“Miss Ireton, I presume?” said Appleby.
“No, you’re not to shut me up!” said Constance, looking instinctively at her father, and then back to Appleby with passion. “There’s something I’ve got to know before we go any further. T-tony always said he had lots and lots, of money. What was he worth?”
“Worth?”
“How much money?”
Mr. Appleby looked rather shocked.
“How much money?” insisted Constance. “Please, dear God, make him tell me!”
‘Times,” said Appleby, “are not what they were. Business—er—is not what it was. But I should say—well, approximately—sixty thousand pounds.”
“Sixty … thousand … pounds?” breathed Inspector Graham.
Mr. Justice Ireton was as white as a ghost. But only Fred Barlow noticed it.
“Mr. Morell, as you no doubt know,” pursued Appleby, whether or not with veiled sarcasm could not be determined, “was owner and manager of Toni-Sweets, Ltd. The firm manufactures toffees, chewing gum, sweets of all kinds. Mr. Morell was not anxious to have his connection with it known, because he was afraid his friends would make fun of him.”
The solicitor’s jaw tightened.
“Frankly, I saw no reason for such delicacy. He had (heaven rest him) inherited a real business acumen from his Sicilian father. He started without a penny; and in less than four years he owned the present establishment. Of course— he had a reason for such drive. That money there, the three thousand pounds, he meant as a wedding present for Miss Ireton.”
“A wedding present,” said Constance.
Appleby spoke in clipped tones. A new, curious note had come into his voice; emotionless, yet, to an attentive ear, significant.
“He came to me in London today with an odd story which I don’t understand even yet. No matter! He wanted me to come here tonight and present a statement of his financial position. ‘Slapping the money on the table,’ he called it.”
Inspector Graham whistled.
“Is that so, now? To prove he wasn’t—?”
Appleby ignored this, smiling a dreary smile which nevertheless had pity in it.
“He also wanted me to reassure Mr. Justice Ireton that he would make a suitable husband for Miss Ireton. That’s hardly in my line. And it’s hardly necessary now. But I tell you so for what it’s worth.
“Mr. Morell had his faults. They were chiefly those of bad taste and—well, a certain vindictiveness. Basically he was conscientious, hard-working, and (may I say?) very much in love with Miss Ireton. He would have made a good family man from the fashion of the petit bourgeois stock he sprang from. Unfortunately—”
Making a gesture toward Morell’s body, Appleby slapped the brief case against his leg and lifted his shoulders. He added:
“I am sorry to distress you, Miss Ireton.”
For a second Barlow thought she was going to faint. She was leaning back against the sofa, holding tightly to a pillow, her eyes closed. The muscles moved up and down in her throat. Yet, even as his heart went out to her, Fred Barlow glanced at Mr. Justice Ireton.
The judge still sat motionless, though he had taken off his spectacles and was swinging them back and forth. A small bead of sweat appeared on his smooth forehead. Barlow did not look at his eyes. Yet among the confused emotions Barlow felt then, admiration, friendship, pain, pity, a guilty gladness that Morell was dead, one small thought wormed through everything and prevailed above all:
The bloody fool. He’s killed the wrong man.
VII
At about nine o’clock on that same night, Miss Jane Tennant drove her car into the car park beside the Esplanade Hotel, Tawnish.
The Esplanade is a show place, garish between the skeins of lights along the promenade and the red hills behind. Its famous basement swimming pool, with tea and cocktail lounge attached, offered the luxury of warmed sea water in winter—and on such summer days, which were many, when only an Eskimo could have ventured into the sea without triple pneumonia. Jane Tennant was to remember that swimming pool in the future.
At the moment she merely entered the hotel and asked at the desk for Dr. Gideon Fell. It was out of season, and there were not many guests despite the crowd of transients along the promenade. She was informed that, though Dr. Fell had not the remotest notion who Miss Tennant might be, he was very pleased to see anyone at any time; and would she come up to his room?
She found Dr. Fell in a large overdecorated room on the second floor. Dr. Fell wore slippers and a purple dressing gown as big as a tent. He was sitting at the table before a portable typewriter, with a pint of beer at his elbow, tapping out notes.
