Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery (10 page)

Behind the first undulation he took cover and watched his late interlocutor make for the road and pass slowly out of sight. Then he came out of hiding and walked rapidly over to the little house which lay halfway between that of Dr Vane and the village – the house which sheltered the frivolous Mr Russell and his jealous lady.

A perfectly respectable parlourmaid answered his ring and looked at him enquiringly.

“Is Mrs Russell in?” Roger asked. “I should like to speak to her for a moment.”

“No, sir; I’m afraid she isn’t. And Mr Russell is out too.”

“Oh! That’s a nuisance.” Roger rubbed his chin a moment in thought; then he came to a sudden decision. “You read the
Courier
sometimes I expect, don’t you?” he asked unexpectedly.

“Yes, sir,” replied the maid in a puzzled voice. “Cook takes it in, she does.”

“She does, does she? Good for Cook! Well, look here, I’ve come down to Ludmouth specially for the
Courier
, to send them news about that accident you had here the other day.”

The girl’s face cleared. “Mrs Vane? Oh, yes, sir! Then you’re a – a reporting gentleman, sir?”

“A reporting gentleman!” Roger laughed. “Yes, rather; that describes me to a T. Well, now,” he went on very confidently, “the fact of the matter is this. I ran along to ask Mrs Russell one or two questions, and I’m in too much of a hurry to wait for her. Now, do you think you could answer them for me instead?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” fluttered the maid. “I think I could. What would it be that you want to know?”

“Well, now; Mrs Vane was coming here that afternoon, wasn’t she? And she never came. Now, I suppose you were in all the afternoon yourself, weren’t you?”

“Me, sir? Oh, no. I was on my holidays. I only got back yesterday.”

“I see. Rotten, coming back to work again, isn’t it? But the cook would have been in, of course?”

“No, sir; she was out too. It was her afternoon off. There was nobody in that afternoon but Mrs Russell herself.”

“Aha!” observed Roger all to himself. Aloud he said mechanically, “I see,” and began to rack his brains furiously for a tactful way of getting hold of a pair of Mrs Russell’s shoes. It was not an easy problem.

Usually a problem tended to lose its interest for Roger if it were too easy, but for this one the time limit was not sufficient. On the spur of the moment he could only see one thing to do, so he did it.

“Can you lend me a pair of Mrs Russell’s shoes for an hour or so?” he asked blandly.

“Her
shoes
?” repeated the astonished maid.

“Yes; any pair of outdoor ones. I’ll let you have them back before she notices they’re gone.” And he jingled significantly the loose silver in his trouser pocket.

“Not – not
footprints
?” twittered the maid, thrilled to the bone.

Roger made up his mind in a flash. After all, why not tell the truth? There was no doubt that the maid would appreciate it, and a spy in the enemy’s camp might be useful.

“Yes,” he nodded. “But keep this to yourself, mind. Don’t tell a soul!”

“Not even Cook?” breathed the excited girl.

“Yes, you can tell Cook,” conceded Roger gravely, knowing the paramount necessity of permitting a safety valve. “But you’ll be responsible for it going no further. Promise?”

“Oo, yes, sir! I promise.”

“Well, cut up and get me a pair of her shoes, then.”

The girl needed no second invitation. She cut.

In less than a minute she was back again. “Here you are, sir. I put a bit of newspaper around them, so as nobody could see what you’re carrying. But you’ll bring them back, won’t you, sir?”

“Oh, yes; sometime this afternoon. In fact, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll bring them to the back door. How about that?”

“Yes, that would be better, sir. Thank you.”

“And if anybody else wants to know what I came for, say I’m a reporter for the
Courier
wanting to see Mrs Russell; that’ll do as well as anything else. Here!”

A ten-shilling note changed hands, and Roger turned to go. A stifled sound from the girl caused him to look round.

“Yes?” he said enquiringly.

“Oo, sir! Mrs Russell! You don’t think as how she
done
it, do you?”

“Done what?” asked Roger gravely.

“P-pushed Mrs Vane over the cliff! They hated each other like wild cats, they did. Many and many’s the time I’ve heard the missis giving it to the master about Mrs Vane, ‘If I get hold of her,
I’ll
give her what for!’ she says. ‘I’ll spoil her looks for her, I’ll show her she can’t –’”

“No, no!” Roger interrupted hastily. “Good gracious, no! You musn’t think anything like that. I want the shoes for – for quite a different reason.” And he fled for the front gate.

