“That mirror up there,” he suddenly said, and I’m sure it was only to get me off the case. “Is it a valuable one?”
“It’s a reproduction,” I told him, “and not too good a one at that.”
We were sitting facing the empty fireplace, back to the open end of the room, and as I looked at the mirror I saw Mrs. Porter approaching, or rather, about to approach. She had a curious trick, by the way: that of rubbing or flicking her nose with the back of a finger as if disposing of an Eskimo’s tear. She did that twice while I watched her amusedly, and she also patted her hair. Then she came in, and with a little cough to call attention to the fact.
“Was you two gentlemen waiting for Mr. Wharton?”
“Who’s taking my name in vain?” came Wharton’s voice from the lobby.
“I’m sure I beg your pardon, sir,” Mrs. Porter told him with a titter. “But your dinner’s ready, sir, if you are.”
Off we went to get it, and the thought of it put something else out of my mind. In that one minute, floating above me in space and with only a hand needed to reach up and grasp it, was the solution to everything that was worrying me, and it was to be a good many hours and after a considerable deal more of worry before I was to have that chance again.
Wharton said he was going to take things easy that night. His brain was tired and his feet were tired and he was proposing to rest both in the private bar. I left him there looking like a latter-day Dr. Johnson, discussing war prospects with the local worthies. Frank had suggested we should take a short stroll and then play darts, but I couldn’t find him. Then Mrs. Porter told me he was at the telephone.
It was about five minutes before he turned up, and as he made no mention of what had kept him I guessed it was some private call. But no sooner were we over the stile to the inn paddock than he was giving me his old cynical smile.
“Well, didn’t I tell you something was going to happen? That was Queenie on the ’phone.
“Yes,” he went on. “Harper’s certainly put the wind up Queenie. Guess what she’s doing.”
“Coming down here,” I said.
“Going to America, and straight away!”
“But she mustn’t!” I said, and then realised how footling the remark was. “We’ve just got to get hold of something. Anything so long as we can keep her here.” Then I gave him a look. “You’re not pulling my leg?”
“My God, no!” he said. “You ought to have heard her. ‘So frightfully sorry, Frankie darling’—that’s what she calls me now—‘but I’ve really got to get away for a long rest. My dear, I’ve simply got to.’ I said why didn’t she come down here, thinking we could keep an eye on her. Then she said she’d suddenly made up her mind to go to some friends in New York, and then on to Hollywood, taking those too, too marvellous introductions I’d given her. She might even be going sometime this week, she said. It all depended on whether she could get everything ready. I said could I see her off, and then she started to make difficulties. Everything would be so hurried, and she couldn’t be able to let me know in time, and it was perfectly sweet of me and she’d be seeing me in Hollywood. Oh yes, and she said she’d like to go over on the Queen Mary.”
“If she said that,” I said, “then you bet your life she’s intending to go over on a cattle boat.” Then I was clicking my tongue exasperatedly. “But honestly, Frank, we’ve got to do something. If we can’t do anything else we’ll have to frame her. We simply can’t let her get out of the country.”
“There’s no immediate worry,” he assured me. “But I’ll get hold of Smith, if you like, and tell him to put an extra outdoor man on her tail. She’ll have to buy her ticket somewhere. We ought to know what boat she’s crossing on, and when.”
“That won’t be much good to us when she’s gone,” I said impatiently. I could kick myself now when I think of the dither I was in.
“You’ve only got to give me the word,” he said, “and I’ll nip up to town and keep an eye on things.”
“We can’t keep explaining your disappearances to Wharton,” I said. “Besides, it’d be too risky. That goddam diploma of yours didn’t take account of Queenie.”
“That’s better,” he told me with a grin. Funny relations, you may think, between the detective and the gent who was hiring him, but Frank and I had come to be more like Uncle Tom and Harold than the original script had provided for.
We went back to the Oak and he managed to get in touch with the beetle-browed Smith.
