Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery (7 page)

“Well, we shall be ready for ours about that time too. You might as well serve all three in our sitting-room. And send me up a bottle of gin, half a dozen bottles of ginger beer, a bottle of whisky, a couple of syphons of soda and a corkscrew. Can you manage that?”

“Yes, sir,” said the landlord benevolently. “That I can.”

“Excellent! I suppose it would be too much to ask if you’ve got any ice as well?”

“I have an’ all, sir,” replied the landlord with conscious pride. “I gets it three times a week from Sandsea in this ‘ot weather. There’s some come in this morning you can have, and welcome.”

“But this is sheer Epicureanism!” Roger cried.

“Yes, sir,” said the landlord. “There’s been two gents in this evening asking for rooms. London gents, by the look of ‘em. I told ‘em I ‘adn’t got any.”

“That’s right, landlord,” Roger said with approval. “Speak the truth and shame the devil, you know.”

“Yes, sir,” said the landlord, and turned away to serve another customer.

“I say,” Anthony asked hopefully as they climbed the stairs a few minutes later, “I say, are we going to make old Moresby tight?”

“Certainly not,” said Roger with dignity. “I’m surprised at you, Anthony. Do I look the sort of person to interfere with the sobriety of the police in the execution of their duty?”

“Well, what’s all that gin and stuff for, then?”

“To pour libations to the great and
puissante
Goddess of Bluff! Now then, Anthony, how many bedrooms would you like to sleep in tonight? One, two or three?”

Inspector Moresby, it has been said, was a genial man. He had no hesitation in falling in with Roger’s suggestion that the three of them should sup together. Even a Scotland Yard detective is human, and Inspector Moresby very much preferred to spend his moments of leisure in the congenial company of his fellows than alone.

In the same way he had no hesitation in accepting a little gin before a meal. In yet once more the same way he had not the slightest hesitation in drinking some gin and ginger beer with his supper because, as anyone knows, gin and ginger beer with a lump of ice clinking invitingly against the glass is the greatest of all drinks on a hot day and has the Olympian nectar beaten to a standstill; thus far has civilisation progressed. And after a meal when, pleasantly tired and a pleasant hunger pleasantly allayed, one sprawls in a horsehair armchair and contemplates a case of stuffed birds, an iced whisky and soda by one’s side is almost a
sine
qua non. Inspector Moresby
was
a genial man.

Roger had behaved with exemplary tact. Not a word about their common mission to Ludmouth had passed his lips. Instead, he had set out to be as entertaining as he possibly could; and when Roger set out to be entertaining he could prove a very good companion indeed. He had recounted numberless anecdotes about the humours of his own early struggles and experiences, and the inspector had been amused; he had recounted further anecdotes of the great people he had met and knew, all of whom he called by their Christian names, and the inspector had been impressed; he had kept a judicious eye on his victim’s glass – or rather, succession of glasses, and the inspector had become mellowed. Roger loved the inspector, and the inspector loved Roger.

Roger chose his moment and struck.

“Look here, Inspector,” he said quite casually, “about this Mrs Vane business, by the way. I wish you’d look on me not as a reporter but as an amateur criminologist, extraordinarily interested in the way the police go about the solving of a mystery like this and only too ready to put any small brains I may have at their assistance. I do happen to be writing this thing up for a newspaper, it’s true; but that’s only by the way. I’m not a reporter by instinct or profession or anything else, and I only jumped at the chance of becoming one because it would give me first-hand information about a very interesting little mystery. Do you see what I mean?”

The inspector’s eyes twinkled. “I think so, sir. You want me to take you into my confidence, don’t you?”

“Something like that,” Roger agreed. “And I must tell you that the balance won’t be entirely on your side. I’ve got something rather important to offer you – a clue I found this afternoon under your very nose down among those rocks. I don’t want to hold it up or anything like that; but candidly, I don’t want to give it away for nothing either. Can’t we arrange a swap, so to speak?”

The inspector’s eyes twinkled more merrily than ever. “I’ve been waiting for something like this ever since I came here, Mr Sheringham; though I didn’t expect you to put it quite that way. I thought you’d just got me here to try to pump me in the ordinary way, as hundreds of new journalists have tried already before they found out it wasn’t any use.”

