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MR. FOWLER WRIGHT'S versatility is not limited to romantic fiction of the DELUGE and ISLAND OF CAPTAIN SPARROW class, which he writes under his own name, and mystery stories, which, as everyone knows, he publishes under the pseudonym "Sydney Fowler". Even his mystery stories are of a really divergent character. ARRESTING DELIA combines a light vein of humour with the elements of true mystery fiction. In brief, this novel may be descried as containing crime, romance, and a rich spice of humour.
As a recent reviewer remarked: "Mr. Fowler Wright is never dull," and it is certainly true that there is not a dull moment in this book.
ARRESTING DELIA
CHAPTER ONE
MRS. KINGSLEY STARR, having been married something under four minutes, stood on the step of the Registrar's office in Princeton Street.
Her brother, who had married Kingsley's twin sister about three minutes earlier, had just handed his bride into a waiting taxi, which was disappearing in the direction of Victoria Station.
"Kingsley," Cora said, with a definite tone in the affectionate sweetness of her voice, "I'm not coming."
"Not - ?" Kingsley looked his bewilderment.
"Not what I say, of course. I'm not coming to see them off."
"Well, I don't suppose they'll mind that overmuch . . . What do you want us to do?"
"You're going to see them off and say how sorry I m that I'm not there."
"I'm not going without you."
"Oh, yes, you are. It's no use looking sulky like that. It's too soon to begin. . . . You can't let your twin sister go off without saying goodbye."
"I don't see that, any more than you. He's your brother as well."
"But not twins. . . . I've got to go back to the flat. I've just remembered I left a book . . ."
"I don't see that that . . ."
"But I do. If I didn't finish that book this afternoon, it wouldn't be any use being married at all. I couldn't concentrate at the right times . . ."
"There's . . . there's no catch?"
"Of course not. Kingsley, what a baby you are! It's just what I say. You'll go to Victoria and see them off, and pick me up at the flat in about an hour, or a bit more. Don't forget to bring the car round to the back. I can see it from the windows there, if I look. I shouldn't wonder if I come down."
"I'd rather come with you."
"That's because you're American. You want to get everything over in about a week. We're not in the same hurry in this country. When we once begin, we often stay married for quite a time."
"I wish you wouldn't always be talking that way. You know I . . ."
"I didn't think even an American'd begin grumbling at me before we got down the steps . . . I suppose the charm's fading already? . . . Kingsley, I didn't mean anything really. We're not going to quarrel here. It isn't done. . . . But I hate standing on platforms, keeping on saying good-bye, and all cursing the train in our insides, because it's so slow to start. . . . And I really have forgotten that book, or . . . other things that don't matter to you. So if you'll just see them off and follow me up. . ."
As Cora spoke she waved her hand to a crawling taxi, and left her ten-minutes husband, sulky but subdued, to the solitary contemplation of his own car.
"I suppose I shall have to bring a book now," Cora reflected, with a slight frown, for she was a conscientious girl who knew that fibs should be disciplined. She was not actually tortured by desire to consume the concluding chapters of any volume of feminine fiction; and, in any case, after the inventory was taken . . . She became aware that even her visit to her own flat might have a slight element of irregularity. Perhaps it would be better to call at the agent's first? . . . She interrupted her reflections to instruct the driver to stop at Hendersons, the estate agents in Kensington High Street. . . . "Yes, just opposite the post office . . ." It would make it a bit longer, but she had plenty of time.
Cora looked across a polished mahogany counter at a youth who tried not to show his surprise at her appearance there.
"I want you to let me have the keys of the flat for an hour or two. I want to get some papers that I forgot to bring."
"Yes, Miss . . ." The youth hesitated over the name, as well he might. She was to have been married that morning, and it was nearly gone.
"Mrs. Starr," she supplied to relieve his embarrassment.
But he still hesitated. Perhaps he hadn't been embarrassed about that. "Yes, madame," he said. "I'll tell Mr. Henderson."
The next moment she was conducted into the
principal's private room.
"I don't think I need have troubled to see you," Cora said, somewhat annoyed at the formality of her reception. "I only wanted the boy to give me the keys of the flat for an hour or two."
"I'm afraid we. . ."
"I only want to get some papers we forgot, out of the bureau that's left locked in my brother's room. . . .You can send a clerk with me if you think . . ."
Mr. Henderson protested. "Oh, but, indeed, Mrs. Starr, it isn't that . . ." Cora, conscious of his glance at her left hand, only half-caught the following words, but she understood that he had surrendered the keys to the new tenants.
"I thought," she said, rather sharply, "that we hadn't let it to them till next Monday."
"But they cabled that they were on an earlier boat, and as the decorators had finished . . . Of course, we shall charge them the extra week."
Cora and her brother had vacated their flat a fortnight before the date for which their marriages had been arranged, to allow of the thorough renovation which had been a condition of a letting which had been too good to refuse. A six-months' tenancy, during the most part of which period the flat would otherwise have remained vacant: the full figure for which they asked, and to be paid in advance: excellent bankers' reference: no children. Just an elderly Toronto lawyer and his wife, who wished to spend a few months in the home country. But their highly respectable Mount Street agents had stipulated that the flat should be vacated in time for it to be renovated throughout. The cost? That could easily be arranged. Their clients would contribute £50. How would that be? Mr. Henderson had thought it would be very well. Major Cattell-Pratt had thought the same. Cora, being a practical young woman, after a moment's pouting, had thought so too. Money had spoken as clearly as it always will.
"You think they'll be there now?"
"No, I don't. They scarcely could till tomorrow. I believe the boat docks at Southampton this evening. But we sent their agents the keys."
"That doesn't really matter," Cora answered, with a display of her natural frankness. "I've got another. I only thought I ought to let you know, as we'd put it into your charge."
"I don't see any reason you shouldn't call, if it's only to get something out of your own desk. You'd better ring first, of course. They're legally in occupation since yesterday, but I don't see that you need worry about that if they're not there."
"No, I don't suppose I shall overmuch. I'm sorry I troubled you."
"Not at all. It's a pleasure."
Mrs. Starr went out, and Mr. Henderson murmured "Lucky man" to himself as he resumed his work. He was thinking of Mr. Kingsley Starr. A very pretty bride; and one who had her wits about her, in spite of the innocent expression of those china-blue eyes, and the dimple in the small round chin. Mrs. Starr was not tall, and was very slightly - yes, very slightly inclined to plumpness. That was how he liked them himself (being tall, and thin). Kingsley Starr was a lucky man.
CHAPTER TWO
QUITE indifferent to any possible emotions which she might have aroused in Mr. Henderson's rather bony breast, and with a dimple that deepened as she reflected upon the probable sulkiness of her new possession, Mrs. Starr was driven rapidly to Knightsbridge. where she descended at the front entrance to Murdoch Mansions. "No," she said, as she paid the driver, "you needn't wait. I shan't want you again."
She had intended to ring, as is seemly when you call at a flat which you have let furnished since yesterday, but habit tells, and when she got to the door of No. 37 (fifth floor back), she automatically pushed her key into the lock and went in.
The door opened to a passage which went left-hand for a short distance, with the kitchen on the right, and then turned right, with rooms opening on either side.
Cora cast a critical glance upon the effects of clean paper and fresh paint as she walked briskly along the passage. She had been quite satisfied with the grey Wilton pile carpet which had covered it since she had come to live here with her brother five years ago - had thought the effect rather good - but this freshness of paint and paper did make it look rather shabby. She had determined in the five seconds before she reached the door of the lounge, that she would have a new carpet if they decided to keep the flat on after these people had left. She wondered whether the new decorating had made the other rooms look equally rotten. Perhaps she'd have a look round before she left.
She was at the bureau by this time, and unlocked it easily. It was the kind of lock that opens to three keys out of four, if they are about the right size. "Just like Ted,' she remarked, as she took out an assortment of letters and other personal papers from the pigeon-holes, which she had accused him yesterday of having left, and been convinced by his half-hearted denial. "Of course, they wouldn't try to open it," he had answered indifferently, "and they wouldn't find much worth while, if they did." Just like a man. What did he know about the habits of Toronto lawyers, or the curiosities of Toronto lawyers' wives? And as to what might be there . . . Well, she knew how careless Ted was.
So she carried her collection of papers into the kitchen, and sorted it over on the table there. After all, there wasn't much of any account. Ted had been right about that. But there were enough papers to be kept to make her handbag bulge more than it should, and she tore up the rest, and lifted the lid of the dustbin to drop them in - and stopped with it in her hand as she observed the débris of an obviously recent meal.
She looked down with a puzzled frown. Probably the painters and paper-hangers were accustomed to feed on the scene of action. But it didn't look quite what they would be likely to leave. And she felt sure that she had heard that they had finished on Saturday, Who else could have been having a meal here? It looked so very fresh, and yet - Well, there it was. Anyway, she couldn't bother about it now. She was very much mistaken if that wasn't the honk of Kingsley's horn in the street below. He hadn't lost much time. She threw the torn-up papers into the bin, put the lid on, and went back into the lounge. If you opened the window and leaned out sufficiently far, you could see a car in the street below.
Yes, Kingsley it was, in the ancient Morris-Cowley two-seater which she had helped him to drive when he had bought it a few months ago, and which was now destined to take them on a carefree honeymoon, exploring the beauties of the English country as the lure of an early spring and their whims might lead them. He looked up as she looked down, and she waved her hand as her head withdrew. He must interpret that as he would. She just wanted to swill that smear of dust off her hands in the bathroom basin and in two minutes she'd be down and away. She had other things in mind at that moment than a question of who fed in the flat, queer as it was.
There was a smudge of red paint on the edge of the basin . . . wet red paint . . . but would the painters have used red? And would it have stayed wet like that? And what else could it be?
Cora saw her face in the mirror which was hung over the basin, and was annoyed to see how frightened it looked. It was absurd to be afraid in your own flat - and with Kingsley honking below.
Yet a smear of - it was blood, and it was no use pretending to herself that she didn't know that - a smear of blood didn't come there of itself. Of course, a cut finger - it might have been done in opening that sardine tin that was in the dustbin now. But what right had anyone to have been - perhaps to be here at all?
It was all silliness, of course; with an absurdly simple explanation, which would make her laugh afterwards at the queer feeling of which she was conscious now. Suppose Ted had been here, and hadn't happened to mention it? Been here with George on the quiet? She didn't really believe that. Not that she wouldn't have believed it of George. George was a girl who might be equal to anything - anything nice, of course. Hadn't she just married Ted? But she couldn't believe that Ted would do anything of an unconventional kind. He took life too seriously for that. Besides, she could account for her brother's time during the last few days. Almost every hour...
Still, the idea gave her courage. The explanation was sure to be something simple. Something like that. And she wasn't going to be afraid of looking into her own rooms. She would just look round and see that everything was all right, and then go down to Kingsley, before he got too impatient and came up to her. She might worry for days if she were too cowardly to have a look round now.
Yet she stood in the passage for a long minute, gathering courage as she listened to the noises that were without, and the silence - the almost sinister silence - that was within. Then she told herself that she wasn't really going to search for any cause of that red smear on the basin's rim: she was just going to see how the new decorations looked. And she hadn't time to do more than that. She would just glance into the rooms and then go down.
Somewhat more self-assured by the idea that her real purpose was to look at the new wall-papers, and that she wouldn't have time to look under the beds, she walked down the passage, and opened the door of her own room.