“You don’t know me,” said Jane Tennant “But I know all about you.”
In his turn he saw a girl perhaps twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old. She was very attractive, though not pretty; somewhat large-boned, though not large; quiet, though by nature inclined to talk. The combination is difficult to describe, though not so difficult to analyze.
Her best feature was her fine figure, of which she perhaps did not make the most. Her eyes-were good, too—gray eyes, with pin-point black pupils. Her dark-brown hair was bobbed, her mouth large. She wore country tweeds, which did not do justice to her well-developed figure, with brown stockings and flat-heeled shoes. And she breathed as though she had been running.
Supporting himself on his crutch-headed stick, Dr. Fell surged up to welcome her, almost upsetting the typewriter, the notes, and the beer. He made quite a ceremony of installing her in a chair. For he liked the look of Jane Tennant. He sensed about her an intelligence, a quiet gleam of mirth which was not apparent now.
“A pleasure,” beamed the doctor, still somewhat foggy from note taking. “A pleasure. Er—will you have a pint of beer?”
He was surprised and delighted when she accepted.
“Dr. Fell,” she said simply, “has a total stranger ever come to you and confided her troubles?”
The doctor wheezed back into his seat.
“Often,” he answered, with the utmost seriousness.
Jane looked at the floor, and spoke rapidly. “I ought to explain that I know Marjorie Wills—Marjorie Elliot, her name is now. You got her out of awfully bad trouble in the Sodbury Cross poisoning case; and she rather raves about you. Then last night Connie Ireton (that’s the judge’s daughter) mentioned that you were staying hereabouts, and said she’d met you at her father’s bungalow.”
“Yes?”
“Well,” said the girl, smiling a little, “would you mind if a total stranger—did it now?”
For an answer Dr. Fell gathered up his papers, shuffled them, and shut them away in the drawer of the table. He also attempted to put the cover on the portable typewriter. But, as this is a process at which fingers turn to doughy thumbs and can seldom be managed even with the aid of hangings and profanity, it did not succeed until Jane Tennant took the cover from him and with brisk, capable fingers clicked it into place.
“One day,” observed Dr. Fell, “I shall beat that swine and muzzle him at the first go. Meanwhile, I am all attention.”
But the girl only looked at him helplessly, while seconds lengthened into a minute.
“I don’t know how to begin. I can’t say it!”
“Why not?”
“Oh, I haven’t committed a crime or anything like that. It’s just a question of what I ought to do. But saying it— well, I’m afraid I’m not enough of an exhibitionist.”
“Try,” suggested Dr. Fell, “stating it as a hypothetical case. You’ll feel better.”
There was a pause.
“All right.” nodded Jane, looking at the floor. “A certain woman whom we’ll call X is in love with … She raised her head, and her eyes grew defensive. “I suppose all this sounds very petty and foolish to you?”
“No, by thunder but it doesn’t!” returned Dr. Fell, with such obvious sincerity that she drew a deep breath through her full breast, and tried again.
“A certain wo
man whom we’ll call X is in love with a lawyer—no, say just a man—”
“Say a lawyer. It removes the algebra while preserving the anonymity.”
Again he saw under the repressed exterior that hidden gleam of mirth. But she only nodded.
“If you like. A lawyer whom we’ll call Y. But Y is gone on, or thinks he is gone on another girl: say Z. Z is very pretty; X isn’t. Z is very young; X is on thirty. Z is lovely; X isn’t.” A shadow crossed her face. “That’s all right. The problem enters when Z falls for, and becomes engaged to a man whom we’ll simply designate as Casanova.”
Dr. Fell inclined his head gravely.
“And that’s the trouble. Now, X is convinced that Y is not in love with this little blonde, and never has been. He doesn’t need, a girl like that. X is convinced, on her word of honor, that if the little blonde marries her Casanova, then Y will forget her in a month. She’ll be out of his life. The hypnosis will be over. Then perhaps Y will see—”
“I understand,” said Dr. Fell.
