Mystery of Mr. Jessop (12 page)

“Oh, hell!” said T.T.

“So it is,” agreed Bobby; “for them – worse. Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of a journalist told an exclusive in confidence. But you mustn't mind that – serves them right. But I must get off. Any paper shops near here likely to be open?”

“Lots,” answered T.T. “Why?”

*'‘I want last night's
Evening Announcer
,” Bobby explained, “with the football results.”

T.T. was too pale with fatigue and worry and lack of sleep for his pallor to increase much, but there came into his pale and startled cold blue eyes a look that was almost murderous, even though murder was not, he said, his “line.” With those quick, furtive movements of his, he vanished, passing suddenly through the baize-covered service door behind the stairs. As it closed behind him, Bobby heard his somewhat shrill, high-pitched voice raised in what sounded like a vigorous curse – though aimed at what, or whom, Bobby could not hear, though he could guess.

Thoughtfully Bobby made his way to the tube station, wondering very much to himself what there could be on the football pages of the
Evening Announcer
so disturbing to the usually imperturbable and self-possessed T.T., and what connection there could be between football results and the death of the unfortunate Jessop. In his possession, too, Bobby had that copy of the two-weeks-old
Upper Ten
that had been in Jessop's pocket, but that, disregarded, had got kicked under a chair, whence Bobby had rescued it.

But carefully, minutely, repeatedly, though Bobby read over and over again every one of the football pages missing from T.T.'s copy of the
Evening Announcer
, deeply though he brooded upon the
Upper Ten
, with all its lovely photographs on paper as shiny as the front of a dress shirt just back from the laundry, there was nothing he could find that appeared to have any possible connection with the recent tragedy or the theft of the Fay Fellows necklace – if, in fact, that necklace had been stolen, as could only be known for certain when the strong-room of the Mayfair Square establishment was opened on Monday morning.

What, for instance, in this connection could it matter that the Arsenal had bewilderingly met with defeat from a club of comparatively humble standing? The
Upper Ten
, it is true, had a photograph of the Duchess of Westhaven, in her characteristically old-fashioned attire, clapping her hands at the announcement of the victory, in the three o'clock, of the horse of a friend. But, then, no doubt it was precisely for that reason – because all the world knew she would be at those races – that that day had been selected for the odd affair at the Park Lane flat when unlawful intruders had apparently been satisfied to sit about and smoke their cigarettes. Nothing could Bobby find that by any stretch of the imagination could be supposed to account for the alarm and agitation a merely casual reference to the missing pages of the
Evening Announcer
had seemed to cause the usually cool and collected T.T. Nor could he see any reason why Mr. Jessop should have been carrying about with him that old copy of an illustrated society paper. Yet, none the less, Bobby was aware of an uneasy feeling that somehow, somewhere, in some odd way, all that he needed to know lay hidden there.

“Beats me,” decided Bobby, as he reached his destination and, folding up the paper, put it in his pocket in the hope that time might bring an explanation. “Sort of thing that needs real brainwork, hard thinking, intuition, brilliant flight of the imagination to sweep you right over seas of doubt and land you on the firm facts with no bother about building logical bridges.” Bobby shook his head sadly. “Wish I could do that sort of thing,” he thought, “but I jolly well can't. All I can do is dig up a lot of facts and see if any of 'em fit – journeyman of detection, that's all I am.”

A little depressed by this conclusion, but reflecting that it's no good longing for gifts denied, Bobby emerged from the tube station to find himself in a world turned liquid. The rain that had been slowly gathering since the previous night's drizzle had now burst into a kind of heavenly cataract. The gutters were overflowing, pedestrians had scattered in all directions, taximen were chuckling. Bobby was able by good luck to pounce on one taxi that had just brought to the tube station a passenger with whom Bobby almost collided as they simultaneously dashed, one for the cab and one for the station. Three other marooned pedestrians were frantically beckoning to the taxi, but Bobby's dash had gained it for him, and, fortunately for his pockets, the block of flats, his destination, was not far, since it was quite certain that “Taxi – to avoid getting wet” was not an item with any chance of scraping through any expense list.

