Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery (14 page)

“I’ll stake my life he knows nothing about it,” said Roger defiantly.

“Will you, sir?” queried the inspector blandly. “Well, well!”

Roger cut viciously with his stick at an inoffensive daisy.

There was another little silence.

They turned out of the drive and began to tramp along the dusty high road.

“Still,” said Roger cunningly, “we got some extraordinarily valuable information out of him, didn’t we?”

“Yes, sir,” said the inspector.

“Which goes some way to confirm a rather interesting new theory of my own,” said Roger, still more cunningly.

“Ah!” said the inspector.

Roger began to whistle.

“By the way,” said the inspector very airily, “what exactly was the significance of that question you put to him about Mrs Vane being an imprudent woman, sir? Why ‘imprudent’?”

“Um!” said Roger.

In this way the time passed pleasantly till they returned to their inn. An impartial spectator would probably have given it as his opinion by that time that the honours were even, with, if anything, a slight bias in favour of the inspector. Roger retired to telephone his report through to London, stretching his meagre amount of straw into as many bricks as possible, and the inspector disappeared altogether, presumably to chew over the cud of his mission. Anthony was not in the inn at all.

Returning from the telephone, Roger looked into the little bar-parlour; three yokels and a dog were there. He looked into their private sitting-room; nobody was there. He looked into each of their bedrooms; nobody was there either. Then he took up his station outside Inspector Moresby’s bedroom, laid back his head, and proceeded to give a creditable imitation of a bloodhound baying the moon. The effect was almost instantaneous.

“Good Heavens!” exclaimed the startled inspector, emerging precipitately in his shirtsleeves. “Was – was that you, Mr Sheringham?”

“It was,” said Roger, pleased. “Did you like it?”

“I did not,” replied the inspector with decision. “Are you often taken that way, sir?”

“Only when I’m feeling very chatty, and nobody will talk to me or occasionally when I’ve been trying to thought-read, and nobody will tell me whether I’m right or wrong. Otherwise, hardly at all.”

The inspector laughed. “Very well, sir. I guess I have been trying your patience a bit. But now you’ve got that telephone business done with, perhaps we might have a chat.”

“Distrustful lot of men, the police,” Roger murmured. “Disgustingly. Well, what about a visit to the sitting-room? That bottle of whisky isn’t nearly finished, you know.”

“I’ll be with you in half a minute, sir,” said the inspector quite briskly.

Roger went on ahead and mixed two drinks, one stiff, one so stiff to be almost rigid. The inspector, smacking his lips over the latter two minutes later, remarked regretfully that that was good stuff for nowadays, that was, but it was a pity they filled the bottles half up with water in these times before the stuff ever got into a glass at all. It is a hard business, trying to loosen a Scotland Yard Inspector’s tongue.

“Well, now,” said Roger, pulling himself together and settling down more comfortably in his chair. “Well, now, Inspector, what about it all? If you feel a little more disposed to be confidential, isn’t this rather a good opportunity to review the case as it stands at present? I’m inclined to think it is.”

The inspector set down his glass and wiped his moustache. “You mean, while there’s only two of us to do the discussing instead of three?” he asked with a large wink.

“Exactly. My cousin’s outlook is – well, not altogether unprejudiced.”

“And is yours, sir?” asked the inspector shrewdly. Roger laughed. “A palpable hit. Well, I certainly do
not
think the young lady in whom you’ve been taking so much interest has anything to do with it, I must confess. In fact, I’ll go further and say that I’ve absolutely made up my mind on the point.”

“And yet the evidence points more conclusively to her than anybody else,” remarked the inspector mildly.

“Oh, no doubt. But evidence can be faked, can’t it? And you yourself were pointing out to me only a few hours ago that things aren’t always what they seem.”

“Was I, now?” queried the inspector, with an air of gentle surprise.

“Oh, Inspector, don’t start fencing with me again!” Roger implored. “I’ve given you a perfectly good drink, I’m prepared to hand over to you all my startling and original ideas – do try to be human!”

“Well, Mr Sheringham, what is it you want to discuss?” asked the inspector, evidently trying hard to be human.

