Missing or Murdered (6 page)

He walked back to the inn with a feeling of exultation—just the exultation of the sportsman who has made a good bag, or the poet who has created a beautiful line. The appearance of Inspector Heather brought him to earth. That officer was just returning from his round of inquiry. Vereker strove to read some message in his face, but it was entirely impassive.

“Picked up the key to the problem, Heather?” asked Vereker cheerfully.

“No. Have you?” from the police officer, with a quick glance at Vereker's beaming visage.

“Got the skeleton of the whole thing!” exclaimed Vereker, with undisguised delight.

“How did you manage that?” asked Inspector Heather dubiously.

“Quite by accident. Took a stroll keeping my eyes open—and there, in a lane in a certain play of sunlight, the germ, the skeleton!”

“Of the Bygrave case?” asked the inspector in a mocking tone.

“No, no. Bygrave case, no! I mean my next picture. I'm forgetting that I'm a detective; for an hour or two I'm an artist. I'll meet you at dinner. I shall possibly have returned to the fold by then.”

Vereker was in his bath when a smile of bewilderment crossed his features and he uttered the exclamation: “Prize ass that I am! I had completely forgotten the existence of Sidney Smale, Bygrave's private secretary!”

He hurriedly finished his toilet and, feeling refreshed and ready for dinner, returned to the dining-room, where Inspector Heather awaited him.

“Heather, we've completely overlooked one person who may be able to shed a light on events prior to Lord Bygrave's disappearance.”

“Do you think so?” asked Heather, looking up slowly from an evening paper that had just arrived.

“Lord Bygrave's private secretary, a man called Sidney Smale,” said Vereker excitedly.

“He's out of the country at the present moment,” remarked the inspector quietly.

“Where has he gone?”

“To Paris, for a holiday. We've cut it short by cabling for him to return to Bygrave Hall the day after to-morrow.”

“Resourceful fellow, Heather! I hope your summons will be obeyed. I trust you cabled in a thoroughly peremptory tone. All my suspicions have suddenly veered round to Smale. I've reluctantly had to discard Lawless and have discharged him without a stain on his character.”

“What makes you suddenly suspect Smale?” asked the inspector.

“Primarily because his Christian name's Sidney!” replied Vereker gravely.

The inspector tossed his head wearily as if to signify that conversation in that jocular key was distasteful. “What about dinner?” he asked.

“Do you think Smale will return in response to a cable? It might start him off like a pistol-shot on a race to the uttermost parts of the earth,” queried Vereker.

“Not likely—Paris police!” replied the inspector laconically.

“It's not fair,” sighed Vereker. “You don't give the hare a chance with your web of wireless and cables and police bureaux at the gates of the wilderness. For the only place that's paradise now for the criminal is the wilderness. You're not sportsmen at the C.I.D. I refuse to compete with you any longer.”

Inspector Heather smiled.

“I'm going over to-morrow morning to Bygrave Hall. I hope you'll accompany me, Mr. Vereker. The servants know you pretty well; it would be diplomatic if you arrived with me.”

“Very good. I'm sorry you've discovered nothing at Hartwood, inspector.”

“It's extraordinary. Not a vestige of anything that's useful. Only one villager admits to having seen a gentleman that might have been Lord Bygrave, and that was as he emerged from the inn on Saturday morning. He couldn't even say in what direction the gentleman went.”

“Yet I can't help thinking we might discover something here, inspector. I have no very definite grounds for thinking so, but there are all sorts of vague things in my mind. They're only ghosts of suspicions; I can't definitely lay hold of one definite surmise. But they're like spirits brooding. I feel certain they'll suddenly materialize and give me a clear, tangible something. It's sure to happen when I'm miles away from the place. It's always the way with me. Ah, here's the dinner at last!”

During dinner the conversation flagged. Inspector Heather seemed buried in his own thoughts and little disposed to discuss matters with his companion. Vereker, on his part, was absorbed in the quality of a bottle of Madeira that he had bought and was sampling with undisguised zest.

“You ought to try this wine, inspector,” he urged at length.

