Mr. Zero (15 page)

“The Home Office is sending a man down. You'll have to take instructions from him as to the political issues involved. He will be present when the safe is opened, and so will Sir Francis Colesborough's lawyer.”

“That was a very queer letter, sir,” said Inspector Boyce.

“Damned queer. Damned treasonable, if you ask me. Home Office report on sabotage missing, Lady Colesborough confessing she took it under instructions from a blackmailer who calls himself Mr. Zero, and her husband, who she thought was going to kill her if he found out, writing, ‘Neither Zero nor the agent is under the least suspicion.' This means Francis Colesborough was in on that business, and lord knows what we shall find when we open his safe. ‘Neither Zero nor the agent—' Now suppose Francis Colesborough was Zero—the agent very probably his wife. They were staying at Wellings when the paper was missed. She's a pretty, silly woman. Suppose her husband put her on to getting the paper for him. Well, say she did it—what was she doing last night? She says—where's that statement of hers?” He plucked it angrily from the desk and leaned back again. “Yes, here we are. She says:

“‘I went into the yew walk to meet a man who called himself Mr. Zero. I have never seen him, and I do not know his real name. He said my husband was keeping some of his letters, and he induced me to take them out of the safe in our London house and bring them down to Cole Lester. He said they were his property and would have his name on them. I found a packet which was marked “Zero.” It was this packet which I took into the yew walk. I did not take any pistol with me. I have fired a pistol, but I do not possess one. I am not a good shot. There is a window in the yew hedge. When I reached this window Mr. Zero was there, but on the other side of the hedge and behind it so that I did not see him. He asked me whether I had the letters, and when I replied in the affirmative he told me to hand them over quickly. I heard my husband coming on the outside of the hedge to the left of the window. Mr. Zero was on the right. They were both outside the hedge, and I was inside. My husband called out. He said angry things, and used language which I would rather not repeat. I don't remember whether Mr. Zero said anything then. They began to fight. I had a torch. I saw a pistol in my husband's hand. I think Mr. Zero got it away from him. They were fighting just outside the window, and I was very frightened. I heard Mr. Zero say, “Now what about it?” and, “Take that!” There was a shot. I don't know what happened to the letters. I don't know what happened to Mr. Zero. I thought I was going to faint. I thought my husband was dead. I picked up the pistol—'”

Sylvia and the official mind had obviously collaborated. The result enraged Colonel Anstruther. He repeated the last sentence angrily.

“She says, ‘I picked up the pistol.' What does she mean? What's the good of letting her make a statement like this? How could she pick it up if it was the other side of the hedge?”

Inspector Boyce gave a slight cough.

“She says it wasn't, sir.”

“Wasn't what?”

“Wasn't on the other side of the hedge, sir.”

Colonel Anstruther glared.

“Does she or doesn't she state that she was on the inside of the hedge and the two men on the outside?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that one of them had the pistol and the other got it from him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then how the devil could she pick it up inside the hedge?”

“I don't know, sir.”

“Then why didn't you ask her? If she says a thing like that she's got to explain it, hasn't she?”

Inspector Boyce stiffened and reverted to the extreme official manner.

“I did not omit to put that point to Lady Colesborough. She replied that she had no recollection of what occurred between the firing of the shot and the picking up of the pistol. If you will refer to the statement, sir—”

Colonel Anstruther referred to it with dislike. A most unsatisfactory document. He read in an annoyed voice:

“‘There was a shot. I don't know what happened to the letters. I don't know what happened to Mr. Zero. I thought I was going to faint. I thought my husband was dead. I picked up the pistol—'”

“Well, what about it? The pistol was outside, and she is inside, and she says she picked it up. What's the thickness of the hedge? I suppose you've measured it?”

“Six foot thick mostly, sir, but this window affair is cut in and there's not more than a four-foot thickness there.”

“What's the size of the window?”

“Three foot high and six foot wide, sir. There's a seat inside, put facing it to get the view, if you understand. And there's this window, with a four-foot sill and the hedge jutting out beyond it on either side for a couple of feet. She says they were fighting just outside, but unless the man who had the pistol threw it in through the window after he had fired I don't see how it got the same side of the hedge as Lady Colesborough, or how she picked it up.”

Colonel Anstruther looked up sharply.

“Is there any proof that there were two men on the other side of the hedge? Anything to substantiate Lady Coles-borough's story of a fight?”

