Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery (15 page)

“There’s real bad blood in that family – proper criminal stock, you might call ‘em. The great-grandfather was one of the smartest burglars we’ve ever had in this country; they all knew about him at headquarters, but they never caught him. He never
was
caught, in fact. A lot of his jobs were put down later on to Charlie Peace, but they weren’t, they were his all right; and he was lucky, while Peace wasn’t. His son was a cut above burglaring. The old man left him a lot of cash, and he set up a bucket shop in Liverpool. But he did overreact himself. He served one stretch of three years, and one of five.

“This chap had two daughters and one son. They were left in pretty poor circumstances, because before he died their father managed to get rid of all the money he’d been left and all he’d made for himself besides. He’d managed to get rid of one of his daughters, as well, before this, however – Miss Cross’ mother, who married an army officer and passes out of the family history. The son was a bit of a bad egg, but he went over to America and operated there; he’s still alive, and as a matter of fact in prison at the moment. Confidence man, his little game is.

“The other daughter, Mrs Vane’s mother, we’ve got nothing particular against either. She married a tradesman in Liverpool in a fair way of business, but ran away with another man after she’d brought him into the bankruptcy court by her extravagance, leaving her child, then ten years old, behind her. Her husband removed to London, taking the child with him, and took a post with a firm of wholesale chemists. He died when Mrs Vane was seventeen, leaving nothing but debts.

“That left the girl a bit in the air. She got three months for shoplifting under an assumed name soon after her father died, and that taught her to be a bit more careful. She went out for bigger game after that. She was part-owner, and incidentally decoy, for a gambling joint in the West End until the police shut it up, and when times were hard she was usually able to make her keep out of the sort of rich young idiot who can be taken in by a baby face and a clinging manner – or rich old idiot too, for that matter. However, when she met Vane she really does seem to be on her uppers. Still, she took him in all right, and he went further than all the other idiots and offered her marriage. She played him well, one must say, because she must have been in a blue funk all the time in case anything came out about the sort of person she really was. Anybody can see that the doctor’s got the very devil of a temper, and once he found out anything it would all be UP.” The inspector paused and refreshed himself with a meditative air.

“Go on, Inspector!” Roger cried. “I know you’re keeping the titbit for the last.”

“Can’t put anything past you, Mr Sheringham,” grinned his companion. “Yes, during the war, we’ve discovered, before she ever met Vane she went through a form of marriage with a man called Herbert Peters. We don’t know anything about Mr Herbert Peters, but we’ve been looking for him pretty hard during the last day or two. No, we haven’t found him yet, and for all we know he might be dead – he might even,” the inspector added judicially, “have been dead at the time of her marriage to the doctor.”

“But you’re pretty sure he wasn’t, eh?” asked Roger softly.

“I’d bet my Bible oath on it!” returned the inspector piously.

When the inspector had gone to bed that night, as he did very shortly after this unprecedented outburst of confidence, Roger sat up to await the return of Anthony. A plan of campaign had been forming in his mind, and he was on tenterhooks to put it into operation.

Anthony made his appearance at half past eleven, to be greeted by his cousin with severity and heavy sarcasm.

“Have you been studying the beauties of nature under the pale crescent moon?” Roger demanded. “Don’t attempt to deny it – you have! One of the beauties of nature, at any rate. Well, it’s as well, I suppose, because she certainly won’t be beautiful tomorrow under this treatment. Her nose will be red, her eyes watery, and she’ll be snuffling and sniffling with a streaming cold. There’s a picture for a young lover! Will you love her in December, Anthony, as you did in May?”

“Dashed funny, aren’t you?” growled the young lover, blushing warmly. He helped himself to what the inspector had left in the whisky bottle.

“That depends on the point of view,” Roger admitted very fairly. “
I
think I am; you don’t. It’s all a matter of opinion – now, hurry up and put that inside you, Anthony. There’s dirty work afoot for us tonight.”

“Tonight? You mean there’s something you want to do right away?”

