Mr. Zero

by Patricia Wentworth

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You see, I’ve been out all day. I went shopping with Poppy, and we lunched together, and then we watched a mannequin show, and I had three cocktail parties, and I was going to dine with Mr. Brewster but fortunately I remembered about being engaged to Linda, and Francis had gone off to Birmingham or somewhere, so I took Mr. Brewster instead. And I liked it awfully. I wore my gold dress, you know, and I had a lot of compliments-”

  “Sylly, what are you talking about?”

  “Linda Westgate’s party. Oh, and your Algy Somers was there.”

  Gay denied him with vehemence.

  “He’s not my Algy Somers!”

  “Oh, I thought he was.” Sylvia was vague and amiable. “But perhaps you’d better not, because Linda and Francis wouldn’t like it if I let him take me out. No, really-she meant there was something wrong, only she wouldn’t tell me what it was, and Mr. Brewster wouldn’t either.”

  “Sylly, this is pure drivel. Have you got anything to say or haven’t you? Because if you have, get on with it, and if you haven’t, I’m going back to bed. There isn’t any central heating in this house, and I’ve probably got frost-bite already.”

  Sylvia, in a temperature mounting to 70°, was without sympathy.

  “You see,” she pursued, “I quite forgot about it all day-at least not quite but almost-but as soon as I came in and got up to my own room I felt dreadful again, because I know he’ll make me do it, and I simply can’t think what will happen if Francis finds out. And he will-I’m sure he will. He-he guesses things, and comes down on you like lightning.”

  “Sylly, listen!” Gay spoke firmly. “You’re not to do anything at all. If this man wants you to take papers for him, you’re not to do it.”

  “I shall have to-he’ll tell Francis if I don’t.”

  “Tell Francis yourself, then you’ll be all clear. If you take these papers you’ll be in the worst hole you’ve ever been in in your life.”

  “Darling, it’s not papers.”

  Gay stamped, and wished she hadn’t. Her foot was cold, and the floor pure ice.

  “You said it was.”

  “No, it’s his keys-Francis’ keys.” Her tone suddenly brightened. “How stupid of me! I needn’t have worried. Because Francis is away. He got a telegram and he went off, and of course he took his keys, so no one, not even that horrid Zero man, could make me do anything about them tonight. I can just go off to bed and not bother. And I needn’t have rung you up, but I’ve loved talking to you. Good-night, darling.”

  Gay didn’t say good-night. She pitched the receiver back on to its hook and ran violently up five flights of stairs to her room, where she took a flying leap into the bed and called her hot water bottle to witness that the telephone might ring itself blue in the face if it liked, but if it thought she was going to answer, it could think again.

  Sylvia hung up at her end with a little satisfied sigh. It was beautifully simple. Francis wasn’t here, and his keys weren’t here, so she couldn’t take them. Even Mr. Zero must see that. She needn’t have worried at all. She began to hum a little tune to herself as she moved to and fro in her room.

  And then all of a sudden it came to her that Mr. Zero would be waiting outside the dining-room window from one to two, and it would look so very odd if anyone saw him. They might think all sorts of things, or they might arrest him, and if he was arrested, there was no knowing what he might tell the police. She thought she had better go down and tell him to go away. She could open just a little bit of the dining-room window and say, “It’s no good-Francis isn’t here,” and Mr. Zero would go away and they could all go to bed. It was a very comfortable plan.

  She looked at the little crystal clock beside her bed, and saw that it was a quarter to one. That would give her time to take off her gold dress and put it away and get into a dressing-gown. She could fill in the time with brushing her hair.

  When she had done all these things, she looked at the clock again. Just on one o’clock. She opened her bedroom door and looked out. A light burned there all night. It was one of the things that made Sylvia feel safe and rich. Poor Mummy was always so dreadfully cross if you left a light on for a single minute. Of course she couldn’t help it, poor darling-she just had to scrimp and save, but it was dreadfully wearing. So now a light burned all night long upon every floor, and Sylvia, waking and turning over, could see a golden thread lying across her door-sill and go to sleep again feeling oh, so thankful not to be poor Sylvia Thrale any more.