Inspector Boyce coughed.

“Dr. Hammond says the pistol must have been at least a yard away from Sir Francis when the shot was fired. There aren't any footprints. It has been dry all day and the grass isn't marked. There's nothing to show whether there was a fight. There might have been someone there besides Sir Francis, or there mightn't. It all rests on Lady Colesborough's evidence. She says this man who calls himself Zero was there, and she says he fired the shot, but there isn't anyone else that saw him, and we can't find anyone that heard or saw a car.”

Colonel Anstruther said “Tcha!” and added, “What did you expect to find? People in Colebrook don't sit up at night counting cars, do they? I don't suppose anyone heard Mr. Somers' car either, did they?”

“Well, no, sir, they didn't.”

“Well then, what's the good of telling me nobody heard a car? That don't mean there wasn't a car to hear—does it?”

“No, sir. You asked if there was any evidence.”

Colonel Anstruther made an explosive sound.

“And there isn't any! I take it there's no doubt that the weapon used was Colesborough's own pistol, because if there was another—”

“No doubt at all, sir. Sir Francis kept this pistol in a drawer on his writing-table—we found the drawer pulled out. He'd got a licence and all quite regular. Sturrock the butler says there were a pair of them, but we haven't been able to find the other. It may be up at the London house.”

Colonel Anstruther went back to the statement with a snort. He read aloud:

“‘I picked up the pistol. I heard someone coming down the yew walk. It was my cousin, Miss Hardwicke. She came up to the seat. She had a torch. She came round the seat to look out of the window. I dropped the pistol and ran to the right along the hedge. There is a way out into the rose garden there. I went that way because I heard someone coming down the main walk and I was frightened. I ran to the house and rang the alarm bell in the hall. It rings in the servants' wing. I told them my husband has been shot. After that I fainted.'”

“This walk business,” said Inspector Boyce—“I don't know if you've got it clear, sir. It's like a tunnel with the yews meeting overhead. There's a long straight piece with the rose garden on either side of it, say fifty yards, with a seat and a window at the end, and a cross-piece, say twenty yards, on either side, with an exit at both ends. Lady Colesborough went in down the main walk and came out on the right-hand side. Miss Hardwicke came in by the main walk and out the same way. Mr. Somers came in by the main walk. It was him running in that Lady Colesborough heard. And he says he went out by the exit on the left-hand side and round outside the hedge to make sure of Sir Francis being dead, but he didn't touch him. Then, he says, he came back to Miss Hardwicke and they both returned by the main walk to the house, meeting the butler on the way. Mr. Somers then telephoned the police. You've got their statements there.”

“And what were Mr. Somers and Miss Hardwicke doing in the grounds of Cole Lester in the middle of the night?” said Colonel Anstruther.

Inspector Boyce coughed.

“Mr. Somers says he drove Miss Hardwicke down because she asked him to. He says he had never heard of Mr. Zero, but, as one of Mr. Montagu Lushington's secretaries, he was naturally aware that an important document had been stolen. He did not in any way connect the journey to Cole Lester with the stolen document. Miss Hardwicke says Lady Colesborough had confided in her that she was being blackmailed by someone she called Mr. Zero. She asked Mr. Somers to drive her down to Cole Lester because she knew that Lady Colesborough was to meet this man at the window in the yew hedge between twelve and one o'clock that night in order to hand over to him a packet of letters which she had taken from Sir Francis' private safe. Miss Hardwicke says she tried to persuade Lady Colesborough to inform her husband that she was being blackmailed, and having failed to do so, she hoped by being present as a witness to frighten the blackmailer and induce him to leave Lady Colesborough alone. I would like to say, sir, that in my opinion Miss Hardwicke is telling the truth.”

“Well, she confirms Lady Colesborough's story to some extent. She says her cousin spoke to her about this Zero. She didn't see any signs of him last night—didn't hear anything?”

“Well, if you'll turn to her statement, sir—”

Colonel Anstruther put down the paper in his hand and took up another. His eye travelled down the page. He turned it and began to read aloud:

“‘I had just got into the tunnel and began to grope my way along it. I had a torch, but I did not want to use it, so I was going slowly. I thought I ought to be able to see the window—'”

Colonel Anstruther looked up sharply.

“Miss Hardwicke is familiar with the grounds at Cole Lester?”

