by Molly Thynne
Sir Richard took a quick step forward.
“I never dreamed you’d take it like that, sir,” he exclaimed. “The whole damned business is so confoundedly silly.”
“Get that out of your head, once and for all,” cut in Constantine. “The situation is serious, far more serious than you seem able to realise.”
Sir Richard stared at him, hesitated, then capitulated completely.
“What do you want me to do about it?” he asked.
“Tell the truth. You made a fatal mistake when you led the police to believe that you had had no communication with Mrs. Miller for years. How long did you suppose it would take them to unearth the fact of your meeting with her at the Futurist Galleries on the day before her death?”
Sir Richard looked genuinely startled. He opened his mouth to speak, but Constantine continued, ruthlessly pursuing his advantage.
“How long had that woman been blackmailing you?”
His victim made a final attempt to assert his independence.
“Look here, I’m dashed if I’ll parade my private affairs for the benefit of the police! If they think I’m guilty of Mrs. Miller’s murder, let them say so. They’ll find it uncommonly difficult to prove a case against me and, if they don’t prove it, I’ll have the coat off the back of the fellow who is in charge of this!”
Constantine’s voice, following on his outburst, was cold and smooth as ice.
“If they fail to prove it, you will be discharged. No satisfaction will be given you and, in the meanwhile, your private affairs, as you call them, will have been dragged, wholesale, into the open, torn to pieces, examined and commented on. You will have to sit helpless while every sort of construction is placed on them and, by the time the trial is over, there will not be a shred of your private life that is not common property. Is this your conception of dignified reticence? That is all you will gain by these heroics. Suppose you drop them and give me a clear account of your dealings with Mrs. Miller. Have some pity, Richard, and grant me the privileges of a friend instead of making me feel like the front row of the stalls at a cheap melodrama!” This sudden and whimsical twist at the end of a furious tirade produced just the effect he had counted on. A slow, deprecatory smile broke over Sir Richard’s face.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I suppose I have been making a bit of an ass of myself, but it’s no fun to have one’s old follies raked up and served on a salver for a lot of fools to gape at. I always did jump first and look afterwards and now it seems I’ve got to pay for it. What, exactly, do you want to know?”
“Where and when this business started and to what extent it involves you in the Illbeck Street affair.”
“I fail to see why it should involve me in any way,” objected Sir Richard stubbornly, “but, if you say so, I’m ready to take your word for it that the situation is serious. The whole thing started, roughly speaking, about a month ago. I hadn’t seen Lottie Belmer for years when she came up to me one night at the Savoy and asked me if I didn’t remember her. As a matter of fact, I didn’t at first. We had a chat, a half sentimental, good old days, sort of business. She told me about her marriage and asked me to call and I tried to get out of it as politely as possible. I’d never liked her and time certainly hadn’t improved her. As a matter of fact, I never did go to her house, but, after that, though I did my best to dodge her, she seemed to be continually cropping up. I know there was one big charity show at which she fastened onto me and I literally couldn’t get rid of, her. It never occurred to me that she had anything up her sleeve. Frankly, knowing she’d married money, I thought she had social aspirations and was looking to me to further them. Then I got a letter from her, saying that she was in a devil of a mess and wouldn’t I advise her what to do. There was a good deal about old lang syne and the happy old days and that sort of thing in it and she finished up by asking me to meet her at this Futurist place and talk things over. I shouldn’t have smelt a rat even then if she hadn’t alluded to something that happened years ago and which I’d every reason to believe was over and done with. The last thing I wanted was ever to see her again, but I went. She was out of money, of course, but I’ll do her the justice to admit that she tried hard to get a loan out of me before showing her hand. She’d got a letter I’d written years ago to Nancy Conyers and was keeping it up her sleeve as a last resource. When I told her the truth, which was that I wasn’t in a position to lend my best friend a farthing, she offered it to me for a consideration.”
He paused, his florid face growing several shades pinker.
“It was a damn silly letter,” he burst out at last. “Everyone knows I made an ass of myself over Nancy and I suppose I was luckier than I deserved when she gave me the push and married Selkirk, but I only hope no one gave me credit for the sort of drivel I managed to put on paper in the course of that affair! It was the sort of stuff that comes out in breach of promise cases, utterly nauseating when you meet it later in cold blood. We’d got idiotic nicknames for each other and all that sort of thing. It makes me hot to think of that letter now. When she found she couldn’t get the money in any other way she threatened to send the letter to Mrs. Vallon unless I could see my way to lending her a cool thousand. Lend was the word she used all through the interview. It was a pretty maddening situation. There was nothing much to the letter except that I was head over ears in love with Nancy when I wrote it and, as I said, it was such confounded drivel! At best I should have felt a consummate fool if it got into Mrs. Vallon’s hands and, naturally, she was the last person I wanted to read it. Half a dozen years ago, if the situation had been the same, I might have paid up and have done with it, but, as things are, I should be hard put to it to lay hands on the money. As a matter of fact, I’m cutting down expenses and getting things straightened up, before settling down for good. Mrs. Vallon’s agreed to take me on, you know,” he finished, with an embarrassment that made him look more absurdly like an over-grown schoolboy than ever.
