English Rose (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 13)

by Frank Howell Evans

  Watkins went over to the arms manufacturer and took his hat off.

  “Mr. Hassocks,” he said, “you have treated him like a son.”

  “His name?”

  “Ask your daughter, sir.”

  Hassocks turned toward Kimberley, who looked up to Watkins with a burning gaze. She was trying to learn whether he was telling the truth or a lie.

  “You know the man, who wished to murder me, Kimberley?”

  “No, papa,” she replied to her father.

  “Miss,” said Watkins in a firm, terribly hostile voice, “you have yourself with your own hands opened that window tonight and you have opened it for him many other times.”

  “Answer, Kimberley. Tell me, yes or no, whether you have let anybody into this house at night.”

  “The inspector will tell you himself,” said Kimberley in a voice filled with hate and anguish as she pointed to Watkins. “Why does he not tell you himself the name of that person? He must know it, if the man is dead.” Kimberley turned toward Watkins and said triumphantly, “He’s not dead. If you had him, you would already have his name.”

  Watkins took two steps toward her, put both hands on her shoulders and said, “Adam Ashby is dead.”

  “Adam Ashby?” cried the arms manufacturer.

  Lady Hassocks, as if revolted by that suggestion, stood upright and repeated, “Adam Ashby?”

  The arms manufacturer couldn’t believe his ears and was about to protest, when he noticed that his daughter had turned away and was trying to flee to her room.

  “Kimberley,” he said, angrily, “you are going to tell us why Adam Ashby was here tonight.”

  “Stephen, he came here to poison you.”

  It was Lady Hassocks, who spoke now and whom nothing could have kept silent. She sat down next to her husband, took his hands in hers and like a vengeful fury she told him what she had seen. She saw once more before her the hand armed with the poison. As she ended her account she pointed out Poiret to Hassocks and cried, “There is the one, who saved you from your daughter.”

  Kimberley, as she listened to her stepmother had to restrain herself several times in order not to interrupt her and Poiret, who was watching her closely, saw that she had to use almost superhuman energy in order to achieve that. All the horror of Adam’s crime didn’t subdue her, but seemed, on the contrary, to restore to her in full all the life that a few seconds earlier had fled from her. Lady Hassocks had hardly finished, when Kimberley answered, with a look full of the most frightful hate, “He is the one, who has been the death of an innocent man!”

  Poiret froze. His blood went cold. Kimberley turned to her father.

  “Papa, let me explain what happened. Adam came here this night. I admit that. It is true also that I let him into the house, but he didn’t come here yesterday. He wasn’t the man, who tried to poison you. It was someone else.”

  At these words Poiret gasped for air.

  “No, Miss, it was the same man,” said Watkins and he felt compelled to add, “We have found proof of Mr. Ashby’s connections to the Communists.”

  “Where have you found that?” questioned the young woman, turning toward the inspector a face ravished with anguish.

  “At the Avalon, Miss.”

  She looked a long time at him as though she wished to penetrate to the bottom of his thoughts.

  “What proof?” she implored.

  “A correspondence which we have placed under seal.”

  “What kind of correspondence? Was it written by him or addressed to him?”

  “If it interests you, we will open it before you.”

  “My God!” she gasped. “Where have you found this correspondence? Where? Tell me where!”

  “I will tell you,” said the inspector, surprised by her intelligence and her stubbornness. We found it in his room. We forced the locks of his desk.”

  She seemed to breathe again, but her father took her brutally by the arm.

  “Come, Kimberley, you are going to tell us what that man was doing here tonight. Has he ever been in your room?”

  “He wanted to murder you!” cried Lady Hassocks.

  Kimberley’s eyes widened. She turned toward Lady Hassocks.

  “What do you believe? Tell me now.”

  “And I, what ought I to believe?” muttered her father. “You have not told me yet. Why did you receive him? Why did you bring him in here, as a murderer or as a...”

  Kimberley seemed to almost faint. She was just able to say, “Oh, papa, you know that I love Ian. I love him with all my heart and that I would never belong to anyone but him.”

  “Then, speak!”

  The young woman could no longer stand.

  “Papa, don’t question me! You above all. There is nothing I can tell you. Except that Adam didn’t come here last night.”