“I do; and I’ve been waiting two or three hours for you to come in and do it with me. I want to make a little nocturnal expedition, in circumstances of some secrecy. To the fatal ledge, no less. You won’t need a hat; come on. Everybody’s gone to bed, so for Heaven’s sake try to plant your large feet down gently; I don’t want anybody to know we’ve gone out.”

Obeying this injunction as well as possible, Anthony crept after his cousin to the back door of the inn, guided by the light of the latter’s torch. Roger softly drew back the bolts, unlocked the door and pocketed the key. They passed cautiously through.

“I say, where are we going, Roger?” Anthony whispered.

“Yes, it is rather exciting, isn’t it?” Roger agreed, answering the implication of the whisper rather than the actual words. “I told you, to the ledge.”

“Yes, but why?”

“I’ll have to explain a few other things first. Wait till we’re out of this yard.”

As they stepped out into the high road Roger began to give his companion an account of the evening’s work, describing the interview with young Woodthorpe as accurately as he could. The recital took them halfway across the stretch of turf, and then Anthony gave tongue.

“That’s the chap who did it,” said Anthony with the utmost confidence. “Can’t you see his game? He wanted to shut her mouth; stop her telling her husband, you see. Seems obvious to me.”

“So I suppose he put a pair of female shoes on his hands and walked along on them beside Mrs Vane to disguise his footmarks?” queried Roger.

“He could easily fake those,” Anthony returned, unmoved by this facetiousness. “The inspector himself said footprints were the easiest thing in the world to fake.”

“Within limits,” Roger demurred. “Besides, you must remember that the letter, which looked so suspicious at first, has rather lost its importance. I told you, it didn’t refer to that Tuesday at all; it was for last Tuesday fortnight.”

“You told me he
said
it was,” Anthony retorted cunningly. “But he can’t prove it, can he? You’ve only got his bare word to go on. And if he did push her over, it seems to me he wouldn’t jib at telling you a naughty fib or two, dear Roger.”

“Anthony, you overwhelm me!” Roger murmured. “To think that such a possibility had never occurred to my simple mind. That’s the worst of having such a trustful nature, I always believe everything I am told. If you were to tell me for instance that you’d been singing the Indian Love Lyrics to a jellyfish between the hours of nine and eleven thirty this evening, I should believe you instantly.”

Anthony’s reply is unprintable.

When peace had been restored:

“You still haven’t told me what we’re coming here for,” Anthony remarked.

They had reached the head of the nearer flight of steps, and Roger began to descend, flashing his torch before and behind him for the benefit of the following Anthony. “To have a look at that cave, of course,” he replied over his shoulder.

“But why the hurry?”

“Because if we leave it till a Christian time tomorrow,” Roger explained patiently, “Moresby will certainly forestall us. And if there
is
anything interesting in the way of clues to be found there, we shall decidedly never see it, and probably never even hear of it, if we let Moresby get there first.”

“Oh!” said Anthony.

They gained the ledge and made their way cautiously along its narrow width.

“By the way,” Anthony remarked airily, “Margaret was asking – that is, do you happen to know whether that infernal inspector has still got any comic ideas about Margaret in his head?”

“How the average Englishman does shirk a plain statement of unpleasant fact,” Roger murmured. “He’d rather use a hundred innocent words to wrap up his perfectly obvious meaning than half a dozen blunt ones. You mean, I suppose, does Moresby still think that Margaret murdered her cousin? Well, I don’t know. I did try to sound him, but he’s indecently reticent on the subject. On the whole I’m inclined to think that his ideas on that point are a little less rigid than they were.”

“Well, thank God the fellow’s beginning to see a little sense at last,” was Anthony’s pious comment.

They progressed the rest of the way in silence, busy with their respective thoughts.

“Walk carefully, Anthony,” Roger remarked as they approached the scene of the tragedy. “We don’t want to leave our footprints at any rate. Try to tread only on dry rock.”

They picked their steps with elaborate caution.

Roger halted and flashed his torch around him. “This is the spot. You haven’t been here before, have you? That’s just about where she fell off, by that little cleft on the edge. Now you sit down on that boulder in front of you while I look around. We don’t want to leave more traces than we need, and my tread is probably rather more catlike than yours.” He began to poke around among the crevices and loose boulders at the back of the ledge.

