CHAPTER THREE
It goes without saying that the reputation of the Duchess of Dove was such that it could for a considerable time withstand slanders and libels which would have ruined another in a day. Nor were there wanting a sufficient number of her friends, and notably Mrs. Nautigale to her honour, who stated emphatically that the stories were being spread about by the spirit of envy and by Reds.
Such statements were made the more credible by the spirit of unrest which was abroad in England at that time. For on the fall of the National Government the Fascists, merged at last into one body under Sir Oswald Mosley, had become the spearhead of the Conservative Party, Mosley had become Minister of War, and there were very many sound and far from silent Englishmen who believed heart and soul in the principles of Fascism, which are of course to take a strong stand and damn well keep it.
The Communists, however, had also greatly increased in numbers, were also eager to take a strong stand, and frequently did so in street battles with the Fascists, so that one did not know what law-abiding England was coming to. The spirit of unrest amongst the people was also aggravated and their disrespect towards the authorities increased by a series of horrible outrages which had lately been committed in London and which had inexplicably not been solved by the police.
It was this spirit of unrest which provoked Mrs. Nautigale, owning as she did an autographed photograph of Mussolini, to her statements that there was a fund at Moscow ear-marked just for spreading such scandalous stories in England with a view to disgracing the peerage, baronetage and knightage in the eyes of the people. Nor did she hesitate to use her influence on Lord Buick of Barstow, the most active if not the most powerful among her collection of newspaper peers, and one on whom she had frequently persuaded her favourite surgeons to operate for minor nervous disorders, to publish a series of well-informed articles on the menace of Red propaganda and the necessity for a stronger Air Force.
Now the one fact that is indisputable in this distressing affair is that the Duchess of Dove for many months did not know anything about it. This will not seem incredible to students of human nature, but if it does they will no doubt continue their studies with profit to themselves. Who will go up to a man and tell him that his wife has been taken in adultery? Will a girl’s buddy break it to her that her adored fiancé is in reality a dirty old man? Will her best friend go to a woman and tell her that her husband is leading a double life? Certainly. But Mary Dove was a different cup of tea altogether. Her dignity, her character, her gentleness, stood so far above the nasty rumours about her that they could not be connected. Not even so intimate a friend as the formidable Mrs. Nautigale could ask her what she was up to. Indeed, there was really no possibility of warning Mary of the disgraceful scandals around her name, for not even her most cynical friends, who were quite ready to believe the worst of everyone, could bring themselves to believe when they were actually with her that she had any connection with the stories.
But what of Miss Amy Gool? Could she, when at last she heard of the stories, not have warned her friend and benefactor of the scandals that were so inexplicably being spread about her? But the fact remains that she did not, though in her favour it must be said that her attitude to the scandals had always been one of sharp incredulity. Miss Gool’s face was one to which the expression of the sharper emotions came very easily, for she was not a woman who sought to charm. It is a curious fact, but one creditable to mankind at large, that in a world rank with spite the spiteful are not loved. Miss Gool was loved by no one except her Duchess, who said that people in general did not see her warmer side and that she was in reality a woman of the most generous instincts.
These generous instincts were not immediately perceptible to Mrs. Nautigale when she first told Amy Gool that Mary or Mary’s double had been seen tipsy in a low night-club.
“Rot,” said Miss Gool.
“Night before last,” said Mrs. Nautigale.
“Piffle,” said Miss Gool.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Nautigale, who somehow seemed less formidable whenever she was with the secretary-companion. “But it’s very worrying, all the same.”
“What’s worrying?”
“Why, these rumours.”
“What rumours?”
Mrs. Nautigale explained what was being said about Mary since a month past, and added: “There are people who don’t know Mary as well as we do and who are only too ready to get back on her for what they call her stand-offishness. Now, was she out at all that night?”
