At this moment the door opened and a uniformed messenger ushered in a heavy-jawed, forceful-looking man in a blue serge suit, holding in his hand a bowler hat which gave Murray the swift impression that it was much too small for the owner’s massive head.
“Detective-Inspector Heather of Scotland Yard,” said the messenger to Bliss. “Is Mr. Grierson in, sir?”
“Yes,” replied Bliss; “he’s at present in his room and is expecting Inspector Heather. Please show the inspector in, Johnson.”
The messenger opened the door leading into Mr. Grierson’s room, and Detective-Inspector Heather passed out of Murray’s devouring vision. The door closed and Johnson vanished with a topic of conversation that would vie in interest with the “probable winners” among the other occupants of the messengers’ room for the remainder of the day.
Mr. Grierson rose at once from his desk on Detective-Inspector Heather’s entry and offered him a chair close to his own.
“No news of Lord Bygrave yet, inspector?” he asked anxiously as he passed the officer a box of cigarettes.
“None so far, sir, but I feel somehow or other that it won’t be long before we hear something definite,” replied the inspector in a quiet conversational tone. His eye, apparently occupied with the general aspect and arrangement of the room, was actually weighing up Mr. Grierson as far as that gentleman’s outward appearance gave food for conjecture as to his nature and habits.
Though ever on the alert and suspicious of every one, Inspector Heather was not long in forming his opinion of Mr. Grierson. His opinion of Mr. Grierson was that he was simply a Government official—a man who is very highly paid for doing very little work. It was unusual of Inspector Heather to make hasty assumptions of this type, but then his mind was working under the compelling influence of a great British tradition—the legend that no work has been or is ever done by a civil servant. In justice to the inspector’s fairness, it must be admitted that he coupled Mr. Grierson’s facile evasion of work and capture of salary with an unquestionable probity, an unimpeachable respectability. He was moderately safe in this, for an official of the Mint has never yet been caught making spurious coin, nor a Treasury official yet run away with a million of the Treasury funds.
He also thought Mr. Grierson a gentleman: there was an air of culture and refinement about his bearing, and just the requisite amount of superiority which Inspector Heather found in most of the people he called gentlemen.
“Can I do anything for you, inspector?” asked Mr. Grierson urbanely.
“Well, I should like to ask a few questions which may be possibly of some assistance in my investigation, if you can spare the time just now,” replied the inspector, producing notebook and pencil.
“I’m at your service,” replied Mr. Grierson, lighting a cigarette and settling himself comfortably in his chair.
“As far as I have been able to gather up to the present, Lord Bygrave left London for the village of Hartwood on Friday, the 1st of the month, intending to spend a fortnight or so in the country. He arrived at the White Bear Inn rather late that night, left early next morning and seems to have vanished completely. Before going down there for more detailed information I should like to know, Mr. Grierson, when he left this office.”
“He usually leaves at four, but on that night—so Murray, one of my clerks, tells me—he left at five. I myself had an appointment at four, and left at 3.30, so that I was not here. You can, however, take Murray’s statement as accurate, because he would probably be eagerly awaiting Lord Bygrave’s departure before he himself felt free to go.”
“He would be blessing Lord Bygrave for staying late, if I am any judge of these young gentlemen,” remarked the inspector.
“We were all young once,” replied Mr. Grierson, with fatherly tolerance.
“Have you yourself made any Inquiries in likely quarters since you heard of Lord Bygrave’s disappearance?” asked the inspector, looking sharply at Mr. Grierson.
“Oh, yes,” replied the latter at once. “I immediately rang up Bygrave Hall and asked Farnish, his butler, if he had any information of his lordship. Farnish knew nothing of Lord Bygrave’s whereabouts and had received no instructions from him since the morning of the 1st.”
“I believe Lord Bygrave is a bachelor?” asked Inspector Heather.
“A confirmed bachelor, like myself,” replied Mr. Grierson.
“Has he any residence in town?”
“None; and if he is obliged through his duties to stay in town—a contingency he detests—he always puts up at Jauvrin’s Hotel, in Jermyn Street. I have inquired there also, but found that Lord Bygrave had not stayed there since April last.”
Detective-Inspector Heather was lost in thought for some moments.
