Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery (17 page)

There are some people who are said to know instinctively whether they are in the right or wrong, without the aid of any extraneous evidence. Roger had not the least doubt that he possessed this sixth sense, and as he rose at last to his feet and began his scramble back to the foot of the cliffs every instinct was busy telling him that he had got his finger poised above the very heart of the problem. In some new actor, not yet appeared on the stage, would the ultimate solution be found. To lay a hand on him should only prove a matter of time and patience.

Humming blithely, he clambered up the uneven ascent and hoisted himself on the ledge. Well, first of all he would have to –

“Ah,
there
you are, Mr Sheringham! Do you know, I had quite an idea I should find you here. I’ve been so anxious to see you again, after our very brief conversation yesterday morning. I want to ask you what you think of this very terrible crime in our midst, and whether you have formed a theory yet. I hope – I do so hope it will not prove to have been committed by – ah, dear me, a terrible affair!”

Roger wheeled about. From above a boulder at the back of the ledge a face like that of a benign and beardless goat was regarding him benevolently through an enormous pair of horn-rimmed spectacles.

“Oh, hell!” confided Roger Sheringham to his immortal soul.

It was past noon when Roger made his appearance at the little grassy ledge. To his surprise he found it occupied by only one tenant, who was lying on his back and staring up into the blue sky, puffing contentedly at his pipe. Roger scrambled down the little slope and dropped on to the turf beside his cousin.

“How now, fair coz? What have you done with the lady? I wanted a word with her.”

Anthony turned his head. “You can hardly expect her to be at your beck and call
all
the time,” he observed with some severity. “You know she’s keeping house for the doctor.”

“Yes, Anthony,” Roger replied meekly. “Is she keeping house now?”

“She’s gone into the village to do some shopping. She’ll be coming back here when she’s through.”

“A proper little gent,” remarked Roger, pulling out his own pipe and filling it lazily, “a proper little gent, such as I could wish any cousin of mine to be, would have gone with her and carried her parcels for her.”

Anthony flushed slightly. “She wouldn’t let me, damn you. She said that – she wouldn’t let me.”

“Yes, she’s quite right,” Roger admitted handsomely. “Villages
are
appalling places for gossip, aren’t they?” He concealed his grin in the operation of applying a match to his pipe.

“Did you have any luck?” Anthony asked hastily.

“Well, yes and no.” His cousin’s leg successfully stretched, Roger was ready enough to revert to the main theme. “First of all I was waylaid by that wretched little parson, whose curiosity strikes me as being really indecent. He tried his best to pump me as to what I thought about it all, what the inspector thought about it all, whether any arrest was imminent, whether any other clues had been discovered, and all the rest of it, and though I’m afraid I was outrageously rude to him in my frantic efforts to get away, he managed to waste a perfectly good quarter of an hour of my valuable time; finally I told him a Bible and prayer book marked with the initials ‘SM’ had been found on the ledge close to where the tragedy had taken place, and the police were looking for the owner. While he was still gasping, I effected my getaway.”

“You are an ass, Roger,” grinned Anthony.

“So it may seem to you,” Roger replied blandly. “In reality I am a person of remarkable astuteness and cunning. Well, then I went back to the inn, borrowed my host’s bicycle and headed for Clouston Hall. I don’t mind walking it in the cool of the evening, but I was hanged if I was going to do so in the middle of a day like this. All fell out as arranged.”

“You mean, Woodthorpe’s cleared?”

“Yes. Luckily he was at home, and I pretended I wanted to clear up a minor point arising out of our conversation last night. If I must be forced to admit it, I’m afraid I took the inspector’s name in vain. Then, by subtle and extremely cunning degrees, I led the conversation round till I could quote the best illustrated joke in the issue of
London Opinion,
having been at some pains previously to buy a copy and study it. I quoted the first half of the joke only, and if friend Colin had seen the paper he couldn’t possibly have failed to remember it – but he couldn’t supply the point.
Ergo,
Colin had not seen that issue of
London Opinion; ergo
, Colin could not have been the person to have left it in the cave.”

“You don’t think he saw through you?”