CHAPTER THREE
CORA stood in the doorway facing a young woman who sat on the side of the bed, and gazed at her with tragic eyes. A dark, brown-eyed girl with an oval face, which might never have shown much colour, but was now of an unnatural pallor.
"Perhaps you'll tell me," Cora asked, "what you're doing here?"
The girl rose uncertainly. "I'm not doing anything. I'm just going." She scarcely seemed conscious of what she said. After a pause she added: "But I suppose it's no use going now. I should be sure to get found. You'd better look at what's in the next room."
Cora had felt frightened of she knew not what as she had stood in the silent passage, but she had no fear of this evidently terrified girl. Still, as to the next room - she felt she'd like to know a little more about this one first. She said: "Never mind about the next room. What I want to know is who you are, and what you're doing in mine."
She was convinced, from the girl's manner, that she was not here with any authority from the new tenants. How, then, did she come at all into this locked flat, which might be entered at any moment by those who had a better right?
The girl looked at her for a moment in a silence of bewildered uncertainty - unless it were acting of unusual excellence and then said: "I'm Delia Russell... I came because I... I was asked. Mr. . . . Taunton asked me, of course."
Cora felt no confidence in this explanation. She felt that Miss Russell, if such she were, was uncertain about the man's name. There had been a moment in which she had paused to invent or had hesitated to give it.
"Who is Mr. Taunton?" she asked.
"You'd better look in the next room."
"Very well. Come with me."
The girl drew back. "I'd - much rather not." There was terror in her voice and eyes.
"You mean," Cora said, with a sudden certainty, as she remembered that smear of blood on the basin's side: "you mean - someone's dead there?"
"Yes. Mr. Taunton."
"How did it happen?"
"He - got shot."
"Meaning you shot him?"
"Yes - no - of course not. He shot himself."
"What made him do that?"
The question reduced the girl to a frightened silence. She seemed to feel the necessity of explanation, but to be unable to think of a likely lie.
"I suppose he wanted to," she said at length. "How should I know, any more than you?"
Cora did not attempt an answer to this conundrum. It was pleasant to think that Kingsley might even now be coming impatiently up the stairs. She said: "Well, stay here. You'd better not try doing a bolt. Kings - my husband's probably coming up now."
She had remembered that the door of the opposite bedroom was somewhat further along the passage than
that of her own. If she should go in there, though only for a moment, the girl might escape. In itself, she wouldn't have minded about that. She felt no particular ill-will toward her. But she didn't want to be left alone with a dead man, and have to do the explaining. Though there mightn't be any dead man in the case - just the nonsense or exaggeration of an obviously hysterical girl who had been caught in the wrong flat. It might be no more than a trick to get her into that room while the girl would bolt for the door.
But she didn't look as though she had any thought of bolting anywhere. She had the aspect of one who had been kicked by fate too hard to have any spirit left with which to kick back. Cora stood in the open doorway in a momentary indecision, looking at the door across the passage, which stood two or three inches open, and then back at the forlorn figure upon the bed's edge. The girl was not gazing at her. As Cora's eyes followed hers, she became subconsciously aware that the gas-fire was lighted, and that the little drawer under the slot-meter was slightly open. Then, as she was turning to cross the passage, there was a sharp, impatient ring of the door-bell, which brought Miss Russell to her feet with an exclamation of fear.
"It's only Kingsley," Cora assured her. "You needn't worry about him." And hoping that she was right, she went to open the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
"I THOUGHT you'd never - - "
"Oh, Kingsley, I'm glad you've come!"
"Well, who did you expect?... I thought you'd never come down. If you can't find that book..."
"Never mind about that. There's a girl in my bedroom."
"I thought they weren't coming in till..."
"It's not them. She's got no business here. She says there's a dead man in the spare room."
"Well, is there?"
"I haven't looked."
"It's more likely a mouse."
"I don't think it's like that. There's some blood on the bathroom basin."
For the first time Mr. Kingsley Starr became serious. Up to that moment he had not cared how many girls might be in the flat so long as one came down to the waiting car. And as to talk of a dead man that nobody'd seen - well, that's how some women do talk. We all know that.
But he knew that Cora was very far from being a fool, and when the talk is of dead men, blood is an exhibit of a confirmatory kind. His hand went instinctively to the place where his gun ought to have been, had he not abandoned so absolutely the freedoms of Chickadee, as he said: "Well, it's no use talking here. We'd better see what the trouble is." He led the way down the passage with his usual briskness.
"This is Miss Russell," Cora said, as they stood at the open door of her bedroom. "At least, so she says. She doesn't seem very clear about anything else. She says there's a dead man in the spare room."
"Then you'd better stay here, and I'll see about hauling him out." Mr. Starr stepped briskly to the other door. He was a small, lean young man, of a manner which (except when he was being teased or bullied by the young woman whom he had so lately married) was alert and confident. In the assurance that his presence gave, Cora's curiosity overcame her previous hesitations, and she was close beside him as they looked upon the unpleasant spectacle of Mr. Taunton's end.
They saw the body of a middle-aged man, of a gross ungainly corpulence, lying on his back on the bed, with his head half on the pillow and his legs over the side. The dead face still had an expression as of a sudden startled protest. The lower jaw sagged somewhat, but was supported by the triple chins that hid the short thickness of the neck, and by the position in which the body lay. It was partly dressed, in a shirt and trousers, of which one brace was fastened and the other was loose.
A heavy army revolver, of an old pattern, lay on the floor about a yard from the place where the feet of the dead man projected from the side of the bed, its muzzle pointing from him toward the door. The bed around the lower part of his body was drenched in blood, and there was another wide patch which had spread from shoulder and neck.
The room showed no sign of a struggle. It was not disordered in any way. Cora, looking round, was aware that she was not reacting to the situation in the way in which she would have expected herself to do. Her thought was: "What an ugly brute!"
She saw his coat and vest on a chair. She saw a brush and comb on the dessing-table, and other evidences that he had made himself at home in that room, at which she had a natural annoyance that was much stronger than any horror of his abrupt and violent decease. With one quick feminine glance she knew that he had been its sole occupant. Miss Russell might have called as she said. But after that it was difficult to visualize what could have occurred.
Meanwhile Kingsley had been looking at other things with critical and experienced eyes. He looked at the attitude in which the man lay. Touching nothing, he considered the probable position of the wounds, from which he had died: the position of his right hand, which was thrown out somewhat toward the centre of the bed: the position of the weapon upon the floor. He said: "You'd better fetch her along."
Not without some persuasion, and something which approached a pull as the room was entered, Miss Russell came.
Kingsley looked at her with a keen but not unfriendly scrutiny. "Shoot this guy?" he inquired, with the reversion to his native idiom which was a tendency of his more active moods.
Miss Russell plainly hesitated in her reply. It was as though she were afraid to confess, or perhaps still in doubt as to what would be the most credible lie. Then she said: "No, of course not. He shot himself."
Kingsley looked unconvinced. "Well, it's for you to say." Then he looked at Cora. He saw that she shared the thought in his own mind. "Anyway," he added to her, "it looks like the soup for us."
The three stood silent for a long moment, Miss Russell's expression gaining slightly in confidence as she felt with a sure feminine instinct that her companions were not hostile to her. In some way, she felt that the situation was bringing them their own embarrassment: dimly she felt as though they might be making her cause their own. Then she knew that Kingsley was speaking to her again.
"If he shot himself, and this is his own gun, I reckon you can't do better than face it out, and the sooner we call a cop the better it's going to be for you. . . . But if you're not so sure that they'll lap up that tale, and you reckon a get-away's the best chance - well, if you don't need to say you've seen us, we've no need to have seen you. We hadn't any need to come to this room."
Miss Russell did not react to this exhortation in any very definite way. She repealed weakly, as though self-conscious that it was an unconvincing tale: "I didn't shoot him. I tell you he shot himself."
"Well, you've got to make your own tale, and I don't say it isn't wise to think it out a bit first. . . . But I'll put you wise to one thing, for your own good. If this guy shot himself - and I wouldn't say but what he made a good guess at what he's worth if he did - there'll be his finger-marks on that gun, however it got over to where it is, which it couldn't unless he did it with his left hand.
"But if he didn't do it himself, there'll be the finger-marks of the dame who did, and it won't do anyone any harm if it has a good wipe... But if there's nothing on it but his, they'll be best left as they are." As he said this, he pulled out his hand-kerchief, and watched her as he stooped slowly toward the gun. She said nothing, but there was no displeasure on her face as she saw him pick up the revolver in the handkerchief, and carefully wipe it clean.
He noticed, as he did so, that there was only one chamber discharged, and looked thoughtfully at the signs of injury that the dead man showed, though he made no effort to investigate what they might be. He put the revolver in the dead hand, and then looked at her sharply to ask: "Left or right?" She looked bewildered at first, and then said: "I don't know. Right, I suppose. I tell you I don't know him at all."
"Have it your own way." He took the revolver again by the barrel in his handkerchiefed hand, and put it back on the floor, though much nearer than it had been before.
"It's no good," he said, with an evident dissatisfaction in his voice. "You won't make any cop believe that. I reckon you'd better clear."
He looked at the girl who seemed so incapable of any exertion or decision on her own behalf with a feeling that was half inquiry and half contempt. "Shouldn't have said she'd have killed a blue-bottle," he thought, "but you never know." He asked: "Got anywhere to go to? How's the till?"
"I've no money, if you mean that."
Mr. Starr considered again. He produced five one-pound notes. "Then you'd better take these. Know Hammersmith Broadway? Well, you'd better take a look at my car. If it's there in an hour's time, it'll mean you're to step in. If not, it will just mean that we've changed our minds, and you'll have to go your own way."
He led her to the window, and pointed to an old two-seater car on the other side of the street, far below. It was just possible to see it without leaning out. "You'd better take a good look, but I don't want to be seen looking out with you."
That might be prudence, but the risk did not seem considerable. They were higher than the top of the opposite buildings. No one was looking up from below.
Miss Russell came back from the window. "I suppose I ought to thank you," she said, in a more normal and more animated voice than she had used previously. "I do thank you very much, whether you meet me or not. There aren't many who would have taken it like this - especially when I haven't told you the truth."
"You needn't thank us for that," Kingsley replied easily, "we don't want to be hindered here. You see we only got married this morning. And besides, we've been through it ourselves."
"Been through it?" the girl asked vaguely; but Mr. Starr offered no further explanation. He may not have felt that it was quite the best time and place for discursive confidences. She added, with a belated appreciation of the earlier part of his explanation: "I am sorry. It must seem a dreadful nuisance to you. Hadn't I better go now?"
"No. You'd better stay where you are till we've quit. You can come out when you like after you've seen the car start. . . . Come on, Cora, there's no use in losing more time."
With no further words, Mr. Starr and his bride left the flat together.
CHAPTER FIVE
"I NEVER thought," Cora remarked cheerfully, as they sat at lunch five minutes later in the restaurant of the Palace Hotel, "I never thought that I should have a dull life with you."
"If you think this is anything to do with me - " Kingsley protested, rather sulkily.
"Of course I don't. It's just luck. But you must agree it's a bit queer."
Kingsley did not deny that. It was his own thought. It was only a few months since he and his sister George (now married to Cora's brother, and watching the recession of the English coast from the deck of a Channel steamer), had been involved in the fatal shooting of a gentleman of the name of Bulfwin, and though he had been no more than an American crook, the bumping off of whom in his own country should have been a minor detail in a good day's work, yet there had been some very anxious weeks before they had been able to feel that the laws of evidence (as they are interpreted by the British mind) had combined with Cora's ingenuity to divert the pursuing shadow of the indignant law.
