House in Charlton Crescent (18 page)

“Perhaps it might upset some one else if called?” suggested the inspector. “Maybe, Mr. Soames—”

The woman's half-averted face turned crimson. “Please do not speak of Mr. Soames. He is nothing to me.”

“That so?” the inspector said in a satisfied tone. “Then there is nothing to prevent you and me from being friends, is there, Miss Pirnie? I shall do myself the pleasure of calling in, maybe to-morrow evening, and bringing you any news there may be.”

“I should be glad to hear about Miss Maureen,” Pirnie said primly, but her eyes looked well pleased as they glanced at the inspector's meagre, lithe form.

They turned out of the restaurant together and made their way back to the roar of the traffic in Knightsbridge. There Pirnie stopped.

“I get my bus just here, Mr. Furnival, so I will say good-bye, and thank you very much,” holding out her hand.

The inspector pressed it tenderly.

“I shall only say au revoir. Oh, one moment more. There is one thing you might tell me and save me a letter to Mr. Soames, if you would be so kind, Miss Pirnie. There is a quantity of clothing—men's clothing—in a bedroom on the third floor. It isn't Mr. John Daventry's—it isn't big enough. I don't suppose for a moment it has any bearing on the case, but it is my duty just to ascertain to whom it belongs.”

“Oh, you mean packed away in the lumber room?” Pirnie said as he stopped. “They belonged to Mr. Frank—her ladyship's son, the youngest, that was killed in the war. Her ladyship used to talk sometimes of giving them away—but she could never bring herself to do so.”

“Oh, daresay not!” But the inspector's tone was abstracted. His eyes were smiling into Pirnie's as he helped her into a bus, his hand held hers closely, and when he stood back to let other passengers get in he still watched her and remained watching until the bus was out of sight. It was little wonder that Pirnie's maiden heart was fluttering as she made her way to her suburban home.

The inspector walked back across the park. There were heavy furrows across his brow. His keen gimlet eyes glanced unseeingly at the faces of the few riders left in the Row. It was evident that his thoughts were far away. It would have been evident to those who knew the Ferret best that his mind was busy with some knotty problem—that in some way he had been surprised, probably unexpectedly puzzled.

As he emerged into Bayswater Road near the Lancaster Gate Tube, he glanced at the news posters of the men outside the station. “The house in Charlton Crescent,” he read. “Curious development.”

He scowled at the unlucky vendor as he took a copy of the paper. As he feared, Maureen's disappearance had somehow become public, though not all the circumstances. But there was a description of the missing child.

The inspector's scowl deepened as thrusting the offending paper deep down in his pocket he set off at a brisk pace for Charlton Crescent.

As he entered the Crescent the door of Lady Anne's house was thrown open and Dorothy Fyvert appeared on the steps with Bruce Cardyn close behind.

It was evident that she had been crying. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her lips were trembling. She caught the inspector's arm.

“We have had a message,” she cried breathlessly. “Alice has come home alone and denies all knowledge of Maureen. Oh, inspector, what has become of my little sister?”

“Heaven knows!” said the inspector heavily.

“And now what does Alice Gray say she has been doing?”

Inspector Furnival was the speaker. He had drawn Miss Fyvert and Bruce Cardyn back into the hall.

“Your message came from Cuthbertson, suppose?” He spoke rapidly over his shoulder to Bruce Cardyn, while Dorothy clung to his hands as though she derived some subtle comfort from their warm human contact.

“Cuthbertson,” Cardyn assented. “I wired back for particulars. The answer came just now. Gray got out of the train at Golders Green and took a bus back to Victoria. Went to Brighton to see her cousin. Address given—I am verifying.”

At this moment there was an interruption. A car stopped before the door and a man sprang out, took the steps in his stride, and hammered at the door.

Cardyn opened it. “Mr. Daventry!”

“Yes, Mr. Daventry!” that individual assented, flinging his hat and motor-goggles on the old oak table and throwing his heavy fur-lined coat on one of the big chairs. “Now, Dorothy, what is this I hear? What have you been doing with Maureen?”

“Oh, John! We can't think what has become of her. If we don't find her I shall go mad.”

