“I understand that I have been called the Pirate King in Parliament,” replied Dalbeattie with a smile, “and the name would certainly have suited Oissel at one stage of his career.”
An idea struck Robert. “Do the Pirate Kings have their little wars, and is Oissel one of the casualties?”
“That is an idea I am working on, and I have some information which bears out that theory. But we must hear what the Home Secretary’s story is first. Surely they can’t be much longer now.”
The house phone rang. Dalbeattie answered it. “The Prime Minister is coming now,” he said.
Robert walked to the window, and stood there until the Premier appeared. He looked nervous and anxious.
“Shall I go, sir, and wait somewhere?” asked Robert. The Premier glanced at Dalbeattie. “I don’t think so, do you?” said his lordship. “He knows enough about the position to be told the rest, and we may want him.”
“Very well,” said the Premier, sitting down at his desk. Speaking very rapidly, and in a tone which betrayed his irritation, he repeated the Home Secretary’s story. “And,” he said in conclusion, “he wants to go into the witness-box on Thursday and confess the whole thing.”
“That will be a pretty mess,” snorted Dalbeattie. “The Caillaux trial will be as nothing to it. It will be played up abroad as an English Dreyfus case. Can’t you see the French papers! Imagine the front pages of the Hearst Press! He’d better take a revolver to himself before he does that.”
“He has suggested that already,” said the Premier. “I have made him promise to do nothing of the kind.”
There was silence in the room. The Premier sat at his desk with his head in his hands. Dalbeattie sat on the arm of the chesterfield chewing the end of a cigar. Robert stood with his back to the window. Each of them was picturing what the Home Secretary’s confession meant—an international crisis, a financial panic, unavoidable dissolution of Parliament, the ruin of the Party, and all because one muddle-headed elderly gentleman thought he was clever. The retribution seemed almost comically out of proportion to the intention behind the offence.
It was, of course, Dalbeattie who spoke first and took command of the situation. “We can isolate the problem of the Home Secretary. He must go home and have influenza. Otherwise he will cause suspicion by his woebegone air. Then we can tackle the mystery of Oissel’s death and the burglary at his flat. They may have been quite separate occurrences or they may hang together. One thing is certain—if we can track down the cause of those, or even one of them, we can screen the Home Secretary’s little flutter completely, and he can quietly resign on the grounds of ill-health when the sensation has died down.”
The Prime Minister looked up eagerly. “Yes, of course, that is the best way out. The Home Secretary had nothing to do with the death of Oissel. His man apparently died in defence of Oissel’s property. If we can find the murderers then nothing need come out at all.”
“If we can,” thought Robert, “but can we?” Aloud he said: “And the adjournment debate to-night?”
Here the Premier was on his own ground. “As the Home Secretary will be absent through illness, I will take over that. I can pass word to the Opposition through the usual channels that we are on the verge of important discoveries which ought not to be jeopardized by publicity. They will keep their own people quiet. But we must have some sort of statement for the inquest, Dalbeattie.”
“When is that?”
“It was adjourned till Thursday,” said Bob.
“Then we have three days,” said Dalbeattie. “I’ll join West in his amateur detection. I had better keep an eye on him, Prime Minister, or he will have the entire Cabinet marched to the gallows.”
The Premier smiled. “That will be a practical application of the old Cabinet joke that if we don’t hang together we shall hang separately. But I am very grateful to you, Dalbeattie. Shall I have a word with Gleeson?”
“How much does he know already?” said Dalbeattie turning to Robert.
“No one ever knows how much he knows,” Bob answered gloomily.
“The perfect civil servant! I think I had better see him myself. Perhaps if you told him that the Home Secretary was ill,” he said, turning to the Premier, “and that I was taking an interest as I knew old Oissel, it would be sufficient until I can have a talk with him.”
“Good. I will do that. Now I must say good-bye. A deputation has been kept waiting half an hour. But I look to you both to get the Government out of this mess.”
Robert felt that the mystery was as good as solved as he went downstairs behind Lord Dalbeattie, with whom (oh, joy!) he had been coupled in the farewell of the Premier. The awful tension of the week-end was over. Surely Dalbeattie could not fail… but if he did?
“I think I’ll stroll over and have a look at the mysterious Room J,” said Dalbeattie as they stepped out into Downing Street. “No”—as Bob made a movement—“I am not expecting to find anything there. But I hate mysteries. They annoy me.”
Robert felt that he ought to apologize for the poor old Parliament that had insisted on having a mystery although it ought to have known that Lord Dalbeattie did not like them.
The rain had cleared and the sunshine was breaking through the clouds as they walked across Palace Yard together. To avoid unnecessary stairs Robert took his companion in through the Speaker’s courtyard and under the arches that lead to the House of Lords.
Dalbeattie looked about him with curiosity. “Do you know, I’ve never been round here before! I always use the Peers’ entrance. Curious place, this. It looks as though a regiment of murderers could be stowed away here without being seen.”