“Everything!” returned Roger largely. “Our interview just now; my idea about Mrs Russell; your suspicions of Miss Cross (if you really have suspicions, and aren’t just pulling my leg) – everything!”

“Very well, sir,” said the inspector equably. “Where shall we start?”

“Well, we began just now with Miss Cross. I want to add a word to the very dogmatic statement I made, though it’s not really necessary. You know, of course, why I’m so convinced she had nothing to do with it?”

“Well, I won’t make you wild by saying ‘because she’s an uncommonly pretty girl’,” the inspector smiled. “I’ll wrap it up a bit more and say ‘because you think she couldn’t commit a murder to save her life’.”

“That’s right,” Roger nodded. “In other words, for overwhelmingly psychological reasons. If that girl isn’t as transparently straight as they make ‘em, may I never call myself a judge of character again!”

“She
is
uncommonly pretty, I must say,” remarked the inspector non-committally.

Roger disregarded the irrelevance. “You must have to make use of psychology in your business, Inspector, and continual use too. Every detective must be a psychologist, whether he knows it or not. Don’t all your instincts tell you that girl’s as innocent – I don’t mean merely of this crime, but innocent-
minded
 – as you’d wish any daughter of your own to be?”

The inspector tugged at his moustache. “We detectives may have to know a bit about psychology, as you say, sir; I’m not disputing that. But it’s our business to deal in facts, not fancies; and the thing we’ve got to pay most attention to is evidence. And in nine cases out of ten I’ll back evidence (even purely circumstantial evidence like this) against all the psychology in the world.”

Roger smiled. “The professional point of view, as opposed to the amateur. Well, naturally I don’t agree with you, and as I said, I’m not at all sure that you aren’t pulling my leg about Miss Cross all the time. Let’s go on to that interview of ours this evening. I needn’t ask you whether you saw that Master Colin wasn’t being altogether as frank with us as he might have been. He was keeping something back, wasn’t he?”

“He was, sir,” the inspector agreed cheerfully. “His real reason for breaking with Mrs Vane.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. You don’t think it was the reason he certainly wanted us to believe, then – that he was bored with her?”

“I know it wasn’t,” the inspector returned shrewdly. “He’s a chivalrous young gentleman as far as the ladies are concerned, is Mr Woodthorpe, and he’d never break with an old flame who was still desperately in love with him merely because he’d got bored with her. There was some much more powerful reason than that behind it.”

“Ah!” said Roger. “I was right; you are a psychologist, after all, Inspector. And what do you think of this reason that friend Colin is so industriously hiding from us?”

“I think,” the inspector said slowly, “that it would go a long way toward clearing up the case for us, if we knew it.”

Roger whistled. “As important as all that, eh? I must say, I hadn’t arrived at that conclusion myself. And have you got any inclination as to its nature?”

“Well –!” The inspector took a sup of whisky and wiped his moustache again with some deliberation. “Well, the most likely thing would be another girl, wouldn’t it?”

“You mean, he’d fallen seriously in love elsewhere?”

“
And
wanted to get engaged to her,” the inspector amplified. “
Was
engaged to her secretly, if you like. That’s the only thing I can see important enough to make him resolve to break with Mrs Vane at all costs.”

Roger nodded slowly. “Yes, I think you’re right – but I’m blessed if I see how knowing it for certain is going to clear up the case for you?”

“Can’t you, sir?” the inspector replied cautiously. “Well, perhaps it’s only a whim of mine, so we’ll say no more about it for the time being.”

Roger’s curiosity was piqued, but he knew that its gratification was impossible. Accepting defeat, he turned to another aspect of the case.

“What did you think of that Russell theory of mine, by the way?” he inquired.

“Since you ask me, sir,” answered the inspector with candour, “nothing!”

“Oh!” said Roger, somewhat dashed.

“I’d already collected all the gossip on those lines,” the inspector proceeded more kindly, “and I’ve had a few words with the lady herself, as well as her husband. It didn’t take long to satisfy me that there was nothing for me there.”

Roger, who had confidently assumed that the Russell idea had been his and his alone, looked his chagrin. “But it
was
a woman who was with Mrs Vane before she died,” he argued. “And a woman with large feet at that. In fact, it hardly seems too much to assume it was a woman with large feet that pushed Mrs Vane over that cliff. Find a woman with large feet who’d got a grudge against Mrs Vane and –! Well, anyhow, why are you sure that Mrs Russell is out of it?”