“Oh!” said Roger somewhat crestfallen. “Did you? But about this clue, I –”

“Lord, the number of clues I’ve had offered me in my time!” observed the inspector reminiscently. “Thousands of ‘em! And not a single one worth a twopenny rap.”

“Oh!” said Roger again. “Then there’s nothing doing, I take it, in the confidence line?”

The inspector continued to chuckle for a moment; it pleased him mildly to score off Roger and he thought the latter deserved it. Even Anthony, in spite of his disappointment, could hardly repress a smile at that confident gentleman’s discomfiture.

Then the inspector proceeded to relent. “However, I’m not saying there isn’t any sense in what you said. There is. I know you’re not an ordinary journalist. I know what you did at Wychford and I’ve seen by your articles in the
Courier
that you really are interested in this sort of thing for its own sake. So as long as I have your word that you won’t publish anything that I want held up, perhaps I don’t mind letting you in on a thing or two that I should keep back from anyone else, and even talking the case over with you as well. Though mind you, it’s highly unprofessional conduct, as they say, and I should get into real hot water at the Yard if they ever came to hear of it.”

“I say, that’s awfully sporting of you, Inspector!” Roger cried with vast relief. “I quite thought you were going to turn me down. Yes, I promise you the Yard shan’t hear of it, and of course I won’t publish anything without your consent. It’s a purely personal interest, you know.”

“And you too, Mr Walton? You agree to that?”

“Rather, Inspector! It’s extraordinarily decent of you.”

“Then let’s hear about this clue of yours first of all, Mr Sheringham, if you please.”

Roger rose and went to the sideboard, from a drawer of which he produced the piece of paper, now almost dry. “I found this a couple of rocks away from where the body was lying. It may have nothing to do with the affair at all, of course, but there’s always a chance. There’s been writing on it, but it’s quite obliterated. Can you make anything of it?”

The inspector took the bit of paper and bent over it; then he held it up to the light.

“I’ll keep this, if I may,” he said. “As you say, there’s probably nothing in it, but I’ll send it up to our man at the Yard and I think he’ll be able to read it all right; at any rate, we can’t afford to neglect its possibilities.” He laid the paper down on a table nearby and leaned comfortably back in his chair again. “So now you can fire away, Mr Sheringham. I know you’ve got half a hundred questions on the tip of your tongue.”

“At least that,” Roger laughed, as he resumed his seat. “And I certainly would like to polish off a few of them in rather a hurry. I must get through to London on the telephone pretty soon and dictate my article, and I can take notes for it as we go along.” He rummaged in a side-pocket and produced a pencil and notebook. “Now first of all, are you sure in your own mind that it’s a case of murder and not accident or suicide?”

“Well, between ourselves, sir, I am. As sure, that is, as anyone can be in my line without absolutely convincing proof. But don’t say that in your article. I shouldn’t get further than ‘suspicious circumstances’ in that yet awhile.”

Roger nodded. “Yes. I quite see that. By the way, that scream rather clinches it, doesn’t it? I mean, if one allows that the distance of the body from the edge of the cliffs rules out any question of accident, the scream, equally, seems to rule out suicide. A suicide wouldn’t scream.”

“That was my line of thought exactly,” the inspector agreed.

“And you’ve also established the fact that she wasn’t alone. Have you got any ideas who the second woman was?”

“I’ve got my suspicions,” said the inspector guardedly. “I was up at the house for a goodish bit this morning,” he went on, delicately shifting the ground of discussion. “Have you been along there?”

“No, not to the house, though I heard you had.”

“You ought to go; I think you’d find it interesting. The household, I mean.”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t felt quite hardened enough to my new profession yet. I don’t think I could butt in on Dr Vane and ask him for an interview just at present. Can’t you tell me about them and save me the trouble?”

“Well, I dare say I could. There’s not really much to tell you. But the doctor’s a queer stick. Big man, he is, with a great black beard, and spends most of his time in a laboratory he’s had fitted up at the back of the house. Research work of some kind. Bit brusque in his manner, if you understand me, and doesn’t seem any too cut up by his wife’s death – or doesn’t show it if he is, perhaps I ought to say.”

