House in Charlton Crescent (24 page)

“Why did not Mrs. Lavis sell her share instead of yours?” Bruce questioned.

“Ah, well, my cousin would only have bought the emeralds, you see. Besides—” Dorothy's voice sank—“Mona had disposed of hers before I appealed to Lady Anne. That was only a last resource. I didn't really think the emeralds would have fetched as much as they did.”

“Then there was the fifty-pound note that you gave to your dressmaker, and that was one of those paid by Messrs. Spagnum for the pearls?” Bruce suggested.

“I have never been able to understand that,” Dorothy said, meeting his gaze openly. “Aunt Anne gave it to me as my half-year's allowance.”

“You are quite sure it was the same note?” Bruce asked after thinking a minute.

“Oh, I think so,” Dorothy said, considering the question. “I didn't take the number, but it looked just the same. I put it in my writing-case and locked it up, so of course it must have been.”

“If your writing-case had just one of those ordinary little locks it might quite easily have been changed. How long did you leave it in the case?”

“Oh, not long. Only until the next day, believe. I wasn't particularly well-off just then. And I owed Madame Benoit a good deal of it so I took it to her at once. So there wasn't much time to change it, you see. Besides, who would want to do it?”

“Ah? That is the question!” Bruce responded, his eyes looking away from the fair face of the girl opposite, mechanically watching the passing traffic. “The obvious answer is the person who stole the pearls, of course.”

“Oh! But that must have been a burglar, some one outside the house,” Dorothy objected.

Cardyn did not answer for a minute, then he said very deliberately:

“Some one in the house took Lady Anne's diary from the escritoire. Some one in the house took and could have explained the mystery of the pearls.”

“I don't see that,” Dorothy said obstinately. “If—if the Cat Burglar got up to the window and murdered Lady Anne, I don't know why he shouldn't have opened my writing-case and changed the note.”

“Where did he get the other one from?” Cardyn questioned. “The one that Messrs. Spagnum gave the thief?”

“Well, naturally, I suppose he stole the pearls and got the note himself and put it into my case.”

“That implies that the thief knew you had a fifty-pound note there,” Cardyn argued. “And it makes it practically certain that it was some one in the house. The Cat Burglar could not have known.”

“I am not so sure,” Dorothy said doubtfully. “He seems such an omnipresent sort of person, don't you think?”

“He would be, if he did everything that was put down to him,” Bruce observed dryly. “Now, Miss Fyvert, you will trust me to respect your confidence. But at the same time you will allow me to explain matters to the inspector if absolutely necessary?”

“Yes—I suppose so,” Dorothy hesitated. “I had ever so much rather you did not tell him, though. It is so different with you. You see, knowing you beforehand—I—er—looking upon you as a friend—”

They were nearing the hotel where the Fyverts were staying now. As the driver began to slow down, threading his way through the traffic, Bruce leaned forward.

“It is my dearest hope that you will continue to trust me—to look upon me as a friend,” he said earnestly. “The time is close at hand now when everything will be cleared up. And then—then may I perhaps dare to ask for more than friendship—Dorothy. I wonder whether you will give it to me?”

But the girl's eyes did not meet his. She drew away into the corner of the taxi.

“I don't know,” she said lamely. “I can't even think of things now. I can't decide anything.”

She sprang out of the taxi, pushing aside Cardyn's proffered hand, and hurried into the hotel. Cardyn followed more slowly. She did not pause in the lounge, but almost ran upstairs. 

Bruce stood looking after her for a minute, then as he turned he met the quizzical gaze of Inspector Furnival.

“The young lady seems to be in a hurry. I am glad to see you, though, Mr. Cardyn. You will be quite valuable as an assistant at the interview I have arranged.” He glanced at his watch. “Yes, I thought the time was getting on. Come along, Mr. Cardyn, the scene is set for the first scene in the final drama.”

He turned to the staircase, Bruce accompanying him, then stopped and beckoned to a man standing near the door, a man whom Bruce recognized as one of the inspector's satellites. He was carrying an oddly shaped parcel, wrapped carelessly in brown paper.