“Thanks.” It was physical anguish for her to tell this story; tension seemed to be released all through her. “Consequently, X should be cheering for this match. She should want to see the happy couple wedded and bedded as soon as possible. Shouldn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Yes. Then Fr—then Y would be able to see that there’s somebody else who’s rather fond of him. Who adores him, rather. Who would be content just to sit and listen to him talk. Who—well, there it is!”
Again Dr. Fell inclined his head.
“Unfortunately,” continued Jane, “X happens to know something about this man Casanova. She happens to know that he’s a nasty bit of work who ought to be exposed. She happens to know that he’s a crooked gigolo who was mixed up in a nasty scandal at Reigate five years, ago. And she’s sure of this because she knows the inner facts of that case, which didn’t come out at the trial and which would make any girl, no matter how infatuated, wake up with a bang if she heard them.”
It is not possible for a man of Dr. Fell’s dimensions to give a start, except one which might be measured by a seismograph. But he almost managed it when he heard of the Reigate affair. His face grew more fiery, and he puffed behind his bandit’s mustache so that the black ribbon on his eyeglasses blew wildly.
Jane was not watching him.
“I’m afraid I can’t keep up this algebra pretense any longer,” she said. “You don’t have to be Gideon Fell to guess that X is me. Y is Fred Barlow. Z is Connie Ireton. And Casanova is Antonio Morelli, alias Anthony Morell.”
There was a long silence, broken only by Dr. Fell’s wheezing breaths.
“The point is,” Jane muttered, “what am I to do? I know men think all women are predatory beasts of the jungle. You think we’d see each other torn to pieces like winking. But it’s not true. I’m fond of Connie. Very fond. If I let her marry that—that—”
“But suppose I tell her, and bring Cynthia Lee down to prove it? Whether she believed me or not, she’d only hate me. Fred Barlow would hate me too, probably. Out of pity, it would only draw him closer to her. I could tell the judge on the q.t., of course; but that would be sheer sneaking; and, anyway, it would have the same effect on Fred. Ever since they came down to my house party last Wednesday, and I recognized ‘Tony Morell,’ I’ve been battering my brains to think of a way out. I don’t want to treat you like Aunt Hester’s Department for the Lovelorn, but what am I to do?”
Dr. Fell drew the air through one nostril with a vast, puzzled and lionlike inhalation.
He shook his head. Hoisting himself to his feet, he lumbered up and down the room in his old purple dressing gown, making the chandelier rattle. His face wore more of an expression of gargantuan distress than even Jane Tennant’s story would seem to warrant. Even the arrival of a waiter, with the pint of beer for which he had rung some minutes ago, could not rouse him. Both he and Jane looked at the beer as though they could not imagine what it was.
The matter,” he conceded, when the waiter had gone, “is difficult. Harrumph. Very difficult.”
“Yes. I think so.”
“The more so as—” He stopped short “Tell me. When Morell came to your house party on Wednesday, did he recognize you?”
Jane frowned.
“Recognize me? He’s never seen me in his life.”
“But you said—”
“Oh!” For some reason she seemed relieved. “I should have explained that I never knew him personally. Cynthia Lee, the girl he got in with, was my great friend in school. While all this was going on, she used to come to my flat in Town, and have hysterics, and tell me all about it. I’m supposed to be a good listener.” Jane made a grimace with her lips. “But I wasn’t concerned in the business, so I never appeared in it.”
“You may consider it irrelevant,” grunted Dr. Fell, eying her, “if I ask you to tell me just a little more about Morell and Cynthia Lee. Believe me, I have a reason.”
Jane looked puzzled.
“Do you know anything about the case?”
“H’mf, yes. A little.”
“Well, when he threatened to show her letters to her father unless she married him, Cynthia got a gun and tried to kill him. She shot him in the leg.”
“Yes?”
“The police didn’t want to prosecute. But Morell, that vindictive little devil, insisted on his rights and they had to. He wanted to see Cynthia go to jail. The defense was faked, of course. That made our Mr. Morell wild. The prosecution couldn’t even produce the revolver Cynthia had used. The best they could do was to produce a box of cartridges of a sort that would fit the revolver, and show they found the box in Cynthia’s house. Of course the jury must have guessed the defense was a fake; everybody in court did. But they calmly returned a verdict of not guilty. That made Morell even wilder.”
