Missing or Murdered (5 page)

“Just so,” nodded the inspector.

“What kind of clothes was Lord Bygrave wearing? Can you remember whether they were light or dark?” asked Vereker suddenly.

“A dark tweed suit, sir.”

“Good, that's something; but it makes matters more mysterious.”

“I can't follow you,” smiled the inspector. “The colour of a man's clothes matters little before a catastrophe,” and he courteously signified to Mary Standish that his cross-examination of her was at an end.

She at once left the room. A slight colour had mounted to her cheeks under the questions of the officer from Scotland Yard, and she seemed relieved to find that her cross-examination had for the time being come to an end.

“There's something in her manner that instinctively tells me that she is not quite at her ease under the probe,” remarked Vereker after the girl's departure. “I am very sensitive to these extremely delicate nuances, so to speak, in a woman's behaviour. Did you notice it, inspector?”

“No, I noticed nothing of the sort, Mr. Vereker. Most women are nervous under a fire of questions from a police officer.”

“Doubtless you're right, inspector. I'm glad, however, she remembered that Bygrave was wearing a dark suit on arrival at the inn on the Friday night. Yet the business puzzles me—it seems to be so meaningless.”

“I don't grip your line of thought. How does the fact that Lord Bygrave was wearing a dark suit puzzle you?”

“It proves that he didn't change his clothes while he was at the inn, for the only other suit he had brought was a light-coloured one. Now, when I found that he had detached this bunch of keys from his trousers and flung them into his kit-bag, I came to the conclusion that he had changed, for otherwise I saw no reason for his detaching them. That he detached them is an incontrovertible fact; and, as it is an unusual action to detach a key chain from one's trousers unless preparatory to changing one's suit, it gives us a little problem to solve. Why did he detach them? It may be a minor problem, but these little things often act as pointers to larger issues.”

“Well, I can tell you that a bunch of keys is a nuisance on a long walk. If Lord Bygrave thought so too, your little problem is at once solved,” replied the inspector, sipping his coffee.

“But, as he was going to return for lunch at noon, it would seem that he had no intention of taking a walk of inordinate length—not long enough to render keys anything in the nature of cumbersome impedimenta.”

“I don't see much in it looking at it from any point of view,” replied the inspector with a wave of his short, firm fist. The important task ahead is to ascertain if anyone saw Lord Bygrave after he left this inn on Saturday morning, and where.”

“It's more important,” replied Vereker, with eyes assuming a look of almost childish simplicity, “to ascertain if there's anyone who knows where he is now.”

Inspector Heather glanced up at Vereker to discover whether that individual was serious, but his face gave no indication of the nature of the thoughts within.

“Now I'm going to consolidate my conclusions as far as I have gone, inspector,” said Vereker, refilling his pipe.

“We know Lord Bygrave left town on Friday night and arrived at Hartwood 9.15. As far as we are aware, no message awaited him here, so that the subsequent events that led to his disappearance must, unless they were purely accidental, have been food for his anticipation on his arrival. That is, he must have had some appointment which he intended to keep on the following day. This, I think, we can almost take for granted. From the fact that he smoked a pipe in his room before he went to bed to soothe himself it is clear that he was worried about the matter, for it is a thing I've never known Lord Bygrave do, and I have known him very intimately for fifteen years. He was evidently more worried next morning, for, according to Mary Standish, he did not shave and left the inn to keep that appointment unshaven. I can imagine the degree of his perturbation from this rather startling information alone. He breakfasts, intimates that he will return for lunch at midday and incontinently vanishes. Now assume that Lord Bygrave went to keep an appointment, and an unpleasant appointment at that—why should he not return? It was his expressed intention. He must have been forcibly deterred, or events occurred which made his return either highly undesirable or altogether impossible. Now of these alternatives I'm inclined to assume that something happened which rendered his return impossible.”

The inspector glanced up quickly.

“You infer that he has been killed?” he asked gravely.

“If my knowledge of Lord Bygrave's manner of life is correct—that is, presuming he is not another Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—I'm inclined to put a very grave construction on events. A well-known Minister of blameless repute doesn't vanish for the purpose of setting the country by the ears. An actress or an author seeking advertisement might be tempted to do so, but a responsible Minister—never.”

