The Judas Kiss (22 page)

"What theory, my dear?"

"That children born out of wedlock have a weakened moral sense."

"I do not know that I would call it a definite theory," Roger said, "though we do seem to have come up against a lot that points that way. I must have a talk with her. What do you propose to do with her?"

"She must stay with us until we go back to London and then I'll see that she gets a decent job. But I shall keep in touch with her. It is lack of friends that makes it so hard for such girls. You agree?"

"Of course I agree, my love. You are a real good sort."

"I try to do what I can. I was lucky. Nothing new at the inquest, I suppose?"

"No. The coroner was very decent. Suicide while mentally upset. But I think all will go well with your other protégés, Pearl and Peter, though the engagement will not be announced until the Adelaide mystery is solved."

"Will it ever be?"

"I hope so. It is a tangle but I am getting some ideas. The proof may depend on what Jasper calls the ransacking of the home. Of course he does not know what they are looking for. At least he professes not to."

"You mean unless the lipstick is traced to a particular person, the villain may escape?"

"One needs a very definite proof to satisfy a jury. It is its disappearance after use that worries me most."

Later that evening Roger went for a stroll. He could see no lights in the next door house. Probably Pearl was with the Skeltons. Both the doctor and his wife were fond of her and would welcome Peter's engagement. Emerald might be out with Gore-Black and Jasper would no doubt be meeting congenial spirits. Roger decided to see if old Nan was at home.

He went to the trade entrance where there was a light and was admitted by the housekeeper herself. He explained there were one or two questions he wished to ask her. Rather reluctantly he was taken to her very comfortable kitchen. Teague, sitting cosily by the fireside, his pipe in his mouth and a cup of tea at his side, started to rise from his chair.

"Don't get up," Roger said. "This is only a quiet little chat. I believe you have had rather a worrying day?" This was to old Nan.

"Worrying ain't the word for it," she replied. "Those police, a whole gang of 'em, all over the place. And never a thought for poor Mr. Garnet."

"They are gone now?"

"Time enough too. The questions they asked! Wanted to know if I used lipstick! Such impidence. I told 'em I never had. But they wasn't content till they'd looked in my drawers and searched my 'andbag. I asked 'em if this was a free country or Russia! I said I was old enough to be their mother and if I 'ad been they'd 'ave been across my knees learning manners in a way they wouldn't 'ave for gotten."

Old Nan's indignation was still strong enough to make her unusually voluble.

"Did they find what they wanted? I don't mean here but in the other rooms?"

"What did they want, that's the question. They never told me."

"Did they search you for lipstick, Teague?"

The gardener's face cracked into a sort of grin. "I weren't 'ere," he said. "I don't like the p'lice."

"They are not always popular," Roger remarked, "but we could not manage without them. When Mr. Jasper was away, did anyone use his rooms?"

The two looked at one another.

"They were locked up," Nan said.

"No sign of life at all?"

"That first night, " Teague began.

"Me and Teague noticed a light up there from the garden," old Nan went on. "Miss Emerald had the key. She would look round to see all was right."

"How long was she there?"

"Couldn't say. We went a little way. No lights when I came back."

"That no doubt explains it. I must not interrupt your quiet evening."

"May I ask if you think them p'lice will find out any thing?" Teague enquired.

"You mean about Mrs. Adelaide's death? It is their job and they do not often fail."

"I reckon they will this time," old Nan muttered. "My lipstick indeed!"

RUTH and Roger were again at breakfast. She was still faithful to her illustrated daily, though she regretted its increasing concern with the divorces of film stars and crime in general. Roger had a more sedate journal in front of him but his thoughts were elsewhere. He was wondering when he would hear from Grimsby and what the Chief Inspector and his assistants might be doing. He hoped they would not rush into action on insufficient evidence. Grimsby's zeal was not in question but his judgment might be. He wanted to arrest Adelaide's murderer, and to arrest him (or her) soon, but it would be a pity if he acted prematurely.

"I see that unpleasant clergyman is again attacking the Queen," Ruth remarked. "I wonder if in his whole life he will do a quarter of the good she has already done."

Roger knew to whom she referred and he knew her intense admiration for Her Majesty.

"What is the trouble now?" he asked.

"The same old story; she owns horses and goes to race meetings. Also she looks on when the Duke plays polo on Sunday afternoons. Daddy used to say if people went to morning service it was good for them to get fresh air and exercise in the afternoon."

"The Reverend Dean was right. Exercise is more godly than a heavy lunch followed by a long snore. I suppose these dour ministers would be flattered if one called them obnoxious. They think it bold to attack royalty; actually it is cowardly."

"I know about John Knox," Ruth said, "but why cowardly?"

"Because, my dear, although we pride ourselves on our right of freedom of speech, there is one family that has no freedom of speech. That, oddly enough, is the Royal Family. The tub-thumpers know they cannot answer back. They may not even express opinions on party politics. They, "

Then the telephone bell rang. Roger ran to answer it. "Chief Inspector Grimsby here. Can you come round at once? I think I have something that will surprise you!" He sounded complacent, almost triumphant.

"Right away," Roger said. He repeated the brief message to Ruth. "It sounds as though we are nearing the end."

"I hope so," she replied. "Yet I am rather frightened at what it may mean. It is all so terrible."

"Most terrible of all for killers to go free," Roger said.

Grimsby greeted him with a nod of satisfaction on his arrival at the police station.

"I won't give you the details now," he said. "You will soon hear them. Bring her in."

