These Names Make Clues

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “That’s very interesting,” said Macdonald, his mind working busily to fit in this new piece in his jig-saw puzzle. Elliott blackmailed by Gardien, for a very substantial backsliding. Elliott dead, with Gardien’s name scrawled on the blotting-paper in front of him.

  Jenkins was nodding like an amiable mandarin, and Macdonald flashed a glance at him before he asked Vale:

  “You knew Mavory when he was in Robell’s office?”

  “I knew him by sight. Robell made my father’s will, and did what legal business the old man needed. I’d been in and out of the office a good few times, and seen Mavory there. However, I’m not saying that I’m certain, I’m telling you what I think and it seems to be worth looking into it.”

  “It certainly is. When did it come into your mind that the man whom you’d heard of as Mardon-Elliott was Mavory?”

  “Last night. I was talking to young Strafford—Thomas Traherne—you know, while we were waiting to be put through it by you. Strafford told me he comes from Market Wraden, only a few miles from Langbourne. We were exchanging local reminiscences in the fatuous way one does—‘remember old so and so?… and is poor old what-not still alive?’—I haven’t been down there since my father died, six years ago, and Strafford was able to tell me all the latest gossip. It was while I was yarning away with him that the recollection of Mavory’s face flashed across my mind. I made a mental note that I’d look into the matter, though naturally the business of Gardien’s death overshadowed anything else last night.”

  Macdonald nodded. “Quite. Did you mention Mavory to Strafford?”

  “No. I spoke of old Robell, but Strafford was at school at the time and naturally didn’t remember the story.”

  “You know that Mardon-Elliott was Gardien’s agent?”

  Vale nodded. “Yes. Coombe told me so. I asked him as we came away from Gardien’s inquest if he knew anything about Elliott, and had the surprise of my life at the story he told me.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  Vale’s eyebrows twitched and he pursed his mobile lips up before he replied.

  “Exactly what he told you, I expect. That Elliott was Gardien’s agent—and that he—Coombe—had got it into his head that Elliott was the grey-haired man seen by Miss Delareign and Miss Rees last night. When Coombe told me that Elliott was dead too, it seemed to me that the two stories might be related—so naturally I went along to hear what I could about Elliott.” He ended abruptly and pulled a cigarette-case out of his pocket. “May I smoke here? Thanks. It’s the deuce of an odd problem you’ve got. I wish you’d tell me this. Is it certain that Gardien predeceased Elliott?”

  Macdonald paused before he replied. “No. It’s not certain at all. There is a bare possibility that Gardien died first, but it was more probably the other way about.”

  “The probability being that the same murderer accounted for both?—Gardien and Elliott being a pair of rogues working together, probably originating from the same neighbourhood.”

  “An assumption—or genuine information?” inquired Macdonald, and Vale smiled.

  “Call it inspired guesswork, to use Jane Austen’s phrase of yesterday. Andrew Gardien. It’s an interesting name. What is even more interesting is that several of the contacts in this case hail from the same neighbourhood.”

  Vale studied the chief inspector with his shrewd bright eyes. “Assuming that we’re right about Gardien, then he, Mardon-Elliott, Strafford and myself can be said to be linked by coincidence. So far as I am concerned Elliott was the only one of the three whom I’d set eyes on before. I’d certainly not met Gardien previously, nor Strafford.”

  “There was another person present at Coombe’s party who might be said to be linked with the coincidence of locality,” said Macdonald. “Miss Woodstock went to school in the same neighbourhood which forms the connecting link.”

  Vale nodded. “Yes, so I gathered.”

  He puffed away at his cigarette, and then jerked out, “From the point of view of common sense psychology, I should be disposed to leave Valerie Woodstock outside the range of inquiry, even though she was entertaining you when that fuse went.” Chuckling to himself a little, Vale went on, “I admit that the idea of the accomplice keeping you happily occupied in intelligent conversation while the principal got on with the main theme is an attractive avenue of approach, but to my mind it leads nowhere. The complement of that line of thought is Strafford and I don’t think it’s a sound proposition, even though the sight of Strafford at the inquest on Elliott did make me ponder a bit.”