“Oh, we shall find her safe enough,” returned John Daventry in the loud cheerful voice that never seemed to admit of failure. “What—what's this, Dorothy? Crying? Oh, come, I can't have that. Maureen will turn up right enough, little monkey! Oh, I see Mr. Detective Furnival can't find her! Well, you know, he hasn't found the bally blighter who got up to the window and killed Aunt Anne. But I am going to look for Maureen myself.”

The inspector smiled faintly. His eyes watched the young man's pleasant face with its bronzed ruddy skin, clear blue eyes and the white teeth that spoke of perfect health. Eminently a clean, wholesome, desirable-looking young Englishman, but hardly the material of which a successful sleuth is made.

“I am sure hope you will find her, Mr. Daventry,” he returned politely. “It is not always so easy to discover things, you know.”

“Well, I ought to, seeing how often you fail,” retorted Daventry with a grin. “See here, there's that damned Cat Burglar, you can't find him. You don't know who stabbed Aunt Anne or who stole her pearls. And now you can't find Maureen. One, two, three, four failures! You will have to take care it does not become a habit, Furnival!”

The inspector did not look quite pleased as he turned away.

Daventry glanced at Dorothy.

“I shall go to Alice's home at New Barnet myself. I'll make her tell me what has become of Maureen, or I will know the reason why.”

“If she knows,” Dorothy said with a catch in her breath. “But suppose she does not? Oh, John, I fancy all sorts of things. It will drive me mad if all this uncertainty goes on. Oh, when I think of the horrible cruelties that are inflicted upon children—sometimes I ask myself, if it is possible that some villain has got hold of Maureen—”

She stopped abruptly, but her big eyes as she gazed imploringly at her cousin held an evergrowing haunting horror.

“No!” thundered Daventry. “Of course it is not possible! Maureen is safe enough, only up to mischief, expect. Why, Dorothy, what puts such horrible thoughts into your head? Don't let yourself even think of such terrible things. Put them out of your mind.”

“If I can,” Dorothy said, her voice dropping to the merest whisper. “But I can't, John. I am haunted—haunted by the fear—the horror of what may have become of her.”

“I will find her for you,” Daventry promised, touching her hand lightly. “I am going to motor straight off to Alice. And I will wring the truth out of her—I will bring Maureen back.”

He stopped as there was another knock at the door. Dorothy looked vaguely comforted. There was something so reassuring about John Daventry's power and certainty, that she began to believe that he would succeed where the detectives had failed.

Daventry and she had been friends from their earliest years, until the friendship under the pressure of their two families had merged into the sort of indefinable understanding which to both had become irksome, and to Dorothy, of late, intolerable. But to-day, looking at the firm, strong mouth, at the clear, straight eyes, some of Dorothy's old confidence returned. She tried to smile at him.

“I am sure you will if anybody can, John.”

“That I will!” he said, looking her squarely in the eyes. “There will be no beating about the bush with the Cat Burglar with me, I promise you!” He stopped short. “What is that?”

The inspector opened the front door, though none of the others had heard either bell or knocker. Now he seemed to be carrying on a colloquy with some one outside.

As John Daventry listened his face changed; the steel-grey eyes grew softer, the rather hard mouth softened and grew tender.

The voice speaking to the inspector became more distinct. “It was the only thing could do, inspector, to bring her to you. Now, Susan, do not be so foolish! You have nothing to be afraid of if you speak the truth.”

It was Margaret Balmaine speaking. Daventry hurried to the door just as she entered holding a shivering, weeping figure by the arm. The inspector followed them and closed the door.

Dorothy uttered a cry of surprise as she recognized the maid whom she and Margaret shared.

“Why, Susan, what in the world is the matter? Are you ill?”

“No, she is not ill. She is frightened,” Margaret Balmaine answered for her. Miss Balmaine herself was looking curiously shaken out of her usual composure. In spite of her “make-up” it was quite evident that her face was very white. Her big, artificially-darkened eyes were filled with dread. Yet she kept her hold on the arm of the weeping girl by her side.

“Now, Susan, speak up! I promise you nothing  will happen to you if you tell what you know. Come, dry your eyes and speak out.”

Thus adjured, the girl made a desperate attempt to obey.

