The Secret of ChimneysPart 18
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Part 18
“I’m perfectly certain no other Virginia Revel has ever stayed at Chimneys. Bundle or Lord Caterham would have said something about the coincidence of the name if she had.”
“Yes. It’s rather queer. Do you know, Mrs. Revel, I am beginning to disbelieve profoundly in this other Virginia Revel.”
“She’s very elusive,” agreed Virginia.
“Extraordinarily elusive. I am beginning to think that the person who wrote those letters deliberately used your name.”
“But why?” cried Virginia. “Why should they do such a thing?”
“Ah, that’s just the question. There’s the devil of a lot to find out about everything.”
“Who do you really think killed Michael?” asked Virginia suddenly. “The Comrades of the Red Hand?”
“I suppose they might have done so,” said Anthony in a dissatisfied voice. “Pointless killing would be rather characteristic of them.”
“Let’s get to work,” said Virginia. “I see Lord Caterham and Bundle strolling together. The first thing to do is to find out definitely whether the dead man is Michael or not.”
Anthony paddled to shore and a few moments later they had joined Lord Caterham and his daughter.
“Lunch is late,” said his lordship in a depressed voice. “Battle has insulted the cook, I expect.”
“This is a friend of mine, Bundle,” said Virginia. “Be nice to him.”
Bundle looked earnestly at Anthony for some minutes, and then addressed a remark to Virginia as though he had not been there.
“Where do you pick up these nice-looking men, Virginia? ‘How do you do it?’ says she enviously.”
“You can have him,” said Virginia generously. “I want Lord Caterham.”
She smiled upon the flattered peer, slipped her hand through his arm and they moved off together.
“Do you talk?” asked Bundle. “Or are you just strong and silent?”
“Talk?” said Anthony. “I babble. I murmur. I gurgle—like the running brook, you know. Sometimes I even ask questions.”
“As for instance?”
“Who occupies the second room on the left from the end?”
He pointed to it as he spoke.
“What an extraordinary question!” said Bundle. “You intrigue me greatly. Let me see—yes—that’s Mademoiselle Brun’s room. The French governess. She endeavours to keep my young sisters in order. Dulcie and Daisy—like the song, you know. I dare say they’d have called the next one, Dorothy May. But mother got tired of having nothing but girls and died. Thought some one else could take on the job of providing an heir.”
“Mademoiselle Brun,” said Anthony thoughtfully. “How long has she been with you?”
“Two months. She came to us when we were in Scotland.”
“Ha!” said Anthony. “I smell a rat.”
“I wish I could smell some lunch,” said Bundle. “Do I ask the Scotland Yard man to have lunch with us, Mr. Cade? You’re a man of the world, you know about the etiquette of such things. We’ve never had a murder in the house before. Exciting, isn’t it? I’m sorry your character was so completely cleared this morning. I’ve always wanted to meet a murderer and see for myself if they’re as genial and charming as the Sunday papers always say they are. God! what’s that?”
“What” seemed to be a taxi approaching the house. Its two occupants were a tall man with a bald head and a black beard, and a smaller and younger man with a black moustache. Anthony recognized the former, and guessed that it was he—rather than the vehicle which contained him—that had wrung the exclamation of astonishment from his companion’s lips.
“Unless I much mistake,” he remarked, “that is my old friend, Baron Lollipop.”
“Baron what?”
“I call him Lollipop for convenience. The pronouncing of his own name tends to harden the arteries.”
“It nearly wrecked the telephone this morning,” remarked Bundle. “So that’s the Baron, is it? I foresee he’ll be turned on to me this afternoon—and I’ve had Isaacstein all the morning. Let George do his own dirty work, say I, and to hell with politics. Excuse me leaving you, Mr. Cade, but I must stand by poor old Father.”
Bundle retreated rapidly to the house.
Anthony stood looking after her for a minute or two and thoughtfully lighted a cigarette. As he did so, his ear was caught by a stealthy sound quite near him. He was standing by the boat-house, and the sound seemed to come from just round the corner. The mental picture conveyed to him was that of a man vainly trying to stifle a sudden sneeze.
“Now I wonder—I very much wonder who’s behind the boat-house,” said Anthony to himself. “We’d better see, I think.”
Suiting the action to the word, he threw away the match he had just blown out, and ran lightly and noiselessly round the corner of the boat-house.
He came upon a man who had evidently been kneeling on the ground and was just struggling to rise to his feet. He was tall, wore a light coloured overcoat and glasses, and for the rest, had a short pointed black beard and a slightly foppish manner. He was between thirty and forty years of age, and altogether of a most respectable appearance.
“What are you doing here?” asked Anthony.
He was pretty certain that the man was not one of Lord Caterham’s guests.
“I ask your pardon,” said the stranger, with a marked foreign accent and what was meant to be an engaging smile. “It is that I wish to return to the Jolly Crickets, and I have lost my way. Would Monsieur be so good as to direct me?”
“Certainly,” said Anthony. “But you don’t go there by water, you know.”
“Eh?” said the stranger, with the air of one at a loss.
“I said,” repeated Anthony, with a meaning glance at the boat-house, “that you won’t get there by water. There’s a right of way across the park—some distance away, but all this is the private part. You’re trespassing.”
“I am most sorry,” said the stranger. “I lost my direction entirely. I thought I would come up here and inquire.”
Anthony refrained from pointing out that kneeling behind a boat-house was a somewhat peculiar manner of prosecuting inquiries. He took the stranger kindly by the arm.