“I’m quite sure he didn’t. Colin is not a young man who impressed me as teeming with intelligence, and of course I was on the alert for any signs of bluff. He was perfectly natural. No, I’m certain Colin isn’t our man. Now it’s your turn to report. Could Margaret give you any useful information? You had time to tell her our conclusions to date, I suppose?”

“Yes, I told her, but she couldn’t remember anything about a strange visitor to Mrs Vane. She said she’d rack her brains on her way to the village and back, but she couldn’t think of one offhand.”

“I see. And when do you expect her back?”

Anthony consulted his wristwatch. “Any time now.”

“Good. Then let us recline on our backs, close our eyes and indulge in blessed silence till she comes, because certainly we shan’t get any when she does.” He proceeded to suit his action to his words.

Anthony regarded his horizontal cousin with a large grin. ‘
“
Blessed silence!
’” he scoffed. “Oh, very good, Roger; very good indeed. I must try you with the butter test at lunch. If half a pound of butter, placed in the patient’s mouth – how does it go on, eh?”

But Roger, serenely recumbent, took refuge in his blessed silence.

During the next ten minutes not a single word was spoken. Then Margaret appeared, and Roger’s Trappist-like vow was a thing of the past.

“Now then, Margaret,” he said briskly, when greetings were over and they were all seated once more. “Now then, it’s up to you. Anthony tells me he’s given you an account of my activities. Have you got any information for me yet?”

“You mean, about the mysterious visitor?” said the girl, wrinkling her white forehead. “No, I’m afraid I haven’t. Elsie never had a mysterious visitor at all, to my knowledge.”

“And yet you said before that you thought there was someone or something she was afraid of,” Roger mused. “That doesn’t help you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Margaret confessed. “I couldn’t say anything definite about that when you asked me before, you remember.”

“Look here,” said Anthony suddenly, “are you sure she was
afraid
”
?
Not just worried? If she was just worried, you see, that chap Woodthorpe would account for it.”

“Yes, that’s a good point,” Roger approved. “Whether she had any deep game on with him or not, she’d naturally be put out by his wanting to break with her. Is that more like it, Margaret?”

“It might have been that, of course,” said the girl doubtfully, “but – oh, I don’t know, but my impression certainly is that it was something stronger than just worry.”

“All the better,” Roger said cheerfully. “That confirms my theory. If it
was
somebody out of her past, trying in all probability to blackmail her, she certainly would show signs of fear.”

“I know!” Margaret exclaimed. “I could go through her things, couldn’t I? Letters and papers, I mean. I could easily do that, and should think if there is anything to be found out that’s the most likely way of discovering it.”

“I should say the inspector is almost certain to have done it already,” Roger meditated. “Still, there’s no harm in you doing it too.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” said Margaret, her face falling. “Then it won’t be much use?”

“I doubt it. Still, we mustn’t disregard the possibility. Of course if you could find some place that the inspector may have overlooked –! Documentary evidence of that sort, you see, would be hidden very carefully away by a person of Mrs Vane’s criminal – shall we say? – training. And after all, the inspector wouldn’t have been looking for anything like that. Probably he’ll only have glanced through the obvious, merely as a matter of routine.”

“Well, let’s hope for the best,” Margaret smiled. “Anyhow, if I don’t find something I promise you it won’t be for want of looking.”

“By the way,” said Roger, dismissing this topic, “how’s Dr Vane?”

“George? Oh, he’s all right, why?”

“I only wondered. No interesting developments yet?”

Margaret laughed. “You mean Miss Williamson? Oh, give her time. I don’t think any woman could be expected to propose to a man in less than a week from his wife’s death, really.”

“Roger judges everybody by himself,” interposed Anthony maliciously.

“I wasn’t going so far as to suggest that she’d actually proposed to him yet, Margaret,” Roger explained mildly. “I was just asking whether there’d been any developments, of any sort.”

“If there have been, then, I don’t know them. I hardly ever see either of them in these days. They seem to be spending more time in the laboratory than ever.”

“Well, I don’t know that I personally should care to conduct my courtship in an atmosphere of test tubes, litmus paper, and dead rabbits, but there’s no accounting for tastes. A dead rabbit, I feel convinced, would put me off my stroke altogether.”