  “Ponder aloud then,” said Macdonald, who was keen to know what argument had been occupying Vale’s calculating mind.

  “It’s a matter of comprehending the youth of to-day,” said Vale. “You and I are both over forty—pre-war, not post-war like Strafford and Valerie Woodstock. These youngsters haven’t the same conventions that we had at their age. They’re not susceptible to blackmail because they don’t care a damn who knows what. Then if Strafford had been planning Gardien’s murder, he wouldn’t have indulged in a row with him just beforehand to point to a motive, if you get me.”

  “I get you,” said Macdonald. “Your argument suggests that the mature are more susceptible to blackmail than the young.”

  “Of course. Having lived longer, they’ve given more hostages to fortune. They’re more avid of security, more fearful of loss.”

  “An interesting point, psychologically, but to get down to the facts of the case we have these factors. Gardien may have been a blackmailer—and Elliott had a particularly vulnerable point so far as the blackmailer was concerned. Ergo, Elliott got into Coombe’s house and killed Gardien, and then retired to be killed himself.”

  “Doesn’t that suggest to you that Gardien and Elliott were a couple of rogues working hand in hand, and that the same person killed both, to scotch the company at one go?”

  “Yes, but the evidence doesn’t reinforce the theory altogether. Some time you will be able to study it in full—it’s not permissible for me to lay it before you at present.”

  Vale chuckled. “I don’t altogether like the sound of that. Prisoner in the dock generally has the privilege of hearing all the evidence eventually. I suppose I do look a bit of a fishy party to your professional acumen.”

  “Every one at Mr. Coombe’s party remains under suspicion until the problem is cleared up,” said Macdonald cheerfully, “though that is not the point I was stressing. I think you are capable of seeing the cogent points of the evidence. Last night you had as much chance of observing events as I did.”

  “Up to a point. I’d say for one thing that the theory of Elliott’s presence at Coombe’s party is based on very insufficient evidence, a very vague description by two ladies, reinforced by leaps to conclusion on the part of Coombe and Manton.”

  “Quite. Disregard that hypothesis for the moment, and concentrate on those who were known to be present. The murderer had to be in the telephone-room between the time of the fuse and the time when the party reassembled in the drawing-room. That still gives us a large field of suspicion. As you observed for yourself, certain people can be said to be linked by locality. At the outset of Coombe’s party we were warned by him to observe—as far as we could—the characters of those about whom we were to have six guesses at the conclusion of the evening. One or two people indulged in admonitory witticisms which could be interpreted as ‘I won’t give you away if you’ll observe the same convention with regard to me.’”

  Vale nodded. “Yes, but it was all too nebulous to be regarded as evidence.”

  “Yes. I agree. The next point that arises is this. I asked each member of the party if they had previously met any of their fellow guests. Leaving out Coombe and Manton, who knew all of you, including Elliott, the replies I got were as follows: Miss Woodstock knew Strafford and vice versa. Neither of them knew any one else. You had met Mrs. Etherton. Miss Delareign had seen Andrew Gardien at Colombo. That was the sum total of admitted contacts. If it emerges t
hat any of the party were previously acquainted and took trouble to conceal the fact, I shall regard it as an indication of further knowledge on his or her part.”

  Vale nodded. “You get some rather interesting combinations in this case. Coombe and Manton, Mrs. Etherton and self; Miss Woodstock and Strafford, Miss Delareign and Miss Rees, Miss Campbell and Gardien. And if it was not Elliott whom those two ladies saw, then who was it? Manton with a wig on, assisting Coombe in a cunning plot?”

  “Does it strike you as reasonably probable?” said Macdonald.

  “No—but neither does anything else in this affair strike me as reasonably probable.”

  “When you were discussing local gossip with Strafford, did he mention any stories connected with Market Wraden, where he lives?”

  “Stories—such items as might make a blackmailer hopeful? No. He did not.”

