These Names Make Clues

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “There can’t be two points of view over murder,” replied Miss Coombe, and Valerie Woodstock retorted:

  “You’re a pacifist, are you not—and I assume a logical one? You don’t admit any circumstances in which it is justifiable to take life?”

  “I do not.”

  “Good. Then you don’t approve of capital punishment?”

  “No—but—”

  “There’s no but about it.” Valerie faced the older woman with as cool a front as though she were arguing a purely academic point.

  “The chief inspector is quite logical in his attitude. If he is convinced that murder was done, he’ll pursue the murderer until he gets him or her in the dock—if he can; ‘thereafter to be taken to the place from whence they came and hanged by the neck—’ You know that piece of legal pronouncement. Now, I also am a pacifist, and I am against capital punishment; but while I assure you that I’m not holding a brief for murder, I should hate to think that anybody I met here last night might be hanged for arranging a painless exit for that very unpleasant person, Andrew Gardien.”

  “You knew him, then?”

  “Before last night? No, I did not, but I saw enough of him to make me realise that I’ve no tears to shed over his death.”

  Valerie had been sitting with her hands along the arms of her chair, very upright, a little tense; and suddenly she changed her attitude and her voice changed too into a tone less sharp.

  “I’m awfully sorry I’m doing this so badly. The last thing I want to do is to make you feel more uncomfortable than you’re feeling already. I came to you because I knew that I could trust you. I feel that so strongly that if I’d killed the man myself—and felt justified in doing it—I should not be afraid to tell you how or why I did it, knowing you wouldn’t give me away. You’re like that, in spite of reminding me about accessories and all the other paraphernalia. If you had killed him, and I knew it, I should take great pains to avoid sharing my knowledge with the C.I.D.”

  Miss Coombe stared at the girl’s calm face. “Is that it? You imagine that my convictions of non-aggression might go to the wall in case of expediency?”

  Valerie Woodstock laughed outright. “I like the way you say that! I know your militant record, you know, and the leopard doesn’t change his spots. You’re only pacifist from intellectual conviction, not from moral inertia, like most of them. You could hit as hard as I could if you felt justified in doing it. Do you do cross-words?”

  “I do.”

  “So do I. I find it’s symptomatic of a certain type of mind. Some people like puzzles as others like physical exercise. Excess of biological energy over immediate needs, I suppose. Regarding this problem as a cross-word and putting all passions and ‘isms’ aside, can you tell me that you haven’t fairly puzzled your brains to know what happened last night, and who caused it to happen?”

  “My dear girl, of course I have.”

  “And are you going to write out your ideas in detail and submit them to that admirable chief inspector, and say, ‘I think this is what really happened?’”

  “There,” said Miss Coombe, speaking with great deliberation, “you have me. I may have made wild guesses, but I’m going to keep them to myself. Now don’t go drawing erroneous conclusions. Don’t think that your arguments about logical pacifism and capital punishment have impressed me. I’ve heard them before, and I admit your point, but there are two things I should like to make clear. I do not, under any circumstances, approve of murder—mass murder or otherwise—nor do I approve of capital punishment, but this seems clear to me: Nobody, man or woman, who possesses an ethical sense, can make light of perjury. If I am to be put in the witness-box I shall tell the truth to the best of my ability.”

  “So should I,” put in Valerie, and Miss Coombe went on firmly:

  “There is a C.I.D. man on duty in this house at the present moment. It’s his business to notice things. He’s probably phoned through to his superior officer already and reported that you have called here. Don’t you think it’s probable that the chief inspector may ask me what you had to say? Please don’t put me in an impossible position by telling me things which you don’t want repeated.”

  “I see,” replied Valerie. “You’d rather I didn’t discuss the matter with you at all.”