The maid looked after him with an air of distinct disappointment.

The newspaper parcel under his arm, Roger made at top speed for the point on the cliffs where the second stairway emerged. It was only a matter of form to try the shoes he was carrying into that second lot of footprints; he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that they were going to fit. Within a quarter of an hour of leaving the lady’s own front door his confidence was justified: her shoes fitted as perfectly into the tracks as if they had made them – which Roger had very little doubt they had! With a crow of triumph he turned round and scurried up the stairs again two at a time. The Ludmouth Bay Mystery was as good as ended.

Halfway across the open ground towards the house he caught sight of a large and portly figure turning in at the front gate from the road. Judging correctly that the mistress of the household was returning, he changed his direction abruptly and made for the little ledge, whistling loudly (and quite unnecessarily, as Anthony pointed out later with some heat. “Dash it all, man, I haven’t known the girl for twenty-four hours yet. That sort of thing makes a chap look such an ass!”) as he approached within view of it.

“Victory! Victory!” he exclaimed dramatically to the startled couple beneath him, waving the shoes above his head. “And here are the spoils – your prize, fair lady! You might return them to the owner for me some time, will you! Or rather, to the owner’s parlourmaid for preference. Catch!” And tossing the shoes down on to the ledge below, he took a standing jump and hurtled through the air in their wake.

“Roger, you’ve discovered something!” Margaret cried, as the victorious one landed with a thud perilously near her feet. “What?”

“I say, you haven’t got to the bottom of it, have you?” demanded Anthony excitedly.

Roger folded his arms and, striking a Napoleonic attitude, grinned down most un-Napoleonically at the other members of the alliance. “I have solved the Mystery of Ludmouth Bay, my children!” he announced. “Not alone
I
did it, for you, Margaret, put me on the right track, and yon pair of shoes also played their part. But the important part is that the mystery is solved, and you can hold up your head again, Margaret, my dear, or your hands or your feet or anything else you jolly well like; nobody will say you nay.”

“Oh, Roger, do explain! Not – not Mrs
Russell
?”

The grin died slowly out of Roger’s face. His imagination was his trade, yet it had simply never occurred to him that the rescue of Margaret meant the snaring of somebody else – that through his activities Mrs Russell now stood in the perilous position from which Margaret had been plucked only just in time.

“I’m afraid so,” he nodded seriously. “And by the way, there’s one very obvious thing we overlooked about you, Margaret,” he went on, glancing at the neat little feet upon which he had so nearly landed. “However much the rest of the evidence might seem to compromise you, you were never in any real danger; that second lot of footprints was obviously never made by you, you see. Well, I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing.”

He dropped on to the turf, pulled out his pipe and began his story.

“I say, that’s great!” exclaimed Anthony in high glee, when he had finished.

“Oh, poor Mrs Russell!” was Margaret’s comment, and Roger glanced at her with a quick understanding. It was an echo of his own thoughts of a few minutes before.

They began to discuss the situation.

“Well, Anthony,” Roger remarked half an hour later. “Time we were getting back for lunch. And I want to hear what Moresby’s got to say, too.”

“Moresby’s going to get the shock of his life,” observed Anthony grimly. “And I’m going to be in at the death.” Inspector Moresby, one gathered, had infringed upon Anthony’s code of things that aren’t done when he had the presumption to follow up a train of evidence to its logical conclusion – Margaret; henceforward there was no good in him.

“Well, in that case come along,” Roger replied, scrambling up. “Margaret, you’ll deliver those shoes at the back door sometime this afternoon, will you? Thanks very much. Well, now, about meeting you again, I should think –”

“Oh, we’ve fixed all that,” Anthony interrupted very airily.

It was about five minutes after this that Anthony delivered his views upon whistling already recorded. At the same time he had something to say on the subject of grins, and still more upon that of winks. Grins, winks and whistles, it appeared, shared with Inspector Moresby the murkier depths of Anthony’s hatred and contempt.