“What about political enemies? Have you thought about that side of the question yet, Mr. Vereker?”

“Well, no; not more than admitting the possibility of an unwarranted attack on Bygrave by a political lunatic. You see, his position is not one to bring him into conflict with the people. You might as well try and work up a bloodthirsty hostility against the head of the Board of Fisheries as hate Lord Bygrave politically.”

“H'm,” replied the inspector, “you put your view plausibly. But my experience of public life to-day prevents my sweeping aside the idea of a political enemy as lightly as you do. In fact, after removing the beneficiaries under his will from the number of possible murderers—and in this case they do not at present impress me as of much importance—it seems to me one of the most reasonable lines to take. You never know what secret political organizations even the mildest public men may fall foul of. Well, there's nothing more to be learned here just now. I think I'll get about the village and see if I can glean any information from the inhabitants.” And with these words Inspector Heather rose, thanked Vereker for the lunch and left the inn.

For some moments Algernon Vereker sat in silence, thinking over all the facts of the case as they presented themselves to him in their present amorphous state.

“The bally stuff lacks cohesion!” he exclaimed at length. “There's an absence of affinity among the atoms.” He thereupon stood up and looked out of the coffee-room window into the rambling sunlit garden behind the inn.

It was a warm afternoon in early October, and that glance into the garden brought another and quite different trend of thought into Vereker's mind. He strolled leisurely into the sunshine and, picking up a wicker-chair, took it into a very sheltered nook screened from the rest of the garden by a thick evergreen hedge. He sat lazily down in the chair and thrust out his long, active legs in front of him.

“The essence of detective work,” he soliloquized, “seems to be the power to concatenate.” And after unburdening his mind of this wisdom the material influence of good food and sound ale eclipsed the spiritual side of Algernon Vereker, and he fell fast asleep.

An hour or two later he awoke, rubbed his eyes, stretched his arms lazily and sat up in a more erect posture. His thoughts involuntarily swung round to the subject of tea. He glanced at his watch. It was four o'clock, and the hour forced on him the conclusion that there were few things on earth comparable with good tea. Vereker was about to rise and order it when a ripple of laughter issuing from another corner of the garden fell on his ear. The voice was unmistakable; it was that of Mary Standish. Vereker rose and glanced over the evergreen hedge. In a summer-house on the other side of the lawn sat a youth with the fair hair, blue eyes and profile of the Greek god so acceptable to the consumers of everyday fiction. He purported to be drinking tea. The paraphernalia for the ceremony lay in front of him on a small wicker-table. As a matter of fact he was holding Mary Standish's hand between his own and gazing with unconcealed rapture into a pair of unmistakably responsive eyes. Vereker at once resumed his seat. There occur in life little tableaux which may be entrancing to the imagination; they appeal to the mind's eye of every lover and poet; they can be viewed with equanimity in an illustration if the illustration be good, or with sympathy on the stage, but they cannot be looked upon in actuality. So thought Vereker as he once more reclined at ease and out of sight. He began to probe further into the psychology of this little problem of human delicacy. It flung out a thousand elusive questions. He pulled out his notebook and roughly jotted down some of his musings. Meanwhile he was conscious that the idyll was still being enacted behind his back.

“And I want my tea!” he exclaimed petulantly to himself. Shortly afterwards he made convulsive efforts to stifle a sneeze. In vain. It burst and metaphorically dissipated a rainbow, Vereker heard the two voices grow distant as the pair left the garden, and when they were gone he suddenly brought his hand with a resounding slap on his thigh.

“Well, I'm damned!” he exclaimed. “It has taken me some time to place this tea-garden Apollo. Fancy my not recollecting his face at once: the association with Mary Standish evidently jammed the working of the subconscious mind. David Winslade—Lord Bygrave's heir!”