Still, a habit of association with assassinated gentlemen in deserted rooms - It was an idea which could be appreciated between them without words. To have gone to the police with the simple, truthful, unconvincing tale that Cora had come unexpectedly to her own flat, and found it encumbered by the presence of a dead man and a frightened girl - Well, the police might have said: "Thanks very much. It was very good of you to come on the scene when you did, and to let us know." Or they might have taken it in quite a different way. At the best, there was the probability of some more or less involuntary detention, of the taking of statements, of questioning at Scotland Yard. At the worst, might not the police say: "You got away with it once, though we seldom had a clearer case than came into our hands when it was too late to use it against you, but if you think you're going to get away with it a second time - !" Not knowing what had happened, it was difficult to guess how easy or how difficult it might be to prove that that recently-discharged revolver had not been in Kingsley's hands when the trigger fell. Between him and Miss Russell, it was easy to see on which side of the balance of probabilities the scale would tilt. Of course, if they knew the truth - . But, without that, it would seem that they were doing no more than to attempt concealment with an unconvincing denial. It would have been so different if it had been the first time!
"I can't think," Cora said at last, after they had digested the position in a mutual silence, "why you told her to meet us at Hammersmith."
"Well, she mayn't come."
"But if she does?"
"Well, we needn't be there."
"But you didn't mean that."
"I wasn't sure. I wanted time to think - and to talk it over."
"It seems to me that the less we see of her the better."
"Or the police."
"Yes, I see that."
"It seems this way to me," Kingsley explained after an interval of silence, "if they get that young woman, and she says nothing about us, we've no more to worry about. But could you trust her for that? If she squeals, as she most likely will, about our being there, and won't say anything else except that she thinks that he shot himself - which you can take it from me that he didn't do - you can't tell where it might end.
"If we give her a lift now, we might dump her somewhere where she wouldn't be over-easy to catch, and, if she were caught at last, she could keep her mouth shut about two things as well as one.
"It isn't only that. We might get her to tell us the truth, and we'd know better where we can pull out. . . . And it gives the cops some time to find out what it all means while we're clear away. I don't know how you feel, but I don't want to be locked up while they're finding out that they've got the wrong man - if they ever would."
"It wasn't quite what we'd planned," Cora admitted, with a cheerfulness which suggested that she did not think the danger to be beyond avoidance. "I suppose we'd better give her a lift. . . . The worst is, we'll be a bit jammed, and that makes people look. It's a lucky thing that she's slim. . . . And if we're going to do that, it's about time that we made a move."
CHAPTER SIX
THE car moved slowly through the crowded Hammersmith traffic, and stopped opposite a tobacconist's shop.
"You'd better go in, and be a good time trying to buy some cigarettes that they don't keep. You'll be all right about that if you ask for the Chickadee brands. If she doesn't turn up by when you come out - well, she'll be too late."
Kingsley agreed about that. "We're not going to stay here till the cops stare at the car."
Cora was left at the steering-wheel, to exercise the female faculty which can observe the dresses of a hundred women around and behind without movement of eye or neck. For a few moments she watched vainly for the red beret and two-piece nigger-brown costume, with every detail of which (including the little darn under the left elbow) she had become familiar an hour ago.
She was deciding, with some mental relief, that she was destined to complete the day without a measure of female society in excess of that which is customary for such an occasion - for even the exciting experience through which she had passed did not entirely obliterate the fact that she had gone through a wedding ceremony a few hours ago - when she became aware that the remembered dress was emerging from the door of a tea-shop only a few yards away. Without pause or hesitation, it approached the car, and, as Cora leaned sideways to open the door, it stepped in and sat down be side her. Almost at the same moment, Kingsley came out of the tobacconist's, where he had been a difficult but finally remunerative customer, wedged himself promptly and without comment beside the young woman who was separating him from his six-hours' bride, and Cora turned the car into the stream of traffic, unregarded by the passing crowd.
She was clear of the congestion of Hammersmith, and in the comparative quietude of the Richmond Road, when she addressed her companion: "Is there anywhere you'd particularly like to go?"
Miss Russell, still pale, but more self-possessed than she had been previously, continued to gaze forward into vacancy as she answered: "No. I don't think so. Wherever you're going, of course - - "
"But we're not going anywhere."
The reply stirred her to a faint surprise, a flicker of animation. She looked at Cora, to say: "Not going - ? I beg your pardon."
Cora thought, with approval, that she would be an exceptionally pretty girl under more favourable circumstances. Not one, she decided also, who was likely to make a habit of shooting corpulent gentlemen in abandoned flats, however necessary or desirable she might have found it in the present instance.
Kingsley was first to explain: "You see, we thought we'd go where we liked, without planning anything first."
The girl did not appear dissatisfied at this programme. She may have thought that those who do not themselves know where they are going may not be easy to trace. "It doesn't matter," she said, "to me." And then, after a moment's further thought: "But I don't know that I should care to be put down in a small place. Not where people talk. And I don't want to be a nuisance. I know you can't want me here. . . . I thought a seaside place might be best. . . . I could take a train somewhere, if you put me down."
Mr. Starr considered this, and decided that she might not be quite such a fool as her first behaviour had appeared to indicate. Certainly, a seaside place would be the easiest for a solitary girl to take temporary lodging without exciting curiosity, or being invited to explain her antecedents.
"There's no need to drop you for that," he said, looking across to Cora, who gave a nod of assent. She had the same thought as he: "Not such a fool as she looked." She said: "South's the word," and considered her imperfect knowledge of Sussex. But they would be sure to get somewhere, if she kept due south. You can't miss the English Channel, and the best roads lead to the larger towns.
After a time she said: "We'll go through Kingston and Surbiton. I think that gets us on the Dorking road. I'm not sure beyond there. Brighton, more likely than not: but we're sure of a seaside town."
"Plenty of time?" Kingsley queried.
"Lots."
So there was, but Cora's foot pressed the accelerator all the same. She didn't want this young woman on her hands all night.
It was 7.15 p.m. when they entered the outskirts of Worthing, and pulled up at a suburban tram-stop for Delia to alight. They had decided that it would be best for her to enter the town separately and find a solitary lodging. Inclination may have supported
judgment in the formation of this programme. Other motives of prudence or curiosity may have prompted Cora's suggestion that they should meet on the beach next morning. "There'll be seats along the front somewhere, for sure," she said confidently. "We'll look out for you between eleven and twelve. Anyone can sit down on the same seat. . . . You'll find five pounds won't go far here. . . . You'll have to pay something in advance, having no luggage, more likely than not. . . . We can talk it all over then."
Miss Russell agreed to that. But she decided in a mind which was now functioning more efficiently than it had done a few hours earlier, that she would not be such a fool as to present herself anywhere without the customary suitcase. You can easily buy one before 7.30 p.m. in a seaside town.
CHAPTER SEVEN
COMFORTABLE settled at the Beach Hotel, and under the delusion that is customary under such circumstances that they were not recognized as being newly married - a fact which was obvious to every member of the staff, for the unmarried couples invariably arrived at the weekend, and usually left on the following Tuesday morning - the Starrs contrived to enjoy themselves in appropriate ways, only punctuated by unpleasant moments of anticipation as the morning papers were opened, and by occasions when Kingsley would stroll off by himself, while Cora talked to a dark girl wearing a red beret, who happened to share her seat on the promenade.
This condition continued until the afternoon of the fifth day, when, as they came out of the subdued light of a Kinema, where they had been entertained with the Mystery of The Frightened Lady, to the glare of the sunlit street, they were confronted by the posters of the afternoon papers, announcing respectively: LONDON MONEYLENDER FOUND SHOT and TRAGIC MYSTERY OF LONDON FLAT, from which it was quite easy to conclude that the attention of the London police had been directed to the manner of Mr. Taunton's end.
"The curtain," Kingsley remarked, not without a note of cheerfulness in his voice, "appears to be rung up." He looked at Cora and observed that her face was clouded with an expression of anxiety.
"I'm not worrying about ourselves," she assured him, as he bought a paper, and resisted an indiscreet impulse to obtain a copy of the rival organ also, "I should think we're quite safe by now. I was thinking of that poor girl."
Kingsley thought rather differently about that. He thought that the security of all of them depended about equally upon the "poor girl" not being connected with Mr. Taunton's decease. If she got caught, he was sceptical about her capacity to flounder out without pulling him in, but he felt that it would be a mistake to discuss it there.
"You'd better not begin thinking," he said reasonably, "till we've read the account. It's a bit soon to look excited before you know it's your flat. We'll go somewhere and get some tea."
Cora felt the rebuke. She said: "It's all right about tea, but I want to buy something first."
With a self-control which has rarely been equalled in the records of feminine heroism, she bought two pairs of stockings, about the shade of which she was by no means easy to please, while Kingsley, with the folded paper under his arm, was waiting outside the shop.
It was only when they were seated at a table from which the waitress withdrew that Kingsley read the first details of the discovered tragedy, while Cora poured tea with a steady hand.
He passed the paper over to her as he received the cup. "It looks rather like your flat," he remarked with a sufficient excitement, and in a voice which might easily be audible to those at surrounding tables.
"So now I can register the appropriate emotions," she retorted in a lower tone, and with a smile which would have misled anyone who had been observing them, as she took the paper and commenced to read the account. Really, there was not much there beyond what they already knew. The discovery had been made that morning, and only allowed time for some first hurried telephoned particulars before the paper had gone to press. Paucity of facts was obscured by the size of type in which the news was given.
The tragedy had taken place at 37 Murdoch Mansions. There was no ambiguity about that: "from which the owners are understood to be absent on holiday for an indefinite period." No names were given. The Press moved warily among facts which it had not yet had time to verify. Important people may live in Knightsbridge flats. "The police are reticent, but it is understood that, from the nature of the wounds, and other circumstances, they are disinclined to accept the theory of suicide."
It appeared that the investigation had been undertaken in consequence of a communication which had been received at Scotland Yard from a firm of house agents in Mount Street, whose suspicions had been aroused regarding the circumstances under which they had negotiated a tenancy of the flat. Inspector Cleveland had the matter in hand.
"I think," Cora remarked, as she handed the paper back, "I'd better ring up Hendersons."
Kingsley looked his surprise. They had agreed that, if or when the crime should become public knowledge, they would ring up Scotland Yard at once. Hendersons would be sure to tell the police that Cora had visited the flat after it had been handed over to them, and at a time when the decorators had left. She should have been the last to enter it until the new tenants took possession. The police would be sure to want to interview her, and it would be much best that she should not wait for them to hunt her down. Besides, it was much better that she should go up to Town than that they should come poking round here, with Delia sometimes sitting on the next bench.
"I thought we'd agreed - " Kingsley began.
Cora rarely troubled him to complete a sentence. Now she interrupted with: "So we had, but we haven't now." Finding him to be subdued to a proper silence by that retort, she condescended to explanation.
"Can't you see that we were supposing that it would not be found out when the new tenants came on the scene, and be nothing to do with them? Hadn't we agreed that this man Taunton must have got possession somehow without anyone knowing, and felt sure he wouldn't be disturbed, as we were all getting married that day? But if these Mount Street people knew there was something wrong, it must have been something a bit fishy about the tenants themselves, and Hendersons shouldn't have let it to such people at all. It's a very annoying thing, and it's natural I should ring them up. I don't know how much the flat has been damaged, and I don't even know for sure whether they've paid the six months' rent in advance, though I expect they have, and Ted may."