“No. She never goes out, except with you. In bed at ten.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Of course I’m sure. I can’t see through a closed door, naturally. And it isn’t part of my duties to look through keyholes, Mrs. N. But the inference is that when a person goes into her bedroom at ten o’clock she is about to go to bed. My room is at the top of the house—in the attic, where I should be.”
Mrs. Nautigale made no secret of being worried. Flatly disbelieving the stories as she did, she wished to disprove them by finding reliable witnesses who would swear that on such and such a night Mary had been safely tucked in bed.
“I see,” she said thoughtfully, but then her old assurance returned as she added: “How stupid of me—of course, her maid can help.”
“Help how?” said Amy Gool.
“Why, by assuring us that she sees Mary safely tucked up into bed every night.”
“She doesn’t. There’s nothing Mary hates so much as anyone fussing around her when she is going to bed. And her maid is an incompetent ass, anyhow. I gave her notice yesterday.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Nautigale again. “Then there is actually nobody and nothing to prove that she could not slip out of the house at night after she has been seen going into her bedroom?”
“I never heard such rot,” snapped Miss Gool. “Mary isn’t the slipping sort—as anyone should know who isn’t a fool.”
“Now, Amy Gool, don’t be so bumptious,” said Mrs. Nautigale.
“I may be only a blister in Debrett,” said Miss Gool, “but I’m not going to be called names by a woman whose fruity complexion can only be accounted for by immoderate drinking in secret.”
Mrs. Nautigale, whose progress in society could only have been achieved by a victory of the mind over the senses and who therefore never heard what she did not want to hear, smiled with a vast amount of energy and said briskly: “Well, I shall be glad when August is here and Mary is safely at Dove. Then these silly stories must stop. But what to do in the meanwhile I really don’t know. Perhaps Victor Wingless could help. Of course, you must know him well.”
“He’s a good man,” said Miss Gool.
“Victor?” gasped Mrs. Nautigale.
“To hounds,” said Miss Gool bitterly. “My advice to you, Mrs. Nautigale, is to leave well alone.”
“But it’s unbearable to have people saying such things about Mary. Now what do you think of this as a way out—to have the house watched at night just to prove that Mary is safely at home when someone looking like her is seen about with horrible people.”
“I’ve never heard,” said Miss Gool shrilly, “of anything so abominable. Have Mary watched? How dare you even suggest such a thing, Mrs. N.? Have my Mary watched?”
Mrs. Nautigale, who hated nothing so much as being called Mrs. N., looked at the companion with baffled curiosity. That the Gool had always been jealous of her benefactor’s intimate friends, she had always known. Hitherto she had thought that this was due to the woman being a bitch of the first order and to knowing on which side her bread was buttered rather than to any impulse of real affection. But she could hardly doubt the reality of such affection now that the woman appeared to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown merely at the thought of any reflection on her beloved Mary.
“Of course, I didn’t mean it in that way,” said she. “I needn’t assure you, Amy Gool, that her friends wouldn’t do anything in the world to hurt Mary
in any way. Of course, you won’t tell her anything about all this, will you?”
“Me?” said Miss Gool. “You’re crazy.”
“Well, really,” said Mrs. Nautigale, and when she reached home she had to ring up a Cabinet Minister, two Ambassadors and several financiers before she could regain her customary feeling of assurance.
CHAPTER FOUR
But the companion had not swerved Mrs. Nautigale from her kindly purpose of giving the lie direct to the rumours about Mary. And here we come to the significant part played by Mr. Fancy in the shocking affair of the Duchess of Dove.
Henry James Fancy was a private enquiry agent who had been a detective-inspector at Scotland Yard attached to the Criminal Investigation Department. He had resigned this honourable post owing to a disagreement with the Assistant Commissioner, but this had reflected not at all either on his character or his ability, and he had left the force in an atmosphere of mutual good-will and respect. Mrs. Nautigale engaged the services of this incorruptible man, and the time was shortly to come when she was to wish that she hadn’t.
