with its superb evocation of our history. The argument got a bit warm, and it was still on after coffee, and then Wharton happened to notice the time and began getting to his feet.

  “A little job I must do at the Manor. I don’t know if you two gentlemen would care for a stroll and a look round the gardens?”

  He went up to his room to fetch something. Frank whispered to me that Queenie had probably taken the mirror to town, for she had brought a very large trunk with her and it had gone back in the car. If I liked he’d break in that night and find out. He had a key to the study, he said.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.”

  It was a tremendous idea, for all at once it had come to me just why Charlotte Craigne had taken that mirror. So I sprinted up the stairs and came down again on Wharton’s heels. When we were nearing the Manor I ventured to make a suggestion.

  “Would you mind, George, if I showed Mr. Franks the study? He tells me he’s never seen inside, and he might like to visit the actual site of a murder.”

  Frank said he didn’t want to mess up Wharton’s arrangements. Wharton, in excellent spirits that evening, said he’d have shown Franks round if he wasn’t going to be busy. And when we got to the house he had a word with Mrs. Day about us before he went off to check up on the Matthews signature.

  The study part of the house was incredibly quiet, with only the faint sound of a wireless programme coming from the servants’ quarters. There was just the danger that someone might appear from the middle passage that led backwards from the main corridor, but I was more anxious about Wharton, the craftiness of whose mind one could never fathom. Maybe he guessed I was up to something which I had no particular wish for him to know, and in that case he’d probably appear when least wanted.

  “We’ve got to work quick,” I told Frank. “If he pops in at the wrong moment, then I shall have to tell him about the mirror.”

  He wondered what I was talking about, and I could only explain as I went along. Out of the big inner pocket of the tweed sports coat I produced a goodish-sized shaving mirror. The print was stood on the floor and with a piece of string I’d had sense enough to bring, I hung my mirror where the Adam mirror had been. Then we both had a look inside it.

  “I get you,” Frank said. “Looks as if we’ve got something here.”

  Even in that small mirror we could see clearly the side door of the study, and through it to the shrubbery beyond the tiny width of lawn. That was enough for us and in a moment or two we had the print back on the wall and the shaving mirror was in my pocket.

  “Let’s get out round the gardens where we can talk,” I said. “You’re supposed to have seen the study if Wharton asks questions.”

  We found a useful spot where a seat was recessed into a yew hedge, and if Wharton came along we were obviously admiring the view across the valley.

  “Funny how I should miss that point about your mirror,” Frank said ruefully.

  “I missed it myself,” I said, “but it’s clear enough now. It’s one of the things we can be dead sure of from now on. Matthews saw something in that mirror. What, we don’t know, and it’s no use guessing. My own idea is,” I said, eating my own words, “that Queenie must have had an appointment at some time or other with Sivley in that handy bit of shrubbery, probably when Joe was watching cricket at Trimport. You can get to it by the back way from the garage without being seen in the house. That was what the old boy couldn’t understand after the murder, and what he wanted to ask me about. He probably thought I could give some explanation. Queenie overheard him talking to me, and when I’d gone she got him in a corner and wheedled or threatened everything out of him. She pitched him some yarn about going somewhere with her that night, where he’d hear some astounding revelations that’d ease his mind. That sounds wild, but it’s good enough as a makeshift. She imposed secrecy on him, she typed the letter and added his signature, and she met him at some quiet spot in her car. As we know, he’d have done anything for her and she could twist him round her finger. Where she was concerned he’d be as credulous as a kid with a bedtime story.”

  “And where’s she parked him?”

  “Parked him?” I said, and my lip rather curled.

  He gave me a look, and then gave a low whistle. “I get you. She got in touch with Sivley that same night and Sivley did the old fellow in.”

  “You’ve got it,” I said. “And, by God, she’s going to swing for it.”

  “Yes, but she had it pinned on her,” he said, and shook his head. “It’d take ten thousand men to begin searching this countryside for newly turned earth, and dragging ponds.”

  “I know,” I said. “All the same there’re ways and means. I’ve got one or two in my mind now. For instance, you must tell Wharton that our mention of Harper to-night made you recall something. You’ve been upset about Matthews like everyone else connected with this place, and you wondered if there was any connection with a remark Harper had let fall about seeing Queenie’s car that night. If necessary you can bring it all out as an instance of what a liar Harper is. You think out your own approach. All I’m interested in is getting Wharton interested, and let me tell you this. Once he gets his teeth into anything, he’ll never let go. If Matthews is to be found, he’ll find him, even if he has to mobilise an army corps.”

  “When do I start talking? On the way back?”

