Missing or Murdered (29 page)

The appointed hour saw him at Victoria Station patiently awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Cathcart. As the time drew nigh for the departure of her train he began to grow uneasy. He glanced anxiously at his watch as he kept a vigilant eye on passengers making their way through the barrier on to the platform. At length she appeared, and his heart leaped. She was heavily veiled and alone, but he recognized her at once by her bold, graceful carriage, that almost Spanish deportment which he so much admired.

“And where is Lossa, Mrs. Cathcart?” he asked. “I thought she was staying with you.”

“She went back to school—a convent school in Belgium—about a week ago. This is her last term. She is looking forward to its conclusion because—well, it's a great secret—she's engaged to be married to a very wealthy young American. A very charming young man he is too: Lossa is one of the world's lucky ones.”

“She is,” echoed Vereker, “in having you as a foster-mother.”

“Now, you flatterer!” said Mrs. Cathcart, and added tangentially. “You know, Mr. Vereker, I have often wondered what your Christian name is.”

Vereker smiled broadly.

“My actual Christian name is Anthony,” he said, “and my parents always called me Tony, but my name by use and wont—it was given me at college—is Algernon. It will follow me to the grave. It is my reward for having perennially played the buffoon.”

“You don't mean to say you prefer Algernon to Anthony?” she asked, looking up at him seriously.

“I prefer Muriel to both,” he replied, “and, if I may, I shall always call you by your Christian name.”

“I wish you would, Tony,” she replied, with a radiant smile. “And now we must hurry or I shall miss my train.”

“If you catch it, I shall miss you, Muriel,” he replied, and slipped his arm through hers.

As she leaned out of her compartment window she suddenly appeared depressed and very much subdued. Her bright loquacity had suddenly vanished and she was silent.

“You seem sad, Muriel,” ventured Vereker, “and you ought to be as cheerful as a cricket, going off to sunshine and flowers and a heavenly sea.”

“They are entrancing enough,” she replied, “but to me—well, they often seemed to put, by contrast, a keener edge to grief. And now that I have met you and made one of the very few friends I have ever had a relentless Fate tears you away from me, and doesn't even, as consolation, disclose if I shall ever see you again.”

“I am coming out to the Riviera as soon as I have finished with the Bygrave case,” he replied; “and that won't be long. We've got to settle the fate of Mr. George Darnell and his confederate, and then for a holiday with my paint-box—”

At the mention of the Bygrave case Muriel Cathcart frowned and tossed her head as if to shake off the memory of an unpleasant and evil experience. Turning gravely to Vereker, she asked:

“Tony, do you really know what has happened to Lord Bygrave?”

“I'm afraid, Muriel, poor Henry Darnell is dead. He was murdered, and there is nothing more to do now than bring the crime home to the perpetrators. The chain of evidence is almost complete: their arrest is imminent.”

As Vereker concluded his sentence the guard blew a shrill, warning blast on his whistle.

Vereker clasped Muriel Cathcart's hands in his own. She swiftly bent down close to him, and he kissed her.

“Au revoir, dear,” she said, as the train broke into motion, “and don't be long.”

“Au revoir, darling,” he replied.

“You needn't bother to bring your paint-box,” she counselled with a gay laugh, and next moment was out of ear-shot.

Half an hour later Vereker was back in his flat. On his arrival he found a letter lying on the floor of the hall, and picked it up. He glanced at the handwriting on the envelope and, flinging down his gloves and stick on a table, swiftly tore it open. It was a communication from Winslade:

Without further ado Vereker seized stick and gloves and hurried to the nearest post office. There he despatched a wire to Winslade setting his mind at rest about the question of immediately financing Lord Bygrave and wishing him
bon voyage
. He then rang up Inspector Heather and asked him to join him without fail at Jacques' for lunch, and hinted at a startling discovery with regard to the Bygrave case.

“Good,” replied Heather imperturbably. “I'm as hungry as a hunter and will do the lunch justice, but you know, Mr. Vereker, these foreign restaurants never keep a drop of decent beer.”

“You shall have the run of the finest wine-cellar in London, Heather,” replied Vereker. “Beer's not good for you. You're much too corpulent already.”

“Wine's a fair substitute,” muttered the inspector. “I'll be there, one o'clock sharp. Good-bye.”

Punctually at that hour Inspector Heather arrived and joined Vereker at a table in a secluded corner of the famous restaurant, where they could converse without fear of being overheard by other patrons.

“Well, Mr. Vereker, what is the nature of your new and staggering discovery?” asked the inspector without any preamble.

“I've found the missing link, Heather, the link that at once makes all my deductions concatenate as they ought to and give a background of purpose to all the incidents of this mysterious case, which seemed utterly unintelligible before. It affords also a sense of satisfaction to me, in as much as my reasoning ran in the right direction and was based on correct deduction.”

“And who is this missing link, Mr. Vereker?”

“No other than George Darnell, a cousin of Lord Bygrave's, who went to America when I was quite a kid in knickerbockers. He contracted a marriage out there with Mrs. Cathcart after persuading her by the production of a newspaper cutting that her former husband, Lord Bygrave, was dead. She was unaware that he was a Darnell, because he had assumed the name of Cathcart. This
alias
was to hide his identity, because he had some years previously served a sentence of imprisonment for a clever forgery in New York. He very closely resembles Bygrave in appearance, and it is this asset which has proved so useful to him in misleading us, his pursuers. You can at once see daylight through the fog which has all along enveloped our investigations.”

“Where did you acquire this information?” asked Heather, pointedly interrupting Vereker's narrative.

