Suspects—Nine

by E. R. Punshon

  Vicky did not answer. There was no need to. One might as well, in the middle of an earthquake, have asked, ‘Is it an earthquake?’

  Olive said,

  “Well!”

  It wasn’t ‘well’ at all, anything but ‘well’ indeed. But then words are poor inadequate things when the depths are really plumbed.

  “Well,” said Olive once more, and this time the accent, if not the word, expressed something of the emotions seething within.

  “She had heard about it,” Vicky explained with a kind of desperate calm. “She seems somehow to keep tabs on Mrs. Tamar and she asked if she might see the Tamar hat and so I let her. Then she asked if she might hold it and I let her”—at this point Vicky’s voice rose almost to a wail of anguish—“and she said might she try it on, and she did. It looked silly on her. I knew it would, but we all kept straight faces. She said, ‘I’ll keep it. How much is it?’ I thought she was joking and I said Mrs. Tamar was paying us twenty guineas. She said she would give us twenty-five. I thought she was just trying to be funny—at least I tried to but I was beginning to feel funny myself—here.” Vicky indicated the exact spot. “I said it wasn’t for sale, and she shouted that every hat in a hat shop was for sale or what was it there for? And then before I could say a word, before I could lift a finger, before I knew what she was up to, the cat—she, she bounced out.”

  “With the—wearing the—Hat?” almost whispered Olive.

  “Wearing the hat,” confirmed Vicky.

  “Oh, Vicky,” said Olive.

  “I flung her own after her,” said Vicky, “but what was the good of that? Only a gesture.”

  Then she burst into tears. It was a dreadful thing to see the calm, confident superiority, so lofty, so assured, with which Vicky was accustomed to rule the shop and direct the sale, that gentle and aloof disdain by which the customer who had meant to ask for a guinea model was as it were impelled to consider only the three- and five- guinea variety, to see all that dissolve and melt away till nothing was left save a devastated young woman sitting and howling her heartiest.

  “Oh, Vicky,” said Olive. “Oh, Vicky, please don’t.”

  “I couldn’t help it, really I couldn’t,” pleaded Vicky through her sobs. “I know I’ve let you down, but I just simply never dreamed of such a thing—she was out of the shop and in a taxi before any of us could lift a finger. If I had only known what she was up to,” said Vicky, showing menacing, crimsoned finger-nails, “I’d have had it off her, if I had had to scratch her eyes out and tear the clothes off her back to get it. And now it’s gone.”

  The sobs came again. Olive put an arm round her, and, after a moment’s hesitation, kissed the tip of her nose as being the—comparatively—driest spot available.

  “Might as well stop yelling,” Olive suggested,

  Vicky’s sobs diminished in violence.

  “Whatever shall we do?" she asked. “Mrs. Tamar may be here for it any moment.”

  Olive considered. She came to a decision.

  “We’ll have a cup of tea,” she said firmly.

  Vicky got out her handkerchief and, as that was plainly quite inadequate, went to find a face towel. She looked at herself in the glass. She said simply,

  “I must do me.”

  She became busy with this operation. Olive filled the kettle and put it on the small electric stove they used. Vicky, intent before the mirror, said,

  “Mrs. Tamar will never forgive us.”

  “I expect we’ll lose her,” agreed Olive. “It was for the Buckingham Palace garden party, wasn’t it?"

  “Yes,” said Vicky. She turned tragically, lip-stick and compact in hand. She said very slowly, “I thought perhaps even the Queen herself might have noticed that hat—I thought perhaps someday we might be asked to send hats to the Palace.” She sighed as the lost soul might sigh who sees the gates of paradise slowly closing. “And now—” She resumed her task. “Now most likely Lady Alice will wear it,” she said. “It’ll look awful.”

  “No good,” said Olive, making the tea and making it strong, “no good thinking about it.”

  “It’s not even,” said Vicky, “as if it were anything like Lady Alice’s style. People will say we let our clients go out looking—sights. I might have found something to suit her—only nothing could except a gas mask,” added Vicky viciously. “Olive, why don’t you sack me?”

  “Well, that wouldn’t get the hat back, would it?” asked Olive. “It’s all rather awful, but I don’t see how any one could possibly have helped it.”