Jane’s lip curled. She had almost shaken off the heavy restraint which characterized her.
“There was a dreadful scene in court when the verdict was brought in. Morell was sitting at the solicitor’s table. He’s got a sort of Dago dramatic sense—like a crude Borgia. The box of cartridges, as an exhibit, was beside him. He picked one of the bullets out of that box, and held it up, and shouted, ‘I’m going to keep this as a reminder that there’s no justice in England. Now I’m going to make my way in the world; and, when I do, it’ll remind me to tell you what I think of all of you.’ ”
“And then?”
“The judge, Mr. Justice Wythe, told him to shut his head or he’d be committed for contempt of court.”
Jane smiled a little, though not from amusement. Seeing the tankard of beer, she picked it up and drank.
“The county rallied round Cynthia nobly. Shall I tell you something that not two or three other people in the world know?”
“Any human being,” said Dr. Fell, “is always pleased to get a bit of information like that.”
“Did you ever hear of Sir Charles Hawley?”
“Who has since,” said Dr. Fell, “been raised to the bench as Mr. Justice Hawley?”
“Yes. He was an eminent barrister then; he defended Cynthia. He was a great friend of Cynthia’s family, and he pinched that revolver I was telling you about, to show he was in as deeply as anybody else. It’s a fact! He hid it in his own house. I’d seen it any number of times: it was an Ives-Grant .32, with a little cross cut with a penknife in the steel under the magazine chamber. Oh, Lord, I’m talking too much!”
Dr. Fell shook his head.
“No,” he replied seriously, “I don’t think you are. You said a moment ago that there were things that didn’t come out at the trial. What things?”
Jane hesitated, but Dr. Fell’s eye remained fixed.
“Well … that Cynthia had been forging checks in her father’s name to give Morell a monthly allowance.”
There was such concentrated contempt in her tone that Dr. Fell decided to probe still further. She lifted the tankard and drank again.
“I gather yo
u can’t imagine any woman doing that?” the doctor suggested.
“That? Oh, no. Not a bit of it. I might do it myself. But not for Morell, you see. Not for a thing like Morell.”
“Still, Miss Lee must have been rather fond of him?”
“She was, poor kid.”
“Where is she now, do you know?”
The gray eyes clouded. “Oddly enough, she lives not far from here. In a private sanatorium. She’s not—you know!— but she’s always been neurotic and that affair didn’t help her. Tony Morell knew she was neurotic when he took up with her. That’s another of the things that shall not be forgiven him. If I were to bring her here and show her to Connie Ireton … you see what I mean?”
“I do.”
Shaking her full shoulders, Jane lifted the tankard and drank again. “Well?” she prompted.
“I suggest that you leave the matter to me.”
Jane sat up. “You mean that?—But to do what?”
“Frankly, I don’t know yet,” admitted the doctor, spreading out his hands and speaking with fiery argumentativeness. “You see, I have known Horace Ireton for a long time, though I can’t say I’ve been exactly a close friend of his. His daughter I met yesterday. I don’t necessarily maintain we should have another Cynthia Lee on our hands in case of a smash, but—Archons of Athens! I don’t like it.”
“No friend of Connie’s would like it.”
“Then there is yourself, Miss X,” said Dr. Fell, coloring up guiltily, “to whom I have—harrumph!—rather taken a fancy. We must consider you too. Just one more point.” His face grew grave. “You give me your word that all this inside information about Morell is strictly true?”
For answer the girl reached down and took up a brown-leather handbag from the floor beside her chair. Fishing out a gold pencil, she scribbled some words on the sheet of an address book, tore out the sheet, and handed it across to Dr. Fell.
“ ‘Sir Charles Hawley,’ ” he read, “ ‘18 Villiers Mansions, Cleveland Row, London S.W.1.’ ”
Death Turns the Tables_aka The Seat of the Scornful Page 6