"It's really Ted's flat, not yours?"
"There's no difference in that, especially with Ted being away."
"No, I suppose not." He saw that it might be the best course.
"Of course it is," she said confidently. "If I talk to Hendersons I shall find out all that they know, and they won't be wanting to get things out of me, like the police would."
"Well, let's get somewhere and find a booth."
"We'll do that best at the hotel. It doesn't matter who knows." She got up with the word. Kingsley left the paper upon the table, and as they regained the street he bought a copy of a later issue of its competitor. Opening it in the privacy of their own room, they gained no further information than was contained in the following paragraph, which appeared in the late news column:
Major Edward Cattell-Pratt, the permanent tenant of 37 Murdoch Mansions who is at present in Paris, in answer to a telephone call this afternoon, stated that he let the flat about a fortnight ago to tenants of undoubted respectability. He had no previous knowledge of Mr. Cavendish Taunton, who could have no legitimate business in the flat as far as he was aware. He was unable to throw any light on the tragedy.
"Won't Ted be wild!" Cora remarked, as she digested this paragraph. "I hope they told him it was only in the spare bedroom, but I don't suppose they had that much sense. He'd hate to have anyone making a mess of his... Well, I suppose I'd better find out what Hendersons have got to say for themselves." She picked up the receiver and asked the hotel operator to get her Kensington 3984.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MR. HENDERSON was apologetic, but emphatic that the fault was not his. He had had Major Cattell-Pratt on the telephone from Paris half an hour earlier, and believed he had fully satisfied him of this already.
The fault rested entirely with Messrs. Thom and Porter, the Mount Street agents, who, it was only right to say, had assumed a very proper attitude, and accepted full responsibility. There was no doubt that they had been grossly deceived. The flat had really been taken for the use of Mr. Taunton, for what purpose he could not undertake to say.
But really he did not know that the affair would be so unsatisfactory. That was, from a financial standpoint. Of course, apart from that, he could quite understand how Mrs. Starr felt. It was an unpleasant thing to happen in anyone's own flat. But he hoped he was right in thinking that neither Mrs. Starr nor the Major had intended to make any regular use of it in future. Apart from that, he had the half-year's rent in hand. He had received the £50 toward the cost of renovation. Thom and Porter had suggested that Taunton's estate would be liable for any damage which might have been occasioned in the room in which the - death - had occurred.
Cora noticed the pause on the word, and interrupted him to say that she couldn't imagine why the man should have wished to commit suicide in her rooms. Why didn't he choose his own?
Mr. Henderson said it wasn't certain that it was suicide. He thought the police were more inclined to the murder theory. But he really couldn't say much about it. No doubt, it would all come out at the inquest. The inquest would be held tomorrow afternoon.
Cora, hearing that, felt a sudden doubt of whether it would not be a mistake to return to London as promptly as she had resolved to do. She had made up her mind what she was going to say, and she would much rather say it to Inspector Cleveland in his own room, than in the publicity of the Coroner's Court. But this was not a thought which she was likely to confide to Mr. Henderson, and as she was silent he resumed the explanation which her question had interrupted.
He had been speaking of the damage to the flat. Thom and Porter thought that it could probably be charged to Taunton's estate. He was not sure about that. (He did not elaborate his doubt, the subject being unpleasant for discussion with such a young lady as Mrs. Starr, but he saw a possible legal difficulty in setting up the proposition that a man is liable for damage caused by an involuntary distribution of his own blood.) Still, if Taunton were shown to be in illegal possession of the flat - . And, in any case, it was of little practical importance to the Major or Mrs. Starr, Thom and Porter having accepted responsibility.
He supposed - he need scarcely ask - that Mrs.
Starr had noticed nothing irregular - nothing that suggested that the flat was already in occupation - when she had called that morning? Or perhaps she had not had time to call, after all?
Cora said: Yes, she had looked in. She had seen some food in the dustbin which had puzzled her, looking so fresh, but it went out of her mind afterwards. She hadn't been there long. Mr. Starr had called for her almost as soon as she arrived.
But she had noticed nothing more serious than that? Cora countered with another question: Was it likely that she would have come away, if she had?
There was one question he might ask, as he knew the police were anxious to know - but, by the way, could he give them Mrs. Starr's address, as he thought they might like her own account of the state of the flat when she had called? He was sure they wouldn't wish to trouble her more than necessary.
Cora said: yes, of course; though she was afraid, if they were depending on any help she could give, they wouldn't get very far. But what was the question he had been going to ask?
Oh, about the keys! Of course, Mrs. Starr still had the one she had mentioned to him - the one with which she had entered the flat herself? And was it the only one beside the two which had been handed over to Thom and Porter, and which had been found, still tied together, in the dead man's pocket?
Cora said that there had never been more than three keys, as far as she knew. She still had her own. It was a point on which she could speak with sincerity.
Mr. Henderson was about to say that he hoped that she was having a good holiday, and how did she like Worthing? And how was Mr. Starr? And he hoped she wouldn't let this unfortunate incident trouble her mind, when the call, which had been extended more than once already, was abruptly terminated.
Cora laid down the receiver with the remark: "I've learnt a bit, though not much. They don't seem to think it's suicide - - ."
"No, I didn't reckon they would."
"And they're puzzled somehow about the keys. They can't know much about what happened, for they don't know for a fact that I called at all. At least, Mr. Henderson didn't. I suppose Inspector Cleveland will be ringing up in about ten minutes. You heard what I said... I wonder whether we'd better go out."
CHAPTER NINE
INSPECTOR CLEVELAND did not ring up. He received the address of Mr. and Mrs. Starr from Mr. Henderson with considerable relief, for he had wished to have some conversation with Cora before the inquest, and his first efforts to trace the newly-married couple had been unsuccessful, being based on a knowledge of the fact that they had started with a vague intention of exploring the West of England, and knowing nothing of the event which had caused them to deviate to the nearer coast.
He had not anticipated that he would gain anything of value from this conversation, but he had better reason than he had thought necessary to communicate to Mr. Henderson for supposing that Cora had actually been in the flat on the morning, of her marriage, and it was an obvious routine to interview her under such circumstances. Naturally, he did not wish to fail at an operation which should be so simple as the tracing of these two people, who could have no thought of running away, and who were touring England in a car of which he not only knew the number, but could give a description from his own knowledge. Certainly, it would not have been many further hours before he would have located them.
Having the address, and learning that they were scarcely more than fifty miles away, he decided that he would not content himself with a telephone call, which might be unsatisfactory, nor ask her to interrupt her holiday to come back to London, probably to no sufficient purpose: he would go down to Worthing in the morning, and if she could give any information of unexpected value - well, she could come back with him, and be in time for the inquest in the afternoon.
He did not expect to be regarded as an unwelcome visitor, for he had known Cora for many years, and her brother was his intimate friend. If he were less friendly with Mr. Starr, it did not alter the fact that he had once done him a good turn of the first magnitude, and had felt obliged to tender his resignation at Scotland Yard (though it had not been accepted) in consequence.
Certainly, he did not suspect either Cora or her husband of being implicated in the murder (for he rejected the possibility of suicide) in any way. What he wanted was to fix; the time of the tragedy. That would narrow his inquiries, and might become evidence of a vital kind when he should have arrested the criminal, which he had little doubt that, with sufficient patience, he should be able to do.
But he did not call it an easy case. It was not that there was any difficulty in suggesting a possible motive for the murder, or even a possible criminal. The trouble was that there were so many - and might be others to which, at present, he had no clue. So far, his suspicions were most strongly directed toward a man who had been released from prison about three weeks ago, and who had good cause (or at least he had said so when in the dock) to hate Isaac Marks - which was the name by which Cavendish Taunton was known at police headquarters. But that was no more than a bare suspicion. He had no evidence to identify him with the crime. Of course, if he could connect him with the weapon in any way... But he had learnt the importance of approaching these investigations with an open mind.
It was a few minutes before ten next morning when he put up his motor-cycle in the garage of the Beach Hotel. He inquired for Mrs. Starr, and her husband received him in the hotel lounge.
He felt, with a sensitiveness which had become abnormal by practice, that Kingsley was not pleased to see him, but that might easily e explained by the memories which his presence brought.
Mrs. Starr, it appeared, was out shopping. After that, she was not coming back. Kingsley said that he was proposing to join her on the Esplanade. But that was to be at 11.30. Perhaps the Inspector would like a drink?
The Inspector said that he never drank before noon. He was anxious to see Mrs. Starr as soon as possible. He must be back in London for the inquest in the afternoon. Perhaps the best way would be to have a look round for her. Kingsley said he would come along. He would much rather have kept the Inspector there. He knew that the most probable place in which Cora would be found during the next hour would be? seat on the sea front with a young lady in a red beret beside her.
Assuming that Miss Russell would have read of the discovery of the crime - if such it were - in the newspapers, Cora had wished to warn her that she had given her own address for communication to the police on the previous evening, and to suggest that they should meet, if at all, with an added caution during the next few days. Beyond this, she may have had things to say of which Kingsley was not aware, for Miss Russell had given her a degree of confidence which even he had not been invited to share.
Kingsley said he would come out with the Inspector and help in running his wife to earth. The Inspector was suitably grateful, but declined, saying that he could get over the ground more quickly on his bike. Kingsley could not object to that. He said that there would be plenty of time to find her, and get back to London for the afternoon. Was the Inspector sure that he wouldn't like a drink first?
Inspector Cleveland, altering his mind, compromised on a lemonade. Kingsley ordered two. They sat down together.
CHAPTER TEN
EVEN among friends, Inspector Cleveland was not randomly garrulous. If he gave information, it was because he thought it would suit his purpose to do so, or that he might obtain more in exchange.
But he had no cause to suspect Mr. Starr of any complicity in the present crime, nor of any possible motive for concealing or aiding those who were responsible for it. It appeared to him that Isaac Marks had obtained possession of that flat with such elaborate and peculiar secrecy with the object of meeting those whom he would not encounter in a more open way, and that they had reacted to his advances (whatever those might be) in an unpleasantly unexpected manner. Or he might have gone into hiding there from a danger which he had cause to dread, and which had yet pursued him successfully.
Neither proposition was rendered improbable by the record of Isaac Marks. He had been a black-mailer in earlier years, and that disreputable and dangerous profession had brought him the means of setting up as a money-lender. He had commenced that business after a short term of imprisonment on a minor count of an indictment concerning which a gullible jury had found him not guilty of the more serious issues. After that warning, he appeared to have abandoned blackmail for a more legal if not more reputable occupation. Neither is it one that induces friendship with its reluctant clients. The Inspector recognized that Isaac Marks had come to a natural end. Had he known that Kingsley had walked out of the flat after the tragedy had occurred, and leaving a young woman there whom he had subsequently picked up in Hammersmith, he might have considered that a new and profitable line of inquiry was opening before him. Having no suspicion of this, he was only concerned to gather the stray crumbs of contributory evidence with which Cora might be able to supply him. And there might be no harm in just having Mr. Starr's version of what this was going to be.