“Delighted to hear it. You’ve got my heartiest congratulations,” Constantine assured him, concealing his feelings admirably. To be side-tracked with so stale a piece of news at this juncture was annoying, to say the least of it. Sir Richard continued, showing, in the process, how little he still realised the seriousness of his position.
“We’re hoping to get married next month and, if anything should happen to me I want to leave her something better than a pile of debts to carry on with. You can imagine how I felt when, just as I was trying to set my house in order, Lottie Belmer came along and tried to upset the apple cart. I’d every reason to feel sick with her, too. She’d let me down pretty badly, considering that she’d had her little whack years ago and the whole matter was dead and buried, as I thought.”
Constantine looked up sharply, the light of comprehension in his eyes.
“At the price of a diamond brooch?” he suggested.
Sir Richard stared at him.
“Now how the devil did you hear about that?” he demanded.
“My dear Richard, the whole of Scotland Yard knows about it,” snapped Constantine, goaded beyond endurance. “For pity’s sake, stop behaving like the proverbial ostrich and, if it’s in you, give me a clear account of your transactions with Lottie Belmer from the beginning. How did she get hold of this correspondence?”
“Through her dresser, who was a friend of Nancy’s maid. The fact is, they used me pretty ruthlessly between them. I was a young fool and they knew it! As it turned out, there were three letters, not two, as I thought. Lottie got them from her dresser and held them over Nancy’s head. They always hated each other like poison and she knew, what I didn’t, that Nancy was all but engaged to Selkirk and would have died rather than let them fall into his hands. Nancy came to me about it and, seeing that I’d written the letters and that she was worrying herself stiff over them, I undertook to settle the matter. Mind you, I’d no idea that Selkirk was in the running then. Well, I got the two letters at the price of a brooch which Lottie was to choos
e herself. I’m sure Nancy was under the impression that those were the only two that were missing, but, as it turned out, Lottie must have been keeping the third back in case it came in useful. To do her justice, she must have been in a pretty tight place before she decided to use it. As far as the brooch was concerned, she was always as greedy as they make ’em, but I believe she was actuated by spite more than anything else then. This last time it was different. She was out for hard cash and hoped to get it.”
“I gather she did not get it?”
“She didn’t. For one thing I hadn’t got it, for another I wasn’t at all sure that she was speaking the truth when she said that that was the only letter she had. I’d been stung once, you see. If I paid her what she asked now there was nothing to prevent her from turning up again with another later. I told her to do her worst and even threatened to go to the police, in the hope that she’d think twice about using the letter. We parted outside the Gallery and that’s the last I ever saw of her, except for that glimpse we had of each other in Davenport’s waiting room. I was terrified then that she’d recognise Mrs. Vallon and would say something. Fortunately Mrs. Vallon had no idea who she was, but it was a nasty moment for me and I admit I felt pretty sick about it, but not sufficiently so to follow her into the consulting room and stick a knife into her.”
For a moment Constantine was silent, aghast at the completeness of Sir Richard’s case against himself, then:
“So that, if anyone was out to gain anything by Mrs. Miller’s death it was yourself,” he said slowly. “You realise the construction that will be put on that?”
Sir Richard smiled cheerfully down at him from his great height.
“Not a bit of it,” he retorted. “I always was an unlucky beggar! When she was killed, Mrs. Vallon had already read the letter! I’d nothing to gain by Lottie’s death—she’d sent the letter to her directly after our meeting the day before!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“The letter had already reached Mrs. Vallon,” repeated Constantine slowly. “Did you know it had been sent to her?”
“Of course I did. I was dining with her and was there when it arrived.”
“Did she read it?”
Sir Richard nodded.
“She was amazing! Lord knows what I’ve done to deserve such luck! She didn’t say anything. Just read it through to the end. Of course I’d no idea what she’d got hold of, but I looked up and saw her staring at me exactly as if she’d never set eyes on me before. Couldn’t think what was up. Then I saw the letter and recognised it! It was a pretty awful moment! I didn’t know what to say.”
“What did you do?” asked Constantine. He had a conviction that, whatever it was, it would be wrong and wondered whether Mrs. Vallon’s intuition had outweighed Richard’s notorious lack of tact. But he had done Sir Richard an injustice.
“I just stood there, looking as big an ass as I felt, I suppose,” he continued. “She didn’t say anything, simply walked over to the fireplace and read the thing right through again. Then she did the most extraordinary thing.”
“Well?” prompted Constantine impatiently.
“She laughed,” Sir Richard informed him, in awestruck tones. “Not a nasty laugh. As if she was really amused. She said: ‘How old were you, Richard, when you wrote this?’ And I knew it was all right.”
“I confess I should like to have seen that letter,” murmured Constantine reflectively.
