Missing or Murdered (25 page)

“How did Lord Bygrave come by the receipt?” queried Vereker quietly.

“Although I never saw the correspondence, Bygrave told me she posted it to him on the receipt of the money.”

“Were you aware of the transaction?”

“Certainly. She wrote to him saying that she was practically destitute, and he confided in me with regard to the whole situation. He told me that she was his wife and wanted to divulge that fact in a book of her reminiscences. This he was most eager to avoid, and to put her on her feet and evade any further trouble with her he said he had sent her the money.”

“Then why should she deny that she gave this receipt for the money? She swears that she never received a penny from Lord Bygrave.”

“I suppose because the transaction bordered very dangerously on blackmail. In any case a woman's pride is enough to urge her to such a denial.”

“Did you handle the money at any time?” asked Vereker somewhat pointedly.

An angry flush lit Smale's eye for a moment, but swiftly vanished. “Rather a pertinent question, Vereker, prompted no doubt by my sudden departure subsequently from Bygrave Hall. I see the trend of your thoughts: the situation gave me an opportunity for a lively little swindle. To cover it I possibly had a hand in Bygrave's disappearance—it would be a distinctly opportune disappearance for me, eh? Well, I'm pleased to state that at no time did I handle the bonds. Bygrave simply gave me the receipt and asked me to conceal it in the secret drawer of his bureau. Think for a moment, Vereker; were I dishonourably implicated in this transaction of bonds, should I have been such a fool as to discover the receipt for you? I hardly think I'm a congenital idiot.”

“Quite so, Smale; even as a piece of bluff it would have been unduly risky,” replied Vereker pensively. “The whole affair begins to assume a bewildering complexion.”

“As far as I can judge—though I don't know the lady—I should say she's an accomplished liar, much as I dislike saying that of any woman,” added Smale as he turned up the collar of his dressing-gown.

“I wouldn't go as far as that,” remarked Vereker. “I have met the lady and, if she has designedly deceived me, she must be a great artist. I can hardly believe it of her.”

“She is a most prepossessing woman,” said Smale, closing his eyes. “Beauty is a very dangerous weapon in the armoury of deceit. Believe me, I have been already wounded by the self-same weapon. You must be alertly on guard,” he added warningly.

Vereker sat silent, buried in his own thoughts.

“She may be utterly innocent of the whole affair,” he suggested at length.

“That is quite possible, Vereker,” confirmed Smale, “anything is possible in this tangled business. I wonder what odds a psychological bookmaker would lay on the possibility of her not being innocent at all.”

At this juncture Vereker rose from his chair. “I'm sorry to have troubled you about this affair, Smale, but I hope you understand the reasons which actuated me. I'm trying to get at the truth. You must also pardon the directness of my interrogation; it would have been a waste of time beating about the bush.”

“Don't apologize, Vereker,” replied Smale pleasantly. “I hope I've cleared the air somewhat, though at the moment it looks as if I had begotten a fog. If you want any further information, you had better write to me and address the letter to my home address. I shall not be there, but I shall eventually receive your correspondence. I must keep in touch with the guv'nor. I'm bound to the old home by the chain of pecuniary circumstance—at least until I can get on my feet abroad. Australia is the land of my choice. My only regret is that I can't offer dear old London a first-class ticket to accompany me.”

He extended a friendly hand which Vereker, in spite of the many doubts in his mind, shook warmly.

“God speed,” he said. “I hope you'll have good luck.”

A few seconds afterwards he was in the street making his way slowly back to his flat. A look of weariness and dejection was on his lean, handsome face. His hands were clasped behind his back as he walked in his long-striding, leisurely manner.

“Drawn blank again,” he muttered to himself, and added as an afterthought: “At least it appears so at the moment. I must go and see Mrs. Cathcart. She has something to disclose according to her last letter to me. Perhaps she can now shed a further ray of light on my darkness.”

He arrived to find Ricardo washing up dishes and whistling an air from “Rigoletto” very much out of tune. At the sound of his footsteps Ricardo came at once into the studio, tea-towel and dripping plate in his hands.