"Oh, yes," he said readily, "it was murder right enough. They'll call Sir Lionel Tipshift to prove that. It's just wasting a big fee, but it's the usual thing. Anyone could tell it wasn't suicide, with a child's sense. . . . The bullet must have been fired from about four or five feet distance. It must have hit him just as he was about to rise. He'd got his legs half off the bed, and may have lifted his head, but he was still lying on his back, as he may have been asleep, or just resting. The bullet went the whole length of his body, and came out near the back of his neck."
"So one was about enough?"
"Yes. There was only one shot. It was a heavy, old-fashioned army revolver."
So that was it. It was a point over which Kingsley had been puzzling ever since he had looked down on the dead man. He had thought that he must have been shot at least twice, and yet the revolver had been discharged from one chamber only. The bullet must have travelled almost from end to end of his body in a slightly downward direction, and the wound bled freely at both ends. No use theorizing about suicide in face of that. He asked: "Any finger-marks on the gun?"
"Not as many as we should like," the Inspector answered cautiously. "But I wouldn't say it won't help."
Kingsley saw that he had gone far enough. He must avoid giving any impression that he was trying to pump the Inspector, for whose abilities he had some respect. He said: "I'm afraid Cora won't be much help."
"You can never be sure of that. We have to piece the facts together, bit after bit, and it may be the least of all that shows us how they all fall into place. There's one thing I want to know that you might be able to help me to check. I want to know just what time it was when Cora got to the flat."
"I don't think I could tell you that. I know when I fetched her away. You see, she went to Hendersons first, when she left me."
"Yes, so I understood. . . . Well, I dare say she'll know. . . . I suppose you didn't go over the flat yourself enough to see whether anything had been disturbed?"
Kingsley observed to himself that the Inspector was assuming that he had gone up, unless he knew from some other source, but he was too wary to show any sign of that.
"No," he answered, with an apparent readiness, "I can't say I did. If Cora told me what she saw in the dustbin - which she didn't do till next day - I might have looked a bit more. All I wanted then was to get her away, and I wouldn't say but what she was willing to come."
There was as much truth in that statement as the circumstances allowed, and to the Inspector's mind, it sounded a likely tale.
"But she'd better tell you what she saw in her own way," Kingsley added. It was well enough to be getting all the information he could, but he didn't intend that the Inspector should have the opportunity of finding discrepancies in a twice-told tale. And now he knew that there had only been one shot, he saw the added probability that it came from Miss Russell's hand. Thinking of two shots, and of a weapon which had disappeared, he had felt that there had been others there before Cora came on the scene. But that point was explained now.
"Well," the Inspector was saying, "I'd better get on the move. . . . See you later, more likely than not."
"Yes. I'll be strolling round."
The Inspector went for his bike.
Kingsley followed a few minutes later, and it is perhaps not very surprising that he was the first to find Cora, as he knew better where to look. She was seated about where he expected, and the red beret was not more than two feet away. He made a third on the seat.
He was conscious that he was not warmly received. The conversation which he had interrupted was not resumed, and there seemed to be no disposition to commence another. He thought that he would rouse the interest of his companions sufficiently when he said: "Cleveland's come down to see you before the inquest. He's looking round for you on his bike. We'd best break apart now."
Cora frowned slightly, but did not seem greatly perturbed. She did not feel in any great dread of Inspector Cleveland, whom she had known from childhood. Besides, it was an expected thing. But she made no motion to rise
"I'm not so sure about that," she said doubtfully. "It's what we were talking over when you came up. But we hadn't quite made up our minds. . . . I wish you'd get me some cigarettes."
Kingsley looked at his wife with some astonishment, and a possible mutiny in his eyes, but he had learnt that there were moments when Cora knew her own mind, and would not be easy to turn. He had met them before, and had found that it had been the more pleasant course not to oppose them, and perhaps the more profitable also. He looked beyond her to the dark oval of Delia's face. It was troubled enough, but showed no disinclination to yield submission to Cora's guidance. He got up with: "Well, it won't have been my fault if we all hang in a row."
"Don't be beastly," Cora said, with an unusual sharpness in her voice. "If you'll only go off and get those cigarettes, no one's going to hang anywhere."
Kingsley went, feeling a good deal less sure about that. He felt that the Inspector was equally confident of bringing matters to a different end. He had been foiled once before, but that made it about a hundred times less likely that he would be foiled again. Kingsley had sound realization of the improbability of his being concerned, however distantly, in a series of murders in which the murderers would not be brought to trial. All the same, if Cora decided to take the reins, it might only end in a bigger smash if he should attempt to snatch them. He strolled off obediently to purchase the cigarettes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KINGSLEY did not hurry back from his purchase, feeling that the warmth of his first reception had not been sufficient to encourage such an exertion, and realizing that Cora, whether for good or evil, was resolved to play the game in her own way. But he returned in sufficient time to observe the Inspector approaching at a greater distance, but much more rapidly, from the opposite direction.
The two girls. were seated as before, making it evident that they had resolved to face Inspector Cleveland together. It was natural that Kingsley should conclude that he was to be told some tale, whether true or false, as to Miss Russell's part in the murder, and he had a moment of regret that he had offered that lemonade and allowed opportunity for the conversation that had resulted. If the programme were to be one of open confession, he had made a bad preparation by denying any knowledge of what had occurred.
Not allowing himself to worry overmuch about that which it was too late to alter, and concealing some inward irritation: behind a carefree demeanour, he joined the little group who were now shaking hands with a satisfactory. aspect of affability, and was in time to hear Miss Russell introduced with feminine calmness as "a friend we've made down here at least, not exactly made, we met at the flat once before."
The: Inspector did not appear to accept the introduction with more than perfunctory politeness, or interest. He did not start at the name as being that of a criminal he already pursued. Kingsley was inclined to strengthen his opinion that whatever improprieties of violence Delia Russell might have committed in his wife's flat, she did not belong to that numerous class of the community who may be sufficiently grouped together as being "known to the police".
The preliminaries of politeness over, the Inspector said promptly that he was sorry to be a nuisance, but his time was rather short before he must be returning to London, and if Mrs. Starr would give him half an hour?
"You needn't worry about that," Cora said in her sweetest manner, "you're not a nuisance at all. We're all dying to hear about it. I was just saying to Delia before you arrived that I hoped it wouldn't be long before you turned up. I'd have given anything to have heard Ted when you told him what a mess there had been. He always says it's bad manners to swear on the phone."
Inspector Cleveland replied more seriously: "I think, Mrs. Starr, if you wouldn't mind - - ."
"Why not 'Cora' as usual?"
"If you could give me half an hour for a quiet talk?... I've got to be back in London for the afternoon."
"I thought at least you might stay
for lunch, now you are here."
"I'm afraid I can't. You see, the inquest's at four."
"Then there's plenty of time for an early lunch before you start,,,, I'll tell you what. We can't all sit in a row and talk here. We'll go somewhere where we can have something to eat, and talk comfortably. I'll tell you all I can, but I'm afraid you won't get any clues out of me, unless an empty sardine-tin does the trick."
With no perceptible pause of hesitation, Inspector Cleveland said politely that that would do for him, if it wasn't too early for them, and receiving the necessary assurances of a common hunger, they left the seat beside which they had been standing as this conversation proceeded, and walked up to the town together.
He would have preferred, rather from habit than judgment, to take Cora's statement in a more formal way. Had she been a stranger to him, he would have proceeded by the vague intimidation of an invitation to the police station in the first instance, where she would have been expected to sign a version of her narrative transformed into the official jargon which is supposed to be used by all classes of the community when they impart information to the police. But he could hardly proceed with such formality in the case of his friend's sister, and one whose connection with the crime was of so vague and preliminary a kind. He reflected in a shrewd mind that there could be no harm in letting her talk before her companions. It was unlikely that she had any information to give which required secrecy, and it was almost certain that she would have told it already, possibly ten times over, to her husband and her female friend. Should it afterwards appear desirable, he could take a more formal statement, or even invite her to accompany him back to London, where she could give evidence if required.
He walked beside her to the Imperial, while she chatted cheerfully on indifferent subjects. Kingsley followed with Miss Russell in an unusual silence. His first idea that there was to be a programme of complete confession had been substantially altered as the conversation proceeded, Being mystified, he felt that silence was his safest attitude. He had no doubt that Delia knew a good deal more than himself, but he was too discreet to question her with the Inspector a short and varying distance before them. He looked at her with an observant curiosity. She showed an aspect of aloof serenity, but he thought that it was only by a conscious effort that she was able to do so. He remarked that there might be rain before night, to which she agreed.
Entering the Imperial in advance of his companions, the Inspector took control of the position. He ordered a private room and a light lunch.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"I UNDERSTAND," the Inspector began, when the waiter withdrew, and the conversation could be both private and uninterrupted, "that you had occasion to go to the flat, which you had not visited for about a fortnight previously, on the morning of your wedding, and immediately after the ceremony, and that Mr. Starr subsequently called for you in his car, and you left together. Mr. Henderson has told us that you called to inform him of your intention, in new of the fact that the flat was actually let to a tenant at the time."
"No, I didn't know that till I called."
"Then, why - - ?"
"Because I knew the inventory had been taken, and it was in Mr. Henderson's charge, and I wasn't sure that I ought to go there without mentioning it. I thought the new tenants weren't coming in for another week."
"Then you did know it was let?"
"Yes, if you mean that way."
"I said let, not occupied. But it doesn't really matter. What I want to know is when you got there, and what condition the flat was in."
"You want to know when I got there, not when we left?"
"Yes. We know within five minutes when you left. You were seen to leave by a porter who was due on duty, and who was coming up the street at the time. But, unfortunately, it's not that we want to know. It's when you arrived."
"Is it really important?"
"It may be. Very."
Seeing that the Inspector did not propose to enlighten her further until he had her reply, Cora turned her mind to the required calculation.
"It must have been about half-past eleven."
"Not before?"
"Not much, anyway."
"Would 10.55 be a possible time?"
"No. I'm sure it wouldn't."
"Do you remember whether you met anyone as you went up?"
"No, I don't think I did."
"Nobody coming out of the flat on the floor below? The one with the door by the stairs?"
"No. I don't think so. Why?"
"Because a lady was seen to go up to the flat shortly before eleven - or, at least, it couldn't be later than that. And, of course, if it were you there is nothing more to investigate in that direction. We were inclined to assume that it was you at first, but there is a difficulty about the time. The lady who saw someone go past her door left by taxi to catch the 11.10 a.m. at Paddington for the Welsh coast. She is not sure how long it was before she left that she saw this lady. It was when she opened the door to a man hawking bootlaces. But it must have been before eleven. You see the importance of this. If it is certain that it could not have been you, there must have been a woman - presumably an acquaintance of Taunton's - who had access to the flat."
"But Mr. Henderson said that he had both the keys in his own pocket."
"Yes, but we don't know how long they'd been there. Besides, he might have been there that morning and let her in. The first question is, could it possibly have been you that the woman saw?"
Cora was not naturally an untruthful girl. Besides, she could see no use in a lie which calculation would inevitably destroy. The time when she left the Registrar's could be proved within a very few minutes. She said frankly: "If it was before eleven, I don't see how it could."
"So I thought, but I preferred to be quite sure. As a matter of fact, the description isn't like you in the least. But there's not much in that. Descriptions seldom are, unless they've read them in the papers first."
"She only saw the girl, not the man?"
"No. It's a curious thing that no one saw Taunton at all, either entering or leaving. The porters did not even know that the flat had been entered at all since the painters left, though the one who saw you in the street naturally assumed that you had been there."
