The Brading Collection (17 page)

She blew him a kiss and said,

“Tooraloo!”

Randal March came back from Ledlington with Inspector Crisp sitting beside him, a small case across his knees. Randal had compared him to a terrier. He does not care about the breed but it has its uses. The resemblance sprang to the eye. There was the wiry hair, the pricked ears, the look of alert efficiency. In one respect the terrier has the advantage. He is not afflicted with class-consciousness, whereas in the Inspector’s case it provided him with a conviction that a section of his fellow-citizens were out to down him, and that if he didn’t keep a pretty sharp lookout, they might succeed. At the sight of Charles Forrest emerging from Warne House with a certain air of not being in any hurry his hackles rose. He said, “A cool hand,” in the voice which always sounded just a little angry, and the Chief Constable nodded and said, “Oh, yes.”

Then Charles got into the back of the car and they drove away.

Saltings stood up in the eye of the sun. They left the car and went in, and through to Charles’s flat. He might have been the careless host with a couple of friends.

“Bedroom, sitting-room, kitchenette, bathroom. Used to be the billiard-room and things like pantry and offices. Not a bad bit of work for the architect. Adams is a clever chap. Well, it’s all yours—you can do anything you like with it.”

March was not feeling particularly happy. There are moments when being a policeman runs counter to one’s instincts. He frowned and said,

“Where did you keep that revolver?”

They were in the sitting-room. Charles indicated a bureau of pleasantly mellowed walnut. The flap was down, displaying pigeonholes. Behind the diamond panes above were shelves with painted china birds and figures—a parrot, a canary, green linnets, a charming Industry, and an even more charming Indolence lying asleep in a porcelain chair with ruffled ringlets and one slipper dropping off, whilst a kitten played with the spool which had fallen from her hand. Crisp set them down as gimcracks. He thought the less of Major Forrest for possessing them.

“In one of these drawers?” he said.

There was an elegantly wrought panel on either side of the central pigeonhole. Charles slid a hand into the hole, slipped a catch at the back of it, and brought the panel away, and with it a narrow upright drawer.

“It used to be here,” he said.

Crisp made haste to take the drawer from him.

“Nothing there now,” he growled.

Charles smiled very pleasantly.

“As you say.”

“Does the other side open the same way?”

Charles opened it. There were some papers, a bunch of keys. There was no revolver.

“It’s not there.”

Charles said, “No. Did you expect it to be?”

“Didn’t you?”

“No. I’m quite methodical—I’ve always kept it on the other side.”

“And the ammunition?”

“I hadn’t any.”

“Why?”

“I hadn’t used it since the war.”

“Was it loaded?”

There was a pause before the answer came.

“I don’t know.”

Crisp made an impatient movement, an impatient sound.

“Really, Major Forrest!”

Charles said in a quiet, even tone,

“Well, I don’t. It may have been. I came home wounded from France. When I got out of the hospital the war was over. My kit had been sent down here. I shoved that revolver behind the panel with the other one. I didn’t look at it again until I had the pair of them out and gave one to Lewis. That’s all I can tell you.”

“You gave one to Mr. Brading, and you kept the other. Where is the other?”

“I’ve no more idea than you.”

The dark eyes had a faint sparkle. Randal March caught it. He said,

“Just when did you see it last?”

Charles frowned.

“I couldn’t say.”

Crisp said, “Did you see it when you found Mr. Brading’s body?”

“Meaning he was shot with my revolver? What do you expect me to say to that?”

“I’m asking you whether you recognized the weapon which was lying on the floor by Mr. Brading’s body when, according to your statement, you came into the laboratory and found him dead.”

Charles gave a short laugh.

“Do you suppose I was fool enough to touch it? What would you have said if I had? I’d something else to do. I suppose, like everyone else, I took for granted that it was his own revolver, and that he had fired it himself.”

Crisp came back sharply.

“You say you thought it was suicide?”

“I suppose that was my first impression.”

“Do you mean you’ve changed your mind?”

“I changed my mind when I heard the police evidence about the fingerprints. It agreed with what I knew about my cousin. He was not at all likely to commit suicide.”

