* * *
Crook went to the hotel where the Ames had been staying, and showed his card. “Just say I’m here,” he said. “I fancy I’ll be seen.”
Maud Ames came into the hall of the hotel, looking ashy-pale.
“Mr. Crook! I never dreamed of finding you here.”
“You didn’t,” said Crook. “I found you. Too late, as it happens. You’re a fast mover, Mrs. Ames. I have to hand it to you.”
Maud Ames sat down. “You told me there wouldn’t be a second attempt this side of the Channel,” she said, accusingly.
Crook nodded his big red head. “So I did, sugar. And I was wrong. Had for a mug, good an’ proper. Waltzing up the garden path like a goldarned old Mathilda. Like to tell me how it happened?”
“Hasn’t everyone in the place done that already?”
“Oh, sure. I just thought your version might be more interesting. Dear Paul couldn’t swim, could he?”
“He must have knocked his head on the boat or something ...”
“Or had it knocked for him. Body been recovered?”
“Not yet. They say it may be days ...”
“It may be tomorrow, it may be forever, chanted Crook. “Either way the effect will have worn off—the effect of whatever it was you dunked in his coffee while he went up to get you a wrap. Planned it very neat, didn’t you? —chucking dust in everyone’s eyes, even mine. Well, there ain’t many dames can say they outfoxed Arthur Crook, but you’ve joined the minority.”
“Are you drunk?” demanded Maud Adams.
“I wish I was, lady. But I’m stone-cold sober. Y’see, while you were on your way to Zurich I was tunnellin’ like a mole—after the truth, I mean. I knew you’d given me a clue, but I didn’t know what it was. It puzzled me all along— dear Paul not knowing the difference between you and Meg Farrer when he was closer to her than me to you. And there was no sense him pushing her overboard. She wasn’t his wife, not yet.”
“Of course he never meant to murder her,” agreed Maud. “He thought it was me.”
“Though he knew you couldn’t stand heights. You’d never even been near the edge of the ravine, had you?”
“I didn’t go within twenty yards of it.”
“So you said. But you knew the rocks at the bottom looked like broken glass on the top of the wall. Oh, it was a good simile—I couldn’t have put it half so neat myself—only, how come, if you hadn’t been near the edge, you knew there were any rocks down there at all? Well, Mrs. Ames? Come on, you’re the one who knows all the answers.”
“I was just repeating what someone else said,” said Maud Ames, almost in a whisper.
“Not you, sugar. You told me that off your own bat. Besides, no one else knew. By the time Hubby reached the spot the mist had come down again. That leaves only Davidson and me. I wouldn’t have thought of anything so poetic, and Davidson didn’t talk about it to anyone. Let’s have the truth for a change, Mrs. A.? You pushed her, didn’t you?”
“If you’re not drunk you’re mad,” cried Mrs. Ames. “What possible motive had I for wanting Meg Farrer out of the way?”
“Barrin’ the fact you thought dear Paul was planning’ to make her the next Mrs. A., you thought it ’ud be a surefire way of convincin’ me dear Paul was out for your blood. Then when I heard of another accident, it ’ud all be part of the pattern, and it ’ud be your guardian angel doin’ overtime that made a corpse of Hubby instead of you. You were never in any danger from him and you know it! But he put his head right down on the block the minute he signed his own will.”
“I suppose you realise,” said Maud Ames, “you haven’t a grain of evidence to support your—fantastic—tale?”
“Not one,” agreed Crook. “You’ve only got to deny telling me those rocks were like glass on the top of a wall, and where am I? Mind you, I ain’t shedding tears for dear Paul. If it hadn’t been you, it ’ud have been the next designing female. Any chap who’s fool enough to answer a matrimonial ad has got it coming to him, anyway. But there’s one more thing I’d like to know before we part—I hope, for ever. How many other husbands have you put underground? No answer? Well, p’raps arithmetic ain’t your strong suit. But remember this, Mrs. A. Me and little elephants never forget and any time I see a para, in the paper headed Honeymoon Tragedy or Ten Weeks’ Husband Falls to His Death, you’ll find me right beside you, looking out for the bride.”
