Missing or Murdered (16 page)

“Quite so, and then—?”

“And then you come to the inevitable deadlock. There are Messrs. Grierson, Murray and Bliss—immediate subordinates of Lord Bygrave's. Civil servants of many years standing and unquestionable probity. Now, if Lord Bygrave had been using an economy axe on the Government officials' salaries there would have been reason, and ample reason, for their knocking him on the head and using the furnace as a crematorium; but he wielded no such provocative weapon. Who had any cause for removing his lordship?”

“There's the rub, Mr. Vereker. Now, you have deftly outlined some of the investigations I've made, I'll let you into a little secret. The nightwatchman is an ex-service man, who for over a year after the war was in a lunatic asylum. He was placed there for a violent and quite inexplicable assault on a complete stranger. Investigation into his case brought to light the fact that a shrapnel wound in the head had unhinged the poor fellow's brain. He made a rapid recovery, however, and was then set at liberty. It is possible that the man may have had a recurrence of his homicidal mania. But there, I shan't tell you any more. I've just given you sufficient information to pique your curiosity. If you're wise you'll inquire into the habits of that night-watchman. I must be going now.”

“Well, good night, Heather. You can keep your night-watchman with the homicidal mania. I've no more use for him than you have. He is not the kind of pet I keep. Let me know if you track down Mr. Smale; his sudden disappearance is rather more interesting to me than the propensities of a combative night-watchman. I have still got a niche for him in my mental museum of possible criminals.”

“Good night, Mr. Vereker,” laughed the inspector.

A few moments afterwards Vereker watched him walking along thoughtfully down the street until he vanished in the dusk. He then resumed his own seat by the fire.

“I wonder just how much Heather knows?” he soliloquized. “He's as impenetrable as a bit of armour plate. Once upon a time I thought I could pull his leg with some grace and a suspicion of humour. Now he is too nimble for my grasp, and actually attempts to pull mine. His visit to this place to-night is probably only the result of his insatiable curiosity to know exactly what I'm doing. His methods are characterized by an amazing thoroughness and an appalling, almost destructive common sense. No flights of imagination for old Heather! To quote my friend Emerson, ‘Relation and connection are not somewhere and sometimes but everywhere and always; no miscellany, no exemption, no anomaly but method and an even web; and what comes out, that was put in.' It's the most reliable method after all, I suppose, but there are many ways of solving a problem. The answer's the thing! Strangely enough, he never once mentioned Winslade's name! And as for myself, my chief interest is centred in Winslade—he knows a lot, if not all. He is certainly deeply implicated. Heather has surely not left that line of inquiry untouched? But, then, he's not going to tell me his greatest secrets—instead, he tries to fill me up with some bunkum about maniacal night-watchmen!”

Vereker could not restrain a hearty laugh. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece which Ricardo had evidently wound up and set right. It was late and early next day he must get away down to Farnaby to see Mrs. Cathcart. She might be able to throw some light on his darkness.

Vereker rose at six o'clock and, having bathed and shaved, consumed a simple breakfast of porridge and milk, toast and marmalade and tea, rushed off to Waterloo Station and caught the seven o'clock train southwards. He changed at Willow Tree Junction, where he had an hour to wait, and then embarked on the train running down the single line to Farnaby. On the way, his thoughts were unavoidably centred on Mrs. Cathcart. He found himself trying to imagine the type of woman she might be, and somehow or other he could not avoid picturing her as a faded widow, battered by a hard world, and shrivelled into the narrowness and cynicism that accompany ill-usage at the hands of circumstance.

“It's only those who can feel their strength in their struggle with their fellow men who manage to retain the bloom of courageous youth,” he thought, and came to the conclusion that this was a feeble generalization. His thoughts got inextricably involved on the difference between moral and physical courage and the retention of youth, and then he suddenly remembered that he was quite unaware what age Mrs. Cathcart might be. Thence his musings flitted to the question of the relation in which she stood to Lord Bygrave. Was it a case of generous help offered on his part to a stranger after being convinced of her hard experience of life—or had she some closer and secret claim on him for pecuniary assistance? Well, he would soon know. His plan of campaign he had already settled. He was going to come straight to the point with regard to the payment to her of £10,000 in bearer bonds. It might be a private affair, but the secret must be divulged in the ordinary course of the solution of the mystery of Lord Bygrave's disappearance. It would not be difficult, on her part, to prove that that payment had no connexion with subsequent events and once proved the matter could be promptly and discreetly dropped.