Robert laughed. “I’ve always said that there were plenty of opportunities for murder in the House,” he said. “There are ventilating shafts, and queer passages, and odd corners where bodies could lie hidden for days. But the maddening part about our mystery is that it has happened in the least mysterious part of the House of Commons, far away from all these passages. There just is nothing here but an ordinary big dining-hall, a straight corridor, and these small dining-rooms leading straight from it. Here is Room J—you can see for yourself.” The policeman on duty at the door was the Constable Robinson who had been the victim of the Thursday night incident. “Better again?” asked Robert pleasantly. Then he suddenly remembered that he had not told Dalbeattie that part of the story yet.
“Quite all right, sir, thank you,” replied the policeman as he opened the door for them. “Inspector Blackitt has been in not so long ago, sir. He told me to tell you he would like to see you if you came along.”
Dalbeattie walked into the small oak-panelled room. “Shut the door,” he said. Robert obeyed. “Where was Oissel sitting.”
“At that end of the table, opposite the door. At least, that was where the Minister left him, and as he was very crippled he was unlikely to have moved about much. Still, he might have done.”
“Haven’t the police tried to trace the trajectory of the bullet?”
“Blackitt was on to that at once, and got the experts on to it, but the bullet had made such a mess it was impossible to decide. It had hit a bone, and shattered it pretty badly. Besides, the poor man had tumbled off his chair, and it was difficult to know just how he had been sitting.”
“And the bullet?”
“It was of the same make as the ones in Oissel’s own revolver, same size and all that. It could have been fired from his revolver, but Blackitt has convinced us that it wasn’t.”
“Then whoever fired that bullet knew enough of Oissel and his possessions to use the same type of bullet.”
“Unless it was pure coincidence. They were both of English make and standard pattern.”
“How many people knew this dinner was being held?”
“From our side, only the Home Secretary and myself. I did what correspondence was necessary, not the office
.”
“The kitchen staff—wouldn’t they know? Did they know it was for Oissel, or did you just order the dinner yourself?”
Robert considered this new suggestion. “I don’t think I made any particular secret about it,” he said thoughtfully. “There wasn’t any need. The Home Secretary did not want it in the Press, but the kitchen staff here are pretty good about that. They don’t talk to the Press. The manager is pretty severe on them if they do.”
“Did the manager know that the guest would be Mr Oissel?”
“Yes, he certainly did. I told him as I had to order special food for him.”
“Good, then we will talk to the manager.”
The manager of the kitchen department came readily to meet them. He was particularly anxious that the affair should be cleared up, for one of his best dining-rooms was out of commission meanwhile. He had been offered a big fee for the use of it from Members who wanted to enjoy a macabre sensation, but he was under orders that it must not be used, and the policeman still on duty at the door to prevent the entry of unauthorized persons was an unpleasant reminder of the tragedy to all his other diners.
The manager, however, was quite definite that he had told no one of the identity of the Minister’s guest, except the waiter to whom he had passed on Mr West’s special instructions. “Then let us see the waiter,” said Lord Dalbeattie.
“That poor waiter has been bullied and browbeaten out of his senses,” said Robert, while they were waiting for the manager to bring him. “But the police have not been able to shake him in one detail of his story.”
“Sounds suspicious,” said Dalbeattie casually. “The innocent are seldom as well primed as that.”
But Dalbeattie could make nothing more of the waiter than the police had done. The man was obviously tired and nervous. The manager explained that the police had been at him so often that he was sleeping badly and was very worried. But he could tell no more than he had said at the inquest. Every second of his time between the Home Secretary’s departure and the sound of the shot was accounted for. Dalbeattie out of sheer pity for the harassed man slipped him a pound-note.
When they were alone in the room again Dalbeattie examined the narrow windows with their heavy hasps, the solid panelling, the little cupboards, even the floor, and the well-fitting heavy door. Not a mouse could have got into that solidly built room except through the open door. Robert judged this a good moment to tell him the story of Thursday night. Dalbeattie whistled.
“Then they were either trying to cover up tracks or get something that had been left behind. I suppose that is Blackitt’s theory?”
“Either that, or even that they might be planning a second murder—the Home Secretary, for example.”
“Well, that might be a useful bit of work at this juncture,” grinned Dalbeattie. “But we can’t hope for that. I’ll see Blackitt this afternoon. Then perhaps we might explore Oissel’s flat at Charlton Court. But it seems to me that the main clue must lie hidden here. Meanwhile what about a spot of lunch?”
“Would you care to lunch with me here?” asked Robert greatly daring.
“Excellent idea. Will keep me in the Commons atmosphere—that is, if you will promise to let me out alive. How do I know that you haven’t sworn a lethal campaign against all financiers, and that you did not murder old Oissel yourself?”
“I shall begin to think I did shortly,” laughed Robert, as they walked together into the Strangers’ Dining-room.
“Who is that pretty girl?” asked Dalbeattie as they took seats.
“That’s Grace Richards, the M.P. for Stepney East.”
“Socialist, of course?”
“Yes.”
“So you know her fairly well? She seemed to smile on you very warmly.”
“Quite well,” said Robert rather uneasily, wondering whither these questions were tending.