  She went to the head of the stairs and looked over. She could see the drawing-room door, and the light shining on the pale green stair-carpet. That made her feel good too, because you couldn’t expect a colour like that to wear, and it didn’t matter-most joyfully it didn’t matter.

  She trailed her white crepe dressing-gown down to the next flight. From there she could see the hall, and a corner of the fireplace, and the dining-room door. Walls and woodwork were a pale, bright primrose. There was a scarlet rug, and a table, a screen and a clock in scarlet lacquer. As she came through the hall, the clock struck one with a keen, ringing note. She stood with her hand on the dining-room door and waited for the sound to die away. Then she went in, not putting on the light, but leaving the door wide behind her. She could find her way to the window in the dark, and what she had to say need not take a minute.

  There were two windows of the old-fashioned sash type. She reached the nearer one and slid back the catch, standing between the heavy violet curtain and the glass. A coldness came from it. She shivered and pulled up the swansdown collar of her wrap. Then she stooped to raise the window.

  It was heavy, but it moved. She heard it creak. Then she heard something else-a footstep just outside, crossing the pavement, coming quickly up to the door. She pressed her face to the glass. Suddenly, terribly, she was afraid. She couldn’t really see anything. There was no lamp very near, and the porch run out over the steps with pillars upon either side. They cut off what light there was. She had only seen a shadow, but she heard a horrifying and familiar sound, the little rattle which a latchkey makes when it is put into the lock, and hard upon that the click of the latch. The door swung in, swung back. The inner door swung in. A cold air came with it into the hall-through the open dining-room door. Sylvia turned round, flattening herself behind the curtain, because it was Francis who had come into his own house in the middle of the night-it couldn’t be anyone else but Francis.

  And he would want to know what she was doing down here in her dressing-gown. Sylvia, whose stupidity had driven Gay to desperation, was not at all stupid about this. She ceased in fact to be Sylvia Colesborough at all. She was immemorial woman, and there, on the other side of the open door, was immemorial man, a creature to be deceived. If she had been capable of thought at all, she would have thought, “I must hide,” and have remained cowering behind her curtain. But she did not think. She ran out into the middle of the dining-room and called in a plaintive voice,

  “Oh, Francis, is that you? Do put on the light. I can’t see where I am.”

  The light went on. Francis Colesborough stood by the door with his hand on the switch. At this moment he looked his age. He had fair hair with a sprinkle of grey in it, grey eyes, hard and intent, a certain elegance of bearing. His skin lacked colour. The light which he had turned on picked out the lines of fatigue about eyes and mouth. He said with a kind of angry impatience,

  “What are you doing, Sylvia?”

  She smiled that lovely vague smile of hers.

  “I wanted a biscuit-I thought I could find them in the dark. And then I heard you and went to look out of the window.”

  His hand dropped rather heavily from the switch.

  “You weren’t expecting me?”

  She had found the biscuits. She picked out two or three and turned with them in her hand.

  “Did you say you were coming back?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  She began to tell him about the
Westgates’ party.

  “Are you glad to see me?” he said abruptly in the middle of a sentence.

  Sylvia trailed towards him in her lovely white wrap, offered a cheek to be kissed, yawned a little and said,

  “But I’m always pleased to see you, darling.”

  XII

  It was in my pocket,” said Algy Somers.

  Montagu Lushington looked at the creased envelope which had come out of Algy’s tail-pocket the night before. He said nothing. Algy went on.

  “It’s that envelope-there isn’t any doubt about it at all. I didn’t read the address, as I told you. I didn’t know that I had looked at the envelope, but as soon as I saw that blot I knew I had seen it before, and where. It’s shiny where the ink has dried, and I suppose that must have caught my eye, and I remembered it afterwards, though I didn’t notice it at the time.”

  Montagu Lushington looked up.