“I suppose a gentleman in Lord Bygrave’s position can come and go pretty much as he chooses,” he remarked. “Now, Mr. Grierson, from your knowledge of him do you attach any importance to his disappearance?”
“I’m inclined to think something serious has happened to him, inspector, though naturally I hope that my fears are groundless. The whole occurrence is most unusual and quite incompatible with my knowledge of him; yet, for the life of me, I cannot suggest anything to elucidate the mystery,” replied Mr. Grierson, thoroughly mystified.
“That’s bad, that’s bad!” exclaimed the inspector. “Know a man and you can make a fair guess at what he’ll do, and indirectly what may be likely to happen to him. What sort of a man is his lordship?”
“Though he is a Minister and always to a certain extent in the public eye, he is by nature a shy, reserved and retiring man. Public life is really a martyrdom for him. He has only suffered that martyrdom because of a profound conviction that it is his bounden duty to serve his country, regardless of his own personal preference for the peaceful oblivion of the life of a country gentleman. His tastes are those of a naturalist, and he has often said that, when he is too old for the service of the State, he will retire and commence his own life in earnest. There is nothing he likes better than to bury himself in some out-of-the-way English village and forget that the world of politics and business exists.”
“H’m,” replied the inspector. “You feel sure that there’s nothing more than the desire for a peaceful life that takes Lord Bygrave on these quiet excursions. No lady in the background—eh?”
“No, inspector,” said Mr. Grierson, unable to suppress a smile at the suggestion. “You can take it from me that it’s not a case of cherchez la femme. Nor is Lord Bygrave a man of mysteries. On his return from these holidays he is full of his experiences, which he never fails to relate to me.”
Inspector Heather was silent for a few moments.
“Has he any personal enemies that you know of?” he asked.
“It would be difficult, I think, to find anyone of whom it could be more truly said that he hasn’t an enemy in the world,” replied Mr. Grierson impressively, and then added: “I use the word enemy in the sense of a harbourer of personal hatred that might lead to physical violence. Political hatred is merely the rancour that arises from bad sportsmanship in a Party game; in England I suppose it may be considered negligible from a criminal point of view.”
“Nothing is negligible from a criminal point of view,” remarked Inspector Heather, as if it were a line from a Criminal Investigation Department credo. His eyes roamed slowly over the pattern of the carpet. “Has Lord Bygrave been to Hartwood before?” he asked.
“I believe he spent a few days at the White Bear Inn at Hartwood some years ago—but I may be wrong, my memory is not one of the best. He had a mania for staying in what he called good, old-fashioned, country inns.”
“They’re all right if the beer’s good,” commented the inspector seriously. “Did he travel on these occasions as Lord Bygrave?” he asked.
“I believe he often reverted to the family name of Darnell—Henry Darnell—to avoid attracting unnecessary attention. He used to say he didn’t mind being considered a man of the people if it meant
being charged popular prices.”
At this point in the conversation Johnson entered and informed Mr. Grierson that a Mr. Algernon Vereker would like to see him.
“Mr. Algernon Vereker!” exclaimed Mr. Grierson, with a faint show of surprise. “A friend of Lord Bygrave’s! I have often heard Lord Bygrave speak of him. He may be of some use to us, inspector. Show Mr. Vereker in, Johnson.”
Johnson disappeared and Mr. Algernon Vereker slowly entered the room. Having watched the door close behind him by means of a pneumatic arrangement fitted for that purpose, much as a child would gaze upon some new wonder stumbled upon for the first time in experience, he turned and glanced rapidly at Mr. Grierson, and then at Detective-Inspector Heather.
“Quaint device,” he remarked, pointing with his whangee cane at the door. “Closing mechanism. I could play with it for hours. Mr. Grierson, I believe,” he continued, his eyes returning to that gentleman.
Mr. Grierson nodded assent.
“I have come to see if you know anything of Lord Bygrave. Is there any truth in the Press statements that he has mysteriously disappeared? I see one alert Daily has already made a prize competition out of him. I at once phoned Bygrave Hall, but found that Farnish, the butler, knew nothing of his lordship’s whereabouts.”