The building was a new one, designed by one of the most eminent architects of the day, probably with the aid of a child's box of bricks, and the whole of the top floor was occupied by the Duke of Westhaven. Changed times, no doubt, from the days when every duke had a town mansion like a young town itself, with a host of servitors to look after it and each other – and even their employers – and a private park around it big enough for a hunting-party. Another sign of changing times was that the rent payable for the flat was itself as much as some ducal revenues of earlier days, though this fact was of less importance to his grace of West– haven in that much of what he paid as tenant went back into his pocket as landlord.

The flat had its own private lift the porters in the entrance-hall had the strictest orders to see was used by no unauthorised person. There was, of course, also access to the flat both by an interior stair, in case the lifts failed, and by the exterior stair insisted on by the building regulations for use in case of fire. Both these stairs, however, ended, as far as the ducal flat was concerned, in a small square lobby, whose one door, admitting to the flat itself, could only be opened from within, these careful precautions being insisted on to the insurance company as a reason for reducing the premium charged against the risk of burglary or housebreaking.

Bobby, producing his official card, was allowed the use of the lift. But due warning of his approach was conveyed over the house 'phone, and when he stepped out of the lift he found the butler and a footman waiting to receive him, and a maid or two hovering in the background, though this was less a tribute to his social importance than to their own curiosity.

“His grace is engaged at the moment, sergeant,” the butler informed Bobby, “but I'll take in your card and I don't suppose he'll be long. Found out anything yet?” 

“You expect quick work, don't you?” Bobby remarked.

“Two weeks ago, isn't it?” retorted the butler, and Bobby realised he was referring to that unexplained incident when the flat, left temporarily unoccupied, had been entered by those odd intruders who, however, had removed nothing and done no damage.

“Oh, about that,” Bobby said. “Well, no; besides, there's nothing much we could do even if we knew who it was. Trespass itself isn't punishable; there must be damage done or resistance to an order to go.”

“All my eye, I say,” interposed the footman, less in awe of the butler than good footmen should be; but, then, the butler owed him for bets made, placed, lost, and not yet settled. “Most likely it was his nibs himself come back for something he didn't want anyone to know about. As I keep telling Mr. Fisher,” said the footman to Bobby, with a jerk of his thumb at the butler to indicate that he was Mr. Fisher, “the lift hadn't been used – locked, it was. And the lobby door from the stairs can't be opened from the outside, not without an axe or such.”

“No, but it can from the inside,” retorted Fisher, evidently going over again a familiar argument, “and a fellow rigged up as a workman could easy climb the fire-escape stair without anyone noticing, get in by the pantry window, and then open the lobby door and let in his pals.”

“The pantry window was locked on the inside,” insisted the footman.

“Easy to do that before they left by the inside stairs,” retorted the butler.

“What should they go to all that trouble for and never touch a thing?” demanded the footman.

“Must have had some game on,” pronounced Fisher. “We'll know some day,” he prophesied darkly. “Of course, it's – well, a rum go.” 

Bobby agreed that it was a rum go – that, indeed, had been the unofficial verdict already rendered at the Yard – and then further discussion was stopped by the appearance of an elderly lady, dressed in a somewhat old-fashioned style, in person short, stout, dignified, and cross, who came abruptly into the hall and said breathlessly:

“Fisher, ring up Mr. Dickson at once and ask him if he will kindly let me know when I may expect him – that is, if it's really not expecting too much to ask for his attendance. Tell him I've been waiting – waiting,” repeated the lady rather awfully, “nearly a quarter of an hour.”

“Very good, your grace,” said the butler as, with as near an approach to a run as the dignity of a portly butler permits, he made for the 'phone.

