The Silk Stocking Murders (25 page)

“Why ever not?”

“Well, we thought it would be rather fun to see if we could find out by ourselves, and not tell you till we were sure.”

“Pleydell’s getting very playful, isn’t he?” said Roger drily.

“It was my idea, I think. Anyhow, I’ll tell you this much. Yesterday afternoon I thought how silly we’d been; we’d quite overlooked a most important line of inquiry. Don’t you see what ought to be the man’s weak spot in Lady Ursula’s case?”

“The possibility of having been seen with her, do you mean?”

“
No!
That’s just what it isn’t. If he thought he’d been seen
with
her, he wouldn’t have killed her. Obviously his weak spot is the possibility of having been seen without her—coming away from the studio!”

“Ah!” said Roger.

“Don’t you see,” Anne went on excitedly, “that if the police have been making inquiries about that at all, they’ll only have been interested in a man answering to Gerald Newsome’s description, won’t they?”

“I rather doubt that,” said Roger. “The police aren’t fools, you know. However, go on.”

“Well, what we ought to do is to comb the neighbourhood with inquiries about a man with a
beard
coming away at that time. Of course I couldn’t do that myself, so I thought we ought to get a firm of private detectives on to it at once. I rang you up, but you were out, so I rang up Mr. Pleydell, and he promised to have it done at once. He seemed to think it an awfully good idea,” Anne added, with pride. “He said it might quite well put us on the right track at last.”

“But if the beard is a disguise,” said Roger stupidly, “he may not have——”

“The beard isn’t a disguise!” Anne interrupted impatiently. “The other things may be, but not the beard. Come, Mr. Sheringham, don’t you see? Isn’t there a beard, in this case already? Oh, I suppose I may as well tell you now, though I didn’t tell even Mr. Pleydell this. Why, surely it’s obvious. I mean——”

“Good God!”

“No,” said Anne. “Arnold Beverley.”

R
OGER
arrived in Sutherland Avenue that afternoon for his vigil in a somewhat mixed frame of mind. He was certain that, at last, he was on the right lines; he was certain that he could not possibly complete the vast amount of investigation necessary within a mere twenty-four hours; he was certain that the police would make a colossal mistake if they really did arrest Gerald Newsome; he was certain now that Anne was mistaken in her identification of the solicitor with Arnold Beverley; and he was certain that he himself had not got the faintest idea who the man really was. On the whole, he was not sorry for the prospect of a couple of quiet hours in which to reflect on these difficult matters.

Throwing his hat on to the table which, with a comfortably solid armchair, constituted the sole furniture of the little room, he dropped into the latter with a sigh of relief. The strain of the case was beginning to tell on him, and he felt tired. When it was over (if it ever was) he would go away and take a holiday somewhere.

He had ascertained from Pleydell on the previous afternoon that the bell worked perfectly and the ten-minute signals came through without a hitch. Glancing at his watch as he settled himself in the chair, he saw that it was exactly half-past two. As if to confirm its accuracy a short, sharp tinkle sounded from the corner in which the bell had been installed. Roger laid the watch on his knee in order to check the intervals and tried to concentrate.

As regards Anne, he was not unduly perturbed, even after the candid remarks which Newsome had addressed to him. The more one considered it, the more fantastic it seemed that, out of all possible victims, the murderer should hit on Anne. As to the attraction supposed to be exercised on a murderer by the scene of the crime, which might be believed to lure him back to Sutherland Avenue, Roger did not put any credence in it at all. But Anne had conceived the idea and she thought she was doing something towards avenging her sister by carrying it out, so by all means let the poor kid go on with it.

Thus Roger.

Slowly the hands of the watch crept on, to a quarter to three, three o’clock, half-past; and punctually at every ten minutes the bell in the corner uttered an abrupt little ring. But to Roger no illumination came. He concentrated and concentrated; he cried, presumptuously, in his spirit. “Let there be light,” but no light appeared; he wandered dizzily through the endless mazes of the case, and every time found himself in a fresh blind alley. By four o’clock he had given it up in despair and was longing whole-heartedly for tea and companionship.

He looked at his watch. The time was three minutes past four. He started guiltily. Had the bell rung at four o’clock or hadn’t it? He had been so immersed in his own woes that the rings of late had been only subconsciously noted. But now he was aware of a blank. No, he was sure there had been no ring at four o’clock.