  “The envelope that was taken out of my despatch-case.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The empty envelope.” There was a little weight on the second word.

  Algy’s face was set and grave. He said “Yes, sir” again.

  “And planted on you-put into your tail-pocket-” The slow almost meditative tone quickened suddenly. “With what object?”

  Algy’s face did not change, or his voice. He said,

  “I’ve thought about that. It would support the theory that the papers were taken before you went down to Wellings.”

  “If it had been found on you-yes.”

  “It was intended to be found. I found it too soon, that’s all. Or perhaps I was meant to find it. It may have been part of an attempt to stampede me-I don’t know. There’s a lot of talk going on. I was at the Westgates’ last night. All Linda’s crowd had got the story.”

  Mr. Lushington wished-profanely-that someone would tell him how people got hold of these things.

  “Well, they do,” said Algy. “The men tell their wives, and the women tell each other-everyone adds a little. But they all know that important papers have gone missing, and most of them are half way to believing I took them. Somewhere about day after tomorrow they’ll be quite sure I did. Then it’s finish for me.”

  Montagu Lushington looked down at the envelope again.

  “I don’t see why this was planted on you.”

  Algy had one of those flashes. He said,

  “Has no one suggested having my rooms searched?”

  He got a quick upward glance. There was a pause, and Lushington said,

  “I should not have entertained such a suggestion.”

  “But it was made?” Algy’s tone warmed a little.

  “I think that is a question which should not be put.”

  “But I do put it, sir. I don’t see how I’m to meet this thing unless I know what I’m up against.”

  “Very well then, you may take it that the suggestion has been made.”

  “By whom?” Algy was pale.

  “Do you expect me to tell you that?” said Montagu Lushington.

  “Yes, I do, sir. You have just asked me why this envelope should have been planted in my pocket. I say it was planted in order that it might be found there. How was it going to be found there? My rooms were to be searched. Don’t you think I have a right to know who has been suggesting that my rooms should be searched?”

  Montagu Lushington said abruptly, “It was Carstairs. That makes nonsense of your suggestion, but the person who planted the envelope might have had knowledge of the line which Carstairs was taking-there is that.”

  “I’m not making any suggestion about Mr. Carstairs-he’s out of the question. But someone thought, or hoped, that there would be a search, and was willing to take a risk in order to make sure that something would be found. If you had authorized the search, and that envelope had been found in my coat, no one in the world would have believed that I was innocent. It would have been absolutely damning.”

  Montagu Lushington said, “Yes.” Then, after a pause, “When do you think it was planted, and how?”

  “Well, I found it last night when I was dressing to go to the Westgates‘, and it wasn’t there the day before. At least, it wasn’t there till four o’clock, because Barker-that’s the man at my rooms-had the suit to press and lay out. I’ve asked him, and he’s quite sure that there was nothing in any of the pockets. He put the things out for me somewhere about four o’clock, and then he and his wife went out. They go over to see her mother, and if I’m dining out they don’t hurry back. I meant to dine out, but Mr. Carstairs gave me the Babington stuff to type, and when I saw I wasn’t going to get done in time, I rang up and said I couldn’t get round till after dinner-and I didn’t get done till a quarter to nine. The point is that I had to rush back and dress in a hurry. If the envelope had been in my pocket then, I don’t think I should have noticed it.”

  “You mean someone might have got into your rooms between four and nine and have planted it then?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Montagu Lushington looked at him keenly.

  “Very anxious to prove that it wasn’t so likely to have been done later, aren’t you, Algy?”

  The blood came up into Algy’s face. He said,

  “No, sir.”

  “Oh, not unnaturally. Now I think we’ll have the rest of your evening.”

  Algy stiffened a little.

  “I called for a girl, and we went to the Ducks and Drakes.”

  “Her name?”

  “Gay Hardwicke.”

  Montagu frowned slightly.

  “Hardwicke-there’s a Miss Agatha Hardwicke who bombards me and the papers with letters on the subject of capital punishment. She’s secretary of some society or other. Rather a terrifying female.”