“I seldom want anything better than good, honest ale,” replied the inspector, and suddenly diving into his waistcoat pocket he produced Lord Bygrave's signet-ring.

“Did you look at that ring carefully?” he asked.

“Not very carefully,” replied Vereker. “Why, what's wrong with it?”

“Nothing wrong; there's nothing mysterious about it. That is Lord Bygrave's crest, I suppose?”

“Certainly,” said Vereker. “By the way, that ring is mine should anything have happened to Bygrave. He wants me to keep it as a little remembrancer.”

“You had better take charge of it, then,” said the inspector. “But should I require it again you can let me have it back.”

“Most assuredly. I think I'd better wear it or I'll leave it lying about somewhere. You don't think it would be unlucky to wear it, do you, Heather?”

The inspector vouchsafed no reply, so Vereker put the ring on the third finger of his left hand and the meal ended in silence.

After dinner Vereker retired to his room. He drew an arm-chair to the empty fire-place and filled his pipe. Now that he was alone his usual look of irrepressible gaiety had vanished and his brow was furrowed with thought.

“The gloom seems to be luminous,” he soliloquized, “but not a definite shaft of light!”

He then stretched out his hand to the mantelpiece for Lord Bygrave's tin of tobacco, and carefully read the label.

“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “Why, he buys it at the Civil Service Stores! The plot thickens!” For half an hour Vereker sat gazing into the chill darkness of the empty grate, his right thumb and forefinger ceaselessly twirling the signet-ring on his left hand. Then he jumped up from his chair, hurriedly undressed and got to bed. He lay awake for more than an hour, arranging and re-arranging in his mind the salient facts of the case as he understood them.

“I won't rest, Darnell, till I discover the whole truth about this mysterious affair. I think I've already left Heather with all his myrmidons a lap or so behind.”

Shortly afterwards Algernon Vereker was sound asleep—even Inspector Heather's loud snore, audible from the next room through the lath-and-plaster wall, failed to disturb his tranquil repose.

When Vereker came down to breakfast next morning Inspector Heather was already there, and apparently busy. Seated at a small table in the breakfast-room, he was writing up all his memoranda in a notebook. On Vereker's appearance he looked sharply round; then, closing his book, carefully thrust it into his breast pocket.

“I've got a car down from town,” he said, “and when you're ready, Mr. Vereker, we'll start. They tell me (from headquarters) that Mr. Sidney Smale has cabled that he is on the way back to Bygrave Hall.”

“Famous, inspector, famous! There's something awe-inspiring about your methods. There's no getting away from you. Smale, instead of making giant strides for the Sahara, promptly walks back right into the jaws of death. Of course it's bluff, we know; he's going to pretend he's entirely innocent and all that sort of thing. What a fool he must be!”

“We'll soon take any bluff out of him,” remarked the inspector stoutly.

“Prick the bladder of his audacity, so to speak,” remarked Vereker, cracking another egg. “I shall enjoy the stern drama. I never did care much for Smale. He doesn't like me either, because I used to call him Mr. Snail—quite inadvertently, you know. I'm frightfully inexact about names.”

Inspector Heather lit his pipe and continued to smoke thoughtfully until Vereker had finished his meal.

An hour or so later their car swung round the drive and pulled up before the stately porch of Bygrave Hall. As Vereker stepped out of the car he turned to Inspector Heather.

“What do you think of the place, Heather?”

“Bit of a ruin in parts, Mr. Vereker, but it looks a nice, old place for an English gentleman to live in.”

“Very neatly expressed. I'm glad you like it. I wish the place were mine. It's a fine example of the late fortified manor of the Middle Ages. It radiates the spirit of mediaevalism, and that's why I love it. Do you know, Heather, just one glance at Bygrave Hall reveals to you one of the most remarkable defects of our own age.”

“What's the defect, Mr. Vereker?”

“Lack of dignity. Our modern attempts at dignified architecture are so ineffectual because we are no longer dignified. The character of an age is expressed in its Art and, when we try to express the characteristic called dignity in these days, we are generally merely pompous. If you were to live any length of time in Bygrave Hall it would change you from a detective inspector into a knight, and you would forget all about the Bygrave case. It would ruin a modern politician in a fortnight—but I'm wasting time; let's get in and make our inquiries.”