Mr. Fancy was to watch the Duchess of Dove’s house from ten o’clock in the evening until dawn, and he was to report to Mrs. Nautigale if he saw the Duchess leave the house. Mr. Fancy had been given a key into the gardens of Grosvenor Square, whence he could watch the house unobserved. His duties commenced on the night of Tuesday, June 9th. It is important to note this date.
On Tuesday and Wednesday he saw no one leave the house, neither Duchess nor serving-maid. Yet late on Wednesday night the Duchess of Dove and Oldham was reported to have been seen at a coffee-stall in Limehouse with two male types, all of them the worse for drink. We can imagine Mrs. Nautigale’s relief at this news, for Mr. Fancy’s testimony would prove that there must be someone trying to impersonate the Duchess to the detriment of her reputation. To make doubly sure, however, she instructed the detective to continue his watching on Thursday night—June 11th. It is very important to note this date, so forget the previous one.
At a quarter-to-one that night Mr. Fancy telephoned to Mrs. Nautigale’s bedside, according to her instructions, and informed her that her Grace had left the house ten minutes before and had walked rapidly away towards Bond Street. Mr. Fancy had followed her. At the corner of Davies Street and Claridge’s her Grace had stepped into a Daimler limousine driven by a chauffeur in dark livery which had instantly whirled her away towards Oxford Street. Mr. Fancy had been unable to follow for lack of a convenient taxi, but he had taken down the number of the limousine, which, however, was shortly to turn out to be that of a car from a hiring company.
Now here the excellent Mrs. Nautigale found herself in a really monstrous predicament. What the devil was she to do? It was now evident that her beloved Mary, her lovely and gentle Mary, was the victim of a peculiar and vicious malady. Was she mad? Was she bewitched? Had she gone cuckoo? Or had she fallen under some horrible man’s influence who, with the aid of hypnotism or of drugs, had divided the foundations of her character into those of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
It was unthinkable that her modest and diffident Mary could be in her right senses on the nights she left home so furtively. The hypocrisy, the deceit, the drunkenness! And in such company, in actual contact with such low types. Mrs. Nautigale, to her honour, did not for a moment admit the possibility that her dear Mary had, throughout their long friendship, concealed beneath her lovely and modest exterior the lusts of a wanton. No, there must be some explanation.
Now it will be obvious to the clear-thinking that Mrs. Nautigale here made a grave mistake. On the very day after Mr. Fancy’s report she should have gone to Mary, should have frankly told her of the disgraceful stories and of the fact that she had actually been seen leaving the house at night, and she should have implored her to leave London at once for a long stay at Dove Park before her reputation was irreparably damaged. Now had Mrs. Nautigale done this, she would have been astonished at Mary’s answer and gratified by her instant compliance. And she would in all probability have averted the catastrophe.
The only excuse we can find for the old girl does credit to her heart, if not to her judgment. She hesitated because she simply could not bring herself to believe that there was not somewhere some explanation which would instantly exonerate her dear Mary—if only one could find it. Therefore she instructed Mr. Fancy to stay on the job, and thus precipitated the catastrophe which is still remembered whenever mention is made of the peerless Duchess of Dove.
For on the morning of June 19th an elderly man of determined but genteel appearance, and a manner very subdued as though by long meditation on abstract matters, called at the house in Grosvenor Square and asked if he might be permitted to see her Grace. Since his card bore the name Superintendent G. I. Crust, the butler, an elderly person called Hebblethwaite, immediately showed him into the small study downstairs in the certainty that Mr. Crust was calling in connection with a police charity in which her Grace was interested.
When Mary, followed by Miss Gool, entered the room—evidently on their way out of the house for a walk—the Superintendent’s manner was so very subdued that his words were quite inaudible. Mary looked helplessly towards her companion, who said: “Speak up, man, speak up. We were just going out for a walk, so I hope you won’t keep us long.”