  “The sooner the better,” I said. “And one other thing, this time at Queenie’s end. You’ve got to disappear out of her young life sooner or later, haven’t you? I mean, you can’t let that Hollywood hooey get so far as quitting her at the dock side. And another thing. If Wharton, or ourselves, should uncover anything and she thinks this country a bit too unhealthy, she may decide to leave. Also my idea is that she may be leaving pretty soon. She was always one to do things and funk the consequences, and I’ll bet she’s wishing she could be somewhere where there weren’t so many reminders. That’s why she’s got an advance from the executors and has been splashing the money on clothes. She
’s thinking about impressing Hollywood—and you, too, perhaps.”

  “I’m inoculated,” he said, and gave his cynical smile.

  “Well, here’s the line of talk I’d like you to hand out,” I went on. “If you can think of a better, then use it without reference to me. You tell her you’ve been ordered by your firm, or whoever it is you work for, to go to Russia to confer with some of their film people. You’re sorry you won’t be able to accompany her to Hollywood, but you’re doing the next best thing. Then you can give her letters of introduction to any goddam people you can think of.”

  He leaned forward, grinning as his hand patted my knee.

  “Brother, I’m ahead of you. I knew I’d have to break away sooner or later so this very afternoon I began a few preliminaries. Nothing that’ll cramp your scheme. I told her, for instance, in my modest way, that I didn’t know so many people in Hollywood. ‘Hollywood’s a mighty big place,’ I said, and then let on that besides Chaplin and Garbo and Crosby and Gable, and Gary Cooper slightly, and one or two producers, I knew very few people at all. Did she swallow that, hook, line, and sinker or did she? She was all over me. But for that swell girl of mine I wouldn’t be here talking to you now.”

  “And the fact that I’m supposed to be employing you,” I added, dryly. “But there’s your new assignment—”

  He was sniffing. “Wharton’s coming from windward. That’s his pipe.”

  Wharton it was, and he found us gloating over that valley view.

  Frank had suggested that we should walk home by way of the Lapwings, for there was little difference in distance. I guessed he was making a perfect excuse to speak of Harper again, and Wharton gave him the opening he wanted by supposing that Harper was still at the pub. Frank said Harper had told him he’d be there for months at least, and then added that Harper was such a deplorable liar that one couldn’t take all he said for gospel.

  “What lie has he told you?” Wharton was asking at once, but as if only politely interested.

  Frank gave the one instance, asking Wharton not to mention his own name. He knew it was a lie, he said, because Mrs. Craigne had herself assured him that she hadn’t been out of the Manor grounds that Saturday night.

  When we got near the pub Wharton said roguishly that we two topers had only lured him that way because we wanted a drink. He’d join us later, he said, but now he was so near Harper’s headquarters he might as well have a word with him. So we went into the pub, and we couldn’t do much private talking because there wasn’t a private bar and quite a few men were in the tap-room. All seemed to know Frank.

  “I ought to go easy on the liquor if I’m doing that little job to-night,” he managed to whisper to me.

  “That’s off,” I said. “Far better let her be caught red-handed with that mirror when the time comes.”

  “Well, here’s how,” he said, and raised his tankard. “And, Gawd, what a magnificent liar a certain somebody is.”

  I was thinking to myself it wouldn’t be a bad idea to write down every single statement Charlotte Craigne had made, reverse it, and see what the results were. But she wasn’t so much a magnificent liar as a lucky liar. Take that mirror. I knew she was lying about it, but I never guessed she’d taken it because of what poor old Matthews had told her he’d seen in it.

  Frank was talking farming to one of the locals, and doing it very well. I was squinting out of the window and wondering what George was saying to Harper and why he was such a devil of a time about it. When at last he came in he didn’t look in too good a temper, but, toper or not, he made no reservations when I ordered a pint tankard.

  When we got out of the pub on the way back he began letting off steam.

  “That Harper’s certainly a liar, Mr. Franks, and he’s a foul-mouthed one too. When he began talking about Mrs. Craigne I soon shut his mouth for him.”

  “What’d he say?” I asked.

  “Just vague accusations.” He snorted. “Eaten up with conceit, that’s what he is. But I’ll take some of it out of him, or my name’s Robinson. I can’t think why Passman ever employed him. His heart must have got the better of his head.”

  “I think I have an idea about that,” Frank said. “You won’t think I’m horning in, Mr. Wharton, but I’ve got really interested in all that’s been going on here.”

  “Naturally you have,” conceded Wharton. “But why do you really think Passman employed him?”

  “I guess Harper was a bodyguard. From what I’ve picked up here and there, Mr. Passman was taking Sivley mighty seriously.”

  From what Frank had hinted to me before, I knew that now he must have good grounds for the statement. Wharton saw something in it too.

  “I don’t know that you’re not right,” he said. “The trouble is there’s no one but Passman to prove it. That liar Harper swore it was purely the old chap’s generosity.” Then he was giving Frank a queer, sideways look. “No use asking you how you found out about Harper?”

