“It’s a shade early to go back to Fern Lodge,” he suggested to the girl at his side. “There’s nothing to do there except hang about until the dressing-gong goes. Suppose we take a short run round? You haven’t seen the country hereabouts, have you?”
“I’d like to,” Linda agreed, “if it’s not going to bore you.”
“Not a bit. We’ll go up this road and see what it looks like farther on.”
He turned into a side-road and soon passed beyond the outskirts of Raynham Parva. For a time, neither of them spoke. Linda Anstruther was apparently of the type which does not think it necessary to chatter continuously in order to pretend interest. At last, however, she broke the silence; and her subject proved an unexpected one to Sir Clinton.
“I’ve been feeling just a shade ashamed of myself since I came down here,” she volunteered shyly, as though she realised she was overstepping the normal bounds and yet felt herself forced to risk a snub.
Sir Clinton’s method was always to allow people to talk without interjecting leading questions. Linda glanced at his face and apparently was encouraged by its expression.
“The fact is, Sir Clinton, I came down here feeling more than a bit distrustful, so I owe all of you an apology. I suppose I ought to be content to do my apologising inside; but somehow . . . well, you’ve all been so nice to me, and I felt a bit of a little beast over the business. So I’m clearing my conscience, if you understand what I mean.”
“I don’t,” Sir Clinton admitted with a smile. “But perhaps it’ll become clearer as the story unfolds.”
“Well, this is what I mean,” Linda hurried on, as though anxious to finish her self-appointed task as quickly as possible. “When we came in touch with Mr. Francia first of all, we knew nothing about him except that he knew some friends of ours. And when he offered to fix up this engagement for us, I felt in a bit of a hole. Noreen and I simply must find something to do, you understand? But still, one’s heard a good deal about things in South America; and it seemed a bit of a risk to plunge on the strength of what we knew about Mr. Francia—which was next to nothing. Noreen’s the optimist of the party, and I feel a bit responsible for her, you see? She’s always been in my charge, in a sort of way.”
Sir Clinton’s nod expressed his interest, but his features stiffened almost imperceptibly. Here was another side to his problem looming not too obscurely ahead, it seemed. Things were growing very complex.
“Frankly,” Linda went on, “I had half a mind to chuck up the whole affair. Something seemed to suggest that . . . well, that it wasn’t the sort of thing that we ought to go in for, considering how little we knew about Mr. Francia. It needs no brains to see that a couple of girls might get into difficulties in a foreign country, if their money ran short. And we wouldn’t have much to come and go on. I was very worried about it, between that side and the throwing up of what might be a good engagement.
“Then Mrs. Francia invited us down here to Fern Lodge; and I made up my mind I’d come down simply to see what sort of people you were. A spy on you, in fact. It seemed all right from my point of view.”
“Quite sound,” Sir Clinton reassured her. “What’s wrong with that? I’d do the same myself.”
“So I felt when I came down. I just wanted to see what sort of people Mr. Francia’s friends were. One can judge him by that. And when I got here, everyone was so kind. Mrs. Thornaby’s a dear. And no one could have been nicer to us than Mrs. Francia. One can’t help getting to like her more and more. And, of course, when I heard her uncle was a retired Chief Constable, I knew everything was all right, and that I’d been misjudging Mr. Francia in the most awful way. And, naturally, I felt beastly uncomfortable at having been so suspicious about him when he was only going out of his way to do us a good turn. In fact, I felt like a worm over it all. Do you see how I felt?”
“Most likely I’d have felt something of the sort myself,” Sir Clinton assured her, “though I doubt if I’d have had the courage to own up to it as you’ve done.”
He turned away from that aspect of the subject.
“So it seems that my sister, my niece, and myself are the guarantors in this business?” he inquired in a faintly quizzical tone.
“If you like to put it that way,” Linda answered. “I know you’d never let your niece—and Miss Scotswood—go off out there . . .”
She broke off, evidently feeling she was getting back on to thin ice. Sir Clinton made no attempt to force her into clarity. He dismissed the whole subject.