“No more panic,” he told me. “Smith’s well on the job. Did I tell you he’s got the flat above hers? And spending half the day with his ear on the floor.”
I hope Frank didn’t hear my groan. Smith in a five hundred a year flat, and I still hadn’t done anything about that cheque from Charlotte Craigne.
It was cool after the day’s sultriness, and Frank and I sat on the oak seat beneath the elm. A lovely English kind of smell was coming with the dew from a bed of stocks beneath the bar window, and we were snuffing the air, and saying the same old things about only the fools living in towns. Wharton was still enthroned in the private bar and occasionally we heard his voice or a hearty guffaw.
A man on a bicycle loomed up out of the dusk. As he dismounted he caught sight of us, and recognised Frank, for as he came across he was flicking the peak of his cap.
“Evenin’, sir. Been a bit of an accident or somethin’ up at the Lapwings, so they tell me. Harper’s gone and shot himself or somethin’.” I still remember those clipped g’s and the slight sing-song of the Suffolk dialect.
“Good God!” Frank said, and forgot all about accent. “When was this?”
“Just now, so they reckon, sir. But I don’t know no more about it than what I’ve heard.”
Frank gave me a look, then was taking the handle-bar of the bicycle.
“You lend me your bicycle. Mr. Travers, you take Baker to the bar and give him a drink. Harper was a friend of mine. Guess I’m going to find out what’s happened.”
Another couple of seconds and he’d disappeared. As I led the way to the bar I didn’t know if I was on my head or my heels. Nothing made sense, was all that ran through my brain. Harper couldn’t possibly have shot himself.
“Who gave the news, Baker?” I asked.
“That boy of Jim Taylor’s,” he said. “Perhaps the young devil was tellin’ me lies.”
“You keep it to yourself for the present,” I advised him. “Mr. Franks will let us know when he comes back. You never know what lies people will start.”
He reckoned that was so. I stood him a pint tankard and had a half one myself, and while I was asking him about local crops, I was thinking about Harper. I knew perfectly well why Frank had hurried to the Lapwings—to get there before Wharton heard the news. Maybe it hadn’t been an accident, and if Wharton asked questions, then Harper would have to be provided with answers. And I was thinking of a dozen other things at the same time. Of all the incongruous things, I thought of Widger, who sent Sivley a note to quit the parish, and who’d been so confident of his own brute strength as to boast in that very pub that Sivley would never be seen there again. I wondered if it was Harper by any chance who’d got May Bullen into trouble; I wondered what Frank was telling Harper, and what Wharton would do when he knew.
That latter was a moment not to be long delayed. Into the bar came another man, full of the news. This time it was that someone had shot at Harper, and he reckoned it was somebody who’d been taking a shot at a rabbit and got Harper instead. Porter, who was serving in that bar, at once went through to the private bar. I was in a panic, then I said to Baker: “What about going up to the Lapwings? We can fetch your bicycle at the same time.”
He drained his tankard and off we went. It was ten minutes to closing time, but behind us we could hear voices already outside the pub, which showed that the news had got round. Then a hundred yards along the road Frank came pedalling up. He gave Baker the bicycle, and a bob tip, and enough news to satisfy him, and then was mot
ioning me back among the trees.
“Someone had a shot at Harper,” he told me. “Got him in the shoulder. A rifle bullet, but he’ll be all right. The doctor’s just taking him off to the hospital.”
“Has he any idea who did it?”
“He heard a car drive off just after the crack. It must have been Sivley. Queenie put him up to it.”
“Where’d it happen?”
“About a hundred yards down the road from the pub. A local man—he’s with the local policeman now—says he was coming towards the pub when a stranger put his head out of a car by the side of the road and asked if he’d tell Harper he was wanted. He says he didn’t see the man very well because it was dusk, and he didn’t recognise his voice, but he got the idea he was a parson. Harper got the message, and as he was coming towards the car he got the bullet. It knocked him plumb flat, and when he sort of got himself in one piece again, the car’d gone.”
