Everybody knew that Kenneth McKay was desperately in love. They knew it at the bank where he spent his days in counting other people’s money, and a considerable amount of his lunch hour writing impassioned and ill-spelt letters to Margot Lynn. His taciturn father, brooding over his vanished fortune in his gaunt riverside house at Marlow, may have employed the few moments he gave to the consideration of other people’s troubles in consideration of his son’s new interest. Probably he did not, for George McKay was entirely self-centred and had little thought but for the folly which had dissipated the money he had accumulated with such care, and the development of fantastical schemes for its recovery.
All day long, summer and winter, he sat in his study, a pack of cards before him, working out averages and what he called “inherent probabilities”, or at a small roulette wheel, where, alternately, he spun and recorded the winning numbers.
Kenneth went over to Beaconsfield every morning on his noisy motor-bicycle and came back every night, sometimes very late, because Margot lived in London. She had a small flat where she could not receive him, but they dined together at the cheaper restaurants and sometimes saw a play. Kenneth was a member of an inexpensive London club which sheltered at least one sympathetic soul. Except Mr Rufus Machfield, the confident in question, he had no friends.
“And let me advise you not to make any here,” said Rufus.
He was a military-looking man of forty-five, and most people found him rather a bore, for the views which he expressed so vehemently, on all subjects from politics to religion, which are the opposite ends of the ethical pole, he had acquired that morning from the leading article of his favourite daily. Yet he was a genial person and a likeable man.
He had a luxurious flat in Park Lane, a French valet, a couple of hacks which he rode in the park, and no useful occupation.
“The Leffingham Club is cheap,” he said, “the food’s not bad, and it is near Piccadilly. Against that you have the fact that almost anybody who hasn’t been to prison can become a member–”
“The fact that I’m a member–” began Ken.
“You’re a gentleman and a public school man,” interrupted Mr Machfield a little sonorously. “You’re not rich, I admit–”
“Even I admit that,” said Ken, rubbing his untidy hair.
Kenneth was tall, athletic, as good-looking as a young man need be, or can be without losing his head about his face. He had called at the Leffingham that evening especially to see Rufus and confide his worries. And his worries were enormous. He looked haggard and ill; Mr Machfield thought it possible that he had not been sleeping very well. In this surmise he was right.
“It’s about Margot…” began the young man.
Mr Machfield smiled.
He had met Margot, had entertained the young people to dinner at his flat, and twice had invited them to a theatre party.
“We’ve had a row, Rufus. It began a week ago. For a long time her reticence has been bothering me. Why the devil couldn’t she tell me what she did for a living? I wouldn’t say this to a living soul but you – it is horribly disloyal to her, and yet it isn’t. I know that she has no money of her own, and yet she lives at the rate of a thousand a year. She says that she is secretary to a businessman, but the office where she works is in her own name. And she isn’t there more than a few days a week and then only for a few hours.”
Mr Machfield considered the matter.
“She won’t tell you any more than that?”
Kenneth looked round the smoke-room. Except for a servant counting the cigars in a small mahogany cabinet, they were alone. He lowered his voice.
“She’ll never tell me any more… I’ve seen the man,” he said. “Margot meets him surreptitiously!”
Mr Machfield looked at him dubiously.
“Oh…what sort of a man?”
Kenneth hesitated.
“Well, to tell you the truth, he’s elderly. It was queer how I came to see them at all. I was taking a ride round the country on Sunday morning. Margot told me that she couldn’t come to us – I asked her to lunch with us at Marlow – because she was going out to London. I went through Burnham and stopped to explore a little wood. As a matter of fact, I saw two animals fighting – I think they were stoats – and I went after them–”
“Stoats can be dangerous,” began Mr Machfield. “I remember once–”
“Anyway I went after them with my camera. I’m rather keen on wild life photographs. And then I saw two people, a man and a girl, walking slowly away from me. The man had his arm round the girl’s shoulder. It rather made a picture – they stood in a patch of sunlight and with the trees as a background – well, it was rather an idyllic sort of picture. I put up my camera. Just as I pressed the button the man looked over his shoulder, and then the girl turned. It was Margot!”
