by Molly Thynne
“You won’t be lonely?”
“Are you?” Fayre shot back at her.
She laughed.
“No, I must admit I’m not, but you must remember that I’ve got a small village on my hands and I’m on all sorts of queer little local committees and things. You don’t propose to become the vicar’s prop and stay, I presume?”
“Not exactly, but I’ve no doubt that some of the philanthropists of the neighbourhood will find a use for me. I’ve never met any one yet who escaped them.”
“Oh, they’ll get you,” agreed Miss Allen cheerfully. “When I took Greycross, more years ago than I like to think of, I mapped out a neat little program for myself. Riding to hounds in winter and gardening and tennis in summer. I saw myself drifting into a healthy, mildly selfish old age, but the local busybodies got me before I’d been there a year. And you’ll be easier to net than I was!”
“I’m not so sure,” asserted Fayre grimly.
“I am. You’re the sort that can’t see a child fall down without crossing the road to pick it up. You won’t have a chance!”
Fayre reddened as he caught the disarming twinkle in her eyes.
“Look at you now,” she went on ruthlessly. “How long have you been home?”
“Three months, more or less,” he informed her meekly.
“And you’re up to your eyes in this affair of John Leslie’s already. And, as soon as that’s over, you’ll find some one else in trouble.”
“It’s a depressing program for a man who has come home to enjoy a well-earned rest,” he protested.
“It’s the fate of all unattached people,” she assured him briskly. “Don’t you know that the spinster and the bachelor are at the mercy of their friends? I speak from personal experience.”
“And you enjoy every moment of it!” put in Fayre shrewdly.
It was Miss Allen’s turn to blush.
“Well, it keeps me busy and it may save me from becoming a selfish, cantankerous old woman.”
She drew the dispatch-box to her and unlocked it.
“The private letters, such as they are, are at the bottom,” she said, removing several bundles that were obviously bills and receipts. “Do any of these names suggest anything to you?”
She handed him a packet of letters and he went through them with the swiftness of one accustomed to handle papers. They seemed to consist mostly of old invitations. Why Mrs. Draycott should have kept them, it was difficult to imagine. Probably she had been too lazy to sort them out and had thrown them carelessly into the box with other papers, but they were useful inasmuch as they gave some clue as to the people she was in the habit of visiting. One or two of the signatures Fayre recognized as being well known in the City. He made a note of some of them in his pocketbook, meaning to ask Grey for information about them. As Miss Allen emptied the box his list grew longer, but even the few private letters which he read carefully from beginning to end, in the hope of finding at least some allusion to Mrs. Draycott’s private affairs, failed to produce any enlightening information. There were several packets of photographs, some of which were signed and many of which bore inscriptions, but they conveyed nothing either to Fayre or Miss Allen.
“That’s the lot,” she said at last, beginning to stack the pile of papers back in the box. “I’m afraid it hasn’t been much help.”
Fayre rose to help her.
“It’s given me a list of names that may prove useful and at least we know now what sort of set she was moving in. Any one of these people may be able to give us information as to some one who had reason to bear her a grudge.”
He picked up an envelope which was lying at the top of a bundle of receipts and opened it idly. A snapshot fell out and dropped, face upwards, onto the table.
Fayre bent over it and, as he did so, the colour ebbed slowly from his face, leaving even his lips white.
He snatched the photograph up and walked quickly over to the electric-lamp that stood on the writing, table. Holding the snapshot just under the light, he studied it carefully.
Miss Allen, who was absorbed in fitting the papers back into the box, had not noticed his emotion. Now she suddenly became aware that he had found something that interested him.
“What have you got there?” she asked. Then, seeing the envelope on the table: “Is it that snapshot? It puzzled me, too. The odd thing is that it seems to have come from Germany, according to the inscription on the back.”
Fayre turned it over. Stamped across the back were the words: “Staatsnarrenhaus, Schleefeldt.”