  “I might have grabbed her if I had been quicker,” sighed Vicky. “But she was out of the shop and in the taxi like lightning.”

  “She’s twice as big and strong as you are,” Olive pointed out. “Almost like a man.”

  Jenny, the junior assistant, put a small, scared face in at the door and looked much relieved when she saw them drinking tea. She would hardly have been surprised to find them both unconscious on the floor. She said,

  “Oh, please, Mr. Owen’s here.”

  Vicky jumped up. She spilt her tea in doing so but she didn’t care. She cried,

  “Oh, why ever didn’t we think of him? He’s a policeman and he can go and arrest her or something and make her give it back again.”

  CHAPTER II

  LADY ALICE BELCHAMBER

  But the eager hope that had for a moment glimmered in Vicky’s eyes died down again as Bobby, put in possession of the facts, shook a somewhat dubious head.

  “Jolly awkward,” he said, “but I don’t see quite what you can do.”

  “But she’s stolen it, it’s theft,” cried Vicky indignantly. “Why can’t you arrest her? Police can, can’t they?”

  “Well, so can you for that matter,” Bobby answered, “only you’ve got to justify it afterwards. And so have we.”

  “When somebody steals something,” protested Vicky.

  “Nobody seems to know the difference between a felony and a misdemeanour,” Bobby told her, “but I expect this would be called a misdemeanour and a warrant would be necessary.”

  “But you could tell her who you were and you were going to,” urged Vicky. “It would frighten her, and if she gave it back, then it would be all right. It’s stealing, running off with someone else’s hat.”

  “I don’t think,” interposed Olive, looking doubtful, “that Lady Alice would frighten very easily.”

  “I’m afraid,” observed Bobby, “they wouldn’t like it very much at the Yard if we went about trying to frighten people—especially if there were private friends in it. If you did prosecute, I should have to be careful to keep out. You can apply for a warrant but honestly I’m not sure you would get it. Most likely you would be told your remedy was a civil action.”

  “Besides,” added Olive, “we don’t want clients to think if they come here, they may be arrested.”

  “We must do something,” Vicky wailed, “we must get it back or what will Mrs. Tamar say? She may think we let it go on purpose because of being paid extra.”

  “It’s jolly awkward,” agreed Bobby, wrinkling a puzzled forehead.

  “It’s ruin,” said Vicky dramatically. “Blue ruin,” she added, apparently convinced that ruin of that hue was ruin worst of all.

  “You could get your lawyers to write and threaten proceedings,” observed Bobby.

  “Would that be any good?” asked Olive.

  “Not a scrap,” said Bobby. “Goodness knows when the case would come on. You would probably get judgment for the return of the hat or its value and costs—costs being about half your expenses, probably. Most likely Lady Alice would swear you said she could have it, and her counsel would go all out on suggesting you were only bringing the action to put yourself right with the client you had let down. If the judge’ believed that you might get let in for costs yourselves.”

  Vicky rose, to her feet. There were times when Olive felt that the stage had lost a great tragic actress in Vicky. With one hand clenched against her breast
, one held out at length, she cried in vibrant tones,

  “Do you mean there isn’t a damn thing we can do?” There was a silence, a deep and solemn silence, broken only when the door from the shop opened and Jenny poked her head in.

  “Were you calling?” she asked.

  No one took any notice of her. Bobby said,

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  Once more silence reigned. Jenny, more scared than ever, withdrew. A moment later she appeared again.

  “Oh, please,” she said, “there’s a message and I think it’s from her.”

  No need to ask who ‘her’ meant. They all knew. Jenny produced an envelope. Olive opened it. It contained a cheque for £26 5s. Olive let it flutter to the ground from her nerveless fingers. Vicky picked it up.

  “It isn’t the hat,” she said sadly.

  “Consolidating the position, that’s called,” observed Bobby. “Pretty stiff price, isn’t it?”

  “Nine guineas and a half was the real figure, wasn’t it, Vicky?” Olive asked.

  “We said £10,” answered Vicky, “and then, because of Mrs. Tamar helping and being such a good client, we reduced it to nine guineas and a half. Mrs. Tamar was quite pleased. I did say twenty to Lady Alice but, of course, that was just sales talk. You have to impress people.”