“I have just been discussing Lord Bygrave’s extraordinary disappearance with Detective-Inspector Heather of Scotland Yard,” replied Mr. Grierson, and he proceeded to give Vereker a summary of the conversation and the facts of the case as known to himself.
During this interval Inspector Heather’s attention was riveted on Mr. Algernon Vereker, and he soon came to the conclusion, to put it in his own words, that he was a rum-looking specimen. There was something about the man’s appearance that suggested the possession of a vein of eccentricity and a whimsical outlook on life. With such people Inspector Heather was inclined to be impatient. They’re crazy; I have no use for them, he would say, and lightly flick them off the face of the particular earth that he himself inhabited.
When Mr. Grierson had concluded his statement, Vereker rolled his soft felt hat into a cone with his long nervous fingers.
“It’s very strange altogether,” he drawled; “so out of harmony with anything that one associates with old Bygrave. He hasn’t disappeared of his own account—that’s a certainty! No one could possibly imagine Bygrave vanishing with another man’s wife or making a run for it with trust funds. The only thing I can think of is that he has gone to heaven.”
“You really think that something serious has happened to him, Mr. Vereker?” asked the inspector, disregarding the levity of that individual’s last remark.
“I am going to work on that assumption straightway,” replied Vereker. “If anything untoward has happened to him—which God forbid—my hands will be pretty full, for I’m executor and trustee under his will.”
“You know the contents of the will, Mr. Vereker?” promptly asked the inspector.
“Oh, yes. Translating it from legalese into the intelligible, David Winslade, his nephew, comes into all his property, save for five hundred pounds left to Farnish, the butler, and a thousand to me for acting as executor.”
Inspector Heather made an entry in his notebook of these facts.
“I may as well tell you at this point, inspector, that I haven’t got rid of my friend Bygrave for that thousand pounds,” continued Vereker. “If you can accept this information as true it may save you some time, should further investigations be necessary. In the latter case I shall promptly suspect both Farnish and Winslade—it’s only logical to do so, even though I am fairly certain that neither of them is a criminal. They at least supply a motive—a sordid one in all conscience, but a motive.”
“Murders have been committed for less,” remarked the inspector in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Yes,” sighed Vereker wearily, “I suppose so. Keeping the fact in mind, it is difficult to cherish ideals as to the future of mankind. It would be quite as rational to entertain hopes of domesticating Bengal tigers. My faith grows weak, but I console myself that I’m only moderately imbecile when I think of the unbridled optimism of the Socialist.”
Detective-Inspector Heather glanced uneasily at Vereker, whose eyes gazed dreamily across the sunlit river to the smoky haze that hung over the south, his thoughts lost in a vague, wistful conjecture about humanity’s future, a subject which troubled Inspector Heather no more than, say, Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Vereker rose abruptly from his chair.
“Well, I must be going,” he said. “I shall probably see you down at Hartwood, inspector, for I shall get to work at once. Good day, gentlemen.” The door opened quietly and Mr. Algernon Vereker disappeared.
“So that’s Mr. Algernon Vereker, the artist!” exclaimed Mr. Grierson.
“Somewhat eccentric young gentleman,” remarked the inspector.
“It’s the first time I’ve met him,” said Mr. Grierson. “Lord Bygrave, however, always speaks of him in terms of sincere affection. ‘That lovable lunatic, Vereker,’ he always calls him. He has a very high opinion of Mr. Vereker’s character and must consider him, shorn of his eccentricities, a man of sterling worth. Otherwise he would hardly have appointed him a trustee and executor in his will—Lord Bygrave has an almost uncanny power of judging a man’s character.”
“Mr. Vereker seems a bit of a buffoon to me,” commented the inspector quietly. “You say he’s an artist?”
“According to modern standards, yes,” replied Mr. Grierson cautiously. “He’s making quite a name for himself among the newer school of painters. Whether his reputation or theirs will live is another matter.”
“It’s a subject I don’t profess to understand, and I wouldn’t give a pipe of good tobacco for the best picture in the world,” boomed the inspector weightily and, with a sardonic smile spreading over his features, asked, “Does he earn a living at it?”