* * *
It was almost a year later that he did, in fact, see just such a paragraph. It read:
Mrs. Maud Williams, a bride of a month, was killed by falling from a window in a block of London flats yesterday afternoon. Her husband, John Williams, said she had recently consulted a doctor for giddiness. A verdict of accidental death was recorded.
Crook threw the paper across to Bill Parsons. “Epilogue to the Ames case,” he observed. “They all make one error, Bill, and that puts paid to their, account. The fact is, they get careless and forget that murder’s a game two can play. Oh, yes, it’s our Mrs. Ames all right—I couldn’t forget that face. No picture of Hubby, I see.” He brooded. “Makes you wonder how many funeral wreaths he’s bought for ever-lovings in his time, don’t it, Bill?”
A Nice Little Mare Called Murder
As soon as he arrived that evening Harold sensed there was something wrong, but Louie didn’t say a word till he took up his coat and prepared, oh so reluctantly, to return to the handsome house in Hanover Square, the handsome dull wife and the rich dreary dinner-party she’d arranged that night for her prosperous brother, Charles, and his wife, Blanche.
Then she said it. “Harold, I don’t want you to come here again. I’ll be moving out myself quite soon.”
“You’re going? Where?”
“I can’t say. But there aren’t many places where a dressmaker can’t get a living. But I meant what I said—I don’t want you coming again, wherever it is.”
It was like being bowled over by a motor-cycle; for a moment you’re surprised to find you’re still alive, for the minute that’s all you can think of. If she’d said, “Let’s put the sun away and live in the dark” it would have made just as much sense. After five years of such a love as he hadn’t realized the world could hold for a man of forty, of faith and hope and the knowledge that here’s your own heart beating in another bosom and then— “Oh Harold,
I don’t want you coming again, here or anywhere, for ever and ever.”
He couldn’t accept it. No man not a stone could. “But, Louie,” he stammered. “You can’t mean it. Why, you’re all I’ve got.”
She might talk coolly enough about not seeing him again but she couldn’t prevent the love shining out of those big golden eyes.
“You tell that to the Marines,” she said. “The great Harold Forrest, with his house and famous invention—not that I ever understood what that cog does to make it so valuable—and don’t forget” (since she knew as well as he that none of this really mattered) “there’s Margaret.”
She had him over a barrel there. If it hadn’t been for Margaret he’d have left Millicent long ago. And he knew even now that if Margaret was in danger he’d leave Louie and she’d make him go. You can’t fight a girl of nineteen, she said once. She’s worth the two of us put together.
He didn’t give up without making a fight for it. “But why, my darling? Why?”
He knew he was going to be late for that snooty party but what the hell? And at last she told him. There’d been a letter, shoved through the box, no signature, no stamp. Oh yes, she agreed, it could be anyone, some jealous neighbour who couldn’t endure their happiness, someone seeing a way of making a quick dollar, but so far as she was concerned this was the end. She didn’t want to show it him but he insisted, and it was the usual anonymous dirt.
What are you worth to your fancy man? Find out and I’ll be around to collect.
“Who, Louie?” he repeated. “Who?”
But she shook her head. “And don’t say go to the police,” she added.
“It won’t stop at one letter,” prophesied Harold, a lot more coolly than he felt. “It’ll be the telephone next. Might be a good idea to have that cut off.”
“What? When it could be you ...?” Then she stopped. Because hadn’t she just warned him off the grass for good and that included phone calls as well as personal appearances? The telephone had been their sole means of communication. From the very start they’d agreed no letters, no telegrams even. Meeting when neither was young and both been knocked around quite a bit by life, he by his wife who’d married him for what he had and she by the cheapie who’d got what he could and then floated off with a better proposition, they weren’t prepared to take unnecessary risks. Their first chance encounter in a concert hall still seemed a miracle to them both.