  “An aunt,” said Algy gloomily. “Gay is staying with her. They’re cousins of Lady Colesborough’s.”

  He got another keen look.

  “Known this young lady long?”

  “About three months, sir.”

  “Well, you took her to the Ducks and Drakes. Were you alone, or in a party?”

  “We went there alone, but we joined up with the Wessex-Gardners.”

  “What!” It was more of an exclamation than a word. A disturbed look crossed Montagu Lushington’s face. “I should like to know who you danced with.”

  “Poppy Wessex-Gardner, Sylvia Colesborough, and Gay-mostly with Gay.”

  “Could one of them have put the envelope in your pocket?”

  “Not while we were dancing.”

  “But you sat out?”

  “We sat at a table and had drinks, and things to eat-I hadn’t had any dinner.”

  “Yes, it could have been done then. You agree?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Who were the men of the party?”

  “Wessex-Gardner and his brother. His brother’s wife was there too. And a man called Danvers -I don’t know anything about him-and Brewster.”

  “I didn’t know Brewster went to night-clubs.”

  Algy laughed, not very cheerfully.

  “He doesn’t. Mrs. Wessex-Gardner dragged him, and he’s fallen for Sylvia Colesborough-a hopeless, respectful passion-she didn’t even know he was there half the time.”

  “I can imagine that! What was this man Danvers like?”

  “A bit of an outsider, I thought-the I’ll-tell-the-world-I-did-it touch. He seemed to go down very well with Mrs. Wessex-Gardner.”

  “Yes,” said Montagu Lushington-“an old friend. At least so I gathered.”

  “What-he was at Wellings?”

  Lushington shook his head.

  “Not quite. He was expected, but he didn’t turn up-at least not on the crucial Saturday. I believe he came over on the Sunday afternoon, but Maud and I had motored over to Hindon, so we did not see him. I wish now that we had, because it comes to this-any one of these people could have put that envelope in your pocket.”

  Algy thought for a moment.

  “I suppose they co
uld-” he said.

  XIII

  Algy had plenty to think about all day. Monty had been very decent. “Stick to your job, and stick to your ordinary way of life. Go about the show yourself. Behave as if the whole thing was too ridiculous to be answered. That’s my advice to you both as a member of my family and as a member of my staff.” It was good advice too, and it fell in with Algy’s mood, which was a fighting one. All the same it was easier said than done. Carstairs, always remote, now hardly appeared to be aware of him at all. Communications reached him by way of Brewster, and Brewster, nervously correct, made things worse by a hint of embarrassment and a tinge of apology. Not a nice day at all.

  The worst part was the recurrent remembrance of Gay looking at him with serious eyes and asking him what he would do if someone tried to blackmail him. He had been trying hard not to remember it, but it kept gate-crashing in among his thoughts, and behind it there came, sidling, peeping, whispering, a whole crowd of perfectly idiotic suspicions, fancies, fears. If Gay was being blackmailed, what was the threat, the compulsion? You can’t blackmail a girl with just nothing at all. You’ve got to have a hold over her. What sort of mess had Gay got herself into?

  He revolted sharply. She wasn’t that sort. He felt an anger which surprised and discomfited him. He felt also a burning desire to weigh in and knock the blackmailer’s teeth through the back of his head.

  He tried to remember what she had said. She had flared up. He had a vivid recollection of how she had looked with the bright angry colour in her cheeks. And she had said, “What do you think I’ve done?” and they had been very near a quarrel. And afterwards-afterwards she had said that what the blackmailer wanted wasn’t money, but something dreadful. One of those gate-crashing thoughts got in a word here. With perfect succinctness it observed, “He might have wanted her to put that envelope in your pocket.”

  She could have done it, and she was the only one who could have done it. He had known that all along. She could have done it in the taxi. She could have done it at the Ducks and Drakes. And she could have done it without any risk… He had a good deal of difficulty in keeping his mind on his work.