Kingsley, having ears for the conversation, and eyes to spare for Miss Russell, who was seated opposite to him, and on the Inspector's right - Cora being on his other side - was glad to observe that his attention was so directed that he did not see the look of relief which passed over the paleness of her face, which had visibly increased as this conversation proceeded,
"The other point," the Inspector went on, is whether you saw any signs that the flat was already in occupation. You see, it was several days after you were there that the discovery was made, and we don't even know (apart from any information you can give us) whether the murder may not have occurred before you were there. Sir Lionel gives his opinion that death had taken place not more than four days before. Dr. Foulkes - the police surgeon who first inspected the body - thinks it was longer. How far did you look over the flat,?"
"I went into the kitchen, and the lounge and my own bedroom."
"You didn't go all over the flat?"
"No. I hadn't any reason to."
"You might have wished to see how the new decorations looked. But if you didn't, there's no more to be said. Could you absolutely swear that there was no one else in the flat while you were there?"
"No, I couldn't swear that. It all seemed very quiet. But I didn't go into every room. I didn't go into Ted's bedroom."
"Nor the one at the back? The one opposite yours? You couldn't swear as a fact that the man might not have, been lying there dead at the time?"
"No, I couldn't swear that."
Cora's answers were clear and serious now. The touch of flippancy, which had faintly annoyed the Inspector during their earlier conversation was entirely gone. He thought what a good witness she would make.
Her own thought was a gratified wonder at the way in which his questions had been worded, as though to save her from the need of lying. But would he believe that she had not done so, if he should learn more of the truth, in a few days' time, as she knew that he would be likely to do?
Apart from that, she had realized for the first time, as she replied to his questions, that there really might have been others in the flat at the time. She had assumed that there had been no one but themselves and Delia and the dead man. But Ted's bedroom might have held half a dozen others for all she - or perhaps Delia - knew. Still - the sound of that shot - . No, she had no doubt that it had been empty - but she couldn't say that she knew.
"Do you mind telling me," the Inspector was asking, "not that it's likely to be of any direct importance, but so that I may have a clear account, just why you went to the flat?"
"Because I hate seeing people go off by train."
"It doesn't sound a very clear reason for doing that."
"No, I suppose not. I might have got out of it other ways. It wasn't only that either. I thought Ted had been careless about leaving papers about, and he said he hadn't, and I thought I'd see for myself."
"That wasn't what you told me," Kingsley interjected, in a slightly indignant bewilderment. "You said you'd got to go for a book."
Cora's natural dimple took its accustomed place for the first time during this conversation, as she answered: "Well, then, that's what it must have been. It wasn't likely I'd want to give Ted away about something he said he hadn't done, and I only guessed that he had."
"And you found these papers?" the Inspector suggested, "and tore them up?"
"Yes, those that didn't matter to anyone. I brought the others away."
"Nothing whatever to do with Taunton, or this case, in whatever way?"
"Oh, no. Nothing at all. They were mostly letters to other agents about letting the flat. We'd offered it for a bit less than the rent we'd got, and I thought they'd been left in the wrong place."
"And when you tore up those that didn't matter, you threw them into the dustbin?"
"Yes, and that's when I saw the sardine-tin, and some crusts and things that looked fresh."
"They weren't very fresh when we found them. You're sure they were fresh then?"
"Yes. The crusts looked quite new."
The Inspector's questions ceased. He pondered Cora's replies, and saw that they helped him little upon the road of investigation which he must pursue relentlessly, as he had done so often before, to its certain and sombre end. Only one point was confirmed, of which he had had little doubt previously. It was not Cora who had been seen going up the final flight of stairs that led to No. 37.
"Have I been any use?" Cora asked, when she thought that the silence had continued long enough to need breaking.
"Not very much," the Inspector admitted. "But you can never tell till you see how a case ends."
"I suppose you think it was the woman?" The question came from Delia, and the Inspector looked round in some surprise. He was more conscious of her than he had been previously. A dark, very pretty girl, whose lips smiled; but he had heard note of tension in her voice, to which he was too familiar in his investigations. The note of a sharp anxiety for others, if not themselves. He was not surprised to see that the question came from a girl who looked to be of an emotional disposition. One who would imagine such a tragedy when it was discussed before her, till she seemed to see and feel with those who had been in actual contact with its fears or horrors.
"No," he said noncommittally, "I shouldn't say that. It was more like a man's work. But you never know. There was a woman who cut a man's head half off with a fireman's shovel. Quite a quiet sort, she seemed, too. The sort that anyone'd trust to hold the baby. . . . But I wouldn't say it was she. More likely she'd be his fancy girl. But I'd give something to find her, all the same. She'd be likely to know a bit more than I've heard here."
Cora asked: "I suppose, if it was she, she wouldn't get off if she'd had the best reason to kill him that ever was?"
"Oh, I wouldn't go that far. There's such a thing as justifiable homicide. If it had been to save her own life, or her own honour, and there'd been no other way... But it doesn't look like a case of that kind. . . . It look's like a man's work. The trouble is," he explained, with a somewhat unusual expansiveness - but, after all, what was he giving away but what everyone knew or guessed? - "that he was the sort who made too many enemies to make it easy to fix on one. There was a man let out of gaol two or three weeks ago - ." But he pulled himself up sharply at that point, remembering that he had no right to voice his own suspicions outside the official precincts, even in regard to a man who was a gaol-bird already.
Besides, such theories are so often wrong. A detective's, like a doctor's, reputation for wisdom is based upon capacity for silence rather than speech.
With a feeling that he might already have talked rather too freely, even among friends, though it might not have been easy to decide what his indiscretion had been, he got up to go. . . .
The evening papers announced that, after some more or less normal evidence had been given as to the finding of the body, and the cause of death, the coroner had adjourned the inquest for fourteen days.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"I DON'T agree in the least," Cora said, stubbornly. "There was no risk at all. It wasn't as though it had been a man. Women know when to talk and when not to. . . . It was really the safest way. He'd never think that we'd got anything to hide about Delia, bringing her along as we did."
"She seemed nervous enough to me to give the show away every time she spoke."
"And how often was that? I told you girls know when to keep still. Besides, you only thought that because of what you knew. Inspector Cleveland only thought what a nice, quiet girl she was, with better manners than mine."
"Well, if you think that was reason enough - - ."
"I didn't say that was the reason at all. She may have wanted to hear what he'd got to say. You can't wonder at that. Anyway, it went off just about as well as it could, so it's rather late to make a fuss now."
"But suppose he finds out in the end? It won't make him any pleasanter to deal with, knowing how he's been cheeked."
"Oh, I don't know. It'll depend on how he finds out. Quite a lot."
It was Thursday evening when this conversation occurred, and on Saturday morning Inspector Cleveland received a note to say that Mrs. Starr would like to see him about the Taunton murder case, and would call at Scotland Yard at twelve-thirty.
She kept the appointment as punctually as any woman could be expected to do, having taken the precaution to get some lunch after arriving in London on the sound presumption that she might have a rather long interview before her. She was received with the politeness which is usual at the Headquarters of crime investigation, and was only a little disconcerted on being shown, not into Inspector Cleveland's room, with which she had an established familiarity, but into that of Superintendent Withers, and finding herself in the company of both those gentlemen, with the addition of her brother, Major Edward Cattell-Pratt, whom she was very pleased to see.
"Hullo, Ted!" she said, when she had shaken hands with the two police officers, as she kissed him affectionately, "what on earth brought you here? And where's George Eliot? You don't mean you've left her in Paris? What a joke! I did think it would last longer than that."
Major Cattell-Pratt, who could best endure his sister's teasing when there were no others present to observe the operation, and who was aware that Cora's love for George was not yet a plant of full growth, replied, rather stiffly, that he had only flown over from Paris yesterday about this infernal murder, and should have been returning today if Cleveland hadn't told him of the note he had had from her this morning.
"I don't see," she said, "what you'd got to bother about, when I'd got the whole thing in hand."
"I didn't know that you had. And I'd rather you mixed yourself up With a - ." He was almost saying "another murder" but felt the impolicy of bringing old recollections to the official mind, and altered his sentence to "an affair of this kind as little as possible." He went on to explain that a legal question had arisen with Mr. Taunton's executors in relation to the possession of the flat, the rent having been paid in advance, and he had come over to settle it personally, as he had wished to get the wretches cleared out as quickly as possible.
"If you can throw any light on this murder, Mrs. Starr, apart from such information as you have already given," Superintendent Withers interposed, "we should be glad to hear it." He thought it time to come to the point, for he objected to missing his meals as much as Cora, and, unlike her, he had not got his lunch in the right place. He was a rather heavy man, quiet and slow of voice and manner, and of a delusive mildness. Cora was not under any delusion, for she knew the reputation he held. Neither was she in any fear of him, for he was a man she liked, and she had a confident belief that he liked her.
"Well, I thought you'd like to know how it all happened," she said, smiling. "So I came up."
She was not without some nervousness as to the probable result of the programme that she had undertaken, but it was not sufficient to prevent her enjoyment of the effect of this statement. Even the Superintendent seemed surprised.
"Do you mean," he asked, "that you can tell us who committed the crime?"
"I don't know that you ought to call it a crime. I don't suppose you will when you know more than you do now. And, anyway, you couldn't say that he was much loss. . . . If you'd seen how he looked lying there. . . ."
She hadn't meant to say that. Not, anyway (so to speak), before she began. It had slipped out, as things would, in her experience, if you don t watch all the time.
"Do you mean to tell us - ?' Inspector Cleveland began, and "Look here, Cora, don't you think - ?" came from the Major before the Superintendent's hand motioned them to silence, and his slow voice began.
"I think, perhaps," he said quietly, "you'd better leave this to me. . . . You understand, I am sure, Mrs. Starr, that this is a serious matter. We have already had an informal account of your connection with it. Do you mean us to understand that statement was untrue?"
"No, of course not. I answered every question quite truthfully. I don't say Inspector Cleveland's very good at examining, but you can't blame me for that." She felt just a little mean as she made this remark, and might have felt more so if it had not occurred to her that it was all his fault for getting her into a roomful like this. Why hadn't he seen her alone?
"Perhaps he trusted you as a friend," the Inspector suggested, and after that she had no doubt of how she felt.
"I suppose," she conceded, "it was rather mean to have said that. But when you're asked whether you can swear that the man wasn't there, when you know you'd seen him with your own eyes, what can you say except 'no'?"
"One moment." The Superintendent paused on his words. He had his duty to do, but he could not entirely forget that they were all friends in that room. Neither did he forget that that friendship had been used to procure what had been very near to an evasion of justice once before. Such things cannot happen twice.
"I have already asked you not to forget," he went on slowly, "that this is a serious matter. There is at present no accusation or suspicion against yourself of any kind. There is therefore no occasion to caution you in any way. You are proposing to make an entirely voluntary statement, as I understand it, in the interests of justice now. . . . You appear, from what you have said already, to have had some knowledge which you might well have communicated earlier, and which it was almost certainly your duty to do. . . . You are, I suppose, aware that there is such a thing as being an accessory after the event?"
Superintendent Withers paused in some uncertainty as to whether he might not have said too much in warning already. He added: "If you have no complicity in the crime - which I should find it hard to believe you can scarcely act more wisely than by giving us a full and frank narrative of all you know in relation to it, whatever reticence you may have exercised previously."
