Missing or Murdered (14 page)

When the 9.15 train steamed into Charing Cross Station that morning Algernon Vereker, in clerical garb, was standing under the clock ostensibly reading a morning paper. He was actually watching every passenger who had come by the 9.15 train from Fordingbridge file past the ticket collectors at the platform gate, and could hardly repress the excitement he felt. Every one seemed to have emerged, and a look of disappointment and annoyance passed across Vereker's face. The collectors were about to close the gates, but they hesitated and impatiently glanced up the platform. There was still another passenger. At length he burst into view—it was Farnish, Lord Bygrave's butler! At once the morning paper eclipsed Vereker's face from any direct scrutiny and he waited until Farnish had passed through the western exit of the station before swiftly following him. Vereker had a taxi in readiness should Farnish decide to drive, but Farnish had evidently no taste for such luxuries and wended his way on foot, at a medium pace into the Strand. Crossing the Strand he passed into Trafalgar Square and up the Haymarket, with Vereker following at a discreet distance.

“He is evidently going to make the journey on foot—his destination cannot be very distant, thought Vereker, and at that moment he came face to face with his friend Ricardo. “Hello, Ricky, you're about at an early hour!” he exclaimed.

“Good Lord, Vereker!” replied Ricardo, after gazing in bewilderment at his friend. “You've not taken Holy Orders?”

“Not quite good enough for that yet, Ricky. This is only a disguise; I'm shadowing a man in front. Look here, take this key, it's the key to my flat; meet me at five; have some tea ready; you'll find the key to the commissariat attached to my easel. Au revoir, I've no time to waste on you just now. By the way, get some fodder for tea—cheerio!”

“Right-o, padre! I'll get some kippers for tea and have 'em ready. Five o'clock sharp.”

The next moment Vereker was striding with quickened gait after the disappearing Farnish. The pursuit wandered farther west and came at length to a street of the poorer class chiefly devoted to the letting of apartments. Vereker glanced up to see its name and with an electric thrill of excitement read Glendon Street W. Farnish was some twenty to thirty yards ahead of him, glancing first at one side of the street and then at the other, evidently looking for a number. Vereker cautiously slackened his pace to let the butler increase the distance separating them, and shortly afterwards stopped and gazed with apparent absorption at a row of tinned salmon in a small provision dealer's window, all the while keeping his eye on Farnish. The butler finally appeared to have found the number he sought for he quickly halted and at once mounted the steps to a front door on the left-hand side of the street. He was well in view of the vigilant Vereker, who noted the door by the cleanly whitened steps and polished door-knocker. He could see it was a boarding-house of a poor but respectable type.

I'll disappear diplomatically and return later, thought Vereker, but a sudden wild impulse seized him to continue his way up the street and pass Farnish while he was still waiting for the door at which he had knocked to open. Pulling his clerical hat well down on his head to screen his face as much as possible from observation, and crossing to the opposite side of the street, he hastened forward. He had hardly advanced a dozen paces when the door opened and a prim lady wearing an early Victorian mob-cap appeared and spoke to Farnish. Now was the time to pass him closely. The conversation lasted some seconds and in that brief period became rather heated, for portions of it reached Vereker's acute ears very distinctly.

“I tell you he is not here—he has been gone some days now. Do you doubt my word…?”

Farnish's reply was inaudible, but from his general attitude seemed argumentative. Vereker hastened his footsteps in order to pass the house while Farnish was still engrossed in controversy. As he reached a spot directly opposite the door he heard the butler remark: “But, Mrs. Parslow, he must be here; he's expecting me. Will you kindly let me go up to his room?”