“Oh, he doesn’t, doesn’t he?”

“But I gather that the two of them didn’t hit it off any too well together. That seemed the idea among the servants, anyhow. I had all of them up and questioned them this morning, of course. Then there’s his secretary, a dry stick of a woman with pince-nez and short hair, who might be any age between thirty and fifty, and a cousin of Mrs Vane’s who’s been living there for the last few months called Miss Cross. That’s the girl who’s come into all the money, as I expect you’ve heard.”

“And the girl who was the last person apparently except one to see Mrs Vane alive,” Roger nodded. “Yes, I’ve seen her, had a chat with her in fact.”

“Oh, you have, have you? And what did you think of her, Mr Sheringham?”

“I don’t know,” Roger hedged. “What did you?”

The inspector considered. “I thought she was quite a nice young lady,” he said carefully, “thought perhaps a bit deeper than one might think – or than she’d like you to think, maybe. Did you get any information from her?”

“Look here, Inspector,” Anthony burst out suddenly, “just tell me this, will you? Do you really honestly think that –”

“Shut up, Anthony, and don’t be tactless!” Roger interposed hastily. “Did I get any information out of her, Inspector? Nothing more than you got yourself, I fancy. She told me that you’d been putting her through it.”

“She’s a very important person in the case,” said the inpector with an apologetic air. “Last one to see Mrs Vane alive, as you said just now.”

“I didn’t say that exactly,” Roger remarked drily; but let it pass. “And you got no further impression from her than that she was a nice young lady and might be a bit deep?”

“Well, I didn’t say that, sir,” ruminated the inspector. “No, I wouldn’t say that at all. I got the impression that she wasn’t overfond of that cousin of hers, for one thing.”

“Wasn’t fond of her cousin?” Roger cried in surprise. “But Mrs Vane had been extraordinarily kind to her. Taken her to live with them, paid her a generous salary probably for doing nothing, made a will in her favour! Why, she owed Mrs Vane a tremendous lot!”

“Are we always overfond of people we owe a tremendous lot to?” asked the inspector pointedly.

“I’m sure,” Anthony began stiffly, “that Miss Cross –”

“Shut
up
, Anthony! But why are you so sure about this, Inspector? You must have something more to go on than just impression.”

“I have, sir. What I learned from the servants. Mrs Vane and Miss Cross used to quarrel quite a lot, I understand. It seems to have been a matter of common talk among the servants.”

“Of course, if you take any notice of the gossip of servants,” said Anthony with fine scorn, “I dare say you’d –”

“Anthony,
will
you shut up or have I got to send you to bed? For goodness’ sake, help yourself to another drink and keep quiet.”

“You’ve seen Miss Cross too, Mr Walton, I take it?” observed the inspector mildly.

“Yes, I have,” Anthony said shortly.

“A very pretty young lady,” commented the inspector with vague application.

“Oh, by the way!” Roger exclaimed suddenly. “I was very nearly forgetting the most important question of all.”

“And what’s that, Mr Sheringham?”

“Why, to ask you what you’ve got up your sleeve in the way of clues. You admitted this afternoon there were some things you wouldn’t tell me.”

“One,” acknowledged the inspector with a smile. “That’s all. A coat-button.” He felt in his pocket and produced a light blue bone button with a white pattern, about an inch and a half in diameter, which he held out on the flat of his palm. “This was found clenched in the dead woman’s hand.”

Roger whistled softly. “I say, that is a clue and no mistake! The first really definite one there’s been, except those footprints. May I have a look at it?” He took the button from the other’s outstretched hand and examined it intently. “It wasn’t one of her own, by any chance?”

“No, sir; it wasn’t.”

“Have you found out whose it is?” Roger asked, looking up quickly.

“I have,” replied the inspector contentedly.

Anthony’s heart almost stopped beating. “Whose?” he asked in a strained voice.

“It’s a button off a sports coat belonging to Miss Cross.”

For a moment there was a tense silence. Then Roger asked the question that was burning a hole in his brain.

“Was Miss Cross wearing the coat when she went out for her walk with Mrs Vane?”

“She was, sir,” replied the inspector with a more serious air than he had yet displayed. “And when she got back to the house that button was missing from it.”