House in Charlton Crescent (17 page)

“Paper, sir?”

The inspector stooped to make his selection.

“Well?”

“Just a little further on, sir, up by the Row,” the boy answered, his undertone to the full as cautious as the inspector's. “Near the first big clump of crocuses. She is sitting on a chair by herself and looks as if she was expecting some one.”

The inspector gave him a nod and a copper and walked off briskly, paper in hand. He had not far to go. The solitary figure of a woman in mourning of which he was in search was close at hand. With a throb of satisfaction he saw that the only chair near her was empty. He slackened his pace a little as he went up, and raised his hat.

“Why, Miss Pirnie, this is an unexpected pleasure. Just having an hour or so off, as you may say, I thought I would turn into the Park and have a look at the spring flowers. But it is dreary work taking one's enjoyment by oneself. So, if you will allow me—” He brought his chair close up to her, and sitting down with a hand on each knee he regarded her with a friendly smile.

Pirnie did not return the smile. She cast a frightened glance at him and half rose, then, changing her mind, sat down again. But she made no attempt to respond to the inspector's civility. Instead she said abruptly:

“What do you want with me?”

The inspector's smile became more suave and childlike than ever.

“Want with you!” he echoed. “What should I want but a chat with a lady I have often admired? We detectives are pretty much like other men in our off-hours, Miss Pirnie.”

The lady's maid was gradually recovering her self-possession. The inspector's manner was so friendly, his glance so respectful that her fears were allayed. She tossed her head now.

“I dare say! But—is this one of your off-hours then, Mr. Furnival?”

“Well, it looks like it, doesn't it?” The inspector stretched out his legs and regarded his feet contemplatively. “I must say I have no fancy for going off by myself for my bits of holidays. I like to see something of life—a scene like this now,” waving his hand comprehensively at the passers-by.

“You don't spend them with your wife, then?” Pirnie pursued curiously and principally conscious of a monkey-like desire to annoy the inspector.

“Spend them with my wife! Good Lord, ma'am!” The inspector turned from his scrutiny of his boots to stare at her. “Ah, I see you don't know that I lost my poor wife three years ago. She: left me with six children that have taken some looking after. But my favourite sister got married to a rogue, more years ago than I care to count. After he had broken her heart, he went off with another woman and she has made her home with me ever since and looked after the kids. She is very good to them, but it isn't altogether a satisfactory arrangement. In point of fact I have not married again, but it's quite on the cards I may, though I often think a man in my profession is best unmarried. If he is married, it is a job to keep things from a wife, leastways if he is attached to her, and that is what I should hope to be to mine.”

It was a long speech for the Ferret, who was one of the most laconic of men in private life. At its conclusion he sat silent, looking straight before him with a pensive expression that accorded but ill with his sharp little features. 

Pirnie bridled. A well-pleased smile lighted up her face. Her long black ear-rings shook, various odd little pieces of jewellery pinned about her black frock twinkled.

“Ay! It is one thing to say so beforehand, and another thing to stick to it afterwards.”

“Well, well; it may be so,” the inspector admitted cautiously. “But it seems to me the difficulty would be in not sticking to it, if it was the right woman.”

The style of conversation was quite to Pirnie's liking. She began to think that she had sadly misused her opportunities hitherto. She had hardly cast a glance at Inspector Furnival—yet here was he an obvious victim to her charms. The inspector saw that his prey would be an easy one. He cast an admiring glance at her made-up countenance.

“I was just wondering—it isn't often I take a holiday and when I do I want to enjoy myself—I was wondering whether you would come and have a cup of tea with me. There is a tea place in Ridley street, off Knightsbridge where they do you very well.”

Surprise kept Pirnie silent for a minute, and the inspector went on.

“Ay! It has come to me that you wouldn't hesitate if it was Mr. Soames asking you. Well, well, it has been my luck to be just too late in other ways.”

Pirnie flushed up unbecomingly, her markings showing in ghastly contrast with the dull crimson of the skin beneath.

“Soames!” she repeated, an accent almost of fear in her voice. “What do you mean about Soames?”