  “If it came into court, counsel would argue you had quoted a price,” observed Bobby.

  Vicky picked up the cheque again.

  “It’s something,” she admitted, “and goodness knows, we want it. All the same it’s just plain simple ruin. Mrs. Tamar will never forgive us. She’ll tell every one. We’ll be shunned like—like,” said Vicky, rising again to tragic heights, “like Lepers.”

  “What shall we do with the cheque?” Olive asked Bobby.

  “Well, at any rate, it’s what you might call an extenuating circumstance,” he answered. “Keep it for the present. Too late to pay it in now, anyhow. What’s the idea? What’s she so keen on the thing for?”

  “Spite,” explained Vicky. “Every one knows she hates Mrs. Tamar, though I don’t suppose any one dreamed it would make her do a thing like this. Mrs. Tamar was to have worn it at the Buckingham Palace party and now she won’t and Lady Alice will.”

  “Doesn’t seem worth twenty-six pounds five to me,” observed Bobby. “Do you know what it’s all about?”

  “They say Flora Tamar pinched her best boy years ago and she’s never forgiven her. So she keeps tabs on her.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Bobby, a little startled. “Keeps tabs?”

  “Has her watched all the time so perhaps she can catch her out in something some day,” Vicky explained. “I expect that’s how she heard about Flora’s hat. I let one or two people have a peep, people I thought I could trust. I expect some of them talked and Lady Alice heard.”

  “A lot of gossip goes on here, you know, Bobby,” Olive explained. “There’s something about trying on hats makes people talk. I’ve often noticed it. We hear the most extraordinary things.”

  “Sometimes,” volunteered Vicky, “sometimes it’s quite true.”

  “You mean this hat business is a sort of revenge?” Bobby asked.

  “She’s a vindictive old bean,” observed Vicky thoughtfully. “I shouldn’t wonder. Spying, watching, waiting her chance. Ugh.”

  She shivered slightly. The picture, indeed, was not a pleasant one; that of an unscrupulous, passionate woman, used to wild places where the law was of little account, and now watching and waiting, hoping that some day her enemy would afford her a chance to strike. Bobby knew something of Lady Alice’s reputation. She had figured in police-court proceedings more than once. There had been the case of the vacuum-cleaner salesman who had been slow in accepting her refusal to purchase and who, in consequence, and according to his story, had been thrown downstairs. According to her version he had merely tripped in hurrying to obey her command which she admitted had been accompanied by certain threats—and anyhow it served him right. She had escaped with a comparatively light fine. She had been fined, too, and more heavily, for having upended and applied the flat of a hairbrush to the appropriate portion of the anatomy of a maid she had caught, she said, reading a private letter. There had been one or two other incidents as well, settled out of court, and also that notorious affair over her famous book, Through the Earth’s Dark Places, when she had succeeded in doing down one of the most astute publishers in London for over a thousand pounds.

  Altogether a formidable woman, a formidable enemy, too, and Bobby found himself reflecting that Flora Tamar might do well to be upon her guard. For a. moment, indeed, he seemed to catch a glimpse of grimmer, darker things lurking behind this business of the stolen hat, as though it were not only the somewhat senseless act of petty spite that it seemed.

  “If she does nothing worse than running off with Mrs. Tamar’s new hats—” observed Bobby and left the sentence unfinished.

  “Nothing—worse?” gasped Vicky, quite bewildered.

  “Sorry,” said Bobby. “Look here, how would it be if I went round and saw her? I shan’t say who I am, of course, and she won’t know me, so that’ll be all right. I could be your representative, you could let me have one of your trade cards. It won’t be any good, most likely, but I could try and talk her over.”

  The offer was really a quite genuine and natural desire to help Olive; but at the same time Bobby was conscious of a certain curiosity, a kind of wish both to meet a woman who seemed a somewhat remarkable personality and also to try to form an opinion as to whether or no there was anything more serious involved than a malicious trick to annoy a rival. Olive accepted with gratitude.

  “Oh, Bobby, could you?” she exclaimed. “It’s really awfully important to get it back again if we possibly can.”

  “I don’t know what I shall dare say to Mrs. Tamar,” put in Vicky. “It’ll be awful when she comes,” and at the thought began to sob again.