He stood up. It was no good leaving a thing like this to chance, he must run across at once. After all, perhaps he had minimised the danger. What if the murderer had got hold of their plan and, fearing they might be on his trail, had determined to take this opportunity to rid himself of one of his pursuers? That was a possibility he had never considered. He looked at his watch again before putting it back in his pocket; it was practically five past four. He hurried towards the door. As his hand touched the knob the bell in the corner spoke at last; but this time its ring was loud, long and insistent—the signal of alarm.

Roger rushed down the stairs three at a time and into the next house.

The sitting-room door resisted his efforts to open it.

“Anne!” he called at the top of his voice, regardless of what the people in the flats below might think. “
Anne!
”

There was a bump and a thud in the passage beside him, and Newsome appeared, tumbled out of his cubby-hole. “What’s the matter?” he asked anxiously.

“Alarm signal,” panted Roger pushing at the door with all his strength. “Can’t get an answer. The man’s inside, I think.”

Newsome joined him, adding a sturdy shoulder. Trying to find some other way of attacking it, Roger looked up: and what he saw made him feel for a moment quite sick. At the top of the door was a hook, screwed firmly into the wood, and from it, disappearing over the door, was a thin strip of some silky-looking material.

Roger shook Newsome’s shoulder and pointed at it. “Charge the thing together,” he grunted. “Not a second to lose.”

They drew back, paused for an instant, and then flung themselves forward, shoulders against the heavy cross-piece of the old-fashioned door. This time the obstruction, whatever it had been, gave way, and the door flew open.

“Guard the doorway!” Roger gasped, as they tumbled into the room. He utilised the force of the motion to fling himself round the edge of the door. Hanging on the back of it, her feet a good twelve inches above the floor, was Anne.

In the same movement Roger lifted her up and shouted to Newsome to unfasten the stocking from the hook on the farther side, loosening the portion round her throat at the same time. As Newsome freed the stocking from the hook, Roger carried Anne over to a couch and laid her gently along it.

“Get the fellow, Jerry,” he said, without looking round. “I’ll see to Anne.” He bent over her.

She was quite unconscious, and her face was horribly distorted, but to Roger’s unspeakable relief she was still breathing. Without even a glance round the room he began to flex her limbs and apply the usual methods of relief to her strained lungs.

“I say,” said Newsome’s voice behind him, “this is ghastly. Is she—is she alive?”

“Yes, she’ll be all right in a minute. Have you got him?”

“There wasn’t anybody! The room was empty, except for—Anne.”

“Nonsense!” Roger retorted. “He must be in here somewhere. Look round. And keep your eye on the door. He’ll make a dash for it. I’ll look after Anne. She’s getting better already.”

Newsome made a circuit of the room, looking into every available hiding-place, without result. The fox had gone to ground.

“Then run out and telephone to Pleydell to come up here at once,” said Roger, still bending over the unconscious girl. “Hurry!”

“Look here, hadn’t I better get a doctor first?” suggested Newsome, gazing down at Anne, whose bloodless lips were only just beginning to lose something of their ghastly hue. “She looks awful. We must——”

“Go and telephone Pleydell!” Roger cut in, speaking in an authoritative voice. “I’m in charge here now, Jerry, officially; and I want Pleydell up here as soon as he can get. We’ve got to consult whether to inform the police about this or not, and it all depends on what Anne has to tell us. She’s all right; she’ll be round in a few minutes. And we don’t want a doctor unless we can’t avoid it; he’d ask too many awkward questions. Go and telephone, there’s a good fellow; I don’t know whether there’s an instrument downstairs or not. You can find out.”

Newsome hesitated for a moment, then he went. Roger resumed his ministrations.

Before Newsome returned, five minutes later, Anne’s eyelids were fluttering and her hands were making little movements by her sides.

“Thank God!” Newsome uttered, noting these signs of returning animation. “Pleydell’s got ‘a directors’ meeting on,” he said to Roger. “He’s not in his office. I left word that they were to get hold of him at once and send him up here, on a matter of life and death.”

Roger nodded, and the two stood watching Anne. The next moment her head began to turn slowly from side to side on the cushion which Roger had placed under it; one hand went jerkily up to it and clutched her forehead.