“It was what I heard them say,” she said, between her sobs. “I couldn't help it—I wasn't listening.”

“No, no! We know that—none of us think you were,” Margaret Balmaine assured her. “Come, Susan, where were you? Just repeat what you told me a minute ago.”

The inspector watched both girls closely. Not a movement of either escaped him, but for once the keen ferret eyes looked puzzled, one might almost have said bewildered. Miss Balmaine touched the girl's arm again encouragingly.

“Come, Susan!”

At last the girl's sobs stopped. She rolled her wet handkerchief up into a crumpled ball, and held it in her hot little hand.

“I was sitting doing some needlework in Miss Fyvert's room,” she began, speaking in a controlled almost mechanical voice, “and Miss Maureen was ill—stopping in her room, which opened out of Miss Dorothy's. She did not know I was there, for I heard her moving about, opening and shutting drawers. And if she had known I was there she would have spoken, for Miss Maureen was never one to keep quiet. didn't want her just then, either, so I kept quiet too, and was just going to slip out of the room when heard Alice begin to speak. ‘It's no good, Maureen,' she began—and that surprised me, to hear her speak without the “Miss”—‘I mean, that man has been asking questions again. He will find out everything and then what will become of us?' I ought to have come away, I know,” Susan's voice became choked with sobs again. She dabbed her hard little handkerchief in her eyes. “Or else have spoken out, but I was wondering what they meant, and I stayed and have been sorry ever since.”

Dorothy sprang forward impatiently. “Oh, never mind about that. What did you hear? Hurry, hurry, girl, for Heaven's sake!”

Susan's sobs redoubled. “I'm being as quick as I can, Miss Dorothy. It isn't so very easy,” she said thickly. “When Alice said: ‘What will become of us?' Miss Maureen began to cry. ‘Can they send us to prison, Alice?' she says, crying all the time like. Alice, she began to cry too. ‘I am sure they can,' she sobs. ‘The thing that I am afraid of is that they will—leastways they won't you, because you are too young, but they will maybe hang me, and that will kill my mother. Oh, dear; oh, dear! what shall I do?' And she begins to sob again. With that Miss Maureen gives a sharp cry. ‘Oh, Alice! Alice! They—they mustn't hang us—nor put us in prison. If only we could get away, where that horrid, horrid inspector man could not find us!'”

Susan said the last sentence with a certain zeal that sounded as if she relished repeating the obnoxious adjectives to the inspector's face.

“Well! Go on!” John Daventry's voice was harsh and strained. “What else did you hear?” Susan turned to him with an odd little bow.

“That was all, Mr. Daventry, sir. Miss Fyvert went into the room. I heard her speak to Alice about some needlework and slipped away. I don't know what they were talking about. I couldn't think. But I didn't bother so much about it until we heard yesterday that Miss Maureen had disappeared. Then—then I got frightened and Miss Balmaine made me tell her—”

“Yes,” said Margaret Balmaine in a cold, determined voice. “I found Susan crying and could get no explanation at first except that she was frightened and wanted to leave. At that suspected that she must know something. I taxed her with it and after some time she told me this. Naturally I could not deal with it myself, so thought the best thing was to bring her round to you, inspector. I don't know whether what she knows is any help, whether it may have bearing on the case, I mean. But it seemed to me you ought to know.”

It struck Bruce Cardyn, looking at him, that the Ferret had a baffled, puzzled expression absolutely foreign to his keen little face.

“Quite right, Miss Balmaine,” he said politely. “I wish everyone would be as prompt and sensible. Now, my girl”—turning to Susan—”there is nothing for you to cry about, if you have told us the whole truth. That was all you heard?”

“Every word, sir,” corroborated the weeping Susan.

The inspector opened the door. “Then there is no great purpose to be served by keeping you. Try to put it out of your mind for the time being. And above all things do not cry about it.”

Susan needed no second bidding. She slipped out of the opened door with one of those queer, semi-circular little bows of hers, and made off down the Crescent as fast as her legs could carry her.

The group of men and women standing in the hall looked at one another in horrified consternation. At last Dorothy spoke:

“What does it mean? Maureen couldn't have known—couldn't have done anything—about Aunt Anne!”