  “Was Miss Woodstock talking to you at the time?”

  Vale screwed up his expressive face and said, “Talking? Listening might express it better.”

  “Holding a watching brief, in other words?”

  “I don’t quite know what you’re getting at, chief inspector, but I hold to my original opinion that Strafford and Miss Woodstock are not concerned in this. If you are suspicious of them, it’s up to you to put them through it.”

  “It’s up to me to put everybody through it, and to try to read the evidence aright. The actual tangible facts tell us very little in this case, and by propounding the wrong guess I might give a subtle witness the chance to prevaricate truthfully. When Miss Woodstock was listening to you and Strafford gossiping last night, did you get the impression that she was prepared to short-circuit the conversation if need arose?”

  Vale was silent for a minute, deep in consideration. At last he answered:

  “I’ll give you my honest impression. Strafford and I started yarning while you were talking to Valerie Woodstock as your first witness. When she came into the room, she joined Strafford and me.”

  “Who else was close at hand—listening to you two? Anybody?”

  “Mrs. Etherton and Miss Rees were nearest to us—both of them very quiet. Bourne was entertaining Miss Coombe and Miss Campbell with Manton in attendance. I asked Strafford if he could tell me anything about old Wraden Hall, and he said it was in the market again after having failed as a private hotel. It was a school up till a few years ago. It was at this point that Miss Woodstock changed the conversation with a question—rather an odd question, I thought. She asked me if I had read Galsworthy’s Escape. I said that I had, and she addressed the room at large asking them what they would do if an escaped convict appealed to them for help. She ended by saying that her own sympathies would always be with the hunted.”

  He broke off as a messenger came in with a note for Macdonald, and Vale got up.

  “I’m afraid I’ve been wasting your time. The psychological approach to the problem’s what interests me, and psychology’s a wordy business. You’re out for facts. If Mardon-Elliott proves to have been Mavory, that’s a fact of sorts.”

  Macdonald nodded. “It is—it’s also a line of approach. Thanks very much for the information. I shall be interested to compare notes again—later on. Good-bye for the moment.”

  When Vale had gone Macdonald turned to Jenkins.

  “Miss Woodstock went to see Miss Coombe this morning and used the phone in the telephone-room before she left. I was sufficiently interested in the report I had about her to put a man on to watching her. She went down to Reading by the 3.15 from Paddington. Strafford caught the 6.30 to Reading by the skin of his teeth. It will be interesting to see if Vale follows suit. What did you think of him? You were as mute as the Sphinx.”

  “I think he’s clever,” said Jenkins, rather glumly. “He stood up for that young couple all right, but gave away indications that they looked fishy. This Elliott-Mavory story’s interesting. What price Ashton Vale shooting Elliott, after having made an appointment with him as Gardien, and then going on to Coombe’s to finish the business?”

  Macdonald shook his head. “Won’t do. It doesn’t make a scrap of sense that way. The evidence in Elliott’s case all points one way, to my line of thinking, and Vale’s story hasn’t made me alter my opinion—in fact it has reinforced it. I’m going down to Reading, Jenkins. That’s the line indicated.”

  “Find out if Coombe was born there, too,” said Jenkins. “That’d make it all jollier than ever. Why was Coombe so interested in that bureau this morning?”

  “Every one has shown an interest in the bureau,” said Macdonald, “even Miss Woodstock. I’m sorry for her, Jenkins, but it’s time she answered a few questions.”

  Jenkins scratched his head, “And gave a few straight answers,” he said. “I’ve been thinking over those witnesses of yours in the Gardien case. They’re all what I call highbrows. I expect you call them intellectuals. They hate giving a straight answer, and tie themselves up in a knot with what they call the psychological approach. That long-legged fellow said one thing which was plain common sense. The assumption that the intruder at Coombe’s party was Elliott is pretty thin. Coombe and Manton weighed in on it, and it was a nice fertile suggestion of theirs. Miss Rees, who seems more capable of a straight answer than most of them, described the chap she’d seen as bullet-headed and flat-footed—‘I thought he was the C.I.D. man’—a bobby, like me, that is.” Jenkins rubbed his well-cropped bullet head with a podgy finger and looked down at his substantial boots. “That’s a plain description of a plain type. Coombe improves it to Elliott. What about the psychological approach, chief?”