Cora opened wide eyes of astonishment upon him. "Well, of all the ways of taking it!" she said indignantly. "(Don't fidget, Ted; anyone'd think to look at you that I was just going to say I saw you do it.) Why, I've just got her to confess the whole thing - not that I think 'confess' is quite the right word, but you know what I mean - and you call it being an accessory after the fact!"
"I haven't called it anything so far," the Superintendent answered, in a rather different voice, "because I don't know what it is that you're going to say. I can quite believe that you may have given us very valuable help, which we shall be glad to have. . . . I think, perhaps, we'd better say nothing more till we've had the whole tale in your own way... No, Cleveland, we won't take anything down yet. We'll just hear the tale and see where it leaves us."
It was Cora's turn to be silent for a moment, not being quite sure where to begin, but when she did she went straight to the centre of the subject with the simple statement: "What I've got to tell you is that Delia Russell shot him about half-an-hour before got to the flat."
The Superintendent pondered this statement. He looked at Inspector Cleveland as he said: "The girl that woman saw going up." And then to Cora: "Have you brought the lady along?"
"No. She thought I'd better explain it first."
"And where is she now?"
"She's at Worthing, of course. Inspector Cleveland knows that. I introduced her to him, but he didn't seem interested."
Superintendent Withers looked at the disconcerted Inspector with eyes in which there was a twinkle of humour. "I'm afraid these ladies - ." he suggested, leaving the sentence unfinished. Then his face changed to a graver expression, as he recollected that the matter was too serious for a jesting tone. He turned to Cora again as he said: "You cannot speak to this from your own knowledge, if it occurred before you got to the flat. You can only tell us what you have heard. Have you had any account from this woman of how or why she committed the crime?"
"She didn't mean to shoot him at all. She doesn't understand guns. She picked it up, and it went off."
"Where did she pick it up from?"
"From the dressing-table."
"Does she say that it was his gun?"
"So she supposes. It wasn't hers."
"Why did she pick it up?"
"Because he said things to frighten her. She wanted to make him stay where he was while she got out of the flat."
"Why did she go there at all?"
"Because he wrote her to."
"Did she know him before?"
"Ye - s. At least, I don't say she didn't. It isn't much to the point. She doesn't seem to want to talk about that."
"I'm afraid she'll have to alter her mind. At least, she will if she wants to get off with that tale. . . . Cleveland, you'd better go back with Mrs. Starr, and take a statement from this young woman, if she's still in the right mood. You can use your own discretion beyond that. I expect, one way or another, you'll find it necessary to bring her along."
"You're not going to do anything beastly?" Cora queried anxiously.
"We have our duty to perform, Mrs. Starr. You can trust us not to go beyond that."
"But if he frightened her, wasn't it the right thing to do?"
"There may possibly have been some excuse. I couldn't go beyond that till I know more. It isn't a very probable tale."
"But if she was the only one there, I don't see how you can contradict what she says."
"It is a difficulty we often meet, but we sometimes get over it."
"I supposed you'd want a statement from her before you'd be satisfied that there's nothing but what's best left alone. But you needn't go down to Worthing to get that. I've brought it along."
Cora produced a single sheet of folded foolscap, and laid it on the Superintendent's table. He opened it sufficiently to glance at its contents, but without settling to read it.
"Very well," he said casually, "we'll have a look at this when we've had lunch, and then we'll decide what to do. . . . We won't keep you longer, Mrs. Starr, now. I expect we re all getting a bit peckish. But there's just one thing I should like to know first. Was this Miss Russell a stranger to you, or did you know her before?"
"I never heard of her until I found her in my bedroom that morning, and the dead man in the other room."
"Then how comes it that she is with you at Worthing? I understand that you were alone with your husband when you left the flat."
"I picked her up in Hammersmith."
"Why?"
"I thought I'd like to know a bit more about what had happened."
"Then your husband knew about it as well as you?"
"Kingsley'd gone to buy some cigarettes. It's no use trying to bring him into this. I was alone in the car."
"But I suppose he saw she was there when he came back?"
"He knew she was having a lift. We put her down when we got to Worthing."
"And met her again?"
"Yes. On the beach. I don't know where she's staying now. Not the proper address."
"Well, we must look into it all in our own way. It looks as though we may have to thank you for some valuable assistance, I don't mind telling you, Mrs. Starr, that our own inquiries were pointing in another direction. It just shows how easy it is to go wrong. Can you give me this young woman's London address? Well, never mind. I dare say we shall have it soon enough."
He shook hands genially both with Cora and her brother, and steered them adroitly to the door, taking no notice of the obvious dissatisfaction in Cora's eyes.
"I thought, Cleveland," he said, as the heavy door closed, "it might be just as well to leave her guessing as to what our next move might be. She's an attractive girl, but I never met anyone quite so innocent as she can look when she likes. All the same, if this thing happened as she said, she's given the young woman good advice to put up her own tale before we get on her track." Then, with a sudden change of tone, he asked abruptly: "Do you think it did?"
"No," the Inspector answered with decision, "I can't say I do."
"Well, I've got my own doubts. It sounds likely enough on some points and a bit shaky on others. But we must hear what the young woman has got to say. You'd better come with me to lunch and we'll read this over. . . . You know Mrs. Starr got the best of you once, Cleveland. It mustn't happen again,"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SUPERINTENDENT WITHERS passed the document across the table. "Mrs. Starr's writing?" he queried.
Inspector Cleveland said not. He was sure of that.
"Well, that proves nothing. Probably copied out. It's a bit like her wording here and there." He smiled somewhat at a phrasing which was sometimes almost of the official pattern, and sometimes had the effect of parody. "Written, anyway, by someone who knows the ropes - but not well."
"Cora knows a bit. Her brother being with us the time he was."
"Yes, I should say Mrs. Starr worded this, whoever wrote it out. But it may be no worse for that. It's plain enough as far as it goes. . . . The question is how far it'll fit the facts. . . . If it won't, she's just hanging herself, with Mrs. Starr's help. . . . How does it strike you?"
"I should say it's about half truth and half lies. But I shouldn't call it a hanging case. You haven't seen the girl yet. It'll be an acquittal, or about five years where she belongs."
"You mean she's a good-looker?"
"She's a bit better than that. Looks quiet and well bred. . . . You'd need a jury of women to hang her sort. . . . If we prove it's murder, they'll bring in manslaughter, with a recommendation; and if we only try for manslaughter, they'll let her go."
"Well you haven't got to worry about that, Cleveland. You've only got to get the facts and be sure your witnesses won't let you down. . . . And I can trust you for that." He picked up the document which Cora had provided for his information, and glanced over it once again.
I, Delia Russell, aged 23, spinster, of 16 Standish Gardens S.W.7, am making this statement of my free will, and do so solemnly and sincerely declare that on the morning of Tuesday, April 16th, 193 - , I received a letter from Mr. # Cavendish Taunton, asking me to call upon him at 10.30 a.m. on the following day, at 37 Murdock Mansions, W.12, which it would be to my advantage to do. # undecipherable text.
I went accordingly at or about the abovementioned time on the morning of the abovementioned day. The flat was at the top of the building. Mr. Taunton let me in himself. He had no coat or waistcoat on, and I thought from his manner he had been drinking. He took me along the passage to a room at the far end. It was very quiet, and I thought we were alone in the flat. When we entered the room I found that it was a bedroom. He was very rude and I said I thought I had better go. He said: "Oh, no you don't." I saw a pistol on the dressing-table. I don't know anything about pistols or how they go off. I was frightened, and picked it up. I meant to frighten him so that he would let me go. I never handled a pistol before. I pointed it at him, and told him to stay where he was, and it went off.
After that I went into the next room. I was too frightened to go away. I waited there till Mrs. Starr came.
I did not mean to kill him. It was an accident.
Dated this 26th day of April, 193 - .
DELIA RUSSELL.
"I wouldn't say it's all lies," he said thoughtfully. "But there's a lot of truth that's not here. There are three things you might bear in mind when you get her for a quiet talk. The one is that Marks didn't take that flat for the sake of being rude to Delia Russell. The next is that she's a bit vague as to what his rudeness was. Just didn't like to say? Well, you might be right about that. You've seen her, and I haven't. But if she can't be more explicit when she really tries, you can call the whole tale a fake, and just run her in without wasting any more time. The other point is that before she wrote 'Cavendish Taunton' she began to write 'Isaac Marks', and then thought that she'd better not."
"There have been both names in the press."
"Yes, I know. There mayn't be much in it. But she'd be most likely to start writing the name by which she thought of the man. We'd like to know how long she'd known him and on what footing. . . . but I don't need to tell you how to handle a case like this."
"Well," the Inspector admitted, "if I don't know now, it's about time I did. But it's always easiest to go wrong. I'm in two minds now whether to get down to Worthing at once - if I let out a bit I could beat the rail, and get there before Mrs. Starr could be up to anything fresh. But I haven't got the young woman's address there. I shouldn't find her at once in a place that size, unless I went to ask the Starrs first - though, for that matter, she said she didn't know the address herself. . . . I'm more inclined to go first to this London address that she has given us, and see what's to be found out there When it comes to checking up on her tale, I'd like to know a bit more for myself than I do now."
"She ought to keep till the morning, if you're there first thing," the Superintendent agreed. She's not likely to bolt after writing this. You might see how the land lies, and put a good man or two on anything worth following up."
Having his own opinion confirmed, Inspector Cleveland was in no doubt that that would be the best way. It was not a case in which there was likely to be any difficulty in making an arrest. Nor, for that matter, in getting the first remand. Till he was in a better position to complete his case - till he could see his way to check that statement, and sort out the lies which it was almost certain to contain somewhat better than he could now - well, she might be just as well where she was.
Anyway, he would make a few inquiries first, and see her tomorrow. Probably, when he'd heard what she'd got to say, he'd be able to charge her at once, and bring her up to London in time to have her in Court on Monday morning. There'd be no time lost about that. . . .
And while this conversation proceeded, Cora, seated opposite to her brother, and putting away a second lunch without any visible discomfort resulting, was finding some difficulty in persuading him that she had followed the allied paths of wisdom and rectitude since they parted at the Registrar's door about a week ago.
She was not (as we have observed before) a natural liar; and there was a strong affection between them, and (with its inevitable limitations) a mutual confidence. But she felt now, with a sound judgment, that there were some parts of the truth which must be used, if at all, with a very rigid economy; and, being so handled, it may often be found that a little will go quite a long way. She did not think that Ted would betray her under any probable circumstances, but she saw that a full disclosure of all that was in her own mind would disturb and embarrass his own with a silly masculine idea that it was his legal duty to do so, and would surely lead to a long and useless argument, and a vain attempt to persuade her to a different course of conduct, either from that on which she had embarked already, or that which was designing itself in the rear of her mind since she had felt an instinct of dissatisfaction at the manner in which Superintendent Withers had shown her the way out.
"You know," she said, that I always did hate seeing people off by train."
The Major did not dispute that, but he felt that it was not the real point at issue. He was a slow thinker, and Cora's methods of argument always confused him, so that silence was his usual refuge. But he felt that speech was a duty here Why cannot women be reasonable? He said with truth that he hadn't said anything about that.
"Well, then, there you are. It wasn't my fault that there was such a mess-up when I got to the flat."
"I can't see why you didn't inform the police at once. It was the obvious thing to do."
"And be kept there all night, as likely as not? And suppose they'd said Kingsley had done it instead of that silly girl? You ought to know what the police are."