He dabbed his brow with a handkerchief. Rufus was slightly amused to see anybody so agitated over so trifling a matter.
Kenneth swallowed his drink; his hand trembled.
“He was elderly – fifty…not bad looking. God! I could have killed them both! Margot was coolness itself, though she changed colour. But she didn’t attempt to introduce me or offer any kind of explanation.”
“Her father – ” began Rufus.
“She has no father – no relations except her mother, who is an invalid and lives in Florence – at least I thought so,” snapped Kenneth.
“What did she do?”
The young man heaved a deep sigh.
“Nothing – just said: ‘How queer meeting you!’ talked about the beautiful day, and when I asked her what it all meant and what this man was to her – he had walked on and left us alone – she flatly refused to say anything. Just turned on her heel and went after him.”
“Extraordinary!” said Mr Machfield. “You have seen her since?”
Kenneth nodded grimly.
“That same night she came to Marlow to see me. She begged me to trust her – she was really wonderful. It was terribly surprising to see her there at all. When I came down into the dining-room and found her there, I was knocked out – the servant didn’t say who she was and I kept her waiting.”
“Well?” asked his companion, when he paused.
“Well,” said Kenneth awkwardly, “one has to trust people one loves. She said that he was a relation – she never told me that she had one until then.”
“Except her mother who lives in Florence – that costs money, especially an invalid mother,” mused Rufus, fingering his long, clean-shaven upper lip. “What is the trouble now? You’ve quarrelled?”
Kenneth took a letter out of his pocket and passed it across to his friend, and Mr Machfield opened and read it.
“Dear Kenneth
I’m not seeing you any more. I’m broken-hearted to tell you this. Please don’t try to see me – please! M.”
“When did this come?”
“Last night. Naturally, I went to her flat. She was out. I went to her office – she was out. I was late for the bank and got a terrible roasting from the manager. To make matters worse, there’s a fellow dunning me for two hundred pounds – everything comes at once. I borrowed the money for dad. What with one thing and another I’m desperate.”
Mr Machfield rose from his chair.
“Come home and have a meal,” he said. “As for the money–”
“No, no, no!” Kenneth McKay was panic-stricken. “I don’t want to borrow from you – I won’t! Gad! I’d like to find that old swine and throttle him! He’s at the back of it! He has told her not to have anything more to do with me.”
“You don’t know his name?”
“No. He may live in the neighbourhood, but I haven’t seen him. I’m going to do a little detective work.” He added abruptly: “Do you know a man named Reeder – J G Reeder?”
Mr Machfield shook his head.
“He’s a detective,” explained Kenneth. “He has a big bank practice. He was down at our place today – queer-looking devil. If he could be a detective anybody could be!”
Mr Machfield said he recalled the name.
“He was in that railway robbery, wasn’t he? J G Reeder – yes. Pretty smart fellow – young?”
“He’s as old as – well, he’s pretty old. And rather old-fashioned.”
“Why do you mention him?” Mr Machfield was interested.
“I don’t know. Talking about detective work brought him into my mind, I suppose.”
Rufus snapped his finger to the waiter and paid his bill.
“You’ll have to take pot luck – but Lamontaine is a wonderful cook. He didn’t know that he was until I made him try.”
So they went together to the little flat in Park Lane, and Lamontaine, the pallid, middle-aged valet who spoke English with no trace of a foreign accent, prepared a meal that justified the praise of his master. In the middle of the dinner the subject of Mr Reeder arose again.
“What brought him to Beaconsfield – is there anything wrong at your bank?”
Rufus saw the young man’s face go red.
“Well – there has been money missing; not very large sums. I have my own opinion, but it isn’t fair to – well, you know.”
He was rather incoherent, and Mr Machfield did not pursue the enquiry.
“I hate the bank anyway – I mean the work. But I had to do something, and when I left Uppingham the governor put me there – in the bank, I mean. Poor dear, he lost his money at Monte Carlo or somewhere – enormous sums. You wouldn’t dream that he was a gambler. I’m not grousing, but it is a little trying sometimes.”
Mr Machfield accompanied him to the door that night and shivered.
“Cold – shouldn’t be surprised if we had snow,” he said.