On their entry they were met by Farnish, who since Lord Bygrave's departure for Hartwood had had complete control of the household management. He was the typical trusted servant of the old type, a type that under the swiftly changing order of things is passing away. He knew Mr. Algernon Vereker as one of his master's most intimate friends, and that fact alone was sufficient to win, for Vereker, Farnish's loyalty and esteem. An English gentleman was to him one of the finest of God's handiworks, and he had very definite opinions as to who did and who did not come in that category. He had long since placed Algernon Vereker among those who could do no wrong. Whether he understood Vereker's whimsical attitude to life and everything under the sun it would be difficult to say. He may possibly have thought him a trifle insane, but his deportment before his social superiors was that of the trained gentleman's servant—the perfection of correctness; it was a tacit implication that he was a servant of the gods.

To Vereker, Farnish had always been a mystery. Whoever else took servants for granted as necessary adjuncts to life, and differentiated by only two characteristics—good and bad—Vereker did not do so. His inquisitive mind was interested in their mentality; he was always trying to discover the human being hidden so discreetly behind the servant. Their psychology intrigued him, and nothing would have pleased him more than to know Farnish's real opinion about the men and affairs that constituted a portion of the texture of his life and experience. But Vereker had never been able really to penetrate that deferential armour which Farnish wore when his inferior clay came in contact with what was socially supposed to be a superior earth. He had only managed once or twice to glimpse the soul sheltering within this decorous automaton, and the difficulty of the task had always interested him.

“He's a winkle—a bally mollusc!” he had often exclaimed.

Farnish was to-day looking more dignified than ever. The disappearance of Lord Bygrave was to him the most serious matter on earth, and he evidently considered that it required a corresponding gravity of countenance on his part. Vereker, however, thought that there was just a trace of anxiety in his manner, an extra sharpness in the lines of his thin face, a shade more pallor.

“No further news of his lordship, Farnish?” he remarked.

“None whatever, sir.”

“This is Detective-Inspector Heather of Scotland Yard. He has come to look round the place and make inquiries. Put everything at his disposal and give him all the assistance you can. As you may know, Farnish, I am a trustee under Lord Bygrave's will, and in his absence you will take your orders from me and come to me for anything you want.”

“Very good, sir,” replied Farnish, and his eyes glanced up at Vereker with a strangely furtive, inquisitive look.

Vereker was astonished. Never before in his life had he seen the slightest trace of inquisitiveness in Farnish's manner, and here all at once the miracle had happened. Vereker, however, strove to hide any sign of the surprise that he experienced at this unusual occurrence, though it shook him to the extent of causing him to conceal his face and expression with his handkerchief, under cover of violently blowing his nose. When he had sufficiently recovered his equanimity and looked again at Farnish, the miracle had passed, but in Vereker's mind it had left a shadow, the first, almost imperceptible shadow of doubt and suspicion.

Inspector Heather at this juncture signified that he would at once have a look over the entire house, and would be glad of Farnish's guidance. He would also like to question Farnish about all Lord Bygrave's recent movements.

“Then I will go out and study the case in the Japanese garden,” said Vereker, “and, Farnish, you might see that lunch is ready for one o'clock.”

Vereker slowly made his way to his favourite spot in the Japanese garden, and sat down on a large boulder forming a bridge over a tiny rivulet of clear water. He sat there until lunch-time, deep in thought, his eyes glancing now and then at various aspects in the garden with swift and keen appreciation, but his whole mind bent on the problem of his friend's inexplicable disappearance. And, as he sat pondering, certain points in his experiences since he assumed the rôle of amateur detective began to assume significance and form the skeleton on which his supple imagination commenced to build.

“But I can't understand Farnish!” he soliloquized. “What did that note of interrogation in his eye mean? I wonder—I wonder if he knows anything. I must keep a sharp look-out.” Vereker paused, and then a smile spread over his features. “Of course he may suspect that I have had some hand in Henry's disappearance and was trying to read me. The incident is most important and looks as if it is going to fit into a mysterious scheme of things.”