“My head!” she whispered, in a cracked little voice. “Oh, my head.”

Roger started violently and bent over her again, touching the back of her head with infinitely gentle fingers. He frowned.

“Curious!” he muttered, and went on feeling.

Still almost completely dazed, Anne began to mutter. “I’m—I’m going to be—to be——”

Roger wheeled round suddenly on Newsome. “Jerry! Get out!”

“What?” asked that astonished gentleman.

“Get out!” Roger snapped. “This is going to be no place for you. Hurry!” He herded the protesting Newsome forcibly from the room and locked the door on him.

Hurling some dried leaves out of a large flower-vase, he snatched it up and ran back to the couch. He was just in time.

“Wet nurse, dry nurse, three bags full,” Roger was murmuring distractedly three minutes later, administering frantic first-aid with a silk handkerchief in one hand and a cushion-cover in the other. “There, Anne, dear, are you feeling comfier—not to say tidier?”

Anne smiled at him with watery eyes. “Roger Sheringham,” she said, “you’re a
dear
. But I’ll never be able to look you in the face again without blushing.”

Roger cast a harassed eye unostentatiously under the couch to make sure that the evidence was out of sight. “He hit you on the head, didn’t he?”

“I should say he did,” Anne agreed, feeling the back of it with cautious fingers.

“I guessed as much,” Roger nodded, “and just managed to get Jerry out of the room in time. Anne, did you see him?”

“Yes!” Anne was recovering quickly now. “Roger, it was the solicitor!”

“It was, eh? Top-hat, beard, spectacles and all?”

“Yes;
and
gloves. I only caught one tiny glimpse of him, and he hit me before I could even open my mouth to scream. Or rather, I think I was so petrified with terror that I simply
couldn’t
scream. I never heard a sound till he was right inside the room. I was reading and looked up, and there he was, with his right arm all ready lifted to hit me.” She shuddered violently. “Roger, I was
terrified!
Oh, and I’d thought once I was so brave.” She began to laugh weakly, while her eyes filled with tears.

Roger tried to soothe her, but she continued to giggle foolishly. “Anne, stop!” he said in desperation. “Stop, or I’ll kiss you.” And she did not stop, so he did kiss her—once, twice, three times, four, five, lots of times…

It took Anne quite half a minute to realise what Roger was doing, and then she did stop. She stopped Roger too.

“Roger!” said Anne, blushing fiercely.

“If you get hysterical again, I’ll kiss you again,” Roger threatened, unabashed. Anything to take her mind off what she’s gone through (he was thinking behind his smile), and this seems the very best way.

“If you do, I’ll be sick again,” Anne retorted promptly.

Roger judged that the cure was complete.

“But oh,” Anne murmured, holding her forehead, “my head does ache.”

“You poor child! Anne Manners, you’re the pluckiest girl I’ve ever met. And you’ve solved our problem, remember.”

“But we still don’t know who he is.”

“We’re jolly soon going to,” replied Roger grimly. He dived under the couch and retrieved the evidence, wrapping it decently in the cushion-cover, and marched out to give it burial. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said airily.

“Very well,” said Anne, looking at the ceiling and pretending hard not to know what he was doing.

Outside the door a wild-eyed Newsome confronted him.

“Is she all right?” he babbled. “I heard her making the most awful——”

“She’s all right,” Roger cut him short. “Go in and see for yourself.” He stalked on to the cemetery.

Some twenty minutes later, when Pleydell arrived, Anne was sufficiently recovered to be lying back in a chair and submitting to having her forehead bathed in eau-de-Cologne by Newsome. Roger gave Pleydell a hasty account of what had happened, and the latter, evidently deeply shocked, congratulated Anne warmly on her pluck and her escape.

“Wedged the door with a chair underneath the handle, eh?” he said, looking at the splintered object that had held up their attempts to enter.

“Yes,” said Roger, “it must have been very cunningly balanced.”

“But in spite of everything, you couldn’t identify the man?” Pleydell asked Anne.

She shook her head. “I’m afraid not. He hardly gave me time, either.”

Pleydell frowned. “This is very serious. Sheringham, do you realise that Miss Manners is by no means out of danger yet? This was no chance attack, you may be sure. He had some object, and it isn’t attained. When he learns that, I’m very much afraid that he may make a second attempt.”