“I tell you, sir, he's not here; he left some days ago… no address… I'll send for police…”

Vereker quickened his pace and, reaching a street running off Glendon Street to the north, turned up it, casting a glance backwards before he was completely out of view of No. 10, where Farnish had called. The prim lady of that house had closed the door with a slam in the butler's face and Farnish was slowly descending the steps with an air of disappointment and hesitation. The next moment Vereker had turned the corner and Farnish was walking dejectedly back the way he had come. Vereker made his way northwards until he reached a shopping thoroughfare, and turning in at a Lyons tea-shop ordered coffee. Pulling out his morning paper from his pocket, he lit a cigarette and glanced cursorily at the day's news. A brief paragraph notified that Lord Bygrave was still missing, but that the police had stumbled upon new clues which promised to lead to a swift unravelling of the mystery. On another page a leader called attention to the alarming number of recent crimes the perpetrators of which remained undiscovered, and demanded in a peremptory manner a better co-ordination between the police organizations of rural districts and the more experienced staff of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard. Having finished his coffee and cigarette at his leisure, Vereker rose, paid his bill and turned his steps once more towards Glendon Street.

The excitement of the chase was in his blood and the remarkable coincidence that Farnish had called at 10 Glendon Street, the address at which he remembered the mysterious and elusive Mrs. Cathcart had stayed, intrigued him.

“The skein is unravelling,” he muttered to himself and quickened his pace. Arriving at 10 Glendon Street he knocked and the door was opened by the same lady who had confronted Farnish. She had now, however, divested herself of her cap and was looking tidier and primmer than ever. At sight of his clerical garb she at once asked Vereker in, and led him to a cosy little drawing-room the window of which overlooked the street, but was fenced against any intrusive gaze from without by a magnificent aspidistra in a large, blue, earthenware bowl. Vereker opened the conversation by saying that he had heard of the address from a Mrs. Cathcart who had stayed there, and asked if he might rent a room for a few weeks, during his stay in London. Evidently Mrs. Parslow was impressed by Vereker's manner and garb, for she immediately confided in him that she had a room which had just been vacated and after which there had been several inquiries. One had been from a young lady on the stage and another from a similar young lady, stylishly dressed and a colonel's daughter, who was engaged in the moving picture business, but, as Mrs. Parslow added: “Not that theatrical people aren't respectable, sir, but I'm not partial to them. They may be good enough in their way, but being a widow (and mark you, sir, I've seen better times and was born and bred a lady) I have to earn my living and pay my way. These stage people are always in and out of situations, and of course are therefore not always regular in their payments—”

“I quite understand, Mrs. Parslow,” interrupted Vereker, “on the financial side I don't think we'll have any difficulty. I always pay for my rooms in advance.”

“Thank you, sir. You'll excuse my being particular about money, but the very last gentleman who had my room, a Mr. Henry Parker by name, he left without paying his bill. Fortunately for me he had only stayed a few days before he went.”

“H'm, iniquitous!” exclaimed Vereker, suppressing his excitement with difficulty. “Strangely enough, the name seems familiar to me, Mrs. Parslow, probably one of the parishioners I've met in my wanderings. I can't just place him at present. Of course he didn't say where he had gone?”

“No, sir, he evidently didn't tell even his friends. A gentleman called here this very morning for him—an aristocratic looking gentleman he was too—and when I told him Mr. Parker had left he doubted my word, sir; had the audacity to say he didn't believe me and said he must see Mr. Parker at once. I threatened to call the police.”

“Persistent fellow!” exclaimed Vereker with simulated and sympathetic indignation. “Had he any other callers?”

“Another young gentleman, sir, a Mr. Winslade by name, but Mr. Parker wouldn't see anybody, and much to my shame, sir, for I hate lying, I was obliged to tell him that Mr. Parker was out, but if he had any message to leave I should be pleased to give it when he returned.”

“Do you know, I believe I can trace all these gentlemen. I may be of some use to you later on in the way of getting your money for you for Mr. Parker's stay here.”

“Thank you, sir, it would be very kind of you, and now would you like to see your room?”

“I should, Mrs. Parslow,” replied Vereker, rising as his new landlady led the way from the drawing-room.

“I must warn you, sir, that the room hasn't yet been tidied up since Mr. Parker left. I haven't had time, as my sister living further down the road has not been very well and I've had to devote all my spare time to looking after her affairs.”

“That doesn't matter, Mrs. Parslow, I can quite understand. I'm afraid you'll find me a most untidy occupant when I'm here.”

