“Her husband wasn’t mentioned in our conversation,” said the Honorable Emily. “She called on me—and at my invitation stayed for tea—to ask my advice about a school for her son.”
“Filthy little bounder,” put in Leslie Reverson and then subsided.
“She said that she had decided to send him to school in England and asked if I would be willing to recommend one. I told her about Tenton Hall—located down in Cornwall a few miles from our home. The headmaster is Starling, a very sound person who used to be Leslie’s tutor—”
“He spoke softly and carried a big stick,” said Leslie reminiscently.
“—and so she decided to follow my advice. She called up today to tell me so.” The Honorable Emily tossed off her drink.
“But where is she? From where did she telephone?” demanded Miss Withers.
“I haven’t the slightest idea in the world,” said the Honorable Emily. And that was that.
“Well,” decided Miss Withers, “I’m going to snatch an omelette and then see what sleep will do for my problems. The farther I go into this muddle the thicker it gets.”
“Must you?” asked the Honorable Emily. “Go into it, I mean?”
“‘One who never turned his back but marched straightforward,’” quoted Miss Withers.
“Of course, you’re right,” agreed the Honorable Emily. “None of us is safe until this mystery is exposed. All the same I was thinking that you might like to get out of London for a while. We’re going down to Cornwall tomorrow—if my dressmaker fulfills her sworn oath and gets my new suits over here tonight. Leslie has persuaded me to ask Candida Noring down—the poor girl needs a bit of fresh air after her horrible experience the other night—and I thought you might like to come along and have a look at Dinsul, the oldest inhabited castle in England.” The Englishwoman hesitated. “As a matter of fact, I’d feel ever so much safer if you were there!”
“Many thanks,” said Hildegarde Withers. “But duty before pleasure, you know. The heart of this maze I’m following lies right here in London, and here I must stay until I reach it.” She was thinking, oddly enough, of Loulu Hammond.
The Honorable Emily stood up and held out her hand. “Cheerio, then,” she said. “We’re taking the Cornish Riviera express at ten in the morning, and with impedimenta consisting of Tobermory and the bird and—and all the rest, we’ll leave rather early for the station.”
Miss Withers wished them bon voyage and went upstairs. But much as she had hoped for an early bedtime, it was not to be. Sergeant John Secker tapped at her door while she was attacking her omelette.
“I’ve got a very important question to ask you,” he announced. “I want you to make an addition to your statement about the night when Rosemary Fraser disappeared.”
Miss Withers motioned him to a chair. “Yes, yes, go on.”
“When you were sitting in the deck chair, and noticed Rosemary Fraser leaning over the rail, just what were the weather conditions? The sea and all that?”
“It wasn’t rough enough so that the splashing of the waves could drown out a splash or scream, if that’s what you mean,” Miss Withers said thoughtfully. “There was a light mist, and a rather chilly breeze.”
“Sure of that? The breeze, I mean?”
Miss Withers was positive. “I think it was what sailors call a head wind.”
The sergeant showed his delight. “I’ve got old Cannon,” he announced. “Don’t you see? If there was a breeze, particularly a head wind pushing past the ship, how in the world could Rosemary’s scarf dangle straight down so that a man standing on the promenade deck just below her could catch it? It would whip back along where she was standing!”
Miss Withers nodded. “That’s just what it did. I remember now.”
“At last we’re getting somewhere!” said the sergeant.
“After a restful week-end?” inquired Miss Withers a bit sarcastically.
“Perhaps. But the wires were humming and the wheels turning,” he insisted. “It wasn’t such a barren period at that. I’ve been in touch with the States.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, madam. Trying to dig up a motive for these blasted crimes—if they are crimes. I’m not bothering so much with the Noel case, or the death of Todd. It all radiates from Rosemary Fraser, and that angle of the case is the one turned over to me. I’ve been looking for a motive.”
“What,” inquired Miss Withers sweetly, “did you find out about Candida Noring?”
“What?” The sergeant looked up quickly. “How did you know?”