  “Oh, shut it, Vicky,” exclaimed Olive impatiently, “blubbing’s no good.”

  “If you like,” Bobby said, moved by Vicky’s distress, “I’ll go on and see Mrs. Tamar and tell her what’s happened. She can’t slang me quite as much as she might you, and I shan’t care if she does. Anyhow, the worst will be over before she turns up here, and it may look more civil for you to send your special trade representative round to break the awful news.”

  This offer, too, was accepted with gratitude, and Bobby started forthwith on his dual errand, it being understood that if, by happy chance, he did succeed in rescuing the lost hat, he was to return with it as fast as the fastest taxi could bear him. If not, then he would proceed to visit Mrs. Flora Tamar, in the hope that her feminine wrath might be a trifle mitigated in bursting on his masculine head.

  “Only don’t fall in love with her,” Olive warned him. “They say every man does at sight.”

  Bobby promised to do his best to be the exception to prove the rule and so departed. Lady Alice Belchamber occupied a flat in one of those huge new blocks of buildings that now ring round Regent’s Park as with a circle of castles. They are all much the same, all of them containing every possible modern amenity, the one Lady Alice inhabited having several others as well: a swimming pool, squash court, roof garden above and air-raid shelter below, uniformed porters all at least six feet high and all with two or three rows of medals, cocktail bars on every floor, hot water, central heating, refrigerators, conditioned air, wireless laid on in every room; in fact, not a want anxious search for selling points could discover had been left unsupplied, though in this general eagerness air, space, and light had somehow or another got overlooked—presumably because not modern.

  Lady Alice’s flat was on the top floor—which perhaps explained the bitterness wherewith that unlucky vacuum-cleaner salesman had recounted his experiences. From the great entrance hall, gleaming in marble and gold, rose the battery of lifts serving the building; and as Bobby waited for an ‘up’ to come down, he noticed a little man peeping at him from
behind one of the enormous porters and recognized at once the small, thin, pointed, fox-like face as that of a man, named William Martin, he knew to be in the employment of one of the (slightly) less disreputable private inquiry agencies—Eternal Vigilance, Ltd.

  Plainly the recognition was mutual, for, after just that one look, Mr. Martin vanished with a precipitation that surprised Bobby, since, so far as he knew at least there was nothing against Mr. Martin at the moment. Probably, Bobby thought, engaged on some dirty bit of work he had no wish any policeman should know anything about. Once or twice, though not for any very important reasons, Bobby had come in contact with Mr. Martin, and always with thoroughly unsatisfactory results, for Mr. Martin, who had been a solicitor’s clerk till a misunderstanding over the petty cash had induced him to turn his thoughts to another profession, knew the law thoroughly, knew its tenderness towards the suspect, its nervous anxiety lest that suspect should be unfairly treated, knew as well the almost magical power of the formula, ‘I can’t remember’; and was altogether an exceedingly tough customer. He was believed, too, though nothing had ever been proved, to be quite ready to employ violence when occasion served—and it seemed safe. Darker tales even were told, and he had narrowly escaped arrest in connection with the case of a woman found strangled and dead in an empty house. An alibi had served him well on that occasion, and though the police believed it false, that was not certain. In any case a false alibi, put forward by a man suspected of murder, is no proof that he is actually guilty. He may be merely trying to establish a true innocence by untrue means.

  The lift appeared, and Bobby, entering it to ascend, found himself remembering what Vicky had said about Lady Alice ‘keeping tabs’ on Flora Tamar. Bobby hoped Mr. Martin was not the agent employed for that purpose. If he were, it seemed to Bobby very likely trouble was looming in the distance, probably not the far distance, either. Again he became aware of a sense of deep unease, almost of impending catastrophe, as though behind this petty incident of the stolen hat dark, unknown forces moved.

  He walked along the corridor where the lift deposited him and found and knocked at Lady Alice’s door. It was opened by a tall, commanding-looking woman in a rough tweed coat and skirt, with harsh, prominent features, a nose like the beak of a bird of prey, hair clipped close to the head, and pale, vivid eyes in which anger seemed to lurk like fire in flint. Lady Alice herself, as he felt sure from the description given him and those he had read.