And at that very moment – the psychological moment if ever moment deserved the epithet – the lift shot up and there emerged a small, slightly built, handsome youth, beautifully dressed, with small, regular features, a tiny moustache, the teeth of a musical comedy actress, hair that would have broken Monsieur Marcel's heart to think how little need it had of him, and really finely shaped and most carefully kept hands he held out towards the elderly lady with a gesture graceful and imploring, and at the same time presenting those exquisite hands for observation and admiration.

“Duchess,” he said, in a soft, musical, really agreeable voice, “I'm more than sorry, I'm most awfully sorry, but honestly I can't swim. I never could. I sink like a stone.”

“Charles,” said the duchess, still awfully, but distinctly less so, “you're a quarter of an hour late, and you know very well I detest being kept waiting.”

“The rain,” pleaded Charles, in tones to move the hardest heart, “the rain? No, the flood – not forty days, perhaps, but forty inches – forty feet rather. I had to wait ten minutes for a taxi, and then we were held up in a traffic block.”

“You could walk, couldn't you? Hadn't you an umbrella – and your coat?”

“I don't know what you'll think of me, duchess,” the young man sighed, his sigh almost a song in itself, “but I've lost it already – left it in a bus or something. Of course, I shall get it back.”

“I never heard anything so careless,” said the duchess, grown awful again.

She turned and walked, or rather marched, away. The young man made a face at Fisher and followed droopingly, though with about him a kind of aura of confidence that he would soon smile his way back into favour. When they had disappeared, Fisher said to Bobby:

“That's the coat she gave him only last week – wanted him to go somewhere for her. It was raining, and he said he hadn't a coat; said he couldn't afford one – all my eye and Betty Martin, but he gets lots of things out of her like that. She rang up the Stores to send one round same as the duke's just got for himself, ready made being cheapest – she'll be mad at his losing it so soon.”

Since this nice-looking young man with the beautiful hands was evidently the new private secretary who had supplanted Hilda May, Bobby was a trifle inclined to suspect that the loss of the new raincoat was a by-product of last night's exuberance that had culminated in the lamp-post-climbing experiment and a visit to the police station. However, that was no business of his, he supposed, and certainly the young, fresh complexion and quick, bright, and alert eyes did not suggest that such excitements were too frequent in Charley Dickson's life. To the butler Bobby said:

“Is the duke likely to be long? It's official business I've come on, you know.”

“What his grace will want to know is whether you've caught them that broke in here,” Fisher retorted. “Proper vexed about it he was, proper vexed. But I'll see.”

He went off accordingly, and came back soon.

“If you'll wait in the library,” he said, “his grace will see you in a few minutes. This way.”

He led Bobby across the hall into a fair-sized room whose windows afforded a fine view over London. Bobby admired it, and then turned his attention to the books on the shelves, hoping to gather from them some indication of the character of their owner. But they were all library sets of classical authors that not only looked as if they had never been read but had never even been intended for such a purpose. Even a complete set of Jane Austen's works had a stiff and dignified and unapproachable air, as though to chuckle over them in an arm-chair by the fire would be a kind of
lèse-majesté
. As for
The Pickwick Papers
, upright in calf and gilt, it positively scared the reader away; impossible to believe that pompous volume held the jests of Mr. Samuel Weller, the simple friendliness of Mr. Pickwick. “Just furniture,” Bobby told himself, and the door opened and there dashed into the room young Mr. Charley Dickson.

“Oh, I say,” he gasped, “Fisher's just told me you're police. I say, you haven't come about that binge of mine last night, have you?”

“Good gracious, no,” said Bobby. “Nothing to do with me.”

Charley sighed with relief.

“I won't say it's the first time,” he declared earnestly, “but it's not often, and it is the first time I've got run in – forty bob or seven days' hard, I suppose, and where the hell the forty bob's coming from, only the good Lord knows. You don't give a chap time, do you? I say, that's a joke, isn't it? Just what you do give a chap. I mean to say, has a chap got to pay up on the nail?”

“That's not for the police to say,” Bobby answered, smiling a little at this ingenuous chatter. “The magistrate settles that.”