  Miss Coombe reached out her hand for the cigarette-box and offered it to her visitor, and Valerie took a cigarette with a smile and lighted it, while Miss Coombe went on:

  “My dear, I know of no one with whom I should find it more interesting to discuss this matter than yourself. You’ve got a clear head. There are two sides in most of us—certainly in myself. On the one hand is the woman who prides herself on her civic sense, her desire for justice and her respect for the truth as a fundamental of justice. In association with her is the more primitive woman who is chock full of curiosity and as liable to err as ever a woman was. I’ll talk the whole thing over with you, provided you won’t burden my conscience with difficulties. You said just now that I was militant au fond. That’s a good suggestion. Let it be understood that you suspect me of playing tricks with the electric power, and I will tell you frankly that I suspect you. Is that quite clear?”

  “Quite—as a basis of argument. You can assume that I vamped the chief inspector and kept him interested in my bright conversation until my booby trap worked. I believe that idea occurred to him, and I don’t wonder. Moreover, if he is looking around for a competent and ruthless avenger of women’s wrongs, he is bound to consider you. If either of us is questioned about this conversation, we can plead that we are not bound to incriminate ourselves. The law does not require us to do so.”

  “Then let’s get down to it,” said Miss Coombe. “You were busy yesterday evening in finding out unobtrusively where every one was at the time of the fuse—and earlier on, as well. You probably know as much about that as Macdonald does. There are two points worth considering which occurred after you had gone.”

  She then described the finding of the flex, and the articles she had put away in the “lost property box.” “Those things—the bag, the cigarette-case of yours and the gloves of Miss Delareign’s are no longer in the box. I looked for them just before you came. I only hope the chief inspector took them away himself. While I can bear with equanimity the glance of suspicion you turn on me, I’m not wholly anxious for Macdonald to consider me seriously in that light, because it seems to me so very difficult to disprove one’s complicity.”

  Valerie nodded. “Yes. I see that. From what you say, it looks as though somebody arranged an electrocution outfit in the telephone-room and removed it hastily afterwards. I suppose the oddments like the flex would be so difficult to trace—their ownership, I mean—that it didn’t matter about their being found.”

  “Put it like this,” said Miss Coombe. “The murderer expected Gardien’s death to pass as heart failure. The flex had to be removed from the telephone-room, obviously. After that the idea would have been to rescue it from the box later and drop it down a drain or something. Somehow Macdonald spotted the trick. Once it was spotted, as you say, the flex became unimportant.”

  “Gardien must have been killed in the telephone-room,” mused Valerie. “No one could have hauled his corpse around in this house, so whatever was done had to be arranged in the telephone-room. It may have been something that only took a couple of minutes to organise, but some one had to go in there and do it between the time they entered the house and the time of the fuse.”

  “Unless some one living in the house arranged it beforehand,” said Miss Coombe—myself, Graham, or Manton.”

  “I think that any one living in the house would have made some better arrangement for disposing of the flex than putting it in that box,” argued Valerie. “That strikes me as a hasty improvisation. With plenty of time to think it out beforehand and the whole resources of the house at one’s disposal, one could have done better than that.”

  “Perhaps one could,” said Miss Coombe with a smile. “However, i
t’s obvious that an outsider could have done it—the electricity business, I mean—if he’d had a look at the room first. I don’t pretend to understand how it was done…”

  “I haven’t seen the room, so I can’t enlighten you,” said Valerie. “But, given a flex and a power plug, something could be arranged with very little difficulty in a minimum of time; I expect I could organise something with your fire curb and the poker, which make a complete circuit. Of course, a transformer would help—you could get a real high voltage and make a certainty of it. I wonder if the grey-haired gentleman carried a box under his arm?”

  “Not that I’ve heard of. You seem to know a lot about this sort of thing.”

  “One did physics at school,” murmured Valerie reflectively. “You’ve been very patient with me, Miss Coombe, and I’m honestly grateful to you. I wish that I could tell you exactly what’s in my mind, but—”

  “But you think it wiser to keep your own counsel, and I think I rather agree with you,” said Susan. “Incidentally, I have been trying to remember where I have seen you before. You were up at St. Elizabeth’s, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I don’t remember having seen you there. The only time I ever saw you was when I was in the sixth form at school. You came down on Speech Day and made a really good speech—the only good one I ever heard on any of those occasions.”