“She’s got an alibi. I followed it up, naturally. Cast-iron. Whoever the woman was, it wasn’t Mrs Russell. But don’t forget what I said once before, will you, Mr Sheringham? Footprints are the easiest things in the world to fake.”

“Humph!” Roger stroked his chin with a thoughtful air. “You mean, they might have been made by a man with small feet, wearing a woman’s shoes for the express purpose?”

“It might have been anything,” said the inspector guardedly. “All that those footprints mean to me at present is that there was another
person
on that ledge with Mrs Vane.”

“And that person was the murderer?”

“You might put it like that.”

Roger considered further. “You’ve gone into the question of motive, of course. Has it struck you what a tremendous lot of people had a motive for wishing this unfortunate lady out of the way?”

“The difficulty is to find anybody who hadn’t,” the inspector agreed.

“Yes, that’s what it really does amount to. Very confusing, considering how valuable a motive usually is. Establish your motive and there’s your murderer is a pretty sound rule at Scotland Yard, I understand. Help yourself to some more whisky, Inspector.”

“Well, thank you, sir,” said the inspector, and did so. “Yes, you’re right. I can’t say I even remember a case when so many people had a reason, big or little, for wishing the victim dead. Here’s luck, Mr Sheringham, sir!”

“Cheerio!” Roger returned mechanically.

They fell into silence. Roger realised that the inspector, while pretending outwardly to be ready enough to discuss the case, was in reality determined to do nothing of the kind, at any rate so far as giving away his own particular theory was concerned. Official reticence, no doubt, and of course perfectly right and proper; but distinctly galling for all that. If the inspector would only consent to work with him frankly, Roger felt, they really might achieve excellent results between them; as it was, they must work apart. This professional jealousy of the amateur was really rather petty, especially as Roger would not insist upon any large share of the credit for a swift and successful solution. Well, at least he would present his rival (for such, apparently, was what the inspector was determined to be) with no more gratuitous clues such as that interesting scrap of paper, that was flat!

In the meantime, all being fair in love and war, it was always open to him to pick his opponent’s brains to the best of his ability. He tried a new tack.

“You were asking me on the way back what I meant by applying the word ‘imprudent’ to Mrs Vane,” he said with an air of ingenuous candour. “I’ll tell you. From what I can gather about her, the lady was anything but imprudent. She certainly married the doctor for his money, so far as my information goes; she cozened that extremely generous settlement out of him; and I’m quite sure that over anything which might affect her material welfare, imprudent is the very last thing in the world she would be. So, if she struck that boy as being so, she was bluffing.”

“You mean, that she never intended to tell her husband at all? I see. Yes, that’s my opinion too. It wouldn’t square with my information about her either, not by a long chalk.”

“Then what do you think her game was? Do you imagine she was genuinely in love with him?”

“Well, sir, that’s impossible to say, isn’t it? But knowing what I do about the lady, I should say she’d got some deeper game on than that. Something that was going to turn out to her material welfare, as you put it, I wouldn’t mind betting.”

“Of course you’ve had her past history probed into?” Roger remarked, with careful indifference. “That’s where you Scotland Yard people can always score over the freelance sleuth. Did anything interesting come to light? I gather she was a bit of a daisy.”

The inspector hesitated and filled in a pause by application to his glass. Clearly he was debating whether any harm could be done by divulging this official secret. In the end he decided to risk it.

“Well,” he said, wiping his moustache, “you’ll understand that this is strictly confidential, sir, but we
have
had a man on the job – or two or three men, for that matter, both in London and up in the north, where the lady originally came from; and a few very interesting facts they were able to bring to light, too. Nobody has the slightest idea down here, of course, but the woman who called herself Mrs Vane – well, she
was
a bit of a daisy, as you say.”

Roger’s eyes gleamed. “What do you mean, Inspector?
Called
herself Mrs Vane? Wasn’t she really?”

The inspector did not answer the question directly. He leaned back in his chair and puffed at his pipe for a moment or two, then began to speak in a meditative tone.