"But they wouldn't have said that. There was no reason they should. And there was the girl's own tale."
"But we hadn't got that then. It's taken days to get that. If she'd been worried then, before she'd had time to think, she might have said anything. She said he'd shot himself. She couldn't have made anyone believe that."
"But if she said he'd shot himself, it wouldn't have made the police think that Kingsley had done it. If he'd done it, she wouldn't have thought of saying that, and they'd have seen she was telling lies, and guessed that she must have done it herself."
The Major felt a glow of self-appreciation at the success of this mental effort. It really was a sound point. But it appeared that Cora hadn't brains enough to appreciate it at its full value.
"You don't seem to be able to see anything. When anyone's shot anyone once, the police always think it's them that's most likely to do it again, however necessary it might have been."
Ted might seem slow to those of more agile wits, but he had no difficulty in understanding this somewhat involved and ungrammatical sentence. He was stirred to retort that he had opposed her marriage to a man of such habits, and that this sequel showed how sound his judgment had been, but stopped himself, only just in time, with the recollection that he had married Kingsley's sister, and that she also had been concerned in the earlier homicide. He had better not say that. But it was an exasperating and amazing thing that Cora should be able to draw him into these difficulties, although he talked sense all the time, which she seldom did.
Abandoning discussion of events that it was too late to alter, he said weakly: "Well, perhaps there's not much harm done as it's turned out, but if they'd got on her track before you got that confession from her, it might have been rather an awkward mess. If you'll have the sense to leave it alone now - - ."
That being the course of wisdom which Cora did not propose to take, and being conscious of the difficulty of discussing possible future developments without the mendacity which she had been endeavouring to avoid, she changed the subject with the abrupt query: "Why didn't you bring George along?"
It appeared that George, who had good nerves for most of the risks of life, was shy of the air. She had a particular objection to being burnt to death, which she regarded as a probable result of cultivating that method of travel. Also, there had been the question of expense. It seemed a good deal to incur for so short a time. He should have gone back this morning had he not heard that Cora was coming to town.
"Won't she be wild when she knows you've stayed about me," Cora commented, wiihout appearing at all distressed at the prospect, and then: "Was it really that she didn't want to come, or can't she get back with that photo?"
The Major understood the allusion to the deficiencies of George's passport photograph, concerning which Cora had suggested previously that it would be rather a joke if he got her out of England, and then couldn't get her back, but he felt unable to think of any better reply than to remark that he wondered that Kingsley hadn't come up with her to town.
"Oh," she said, "that's quite different. He'd have come quick enough if I'd said the word. Besides he's. . . ." She checked herself abruptly, and then added, after an interval of unusual silence: "I wonder whether I hadn't better send him a wire."
She was so quiet after that, during the hour that elapsed before her brother saw her off at Waterloo, that he reflected with satisfaction that matrimony appeared to have already done something in reduction of her natural levity. He went with her to the telegraph office before she left, and she made no secret of the simple message which she despatched: "Shall not be back before seven don't wait love Cora." So she wrote it at first, but when she found that it would be more than twelve words, she altered "be back" to "return" and struck out the love.
"I told him," Cora remarked, "that I should probably be back for tea."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
INSPECTOR CLEVELAND had learnt to believe nothing without verification. He was quite prepared to find that there was no such place as Standish Gardens in London, or that No. 16 had been empty for the past six months. But the directory assured him that it was a genuine address, and supplied the information that the house was occupied by Mrs. Rebecca Greenwater, or, at least, had been so when it was prepared for publication.
Pondering upon the singularity of English surnames, and with a mind vacant for the reception of anything he might hear or see, the Inspector crossed Coniston Avenue, and entered Standish Gardens at the southern end. He observed two short rows of dilapidated residences of a dreary sameness, with a railed triangle of evergreens at the further end, which must be the gardens themselves. The houses were high and narrow, and probably more spacious than their exteriors indicated. They had been "highly respectable" in their younger days, and though no one would be likely to describe them in that manner today, the respectability must have continued, or the name of Standish Gardens would have had a more familiar sound.
Boarding-houses, of course. No. 35 was at his right hand. Alternate numbers. No. 16 would be about half-way along on the other side. It must be about there that a man was standing at the door talking to a woman who did not invite him to enter. He turned away, came down the steps, and walked quickly toward the Inspector's end of the road. Inspector Cleveland had learned to take the chances that came. He crossed over to the other pavement, and advanced to meet a young man somewhat taller than himself, of an athletic walk and build but not with the appearance of one who worked with his hands. The Inspector's rapid glance summarized him as one who was probably engaged in a professional office - and who was now in an infernally bad temper.
"Excuse me," he said, sinking his official manner to one of a politeness which was equally natural, "could you tell me if there is a Miss Russell - Miss Delia Russell - living about here?"
There had been a moment when it had seemed probable that he would be pushed aside without the courtesy of a reply, but the name of Russell was spoken just in time to arrest the young man's attention. As he heard it, he stopped abruptly.
"Yes," he said eagerly, "Call you - - " and then he checked himself, looking in suspicion - or was it fear? - at the Inspector's impassive demeanour.
The Inspector, having learnt the value of patience, said nothing. After an awkward silence, the necessity of answering the question more explicitly became unavoidable. The young man said: "Miss Russell lives along here, but I'm afraid you won't find her at home."
"No? If you've just been inquiring, I suppose it's no use for me to try." They walked side by side to the end of the road, where they paused again. The Inspector saw that the young man was on the point of asking something about which he hesitated. He waited silently. It was best that it should come without any prompting from him.
"I suppose... I suppose there's nothing wrong?"
"About Miss Russell?"
"Yes."
"Have you any reason for thinking there is?"
"She's - been away for some days."
"So I understood."
"Do you know where she is now?"
"Not exactly. That was one reason why I was inquiring here. I believe she's at the seaside."
"If you would let me know how I could get in touch with her, I should be greatly obliged."
"I don't know that I could do that."
"I thought it was one of the regular duties of the police to trace people under such circumstances."
"Under what circumstances?"
"When they don't come home, and anyone's worried about what might have happened to them."
"Have you reported Miss Russell's absence at the police station?"
"No. But I was intending to do so if she were not back tonight."
"Would you mind telling me what reason you have for thinking that Miss Russell is in any trouble?"
For the first time there was hesitation in the reply. The Inspector felt sure that it was less than the truth when it came: "She wouldn't have gone away without letting me know."
"I'm afraid we should need something more definite than that. In the first place, we should need to know by what right you inquire. Are you related to Miss Russell?"
"No. We are engaged to be married."
Inspector Cleveland, in spite of his occupation, was not deficient in natural sympathies. Being a good judge of his fellow-men, he had no doubt that he heard the truth, though he felt that there might be other things in this young man's mind that he would be glad to know. He had often found before this that the frankest method was also the most satisfactory in its results, and he felt a strong inclination to test it upon this occasion. He said: "Can you give me any evidence of that? At present, I don't even know who you are."
The young man produced a card. The Inspector learnt that he was talking to E. Burdett Wilson, the secretary of an Archæological society of which he remembered hearing before, and which was of a presumptive respectability. Having provided the card, Mr. Wilson continued to search his pockets. He produced a number of letters, somewhat the worse for wear. He looked at two or three, and finally selected one which he was least unwilling for the Inspector to see.
He handed it over with the remark: "I think that will show you that I have some right to inquire." Inspector Cleveland looked at the side of the folded letter which was toward him with some minuteness, but did not open or turn it.
"Yes," he said, "I think that's sufficient. I'm afraid I must give you some rather bad news, if you don't know anything about it already. We have received a document at Scotland Yard, purporting to be a statement by Miss Russell, admitting her responsibility for the death of Cavendish Taunton."
"But I thought he was found shot."
"Yes. The statement says that she shot him."
"But that's absurd! I don't believe Delia ever handled a gun in her life."
"So the statement says."
"I should say it's a hoax, more likely than not."
"I scarcely think that. The writing is certainly the same as that of the letter you just produced."
"You mean that was why - ." There was a sudden anger in Mr. Wilson's voice, which gave way as the Inspector answered: "Not at all. I didn't ask you to show the letters. If the statement was really sent to us by Miss Russell - - ."
"Yes, I'm sorry. I see that. I thought I'd been tricked for a moment, and no one likes to think that... But Delia didn't shoot anybody, all the same"
"The awkward fact about that is that she says she did."
"Can you tell me how I could get to see her?"
"Not immediately. This is the only address she gave. But we know the direction through which it came. . . . If you will call at Scotland Yard on Monday morning, I may be able to tell you more."
"You're not going to arrest her on this absurd charge?"
"I didn't mention a charge at all. We have, at present, only her own statement which asserts some justification for what she did. If we conclude that it is substantially true, we may be satisfied to call her at the adjourned inquest, and leave the matter to the decision of the coroner's jury. But I can't say much about that until I've had a much fuller account from her than the statement gives."
"Anyway, you wouldn't do anything before Monday?"
"I can't promise that. It depends mainly upon herself. But there are one or two points I should like to know a bit more about, and if you'll help me as far as you Can, I'll let you know how things are going any time you like to call at the Yard."
"You'll let me have Delia's address?"
"If she makes no objection, which isn't likely, from what you say."
"I won't answer any questions to make trouble for her."
"I'm not asking you to - not if she's told the truth so far. You may be doing her a good turn. Do you know whether she knew Taunton before she went to see him on the morning that he was shot?"
Mr. Wilson became silent. Not being a fool, he saw that the issue was not so simple as the Inspector's words might suggest. He had good reason for supposing that Delia, whatever she might have written, would have left some important matters unsaid, and if she were to be condemned for any inaccuracy or omission that might be discovered subsequently - well, he must be very wary, indeed. He saw also that for Delia and him to be questioned separately was a method of examination more likely to be satisfactory to the Inspector than the other parties concerned.
On the other hand, he did not wish to give the impression that there was anything that either he or Delia wished to conceal.
"I'd like," he said at last, "to give you any help I can. But, honestly, I'm not sure that I could tell you much that would be helpful. But I'm sure Delia didn't shoot him. She wouldn't shoot anyone. It's absurd. I'll give you all the help I can, but I don't think you ought to keep me in the dark if I do that. Can I see this statement you've got? I could tell you whether it's her writing for certain, and you don't really know that yet. It may be just a hoax."
"It isn't that." Inspector Cleveland hesitated, and decided to grant the request. He had never doubted that Delia Russell's statement was a genuine document, and the comparison with the writing of the letter had been no more than a matter of the careful routine by which he always proceeded, but he wanted this man to talk, and verification of handwriting would be a good enough official reason for letting him see the document. Its facts were so meagre that he was really giving very little away.
"You can come along and see it now, if you've got time," he said at last.
Mr. Wilson said that time was of no consequence. They got into a taxi together.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
KINGSLEY read the telegram, whistled, and went out. He strolled along the sea-front until he observed the red beret in its usual location, and sat down beside it.
"Cora," he said casually, addressing the tide in a voice which was unlikely to attract the attention of any human loiterers, "asked me to let you know if she wired. She says 'don't wait'."
As he said this, he heard a sound suggestive of a gasp or a suppressed sob. He looked at his companion to observe a face which had recovered whatever of outward serenity it might have lost for a moment. "I'm afraid," he said, "that wasn't what you wanted to hear. . . . I know I'm not being let in on this deal, but if there's anything I could do to help. . . ."
"Oh, I don't know... I suppose not... I've just got to get away. . . . No, C