“Because it’s just the thing he would do. You’ve only seen him on a visit like this. You know nothing. I tell you there are times when he’s positively mad. He’s an egomaniac.”
“Did you read about that typewriter business, sir?” cut in Martin. “That’s the sort of thing he does.” He shrugged his shoulders in a helpless sort of gesture and let his hands fall. “I know it sounds a rotten thing for a son to say about his father, but I do believe he’s going mad. Let me tell you something,” he went on hastily as I was about to speak. “He’s been a kind of Jekyll and Hyde for years. That typewriter case was a mild example. He’s got that mania for verisimilitude, and that encouraged the Hyde in him. Now it’s got too much for him, and I believe he’s mostly Hyde.”
“You’re suggesting that he is responsible for these outrages and that he’s committing them for the purpose of using the atmosphere in a book?”
“I know it sounds far-fetched,” he said, “but that’s what I believe. We both believe it.”
“That’s that, then,” I said, and shrugged my shoulders.
“You don’t believe us?” asked Constance, and with a touch of temper.
“Oh yes,” I said. “I believe you. What I don’t trust is the evidence of these letters.”
“But there is other evidence,” cut in Martin. “He was out last night well before you got in. I rang the police this morning, and there was more liquid-squirting last night, and at about a quarter to nine.”
“That may be a coincidence,” I pointed out. “But how did you know your father was out?”
“Because I’ve been watching him,” he said frankly. “I had to watch him.”
“And were you able to follow him?”
“I wasn’t. I’d see him come out of the house and then I’d lose him almost at once. And what’s more, I believe he knew I was following him. I knew it from something he said yesterday afternoon, You know the way he sneers at you when he wants to say something meant to hurt. Well, this was something Lang said at the pool. Lang asked me if I was doing anything in the evening. What he wanted was for me to make one of the party for the cinema. I said I was. Father overheard, and what do you think he said? ‘I understand Martin’s got a job as a sleuth.’ You ought to have seen Lang stare! I didn’t want to talk, so I just swam away.”
“I see,” I said. “You’ve been trying to follow your father and he knew it.”
“There’s more than that,” Constance said. “He’s been queer during the last three weeks. He hardly ever left the house, as Martin knows. He’d read a book after dinner or do what he called research work with Orford, or he’d play chess with Cuthbert.”
“Tell him about the chess,” broke in Martin eagerly.
“Yes, the chess,” she said. “Just about three weeks ago the chess-board and men disappeared. We couldn’t find them anywhere in the house. Cuthbert hadn’t seen them or touched them and Harris was nearly frantic. The whole house was searched and there wasn’t a sign of them.”
“Interesting but hardly relevant,” I said. “But what you want in all this, I take it, is my advice.”
“Yes, sir, we do. Something’s got to be done. If it’s true, then it’s damn serious. If it isn’t—well, we still ought to find out.”
“My judgment is limited,” I said. “I was tempted to say straight out that the whole thing is rather a nasty hoax and your father would never do anything of the kind. My advice is that you, Constance, show him the letters and pin him down before a witness. By the way, I should make it perfectly clear that I have no intention of being that witness.”
Martin looked disappointed.
“We wouldn’t dream of asking you,” Constance said, and with no trace of malice. “We thought of the same thing, and we know what would happen. He’d simply deny the whole thing and make a terrific scene. And then suppose the—er—happenings went on? What then?”
“And suppose he was ultimately caught?” added Martin. “He’d be absolutely ruined, and so should we—socially, that is.”
I nearly said, “Socially be damned!” I could see his point, and I began getting to my feet.
“Well, that’s the best I can do. I repeat I’m still very sceptical about the whole thing, but I grant that you two know him and the circumstances better than I do.”
Constance took my arm and made me sit down again.
“Ludo, will you do something for us?”
“Maybe.”
“Just this,” she said. “Martin’s trouble is that he can’t follow his father alone. If there were two of you, you’d stand a better chance.”