There were three long drawers in the bureau. Whilst these questions and answers were going on Crisp had the top drawer out and was going through its contents. He worked quickly and neatly. He had everything out, and he put everything back. Then he started on the second drawer. Half way through he said,

“The revolver with which Mr. Brading was shot had no initials on it.”

“So I understand.”

“But it had a peculiarity—rather a more noticeable one than the initials would have been. Can you tell me whether this missing revolver of yours has any peculiarity?”

“I don’t know what you mean by a peculiarity. It has a scrape on the butt.”

“How did it get that?”

“German bullet.”

“Narrow escape for you?”

“For my father. In the first world war. The revolvers were his.”

“Would it surprise you to hear that the revolver found by Mr. Brading’s body has a scrape such as you describe?”

“Meaning Lewis was shot with my revolver?”

“Is that really news to you, Major Forrest? If you saw the revolver lying there beside him you’d have noticed that scrape, wouldn’t you?”

“I might have done. It would depend which way it was lying.”

“It was lying with the scrape uppermost—I saw it at once. But it wasn’t until we got the information about Mr. Brading’s initials being on his revolver that the scrape became important. You now admit that the initials were on the revolver you gave him, and the scrape on the one you kept for yourself.”

“There’s no question of admission in either case. Both are facts, and rest on statements which I have made.”

Crisp finished with the second drawer and pushed it home. Randal March said,

“Can you make any suggestion as to how your revolver came to be used for this crime?”

“None whatever.”

Crisp was at work on the third drawer. March said,

“The bureau is not kept locked?”

“Oh, no.”

“And the flat? I noticed that you did not use a key when we came in. Do you usually leave the door unlocked?”

“When I’m in and out—oh, yes. I should lock it if I was going to be out all day or after dark. This week it has been open rather more than usual. I had a friend staying with me, Major Constable. Actually, I put him in an empty flat upstairs—I’ve only one bedroom here—but he has had the run of this place, and naturally I haven’t locked the door.”

“I see.”

Crisp gave a sharp exclamation. From the corner of the bottom drawer he produced what looked like a mass of crumpled paper. Holding it, he was aware of weight, of a hard core. He pulled at the paper, and a revolver dropped out upon the floor. They all looked at it.

The paper was tissue paper. Crisp used a fold of it to pick the revolver up. He held it delicately by the muzzle and looked at the butt. Then he held it out to the Chief Constable.

“Here we are, sir—L.B. as plain as print. I think Major Forrest has got to explain how this revolver comes to be hidden in his drawer.”

March said, “Would you care to make any explanation, Forrest? I must warn you that what you say may be taken down and used in evidence.”

Preliminaries to arrest. So it had come. He found it almost a relief. If they arrested him he would at any rate not have to interview Lilias. Quite a large share of the relief came from that. He would have time to think, to see how things shaped. He would see a solicitor. Meanwhile—

He looked at March and said,

“I don’t know how it got there. It’s the revolver I gave my cousin. I didn’t put it there.”

Crisp, kneeling on the floor, had opened the case he had brought. He took out an insufflator and blew powder on to the revolver. Charles watched with interest. The powder spread, hung in the air, settled. It lay on the metal surface in an even film. Crisp blew on the film. It scattered. The surface remained unmarked. He turned the revolver over and repeated the process. The same thing happened. He said in a disgusted voice,

“Wiped as clean as a whistle!”

March said, “Is it loaded?”

Crisp broke the breech.

“Every chamber full, sir. Like to make any comment on that, Major Forrest?”

Charles shook his head.

“It’s my cousin’s revolver. I suppose he would keep it loaded.”

The telephone bell rang. Charles turned with a shrug, picked up the receiver, and heard a slight preliminary cough.

“Miss Silver speaking. Is that Major Forrest?”

He said, “Yes.”

“Is the Chief Constable there?”

“He is.”

“Then may I speak to him?”

He turned to March with the receiver in his hand.

“It is Miss Silver. She would like to speak to you.”

Myra Constantine had been adjured to hold her tongue, but she had no intention of doing so. The minute Charles had gone she rang through to the office and demanded that Miss Silver should be found and informed that Mrs. Constantine would like to see her.