Lunch was waiting for them when they arrived back, hot and thirsty, at the inn – huge plates of cold beef, a salad, a white loaf and pleasantly salt butter, raspberry tart and cream. Insector Moresby was also waiting for them, his face completely obscured at the moment of them entering the room by the bottom of one of their host’s satisfactory tankards (one cannot realise too strongly the fact that, when not standing at street corners or arresting unarmed the most dangerous criminals, members of the British Police Force are utterly and completely human).

“Ah, here you are, gentlemen,” he observed heartily, emerging from the tankard. “They asked me if we were going to take our meals together in here, and I took the liberty of telling them that we were. It’s a bit lonely eating down there alone, if you’ve no objection.”

“None at all,” responded Roger, no less heartily. “Only too pleased, Inspector. And I see you had the forethought to order up three of the best. Excellent! Well, you’d better get ready to drink my health.”

“What have you been doing then, sir?” asked the Inspector humorously, “Solving the mystery?”

“I have,” said Roger, and plunged into his story once more.

“So what do you think of that?” he concluded, not without a certain triumph.

The inspector wiped his moustache carefully. “It’s ingenious,” he said. “Quite ingenious. But I shouldn’t pay too much importance to footprints if I were you, Mr Sheringham. Footprints are the easiest thing in the world to fake.”

“It’s ingenious because we are dealing with the deeds of an ingenious criminal. That’s all. Anyhow, can you produce anything that can’t be explained by the theory?” Roger challenged.

“Yes, sir, I can,” replied the inspector imperturbably. “That bit of paper you picked up yourself. Our expert made it out all right. The original’s coming on by special messenger, but I got a code telegram half an hour ago, and I’ve written out for you what was on the paper. How are you going to explain that by your theory?”

Roger took the piece of paper the other was holding out to him and read it eagerly, Anthony craning over his shoulder. It was inscribed as follows:–

Monday

Elsie darling, for Heaven’s sake meet me once more before you do anything rash. You must let me explain. You
can’t
do what you threaten when you think what we’ve been to each other. Meet me at the usual place tomorrow, same time.
Please
, darling!

Colin.

PS. Destroy this.

Roger handed the letter back with a little smile. “How can I explain this by my theory? Well, obviously enough, surely. ‘Colin’ must be Mr Russell.”

“Ah, but is he? Somehow I feel pretty sure he isn’t. Anyhow, that’s a point we can soon settle. I bought a directory of the neighbourhood yesterday – always do when I’m working on a case in the country. I’ll run down and get it.”

“In the meantime,” said Roger, as the inspector’s heavy footsteps echoed down the stairs, “we might as well get on with our lunch. I wish I’d taken on a small bet with him about the identity of friend Colin.”

“I shouldn’t have said there was much doubt about it,” observed Anthony, helping himself largely to salad. “It all fits in, doesn’t it?”

Two minutes later the inspector returned, an open book in his hand. He laid it down on the tablecloth beside Roger and indicated an entry in it with a large thumb.

“There you are, sir,” he said, with a commendable absence of triumph. ‘ “Russell, John Henry, Rose Cottage.’ That’s your gentleman.”

“Humph!” said Roger, a little disconcerted. “But look here,” he added, brightly, “Colin might have been a pet name, or something like that.”

The inspector took his place at the table, “It isn’t likely,” he said, shaking out his napkin. “If it had been signed Tootles, or Fuzzy-wuzzy, it might have been a pet name all right. But Colin! No, that doesn’t sound like a pet name to me.”

“Then this appears to complicate matters pretty considerably,” Roger remarked with some asperity.

“On the contrary, sir,” retorted the inspector cheerfully, applying himself to his cold beef with every sign of satisfaction, “perhaps it’s going to simplify them a lot.”

Roger knew that the inspector was confidently expecting to be asked to explain this dark observation; he therefore went on with his meal in silence. Somewhat to his surprise the inspector volunteered no explanation of his own accord, his attention appearing to be entirely divided between his plate and the directory, down the columns of which he continued to run a careful thumb.

“There are two Colins in this neighbourhood,” he announced at last. “Smith, Colin, plumber, East Row, Ludmouth, and Seaford, Colin James, architect, 4 Burnt Oak Lane, Milbourne (that’s a village a couple of miles inland). Neither of them looks like our man. But I hardly expect to find him in here.”