“You mean?”
“Constance means, will you watch him with me tomorrow night, sir. Just the one night.”
I smiled.
“I see. I’m a guest in this house and you’re asking me to spy on my host.”
“But if it’s for his own good?”
“You’re not his guest, Ludo,” Constance told me sharply. “You’re my relation, in a way, and you’re my guest.”
It was a plausibility, and I hated the idea of it. Then I saw a way out.
“I’ll consider it and let you know in the morning,” I told them. “But I won’t even do that unless you give me those two letters.”
“You’re not going to take things into your own hands?” Constance looked genuinely frightened.
“That was neither nice nor necessary,” Martin told her sharply. “Mr. Travers wouldn’t do a thing like that.”
“All I want the letters for is to have a thorough examination of them,” I said, and to my surprise Martin was handing them over.
“That’s that, then,” I said, and got to my feet. “First thing in the morning I’ll give you my decision.”
I was just in time. There were voices in the hall, and Kitty and Lang appeared.
“Why, you’re wet!” Constance said.
“Only a heavy shower,” Lang told her, and then cocked his ear. The voices of Chaice and Daine were heard, and a couple of minutes later they joined in.
“The weather’s breaking again,” Daine announced dismally.
“You’re all wet, daddy,” Kitty said. “Where’ve you been gallivanting off to?”
He grinned impishly and he flicked her cheek with a finger.
“Wouldn’t you like to know!” Then he looked owlishly round. “Quite a lot of people would like to know. But all in good time, my dear. All in good time.”
“Keep that for your mystery stories,” she told him, and he frowned.
“Not at all, my dear. I’m a mystery story, as you call it. You’re a mystery story. We’re all mystery stories.”
“Oh, my God!” muttered Martin audibly, and moved towards the door. I followed him out.
“About tomorrow,” I said. “I think you can count on me after all.”
CHAPTER V
CATASTROPHE
I’m not going to bore you with a long account of why I made that sudden decision to watch for one night the movements of Austin Chaice, though in fairness to myself I would say just this: that when Chaice struck an attitude and made that high-falutin statement about all of us being mystery stories, he happened to direct the remark full at me, as if it were some sort of challenge. Pose and poppycock can rile me at any time, and if Chaice had been aiming at getting my goat, then he certainly succeeded.
Also I hate an unsolved problem of any kind. It gives me no rest and gnaws at me like an aching tooth, and in that house was more than one thing of which I needed an explanation. The fact that I had been wrong about Martin Chaice in thinking he was watching his father for the purpose of furthering the intrigue between Constance and Lang, wasn’t, for instance, an explanation of the intrigue itself. As for the business of the liquid-squirting, either the whole thing, letters and all, was hocus-pocus, or else it had in it the material for a pretty nasty scandal, and somehow I had to find out the truth.
I came down to breakfast that Monday morning to find Chaice and Kitty alone again. Chaice at once
said that something ought to be done about me. Business was over and we ought to have some sort of a holiday. Was there anything I could suggest? Anything I would like to do?
I said I wasn’t going to be a nuisance to anybody and I was perfectly capable of making a holiday for myself. I did add that since the weather was reasonable again, I’d rather like to borrow Lang’s bicycle and go to Leavenmore, where I’d have lunch. Or if Chaice wouldn’t be bored, and could spare the time, we might have a car.
“I’d just love to go,” Kitty said. “There’s a bus too. Let’s make a party of three, daddy.”
“You and Travers go,” Chaice told her. “Churches and abbey ruins aren’t much in my line.”
“A great idea,” I said. “Sure you won’t come, Chaice?”
He said he was a bad walker and wouldn’t spoil our fun. As a matter of fact he was a bad walker, but not in the sense he intended to convey. His walk was typical of himself: an absolute furious pace and with such short steps that it was quite impossible to adjust one’s pace or steps to his speed. But we decided in any case that Kitty and I would have the day out. We’d take the ten-thirty bus from the stop down the road, and we’d lunch in Leavenmore. We might be home for tea and we might not.