“Well, Sherlock or Thorndike, or whatever you like to picture yourself, what of the interview? Did you singe the beard of the elusive Smale?”

“He was in, and I had a long chat with him,” returned Vereker.

“Sounds quite mild. With satisfactory results, may I ask?”

“It has left me more bemused than ever, Ricky. Smale revealed himself to-day as cherubic; he was frankness and innocence personified; he was a thing of light. I ventured to his digs with the intention of extorting something amounting to a confession of guilt from him, armed, as I believed I was, with the deadly weapon of a forged receipt. I was nearly certain that he had forged that receipt. Under his self-possession and coolness and readiness to supply any information that I required, I saw the portentous mountains of my suspicions dissolve and slide away over the horizon and leave a smiling plain of trust and good faith. It was simply miraculous!”

“That chap would be worth his weight in gold as a company promoter, barrister or politician,” remarked Ricky, hanging the tea-towel on a peg of Vereker's easel.

“I'm not sure yet whether he is innocent or not,” said Vereker, thrusting his hands deep in his pockets and gazing blankly out of the window. If he is, it casts a very sinister light on Mrs. Cathcart—she is then a liar and a blackmailer.”

“Which, of course, you don't believe for a moment?” said Ricardo, smiling.

“True, Ricky, perfectly true. Can you suggest anything?”

“Nothing more helpful than that you should rely, in the good old English fashion, on the spin of a coin.”

Vereker disdained further conversation and still stood gazing out of the window, lost in thought.

“I wonder if I should go and see Mrs. Cathcart again,” he soliloquized aloud.

“For God's sake do, Vereker. I know you're dying to,” said Ricardo earnestly. “You remember my solution to the mystery of her last letter asking for an interview with you? You want to go and fall a victim to her charms. You can't deceive me, you know. Your absence will give me a chance of completing the next chapter of my dramatic story with some sort of verve. If you stay here I'll compose an ode to death or a lost soul, or—”

“I'm going to have a rest, Ricky,” said Vereker, suddenly interrupting his friend. “My brain is tired and I'm depressed. Wake me about five o'clock, like a good chap, and have a cup of tea ready. I'll go down to Farnaby and see Mrs. Cathcart to-night.”

“Very good, sir, and what suit of clothes will you wear this evening, sir? Brown shoes or black, white, brown or grey spats, sir? And the tie is most important.”

Vereker's bedroom door closed quietly on Ricardo's flippant chatter, and he disappeared without further comment.

“By all the saints!” exclaimed Ricardo with a troubled look, “I'll write something on this and call it ‘From painter to sleuth: the story of an unhappy metamorphosis.'” He strolled slowly back into the kitchen and gravely resumed his dish washing.

When Vereker arrived at Farnaby it was dark, and without wasting time he made his way to the narrow and deeply rutted lane that led to Bramblehurst. On leaving the main road he plunged into Cimmerian darkness, for there were no lamps, and progress became difficult and slow. Every now and then he sank ankle-deep in muddy pools, and heartily wished that he had brought a flash-lamp with him. At length he discerned the dark silhouette of a house against the lighter tone of the night sky, and knew he had reached his destination. Opening the gate and advancing a few paces up the gravelled approach, he was at once confronted with the disturbing fact that there were no lights in any of the windows of the dwelling.

All day long he had been in an unpleasant and depressed frame of mind, and the discovery that his journey had possibly been in vain did not tend to brighten his sombre outlook.

“Surely they cannot have turned in,” he muttered to himself; “it's too early. They may, of course, be out, or perhaps they are using some room at the back of the house.”

For some seconds he stood hesitant, deliberative, and then, striking a match, approached the front door and pressed the bell-push. He heard the bell ring shrilly in the profound stillness, but waited in vain for any answer to his summons.

“This fairly ices the cake,” he ejaculated bitterly, and was about to depart when a sound of some movement within fell on his acute ears. He waited expectantly, hoping ardently that his hearing had not been at fault; but all again was as silent as the grave.

“A window rattling in a gust of wind,” he soliloquized. This surmise, however, hardly convinced him, for he was aware that the night was profoundly still, and not a twig of tree or bush stirred to disturb the uncanny hush.