Since it transpired that Miss Silver had left the club with the expressed intention of taking a stroll, there was some necessary delay—not unduly prolonged, because the stroll had really taken her no farther than the shady end of a large and well stocked garden, but long enough to exasperate a never very patient person.

On receiving the message Miss Silver replied that she would be delighted, and proceeded, knitting-bag on arm, to the sitting-room, where she was being awaited.

“How kind of you, Mrs. Constantine.”

Myra was in her big padded chair. There was the light of battle in her eyes. She said grimly,

“Charles Forrest wouldn’t think so. He’s just been telling me to hold my tongue, but I’m damned if I will.”

Miss Silver coughed. She reprehended the use of strong language. If she had not been so deeply interested she might have made this clearer. As it was, she allowed the interest to appear whilst holding the disapproval in check.

Myra nodded vigorously.

“If you see someone trying to commit suicide, don’t you try and stop them? Next door to murder if you don’t—that’s what I say. And if Charles hasn’t any more sense than to go hushing things up and getting himself into Lord knows what sort of a mess, and all for as worthless a girl as you could find—”

Miss Silver coughed again.

“You interest me extremely.”

Myra nodded even more vigorously than before.

“I thought I should! And time somebody did get interested in stopping Charles Forrest from making a fool of himself, if you ask me. Who was the fellow who used to ride about on a starved-looking horse trying to push down windmills with a spear?”

With her knitting half in and half out of her bag, Miss Silver submitted the suggestion that Mrs. Constantine might be thinking of Don Quixote, a name which she pronounced in the British manner.

“That’s him! Poor Jimmy Downes painted a picture of him spear and all. Used to be a friend of mine donkey’s years ago—Jimmy, I mean, not the Quixote man. Nice chap. Drank himself to death. I didn’t think much of his pictures, but he liked talking about them, and this Don Quixote, he used to talk about him a lot. Might have been Charles, only a lot older and half starved—this Quixote man, I mean, not Jimmy.” She stopped, chuckled, and waved an explanatory hand. “I’ve got a bit mixed, but the way Jimmy told it, this chap went blundering into one thing after another thinking he was going to help people, and all he did was to do himself in at the end—and I’m not standing by and letting Charles do that. If people do things they’ve got to stand up to them and take the blame. What’s it going to do to them except rot them through and through if they let someone else step in and take what ought to be coming their way? I don’t say Lilias Grey shot Lewis Brading, but I do say she pinched a diamond brooch on the Thursday night when he was showing his Collection, for I saw her with my own eyes. She pinched it, and she went off with it in her bag. And when I told Lewis on the quiet, which I did, he said to leave it to him and he’d see to it.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”

Myra’s conversation had arrested her attention to such a marked extent that she had not even now engaged her knitting-needles, but remained holding them in the correct position with a strand of pink wool suspended upon the raised forefinger of her left hand. After she had said, “Dear me!” she took a fresh breath and remarked,

“A very handsome brooch with five large diamonds set in a row.”

Myra goggled.

“Gosh! How did you know?”

Miss Silver inserted the right-hand needle into a pale pink stitch and began to knit.

“A brooch answering to that description was found on Mr. Brading’s table—in an open drawer, to be exact. It is, I believe, known as the Marziali brooch.”

“Then she brought it back!” Myra struck the arm of her chair with a clenched fist. “He rang her up. Het says Moberly heard him talking on the telephone.”

“When was this?”

“After they’d been talking in the study. It was just before lunch on the Friday—the day Lewis was killed.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“Yes. Mr. Brading went through into the annexe and put through two calls. In his statement Mr. Moberly says that he followed him in order to compose their dispute. Mr. Brading was telephoning from his bedroom, and Mr. Moberly says he was waiting at the laboratory end of the passage. He heard one call finish and another begin. I have wanted to talk to him about these two telephone calls. It seems to me that they may be of very great importance, and that there may be something which he might care to add to his statement. He speaks of Mr. Brading’s tone being an angry one, and admits to having heard the words, ‘You’d better.’ ”

Myra struck the chair again vehemently.