  “Oh, that was it! Of course! You were at Wraden School, near Reading, weren’t you? I remember now.”

  “Clever of you! Now, in addition to your other kindnesses, will you do one more thing for me—let me use the phone in your telephone-room?”

  Miss Coombe stared. “Use it, by all means; but there is a C.I.D. man on duty there.”

  “That doesn’t matter at all. It’s quite a trivial message, but I want to send it now.”

  “Very well. I have no objection if you haven’t,” replied Susan, and immediately led Valerie across the hall. At the door of the telephone-room she said:

  “I will say good-bye for the moment. Let me hear from you again soon.”

  “I will. Good-bye, and thanks so much. I’m expecting to go abroad quite shortly—to Germany—but I’ll let you know.”

  Detective Parton, C.I.D., who was still on duty by the phone, watched the fair-haired girl with a very lively interest. Macdonald, who liked his men to be well informed over the cases on which they were employed, had given Parton a list and description of the guests at the previous evening’s party, and Valerie Woodstock, with her fair bun of hair and little golden fringe, was easily identifiable.

  When she had dialled her number and was waiting for an answer, she sat with her back to the window observing the little room, and it seemed to Parton that it was the bureau and the electric point which seemed to hold her attention.

  “1596? Can I speak to Miss Leyland, please?… Is that you, Anne? Valerie speaking. Can you give me a shampoo and set at 11.15? I know, love, but then I must have it done this morning. I’ve got a lunch at one-thirty. Oh, can you? Thanks ever so. Oh, by the way, what’s the address of that palmist woman you told me about? Hold on just a moment. I want to write it down.”

  There was a note-pad and pencil on the table, but Valerie Woodstock got up calmly and went to the bureau, opened it and drew out a sheet of note-paper. She then returned to her place and took down an address—number ten, somewhere. Parton got no opportunity of learning more. After that she hung up the receiver, smiled charmingly at the young man and hurried out.

  Parton jumped at the chance of a little activity. From the exchange he got the number and address of the subscriber who had been connected—a hairdresser’s in Wilmot Street, just off Wigmore Street. Then he reported to the Yard. Miss Valerie Woodstock had told Miss Coombe that she was shortly going to Germany. She had then rung up and made an appointment with Anne Leyland, a hairdresser, and had inspected the bureau in the telephone-room, opening it and getting out a sheet of paper. She had left Caroline House driving in a Morris eight, XXX5656. The inspector at the Yard grunted.

  “We might as well see if she does keep the appointment with her hairdresser,” he observed.

  Thus it came about that when Valerie Woodstock entered Anne Leyland’s very up-to-date beauty parlour, her entry was duly observed, the telephone and the C.I.D. together working with a celerity which Miss Woodstock would have approved of as “very snappy.” She had parked her car nearby in Manchester Square, and she seemed rather jolly and pleased with herself.

  Anne Leyland had been at Wraden Manor School with Valerie, but instead of a university training, she had insisted on being apprenticed to a beauty specialist. Now, in her own premises, she was doing very well on the patronage of her former school friends.

  When Valerie went into Anne Leyland’s private and particular cubicle she said:

  “Sorry to exploit you, darling. That phone call was eyewash. I don’t want a shampoo; I want to put off a particularly limpet-like male. Be a saint, and let me out by the Mews at the back, and if anybody inquires during the next hour and a half, tell them I’m being ‘set.’ I’ll come back before then—and pay up like a lady. It’s really rather important.”

  “Really, Val, I’d never have believed it of you,” replied Anne Leyland. “You were always such a hopeless highbrow that even little Audrey couldn’t get one on you. Have you been raided, or dunned, or what?”

  “All three, including what,” replied Valerie, surveying herself in a mirror very carefully. “Is my face all right? Give me a spot of that cream rouge of yours and some flesh tint—and I want to phone. Private like. Bad for you to know who I’m vamping.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, then. You’ve gone all human. Who’d have believed it?” replied Anne Leyland cheerfully. “But you do have your own way of running your affairs. Is the cast-off in the street?”