“Roger, you’re disgusting. Well, is there anything else you wish to ask me?”

“Not at the moment, I’ll wait for one of your more helpful days. Does that mean, by the way, that ‘Good morning, Mr Sheringham. It’s been so nice to see you. You must come again some day’? Because if so, I warn you that Anthony comes with me.”

“Roger, I think you’re being perfectly horrid this morning,” exclaimed Miss Cross, blushing warmly.

“Shall I chuck
him
over the cliff for you, Margaret?” suggested Anthony, no less moist.

“It doesn’t mean anything of the sort,” Margaret went on, disregarding this admirable offer. “I was simply going to say that if you don’t want to discuss things with me any more, I wish you’d show me the little cave where Elsie and Colin used to meet. It sounds most thrilling.”

“What I deplore most of all in the young women of today,” remarked Roger sadly, as he rose with reluctance to his feet, “is the unpleasing morbidity of their tastes.”

As they walked abreast along the top of the cliff, Roger’s thoughts were busy round a certain point. Margaret’s reference to her dead cousin as Dr Vane’s wife tended to show that Anthony had not told her that the two were probably not legally married. Roger was glad of this; he had meant to warn Anthony that morning to say nothing to the girl on this delicate matter, but it had slipped his memory. Until the matter was settled one way or the other, either by the discovery of the living Herbert Peters or by the establishment of his death prior to Mrs Vane’s marriage to the doctor, it was much better to leave the girl in ignorance of the issues involved. For (and this was the point which was really worrying Roger) if Mrs Vane’s second marriage turned out to be a bigamous one, would that not mean that the settlement was invalidated and Margaret’s legacy vanished into thin air? Without knowing the exact terms of the document it was impossible to say, but Roger meant to go into the matter with a solicitor on Margaret’s behalf at the earliest possible moment.

His attention was recalled to the present moment with a jerk. “I can’t tell you how thankful I was to hear of this new theory of yours, Roger,” Margaret was saying with an effort of lightness. “It’s such a change from – well, from the way things seem to have been heading. And you really think you’ll be able to substantiate it?”

“I’m quite sure I shall, my dear,” Roger replied, perhaps with more confidence than he actually felt at the moment. “I’ve what is termed, I understand, a hunch about it. Don’t you worry any more; Uncle Roger is going to see you through this and get to the bottom of it for you.”

“I shall never be able to thank you enough if you do,” the girl said in a low tone. “Perhaps you can imagine something of the nightmare the last day or two has been, since I realised that I – that they –” Her voice broke.

Roger drew her arm through his and patted her hand paternally. “That’s all over now, my dear. No need to worry about that again. Uncle Roger’s on the job now. Besides,” he went on, instinctively shying away from any such display of feeling, “to touch on lesser matters, I believe I can promise you that even the inspector is giving up that theory now too.”

“He is?” Margaret did not attempt to conceal her joy. She looked at Roger with shining eyes. “He is really? Did he tell you so?”

“Well, not in so many words,” hedged Roger, who had not the least solid ground for this assertion. “But he meant me to infer it, I think. He’s a very cautious bird, though, and would never say anything outright.”

“Oh, thank Heaven!” Margaret murmured. “At last I can begin to breathe again!”

Anthony glared at the horizon and muttered beneath his breath. The words “damnfool”, “anointed ass” and “tommyrot” were indistinctly audible.

The rest of the way Margaret seemed to dance on air, and Roger rejoiced openly with her. Even Anthony was so far infected by the general feeling as to forget his dark broodings regarding the inspector’s state of anointed asininity and possess himself of Margaret’s other arm. It was a singularly hot day, but Margaret did not appear to mind the extra burden in the least. Perhaps she liked having her arms carried for her.

They reached the nearer flight of steps and descended to the ledge.

“I’ve only been down here once since Elsie’s death,” Margaret remarked, as they made their way along it in single file with Roger in the van. “I’m not even sure whereabouts she – where it happened.”

“Just along there, it was,” Roger said, pointing ahead of them. “You see where the ledge broadens out for twenty or thirty yards. Just in the middle of that. The little cave’s there too.”