“Then why not rope her into your detective job?”
“She has helped me a bit,” said Robert puzzled, “but what could she do specially?”
“Put her on to that waiter and the kitchen staff. Ask her to talk to the stillroom maid who was making the coffee that the waiter went to fetch. A girl like that could do it without putting them on their guard. Ask her to find out tactfully if there were any strange waiters on that night.”
“But the police have already done that. Blackitt I know has cross-examined every member of the staff who was on duty.”
“The police are no match for a really highly trained servant, especially one accustomed to holding his or her tongue in a place like the House of Commons. I learned that fact in a very costly way when I was trying to get a divorce. My wife knew it, and I paid for the lesson.”
Robert looked with fresh interest at Dalbeattie. He couldn’t remember any cause célèbre in connexion with him. Had the divorce come off? In that case the Lady Dalbeattie of the illustrated sporting papers was no obstacle to his paying attention to Annette Oissel.
“You think you can find something out from the Charlton Court side?” asked Robert, politely changing the subject. After all, you can’t ask a man if he got his divorce in the end. But he wondered whether Dalbeattie’s purpose in his suggesting work at Oissel’s flat was to provide an excuse for being near Annette. Couldn’t he worm himself in on to that? Robert felt a queer ache when he thought of Annette as she had sat that night before dinner in the hall at Clinton Bardsley.
“Well, it seems to me that the only fruitful line, if we can’t get in front of the murderer and see where his bullets came from, is to get behind him. We must find out who had sufficient hatred against old Oissel to be willing to take the risk of murdering him, and frankly the only person I know of is Annette Oissel herself.”
“Annette!” Robert’s face went white. “But that is preposterous. She told me herself how generous he had been to her, how little he required of her in return.”
“You saw her the morning after his death. Was she very upset?”
Robert remembered her coolness and self-possession, and then, in her own flat that evening her gay gown, her willingness to come to tea on the Terrace that day despite the conventions of mourning.
“She is so very reserved, of course, she always is,” he said in defence. “But she couldn’t. It seems incredible. People don’t do things like that.”
Dalbeattie helped himself to cheese. “Your Home Secretary, for example. Incidentally”—and he chuckled—“it will be an amazing situation if the net result of our joint endeavours to find old Oissel’s murderer is that we shall have to decide whether Annette or the Home Secretary is to be thrown to the wolves.”
“But why should Annette want to murder an old man whose money she was going to get anyhow, and who certainly does not seem to have stinted her when he was alive?”
“It’s a queer story, and both Annette and her grandfather are queer people. They are Basques, really, a wild folk. Old Oissel came from the Basque village of Itaxxou and badly wanted Annette to marry the local grandee. It was the dream of his life. Annette simply would not look at him. She told her grandfather to leave him the money and let her earn her own living. The battle had died down for a time during these loan negotiations. But Annette was to accompany the old man to Pau for this new rejuvenating treatment, and I suppose she expected that the old struggle would start again.”
“But she could have left him without murdering him. Why, the jewels she was wearing when I called at her flat would have kept her for years if the old man had never given her another penny. It’s absurd.”
“But Basques aren’t like that. They don’t just go away quietly. Theirs is a dagger and rope history. Now”—as Robert made an impatient movement—“I’m not accusing Annette of planning the murder. I’m simply saying that as far as I know the old boy’s circle, Annette was the one who had had most provocation and, if she wasn’t found out, had most to gain.”
“I don’t believe it. I shouldn’t believe it if she told me so herself. She is too fine, too essentially civilized, she…”
“Has she got you that way too? Oh, Annette, what scalps you have hung at your belt! I’ve yet to meet the man who could resist that slow smile of hers, and those eyes. Now I could tell you a few stories about her that…”
“I don’t want to hear them!” In his fury Robert had completely forgotten where he was and had jumped to his feet, to the amazement of the bewigged lawyers lunching at the next table and the startled surprise of Grace Richards, who had been watching their table with interest all through her own meal.
Dalbeattie rose too, his nonchalant manner pulling Robert to earth and covering up his action. He motioned to the waiter. “No, sorry, Lord Dalbeattie. This is my lunch.”
“Oh, yes. Pardon me, I couldn’t pay here of course.” He waited at the door, while Robert went through the formalities and joined him. He put his hand on the younger man’s arm.
“Now I didn’t want to upset you, and you can forget what I said if you want to do so. Annette won’t be inconvenienced in any way. I shall see to that. But it is no use trying to unravel a mystery like this unless you are prepared to face every possibility, and keep your own emotions out of it. Find the truth, and then let your feelings dictate what you should do with it. That seems to me the only common-sense way. Better we should find it out, if there is anything in what I say, than that Annette should find herself in the hands of Inspector Blackitt. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, of course,” said a rather crushed Robert.
“Good. Then go and see what you can do with Miss Richards.”
Dalbeattie left Robert with a hearty handshake and apparently with a job of work to do for him, but the younger man had an uneasy feeling that he had been told to go away and play with Grace Richards while his elder took the business seriously in hand.
The Division Bell Mystery Page 17