“What do you make of it?” she went on. “I don’t know a word of German, but it seems to be the name of a place.”
Fayre came slowly back to the table and picked up the envelope. His face had regained its normal colour and there was nothing in his manner to show that he had just had, perhaps, the greatest shock of his life. He was a good German scholar, but he did not enlighten Miss Allen as to the full meaning of the inscription he had just read.
“It seems to have come from a place called Schleefeldt,” he said, examining the envelope narrowly as he spoke. “You’ve no idea, I suppose, how your sister got it?”
“None. She had no connection with Germany that I know of, either before or after the war, though she may have been there when she was abroad. She was on the Continent a good deal and had a good many friends there. There was nothing in the box that seemed to have any connection with the photograph. It was lying on the top, in the envelope, just as you saw it, when I first came on it.”
“We may take it, then, that it was probably one of the last things she put into the box,” suggested Fayre.
“It looked like it, certainly.”
Fayre picked up the topmost packet of receipts and pulled one out. It was dated 1926.
“You don’t know at all when your sister last asked for this box at the bank?” he asked.
Miss Allen shook her head.
“I could find out, I suppose. But I do know that my sister only sent it to the bank with her plate when she left her London flat about two months ago, so that she had access to it up till then. I believe she stayed on in town for a bit after giving up her flat, so she may have had the box out again. Do you want me to find out?”
“It’s very kind of you, but I don’t think it’s necessary. There’s no date on the envelope; evidently it is just an unused one that she slipped the photograph into for safety and I was trying to get a clue as to when she is likely to have received the photograph. As it was at the top and as the receipts under it are for 1926, it looks as if she had put the photograph in fairly recently.”
“Does it suggest anything to you?” she asked.
“It bears an extraordinary resemblance to a man I firmly believe to be dead,” said Fayre slowly. “Of course, it probably is only a chance likeness, but it is so strong that I am going to ask you whether I may borrow the photograph for a day or two.”
“Of course,” agreed Miss Allen readily. “Keep it as long as you like. If, later, I come across anything that throws any light on it, I’ll let you know, but I think I’ve been through all my sister’s papers now.” Fayre stowed the envelope and its content carefully away in his breast pocket. He stayed chatting with Miss Allen for a minute or two and then took his leave. As he was saying good-by he remembered a question he had meant to put to her.
“By the way, you could not tell me anything about the death of your sister’s first husband, I suppose?”
“He died of drink, poor soul,” she said bluntly. “He was a friend of Dr. Gregg’s, you know, and the doctor was with him to the end. He was buried at Putney, I’ve never quite known why, and, as a matter of fact, I went to the funeral.”
“You went to the funeral?” Fayre echoed her words mechanically in his surprise.
“I suppose it was rather an astonishing thing to do,” she admitted, “considering what had happened, but I’d always liked him, though I’d never seen much of him. I had a very painful interview with him af
ter my sister left him and was sorry for him. I was in London when he died and Dr. Gregg wrote to me about the funeral. I don’t know quite why I went, but, somehow, it seemed the decent thing to do. My sister had a lot to answer for there, Mr. Fayre.” Fayre could hear the pain and humiliation in her voice.
“I think you are right about unattached people,” he said gently, “only you forgot to mention that some of them are apt to take the sins as well as the troubles of others on their shoulders.”
“They get there of their own accord,” she said with a rueful smile. “Believe me, they need no taking.” As he was leaving, a thought struck him.
“Didn’t Gregg’s attitude at the inquest strike you as odd?” he asked. “You must have known that your sister was no stranger to him.”
She shook her head.
“I took it for granted that he didn’t recognize her. I always understood that he saw very little of the Baxters after their marriage and I don’t suppose he ever saw her before. The name Draycott might have given him a clue, but, when he first saw her at the farm, he didn’t know her name even.”
Evidently Miss Allen was unaware of Gregg’s connection with St. Swithin’s and the fact that he had known Mrs. Draycott before her marriage.