  “I expect so. Play up, Anne, and be a sport. I’m here, see, for the next hour and a half. You just run in and out with shampoos and towels and combs. Don’t give the show away.”

  Valerie put through her telephone call, “private like”; but she had had the temerity to rouse the interest of the C.I.D., and she did not realise how thorough those patient men could be. Her call was private, inasmuch as no one overheard it, but the numbers put through from Anne Leyland’s were reported to Scotland Yard, and when it became known that a connection had been made with Mardon-Elliott’s office, the interest of the C.I.D. was not diminished.

  When Valerie rang through to Elliott’s office, her call was answered by Inspector Jenkins, for Macdonald had left by that time.

  “I want to speak to Mr. Mardon-Elliott, please,” she said firmly.

  “Who is it speaking?”

  “Jane Seymour.”

  “Mr. Elliott is not here just now.”

  “When will he be free, please? I want to see him as soon as possible. It’s very important.”

  Jenkins, at the other end of the line, scratched his chin. He wanted to learn all that he could about Mr. Mardon-Elliott.

  “A personal matter, madam, or business?”

  “Personal,” was the firm reply.

  “Very good. If you could come here immediately?”

  “Certainly. I’ll get to you about twelve o’clock.”

  By the time that Miss Woodstock arrived at Elliott’s office (via the mews at the back of Anne Leyland’s salon, and thence into Wigmore Street) Jenkins had heard all about the visit to the hairdresser’s. He went in to Lethem (nervously busy in “dispatch”) and told him that a Miss Jane Seymour was calling on Elliott, and that he, Lethem, could interview her in his own office and find out what she wanted without giving any information concerning recent events. Lethem agreed without further comment, but there was a wariness in his eyes which made Jenkins thoughtful.

  “Do you know who she is?” he inquired.

  “Never heard of her,” said Lethem, “at least, not since I was at school.”

  When Valerie arrived at the office and entered “Inquiries,” she found Lethem there and sa
id that she had an appointment with Mardon-Elliott.

  “Yes. I’m afraid he’s late,” said Lethem. (The accuracy of this statement caused Jenkins, who was listening in from Elliott’s own office, to grin.) “He may not be here this morning. Is there anything I can do?” He had seen the tell-tale parcel under her arm—manuscript, undoubtedly. “I am Mr. Elliott’s secretary,” he added.

  “Well—we might explore avenues,” said Valerie sweetly. “I was advised to come here by Simon Grand.”

  Lethem bowed politely. Simon Grand was a name to conjure with.

  “Please come in, Miss Seymour,” he said, leading the way into his own office.

  The beginning of the interview was of no interest to Jenkins. It concerned a novel (historical) written by Miss Seymour, but presently things began to look up.

  “Seymour is a pseudonym, I take it,” said Lethem. “Do you write under another name?” He had unpacked the MS. and glanced through the first page. “This doesn’t strike me as a beginner’s work,” he added.

  Again Valerie smiled. “Very acute of you. But does it matter? It’s quite usual to write under two names, isn’t it? Some one told me that Andrew Gardien does.”

  “Does he? It’s the first time I’ve heard of it,” said Lethem. “I doubt if your informant is accurate. With a name which commands the sort of contracts that Gardien does, it seems silly to think he’d bother about a pseudonym. Who told you that, might I inquire?”

  “I was told in confidence,” she replied; and the sweetness of her voice might have made Lethem optimistic on any other day. “Your job must be awfully interesting,” she went on. “Everybody wonders who Mr. Gardien really is, and I suppose you really know him.”

  “I see him here fairly frequently,” said Lethem, and she bent forward across the table.

  “Do tell me, who is he really? Do you know where he came from? Some one told me that he’d been a don before he wrote thrillers, and that he lives on Boar’s Hill, and all the Oxford people know him under another name, without guessing about the Gardien business.”