The Silk Stocking Murders (8 page)

“There’s the note, Mr. Sheringham,” the Chief Inspector reminded him. “In my opinion that shows that the thing was premeditated, and the note was brought for the purpose.”

“But how could he have known that she was going to the studio? She never said anything about it to her friends. Probably she didn’t know herself. She passed by on her way out of London and called in to see if the girl would go for a run with her.”

“That’s possible, of course, but we mustn’t lose sight of the notion that she had an assignation there, knowing her friend was going to be out, and all that talk about the run was to put the others off the scent. She’d guess well enough that none of them would go with her.”

“Humph!” said Roger, who was quite willing to lose sight of that notion, in which he did not believe for a moment. “By the way,” he went on, as a memory occurred to him, “I’ve a shrewd idea that that fellow she was engaged to—what’s his name? Pleydell—has his suspicions. Did you notice him in the court this morning? Half a dozen times he seemed to me on the verge of saying something significant.”

“Yes, I thought he might have something in his mind. I was going to have a talk with him to-morrow morning.”

“It’s a rotten position for him,” Roger said thoughtfully. “And it’ll be rottener still if he has got a suspicion that everything isn’t as straightforward as it might be. To have one’s fiancée commit suicide is bad enough, but to have her murdered!… Look here, Moresby, why not hold up your talk with him for a day or two?”

“Why, Mr. Sheringham?”

“Well, it’s rather a nice point. If he
has
got his suspicions, you see, would he let things stay as they are, to save her family any further scandal, or would he do his damnedest to get at the truth? In my opinion he’d want the truth. But he’s not going to be quite sure at first what he wants. Well, if you descend on him before he’s made up his mind, he might be driven into holding his tongue. A sort of counter-instinct, you know. And if he’s got anything to tell us that would be a pity. On the other hand, if you leave him till he’s quite clear about it, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he doesn’t come to you; and in that case you’d get far more out of him than in any other way. This is all on the assumption that he
is
suspicious, of course, which may not be the case at all.”

The Chief Inspector consumed a little more beer. “There’s a good deal in that,” he admitted, wiping his mouth delicately on a large blue silk handkerchief. “Yes, perhaps I was a little hasty, and that’s the one thing we ought not to be. Very well, I’ll give him three days and see if you’re right. It’ll be a feather in your cap if you are.”

Roger looked over the notes he had been taking of the conversation. “Well, what it seems to amount to,” he said, “is that we’ve got to look for a man who touches our circle at various points, including Monte Carlo last February. He’s probably a hefty fellow, and a gentleman (or passing for one), and we can’t necessarily expect anything abnormal in his mental make-up except on this one topic. If we narrow our search down to one man, I shall try to get him to talk on that topic (which won’t be too easy to introduce, by the way), and if he gives himself away we can be pretty certain we’re on the right track.”

“And then we’ve got to prove it against him,” added the Chief Inspector with gloom, “and that’s going to be the most difficult job of the lot. If you’d been at the Yard as long as I have, Mr. Sheringham, you’d know that—— Hullo, isn’t that your telephone?”

Roger rose and went to the instrument in his study adjoining. In a moment he was back. “For you, Moresby,” he said. “Scotland Yard.”

Moresby went out of the room.

When he returned a few minutes later, his face bore an expression of rather reluctant admiration. “That was a smart bit of psychological deduction you put in only a few minutes ago, Mr. Sheringham,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Roger asked, agog.

The Chief Inspector stooped and plucked out a feather which, was protruding from the cushion in his chair. “Here you are, sir,” he said. “Put it in your cap. Mr. Pleydell’s waiting at the Yard to see me at this, minute. Care to come round too?”

“You bet I would,” said Roger, with fervour.

P
LEYDELL
was in a waiting-room when Roger and the Chief Inspector arrived in Scotland Yard. There had been some discussion between the two on the way, as to whether Roger should appear at this first interview or not; and it had been decided that, as Pleydell would probably be still a little torn between reticence and the reverse, the presence of a third person might tend to tip the balance in favour of the former. In order that Roger should not, however, miss any of the conversation, he was to lurk behind a screen in a corner of the room.