When I went out to the hall after breakfast Chaice hailed me from the lawn where he was smoking a post-prandial cigarette. “Sure you don’t mind going with Kitty?”
“It’s an enormous pleasure,” I told him. “It’s a pity you can’t come too. I think she’d have liked it.”
“My dear fellow, I’m simply up to the eyes,” he said, and took my arm and began leading me away out of earshot of the house. “You know what contracts are.”
“A lot of work in hand?”
“That book you and I were working on, and trying to run two detective stories at the same time. And—keep this under your hat, by the way—something more important still.”
“Really,” I said, for he had paused as if he expected surprise.
“I’m bucking the stage, my boy. A play of mine will be on in town before Christmas.”
“But how splendid!” I said. “I always wondered why you didn’t try your hand at it. The play is written?”
“Not a word,” he said, and his lip drooped in an ironic complacency. “But it’s here”—he tapped his skull—“and it’s going to be good.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said. “The detective type, is it, or straight?”
“Mystery. A case of—” Then he broke off. “But you’ll know when the time comes.”
“Won’t you give me a clue?”
“You’re too shrewd,” he told me, and yet I could feel that he was itching to let out more. “All I will tell you is this: that there’s a bit of Jekyll and Hyde in it.”
I remembered what Martin had said, and before I knew where I was, I was polishing my glasses. He was giving me a queer look, as if he was expecting some comment or a pat on the back.
“It always was a good plot,” I said, “and you’re the one to handle it differently. An adaptation, is it, or something quite new?”
“Absolutely new, my dear fellow. Absolutely new.”
“What does Daine think of it?” Daine was the best judge of a play in town. He gave me another quick look.
“But I told you it wasn’t yet written.”
“Of course,” I said apologetically, though I didn’t see how that mattered. He could have talked the whole thing over with Daine. Or was he writing the play under another name, and so doing Daine out of commission? Just the sort of trick Chaice would be capable of. And then I had doubts. If the play was a winner, Chaice would never keep the secret.
“Is one permitted to ask the title?”
He shook his head, then changed his mind again.
“You’ll keep this implicitly to yourself?”
“Most certainly,” I assured him.
“Then the tentative title’s Mr. Polegate.”
He looked up for approval.
“Mr. Polegate,” I said. “It’s unusual, and it’s snappy.”
He had been drawing me towards the house again, and that was all the talk we had. He tapped the barometer in the hall and said he thought there wouldn’t be rain. Then I saw Martin hovering round, so I dodged him by going upstairs. When I came down he had gone.
It was a lovely ride on the bus-top, and by the time we had reached Leavenmore we had had a fine gossip. It began when I pulled her leg about paying for the fares. I said she must be getting a very wealthy person with all the pay she was getting.
“I’m getting frightfully mean,” she told me. “I’m saving up like billy-o.”
“But not for your old age,” I said.
“What does that imply?” she asked me laughingly.
“Well, unless the young men of this generation have lost all powers of perception, you’ll be spending someone else’s money some fine day.”
“I’m only a plain Jane,” she told me, and blushed nevertheless. “Still,” and she sighed—“money’s awfully useful. Daddy was frightfully sporting about my allowance, by the way. When I was twenty-one he made me an allowance of a hundred and fifty, the same as Martin’s, and he wouldn’t make any deduction when I got a commission.”
“And how does Martin get along on his allowance?” I asked brazenly, and she didn’t seem to notice anything outrageous in the question.
“Martin was just furious when Daddy made my allowance the same as his. He never seems to have a penny. Says he’s saving up.”
“A girl in the offing?”