The inspector laughed, his keen little eyes watching every change in her face from beneath their lowered lids.

“Well, it is common knowledge—common gossip, perhaps I should say, that Mr. Soames is hoping to take a certain lady with him to the Daventry Arms when he goes there.”

Pirnie recovered her self-possession with an effort.

“Hoping is one thing; doing is another. If Herbert Soames thinks that he can reckon on me and treat me as he likes—well, he will find out his mistake, that is all.”

A faint smile gleamed for a second in the inspector's keen eyes. “Ay! When I saw you sitting here, I thought to myself that you might be waiting for Mr. Soames and hesitated about butting in. Then I thought again and I thought to myself, ‘No, Miss Pirnie is the sort that men wait for, not that waits for them,' and came across to you. But if I have made a mistake—” 

“You haven't!” Pirnie snapped. She got up with a jerk, her long black veil floating round her, the flush on her cheeks showing more plainly than ever against her rouge and powder. “Come, then, I believe I will go with you to the tea-rooms after all,” she said, with an attempt at coquetry that deepened Furnival's unseen smile.

They walked across the Row, and went down the passage by the barracks. The tea-rooms were in a side street off Knightsbridge. Furnival was fortunate enough to secure a corner table and they sat down. He ordered a sumptuous tea. Pirnie's eyes sparkled. She loved the good things and bright places of life, and since Lady Anne's death she had felt as if she were living in some strange and horrible dream. She told herself now that surely this must be a very pleasant and unexpected awakening. Under the influence of the hot creamed tea and the hot buttered muffins she waxed loquacious, and, Furnival leading her on, chattered at considerable length about the household at Charlton Crescent. She little knew how much she revealed, but the precise information for which he was waiting did not come. He saw that he would have to put a few leading questions.

Hitching his chair a little nearer the table, he leaned across. 

“I expect her ladyship did not often go out with you, Miss Pirnie?”

“Without me?” Pirnie opened her eyes. “Her ladyship hadn't been out without me for years. Even if Miss Fyvert or Miss Balmaine went with her, she would have me with her in case she wanted anything.”

“Is that so? Well, I don't wonder at it,” the inspector said gallantly. “But it is a funny thing now. A man I met the other day told me he saw Lady Anne Daventry driving up Piccadilly by herself one afternoon, it may be a month ago now.”

Pirnie's eyes opened wider and wider. Her affectation dropped from her momentarily.

“That he never did, I will swear. Why, her ladyship hadn't been out for months before she died. Let me see—in October it would be—she went to buy a wedding present for Lord Fyvert, and when she came back home she said, ‘Pirnie,' she said, ‘it is the last time. It tires me too much. For the future the tradesmen will have to send their goods to me. I shall not go outside the garden.' And she kept to that, Mr. Furnival. Not once afterwards did she put her nose outside the garden.”

“Um! That so?” said the inspector, stirring his tea thoughtfully. “Well, folks will say anything. Do you know what I heard the other day—that people are making bets that it was Lady Anne herself that sold her pearls and then pretended to have lost them!”

“What!” Genuine indignation coloured the maid's face now. “I never heard such a wicked thing in my life. My poor lady that never lived up to her income, and always put some by every year, to be accused of selling her own pearls that she loved so for the sake of her father and mother. Besides”—cooling down a little—“if she had done such a thing she would have kept quiet and nobody would have known anything about it in her lifetime. She would not have called the police in, it stands to reason, if she had sold them herself. Why should she?”

“Why, indeed?” The inspector gazed in front of him, pulling thoughtfully at his clean-shaven chin. “Besides, as you say, she couldn't have got to Spagnum's by herself and without your knowing.”

“No, that she never did, I will swear,” Pirnie answered positively.

“That settles the matter,” the inspector said, taking up another cake and changing the subject. “You must be glad to get away from the house in Charlton Crescent, Miss Pirnie.”

Pirnie clasped her hands. “Oh, I can't tell you how glad! It has been terrible there of late. Not knowing! And being afraid of everybody. Mr. Furnival—who do you think killed my lady?” 

The inspector met the question with another. “Who do you?” he returned sharply.