The room to which Mrs. Parslow led Vereker was on the next floor and, to his joy, overlooked the street. It was a comfortable and spacious apartment, spotlessly clean, though at the moment littered with odd newspapers, brown paper and string, and bearing unmistakable evidence of the hasty departure of its last tenant. Even the bed in which he had slept had not yet been made, and Vereker's roving eye noted the depression in the pillow made by the departed lodger's head. An ardent desire for a thorough examination of that room at once seized him and he wildly sought for some excuse to rid himself of Mrs. Parslow's presence for even a few minutes.

“A very comfortable room, Mrs. Parslow, I am sure I shall be very happy here—a home from home, so to speak,” he said, and hoped the sentiment of the last phrase would find a responding chord in her heart.

At this juncture a young woman's voice called up from below:

“Mother, are you there?”

“Yes, dear, what do you want? I'm engaged.”

“I won't keep you a moment, mother—it's most important.”

“Excuse me a minute, sir,” said Mrs. Parslow, turning to Vereker.

“Certainly—don't hurry on my account. I'll just take this easy chair and rest for a minute. I'm absolutely tired out hunting for rooms. I've been on my feet all morning.”

“Shall I make you a cup of tea, sir?” asked the landlady as she reached the door.

“You're a brick, Mrs. Parslow!” exclaimed Vereker with enthusiasm, and the compliment brought him a motherly smile as she left the room.

On her departure the overtired Vereker sprang with alacrity from his chair, and made a rapid but exhaustive search of the room as quietly as possible. Noticing some torn paper in the waste-paper-basket he rapidly filled his pockets with the fragments. The returning footsteps of Mrs. Parslow quickly recalled the well simulated look of fatigue to Vereker's face, and he was comfortably ensconced in a wicker arm-chair when she entered the room with a cup of tea.

Over that cup of tea Vereker augmented the goodwill that Mrs. Parslow had already shown him. He asked for her terms for a month and handed her a roll of Treasury notes considerably over the amount demanded, with the excuse that as he was a most untidy “paying guest,” and was erratic in his comings and goings, it was only fair.

“You see, Mrs. Parslow, I'm an extremely busy man and have all sorts of friends to visit. If I am here one day and absent for the following week you mustn't be alarmed. I shall not have been run over by a bus—at least the odds are against it—and if I don't leave definite instructions you must not be annoyed with me.”

“I shan't worry, sir, now that you've told me beforehand,” replied Mrs. Parslow, her eye beaming as it fell on the notes in her hand.

Having completed his arrangements for arrival and occupation within a few days, Vereker took his departure. Now that he had lost the first fierce excitement of having struck a strong scent he began to feel uncomfortable in his clerical garb, but came eventually to the conclusion that the disguise must be suffered until he had completed his investigations as far as 10 Glendon Street was concerned. It was a nuisance, this masquerade, but inevitable. He must give the better-known thoroughfares a wide berth—the less his friends knew at present about his adventure in the domain of criminal investigation the better. He could not, however, resist lunch at a well-known little restaurant in Jermyn Street, where the food was an artistic delight, and later dropped into a picture gallery where there was a temporary exhibition of old English water colours. At five o'clock sharp he turned up at his own flat and on Ricardo admitting him was assailed by the odour of grilling kippers.

Ricardo had temporarily donned one of Vereker's painting overalls and, with sleeves rolled up and red face, was doing his best to play the rôle of cook.

“Interesting smell, Ricky!” exclaimed Vereker.

“Nothing to beat 'em, Algernon, my boy, only they want a lot of watching, you know. Another fraction of a second and we're ready. Oh damme! I've forgotten to heat the plates.”

“Boiling water's the quickest method,” suggested Vereker.

“Then lend a hand and do the needful. The water won't be quite boiling yet, because I made the tea without putting any tea in the pot and had to go back to the starting-post. But, if you'll saw a few chunks of bread and butter, I'll see to the tea.”

At length the tea was ready and laid on a rickety table in Vereker's studio in front of an easel on which stood a canvas with a rough charcoal sketch.

Vereker's glance wandered to that sketch and he almost sighed. It took him back to times untroubled by mystery except by the mystery of beauty. Ricardo noticed his expression and turned round to look at the canvas.