“You go this way,” he said. “Right round the lake and straight on—you can’t miss the path. When you get on it, turn to the left, and it will lead you to the village. You’re staying at the Cricketers, I suppose?”
“I am, monsieur. Since this morning. Many thanks for your kindness in directing me.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Anthony. “I hope you haven’t caught cold.”
“Eh?” said the stranger.
“From kneeling on the damp ground, I mean,” explained Anthony. “I fancied I heard you sneezing.”
“I may have sneezed,” admitted the other.
“Quite so,” said Anthony. “But you shouldn’t suppress a sneeze, you know. One of the most eminent doctors said so only the other day. It’s frightfully dangerous. I don’t remember exactly what it does to you—whether it’s an inhibition or whether it hardens your arteries, but you must never do it. Good morning.”
“Good morning, and thank you, monsieur, for setting me on the right road.”
“Second suspicious stranger from village inn,” murmured Anthony to himself, as he watched the other’s retreating form. “And one that I can’t quite place, either. Appearance that of a French commercial traveller. I don’t quite see him as a Comrade of the Red Hand. Does he represent yet a third party in the harassed state of Herzoslovakia? The French governess has the second window from the end. A mysterious Frenchman is found slinking round the grounds, listening to conversations that are not meant for his ears. I’ll bet my hat there’s something in it.”
Musing thus, Anthony retraced his steps to the house. On the terrace he encountered Lord Caterham, looking suitably depressed, and two new arrivals. He brightened a little at the sight of Anthony.
“Ah, there you are,” he remarked. “Let me introduce you to Baron—er—er—and Captain Andrassy. Mr. Anthony Cade.”
The Baron stared at Anthony with growing suspicion.
“Mr. Cade?” he said stiffly. “I think not.”
“A word alone with you, Baron,” said Anthony. “I can explain everything.”
The Baron bowed, and the two men walked down the terrace together.
“Baron,” said Anthony. “I must throw myself upon your mercy. I have so far strained the honour of an English gentleman as to travel to this country under an assumed name. I represented myself to you as Mr. James McGrath—but you must see for yourself that the deception involved was infinitesimal. You are doubtless acquainted with the works of Shakespeare, and his remarks about the unimportance of the nomenclature of roses? This case is the same. The man you wanted to see was the man in possession of the Memoirs. I was that man. As you know only too well, I am no longer in possession of them. A neat trick. Baron, a very neat trick. Who thought of it, you or your principal?”
“His Highness’s own idea it was. And for anyone but him to carry it out he would not permit.”
“He did it jolly well,” said Anthony, with approval. “I never took him for anything but an Englishman.”
“The education of an English gentleman did the Prince receive,” explained the Baron. “The custom of Herzoslovakia it is.”
“No professional could have pinched those papers better,” said Anthony. “May I ask, without indiscretion, what has become of them?”
“Between gentlemen,” began the Baron.
“You are too kind, Baron,” murmured Anthony. “I’ve never been called a gentleman so often as I have in the last forty-eight hours.”
“I to you say this—I believe them to be burnt.”
“You believe, but you don’t know, eh? Is that it?”
“His Highness in his own keeping retained them. His purpose it was to read them and then by the fire to destroy them.”
“I see,” said Anthony. “All the same, they are not the kind of light literature you’d skim through in half an hour.”
“Among the effects of my martyred master they have not discovered been. It is clear, therefore, that burnt they are.”
“H’m!” said Anthony. “I wonder?”
He was silent for a minute or two and then went on.
“I have asked you these questions, Baron, because, as you may have heard, I myself have been implicated in the crime. I must clear myself absolutely, so that no suspicion attaches to me.”
“Undoubtedly,” said the Baron. “Your honour demands it.”
“Exactly,” said Anthony. “You put these things so well. I haven’t got the knack of it. To continue, I can only clear myself by discovering the real murderer, and to do that I must have all the facts. This question of the Memoirs is very important. It seems to me possible that to gain possession of them might be the motive of the crime. Tell me, Baron, is that a very far-fetched idea?”
The Baron hesitated for a moment or two.
“You yourself the Memoirs have read?” he asked cautiously at length.
“I think I am answered,” said Anthony, smiling. “Now Baron, there’s just one thing more. I should like to give you fair warning that it is still my intention to deliver that manuscript to the publishers on Wednesday next, the 13th of October.”
The Baron stared at him.
“But you have no longer got it?”
“On Wednesday next, I said. To-day is Friday. That gives me five days to get hold of it again.”
“But if it is burnt?”
“I don’t think it is burnt. I have good reasons for not believing so.”
As he spoke they turned the corner of the terrace. A massive figure was advancing towards them. Anthony, who had not yet seen the great Mr. Herman Isaacstein, looked at him with considerable interest.
“Ah, Baron,” said Isaacstein, waving the big black cigar he was smoking, “this is a bad business—a very bad business.”
“My good friend, Mr. Isaacstein, it is indeed,” cried the Baron. “All our noble edifice in ruins is.”
Anthony tactfully left the two gentlemen to their lamentations, and retraced his steps along the terrace.
Suddenly he came to a halt. A thin spiral of smoke was rising into the air apparently from the very centre of the yew hedge.
“It must be hollow in the middle,” reflected Anthony. “I’ve heard of such things before.”
He looked swiftly to right and left of him. Lord Caterham was at the farther end of the terrace with Captain Andrassy. Their backs were towards him. Anthony bent down and wriggled his way through the massive yew.
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