“Heavens, no!” she said. “Something very different. You won’t mention this, will you, but he’s written a book of poems—well, it’s not exactly a book yet. I think they’re the most frightful bilge, but he’s trying to find a publisher, and if not, I think he’ll pay to have them published.”
I let out a whistle.
“That would cost him a packet in wartime.”
“I know,” she said. “There’s only me and Constance who might help. I don’t want to help, because I think it’s silly.”
“And Constance?”
“He’s playing up to Constance now. Hanging round and trying to get her in the mood.”
So much for relevant chatter. As for the rest of the trip, we saw the few sights and then had an excellent lunch. We lingered out our coffee, and then, as it was still an hour and a half before a return bus, we decided to start walking back. We took it fairly steady, and when the bus did overtake us we were mightily relieved, for it was trying its best to rain. By the time we reached home it was coming down pretty smartly, and we were both out of breath from the run. As it was, we were dangerously wet, and I thought it best to change.
Official tea was long since over, so Kitty and I had tea by ourselves. Then Constance came in and was asking us about our trip. When the meal was over, I could see that there was something she wanted to tell me confidentially.
“Those photographs I was going to show you, Ludo,” she said at last. “Would you like to come and see them now?”
I said I’d be delighted and followed her up the stairs to her room. As soon as I was inside, she locked the door.
“Ludo, something awkward’s happened. Martin can’t go tonight.”
My eyebrows lifted.
“Don’t look at me as if I could help it,” she told me, and her hands were trembling with nervousness. “It’s one of his bad headaches. He’s absolutely prostrate.”
“But why doesn’t he take something for it?”
“He has,” she said. “But it takes hours to go. Even then he’s utterly useless for a day or two.”
“Only one thing then,” I said. “We must call it off.”
“But you can’t!” Her hand went out to my arm. “You’ve just got to go through with it, Ludo.”
“But surely,” I pointed out, “if Martin wanted me to help him because he was useless by himself, then I should be useless by myself.”
“You must get someone else to help you
,” she said. “You must get Cuthbert.”
“Cuthbert!” I couldn’t believe my ears. “I thought you wanted this business kept secret.”
“Well”—she smiled rather feebly—“it isn’t like telling a stranger. Besides . . .”
“Yes? Besides what?”
“Well, when the first letter came I confided in Cuthbert.” Her hand went out in what she doubtless meant to be a gesture of appeal. “That was before I rang you up. I just had to tell somebody. And I knew Cuthbert could be trusted.”
“And what did he say?”
“He wouldn’t believe it,” she said. “He told me to throw the letter on the fire.”
“I see,” I said, and probably ironically. “And now you want me to induce him to change his mind. But that’s not part of the bond. All I did was promise to accompany Martin.”
“But you will see him, Ludo, won’t you? I tell you, you’ve got to see him.”
I turned away and was mentally consigning the whole business to hell. She was following me, hand on my sleeve again.
“All right,” I said. “But you’ve got to understand this. I’m not going to do any persuading. If Daine refuses to have any hand in it, then I throw my own hand in. You agree to that?”
“But of course I do,” she told me, and I thought a bit too relievedly.
That was how we left it, and I’m afraid my leave-taking was far from gracious. If you don’t understand why, then all I can say is that contact with Constance always left me with the feeling that she regarded all mankind as specially designed to serve her own particular ends. And there seemed something definitely fishy about the whole thing. In fact, a minute’s quiet reflection told me that I had never been intended to accompany Martin. Martin would have contrived to drop out, just as Daine would certainly refuse to take part in anything so mad, and I was to be left holding the baby. But why? Why was I to be alone responsible for the exposure of Chaice? The other side of the picture didn’t matter, for if Chaice’s possible walk that night proved quite innocuous, then I should be unaffected. Unless—and there I paused. Was there some reason why Constance should wish me out of the house that night? Was that the reason for all the hocus-pocus about liquid-squirting? Was it not to matter what Chaice did, provided I was got out of the house?
The Case of the Missing Men: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 7