“You and I’d better go along,” I said. “Wharton may think we were still on that walk of ours.”
So we set off. Frank told me he’d had a word with Harper, who could be trusted to say he’d no idea who’d fired the shot. Then there was a toot behind us, and the lights of a car.
“Where are you two off to?” came Wharton’s voice.
“Just heard some yarn about Harper,” I said. “We thought of going to verify it.”
There was only a hundred yards to go and we were there by the time he’d drawn up his car. Quite a few people were standing about outside, and Wharton was making for the nearest group.
“Let’s get off back, Frank,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.”
He made a grimace but followed me nevertheless.
“It’ll be all right with Wharton,” I said. “We can say the excitement all seemed to be over, and we knew he’d tell us anything there was to tell. But what I want to know is if you’ve any pull with any of the news agencies?”
“You want me to rush the news to town?”
“Something of the sort,” I said. “But have you any pull?”
He thought for a bit, and then said he didn’t know. If it was urgent, then he knew a man whose name he could make use of. He might even have to pretend he was that man, and fake his voice.
“I think it’s damnably urgent,” I said. “What I want you to do is to get the news to any agency where it’ll be at once distributed. Say Harper was attacked by an unknown man a few minutes ago and that he’s since died. There’ll be no time for them to check up.”
“My God! you’re asking something!” I could hear his grin. “But what’s the idea behind it?”
“It’s a million to one Queenie put Sivley up to the shooting.” I said. “Harper fell, and when they read the morning papers they’ll know he’s dead. Queenie will be easy once more in her mind and she won’t be so eager to bolt. Anything to keep her in England a few more days.”
“And what about when the disclaimer comes in the afternoon editions?”
My stride had automatically been lengthening, and I had to slow down for him to get abreast again.
“Maybe she doesn’t read the afternoon editions. Even if she does, it may make her change her plans.”
At the Oak he let my importunities get the better of his judgment and went to the telephone. When he came back he was looking somewhat rueful.
“There’ll be a fiver on the bill for this,” he told me. “I won’t tell you who it is I’ve just been impersonating, but your eyes’d pop out if I did.”
We waited and waited for Wharton to return and at half-past eleven Frank said he’d be getting up to bed. I sat on, and a quarter of an hour later Wharton appeared. He said he’d been to the hospital, which was eight miles away, to get a statement from Harper. The house was dead quiet, and even on the upstair landing you couldn’t hear a snore. Wharton had part of a bottle of whisky in his room and said he wanted a stiff one. I had one too, for my throat was like a lime-kiln with the smoking Frank and I had done while we were waiting.
The first thing he told me was that Harper was going on well, and he didn’t know why they hadn’t left him at the Lapwings. I could have told him something about that. Frank had reached the Lapwings while the doctor was debating the point, and something he’d put in had turned the scale. As Frank told me, if it was Sivley who’d done the shooting, then he might have another go, but he’d never have the nerve to make an attempt in the town hospital. I saw things the other way and said it was a pity Harper hadn’t been left at the Lapwings as bait.
“Who do you think did the shooting?” I asked George.
“Don’t know,” he said. “The old fool who took the message to the pub couldn’t tell me a thing. Take the car. All he knows is that it was a car. Didn’t know if it was blue or black. Said it wasn’t exactly big and it wasn’t exactly little. And I couldn’t get any more out of him about the man. He still reckons—as he put it—he was oldish, and a parson, just because he had an educated voice probably and something white round his neck.”
“It couldn’t have been Sivley?” I suggested.
“What grudge has he got against Harper?”
“If Sivley’s a candidate for Broadmoor as you once thought, then reasons wouldn’t matter,” I said. “He may be just running amok.”
Wharton shook his head. “I keep telling myself it wasn’t Sivley. Fate couldn’t have played me a dirty trick like that: me sitting here and Sivley just up the road. But what I’d like is for you to see what you can find out. I’m going to town in the morning. About time I talked things over with the Powers-that-Be.”