“What about those sketches you and your sister were putting together?” he asked.
“We’ve written a few. They sound quite good; but I expect that’s just because we wrote them ourselves. Once we’ve got one or two more finished, we’re going to give them to Mr. Francia to look over and see if they’d be suitable.”
Sir Clinton did not press the conversation further; and at last he turned the car towards Fern Lodge. Occasionally Linda made a remark; but neither of them talked for talking’s sake. As the car entered the Fern Lodge grounds, Linda’s eye fell upon the trip-dial of the milometer.
“Two hundred and seventeen miles!” she said. “You haven’t done all that to-day, surely?”
Sir Clinton leaned forward and pressed the stud which brought the figures back to zero.
“No, I must have forgotten to reset it,” he explained. “That mileage includes my trip up from town as well as the running round I’ve done since I got here.”
He drew up at the house door, allowed Linda to alight, and then took the car round to the garage. Now that he was alone, his face showed much more clearly the traces of the anxious thoughts which his problems were raising in his mind. With his resignation from the Chief Constableship, he had looked forward to complete freedom from responsibility; but now he began to wonder whether in his official career he had ever been faced with a moral responsibility such as had been thrust on his shoulders in the last few days.
First had come the Quevedo murder and his suspicions of the part which Roca might have played in that affair. Already he had delayed over-long in making up his mind in the matter; for Roca had left Raynham Parva now, and the chance of tracing him was growing less as the hours went by. Sir Clinton had few illusions, and he recognised that he was already falling into the category of an accessory after the fact, if Roca was really the murderer. That problem brooked no delay.
Then a more personal matter demanded attention, one which was hedged round with even sharper thorns. Roca and Quevedo were linked through the White Slave traffic; Quevedo and Francia were confessedly business associates, and it was no use burking the fact that this “business” might be the traffic itself. Roca’s communication with Francia on the telephone would hardly admit of any other interpretation. And, through Elsie’s marriage to this foreigner, Sir Clinton and his sister had been drawn into that shameful ambit.
Putting things at their worst, the whole affair was clear enough. Francia had gone through a ceremony of marriage with Elsie. Whether that ceremony was genuine or not, Sir Clinton had no means of guessing. Francia might be a bigamist for all one knew. In any case, he had established himself as Elsie’s husband, and had gained sufficient influence over her to control her movements. There was nothing unwarranted in a husband going back to his own country and taking his wife with him.
But, still putting things at the worst, other steps had followed. Francia had manoeuvred matters so as to get Estelle invited out to Buenos Ayres. It had been done cleverly enough; the young bride had been used as a lure to bring the other girl into the net; no one would be likely to suspect anything. And the affair had not stopped there. The two Anstruther girls had also been involved and their suspicions calmed by putting Elsie to the front. Nothing could be more respectable or less likely to seem underhand.
At that point, Sir Clinton himself had been drawn directly into the toils. As Linda Anstruther had told him bluntly, it was his position which had been one of the governing factors in her decision t
o rely on Francia. He had, quite unconsciously, become a guarantor of the whole scheme. And, now that he knew this, he could hardly stand aside and wash his hands of any responsibility.
What could be done? Francia’s guilt was no more than a matter of suspicion as yet. The whole thing might be quite above-board. In that case, to raise open trouble would mean losing Elsie for good; she would never forgive him for throwing such a charge at her husband unless he had evidence in support, and strong evidence, too. Investigation? But, as Roca had told him, people of Francia’s type had ostensible businesses which would stand examination. And an investigation which broke down would ruin him with Elsie just as effectually as a baseless charge. It was no good thinking of cabling inquiries to Buenos Ayres, evidently.
Yet if he allowed the party to leave the country, what guarantee had he against disaster? What had happened to Marcelle Barrère in the same case? It would be merely the landing of four “articles” instead of one. Sir Clinton set his teeth as he recalled Roca’s picture of the landing of Marcelle and her transfer to an up-country inferno. Suppose that happened to Elsie and Estelle?