“I should say, confidently, that his work’s a dead financial loss to him. Mr. Vereker, however, is a fairly wealthy man, though to judge from his appearance no one would believe it. He always professes a complete disregard for money—again, that may be, in a great measure, a pose. Suffers from a kink,” remarked the inspector bluntly; “that’s how I’d put it—a kink. Bless my soul if I don’t think a University education gives every man a kink—some more, some less.”
“Most up-to-date people would agree with you,” said Mr. Grierson, raising his brows and looking over his glasses at the inspector. “However, in Mr. Vereker’s case it’s a harmless sort of kink—paint and canvas suffer more than humanity. Lord Bygrave tells me he’s one of the most generous of men and is always helping some lame dog over a stile.”
“He probably does a lot of good, but in a foolish, unsystematic way,” concluded Inspector Heather, rising from his chair.
At this moment the door again opened and Mr. Algernon Vereker returned.
“I thought I’d just let you know my address, Inspector Heather, in case you want any personal information about Lord Bygrave. But I shall be down at Hartwood from this evening—I start on the trail from the White Bear Inn. If I can be of any assistance—”
“Thanks, Mr. Vereker,” replied the inspector.
“I like to do good even in a foolish and unsystematic way,” added Vereker.
Inspector Heather looked up sharply. There was a trace of annoyance on his alert features. He deduced the fact that Mr. Vereker’s ears were preternaturally acute.
“Ah, you overheard my remark,” he laughed diplomatically. “I was speaking of you, Mr. Vereker.”
“I wondered,” replied Mr. Vereker, smiling broadly;” but I didn’t think I’d extract a confirmation so easily from one of your profession. An unsystematic way of doing good is all that the complexity of life allows an individual; a wise and systematic method is reserved for some future blissful state. What do you think?”
“I’m unable to discuss the matter just now, Mr. Vereker,” replied the inspector dryly.
“Then on some future occasion; say over a bottle of port, for I love to reconstruct the universe over good port. A man with your experience of the evil men do ought to be well worth listening to on the good they might do. By the way, inspector, I don’t like the name of the innkeeper at the White Bear Inn.”
“I don’t see what a man’s name has got to do with it,” replied the inspector curtly.
“I’m rather influenced by names. Now George Lawless is an unpleasant name. Give a dog a bad name, you know! There’s a lot in these old sayings—mother wit I think they call it. Well, once more good day, gentlemen,” and Mr. Vereker took his departure.
“He’s what is usually called a ‘balm-pot’!” exclaimed Inspector Heather when he had made sure that Mr. Vereker had passed well beyond ear-shot. “By the way, is Mr. Vereker an amateur detective as well as an artist?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t take much notice of Mr. Vereker’s activities,” replied Mr. Grierson, with a shrug of his shoulders. “He has been, so I have heard, actor, politician, amateur tramp, athlete, vegetarian and gentleman rider in turns. He will take Scotland Yard in his stride so to speak. Only the other day, so Lord Bygrave told me, he was going to equip an expedition to discover King Solomon’s mines. He had dreamt they were in Borneo, and not in Africa, and he was convinced that their discovery would pay off the National Debt and give France a decent leg up. At the same time don’t altogether class him as a fool. You will find, as far as I can gather, that he wears buffoonery as a kind of cloak—probably because he is in reality a very shy and self-depreciatory man.”
Inspector Heather laughed as he let himself out of Mr. Grierson’s room, and before he had reached the street he had come to a vague conclusion, the reason for which he would have been unable to express, that Mr. Algernon Vereker was probably not a bad sort even though he was undoubtedly a “balm-pot” to all outward appearances.
Chapter Two
The White Bear Inn lies at the western end of the village of Hartwood, and is a rambling edifice with a spacious courtyard in which the Hartwood Hunt often meets. The proprietor, George Lawless, was not an ideal innkeeper; but it requires a great genius to be an ideal innkeeper, and genius is rare in all professions. He was a man of little education and less refinement; of reserved manner, no conversation, an irritable temper and a heavy, almost repellent face. He was certainly not in keeping with the old inn. Its romance left him cold; its age—it was built in the reign of Richard III—never once lit in his imagination a thought of all those who had slept and eaten and drunk and fought and loved and danced and died beneath its heavy oak-beamed ceilings. He used daily to curse the place for not being on the main road for motor traffic to the south.
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