  “He came here to poison your father, Kimberley,” moaned Lady Hassocks.

  “And I,” replied the daughter with a conviction, which made Poiret feel sick in the stomach, “I tell you it wasn’t him. It could not possibly be him.”

  “But this other, did you let him in as well?” asked Watkins.

  “I left the window open. I swear to you, papa, by all that is most sacred in heaven, he couldn’t have been in your room.”

  “But the poison,” said Watkins coldly, “that he poured into your father’s sleeping medicine was the arsenic, which was on the grapes Secretary Bromley brought here and gave to Mr. Ashby and Mr. Spencer. If Adam is innocent, do you accuse Ian?”

  Kimberley, who seemed to have suddenly lost all power for defending herself, moaned, “No, don’t accuse Ian. He has nothing to do with it either. These two are innocent. Believe me. Ah, I’m not able to say anything to you. And you have murdered Adam. Ah, what have you done?”

  “In the course of doing our duty,” said the icy voice of Watkins, “an intruder intent on murder died.”

  Kimberley succeeded in accessing a new source of energy, which in her depths of despair they would have supposed impossible. She shook her fist at Watkins.

  “It’s not true, it’s not true. There is nothing at all true of what you said you found at his house. It’s not possible. It’s not true.”

  “Where are those papers?” demanded the brusque voice of Hassocks. “Bring them here at once, Watkins. I wish to see them.”

  Watkins hesitated and this didn’t escape Kimberley, who cried, “Yes, yes, let him bring them, if he has them. But he doesn’t have anything. You can see, papa, that he has nothing. If he did, he would have already shown them to us. He has nothing!”

  And she threw herself on the floor, weeping, “He has nothing, he has nothing!” She seemed to weep for joy.

  “Is that true, Watkins?” demanded Hassocks, gravely.

  The inspector sighed.

  “It’s true. We found nothing. Everything had already been removed.”

  But Kimberley did not let up.

  “He has found nothing! Yet he accuses Adam of being allied with the Communists. Why? Because I let him in? But I, have I sworn to murder papa? I? You see for yourself, papa, he lied. He lied.”

  “Why have you made this false statement, Watkins?”

  “Mr. Hassocks, we’re absolutely sure that the man, who tried to poison you yesterday and the man today, who is dead are one and the same.”

  “And what proof have you for being so sure?” insisted the father, who shook with distress.

  “Ask Mr. Poiret,” said Inspector Watkins.

  They all turned to Poiret.

  The consulting detective replied with a calmness, that he didn’t entirely feel, “Poiret, he can say to you, as he has done before, Monsieur Watkins, that one and only one person, he has left the traces of his various climbings on the wall and on the balcony.”

  “You idiot!” screamed Kimberley with a passionate hate for the little man. “And that is all you have?”

  The arms manufacturer roughly seized the detective’s wrist, “Listen to me, sir. A man c
ame here this night. That concerns only me. I make it my own affair, an affair between my daughter and me. But you, you have just told us that you are sure that man was intent on murder. That calls for proofs. I want the proofs at once. You speak of traces. We will go and examine those traces together. And I wish for your sake, sir, that I shall be as convinced by them as you are.”

  Poiret quietly disengaged his wrist from the industrialist’s big hand and replied with perfect calm, “Monsieur, Poiret, he is no longer able to prove anything to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the ladders of the police agents, they have destroyed all the proofs.”

  “So there remains only your word. And if you are mistaken?”

  “He would never admit it, papa,” cried Kimberley. “Ah, it’s he, who deserves to die and not Adam? And that will be your eternal remorse! You know well that I would not have admitted Adam here, if I had believed he wished to poison papa.”

  “Mademoiselle,” replied Poiret, not lowering his eyes under Kimberley’s thunderous looks, “Poiret knows what he knows.”

  He said it in such a tone that Kimberley continued to look at him with incomprehensible anguish in her eyes. There was a mute scene between the two of them, one wishing to make himself understood and the other afraid beyond all other things of being thoroughly understood.

  Kimberley murmured, “Mr. Poiret, you don’t know what you have done.”

  She turned brusquely toward Watkins and said, “Where is Adam’s body? I wish to see it. I must see it.”