Pirnie shivered. “I don't know,” she whispered hoarsely. “But I am frightened—I dare not even think—”

The inspector reached over the tea-tray and laid his firm strong hand upon the quivering shaking one lying on the edge of the table. “Don't think of it,” he advised. “Put it out of your mind. At any rate Lady Anne valued your services and appreciated them as you deserved. And you loved her—you had nothing to do with her awful fate. You could not help it.”

To his consternation Pirnie burst into tears. “No! No! I could not help it,” she sobbed. “I lie awake night after night thinking what I might have done to safeguard my lady.”

“Shouldn't do that! It is very bad for you,” the inspector said in a strictly non-committal voice.

There were not many people in the room, none really within earshot, but the few there were were beginning to glance at them curiously. The inspector had no wish to be recognized.

“And now, dear lady, if you will put your handkerchief away and take another cup of tea, I will tell you a queer thing that has happened. It hasn't got into the papers yet, so far as I know.” 

Curiosity dried Pirnie's tears. “What is it, Mr. Furnival? You may depend upon me.”

“I know I can,” the inspector said with a sympathetic glance. “You would be a loyal friend, Miss Pirnie, whatever happened. And this is a terrible thing. The child has disappeared.”

“The child!” Pirnie repeated in a tone only half comprehending and wholly incredulous. “You don't—you can't mean Miss Maureen?”

The inspector nodded. “Yes! She disappeared while travelling down to North Coton yesterday with the Fyverts and her sister and Miss Balmaine.”

“Disappeared!” Pirnie's eyes grew round with horror. “Inspector, how could she—out of a railway carriage?”

The inspector coughed. “Well, I didn't mean literally out of a railway carriage. As a matter of fact she was seen at the junction. Every one seems to have thought she was with some one else and she was not discovered to be missing until they reached North Coton Rectory. Her sister is nearly out of her mind.”

“Poor Miss Dorothy! So I should think!” Pirnie sat silent a minute, her eyes looking straight before her. The inspector watched her keenly between his mouthfuls of buttered muffin.

“Mr. Furnival, this can't have had anything to do with my lady's death—Miss Maureen can't know anything! It is an impossibility!”

The inspector finished his muffin and took a long draught of tea before answering. Then his cup was pushed away from him.

“Miss Pirnie, I may trust you with what wouldn't tell another person living. I'll be hanged if can make out whether she does or she doesn't. There has always to my mind been something queer about the child. But I can't see how she could have been connected with the murder and that is a fact! Still, it seems to me that someone must have had a motive for getting her away. What do you think of this Alice Gray that she was so friendly with?”

Pirnie tossed her head. “I never was one to take up with the under servants. Alice knew her work and her place, and did the one and kept the other. That was all I knew about her. When she was set to wait on Miss Maureen because the child could not go to school and took a fancy to her, thought it was a good thing. For Miss Maureen was a handful! But there, Alice could not have run away with her!”

“Of course she couldn't,” the inspector assented. But his tone was neither convincing nor convinced.

“Anyhow, Alice Gray gave the police her home address, somewhere out past New Barnet. She said she was going there at once, and in fact was seen off on her way by the footman. But she never arrived there. At least she hadn't last night.”

“Well, I never!” Words failed the maid for a minute. “We are living in queer times, Mr. Furnival,” she said at last. “I often wish my lot had been cast in the good old days when folks could at least sleep in their beds at night in peace.”

“The world would have been a good deal poorer to-day if your wish had been granted, Miss Pirnie,” the inspector said gallantly. “But now, I have upset you, and it is vexing me past a bit. You will be losing your good looks and that would be more than I could stand. Miss Maureen and Alice Gray will be found very soon, both of them, you may take it from me. And, look here, how would it be if I was to look in at your place sometime this week of an evening? I might have some news for you—that would set your mind at rest.”

Pirnie stood up and adjusted her hat and drew on her long gauntlet gloves. “That would be very kind of you,” she said unsteadily. “But—I don't know. Perhaps it would be better not, inspector. I expect I shall hear if there is any good news to hear soon—somehow.”