  “Just a bit of gossip here and another there,” Frank said dryly. “I reckon these village lads think I’m a fairly harmless character, Mr. Wharton. Maybe they tell me things they wouldn’t tell you.”

  When we got back to the Oak we lost Wharton again. It was one of those sultry nights when you can’t help drinking, so Frank and I had a nightcap, with a hundred up on the dartboard to see who should pay. Just as we finished, George appeared.

  “You don’t mean to say you play darts with that crook?” he demanded of Frank. “Look at his arms. Why, dammit, he doesn’t have to throw. He just leans forward and sticks ’em in.”

  Before I could think of a retort he was going on.

  “But I’ll be getting up Wooden Hill. Work to do in the morning. Good night to you, Mr. Franks.” The tone changed from the facetious to the mild. “Can you spare me a minute, Mr. Travers? Shan’t keep you any longer.”

  I shook hands ceremoniously with Frank, managed to put across a wink and then followed George up the stairs.

  “A nice young fellow that Mr. Franks,” George was telling me confidentially as soon as he’d closed the door. “No swank about him either.” He gave another nod which struck me as more of a tribute to his own perspicuity than to Frank’s merits. “We might be able to make use of him in a quiet way. Not that we want him to know all that’s going on.

  “I thought I’d ring up Mrs. Craigne,” he told me as soon as I was seated, “and I was lucky enough to catch her. Just going to bed, she said.”

  “She swore blind she didn’t have the car out that night?”

  “Well, yes, she did,” he told me gruffly, not too pleased at having the words taken out of his mouth.

  “Then, that’s that,” I said. “We’re back where we started.”

  “Yes,” he said, and pursed his lips and frowned contemplatively. “But I’m just wondering whether I haven’t been a bit deceived in that Mrs. Craigne. Harper was positive, and I’ve seen that car of hers. It’s one you can’t make a mistake about.”

  “Then how can you prove she’s lying?”

  “Dammit, don’t keep asking fool questions!” exploded George. He waved his hands about, then began prowling round the room. “It’s up to us to do something. We’ve been called in and we’re up for judgment.” The tone became more pathetic than wheedling. “And you and I have never made a hash of a case yet.”

  “Well, not too big a hash,” I said.

  And then some queer wave of sympathy came over me. There he was, getting out his note-book, and adjusting his spectacles. There he was, the same old lovable George, and before I knew it I was saying the last thing I’d ever intended to say.

  “I know you hate theories, George, except when they turn out right, but I wonder if you’d like to listen to an amazing one.”

  “About what?”

  “Listen,” I said. “It’s a long story but don’t interrupt.”

  So I told him the Sivley theory, making it out to be entirely my own. I gave another thumbnail sketch of Charlotte Craig
ne and even hinted that we’d been pretty thick in the past, and I showed what she had stood to gain. George held me up while he made notes but he asked never a question.

  “Right,” he said when he at last closed the book. “Keep all this under your hat. Mind you,” he had to add, “I don’t say there’s anything in it but it’s worth trying out.”

  “How’re you going to try it?”

  “Pick up something about the movements of her car that night,” he said, and I was wondering if he’d be more successful than Frank. Then he let out that he had a chief inspector and another man working at Trimport, and they’d now be brought to Brazenoak. The ultimate objective was the finding of Matthews’s body.

  “You get off to bed now,” he told me. “I’ve got some telephoning to do.”

  I watched him go downstairs and then slipped into Frank’s room.

  “I may have been a fool,” I said, “but I’ve told Wharton your Sivley theory. Not as your own but as mine.”

  “Suits me,” he said, and grinned.

  “He’s now gone to telephone,” I whispered from the door. “I’ll bet he’s putting someone on Queenie’s tail. What if the somebody spots our friend Smith?”

  He grinned again and gave me the thumbs-up sign, and I went off to my uneasy bed. I didn’t know if I was glad or sorry I hadn’t said a word about that mirror. When I woke in the morning I was glad I’d stopped at what seemed just the right time, for there were things about that mirror which I’d found it hard to explain away.

  The morning brought a letter from Bernice. She had read all about the tragedies before my letter reached her, but the interesting thing was that there was no postscript. The one cryptic remark was: “A terrible time for Charlotte! I think she’s doing the right thing in going to America.”

  CHAPTER XII

  THE NEW IDEA

  When the maid brought my morning tea there was a note on the tray, and she said it was from Mr. Franks. What he was suggesting was a walk before breakfast, and he’d be waiting for me downstairs. My toilet was made in record time, but as only twenty minutes remained before the official hour for the meal, and Wharton would be there on the dot, we strolled across a field-path till we were well out of sight and then did the rest of the constitutional on a stile.