Not at all prone to imaginary fears, he felt himself invaded by an unusual sense of uneasiness and dread. Around him evergreen shrubs and yews reared a high wall of impenetrable gloom; an owl flung out a melancholy and eerie call from a tree near, and was answered afar off by another; some creature of the night rustled the leaves of the thick laurel hedge dividing the garden from the lane. Nature's marauders were astir and swift murder afoot. Shaking off with an effort his groundless nervousness, he walked boldly round the house with the intention of trying the back door, his heavy shoes noisily crunching the gravel. The very sound of his own footsteps seemed matter-of-fact and comforting in his present mood; but, strive how he might, Vereker was unable to rid himself of a feeling that something unusual and sinister ruled the moment. He experienced this all the more keenly because he was not at all given to presentiments or premonitions. He knocked loudly on the door, making the house reverberate with the tattoo, and stood with ears straining to catch the slightest sound from within. No reply was vouchsafed, and in his disappointment he swore vehemently, calling himself a feckless fool for not having wired that he was coming. Leaving the back door, he was about to make a detour of the house and set out for Farnaby village when, to his surprise, he discovered one of the kitchen windows wide open.

“Hello,” he exclaimed, “this is odd! They have evidently forgotten to close it. It offers a golden opportunity for any passing tramp or loafer.”

Then like a flash it crossed his mind that the sound of movement within which he was certain he had heard when he rung the front door bell might have its origin in some unlawful intruder. He considered for a moment what action he should take, and then, climbing swiftly and quietly in at the window, found himself in the kitchen. Thence he fumbled his way by the uncertain light of a match into the drawing-room, and discovered to his astonishment that all the choice pieces of furniture and
objets d'art
which he had furtively admired on his first visit had disappeared. The obvious conclusion was that Mrs. Cathcart and her adopted daughter had departed and taken their own belongings with them, leaving behind the furniture which belonged to the landlord. This was an electrifying discovery after her pressing invitation to him to come down and see her before her departure abroad. The match which Vereker had held aloft, and by which he had hastily surveyed the room, flickered fitfully to a stump and went out. The room was plunged in darkness. He was about to strike another when again he felt certain that he heard the sound of cautious movement somewhere.

“Anyone in?” he called loud enough to be heard upstairs, but his voice only echoed throughout the house and was soon engulfed in the profound silence.

“Enough to give anybody the creeps,” he soliloquized, and determined to retrace his steps and firmly wedge the kitchen window on leaving.

His mind was in a turmoil. Why had Mrs. Cathcart so suddenly taken her departure? Where had she gone? It seemed to him that at every crucial moment of his investigation of the Bygrave case some one had vanished and left him baffled and disgruntled. Well, it was little use wasting precious time in futile conjecture in an uninhabited house surrounded by impenetrable darkness. He would have liked to explore the floor above, but the trains from Farnaby—yes, he must keep an eye on those trains. They ran at disconcertingly long and inconvenient intervals. He pulled out his watch and struck one of a fast dwindling reserve of matches. It was seven o'clock. There was a train at a quarter to eight; that would just give him time to make a cursory investigation of the room upstairs. Next moment the match in his hand had expired and he was standing bolt upright with every faculty on the alert. There was no mistaking the sound: it was that of a stealthy footfall, and it appeared to come from the staircase leading to the next floor.

“Who's there?” he challenged loudly, but received no reply. At that moment he cursed himself that he had not taken the precaution to bring his automatic pistol with him. He was about to strike another match and endeavour to discover who this lurker might be when, to his utter amazement, an electric torch opened a dazzling eye only a few feet from his face, temporarily blinding him with its powerful beam. Then, in the half-light behind the lamp, he caught sight of a face that left him completely aghast. It was the face of Lord Bygrave! But that face was lined and haggard and brutalized, and from its staring eyes there glared the light of a maniacal frenzy.

“Good God, Henry!” he exclaimed; but no sooner had he uttered the words than he received a smashing blow on the forehead with some heavy implement, and the whole word swiftly dissolved and slid into the dark abyss of unconsciousness,