On the way back to his club Fayre bought a powerful magnifying-glass. Armed with this he went to his room and examined the photograph closely under the light of a strong reading-lamp.
The snapshot was that of a man sitting on a bench in what looked like a private garden. He was staring straight in front of him, his face devoid of all expression, his hands hanging loosely between his knees. He was poorly dressed and his clothes looked shabby and ill cared-for. By his side, hanging over the edge of the bench, was a newspaper. Even without the glass, the name of the paper, printed in large type at the head of the first page, was decipherable. It was that of a well-known German daily. Underneath it was the date, in much smaller type, and Fayre had some difficulty in making it out, even with the aid of the glass he had bought. He did succeed at last. It was January 16th and the address, printed with an ordinary stamp on the back of the photograph, was that of the State Lunatic Asylum at Schleefeldt, a small town in north Germany.
When Fayre at last raised his head his face in the crude light of the electric-lamp was white and drawn. He seemed to have aged ten years in as many minutes.
CHAPTER XX
Fayre slept little that night and rose the next morning jaded and sick at heart. During the long hours in which he had tossed ceaselessly on his bed, wrestling in vain with the problem that was torturing him, he had been unable to come to any conclusion. If he did what he felt was his duty he would be the means of involving two, at least, of his dearest friends in dire trouble, besides running the risk of jeopardizing the cause he had most at heart. If, on the other hand, he held back the discovery he had just made he would be taking on his shoulders a responsibility so great that he hardly dared face it. He had confronted difficult problems in the course of his official life, but seldom one that touched him so nearly or made him feel so utterly helpless.
It was in this mood that Cynthia found him when she rang up from her aunt’s house in Grosvenor Square and asked him to take her out to lunch. A troublesome tooth had given her the opportunity she longed for and she had hurried up to town, ostensibly to see the dentist, but really to find out what progress Fayre had made in his investigations.
For a moment Fayre was taken aback, then he found himself welcoming the prospect of her company for an entire afternoon. He feared her sharp eyes and direct mode of attack, but, more even than these, he dreaded his own thoughts. Cynthia was the embodiment of youth and courage and, after his night of miserable indecision, he felt a positive craving for the stimulus of her society.
As though in answer to his needs she seemed even more vividly alive than usual when he picked her up and carried her off to an unpretentious, but very select, little restaurant he and several of the older members of his club affected. Cynthia had stipulated for a quiet place where her ready tongue could wag freely. She had plenty to say. Bill Staveley had managed to procure her another interview with John Leslie and she reported him as cheerful and inclined to take a hopeful view of the future.
“He says that, so long as he knows he’s innocent and that I believe in him, he doesn’t mind what happens; but he doesn’t realize how black things look against him,” said Cynthia. “He’s frightfully grateful to you and Edward Kean and full of faith in you both. I tried not to show how anxious I was. Uncle Fayre, they surely can’t convict him if he’s innocent, can they?”
On the face of this Fayre found it hard to break to her the news that Gregg had completely cleared himself. To his relief she took it more cheerfully than he had expected.
“I never really suspected him, you know,” she said. “I suppose I should have been beast enough to be glad if he had done it, because it would have cleared John, but I should have been sorry, too. It would be too horrible if it was some one that one knew. It’s a relief, in a way. Has Mr. Grey done anything about the Page clue? I always felt that that was where our hope lay.”
“He’s working on the Carlisle to London route, on the chance that the car may have got held up somewhere and, if that fails, he proposes to advertise openly for Page. If, as I still think, the man had nothing to do with the actual murder, he may come forward. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to warn him by advertising too soon. It is a last resort.”
