English Rose (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 13)

by Frank Howell Evans

  “You wished Poiret to warn him after you had done so yourself without the success, Monsieur Bromley?”

  “Pardon, pardon,” said Bromley, smiling softly behind his goggles. “It’s not the same thing.”

  “No, no, it’s not the same thing,” seconded the lady with the black silk, brilliant jewels and flabby chin. “We speak here to a friend in the course of dinner-talk, to a friend.”

  Poiret seemed ready to take his leave.

  “Be reasonable,” Bromley lit his cigar. “They have just tried to poison Hassocks, so they will need time to organize a new attempt.”

  “Yes, yes,” approved the ample dame. “No one can prevent what was bound to happen.”

  “Yes, we must tell you now,” Bromley slipped in softly, “that it will be much better not to let Watkins know that you talked to me, because then whatever you tell him he would not believe you or rather he would not accept advice from me. That is why we take these precautions of dining and smoking a cigar. We speak of one thing and another and you do as you please with what we say. But to make suggestions useful, it’s absolutely necessary, I repeat, to be silent about their source.”

  As he said that, Bromley gave Poiret a piercing glance through his glasses, the first time Poiret had seen such a look in his eyes. He never would have suspected him capable of such fire.

  “Sergeant Demille,” continued Bromley in a low voice, using his handkerchief vigorously, “was once employed as my personal assistant. We do not like to call them bodyguards in Westminster and we separated on bad terms, through his fault, it’s necessary to say. Then he got into Inspector Watkins’s confidence by saying the worst he could of me, Mr. Poiret.”

  “But what could he say? Lies, sir!” repeated the fat dame and rolled her great magnificent eyes furiously.

  Poiret had enough of this idle gossip by these tale tellers in their bourgeois setting discussing the horrors of the world between a good cigar and a little glass of anisette.

  The secretary accompanied the consulting detective to the stairs. Poiret was just about to risk speaking of Roxy to him, in order to approach the subject of Kimberley, when Bromley said suddenly, with a remarkable smile, “By the way, do you still believe in Kimberley Hassocks?”

  “Poiret, he shall believe in her until his death,” said Poiret, immediately feeling silly and ashamed in case the secretary heard his feelings for her in his voice, “but Poiret, he must admit to you that at this moment he does not know where she has gone.”

  “Watch the boats at the boulevard and come to tell me tomorrow if you will believe in her always,” replied Bromley, confidentially, with a horrid sort of laugh that made the consulting detective hurry down the stairs.

  On the boulevard Poiret came in the way of Watkins, who had just left Dr. Hartman’s surgery and seeing the consulting detective, he stopped his car and told him that he was on his way to the mansion.

  “You have seen Monsieur le Docteur?”

  “Yes,” said Watkins. “And this time I have it on you. What I foresaw has happened. By the way, a rather curious thing happened. I met Dr. Fisher at a restaurant just now.”

  “Oui?”

  “He’s Hassocks’s family doctor. I sent one of my men to his house to fetch him, but he had not been summoned. He didn’t know anything had happened at the mansion. I hope my man has met some other doctor on the way and in view of the urgency, has taken him to the mansion.”

  “That is what has happened,” replied Poiret, turning pale. “It is strange that Monsieur Fisher, he has not been notified. At the mansion the butler, he tells to Poiret that the family doctor, he was not at home and therefore the police, they had summoned two other doctors, who would arrive soon.”

  Watkins jumped up in the car.

  “But Fisher told me he had been home all evening. He had just arrived at the restaurant with his wife. What does this mean?”

  “Please to tell to Poiret,” asked Poiret, “the name of the policeman you have ordered to fetch the Doctor Fisher?”

  “Sergeant Demille, a man you can trust when things need to get done.”

  Watkins’s car rushed toward Hassocks mansion. Late evening had come. Alone on the deserted boulevard the car seemed headed for the stars.

  “Demille! Demille!” railed Watkins. “Shall we arrive in time?”

  They rushed over the boulevard and up the road along the cliffs, Watkins trying to will the car into moving faster and faster.