“It was only natural that you’d suspect her, as Rosemary’s only friend on the boat. Shipboard acquaintances don’t usually have time to develop homicidal motives.”
He nodded. “I got in touch with the Buffalo police. Had an idea that perhaps Candida would inherit some money from her friend, or that perhaps they were both interested in the same boy-friend, as you Americans put it.”
“And you found—”
“Candida Noring got nothing from the death of the Fraser girl,” went on the sergeant. “As a matter of fact, she lost considerably from the death of the girl. Her heart had been set on a trip around the world, and Rosemary was taking her as a companion. No Rosemary—no trip. As far as heart interest is concerned, Rosemary had the reputation in her home town of being a little in love with every good-looking man she met, but never anything too serious. Candida Noring just the opposite—strictly hands off with the boys and waiting for the grand passion.”
“Interesting, if significant,” Miss Withers admitted. “What’s your theory? Don’t tell me you haven’t got one.”
“I have,” said Secker. “Somebody killed Rosemary Fraser—God only knows how. And either that somebody has been killing off the possible witnesses, first sending them a warning note made out of scraps of the dead girl’s diary, in order to throw suspicion in the wrong direction and otherwise confuse the issue—” He stopped short.
“Or—somebody who is not the murderer of Rosemary is trying to avenge her, and in order to make sure of getting her murderer is knocking off, one after another, the persons on board who might conceivably have done it. How do you like that for a theory?”
“Ingenious,” Miss Withers granted. “What have you decided about motives for the original murder?”
“Candida—none, unless they had a quarrel we know nothing about. Besides, since girlhood they have been together more or less, and probably had quarreled and made up dozens of times. The Honorable Emily—none that I can see, unless she was trying to protect her nephew against a designing woman, which seems doubtful. Mrs. Hammond—possible, if she had suspected her husband was the man involved with Rosemary in the famous blanket-locker affair. Only we know from Candida that Noel was the man in that.”
“You’re sticking pretty close to one sex,” pointed out Miss Withers.
The sergeant nodded. “You forgot that the mysterious Mrs. Charles, who almost certainly sent those messages edged in black, was a woman.”
“Not necessarily,” Miss Withers said. “Did you ever hear of Mask and Wig, or Haresfoot, or any of the hundreds of other college dramatic societies in the States, in which young men play the parts of girls?”
The sergeant looked blank. “You mean, that under the fur coat Mrs. Charles might have—”
“Might have worn trousers, actual or figurative.” Miss Withers nodded. “You’d better keep on with your list of motives.”
“Peter Noel—he might have killed Rosemary. Possible motive, since he had been involved with her and wanted to keep his rich and susceptible gold mine of a widow in Minneapolis. But he certainly didn’t send any letters, nor kill Todd and attack Candida and the rest of it. Because he is quite dead.”
“Go on,” said Miss Withers. “Take the rest of the table group.”
“Well, there’s Andy Todd. He had his feelings very badly hurt by Rosemary, who was snobbish to him. But if he killed her, what about Noel? And how could he perpetrate further monke
y business after he lay squashed at the bottom of the hotel lift?”
“Right,” agreed Miss Withers.
“There’s Reverson. He made eyes at Rosemary, somebody said. But it never got any farther than that, as far as we can tell. Then, last, we have Hammond, who might very well have had an affair, or tried to have one, with Rosemary, and then killed her for some motive arising out of it, perhaps having to do with his wife. I’m leaving out the doctor on board, because no matter who else was in and out of his office that night, we know that he stayed in the dice game. He has an alibi, almost the only one.”
“You’re leaving out somebody else,” Miss Withers reminded him. She wore a very cryptic smile.
The sergeant frowned, and then his face cleared. “Righto! You mean yourself? That’s ridiculous, of course. I’ve checked up on who you are.”
“Nothing is ridiculous in a case such as this,” she told him sharply. “But if you want to know, I was not referring to myself.”