The thought struck Cardyn that it looked like an old countrywoman's luggage. Rack his brains as he would he could not make out what it contained.

The three of them proceeded up the stairs and a little way along the corridor at the top. There the inspector opened the door of a small sitting-room—evidently private, and, motioning Bruce to enter, took the parcel from his man, at the same time saying a few words in an undertone. Bruce caught the last sentence—“As soon as it comes, mind. Let there be no mistake.”

Dorothy Fyvert walked quickly into the room. Cardyn got the impression that she had waited outside lacking the courage to enter, and then, rallying her self-control by a supreme effort, had come in with a rush. He made a step forward, but she did not glance at him. Her brown eyes sought the inspector's and, meeting his, stayed there with a terrified expression.

“You wanted to speak to me?” she said nervously.

The inspector did not answer for a minute. Apparently he was listening to some distant sound. At last he spoke.

“Yes. I wished to speak to you and to Miss Balmaine. A certain piece of new evidence has been obtained which might bear distinctly on the matter of Lady Anne Daventry's death, and I should like to know what you both have to say about it.”

“What is it?” Dorothy questioned curtly.

“You shall know in a minute,” the inspector promised. “Miss Balmaine will be here directly. We will wait for her.” 

As he spoke his eyes strayed to the brown paper parcel which he had deposited under a small table and of which only one corner was to be seen.

He had scarcely finished speaking when Margaret Balmaine opened the door. She looked a curious contrast to Dorothy, whose pallor and general look of anxiety had been accentuated by the inspector's note. Miss Balmaine had returned to the make-up which she had temporarily discarded at the time of Lady Anne's death. She was wearing to-day a frock of pale grey marocain, exquisitely embroidered in silver beads, and caught up at one side with an old silver and crystal clasp. The gown was very short as to sleeves and skirt, very low as to neck, but the throat and arms so generously revealed were beautifully modelled, the legs and feet in their nude silk stockings and grey suede shoes were without flaw. But Cardyn could not help feeling as he had often felt before that it was a thousand pities that Margaret Balmaine with undeniable good looks should resort to such very obvious artificial means to enhance them. The pink and white of her cheeks, the darkness of her eyebrows and eyes, even the sheen of her shingled golden hair were all, quite evidently, due to art. Yet in spite of everything, in spite of the ready smile with which she greeted the inspector, Cardyn could not help fancying that he saw some intangible traces of disturbance on her face.

“Well inspector,” she began, in her old half defiant manner. “What is this very serious business that you want to see me upon? Have you found out who killed Lady Anne, or who abducted Maureen?”

“Both, I hope, Miss—er—Balmaine,” the inspector answered her quietly, the gravity of his tone contrasting curiously with the lightness of hers.

Meeting his eyes, it seemed to Cardyn that the girl visibly winced.

“I am very glad to hear it!” she said in the same tone. “You have been long enough about it, have you not? And who is guilty, inspector?” This time the anxiety in her tone was obvious.

The inspector did not choose to satisfy it.

“All in good time! All in good time! I have just a few questions to ask you young ladies now before we say any more.”

“Oh, but, inspector,” Dorothy interposed, “if you have found out about Maureen—I—really must know—”

“Oh, well, the Brighton police traced that without much difficulty,” the inspector answered. “It seems that Alice Gray got into conversation with some young man on the esplanade. There were some travelling musicians on the beach and a gipsy fortune-teller with a van behind, and little Miss Maureen began to dance to the music with the other children. Of course, trained as she had been she attracted the notice of the fortune-teller, who appears to have thought there was money to be made out of abducting her. She persuaded her to get into the van and drove off. Then, learning from the papers later who the child was, I suppose she thought more money would be obtained by waiting—or she fancied she would be safer if the girl were dressed up as a boy. She came up to London to some horrible haunt in the East End, and I suppose the child escaped from there and managed to find her way back to Charlton Crescent. The shock of it all acting upon her when she was already in bad health seems to have been too much for her brain. That is what I make of it. But of positive ill treatment there was none.”

“Thank you.” Dorothy turned away to the window. The inspector's words had relieved her of a horrible dread.