“From Mrs. Cathcart, yesterday. She rang me up and told me all about her unhappy life with this criminal. But to revert to my story: it was George Darnell who induced Bygrave to visit the Mill House, probably to extort money from him. A quarrel must have ensued, or he may have deliberately planned to murder his cousin. I prefer the former theory, because Bygrave dead was not of much use to him from a financial point of view. It was he who impersonated Bygrave in that car ride with Winslade as far as the cow-pond, and also at the White Bear Inn. When Winslade told me his story of their visit to the Mill House I was (feeling that my impersonation theory was correct) particular to note the fact that before descending the stairs to join Winslade the supposed Lord Bygrave turned out the light on the landing above. Their conversation amounted altogether to a few sentences only, and excitement alters a man's voice to such an extent that Winslade failed to notice anything unusual in the timbre. I was very eager to know whether the lamp on the road, just at the Mill House gates, was alight when the two men entered the car. Winslade remembered that it was alight prior to his entering the approach, but was not sure whether it was so subsequently. If it had been alight Winslade could hardly have failed to discover the impersonation, because it shines full on the approach of the house. But I am certain (I will give my reason later) that it had been extinguished.

“You can understand now that Winslade really never actually saw George Darnell's face that night. His back was turned on Winslade while he extinguished the oil lamp on the landing above the hall; the journey to the car was completed in darkness; George Darnell was huddled in the back of the car until they had left road lamps far behind on the journey to Hartwood. Moreover, he has never been seen by Winslade since. His likeness to Lord Bygrave carried him through his visit to the White Bear Inn because he had not visited that hostelry for years. That egg-breakfast, tobacco, consumption of whisky, and key chain were all vital clues. The key chain bothered me at first, but when I examined the leather tab by which it is attached to the trouser button I found to my joy that the tab was torn, showing that it had been violently wrenched from Lord Bygrave's person. It evidently carried the button of his trousers until George Darnell reached the stile at the cow-pond. There it parted company with it, purposely to give me another vital clue. It is unnecessary for me to point out that it was George Darnell who stayed at Glendon Street, and further hoodwinked Winslade and Farnish by avoiding a meeting with them.

“At this stage of my story I must exonerate Mrs. Cathcart and Smale from all complicity in the acquisition of those bearer bonds. George Darnell, forging his wife's handwriting and knowing her status as Lord Bygrave's wife, extracted this money from him by a story of destitution. It may have even verged on blackmail for all I know, and have been the cause of the subsequent fatal affray at the Mill House, especially so if Bygrave had discovered that Mrs. Cathcart had never received the £10,000. Smale, who knew nothing of the existence of George Darnell, firmly believed that Mrs. Cathcart was the culprit, and had engineered a
coup
by threatening to disclose the story of their early marriage.”

“How do you account for the complete disappearance of the body?” asked Heather quietly. “Who removed it during Winslade's comparatively short absence from the Mill House?”

“That is the vital point, Heather. It proves beyond all cavil that there must have been an accomplice in the crime, unless—and I can entertain no hope of such a contingency—Lord Bygrave is still alive and a prisoner somewhere.”

“I have had the garden of the Mill House thoroughly dug up,” continued Heather, pouring himself out another glass of Volnay, “and the mill dam and stream dragged without any success. I can only conclude that the body was removed in some kind of conveyance.”

“Your conclusion I feel is unassailable, Heather, and when I mention the fact that there were car tracks right into the yard behind the house, and recent traces of lubricating oil on the ground when I explored the place, I think you will agree that the point is definitely established.”

“Why did George Darnell trouble to stay at the White Bear and risk discovery?” asked Heather.

“He chose to pass the night under a roof in any case. He thereby also confirmed Winslade in his belief that it was his uncle and none other that he had driven from the Mill House to Hartwood. And—and—perhaps he was eager to secure something important in Lord Bygrave's gladstone bag—money, or even papers—that would have on discovery led to his speedy arrest. Another, but minor point: he left his signet-ring, which I was certain on account of its size was not Bygrave's, but was similar in every other detail. You know how often members of an old family wear plain signet-rings with the family crest engraved thereon. It was a tiny master stroke in its way.”

“To revert to the question of that street lamp outside Mill House, Mr. Vereker,” said Heather pensively, “what made you think it had been extinguished before George Darnell and Mr. Winslade emerged from the front door?”

Vereker was obliged to smile at this question.

“You're hot stuff, Heather,” he replied. “I examined it and found that by climbing on to the front garden wall and breaking a pane of glass it could easily be put out. As a matter of fact, a pane had been broken and replaced just before I examined it, because the putty was still fresh. In my effort to prove my theory my wrist touched the heated metalwork of the lamp, and I burnt myself rather badly, as you know.”

“You mean sprained your wrist,” retorted Heather, with a loud laugh. “I knew you were fibbing, Mr. Vereker.”

“Well, Heather, what's the next move?” asked Vereker, as if to change the subject, because the factor of his burned wrist had already given him a vital clue to the identity of George Darnell's still hidden accomplice.

“We must track down this Mr. George Darnell as speedily as possible. He may already have left the country, and that will entail endless trouble and delay in bringing the whole matter to a successful close. We must also find Lord Bygrave's body: that is absolutely essential. In the meantime we could, if we discover George Darnell's whereabouts, proceed against him in the matter of those bearer bonds and the forgery of Mrs. Cathcart's signature.”

“I know where George Darnell is at the present moment,” said Vereker quietly, and was delighted to see that his information had the effect of making a distinct impression on the phlegmatic and imperturbable inspector. Producing Winslade's letter, he tossed it carelessly across the table to Heather with the words, “As this discovery was not due to my brilliant work, inspector, I feel that I must share it with you and win my sovereign without taking any unfair advantages.”