Long after the ambitious young detective had taken his departure, Miss Withers lay in her bed thinking over the list that he had roughly sketched in. “It would be so much easier if Rosemary had been an aquatic star,” she decided. “Or if I knew the meaning of what Loulu Hammond said after the inquest…”
She was to have an answer to her last question sooner than she expected. At eleven o’clock the next morning she was told that someone wanted to speak with her on the telephone, and she hurried downstairs. The voice was Tom Hammond’s.
“Just wanted to let you know that you don’t need to search any more for my wife,” he said shortly. “No doubt your intentions were all right—”
“You mean she’s come back?”
“No, I don’t mean that she’s come back!” Hammond mimicked. “I mean that just now I got a cablegram from Paris. Loulu is over there instituting suit for divorce.”
“What grounds?” asked Miss Withers quickly, determined to extract the last morsel of information.
“I’m damned if I know,” said Tom Hammond. “But if I had her here for ten minutes I’d give her some grounds, and I don’t mean mental cruelty, either.”
He sounded rather violent. “May I ask what your plans are?” Miss Withers requested.
“You may,” yelled Tom Hammond into the telephone. “I am going out and get howling, stinking drunk!” He crashed the receiver.
“I don’t blame him,” said Miss Withers after a moment of deep thought.
Chapter X
The Scream of the Gull
PADDINGTON STATION HAS NEVER been noted for being a place of rest and quiet, and the advent that morning of the Honorable Emily, Candida Noring, Leslie Reverson, together with their accumulated boxes, coats, and baggage, did not serve to make the hectic scene any more peaceful. Tobermory squalled shrilly and profanely from his carrying case, stretching a furious and gleaming-taloned paw from the opening and slashing at thin air. Dicon, the pessimistic robin, who was traveling in his bird cage covered with newspaper wrappings, vented a “cheep-cheep” now and then and jumped heavily from trapeze to floor and back again, beating against the newspaper with heavy wings.
The Honorable Emily, like all her countrymen, more at home traveling than otherwise, marshaled her forces around her. She dispatched Candida for magazines, Leslie to discover their reservations in the first-class carriage, and then stood guard over the tremendous mound of suitcases until a porter had splashed stickers marked “Penzance” over them and carted them away.
Candida returned with an armful of reading matter, and the two women marched on down the platform toward where Leslie stood waving his arms. He came forward to greet them. “This is the one,” he said. “But we’ve got to change to another compartment. That loathsome fat Hammond child is in there—”
“Oh,” said the Honorable Emily. “Didn’t I tell you? When Mrs. Hammond rang me up to say that she was following my advice and sending her son to Tenton Hall today, I thought it would be kind to offer—”
“Offer?” said Leslie bitterly.
His aunt looked away. “As a matter of fact, she did hint at it herself. But it’s only for a few hours, you know. He’s too young to take the trip by himself, and his mother couldn’t take him herself because she had an engagement somewhere and had to leave London yesterday. She said she thought she could arrange with her hotel to keep him last night and send him over here this morning.”
“Ugh!” said Reverson “Well, there he is—cutting his initials in the windowpane with a glass-cutter or something.”
“He’s only a child,” said the Honorable Emily. She turned to Candida. “You won’t mind his being with us?”
“Not at all,” said Candida Noring. “It ought to be jolly.”
Jolly wasn’t the word for it. They were finally arranged in the compartment, Leslie and the terrible Gerald next the windows, the Honorable Emily and Candida facing each other next the corridor, and Dicon hanging from the luggage rack. Tobermory made valiant swipes at Candida’s stocking from where his case had been placed on the floor, but for the time being she was just beyond the reach of his claws.
The Honorable Emily, feeling the duties of a combined hostess and tour manager resting heavily upon her shoulders, attempted to start things off on the right foot by making introductions all around. “Treat children as adults and you win their everlasting confidence and esteem,” she had heard somewhere. But it did not work with Gerald.
“This is Miss Noring, and this is Mr. Reverson, Gerald,” she said sweetly.
The boy grunted unpleasantly and went on scraping at the window glass. He had already cut his initials, a dimly recognizable horse, and an unprintable four-letter word.
He turned suddenly to Candida, who was laden with the magazines. “Did you get any candy?” he demanded.