Margaret Balmaine waited. Her head was thrown back. Cardyn saw that one of her hands, hanging down by her side, was clenching and unclenching itself nervously.

The inspector, too, waited for a minute. His face was very stern as he glanced from one girl to the other. At last he seemed to be satisfied. 

He drew from its hiding-place the brown paper parcel that he had brought into the room, and set it on the table. Dorothy turned towards him, moving slowly as if drawn against her will, staring at the parcel. Margaret Balmaine's eyes followed his every movement as if fascinated. The inspector took a knife from his pocket and, opening it, set about cutting the string and unwrapping the paper with exasperating slowness.

Cardyn scarcely knew what he expected, but certainly he was not prepared to see the inspector lift out with meticulous care just a milliner's cardboard box and then from that an old-fashioned black silk bonnet. Inspector Furnival held this up in his hand for a minute, apparently surveying it with the greatest interest, while from beneath his lowered eyelids his keen little eyes went from one to the other of the motionless faces of the girls before him.

“Very like a bonnet of Lady Anne Daventry's,” he shot out a last. “But—not Lady Anne's!”

Dead silence followed. Neither girl moved. At last Dorothy drew a long breath. Margaret Balmaine might have been carved out of stone, so absolutely motionless was she. The inspector's eyes relaxed their scrutiny. He made another dive into the box and produced a white wig, evidently dressed in imitation of Lady Anne's own beautiful snow-white hair. At sight of it Dorothy shuddered violently and clutched at the table, shivering from head to foot.

“Oh, what does it mean? What does it mean?” she cried.

Not one muscle of Margaret Balmaine's face stirred. Even the hand by her side was still now. Cardyn's eyes watching closely saw that the knuckles were showing white through the tightening skin. Then he looked away from her to the girl he loved. There could be no doubt that Dorothy was frightened—horribly frightened. Her pretty brown eyes were wide open, dilated and staring at the mass of hair in the inspector's hand with a horrible fixity. Her mouth was twitching, too; more than once she moistened her dry lips with her tongue. Cardyn made a step towards her, as if to range himself on her side to protect her. But she put out her hand and motioned him back imperatively.

“What does it mean?” she questioned hoarsely. “I—I can't understand.”

There was another pause. Then the inspector said in the quick curt tones that cut across the tragic atmosphere of the room like a knife:

“It means that we have always suspected, that undoubtedly some one has, on one occasion, if not more, successfully impersonated Lady Anne Daventry. I asked for this interview in order to see whether either of you two ladies could help me to discover the guilty person.”

“Of course we can't—we told you we knew nothing about the theft of the pearls,” Dorothy said, that painful twitching of her mouth extending to her throat, the straining of her muscles plainly visible.

Margaret Balmaine stepped quietly to her side.

“Do not frighten yourself, Dorothy. Don't you see that the inspector—
knows
? May I ask Inspector Furnival how long it has been allowed to introduce the customs of France into our judicial procedure? Though I believe that in the neighbouring country the examination takes place before a magistrate, so that there is at least some semblance of fairness. But here you try to frighten two defenceless girls into incriminating themselves. Take away your pieces of accusation, inspector”—pointing to the wig and the bonnet—“you will not find out anything here.”

The words were a defiance, her manner, her gesture were superb. In spite of all that Cardyn knew, in spite of that further at which he only guessed, he felt a quick throb of admiration as he looked at her, at the small, uplifted star-like head.

It was evident that her colour beneath her makeup had not varied. Her eyes were clear and steady and full of scorn as she looked at the inspector.

“Well, what are you going to do? It does not seem to have struck you that there have been other well-dressed old ladies in the world besides Lady Anne Daventry, and possibly those things”—pointing at them contemptuously—“have been worn to impersonate someone quite different. Or they may just be ‘properties' worn by some actress.”

“I fancy they were,” the inspector interposed quietly.

He moved nearer the two girls as he spoke. Dorothy backed against the wall. The horror in her eyes had deepened during the inspector's brief colloquy with Margaret. She gazed helplessly from one to the other.