“That’s right! He’d be talking to Lilias—telling her to come down after lunch and bring the brooch along. ‘You’d better!’ ” She laughed. “I’d say he was right! He’d got it in for her—I could see that when I told him she’d taken the brooch. He wasn’t surprised, you know—that stuck out all over—but he was nasty. I’ve known Lewis a long time. I was a lot older, but I suppose I could have married him if I’d wanted to a matter of twenty years ago, but I wouldn’t have taken it on for all his money twice over. He’d got a nasty cruel streak. I don’t know why he and Dossie broke it off, but she was well out of it. You can take it from me anyone would have been well out of Lewis Brading. He was cold and he was cruel, and it’s my belief he was going to make things very nasty for Lilias Grey.”

Miss Silver was knitting briskly. Her needles clicked. She said,

“Cruelty breeds cruelty.”

Myra looked at her. She brought her voice down to something very near a whisper.

“Lewis was shot with Charles’s revolver, wasn’t he? Not the one Charles gave him, but the one he kept for himself.”

“Who told you that, Mrs. Constantine?”

“Charles did, just now. He said the police were taking him off to Saltings to see if the one with Lewis’s initials was there.”

Miss Silver gave a deprecatory cough.

“It is most inadvisable that that should be repeated.”

Myra jerked a massive shoulder.

“Who’s repeating it? You know, and I know—I suppose we can talk about it between ourselves. I want to help Charles the same as you do. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

Miss Silver gazed at her with austerity.

“I do not undertake a case in order to help this person or that. I look for the truth in order that justice may be done. This will help the innocent.”

Myra gave an angry laugh.

“And do you think Charles Forrest isn’t innocent? You know damned little if you do!”

“Mrs. Constantine!”

“All right, all right! You shouldn’t get my donkey up. Anyone who could think Charles would shoot his cousin because he was afraid he was going to be cut out of his will, well, they’d be too much of a fool to be any hand at finding out what was truth and justice.”

Miss Silver gave the sudden charming smile which had won her the trust and confidence of innumerable clients.

“You are a very good friend, Mrs. Constantine.”

Myra chuckled.

“I’m not so bad. Look here—this thing about Lilias—I told Charles, but you can’t trust him to use it. That’s why I’m telling you. Lilias Grey pinched that brooch, and Lewis rang her up and told her to bring it back. Suppose that wasn’t all he told her—suppose he said he was going to prosecute. He mightn’t have meant to do it, but that wouldn’t stop his holding it over her—if you knew Lewis you’d understand that. He meant to rattle her. Well, she’d have been rattled all right, wouldn’t she? Suppose she took Charles’s revolver and came up where Lewis was sitting at his desk. She’d have the brooch in her hand, and she’d put it down and he’d bend forward to pick it up. Easy to shoot him that way. She’d put the pistol in his hand and hope everyone would think it was suicide. And she’d burn the will because it wouldn’t suit her to have that girl Maida coming in for the money. And she’d take Lewis’s revolver, the one with his initials on it, and be off. And afterwards she’d say she’d left him alive. How’s that for a case?”

Miss Silver knitted thoughtfully.

“You have put it in a very lucid manner.”

Myra made an impatient movement.

“If it was put to the police, would they arrest Charles Forrest?”

“Not, I think, without further investigation.”

She picked up the ball of pale pink wool, ran the needles into it, and put her knitting into the flowered chintz bag, all with a quiet deliberation.

Myra found it exasperating. She said,

“What are you going to do about it?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“If I may use your telephone, I will put through a call to Major Forrest and find out if the Chief Constable is with him at Saltings.”

She gave the number, standing primly by a writing-table littered with correspondence, magazines, library books, a geranium which had been moved from the open window to be out of the draught, and two vases exuberantly full of cut flowers. She heard Charles’s answer with relief, and was presently addressing Randal March.

“Miss Silver speaking. I am very glad to find that you have not left.”

“I was just about to do so.”

“Then I am fortunate. I hope that you have not decided upon any definite course of action. Something of importance has emerged. I feel that it should be considered without delay, and before any decision is taken.”

There was a pause before he said,

“Very well, I will look in.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“You will not, I think, regret it,” she said, and rang off.