At this moment Mary’s dog, a Sealyham known as Algy, and on whose insistence this walk was being taken, came in and protested loudly at the presence of a bulky stranger. It was, therefore, in a voice much less subdued that Superintendent Crust had to state his business, which was to the effect that he would be very glad and that the Commissioner of Police would be very glad if her Grace would be kind enough to go with him to Scotland Yard in connection with some enquiries which the police found themselves compelled to make.
“I have,” said Superintendent Crust who, like a good policeman of the old school, would yield not even to the very best novelists of the new school an enviable capacity for using three long words where one short one would do, “I have a conveyance outside. And I shall endeavour,” said he, “to make you comfortable, your Grace.”
Mary, her shyness for the moment dissipated by bewilderment at being talked to in this way, looked blankly from the Superintendent to her companion.
“Will you kindly explain,” said Miss Gool severely, “what exactly you are talking about? And try—don’t endeavour—to use ordinary plain English, if you can.”
Superintendent Crust’s depression grew visibly. He was, as he said later to his wife, the last person in the world to have an eye for a pretty woman, but the Duchess’s beauty was of a kind to knock a man all of a heap. So he preferred, in the execution of his duty, to concentrate his gaze on the displeasing face of Miss Gool—which was, as he tactlessly pointed out to Mrs. Crust, much more the kind of face he was used to.
“I want,” he said despondently, “her Grace to come with me to Scotland Yard. I—we want to ask her some questions.”
“Questions,” Mary sighed. “Me? Whatever for?”
“Your Grace,” said the Superintendent, “explanations will be forthcoming in due course.”
“He means,” Miss Gool translated, “that he’ll tell you later.”
“But tell me what?” asked Mary.
“What,” Miss Gool interpreted to the Superintendent, “is the nature of the explanations which will be forthcoming in due course?”
“Madam,” said poor Crust, “we shall exercise all possible courtesy. I ask her Grace to accompany me in her own best interests. We have not taken out a warrant.”
“A what?” said Miss Gool.
“Warrant,” said the Superintendent miserably.
At this point Mary rose to her feet. To have said that she was very shy does not mean she was without that matchless confidence of breeding which can dismiss without offence. Algy, yapping around her feet, ran between her and the door in high expectation of his walk.
“I’m afraid,” said s
he, “I must go for my walk now, Inspector. Please excuse me. I will leave Miss Gool with you, as she attends to all business matters for me. Good-morning.”
Superintendent Crust, now also on his feet, was sweating—or, as he put it later, perspiring—with discomfort.
“Your Grace,” said he, “I am afraid I shall have to ask you to come with me.”
Miss Gool threw herself across the room and prodded the Superintendent in the chest with her handbag.
“Have to! Have to? Are you daring—daring—to suggest that the Duchess is being charged with something?”
Mary, her tall slender figure swaying just a little where she stood, said quietly: “Leave the poor man alone, Amy.” Her enormous grey eyes were very steady as she addressed the Superintendent.
“Please explain,” said she, “what it is you want to ask me questions about.”
As poor Mr. Crust began drawing on his reserves of comforting understatements Miss Gool gave him a really sharp prod in the kidneys with the sharp handle of her bag.
“Here!” said he.
“The Duchess has asked you,” Miss Gool snapped, “what you want to ask her questions about. Why not answer—or respond to—her?”
“Oh, all right,” said the Superintendent wearily. “Murder.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Now it is obvious that a great deal must have gone before this, for even in these times of equal opportunity for women it is not every day that a duchess is suspected of the crime of murder. Therefore we must return to that incorruptible man, Henry James Fancy. For it was Mr. Fancy’s lifelong passion for putting two and two together that had brought Mary Dove to this tragic pass.
It has already been said that the political unrest of the times had been aggravated by certain unsolved crimes of violence. During that spring and summer there had been two atrocious murders in London. We shall not go into them in detail. It was at once evident to the investigators that there was a connection between these two crimes, both from the parallel situation of the victims and the similarity between the murderer’s methods.
Hell! said the Duchess Page 3