“I believe he did it,” asserted Cynthia obstinately. “If we can find Page we shall get to the bottom of the whole thing. You know the police have let the tramp go? He ended by confessing that he took Mrs. Doggett’s money and I made her go up to the station and speak for him. He’s very lame still and the police want him to stay in the neighbourhood, so Bill found him a room in one of his cottages. I went to see him. He’s a funny little man and we got quite chummy, but he’s determined to go back to ‘the road,’ as he calls it, as soon as he can get away. He told me that he had been tramping for years and he’s got all sorts of interesting stories about tramps and burglars and all kinds of queer people and he adores you. When I spoke about John he said: ‘The gentleman’ll get ’im off, you see,’ as if you were a kind of Providence. He’s rather a pet, really. What did you do to make him love you so?”
“Treated him like a human being, I suppose. He’s not going back to the road, if I can help it, poor little beggar. He’s never had a chance and I’d like to give him one.”
“If we do get onto that man, Page, he’ll deserve it. After all, it was through him that we first heard of the strange car.”
“When I get my cottage I’ll see what I can find for him to do. He’s not a pleasing object at present, but he’ll improve with prosperity.”
“I can see your cottage!” observed Cynthia mischievously. “It’ll be crammed with all sorts of derelicts and lame dogs and you’ll go fussing round them like a hen with a lot of chickens. May I come and stay with you, Uncle Fayre?”
“As often and as long as you like. You’ll be a respectable married woman by then and you can act as chaperone to Miss Allen.”
“Is Miss Allen going to stay with you?”
“If she’ll come. I haven’t asked her yet.”
“I’m glad you’ve made friends with her. She’s a brick, isn’t she?”
“A thorough good sort, I should say,” assented Fayre rather cautiously. There was a gleam in Cynthia’s eye he didn’t quite like.
She flashed a sidelong glance at him.
“It’s an awfully good idea; I wonder I never thought of it.”
“What is?” asked Fayre suspiciously.
“Her coming to stay with you, of course,” was Cynthia’s innocent rejoinder.
After lunch they called at Grey’s office.
“I’m glad you dropped in,” he told Fayre. “We’ve got on the track of a car which was held up at York. It was traveling without a tail-light. If it was our friend, Page, he was probably trying
to conceal his broken number-plate. Anyway, I’ve sent a man up there to find out all the particulars and he’ll be back early to-morrow. There’s just a chance that we’ve got onto the right car.”
“That’ll please you, Cynthia. Lady Cynthia’s always believed in the Page clue,” explained Fayre.
“Now that Dr. Gregg’s gone off with a clean sheet, it’s all we’ve got to go on,” said Grey. “It’s a funny thing how he crops up all through this case. That fellow Baxter died in his house, you know, and Gregg signed the certificate. As far as we can make out, everything seems in order and, short of exhuming Baxter, we’ve done all that’s necessary to prove his death.”
“I’ve no reason to think that Gregg was concealing anything the other day. He seemed only too anxious to tell all he knew. If he’s shielding any one he’s doing it very cleverly.”
“I think we may wipe out Dr. Gregg altogether now. After all, at the time, he’d have had no reason to conceal Baxter’s death, whatever he may feel about it now.”
“I’ve got a feeling in my bones about this Page business,” said Cynthia, as they turned into the Strand after leaving Grey’s office. “I believe we’re going to find him and that things are going to be all right for John. You can call it imagination, if you like, but this is the first time I’ve felt really hopeful. Life seems quite different, all of a sudden!”
Fayre was suddenly afraid for her. There was something terribly pathetic in her optimism and he knew it was reared on a pitifully frail foundation.
“Don’t build too much on it,” he begged, ruefully aware that it was always his lot to throw cold water on her enthusiasm. “If may be nothing but a wild goose chase, after all.”
“It isn’t,” she asserted positively. “I can’t tell you why I know, but I do and you’ll see I’m right. The funny thing is that Sybil Kean has had the same feeling all along. Did you know? She told me so when she was ill at Staveley.”
The haggard look came back into Fayre’s eyes. He had forgotten his own worries for the moment, carried away by Cynthia’s enthusiasm, but now they returned to him, their strength in no wise diminished. Cynthia, intent on her own thoughts, did not notice his preoccupation.
