by Molly Thynne
“Then, that clears the tramp. You’ve done him more than one good turn to-day, Mrs. Doggett. Perhaps Lady Cynthia explained that I had promised not to report the theft to the police, so if you wouldn’t mind keeping it dark …”
“They won’t hear nothing from me, sir! I don’t want no traffic with them. Writin’ everythin’ down in their little books! Oh, I couldn’t, sir, thankin’ you kindly all the same,” she finished, as Fayre slipped a note into her hand. “It wasn’t only half-a-crown and I don’t grudge it ’im.”
“You’ve got to, Mrs. Doggett,” called Cynthia over her shoulder as the car leaped forward. “And you deserve it for being such a brick.”
“So that’s that!” said Fayre, with striking lack of originality. “He’s out of it. Now we can concentrate on the real culprits. It’ll take us all our time, too!” he added ruefully.
He spoke more truly than he realized. They had only just passed the lane leading to Leslie’s farm when a small two-seater turned out of a by-road on their right and sped past them on the way to Whitbury.
It was being driven by Gregg and by his side was the man who had cleaned the paint off Fayre’s coat in the doctor’s garage. At the sight of Cynthia Gregg raised his hand towards his hat, but his eyes were on Fayre and it seemed to the latter that his glance held both contempt and defiance.
He turned and looked after the car and, at the sight of the luggage-rack at the back, an exclamation broke from him. It was loaded with a portmanteau and a big suitcase.
“Good Lord, I might have guessed it! What an ass I was!” he muttered in consternation.
“What’s the matter?” asked Cynthia, surprised at his tone.
“He’s bolting! Idiot that I was not to have foreseen this!”
“Dr. Gregg? Then you really do suspect him?”
“I not only suspect him, but he knows it. Cynthia, I’ve made an unholy mess of this. The only thing to do now is to make for Staveley as quickly as possible. I must get into touch with Grey and warn him.”
Cynthia wasted no time in asking questions. She did her best and Fayre made a mental note never again, when she was at the wheel, even to suggest to her that he was in a hurry. To do him justice he underwent three hairbreadth escapes without making a sound, but he thanked his stars that he was still alive as he tore up the steps and into the little room that housed the telephone at Staveley.
He got Grey with surprisingly little delay and told him what had happened.
“It’s my fault, I’m afraid. If I hadn’t shown my hand he’d never have taken fright. Can you do anything at your end?”
“I’ll see to that if he makes for London. I can put a man onto the station here. What’s he wearing, did you notice?”
“No idea. I was looking at his face. That wouldn’t be enough, anyhow, for your man to go by. If only I could catch that train!”
“If you did you’d give the show away worse than ever. He’s certain to be on the lookout. I wish to goodness we had a photograph! We must go by the ticket, that’s all. I’ll back my man to get onto him if it’s humanly possible. Fortunately, he’s on good terms with the station people. It’ll be a bore if Gregg goes north, though!”
“It doesn’t even follow that he’s going by train. He was on his way to the Junction, but that means nothing. He’s got his man with him, which looks as if he were sending the car home from the station.
The fellow’s a sort of gardener as well, so he’s not likely to take him with him if he’s going far.”
“That points to a train journey, so our luck may be in, after all. Look here, are you free to come up at any moment?”
“Quite. To-night, if you like.”
“There’s no great hurry, but you might run up in the course of the next day or two. There’s nothing much you can do where you are now, and it’s about time we compared notes again. I may have something for you by the time you get here.”
Fayre calculated for a moment.
“I’ll come up by the night train to-morrow, arriving Sunday morning. Then I can look you up on Monday.”
“Good! Or, better still, lunch with me on Sunday at the Troc.”
“Excellent! I’ll be there at one. By the way, if Gregg was making the night train he’ll get in about six-twenty. Tell your man to be careful. He’s no fool, remember.”
“Thanks. See you Sunday, then.”
Fayre was hanging up the receiver when a voice at his elbow made him start.