“Why, I don’t believe I did,” said that young lady. For the benefit of Leslie she was endeavoring to be very kind to Gerald.
“Not even any chocolate?” pressed the child.
“Not even chocolate,” admitted Candida.
“I thought you wouldn’t,” said Gerald. He took a bag from his pocket, removed four untidy looking caramels, and placed them in a row on the window sill. The other occupants of the carriage had a sudden fear that they were to be called upon to share in the unattractive feast, but they did not know Gerald. He put away the bag sad stuffed the four caramels in his mouth. Then he went back to his glass-cutting.
The train was moving. Candida, used to American railways with their bumps and jerks, noticed with surprise that they had gotten well under way without any noticeable tremor. The view from the window consisted of fog and dingy tenements, but Candida was staring at, and not out of, the window.
“Why, that isn’t a glass-cutter,” she said suddenly. “That’s a diamond.”
Gerald concealed his tool and looked defiant.
“Let me see that,” ordered the Honorable Emily. He extended it, in the middle of a murky palm. It was a diamond solitaire.
“Why,” cried the Englishwoman, “how did you—”
Gerald concealed the ring again. “My mother gave it to me.”
“Your mother gave you her engagement ring?” The Honorable Emily remembered that diamond upon the finger of Loulu Hammond, and so did Candida.
“That’s what I said,” reiterated Gerald, who was a poor liar in this instance. He saw that he was not believed. “Well, just the same as gave it to me. She threw it in the waste basket when we walked out on papa—and I hooked it.”
The Honorable Emily looked blank. “Oh,” she said.
“I won’t give it to you, either,” Gerald finished. He snatched the nearest magazine and immersed himself in a deep study of the illustrations.
“Thank heaven,” said the Honorable Emily under her breath.
But heaven did not long deserve her thanks. Before the outskirts of London were reached, Candida found that her conversation with the attentive Leslie was being interrupted by the insane flutterings of Dicon, the r
obin. He had seemed at first resigned to the swinging of his uncovered cage at the train’s movement, but now he was throwing himself frantically from one side of the barred prison to the other, cheeping shrilly.
The Honorable Emily stared over the top of the October Strand. “Poor Dicon-bird,” she said reprovingly. “Is he train sick?”
But Dicon was not train sick. It was Candida who first noticed the cause of the fat robin’s perturbation, and she leaned closer to Leslie. “Watch,” she whispered.
Reverson watched, and in a moment he saw the terrible Gerald peep from behind his magazine to send a spit ball flying with deadly accuracy through the bars of the cage. It struck Dicon on his red breast and sent him into spasms.
“I say!” gasped Leslie. “Don’t do that. Not sporting, you know. Potting a sitting bird and all that.”
The pride of the Hammond household hastily sent another spit ball. “Mind your own business,” he told the young man.
“I say—” began Leslie. But Candida, with the intellectual acumen of her sex, simply leaned over and took the magazine from Gerald’s lap.
“I’d like to look at this,” she said pleasantly. There was quiet for a few minutes, while the train slipped pleasantly along at sixty miles per hour. They had passed most of the suburbs now, and London’s horrible appendages of villas and cottages were thinning out.
Candida got well into an interesting story before she discovered that the latter pages of it had been torn out to make ammunition for Gerald. The Honorable Emily was still buried in her magazine, and Candida felt that she might as well try to follow her example. There was no use trying to chat with Leslie in front of this wide-eyed monster who faced them.
Indeed, when Reverson returned from a trip to the corridor bringing her a glass of water, Gerald piped up, “He’s sweet on you, isn’t he?”
“Little boys shouldn’t—”
“Well, he is! You can’t fool me, you can’t.” Gerald swung his legs and looked smug. “I don’t like girls,” he informed the group.
Nobody seemed inclined to encourage a further disclosure as to his tastes. The London sky had disappeared, and the sun shown through patches of cloud, beaming down here and there upon a wonderful soft green countryside, cut chess-board fashion into little irregular squares lined by hedges. Here and there a wooded hill swept past…
Puzzle of the Silver Persian Page 15