  Suddenly Poiret cried, “Stop, stop!”

  “Are you mad!” shouted Watkins.

  “We are mad if we arrive like the madmen. That would cause the catastrophe for sure. There is still the chance. If we wish not to lose it, then we must arrive easily and calmly, like the friends, who know Mr. Hassocks, he is out of the danger.”

  “Our only chance is to arrive before the bogus doctors.”

  “Here is the mansion. Je vous en prie, Inspector Watkins, slowly!”

  “You are right.”

  Watkins moderated his excitement and the car stopped noiselessly, not far from the mansion. Carswell came toward them.

  “Sergeant Demille?” stammered Watkins.

  “He has gone again, sir.”

  “How, gone again?”

  “Yes, sir, but he has brought the doctors.”

  Watkins grabbed Poiret’s wrist and almost crushed it.

  “Lady Hassocks is getting better,” continued Carswell, who understood nothing of the urgency of the situation. “Mr. Hassocks is getting dressed as he wishes to meet the doctors and take them to his wife himself.”

  “Where are the doctors now?”

  “They are waiting in the drawing room. They have just arrived.”

  Poiret and Watkins walked slowly into the garden. Carswell followed them.

  “There?” inquired Watkins.

  “There,” Carswell replied.

  From the corner where they were and looking through the patio, they could see the fake doctors as they waited, their medical bags on their knees.

  They were seated in chairs side by side, in a corner of the drawing room from where they could see everything in the room and a part of the garden, which they faced and could hear everything. A window on the first floor was open above their heads, so that they could hear any noise from there. They couldn’t be surprised from any side and they held every door in view. They were talking softly and tranquilly, looking straight before them. They appeared young. One had a pleasant face, pale but smiling, with rather long, curly hair. The other was more angular, with haughty features and glasses. Both wore long black coats buttoned over their calm chests.

  Watkins and the detective, followed by Carswell, advanced with the greatest precaution across the lawn. Hidden by the steps leading to the patio and by the vine-clad balustrade, they came close enough to hear them talk. They spoke of what time it was, of the softness of the night and the beauty of the sky. They spoke of the shadows under the oaks, of the Channel shining in the evening’s moon light. That is what they talked about.

  Watkins murmured, “Assassins!”

  Above on the first floor, they heard noises in the room, steps on the floor and a confusion of voices. Watkins quickly interrogated Carswell and learned that all the arms manufacturer’s friends were there. The other doctor had already gone, as he had an appointment to take his former in-laws to dinner. Watkins believed he was an accomplice.

  The most important thing now was to warn those in the room above. There was immediate danger that someone would come downstairs to find the doctors and take them to the arms manufacturer or that the arms manufacturer would come down himself to meet them. Evidently that was what they were waiting for. They wished to murder him without delay. Watkins asked Carswell to go onto the patio and speak in a commonplace way to them at the threshold of the drawing room door, saying that he would go upstairs and see if he might now escort them to Lady Hassocks’s room. Once in the room above, he could warn the others not to do anything but wait for Watkins
. Then Carswell was to come down and say to the imposters, “Just a moment, if you please.”

  Carswell walked back as far as the cottage and then came quite normally up the path, letting the gravel crunch under his footsteps. He mounted the patio steps, paused at the threshold of the drawing room, made the remark he had been told to make and went upstairs. Watkins and Poiret now watched the bedroom windows. The flitting shadows there suddenly became motionless. All moving about stopped. No more steps were heard, nothing. And that sudden silence made the two men raise their heads toward the ceiling. Then they exchanged an alarmed glance.

  Watkins muttered, “The idiots!”

  It was evident that the news Carswell brought them had paralyzed them with fear. Carswell, however, came down almost immediately and said to the men, “Just a second, sirs, if you please.”

  He returned to the cottage before he rejoined Watkins and Poiret by way of the lawn. Poiret, quite master of himself, as calm now as Watkins was nervous, said to the inspector, “We must act now and quickly. They are commencing to be suspicious.”