“What’s this? Not the naughty doctor doing a bunk? Now, that looks fishy, if you like!”
Bill Staveley had come in unperceived and had overheard Fayre’s last sentence.
“He’s off,” answered Fayre. “Met him just now on the way to the Junction, luggage and all. It looks as if he’d got the wind up.”
Staveley glanced at his watch.
“Even if you’re only just back he was allowing time and to spare for the five-forty. What makes you think he was going to London?”
“Nothing. He may not have been going by train at all.”
For answer Staveley pushed him gently to one side and, picking up the receiver, gave a number.
“That Whitbury station? That you, Millar? Lord Staveley speaking. Has the London train gone yet? Confound it, then, I’ve missed it. I wanted to catch Dr. Gregg about something. He was on that train, wasn’t he? I thought so. You don’t happen to know if he was going straight through to London, do you? If he’s stopping at Carlisle, I might ring him up there. Thanks, I’ll hold on.”
There was a short pause while he waited, the receiver to his ear.
“Hullo. Yes. He booked through, did he? Yes, that settles it. Thanks very much.”
He replaced the receiver and turned to Fayre.
“Booked to London and had his luggage labelled straight through. Want to let your man know?”
He stood waiting while Fayre put through the trunk call.
“What’s the next move?” he asked. “By Jove, I’m beginning to think you’re right about the doctor!”
“I’d better go up myself and see if Grey’s got anything for me to do there. To-morrow night will be time enough.”
“If it wasn’t for this blessed Cattle Show on Monday I’d come myself. I’m beginning to enjoy this business. I wish it hadn’t been Gregg, though.”
“So do I,” agreed Fayre heartily. “I disliked the fellow at first, I admit, but now I’ve got a sneaking sympathy for him. He’s a loyal friend, whatever else he may be.”
“He’s a benighted idiot to cut and run now. I’d have given him credit for more sense. Was Cynthia with you when you saw him?”
“Yes. And I shall have my work cut out to prevent her from dashing up to town with me, I expect, once she knows what it all means. Which reminds me that if I don’t go and make a clean breast of the whole thing at once I shall never hear the last of it. It’s no good keeping it from her now.”
He departed hastily in search of her, but she was nowhere to be found and he concluded that she must have gone straight to her room. When she failed to put in an appearance at tea he was really puzzled. He knew she must be waiting eagerly for his explanation and it was not like her to curb anything, least of all curiosity. He was relieved to find that the Staveleys took her defection very calmly.
“If you knew Cynthia better you’d take everything she did as a matter of course,” announced Eve Staveley. “She’s probably gone home to collect a few more oddments.”
“If she hasn’t made a dash for the five-forty and caught it!” suggested Bill Staveley with a wicked gleam in his eye. “She can twist old Millar round her little finger and if she told him to keep the train till she arrived, I wouldn’t bank on his not doing it.”
“My dear Bill, why on earth should she go off on the five-forty?” demanded his wife.
“Why shouldn’t she? It’s just the sort of Tom Fool thing she would do,” he countered cheerfully.
The suggestion made Fayre uncomfortable and he went through a good dea
l of quite unnecessary worry before she walked calmly into the dining-room, ten minutes late for dinner, and apologized very prettily to her hostess for her unpunctuality.
Lady Staveley took it for granted that she had been to Galston and neither of the two men thought it wise to question the fact in public. After dinner, however, she found herself pinned into a corner of the big drawing-room, well out of hearing of her hostess, and made to give an account of herself.
“It’s no good trying the happy home stunt on us,” remarked Bill Staveley lazily. “We want to know where you’ve really been and what mischief you’ve been up to.”
“I never said I’d been to Galston,” protested Cynthia, the picture of injured innocence. “It was Eve who insisted on it.”
“In spite of all your protestations,” jibed Staveley. He and Cynthia were old sparring partners and he was a worthy match for her.
“Well, did you want me to give the show away?” she asked.
“Considering that we don’t know what the show is!”