  Hassocks’s head had fallen on his chest. He appeared hurt to the soul, disheartened forever. What neither bombs, nor bullets, nor poison had been able to do, the impossibility he faced of understanding Kimberley’s attitude, her mysterious conduct, the chaos of her explanations, her cries, her protestations of innocence, her accusations, her menaces, her prayers and all her disorder, the avowed fact of her share in the tragic nocturnal adventure in which Adam Ashby found his death had knocked over Hassocks like a giant with clay feet. Kimberley stood there alone fighting against Watkins, Poiret and Lady Hassocks, defending her Adam, while he, the father, was unable to make her talk. All he could do was suffer in silence.

  Watkins walked over to him and said, “Listen to me carefully, Mr. Hassocks. If you don’t demand right now, before us, who are acquainted with all that has happened, if you don’t demand of your daughter the reason for her conduct with Mr. Ashby and if she does not tell you in all sincerity, there is nothing more for me to do here. I in my turn ask you, sir, to prove to me that the most dangerous enemy you have is not your own daughter.”

  These words, which summed up the horrible situation, came as a relief for Hassocks. Watkins was right. She must speak. He ordered his daughter to tell everything she knew.

  Kimberley looked at Watkins with her eyes filled with hatred. She turned away from him and repeated in a firm voice, “I have nothing to say.”

  “There is the accomplice of your murderer,” growled Watkins, extending his arm and pointing at her.

  Kimberley uttered a cry like a wounded animal and fell at her father’s feet.

  “My papa! Dear papa! Look at me! Look at me! Have pity on me and don’t require me to speak, when I must be silent forever. Believe me! Don’t believe these men! Don’t believe Lady Hassocks. Am I not your daughter! By my mother, whom I have not known and whose place you have taken, oh, my papa, ask me nothing more! Ask me nothing more! But take me in your arms as you did when I was little. I never had such need to be loved. Love me, papa! What will your arms be for in the days left you to live, if you no longer wish to press me to your heart? Papa, I’m hurt. Papa, Papa!”

  She laid her head on her father’s knees. Her hair had come down and hung over her in a magnificent disorderly mess.

  Hassocks screamed, “Look in my eyes! Look in my eyes! See how much they love you, sweetheart! Sweetheart! My dear daughter!”

  Then Hassocks wept. His tears fell on her. He raised her head and demanded simply in a broken voice, “You can tell me nothing now? But when will you tell me?”

  Kimberley lifted her eyes to his then her look went past him toward heaven and from her lips came just one word, in a sob, “Never.”

  Lady Hassocks, Inspector Watkins and the detective froze as Hassocks took his daughter’s face between his hands. He looked long at those eyes raised toward heaven, the mouth which had just uttered the word “Never,” then slowly, his rude lips went to the tortured, wet forehead of his daughter and he kissed her. He held her close. She turned her head wildly and looked triumphantly toward Lady Hassocks, her voice, however said weakly, “My papa believes me! My papa believes me! And my mama would have believed me too, if she had been my real mama.”

  Her words hit her father’s heart like an arrow. Then her head fell back and she dropped unconscious to the floor. Hassocks fell to his knees, touching her, kissing her face. He motioned the others out of the room.

  “Go away! All of you, go! All! You, too, Lady Hassocks. Go away!”

  They all left, terrified by his savage gestures.

  In the little mansion, where Adam Ashby and Ian Spencer lived there was a body. Policemen guarded it while they waited for Inspector Watkins. Adam Ashby had come there to die and the police had reached him just as he breathed his last breath. They were behind him as, with the death-rattle in his throat, he pulled himself into his room and fell into a heap. The police swarmed the mansion, ransacking, forcing locks, pulling drawers from the bureau and tables, emptying the cupboards. They searched everything. They ripped open the mattresses. They didn’t respect the rooms of Ian Spencer either, who was away that night. They searched thoroughly, but they found absolutely nothing they were looking for in Adam’s rooms. They did find a multitude of publications that belonged to Ian, books about Pacifism, essays on political activism and a history of the Russian Revolution. They took them to the police station.