Moresby had given instructions over the telephone that no hint should be given to Pleydell that the police were already taking an interest in his fiancée’s death, so that whatever he had come to say should be completely spontaneous. It was therefore with eager anticipation that Roger retired into his corner, where he was pleased to find that, by applying an eye to a carefully cut aperture in the screen, he could watch the proceedings as well as hear them. A few moments later Pleydell was shown in.

Roger wondered at first whether their precautions had been unnecessary, for Pleydell seemed perfectly composed. “Good evening,” he said, in reply to Moresby’s greeting. “I know nothing about the procedure here, but I wish to see somebody on a highly delicate matter.”

“That’s right, sir,” Moresby assured him. “You can say whatever you wish to me.”

Pleydell looked a little doubtful. “I was thinking that perhaps the Assistant Commissioner…”

“Sir Paul is out of town this evening, sir,” Moresby replied untruthfully. “At the moment I’m in charge. You can say anything you wish to me. Take a chair, won’t you?”

Pleydell hesitated a moment, as if still not quite contented with a mere Chief Inspector, then seemed to accept the inevitable. As he turned to take the chair, Roger was not quite so sure of his composure; there were little lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes that might indicate mental strain. His self-control, however, was strong. Now that Roger could observe him more nearly than in the court, he saw that the Jewish blood in him was not just a strain, but filled his veins. Pleydell was evidently a pure Jew, tall, handsome and dignified as the Jews of unmixed race often are. Roger liked the look of him at once.

“Now, sir,” Moresby resumed when they were both seated, “what did you want to see us about?” He spoke in easy, conversational tones, as if his visitor might have come, for all he knew to sell him a drawing-room suite on the instalment system.

“My name is Pleydell,” said the other. “I don’t suppose that conveys anything to you, but I am—I
was
,” he corrected himself painfully, “engaged to be married to Lady Ursula Graeme.”

The Chief Inspector’s face took on the correct look of condolence. “Oh, yes. A shocking business, that, sir. I needn’t say how I sympathise with you.”

“Thank you.” Pleydell fidgeted for a moment in his chair. And then his composure and his self-control alike disappeared. “Look here,” he blurted out abruptly, “this is what I’ve come round for—I’m not satisfied about it!”

“Not satisfied, sir?” The Chief Inspector’s voice was a model of polite surprise. “Why, how do you mean?”

“I’m not satisfied about my fiancée’s death. I’m sure that Lady Ursula would have been the last person in the world to kill herself like that, without any reason. It’s—it’s grotesque! I want you to look into it.”

The Chief Inspector drummed on the table with his knuckles. “Look into it, sir?” he repeated. In cases such as this Chief Inspector Moresby carried on most of his share of the conversation by echoing, in an interrogatory form, the last two or three words of his companion’s last speech. It was a good method, for it saved him from sitting dumbly and it also saved him from contributing anything of his own to the conversation. Moreover, it is an excellent way of drawing out one’s interlocutor.

“Yes.” Now that his outburst was over and Pleydell had got his chief trouble off his chest, his calm was returning. “I’m convinced there’s something behind all this, Inspector. My fiancée must have had some good reason for doing what she did. She must have been threatened or blackmailed, or—or something horrible. I want the police to find out what that reason was.”

“I see, sir.” Moresby continued to drum absently on his table. “But that’s really hardly a matter for us, is it?” he suggested.

“How do you mean?” Pleydell retorted, his voice indignant. “I tell you, Lady Ursula must have been hounded into taking her life. She was driven into suicide. She must have been. And isn’t that tantamount to murder? Supposing it was blackmail, for instance. That’s a matter for you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, quite, sir, if you put it like that. What I mean is, this is all too vague. It’s only what you think, after all, isn’t it? Now if you could give us some evidence, to support what you’re saying—well, that might be a different matter.”

Roger smiled. He appreciated the Chief Inspector’s method. By pretending to make light of his visitor’s suspicions he was hoping to goad him into revelations concerning his fiancée which otherwise he might be most reluctant to make.