She cut him short and tackled Fayre direct.
“Did you manage to do anything about Dr. Gregg, Uncle Fayre?” she asked.
“I rang up Grey, and Bill got the station and discovered that he had caught the London train. Grey’s going to try to keep him under observation at the other end. That was all we could do.”
For answer Cynthia opened the little gold bag she carried and took from it a slip of paper. She handed it to Fayre and watched him in silence as he read it aloud.
“Care of Dr. Graham, Brackley Mansions, Victoria Street,” it ran.
For a moment he stared at the girl in utter bewilderment; then he broke into a low chuckle.
“She’s beaten us, Bill!” he exclaimed. “It’s Gregg’s address, I’ll be bound. How did you get it?”
“Ran the car over to his house and asked for it, of course. That’s why I was late for dinner. I punctured on the way home. I told the maid that Lady Kean had written to say that she’d lost his prescription and had asked me to see him about it. They said that he always stays at that address when he’s in London and that he’d told them to forward letters there, so he’s sure to go to it if only to collect them.”
There was a blank silence, broken eventually by Lord Staveley.
“Absurdly simple, my dear Watson, when you know how it’s done. One up to you, Cynthia. He’ll smell a rat, of course, when he gets back, but it probably won’t matter then.”
Fayre caught the night train for London on the following evening. Lord Staveley had offered to send him into Carlisle by car, thus saving the change at Whitbury, but he preferred to go from Staveley Grange.
“Both your chauffeurs must hate the sight of me by now, though why you persist in using that wretched little branch line is beyond me,” he complained.
“Lord knows!” admitted Staveley frankly. “It’s a bit of a way round to Whitbury, it’s true, but that’s nothing in a car. Of course, in the old horse days it was a consideration. That and the fact that they gave my grandfather the branch line as a special concession in days gone by and we’ve felt it our duty to use it ever since is the only reason I can think of why we stick to it still. We’re a hide-bound lot, but I must admit I’ve got a weakness for that rotten little station. It reminds me of coming home for the holidays in my school days for one thing.”
“And then we’re surprised to find Americans laughing at us! We are a queer country, you know.”
“Well, if you can find a better ’ole, go to it!” quoted Staveley cheerfully. “You can have the car to Carlisle if you like to-night, but I’m dashed if I’ll send you to Whitbury now!”
So Fayre travelled from Staveley Grange after the approved Staveley fashion and was glad he had done so, for, as he was waiting for his train at Whitbury he was joined by Miss Allen, whom he would undoubtedly have missed in the crowd at Carlisle. She, too, was on her way to London and she and Fayre dined very pleasantly together in the restaurant car. He found, as he had suspected, that she improved on acquaintance and they sat talking for some time after the meal ended.
Fayre wondered later, as he sat huddled in his stuffy corner, waiting for the sleep that would not come, what she would have said if she had known the reason of his journey to town.
“The whole cast of the melodrama seems to be moving to London,” he thought whimsically. “Though what we’re all going to do there, goodness knows! It would be more satisfactory, too, if one knew which of us was the villain of the piece!”
CHAPTER XVII
Fayre saw Miss Allen into a cab and then drove straight to his club. After a hot bath and a leisurely breakfast he felt better able to face the world, but he was not sorry to spend a quiet Sunday morning drowsing in front of the smoking-room fire and it was with a distinct effort that he turned out, shortly before one, to keep his appointment with Grey at the Trocadero.
He found the solicitor already seated and busy studying the wine-card. At the sight of Fayre he sprang to his feet and greeted him with a mixture of enthusiasm and deference which the older man found refreshing in these casual days.
“How about a pick-me-up, sir?” he asked, with a keen glance at his guest. “Or do you despise cocktails?”
“They have their uses,” admitted Fayre, a glint of mischief in his eyes, “especially after a long night in the train, but I’m not such a dug-out as you might think, you know!”
Grey laughed.
“I didn’t mean that!” he apologized hastily. “Only you look a bit done up.”