There was very little time left in which to act, even if he could determine his course of procedure immediately. On the one hand there was the obvious disaster if his suspicions were correct; on the other stood the unforgivable offence which he would commit in the eyes of Elsie if he happened to be mistaken.
“What’s needed here is a deus ex machina,” he reflected; and at that the thought of Roca and his confederate crossed his mind. Roca had possibly squared an account with Quevedo; but was that the whole of the bill? After Quevedo was dead, Roca had admitted that he was expecting further information about the people who had wronged him. That certainly suggested that he had more debts to pay; and his telephone calls furnished further evidence in the matter. When he first rang up, he had recognised Sir Clinton’s voice answering, and at once, hoping that his own voice had not been identified, he had rung off. That meant that he did not wish his communication with Francia to be known, if this could be avoided. He had rung up again later and had given his message to the maid, who was not likely to interrogate him as Sir Clinton might have done.
Then Sir Clinton recalled Rex’s news. Roca must have left Raynham Parva before he telephoned at all, since Rex had seen him leaving the village early in the afternoon and the telephone message had been much later in the day. For a while Sir Clinton pondered over this sequence of incidents, and before long he evolved an hypothesis which might fit the facts when they came to light. A grim smile crossed his face as he forecast one possible chain of events.
Prophecy with only half the facts on the table had never appealed to Sir Clinton; so, rejecting his hypothesis for the time being, he considered his personal problem from a fresh angle. It would be extremely awkward to drop his affairs in England at that juncture; but there was really no vital objection to his leaving the country for a short time. So long as he could book a passage on Elsie’s boat, no harm could come to her or her companions. If Francia was above-board, Sir Clinton would find all correct when the party reached its destination; whilst, if anything underhand was in prospect, his presence would make the scheme impossible.
“It’s too big a risk to let these girls run,” he reflected finally. “I’ll have to change my mind and go with them; and I’d better see about booking my passage at once. But in the meantime, I ought to get on Roca’s track if it’s possible. I think I could induce him to be a bit franker about things now.”
He shook off his preoccupation and set himself during the evening to keep the Anstruther girls amused. Rex appeared later, and had evidently made up his mind to present an indifferent aspect as well as he could. He attached himself to Noreen Anstruther almost exclusively; and it was only now and again that Sir Clinton’s sharp eyes detected glances which Rex turned on Francia and Elsie. Estelle’s arrival seemed to brighten up the party; and by half-past ten Sir Clinton’s suggestion of some dancing met with approval. He went in search of the portable wireless, and was about to fix it up in the hall, where there was room for three couples to dance, when he heard Francia complaining of thirst.
“A cocktail?” the Argentiner proposed. “I have the recipe for an excellent one for just such an occasion. May I prepare it?”
He turned to Mrs. Thornaby, and, receiving her permission, rang for one of the servants and gave instructions as to the ingredients which he required.
“It should be made with tamarinds,” he explained regretfully. “And of course we have no tamarinds. But I think I can make it good enough without that.”
He set to work when the maid had brought the requisites, and, when he had completed his task, he brought each of the party a glass in turn. Sir Clinton sipped his doubtfully and put it down. Francia drank his own with evident enjoyment; and Rex seemed to find the mixture to his taste also. The girls speculated vaguely on the ingredients, and Francia wrote out his recipe for Estelle’s benefit.
“Now I really feel inclined to dance,” Francia declared with a gesture of invitation to Elsie.
Sir Clinton switched on the portable set, and, finding on his return that Estelle and the younger Anstruther girl were without partners, he invited the stranger, with a jesting apology to Estelle for leaving her out.
For the best part of an hour they danced, exchanging partners from time to time so that all the girls had their turn. Suddenly Sir Clinton noticed that his niece looked pale.
“What’s wrong, Elsie?” he demanded, as she stopped dancing and went to sit down beside her mother.
“Nothing much,” was the reply. “I feel a bit sickish. Perhaps it’s the heat of the night.”