A subdued cry of triumph a few minutes later brought Anthony to his side.

“This must be it,” Roger said, flashing his lamp upon a small aperture in the cliff face, almost covered by a large boulder. “Look!” He held his torch in the opening.

By screwing his head down to the level of his knees and peering round a corner of the boulder Anthony was just able to make out a dim and damp interior. “Great Scott,” he said in dismay, “I shall never be able to get inside that.”

“It’s going to be a struggle,” Roger admitted, comparing his cousin’s burly bulk with the extremely small entrance. “A certain simile concerning the eye of a needle occurs to me with some force. Still, if friend Colin can do it, I should say you ought to be able to. But don’t stick halfway, or you’ll annoy the inspector when he comes exploring. Now then, expel a deep breath and follow Uncle Roger.” He dropped on his hands and knees and began to worm his way inside.

“I can’t cope with that,” observed Anthony ruefully, as he watched his cousin’s feet slowly and painfully drag themselves out of his field of vision. “I’ll watch the proceedings from the doorway.” He assumed a recumbent position and inserted his head and a portion of one shoulder in the tiny opening.

Inside was a tolerably respectable little cavern, some ten feet wide by a dozen deep, shelving at the back till ceiling met floor at an acute angle amid a medley of small rocks and fragments of stone; along one side a ledge two or three feet high and as many deep formed a natural couch, while a large, flat boulder opposite was equally useful as a table.

Roger, standing upright in the centre without difficulty, was throwing his light into the various nooks and crannies with which the irregular sides were seamed.

“Any luck?” Anthony asked, twisting his head at an uncomfortable angle to improve his field of view.

Roger turned his light on to the floor. “There’s no doubt the place has been used,” he said slowly; “and used a lot. Cigarette ends, matches, candle ends all over the place.” He took a couple of steps toward the back and peered down among the rocks. “Half a dozen empty chocolate boxes,” he continued, turning over his finds. “Paper bags, sandwich wrappings, half a bun; there doesn’t seem to be anything very exciting here.” He began to roam around the little enclosure, examining its possibilities with careful attention. Stooping, he picked up half a dozen cigarette stubs and scrutinised them under his lamp. “Four gaspers and two Turkish,” he delivered judgement, “the latter marked with pink at the ends. Can you deduce anything from that, Anthony? Pale ends, pink-tipped... Probably Mrs Vane smoked them while chewing her chocolates, or, alternatively, chewed her chocolates while smoking them – a purely psychological distinction which certainly won’t interest you, but in either case an abominable practice; she seems to me to have been that kind of woman. Well, Anthony, except so far as we confirm friend Colin’s story, I’m very much afraid we’ve had our journey for nothing. All these things are damp, and most of them mildewed. I can quite believe that the place hasn’t been used for over a fortnight.”

“Were you looking for anything in particular?”

“No, just hoping against hope.” He bent and peered into a cavity in one of the sides. “Half a dozen banana skins and the remains of an orange. Not very helpful. How very hungry this place seems to have made those two! Well, I suppose we’d better be getting back.”

“What’s this thing just in front of me?” Anthony asked suddenly. “Bit of newspaper or something. No, you can’t see it from where you’re standing. Behind that big flat rock on your left.”

Roger retrieved the article in question. “A copy of
London Opinion,
”
he replied without very much interest. “That would be Master Colin’s property, I should imagine; not the lady’s. Issue dated – why, hullo!”

“What?” Anthony asked eagerly.

Roger paused and made a rapid calculation. “Good for you, Anthony!” he exclaimed. “Do you know what this is? It’s last Saturday’s number!”

“Oho!” observed Anthony with interest.

Roger stared at him. “So Colin was not telling the truth after all!” he exclaimed softly.

“That’s just what I’ve been trying to din into you all the time,” kindly pointed out his cousin.

Roger dabbled his bare feet in the wave which surged past the rock upon which he and Anthony were sitting. Lifting it out of the water, he contemplated his dripping toes with apparently deep interest. “Of course,” he said slowly, “we must remember that Colin
may
have been telling the truth, after all.”