“Well, I’ll do my best,” I said, and with never a blush. “But what about the bullet? What was the calibre?”
“The bullet went clean through,” Wharton said. “That’ll be one of your jobs, to see if you can find it.”
“Some hope,” I said dryly. “I’d rather look for a very small needle in a couple of dozen hay-stacks.”
Then I thought of something. It was information I definitely needed, and it would be giving George a hint of which he might after all make use.
“When you’re in town, George. I wish you’d do something for me. Find out what sum of money the executors advanced to Mrs. Craigne.”
He gave me a peering look. “Still on that hunt, are you?”
“I’ve still got it in mind,” I told him. “But you’ll try to find out for me?”
He gave me another of his peering looks, then ventured on a chuckle. “As a matter of fact I can tell you now. She was advanced half the cash bequest.” He saw my look and gave another chuckle, or rather it was more of a leer. “Oh, yes. I find things out occasionally. Just as well to know how everything stands.”
I think I did blush then, but he noticed nothing. “Twenty-five thousand’s a large sum to advance, surely?”
“Not at all,” he said. “The will’s sound enough, and it’s all in the family, so to speak. And I believe Mrs. Craigne told them she might be going abroad at any time to avoid gossip. She was only staying on in case her husband’s body was recovered.”
He finished his second tot and said he’d be turning in. I had a last question.
“About the bullet, George. The direction will be easier if anyone heard it at the pub.”
“At the pub!” George said witheringly. “All they heard was a crack, and then they reckoned it was someone potting at a rabbit.”
“And how long do you think you’ll be in town?”
“Can’t say,” he said. “What’s to-day? Wednesday?”
“Actually it’s an hour into Thursday,” I said.
“Thursday—Friday. Maybe I’ll be back Friday night.”
He gave himself a little self-satisfied nod, and as I went to my room I was telling myself that he’d discovered something. So accustomed had I grown to suspect him of subterfuge that I began thinking over all we’d said, and it seemed to me that he’d divulged uncommonly little. And there was that business of the inquiries he’d made into Charlotte Craigne’s affair
s, and which I’d forced out of him. In fact, as I lay waiting for sleep I was extremely uneasy in my mind. Something did tell me that George was completely unaware of the dangerous game that Frank and I had been playing, and yet even of that I couldn’t be entirely sure. Why, for instance, the sudden decision to return to town? And what conference at the Yard could keep him there till the Friday?
When I woke in the morning the uneasiness was still there, and as soon as Frank and I were off on our usual pre-breakfast stroll, I unburdened my mind.
“What’s wrong with you is that you’ve too much conscience,” he told me. “You went into this scrap bare-fisted and now you’re worrying about not having the gloves on. Why shouldn’t Wharton go to town? We’re sitting pretty, aren’t we? We’ve got Harper to ourselves. Smith’s watching Queenie.”
I was still shaking my head dubiously.
“Snap out of it,” he told me with a grin. “Your life’s been too respectable, so far. Count your blessings—that’s the motto. A fortnight ago you were a father. You might have been heading straight for the divorce court. And what are you now? All nerves and misery, when we two ought to be skipping along this path like a couple of lambs.”
“It’s all very well for you,” I said. “You can drop out of all this and I can’t. I’ll own up that I’m scared stiff.” Then all at once I was polishing my glasses, with: “Oh my hat! I’ve remembered something else. What a bloody fool I must have been last night to have got you to fake Harper’s death.”
It was the newspaper-boy on his bicycle that had reminded me of that far-too-hasty bit of foolishness. Frank was calling to the boy who knew us both by sight. We could save him getting off his bicycle again, he said, and we were promptly given the papers for the Oak.
As soon as he’d got round the corner, Frank held up an illustrated. It had twin sets of headlines:
The Case of the Magic Mirror: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 19