Her gesture indicated that she wished to be left in quietness; so Sir Clinton abstained from worrying her with questions. But after a few minutes she seemed to feel worse rather than better. She called her husband over to her side, and Sir Clinton, without intending it, chanced to catch her words.
“I think I’ll go to bed now, Vincent. I feel beastly seedy all of a sudden; I can’t think why. Would you mind taking the dressing-room to-night and leaving me to myself?”
Francia gave a nod of agreement, though his face suggested that he was none too well pleased with the arrangement. He murmured a few words in a caressing tone; but Elsie was evidently in no mood for verbal comfort.
“I’ll get off upstairs, then,” she said, rising from her chair as she spoke. “I feel dizzy, somehow. I can’t think what’s come over me.”
She moved rather unsteadily into one of the adjoining rooms and rang the bell there. Then, on her way back, she bent over her mother and spoke to her in a low voice, apparently asking Mrs. Thornaby to give the necessary directions about the dressing-room to the maid who had been summoned. Reassuring her mother with a faint smile, Elsie crossed over to the stair.
“Good night, everybody,” she called. “I’ll be all right—just a bit out of sorts. You needn’t worry. Don’t stop dancing.”
She seemed more than a little giddy; and Francia, excusing himself to his partner, ran up the steps and gave her his arm. Together they disappeared round the turn of the stair. Almost as they did so, the fox-trot music stopped; and the loud-speaker remarked suddenly: “That was a cough-drop from the Savoy Dance Band.”
Sir Clinton took advantage of the pause. By a skilful move he engaged his partner in conversation with Mrs. Thornaby whilst he unobtrusively secured the cocktail glass which Elsie had used, and concealed it behind one of the palms which stood in the hall. He had suspicions about his niece’s sudden sick turn; and it seemed worth while to preserve any evidence which the glass might yield.
“Just one more,” Estelle proposed. “After that I’ll have to get home. You haven’t got a car, Rex? All right, I’ll give you a lift down to the village.”
Francia came downstairs as they were dancing; and immediately afterwards Estelle and Rex took their departure. As he stood on the steps at the front door, watching them drive away, Sir Clinton suddenly recollect
ed something which he had forgotten. Johnnie had come to him that morning with a cheap air-gun. The spring had collapsed, and Johnnie had turned to his uncle in the hope that he might be able to patch up the toy; but the thing had been put aside in the smoke-room and had passed out of Sir Clinton’s mind. Having nothing further to do, since the Anstruther girls were saying good night, he bethought himself of the air-gun and made his way to the smoke-room.
With the help of a screwdriver which he found on the Meccano table, Sir Clinton dismantled the gun easily enough and extracted the broken spring. Since only a small section had been broken off, he had some hopes that the remainder might still be long enough to serve; but, when he tested it, he found that it would not work smoothly.
“Nothing for it but to get a new one,” he decided, leaning the useless gun against the Meccano table. “It’s such a cheap make that it’s not worth while buying a fresh spring to replace this one. I’ll send off an order for a new gun to-morrow.”
He replaced the screwdriver on the Meccano table along with the fragment of broken spring, switched off the lights, and then, finding that everyone else had preceded him, went upstairs to bed.
Chapter Eleven
AN OLD LINE IN MURDERS
When Sir Clinton came downstairs next morning, he found his sister at breakfast.
“How’s Elsie feeling now?” he inquired, as he helped himself from the side-table.
“She seems to be all right again,” Mrs. Thornaby replied, “I’ve persuaded her to stay in bed till after breakfast; but there was really no need even for that. She’s been sick, though; and there’s no use in her getting up and running about until she’s had a rest.”
Sir Clinton was obviously relieved.
“Queer turn she took,” he commented briefly. “Must have swallowed something that disagreed with her.”
He had hardly finished breakfast when the telephone bell rang in the smoke-room and Staffin brought word that someone wanted to speak to him. Sir Clinton put down his unlighted cigarette and went to the instrument.
Nemesis at Raynham Parva (A Clinton Driffield Mystery) Page 14