In point of fact the snow did not come until a week later. It started as rain and became snow in the night, and in the morning people who lived in the country looked out upon a white world: trees that bore a new beauty and hedges that showed their heads above sloping drifts.
There was a car coming from the direction of Beaconsfield. The horseman, sitting motionless in the centre of the snowy road, watched the lights grow brighter and brighter. Presently, in the glare of the headlamps, the driver of the car saw a mounted policeman in the centre of the road, saw the lift of his gloved hand, and stopped the machine. It was not difficult to stop, for the wheels were racing on the surface of the road, which had frozen into the worst qualities of glass. And snow was falling on top of this.
“Anything wrong–”
The driver began to shout the question, and then he saw the huddled figure on the ground. It lay limply like a fallen sack; seemed at first glimpse to have nothing of human shape or substance.
The driver jumped out and went ploughing through the frozen snow.
“I just spotted him when I saw you,” said the policeman. “Do you mind turning your car just a little to the right – I want the lamps full on him.”
He swung himself to the ground and went, heavy-footed, to where the man lay.
The second inmate of the car got to the wheel and turned the machine with some difficulty so that the light blazed on the dreadful thing. The policeman’s horse strayed to the side of the car and thrust in his nodding head – he alone was unconcerned.
Taking his bridle with a shaking hand, the second man stepped out of the car and joined the other two.
“It is old Wentford,” said the policeman.
“Wentford…good God!”
The first of the two motorists fell on his knees by the side of the body and peered down into the grinning face.
Old Benny Wentford!
“Good God!” he said again.
He was a middle-aged lawyer, unused to such a horror. Nothing more terrible had disturbed the smooth flow of his life than an occasional quarrel with the secretary of his golf club. Now here was death, violent and hideous – a dead man on a snowy road…a man who had telephoned to him two hours before, begging him to leave a party and come to him, though the snow had begun to fall all over again.
“You know Mr Wentford – he has told me about you.”
“Yes, I know him. I’ve often called at his house – in fact, I called there tonight but it was shut up. He made arrangements with the Chief Constable that I should call…h’m!”
The policeman stood over the body, his hands on his hips.
“You stay here – I’ll go and ’phone the station,” he said.
He hoisted himself into the saddle.
“Er…don’t you think we’d better go?” Mr Enward, the lawyer, asked nervously. He had no desire to be left alone in the night with a battered corpse and a clerk whose trembling was almost audible.
“You couldn’t turn your car,” said the policeman – which was true, for the lane was very narrow.
They heard the jingle and thud of his horse’s canter and presently they heard it no more.
“Is he dead, Mr Enward?” The young man’s voice was hollow.
“Yes…I think so…the policeman said so.”
“Oughtn’t we to make sure? He may only be…injured?”
Mr Enward had seen the face now in the shadow of an uplifted shoulder. He did not wish to see it again.
“Better leave him alone till a doctor comes…it is no use interfering in these things. Wentford…good God!”
“He’s always been a little bit eccentric, hasn’t he?” The clerk was young, and, curiosity being the tonic of youth, he had recovered some of his courage. “Living alone in that tiny cottage with all his money. I was bicycling past it on Sunday – a concrete box: that is what my young lady called it. With all his money–”
“He is dead, Henry,” said Mr Enward severely, “and a dead person has no property. I don’t think it quite – um – seemly to talk of him in – um – his presence.”
He felt the occasion called for an emotional display of some kind. He had never grown emotional over clients; least of all could this tetchy old man inspire such. A few words of prayer perhaps would not be out of place. But Mr Enward was a churchwarden of a highly respectable church and for forty years had had his praying done for him. If he had been a dissenter…but he was not. He wished he had a prayer book.
“He’s a long time gone.”
The policeman could not have been more than two hundred yards away, but it seemed a very long time since he had left.
“Has he any heirs?” asked the clerk professionally.
Mr Enward did not answer. Instead, he suggested that the lights of the car should be dimmed. They revealed this Thing too plainly. Henry went back and dimmed the lights. It became terribly dark when the lights were lowered, and eyesight played curious tricks: it seemed that the bundle moved. Mr Enward had a feeling that the grinning face was lifting to leer slyly at him over the humped shoulder.