“She says she spent a day there with Lady Colesborough rather more than a year ago, before the marriage. She says she took a particular interest in this yew walk because she hadn't ever seen anything like it before.”

Colonel Anstruther went on reading:

“‘I thought I ought to be able to see the window. All at once I did see it, because there was a flash of light on the other side of the hedge. And I heard someone calling out. There was a lot of noise. I can't say whether there was two people shouting or only one. It was just a sudden noise which I wasn't expecting. I didn't hear any words, only this noise, and then a shot. After the shot I heard my cousin scream. I ran towards the window, and when I got to the seat I remembered my torch and turned it on. Lady Colesborough was standing there with the pistol in her hand—'”

Inspector Boyce coughed.

“She wasn't saying anything about the pistol till I showed her Lady Colesborough's statement.”

Colonel Anstruther frowned. Boyce was too fond of the sound of his voice. He read in a repressive tone:

“‘I saw the pistol drop. I looked out of the window and saw Sir Francis lying there on the grass. He was about three yards away from the window. I thought he was dead. I heard someone running towards me down the tunnel. I picked up the pistol and wiped it on my dress. Mr. Somers came—'”

Colonel Anstruther said “Tcha!” and struck his knee with the paper.

“Wiped the pistol, did she?” he rapped out.

“The pistol had certainly been wiped, sir. Mr. Somers says she was wiping it when he came up. I think it is quite clear that Miss Hardwicke believed it was Lady Colesborough who had shot Sir Francis. I think that is quite certain. It suggests that she did not hear more than one man's voice. If she had got any impression that there were two men there quarrelling, she would not have suspected Lady Colesborough, and she would not have wiped the pistol.”

“Nonsense!” said Colonel Anstruther. “You're talking as if young women are reasonable creatures. They're not. They don't reason at all. They don't think, except about their face-creams and their frocks. I've got three daughters and I know.”

Inspector Boyce maintained a rigid decorum. Nobody but their father would have suspected the Misses Anstruther of devotion to frocks or face-creams. They were plain, meek women who did as they were told and left their faces as nature had most unfortunately made them.

“Well, she wiped the pistol: Any finger-marks left?”

“Nothing to speak of, sir.”

“How do you mean, nothing to speak of?”

“She'd held it in a bit of her dress and wiped it as well as she could. She was quite frank about it—said she was frightened of leaving her own finger-prints. But she missed one low down on the butt. It's no value, because she's not denying she handled the pistol. It's a terrible pity she wiped it. We'd have known for certain whether this Zero was really there if she hadn't, and if we'd got a good print we might have roped him in.”

“If you had wings you might fly!” growled Colonel Anstruther. “Lord, man—what sort of prints do you think you'd have got? If Lady Colesborough is telling the truth, there were four of them who handled it—Colesborough, Zero, herself, and Miss Hardwicke. You'd have been lucky to have got one straight print.”

“We need a bit of luck,” said Inspector Boyce.

XXII

Every window in the study at Cole Lester was shut. The central heating was of a modern and highly efficient type. There was a blazing fire on the deep old-fashioned hearth. Sylvia Colesborough sat on one side of it in a leather-covered chair whose rich crimson threw up the gold of her hair and the pallor of her skin. She wore a thin black dress and an air of extreme fragility. Colonel Anstruther, who had perforce to occupy the seat on the other side of the fire, was being more painfully reminded every moment of a brief and unpleasant period of service in the tropics. His face was almost as red as the leather of his chair. The bald spot on the top of his head glistened. He mopped his brow. Even if the temperature had been some thirty degrees cooler, Sylvia's confidences might well have brought him to the verge of apoplexy. With Inspector Boyce sitting at Francis Colesborough's writing-table and taking notes, she had told the Chief Constable all about Mr. Zero from the first telephone call. In a plaintive voice she had described the visit to Wellings, and what friends she and Poppy Wessex-Gardner were—“but Buffo's just a little bit dull, don't you think?”—and had then gone on with artless candour to explain how she had opened Mr. Montagu Lushington's despatch-case and taken out the envelope which Mr. Zero wanted. “And of course it doesn't sound a very nice thing to do, and I didn't like doing it a bit, but he said he'd tell Francis about my playing for money when he told me not to, and I was so frightened I'd have done anything, because, you know—” here Sylvia leaned forward a little and gazed at him earnestly—“because, you know, I'd lost five hundred pounds, and I can't think what he'd have said.”