It seemed, however, as if Moresby’s subtlety was not to be rewarded. “Evidence?” said Pleydell, more calmly. “That’s difficult. I don’t think I’ve got any evidence to give you. Lady Ursula never gave me the slightest hint that anything was amiss. In fact, the whole dreadful business is a complete mystery to me. All I know is that she wouldn’t have done a thing like that without reason, and we don’t know of any reason. Therefore that reason ought to be found. Surely it’s up to you to unearth the evidence, not me.”

Roger reflected that, up to the present, Pleydell’s suspicions almost exactly corresponded with his own concerning Janet Manners. Indeed, had not that chance bombshell flung vaguely in Moresby’s direction blown away the cobwebs from his own brain in its bursting, they would probably be the suspicions that he still held. And what would Pleydell say when he found that it was not a case of hidden reasons for suicide at all, but of simple murder?

Roger studied him carefully through the little aperture. Under that normally composed, almost cold exterior, no doubt the fires of passion could burn as fiercely as anywhere else. More fiercely perhaps; for it is those who habitually keep a tight hand on their emotions, whose outburst, when it does occur, is far more violent than that of the normal individual. And after all, in this case the blood was Oriental in origin, however remote that origin might be. With the lust for vengeance which must sweep over him as he learnt the truth, Pleydell might prove a useful help in the investigation. Roger decided that he ought to be told the truth at once.

The Chief Inspector was ambling gently round the question at issue. “But do you think the Countess would like Scotland Yard called in, sir?” he was asking. “Now that everything’s settled, wouldn’t it be better to leave it like that, and not rake up what may turn out to be a nasty scandal?”

Pleydell flushed. “I’m not necessarily ‘calling you in,’” he replied. “One only does that when there’s something definite to call you in for, I suppose. I’ve merely come here, after considerable reflection, to report to you my personal opinion that there is something behind the scenes here which ought to be brought into the light. You may, of course, hint at ‘a nasty scandal’ in connection with my fiancée; I prefer to look on her as the probable victim of a blackguardly conspiracy which has ended by driving her to take her own life. And in my opinion you people here ought to investigate the matter. That’s all I’ve got to say.” He rose to his feet, picked up his hat and gloves and walked towards the door. “Good evening,” he added curtly.

Moresby rose too. “One minute, sir. If you’re not in a hurry, I wonder if you’d mind waiting a short time before you go. There may be something in what you say, and perhaps we ought to look into it. I’d like to mention it quickly to a colleague, and he might care to see you. In cases like this, you see, sir, we have to be very careful not to…” His voice droned away down the passage outside.

In a moment or two he was back. “Well, Mr. Sheringham? What do you make of all that?”

“He’s thinking exactly as I did at first about Unity Ransome. Knows there’s something very wrong, but can’t just see what it is. We ought to tell him.”

The Chief Inspector looked dubious. “Tell him it’s murder?”

“Yes. He might be very useful. He’s our chief lever for uncovering Lady Ursula’s case, I should say.”

“Um! But I don’t think we’ll tell him straight out what we think, Mr. Sheringham, if you don’t mind. It’s a thing we never do unless there’s a very definite object to be gained, and there isn’t here. But I’ve no objection to letting him know that we’re already investigating the case.”

“Very well. And ask him if he can throw any light on that note of Lady Ursula’s.”

“Of course. Well, I’ll fetch him back.”

Returning, the Chief Inspector introduced Roger to Playdell as “Mr. Sheringham, who is going to look into this case with me.”

Pleydell seized on the point immediately. “Ah!” he said.

“So you are going to look into it?”

The Chief Inspector contrived to smile an apologetic smile in which there was no apology. “I’m afraid I wasn’t quite open with you just now, sir. You mustn’t mind; we’re very fond of our secrets here.” He winked maliciously at Roger. “To tell you the truth, we’re investigating this case already, in a quiet way. Have been for the last two days, in fact.”

“Ah!” Pleydell stroked his chin thoughtfully. “So my coming wasn’t such a surprise to you after all?”

“We wondered if you might,” Moresby agreed. “Mr. Sheringham was only saying a short time ago that he’d an idea that the same things that had struck us, might probably have struck you.”

Pleydell turned sharply to Roger, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “They did, Mr. Sheringham; very forcibly indeed. And I’ve been spending the last half-hour trying to induce the Chief Inspector to look into the case officially, without, as I thought, the least success.”