  Macdonald grinned and slapped the other man’s powerful shoulders. “Matter of vocabulary, Jenkins. Psycho-what-nots always get your goat. You call the sum total of your observations ‘common sense about human nature,’ and you succeed in being a better psychologist than any of the highbrows—your word, not mine. The Misses Delareign and Rees aren’t highbrows. To invert some one else’s phrase, they’re more interested in Humanity than the Humanities. Capital H each time.”

  Jenkins groaned. “You pack off to Paddington, chief. The G.W.R.’s. a grand line for meditations. Routine work’s more in my line. Before the evening’s out, I’ll be able to tell you if any of Coombe’s little party could have paid a visit to Thavies House before or after the party. When this case is over you can give me a report of Humanities with a capital H. Me for humanity with a small one, being your humble as old Dickens put it.”

  XIII

  Peter Vernon, sitting in the train on its way to Reading, had plenty of time to kick himself—metaphorically speaking—and then turned his fertile mind to future operations before the train in which he was travelling was clear of the London suburbs. Being an optimist by nature he looked on the more promising side of his impetuous jaunt. Strafford, when talking to him in the first case after the Gardien inquest, had seemed in no sort of hurry, and had not suggested that he had a train to catch or any sort of urgent journey to undertake. He had left Vernon without any contradiction of the other’s cheerful “See you later,” and his behaviour after the inquest had indicated a desire to get away unobserved. Remembering Strafford’s glance at the waste-paper basket and the “Simon Grand” title page in his own pocket, Vernon said to himself, “Here’s a chap who was at Coombe’s party and who knew Elliott and yet pretended he didn’t, and he’s doing a bunk from London when he’s supposed to keep in touch with the police in case they need him for further evidence. Something funny somewhere. What’s he going to do next, and how the devil am I going to keep up with him? Twenty to one he’ll have a car waiting for him at Reading—that telephone call was probably from down there—and I shall be left standing. Taxis are as much good as a sick headache in this act. Damn! What do I do next? Even if I could hire a car I should be too late to follow the blighter.”

  At this stage in his contemplations, Vernon saw Strafford walk down the corridor of the train, and the journalist concealed himself under his hat as best he might. A few moments
later his hat was plucked off his head by a hand thrust through the corridor door and a cheerful voice said:

  “Hullo, old scout. Understudying Napoleon, or flying from the wrath to come in the shape of creditors? I’d know your legs and feet anywhere. You ought to have been a contortionist.”

  Vernon, much relieved at the sound of the voice—which was not Strafford’s—looked up with a grin and retrieved his hat from the hand of a cheerful red-headed youth who stood at the entrance to his compartment.

  “Fatty, by all that’s holy!” he exclaimed, and a wild hope surged up in his heart. He jumped up and went out into the corridor, heedless of the scowl of the gentleman opposite whose feet were disorganised by Vernon’s rapid uprising.

  “Look here, Fatty, don’t you live in Reading?”

  “Not on your life, cheeild. I park in Petherington, five miles out. Want a drink, little one?”

  “No. I want a car,” said Vernon. “A good car with plenty of petrol, as soon as I get out of the train. Fatty, you’re a godsend. I bet your opulent sire sends a bus to meet his offspring at the train.”

  “You’re a cool one,” replied the other. “The pater don’t send his—a Bentley’s too good for the little son. I have my own M.G. and the garage people bring it up to meet the train. Want a lift, Ugly face?”

  “No. I want the car—loan of same, on note of hand only,” said Vernon. “I’m on to a scoop, fat one, and you’re an answer to S.P.—Silent Prayer, what! Rotting apart, old chap, be a sport and lend me your car. I’ll do as much for you another day.”