On arrival at Farnaby, he lunched at the village inn and somewhat early in the afternoon made his way to Bramblehurst, the location of which he had learnt very circumstantially from the landlord of the inn, who owned the cottage. As he came into view of the place he was struck by the peace and serenity of the surroundings. It was exceptionally warm for an October day, the sun beat down out of a cloudless and beautifully azure sky and a warm south wind came over the land like a passionate caress of the parting autumn. In the garden a riot of colour from dahlias and golden glow and chrysanthemums gladdened the eye and cheered the heart. It was a charming spot. Some one in the cottage was playing a piano. Vereker stopped and listened; it was Chopin's Study in C major, and exquisitely played. His knock at the door put an end to the music, and was answered by a girl of some seventeen years of age, of distinctly prepossessing appearance.

“Is Mrs. Cathcart in?” asked Vereker.

“Yes, but I cannot say whether she will see anybody. I'm rather afraid she's busy and doesn't wish to be disturbed.”

“You might plead for me; I've come down from London on rather important business expressly to see her. I'm Lord Bygrave's executor and trustee—my name is Vereker.”

“Oh!” said the girl, unable to conceal a start, and vanished. In a few minutes she returned and led Vereker into a tastefully furnished and cheerful little drawing-room.

“Mrs. Cathcart is sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Vereker,” she said pleasantly, “but she will be with you in a few minutes. Pardon my leaving you.”

Vereker hoped that this vision, so radiant in appearance and easy in her manner, might stop and beguile the few minutes of his waiting, but he was disappointed. He heard her light footstep on the gravel of the garden path outside and discreetly watched her progress down the garden until she vanished. A few seconds later he heard her footsteps once more now bounding along the path as if running for dear life. Glancing out of the window he caught a momentary, flashing glimpse of a lithe, muslin-clad figure running at top speed followed by a beautiful red setter leaping along delightedly at her flying heels.

“Talk about Atalanta's race!” exclaimed Vereker to himself, and was still eagerly watching those vivid examples of youth and grace when the door opened and Mrs. Cathcart entered.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Vereker; you're admiring my garden, I see,” she said diplomatically.

“Well, I had gone further than that, Mrs. Cathcart—I had begun to admire your beautiful Irish setter.”

“He is lovely, isn't he? I suppose Lossa has taken him out for a run,” she replied.

Delightful name, thought Vereker; it seemed to fit its beautiful owner in the unaccountable way that names generally do. The faintest glimpse of merriment in Mrs. Cathcart's eye told him that she had understood his appreciation of the red setter with that fiendish intuition which the majority of women possess when the admiration of their own sex is in the air. Vereker felt slightly uncomfortable; he disliked to be caught and turned inside out so deftly.

“I hope I've not disturbed you, Mrs. Cathcart,” he said, to ease matters for himself, “and I hope you'll forgive my descending on you in this way, but my business is urgent.”

“Well, I had told Lossa I was not to be disturbed. You see, I'm busy writing up reminiscences of my chequered career in the hope that I may some day find a publisher. I'm afraid I'm not a practised literary artist and any interruption seems to dry up the fountain of memory—I was going to say inspiration, but that'll hardly do with reminiscences.”

“Inspiration helps, Mrs. Cathcart, if the reminiscences are to be more interesting than truthful!” laughed Vereker.