  “Mr. Hassocks is their target,” said Watkins. “Have the arms manufacturer come down by the servants’ stairway and slip out of the house from the window of Kimberley’s sitting room with the aid of a twisted sheet. Lady Hassocks can come to speak to them during this time. That will keep them patient until Hassocks is out of danger. As soon as Lady Hassocks has withdrawn into the garden, I will call my men, who will storm the house.”

  “And the friends of the arms manufacturer?”

  “Ah, maybe they can try to get away, too, by the servants’ stairway and jump from the window after Hassocks. We must do something.”

  “Your plan, it will not work,” said Poiret. “First we do not know how they wish to murder Monsieur Hassocks. Is it the poison given by the syringe? Is it the knife in the heart? Is it the pistol? Maybe, the bags, they are full of the dynamite.”

  Watkins swore. But he recovered himself promptly.

  “Poiret, he has the better plan,” said the master detective.

  “What?”

  “There is not the time for the explanation, mon ami. They have already waited for too long. Poiret, he shall go upstairs. Monsieur Carswell, he will accompany Poiret as the friend of the family.”

  “I’ll go too.”

  “It will give the plan away, if they see the inspector of Scotland Yard.”

  “It’s my duty. I should be the one defending Hassocks until the last.”

  Poiret shook his head and looked the inspector in the eyes. Watkins nodded back, not less determined. At last Poiret shrugged his shoulders. Carswell went ahead of Watkins and Poiret.

  At the moment they reached the foot of the patio steps the servant said loudly, repeating his lesson, “Mr. Hassocks is waiting for you, gentlemen. He told me to have you come to him at once. He’s entirely well and Lady Hassocks also. There is no more danger.”

  And all three walked in. Watkins and Poiret vaguely greeted the two conspirators in the drawing room. It was a decisive moment. Recognizing Watkins, the two Communists might well believe themselves discovered, as the master detective had said and precipitate the catastrophe. However, Carswell, Watkins and Poiret climbed the stairs to the bedroom like automatons, not daring to look behind them and expecting the end each instant. But neither moved. Carswell went down again, by Watkins’s order, normally, naturally. They went into Lady Hassocks’s room. Everybody was there. It was a gathering of ghosts.

  When Lady Hassocks saw Carswell earlier that evening, sober and mysterious, enter with Watkins’s message, she knew instinctively, before he spoke, that there were assassins in the house. When Carswell did speak it was a blow for everybody. The jolly Member of Parliament, Richard Monk, had no longer a lively tale to tell. Poor Christian Cooper was whiter than the snow that covers old England’s fields when the winter’s chase is on. John Colliver himself couldn’t seem to swallow his drink, although his throat was parched. But, in justice to them, that was their first reaction. Carswell’s words had turned these amiable loafers into waxen statues, but, little by little, their hearts began to beat again and each suggested some way of preventing the disaster, all of them sufficiently incoherent. Lady Hassocks invoked the Good Lord and at the same time helped her husband dress as he wished to die in his Sunday best.

  John Colliver, his eyes sticking out of his head and his body bent as though he feared the Communists just below him might see his tall figure through the floor proposed that they should throw themselves out of the window, even at the cost of broken legs. The saddened Member of Parliament declared that project simply idiotic, because as they fell they would be absolutely at the disposal of the Communists, who could riddle them with bullets. Cooper, who couldn’t think of anything at all, blamed Inspector Watkins and the rest of the police for allowing the imposters into the safety of the outside walls. Hassocks had taken the poor disheveled head of the good Lady Hassocks between his hands and said, “Rest quietly against my heart, Lady Hassocks. Nothing can happen to us except what God wills.”

  “Listen. Someone is coming up the stairs,” whispered Lady Hassocks, with her keen ear turned to the door and she slipped from the embrace of her husband.

  They all hurried to the door opening on the landing, but with steps as light as though they walked on eggs. All of them were leaning over each other close by the door, hardly daring to breathe. They heard two men on the stairs. The door was opened and Watkins and Poiret perceived these death-like figures, motionless and mute. No one dared to speak or make a movement until the door had been closed.

  But then, “Save us! Where are they? Ah, my dear Mr. Poiret, please save my husband!”