Only the Chief Inspector, a shorthand writer and two constables were in the room. Sergeant Allenby was not present. One of the constables slipped out, to return a few moments later with Emerald Michelmore.

The girl was bare-headed, wearing an indoor costume. It looked as though she had walked in from her home, though not voluntarily.

"What is this all about?" she demanded angrily, taking no notice of Roger Bennion. "I have been questioned again and again. I have signed a written statement; you have turned the house upside down. Is there no end to it?"

"I think this will be the end," was the detective's grim reply. "Please sit down. I have to warn you that what you say will be taken down and may be used as evidence. You can if you wish send for your solicitor."

"What, old Watson?" she said, as she took a chair facing the window. "What can he know about it?"

"I have asked Major Bennion to be present," Grimsby went on, "as I believe he is to some extent a friend of the family."

"Are you on my side or his?" Emerald demanded, turning to Roger.

"I would rather say on neither," he replied. "I do not know exactly why we are here, but I can assure you I am on the side of justice."

"That at least is something," she returned scornfully.

"Miss Michelmore," Grimsby proceeded in his most impressive manner, "I am dealing with the death of Adelaide Bidaut, known to you as Adelaide Michelmore. I do not want to go into every detail covered by your previous statements. I will only repeat that from the first you disliked the young woman your father introduced as his wife. That is so?"

"We all did."

"You were very angry when, on your father's death, it was discovered she was not his wife and yet you got no material benefit under his will until she died?"

"Was it not natural, seeing that she was little older than I am? We all felt the same." Emerald spoke coolly and in the same scornful manner. Haughtiness suited her type of beauty. "You have surely been through that often enough?"

"You were particularly anxious to get your share of the money as you were thinking of getting married?"

"That is no business of yours," she snapped.

"It well may be. You were in court when it was stated that cyanide was the cause of Adelaide Bidaut's death?"

"I was; but I know nothing of cyanide. Are you paid by the hour?"

He disregarded the taunt. His turn would come.

"Your supposed step-mother had, I believe, a curious habit of licking her lips when eating or speaking?"

This from him was new. She did not immediately reply. Did she realise its possible implications? She seemed to be giving more attention to what he was saying.

"She certainly had. It was a disgusting habit. Like lizards or snakes."

"So that she would swallow or imbibe some considerable quantity of the lipstick?"

"I am not concerned with her taste, but it seems highly probable."

"It has now been discovered," Grimsby was most impressive and he slowly repeated the words. "It has now been discovered and proved beyond doubt by the most careful analysis that her lipstick was impregnated with cyanide."

There was a weighty pause. If he was expecting her to show alarm he was disappointed. She regarded him with the same scornful look as before.

"Are you telling me she committed suicide after all? Or was it accidental death? Why all this ceremony about it?"

"The poisoned lipstick has been traced to you."

"That is a damned lie!" She turned to the shorthand writer. "You can underline that. It is a damned lie!"

Then she looked at Roger.

"Do you say nothing when he makes these wicked assertions?"

"I am waiting for the reasons for them," Roger replied.

"I will give them," Grimsby said. "We made a most minute search of the room where the body was found and we examined everything in it. Our first thought was of suicide, as it was no doubt meant to be. But we found no poison. Only two people entered that room after the body was discovered and before the doctor and the police took charge. Those two people were your sister Pearl and yourself."

"Trying to drag Pearl into it too!" she exclaimed. "What about the hotel servants? You permit this, Major Bennion?"

He did not reply. Grimsby picked up a brown-paper parcel lying on the floor by his side and took from it a long, dark-blue coat.

"You recognise this as your coat?"

She glanced at it. "I do. Where did you get it?"

"It was in your room. You wore it when you left your home and went to the hotel on being informed of Adelaide Bidaut's illness?"

Emerald's manner was possibly less assured.

"We were in evening frocks," she said. "I believe we put on coats."

"This has been recognised by the hotel staff as the one you were wearing. Would you deny it?"

"No. I believe it is."

"In that coat," Grimsby said solemnly, "we found this."

From a drawer he took out a small packet and rolled from it the golden case of a lipstick.

Emerald seemed to recognise for the first time the full seriousness of the situation. But she remained defiant.

"If you found it in my coat, who put it there? Did you?"

"I did not," was the grim reply, "but I found it. It bears your fingerprints and its contents on analysis prove to be identical with the smears on the dead woman's lips, both impregnated with cyanide. Have you any explanation to offer?"

Emerald was silent. Her face had lost its colour. Every one was watching her, waiting for her reply.

"A frame-up," she muttered. "Is not that what you call it?"

Then Roger Bennion spoke, taking for the first time a hand in the proceedings. "You wore that coat that evening?"

"I have said I did."

"Have you worn it since?"

"I generally wear it when motoring."

"Do you use the pockets?"

"Of course I do. For a handkerchief and all sorts of things."

"You never felt that article in it?"

"Certainly not. It was not there."

Grimsby listened sardonically. "I never said I found it in her pocket. Possibly she is unaware that there is a small hole in her pocket. Possibly not. It slipped through into the lining where I and my assistant found it. Either she thought that was a safe hiding-place or she supposed she had lost it. But there it remained for me to find!"

He looked at Roger triumphantly. He had credited the latter with little or no help in the matter, which possibly was as well if the girl was to regard him as impartial. But that no longer mattered. There was the proof and he, Grimsby, had found it. Roger said nothing. He recognised the full gravity of the situation.

Emerald looked from one of them to the other. Not so much in anger or fear but as a fighter counting risks and chances.