During this preliminary conversation Vereker's eyes had never left Mrs. Cathcart. He tried swiftly to sum her up, and came to the conclusion that her age was about thirty-five. She was an extremely comely woman. The poise of her head was a joy to an artist and her whole carriage bespoke that agility and acquired grace of movement which he knew belonged in a superlative degree to one profession only, that of the stage. Either she was an actress or a dancer. Her intuitively chosen movements in crossing to a settee where she could recline with grace and yet be near enough for conversation told him that it must be the stage. His glance wandered discreetly from the shapely feet to the even more shapely hands and thence to the vivacious face, with its alert, sympathetic eyes, showing every varying colour of her thoughts. His first resolve on this discovery of her almost magnetic beauty was to throw up a mental bulwark of defence against her powerful equipment of feminine charm; it is so easy to acquire bias when dealing with a fascinating woman. He felt also that he must waste no time in coming to the business which had been the object of his excursion to Farnaby, but was already at a loss to know how to begin. All along, since his first discovery of the presence of a Mrs. Cathcart in his investigation of the Bygrave mystery, he had mentally misplaced her. In his mind's eye she had always been a woman who had sought and obtained pecuniary assistance from Lord Bygrave, and this conception without any explanatory detail had in some subtle manner utterly distorted his imaginary portrait of her. He had conceived a being inclined to shrink from the world on account of some inability to grapple with it through lack of mental or physical strength, or both.

Here was a woman radiantly beautiful with a manner assured yet not provocative; her face alight with quick feminine intelligence, her attitude full of the quiet well-being that is born of confidence and lack of cares. He had been prepared to pity and had been constrained to admire. The discovery necessitated a quick and complete change of plan on his part. The frontal attack had to be discarded or carried out in a manner suitable to the changed circumstances. Vereker cursed himself for his utterly unwarranted preconceptions and determined to profit by this discomfiture in future work. As these thoughts flashed swiftly through his mind he glanced up at Mrs. Cathcart. She noticed his hesitation and came swiftly to his rescue.

“Lossa mentioned, Mr. Vereker, when she came up to my room just now, that you were a trustee under Lord Bygrave's will.”

“That is so, Mrs. Cathcart, and I'm presuming you know all about his mysterious disappearance.”

“Well, I know nothing more than I have read in the daily papers. Naturally, I've been terribly excited about the whole business because I once knew Lord Bygrave extremely well. Have you any news of him?”

“None whatever. It is now some time since his extraordinary disappearance and we are very little nearer discovering what has occurred to him than we were on the fateful day.”

“The police, of course, are making inquiries?”

“Oh, yes, and I, as trustee to his estate, am also making certain subsidiary investigations. To come to the point, that is the reason of my call on you to-day. I wonder if you can assist me in any way?”

“I shall be only too glad to do so, Mr. Vereker, if you will let me know how I am to set about it.”

“Well, I think the simplest way would be for me to put you through a sort of catechism.”

“Before you go any further, Mr. Vereker, I may tell you frankly that there may be some of your questions which I shall flatly refuse to answer.”

Vereker glanced up quickly and saw the light of battle in a pair of flashing, brown eyes, and a chin and mouth the set of which disclosed an unexpected strength of concentration and will. She had flung down the gage of combat early in the interview and he felt that a little diplomacy was necessary.

“Well, Mrs. Cathcart, I trust you will give me all the information possible in reply to my questions. My visit to-day may save you any further unpleasant police interrogatory. You must try and meet me half-way when I tread on dangerous ground. An exercise of tact on both sides may evade a heap of subsequent annoyance.”

“But, surely, Mr. Vereker,” exclaimed Mrs. Cathcart, and her face had assumed a sudden air of anxiety, “the police do not think I am in any way connected with Lord Bygrave's disappearance?”

“They certainly do not, at present,” replied Vereker quietly, “but your name has cropped up in the course of their inquiries and they would naturally like to be satisfied that you are not concerned.”

“I see. Well, I suppose the situation must be faced, though as far as I can see it's going to be most annoying. Please go ahead with the catechism, Mr. Vereker, and I'll reply to the best of my ability.”

“When did you first meet Lord Bygrave, Mrs. Cathcart?” asked Vereker, taking out his memorandum pad.

“Exactly twenty years ago. I was then seventeen and he was about twenty-six.”

“Did you know him well or was he merely an acquaintance?”