He ordered a couple of Martinis and then plunged at once into the business which was engrossing both their minds.
“My man rang up about an hour ago,” he said. “He got onto Gregg all right. He managed to square the ticket-collector and stood by his side as the passengers passed through. The collector spotted the Whitbury ticket and gave him the tip and he followed the man. He says he answered to our description. I think it was Gregg all right.”
“Where did he go?” asked Fayre.
His lips twitched involuntarily, for he guessed what was coming.
“To a doctor’s house, or rather flat. Brackley Mansions, Victoria Street. He took his luggage in, so that looks as if he meant to stay there, unless it was a blind.”
“Good work,” was Fayre’s only comment.
Grey looked at him sharply.
“What’s the joke?” he asked.
“Nothing much, only we had our noses pulled rather thoroughly over that address by Lady Cynthia!”
He told Grey what had happened.
“I like that girl,” was Grey’s enthusiastic comment. “She’s keen. We’ll get Leslie off, if only for her sake.”
“We don’t look much like doing it at present,” said Fayre rather hopelessly. “It seems to me that until we can get Gregg to account for that extra hour he spent getting from Whitbury to Hammond’s farm we’re pretty well stuck. And, if he won’t speak we’re not in a position to make him.”
“I can’t for the life of me see any connection between Gregg and the Page car,” said Grey thoughtfully.
“There is none. Of that I feel convinced. My opinion is that Page simply turned up the lane and, finding it a cul-de-sac, came back again. He may have seen something, but I don’t believe he took Mrs. Draycott to the farm.”
“The tramp seemed to think there was a woman in the car, though, the first time it passed him.”
“He was very vague about it and admitted he could hardly see the occupants. I believe we ought to concentrate on Gregg.”
Grey deliberated for a moment.
“I’m not sure that I agree with you,” he said at last. “Gregg’s not behaving like a guilty man. I fully expected that he’d make a break for the boat-train, instead of which he’s gone quite openly to the address at which he always stays, according to his servants, when he comes to town. He may have come up merely to get legal advice.”
“Lady Cynthia’s certainly got a strong feeling that this man Page is imp
licated,” admitted Fayre.
“I think she’s right and her suggestion that the car may have been stopped if it ran to London with a broken number-plate is quite sound. We can work on that, anyhow.”
“In the meanwhile, is there anything I can do?”
“Yes,” answered Grey decisively. “Get in touch with Sir Edward, if you can, and see if he won’t arrange an interview with us. He’s got one of the acutest brains in England and I’d welcome his advice. Besides, he’s got a personal interest in the case.”
Fayre laughed.
“He hasn’t exactly encouraged my maiden efforts!” he complained. “In fact, he told me flatly to go to the police just before he left Staveley.”
Grey nodded.
“That’s the line he would take. Like all competent people he distrusts the capacity even of professionals; and amateurs simply don’t exist for him. I don’t think he’ll take that line now, however, especially when he realizes how far we’ve got. He’ll admit that we’ve every reason now to keep the thing in our own hands.”
“I’ll call on Lady Kean this afternoon and see if I can get hold of him. He’s sure to be there unless they are week-ending out of town, and I don’t think she’s well enough yet for that.”
“Any time he chooses to appoint will suit me. Meanwhile, if nothing further transpires as regards Gregg, I’ll beard him myself. He may not resent my curiosity as much as yours, and if he has been to see his solicitor he’ll no doubt have had it impressed upon him that his attitude is not only stupid but dangerous, if he’s really got nothing to hide.”
They lingered over lunch and again over their coffee. When they at last parted Fayre strolled down Piccadilly and across Green Park and it was close on four o’clock when he reached Kean’s house in Westminster.
Two cars were standing before the door when he reached it. Evidently he was not the only caller, a discovery which afforded him a certain satisfaction. If there were other people there Sybil would have little opportunity for discussing the Draycott murder and he might manage to slip away and transact his business with Kean.