  “Tsst! Tsst! Silence,” ordered Watkins.

  Poiret, very pale, but calm, spoke, “The plan, it is simple. The assassins, they are between the two staircases, watching the one and the other. Poiret, he will go and find them and make them mount the one staircase, while you descend by the other staircase.”

  “The idea is a good one,” said Watkins.

  But here something happened Poiret had not counted on. The arms manufacturer raised himself to his full length and said, “A Hassocks will not descend by the servants’ stairway.”

  His friends looked at him in disbelief and asked themselves if he had gone mad.

  “What is this you say, Stephen?” implored Lady Hassocks.

  “I say,” insisted the arms manufacturer, “that I have had enough of this comedy and that since Inspector Watkins has not been able to arrest these men, I shall go down myself and put them out of my house.”

  He walked a few steps, but having forgotten that his leg was not completely healed, he fell loudly on the floor. Lady Hassocks rushed to him and helped him up.

  “Not by the servants’ stairway, not by the servants’ stairway,” growled the obstinate arms manufacturer.

  “You will go,” said Inspector Watkins, “by the way I tell you to. It’s not about your pride or my pride. It’s about saving as many lives as we can. Or do you think I want to send Mr. Poiret down to them, while I crawl down the servants’ staircase to safety?”

  All looked at the brave policeman and understood he was correct.

  Watkins continued simply, “Go, Mr. Poiret! And God protect us!”

  Poiret disappeared at once through the door to the main staircase and the group led by Inspector Watkins, walked through the dressing room and the arms manufacturer’s room. Monk had his hand already on the bolt which locked the door to the servants’ staircase when they all turned at the sound of a quick step behind them. Poiret had returned.

  “Mon Dieu! The men, they are not in the drawing room.”

  “Not in the drawing room! Where are they, then?” asked Watkins.

  Poiret pointed to the door they were about to open.

  “Perhaps, they are hiding behind that door. Please to take care!”

  All moved back. Inspector Watkins drew his gun.

  “But Carswell ought to
know where they are,” exclaimed Watkins. “Maybe they left, thinking they were discovered.”

  “They have assassinated Monsieur Carswell.”

  “Assassinated Carswell?”

  “Poiret, he has seen his body lying in the middle of the drawing room as he leaned over the top of the banister. But they themselves, they were not in the room and Poiret, he was afraid that you would run into them, for they may well be hidden in the servants’ stairway.”

  “Then open the window, Watkins and call your men to help us,” said Colliver.

  “I’m quite willing,” replied Watkins coldly, “but it’s the signal for our deaths.”

  “What are you doing, Richard?” muttered Stephen Hassocks.

  Richard Monk, bent in front of the door of the stairway, seemed to be hearing things the others couldn’t hear. His eyes almost sticking from his head, making hand gestures, his mouth babbled, “They are there! They are there!”

  Frightened the others fled from the room in disorder. John Colliver opened a window and said, “I’m going to jump.”

  But Watkins held him back.

  He said calmly, “If they are behind that door, then we follow Mr. Poiret’s plan and use the other staircase to go down and into the garden.”

  “What are we waiting for? What are we waiting for?” grumbled the Member of Parliament.

  Lady Hassocks nodded.

  “Very well, let us do it. This thing must end,” said Hassocks.

  The whole group, therefore, went to the main staircase. Poiret had already hurriedly preceded them, was down the staircase, had time to throw a glance into the drawing room, walked past Carswell’s corpse, entered Kimberley’s sitting room and her room, found all these places deserted and went back onto the patio at the moment the others began to descend the steps. The detective’s eyes searched all the dark corners of the garden, but saw no one. One by one, they appeared on the patio and disappeared in the darkness of the garden. When all were outside, Inspector Watkins sent in his men. The house was empty.

  Poiret had been taken with the others to the cottage, but as soon as he had shaken himself free of the memories of the terrible nightmare, he escaped from the place. His main preoccupation was now Kimberley, who had not appeared. The unhappy woman Poiret had steadily believed innocent. Kimberley! Innocent or guilty, where was she?