“Yes,” he agreed, “You must go away. But go quickly. Go for a holiday—
Devon or Cornwall, say, where he won’t be able to follow. He’ll get tired of waiting.”
He had a vision of the blackmailer, curled like a wolf on the step of the little house in Hamp Wood awaiting her inevitable return if only to clear up the effects.
“Yes, darling,” she agreed. “I’ll go away.”
“Go to-morrow.”
“Well, not to-morrow. I’ve got one or two jobs to finish up. But—end of the week—I promise.”
He picked up his hat. “I still think to-morrow would be better.”
And how could either of them guess that even to-morrow would be too late?
* * *
It seemed to Harold, emerging into the darkness, that the evening was full of eyes; a teasing wind blew a shawl of cloud round the early moon, rustled the trees so that they tapped his shoulders with their clamouring branches. Once he even thought he heard steps behind him and whirled round, but there was no one there.
Making his way to the underground station—he never brought the Bentley to Hamp Wood—he thought, “At this very minute a second letter may be going through Louie’s letterbox” and he half-turned to go back. But there was Millicent’s dinner-party, and Rupert, who was Charles’s son and Blanche’s, and astoundingly enough Margaret’s love, would be there and they were going to toast the young couple and give them their blessing. Though why she had to choose her own cousin was anyone’s bet. But, knowing what he did about love, he might as well try and stop a fire blazing as attempt to extinguish that flame.
In the train he had an uncomfortable feeling that he’d missed something, something quite insignificant perhaps but somehow important—something she’d said, done—he couldn’t fix it. When he got home the visitors had already arrived, Charles in correct dinner dress, looking like an elongated penguin, Blanche, as always like a cottage loaf round which black velvet had been faultlessly moulded, with a stunning diamond sunburst between her supported breasts. That’s it, he thought, that’s what was wrong. Louie wasn’t wearing her brooch.
This brooch, made of diamonds and platinum and shaped like a peacock, was the only valuable thing she’d ever taken from him. She always wore it for him, and only for him. Working dressmakers don’t shop at Cartier’s, she told him once. So—if she wasn’t wearing it, it was because she’d got rid of it. And there was only one thing that would make her do that. She knew who’d written that letter and she knew what the chap wanted. Money. And the only valuable thing she’d got was the brooch. If he’d thought of it in the train he’d have turned round and gone straight back. But it was too late now.
“What is it, Harold?” His wife’s icy voice broke through his stupefaction. “Just look at the time. There should be Union hours for masters as well as men.”
“Shan’t be a tick,” he muttered, and saw her wince. He saw Charles and Blanche exchange a glance. They never forgot his grandfather had been a bench operative all his life. Upstairs, his evening clothes were laid out. He knew whom he could thank for that. Not Millicent. Plugging in his electric razor he began to shave.
Someone tapped on the door, it opened and a voice as gay and golden as a lark announced, “Something the doctor ordered.” And in came his daughter, looking like a golden rose and carrying a glass.
“I mixed it myself,” she said, “I know the way you like it. Yes, I know it’s a double, but even so you’re about three behind the others. If Aunt Blanche wants to lose weight, she should knock off some of these.” She picked up his black tie. “I’ll stop and fasten this for you. You know you always make it look like a bit of black tape.”
“Charles is wearing white,” he muttered. “But Ru’s wearing black.”
“Can’t think why your mother’s got such a down on made-up ones,” he grumbled. “They do a smashing line at Barker’s.”
She rubbed her cheek against his. “When we’re married you can come and stay with us, and bring a whole drawerful of made-up ties.”
He said aloud: “Of all the men on earth what made you choose your own cousin?”
“I didn’t. He chose me. You do like him, darling?”
Oh, he liked him all right, the sort of boy he’d have wanted his own son to be. How a stuffed shirt like Charles had ever sired him was a mystery. But then he and Millicent had produced Margaret. Nature didn’t seem to make any sense. “We could have done with a bit of fresh blood,” he grumbled.