For a long while Algernon Vereker sat lost in thought. His memory had flitted back some years to a glorious day during the May eights at Oxford—the day on which Lord Bygrave had introduced him to David Winslade. It was the last occasion on which he had seen him. Subsequently he had heard a great deal of him from his uncle, Lord Bygrave: how he had done moderately well at the University, been a very fair athlete and gone through the War with credit. Bygrave would have liked to see him called to the Bar; but, to a legal career, Winslade had objected strongly. He had told his uncle definitely that his life was to be spent if possible in the open air, and shortly after demobilization he had bought Brookwater Farm, near Hartwood. So far he had found it an arduous and lean living, but he liked it and was determined to stick to it, and his pluck had won his uncle's unexpected admiration. Lord Bygrave, however, was a man of deeds rather than words, and he had made David Winslade heir to his considerable fortune as a result of that admiration.

“Mary Standish may prove rather a disruptive factor in the problem,” thought Vereker. “I wonder what Bygrave would think of it?” He rubbed his chin and smiled thoughtfully. “Perhaps a piece of youthful philandering on young Winslade's part. But, if there wasn't a wedding-bell appeal in his glance, I'm no thought-reader! A domestic servant at a country inn! Not the usual type, I admit. Very pretty—I should like to paint her portrait—speaks perfectly correctly, has a nice taste in hosiery, might be anybody. She might even be an aristocrat already hiding from the wrath to come or that has come—who knows! In any case a jolly nice girl. I give up the problem. Tea, tea, that's the first consideration!”

He walked across to the little summer-house and rang the bell on the wicker-table within. The shrill note seemed to summon Hebe with some of the celerity of a genie of the magic lamp, and Hebe was Mary Standish, rosily flushed and undeniably exalted. Vereker made a mental note and gave his order. When she returned and was arranging what Vereker loved to term facetiously the “tea equipage,” he metaphorically leaped from his ambush by asking:

“Does a Mr. David Winslade ever visit the White Bear?”

A penetrating glance, a deeper flush were followed by a swift self-control and the reply:

“Yes, sir, he often lunches here. He had tea here this afternoon. Do you know him?”

“I met him once many years ago. I was aware that he lived in the parish. He is Lord Bygrave's heir, and I was wondering whether he was here on the day of Lord Bygrave's arrival or on the day of his sudden and inexplicable disappearance.”

“No, sir. I think I can say definitely that he wasn't.”

“You would have remembered?”

“I think so.”

“Can you remember when he was here last?”

There was a momentary hesitation. Miss Standish appeared as if trying to recollect; her lip quivered nervously—or rather Vereker thought it did.

“Tuesday following Lord Bygrave's departure, I think,” she replied slowly.

“He never mentioned the subject of Lord Bygrave to anybody in the inn, I suppose?”

“I cannot say, sir. He never mentioned it to me. I was unaware that he was Lord Bygrave's heir.”

“Don't think my persistent questioning of you rude, but a village inn is the centre of all village news and gossip. Perhaps you heard of Mr. Winslade's movements, say, during the period of Lord Bygrave's stay here?”

“I don't know the village well enough to be interested in its news or gossip, sir.”

The reply had a forbiddingly cold tone, and a deeper flush had suddenly mounted to Mary Standish's cheek.

“By Jove, this is glorious toast!” came the swift and tactfully irrelevant exclamation.

There was a pause, a moment's hesitation and Mary Standish turned to go.

“If you want anything further will you kindly ring, sir?”

“Thanks. I'm quite all right. I shan't trouble you,” replied Vereker, helping himself to a slice of cake.

Mary Standish had gone.

“My lady knows something more than she is willing to confess, I should say. Of course she would naturally be reticent about her admirer's affairs. Strange that she should know nothing of Bygrave's relationship to Winslade. It looks as if it were nothing more serious than philandering—on his part; that's a fairly sound deduction from a worldly point of view. Young scamp!”

After tea Vereker put a sketch-book into his pocket and wandered out of Hartwood. Half an hour later saw him seated in a lane. Temporarily, the Bygrave case was completely forgotten; a certain massing of dark and light and the sky pattern through the foliage groups had seized him. His crayon was scribbling furiously; eye and hand were in glorious accord and driven by a fine emotion. It could be altered to the terms of design later; this was the first burning impression.