“You can’t. We burned it. Of course, we talked things over a bit and I told her about my meeting with Lottie Belmer. That’s why I got the wind up when they ran into each other at Davenport’s. As soon as Lottie saw us together she must have known she’d made a mess of things. She looked furious and I was terrified for a moment that she was going to let herself go, not about this business, but about Vallon. She could have, you know, if all I’ve heard was true and I’m not sure she wouldn’t have, just to get her own back, if Davenport’s man hadn’t come for her just in time.”
When Constantine left Sir Richard he drove straight to Scotland Yard, where he was fortunate enough to find Arkwright. He told him what he had just learned.
“You must admit that that pretty well disposes of any motive for the murder,” he concluded. “Mrs. Miller had already shot her bolt and failed.”
“It weakens our case against Sir Richard,” assented Arkwright, “but there still remains the fact that he possessed both the knowledge, which we agreed was necessary, and the opportunity.”
“I refuse to admit the knowledge,” objected Constantine. “He was not on intimate terms with Mrs. Miller and certainly did not expect to see her at Davenport’s.”
“We have only his word for that. He could have known of the time of her appointment either from Davenport or his man and he was undoubtedly familiar with the disposal of the rooms on that floor of the dentist’s house.”
“And the fact that the nature of Davenport’s work on her denture would necessitate his leaving her alone in the consulting room? Do you suggest that he was aware of that?”
“He may have simply awaited his opportunity. I’m not saying that, so far as I myself am concerned, I am not coming round to your point of view or that, at present, we have sufficient evidence to act, but we cannot afford to disregard Sir Richard altogether yet. It would have been better for everybody if he had been frank with us in the beginning.”
“It would be better for Richard if his first impulse was not always that of an impetuous fool,” agreed Constantine tartly. “All the same, you must admit that I’ve gone at least part of the way towards establishing his innocence.”
Arkwright grinned.
“You’ve succeeded in tying my hands a bit tighter,” he retorted, but there was no malice in his voice. “But, while you’re about it, I wish you’d go a little further, sir, and find the murderer for us. If you could make anything of the inscriptions on those knives it would be a beginning.”
He went to the safe and opened it. Constantine watched him.
“What about those notes you got from the garage proprietor?” he asked suddenly. “One of them was stained, I think you said.”
Arkwright placed the two knives and the stained note on the table.
“There are the exhibits,” he said. “If you can make anything of them I shall be grateful.”
As he spoke the telephone bell rang and, for the next few minutes he was busy with the instrument. When he turned round again Constantine was snapping the elastic band round a small pocket book.
“Well, sir,” asked Arkwright. “Got anything?”
“Two facts that you and your myrmidons seem to have missed,” was the old man’s exasperating answer, as he slipped the book into his pocket. “I wish I’d seen these things before.”
He rose and held out his hand.
“But look here, sir,” expostulated Arkwright, as he took it. “This isn’t fair ...”
Constantine beamed on him. Arkwright was annoyingly aware that something had happened within the last few minutes to alter his mood for the better.
“You won’t listen to my convictions,” he retorted. “If you insist on proofs you must wait till I can supply them. I’ll give you something, though, little as you deserve it. Your Chinese expert could make nothing of those inscriptions. You should have tried a Greek.”
The latch clicked softly and Arkwright found himself staring at a closed door. Knowing better than to pursue the old man in his present mood, he continued to stare.
Constantine’s first act when he got home, was to ring for Manners.
“I believe I’m right in assuming that you’re not one of those misguided people who never touch intoxicating liquor?” he remarked in his most urbane tones.
Manners’s expressionless eye became if anything more glassy. Though he never allowed himself more than an occasional glass, he was fully aware of the excellence of his master’s port.
“I believe in moderation, sir,” he admitted with dignity.
“I wonder if you wo
uld feel inclined to practice it on the other side of the Green Park? I’m not casting aspersions on your favourite house of call, merely suggesting that you should repeat your very able performance of last year, when, if you remember, you beat the police at their own job.”
A ripple passed over Manners’s countenance. For a second he looked almost animated.
“The matter of the window cleaner?” he suggested respectfully.
“Precisely. While the police were still engaged in taking notes you rounded him up and got my silver salver back for me. I haven’t forgotten the neatness with which you pulled off that job, Manners.”
Even Manners was not proof against so calculated and graceful a piece of flattery.
“We should have won our case if you’d cared to make a charge against him, sir,” was all he said, but the note of gratification in his voice was unmistakable.
“It was on your recommendation that I didn’t,” Constantine reminded him, with a quizzical gleam in his eyes.
“The man had a good record, sir. If it hadn’t been for that I shouldn’t have taken the liberty.”
“Considering that he had just spent three months in hospital and had a wife and family on his hands, I wonder, Manners?”
Manners looked positively uncomfortable. Behind his pontifical manner he concealed a heart so soft that even Constantine, in whose service he had been for years, was sometimes surprised by its manifestations and occasionally amused himself by baiting him mildly on what he knew was looked upon by Manners as a deplorable weakness in an otherwise inflexible character.
“What did you wish me to do, sir?” he asked, placing the conversation firmly on a more seemly footing.