“Darling, you sound like a tiger. If I couldn’t marry Ru I’d die. I’d go on breathing, of course, but I’d be dying inside. Love does that to you, you know.”
“Yes, my darling,” said Harold, gently, “I know.”
* * *
As if Louie’s revelation wasn’t enough for one day, Charles also had a broadside up his sleeve, that he fired when the young people had departed to dance and the women were upstairs in the drawing-room.
“If Rupert’s going to marry your girl,” said Charles, sipping port, “there’ll have to be an end to those visits to Hamp Wood. As you know, my son’s standing for a bye-election in the autumn, and nothing would please the opposition better than to dig up a bit of family dirt.”
“Mind your tongue,” said Harold, savagely. “How long have you been spying on us?”
“There’s no need for spies. If you bring a woman like that up to the West End and drive her home in a hired car, giving the address in a voice that could be heard in the next street... .”
“Only if you go about armed with a microphone.” A new thought struck him. “Was it you—that letter? By God, I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Charles, furiously. Then the penny dropped. “You mean, she’s being threatened?”
“If I thought you knew anything about that—all right, all right. But you’re a legal beagle. What would your advice be?”
“Get out and stay out,” said Charles, promptly. “And try and realize you’re not the only pebble on her beach.”
The next instant he was up against the wall, his arms protecting his face. “My God, Harold, have you taken leave of your senses? Put that thing down.”
Harold looked down at his hands. They were grasping the heavy cut-glass decanter. Split a chap’s skull with that, I shouldn’t wonder, he thought.
“You asked for it,” he said, briefly.
“On my sam, my sister’s a brave woman to go on living with you.”
“Let me tell you something—if it hadn’t been for Margaret I’d have cut loose from Millicent years ago. She’s not fit to be any man’s wife. All the same,” he added, remembering his daughter’s face as she said, If I didn’t marry Ru, I’d die, “you can stop shaking in your shoes. There won’t be any scandal. I shan’t be going to Hamp Wood again.”
Then, like two civilized men, they went up to the drawing-room. Louie’s name wasn’t mentioned again that evening.
* * *
It was on everyone’s tongue, though, twenty-four hours later when a window cleaner, coming in the back way because he couldn’t get an answer from the front, found one Mrs. L
ouie Cameron crumpled on a couch with a silver paper-knife stabbing into her heart. Harold saw the news by chance, turning the sheets of an evening edition, and it pole-axed him. Particularly the bit about the paper-knife. Come in useful in an emergency, he’d said, laughing, the day he gave it her. He hadn’t thought of it as a weapon, but it had had a charming handle design of a dolphin, had caught his fancy, not even anything specially valuable. Not likely they could trace any connection through that.
He came out of a wilderness of blackness to hear the telephone shrilling away at his elbow. His secretary had gone home early, an appointment with the dentist, he’d no idea what the time was. His first thought was—the police—but it wasn’t, it was Charles.
“Thank goodness, you’re there. Look, you’ve seen the news?” “Yes.” Just a blank monosyllable, it didn’t seem to mean a thing. “Anyone with you?”
He glanced at the watch on his wrist. Gone six. He must have blacked-out for quite a while.
“No. No one here.”
“Wait for me. I’m coming over. And don’t do anything till I arrive. Understand?”
“Like what?”
“Well—contacting the police.”
“Why? There’s nothing I can tell them. Louie’s dead. They know that already.”
“If you’ve got a bottle in the office you’d better have a drink,” said Charles, tersely, and rang off.
He found Harold sitting beside the telephone that he’d put down on the table, not even on its rest. Charles was in his element; he found a bottle of whiskey kept for the occasional fussy client, poured Harold a straight three fingers on the rocks, had one himself.
“We haven’t got long,” he said. “For God’s sake, Harold, pull yourself together. Is there anything in that house that could connect you with this woman?”
“Call her this woman once more,” warned Harold, “and you’ll be a candidate for the Cemetery Stakes. If you mean letters—no.”
Sequel to Murder: The Cases of Arthur Crook and Other Mysteries Page 7