  The unfortunate young man had broken his back, when he jumped from the balcony. It was a miracle that he had managed to keep going. Doubtless he hoped to die in peace and keep his secret, if only he could reach his own house. He had believed he could manage to break through the human bloodhounds, but they easily stayed on his scent and found his layer.

  The police had gone from cellar to attic. Watkins came from the Hassocks mansion and joined them. Poiret followed him. The little man could hardly contain his emotions, when he saw Adam’s body, which was still warmth and the open eyes, which seemed to stare at him, accusing him for his violent death. Poiret turned away. Watkins caught the movement.

  “Regrets?” he queried.

  “Oui, mon ami,” said Poiret in a voice, which betrayed his vulnerability. “A death, it always must be regretted. No matter if he was the criminal or not. Je suis desole. Poiret, he is also sincerely sorry, because he died before he was able to tell to us the truth. Now there will always be the doubt.”

  Watkins went up the stairs to question the sergeant. He replied categorically. Nothing had been found that directly incriminated any one. Suddenly Poiret noted that the conversation grew more animated. Watkins became angry and reproached the other man loudly. The sergeant and several of his men came downstairs and left the house hurriedly. Watkins came down the stairs too. Poiret followed him.

  As he came up behind Watkins, he asked the question. In a few curt words, still hurrying on, Watkins told the consulting detective he had just learned that the police had allowed Adam’s sister, Lois Ashby alone for a moment with the expiring young man, before being ushered out of the house. Lois, who was unmarried and acted as a doctor’s assistant for her brother, the doctor, had also acted as the housekeeper for both Adam and Ian. The first thing any novice should have known was to keep a constant eye on her and now no one knew where she was. Watkins wished to search her person and her purse, for he suspected that therein probably lay the reason that no compromising papers were found on the corpse or in Adam’s room, when the police searched them.

 
; The chase began in the rosy dawn of Folkestone. Some policemen cried that they had the trail. They ran under the trees, because it was almost certain she had taken the narrow path leading to the boulevard. Some indications discovered by the policemen, who swarmed to right and left of the path confirmed this hypothesis. There were no cars in sight. They all ran on, Watkins among the last. Poiret, had trouble keeping up with him. Suddenly there were cries and calls among the police officers. One pointed out something below moving on the sloping descent leading to the cliffs overlooking the sea. It was Lois. She flew like the wind, but in a distracted course.

  “Get a car, get a car!” clamored Watkins, who had left his car behind, when he joined the chase. “The proof is there. She has the proof!”

  Dawn was enough advanced now to show the ground clearly. Lois was easily discernible. Poiret did not understand what she was doing. Was she going to the Hassocks mansion? What would she have to say to them? Then she swerved to the right, away from the Hassocks mansion. The police raced behind her. She was still far ahead and seemed untiring. Then she disappeared among the trees, in the thicket, keeping still to the right. Watkins gave a cry of joy. He knew the area. He took a short cut to reach the other side, toward which Lois seemed to be heading and all at once he nearly fell over the woman, who gave a squawk of surprise and rushed away, seeming all arms and legs.

  “Stop or I fire!” cried Watkins and he drew his revolver. But Poiret’s cane hit his hand.

  “One dead, it is enough!” said Poiret, as he picked up the revolver from the ground and gave it back to the inspector.

  Inspector Watkins swore at him, “You idiot, I was going to shoot in the air. We’ll talk about this later.”

  He resumed the chase, followed by Poiret. His fury multiplied his strength and his agility, though he was in his fifties. There were no policemen in front of them, they not having taken the short cut. A police car stopped next to them and they hastily stepped in. They drove along the boulevard. They saw Lois, in the distance, mounting in mad haste the stairs that led to The Red Lion, the restaurant. Watkins believed his prey would now be easily captured. Lois disappeared inside the restaurant. They reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out of the car. On the top step, about to descend from the festive place, the form of Lord Holloway appeared. His sight stopped Watkins and Poiret short in their ascent. Holloway had a triumphant look in his eyes, which Watkins and Poiret immediately understood. They had arrived too late. They understood now why Lois had fled there. If she had taken the incriminating papers from the dead, it was the lord now, who had them in his pocket. Watkins shook, as he saw the lord about to pass him.