Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery (19 page)

“I’ve done it!” shouted the dervish. “Alone, unaided, unhonoured and unsung, frowned upon by the official police and snubbed by half the small boys in Ludmouth, have I done it!” He produced a small piece of paper from his pocketbook and laid it with a flourish beside the inspector’s plate.

“There’s a present for you, Inspector Moresby,” he said. “The thumbprint of Mrs Vane’s murderer. Anthony, carve me a double portion of that veal-and-ham pie, please!”

“Of course,” said Roger, disposing of a large mouthful of veal-and-ham pie, “of course, when I say
murderer
, I may be exaggerating a trifle.”

“You haven’t told me yet who he is, sir,” said the inspector impatiently. It was the seventh time he had said something like this, and his curiosity was still ungratified.

“Perhaps it would be safer to say, for the present, that it’s the thumbprint of a man who knows how Mrs Vane met her death,” went on Roger, who was taking a malicious joy in deliberately thwarting his professional rival’s inquisitiveness. “Anyhow, there he is.”

“Did you say it was a man in the village?” asked the inspector innocently.

“He that searches diligently shall find,” Roger replied irrelevantly, “and he that is on the right tack shall make all the thrilling discoveries. Likewise, to him that hath shall be given; so give me some more of this excellent pie, Anthony. No, a slice just about twice as big as the one you’re meditating.”

“Who
is
this man, Mr Sheringham, sir?” demanded the inspector in desperation.

Roger gazed at him blandly. “Inspector, I’m not going to tell you! You may arrest me for obstructing the police in the dereliction of their duty, for arson, fraud, petty treason, or anything you darn well like, but I’m not going to tell you. You insinuated yourself, as I now realise, into my confidence this morning and very neatly picked my brains, without giving anything in return. All along I’ve been making you free presents of my discoveries, and got practically nothing in exchange for them. This time I’m hanging on.”

The inspector refilled his tankard and applied himself to it with gusto. He set it down and wiped his moustache. “Serious business, sir,” he observed, apparently unmoved.

“Obstructing the police?” Roger agreed heartily. “Yes, jolly serious, isn’t it? But awfully interesting. I’ve never obstructed one before. I rather like it.”

The inspector laughed. “You’ve got something up your sleeve, sir, I know. What do you want me to do?”

“Send that thumbprint up to headquarters and see if they can tell you anything about its owner,” Roger said promptly. “Seriously, there may be nothing in this at all, but there may be rather a lot. I’ve got my own ideas, but I want to verify them before I tell you anything definite. That’s all.”

“Well, I’m not saying it isn’t highly irregular, sir; it is. By rights you ought to tell me just what you’ve discovered and let me be the judge of whether it’s worth following up or not. Still, knowing you,” the inspector concluded handsomely, “I’ll take the risk.”

“That’s right,” Roger approved. “And I promise to tell you the whole story as soon as you’ve got the report, even if it’s a negative one. By the way, if you jump to it you’ve just got time to get it into the post tonight.”

“That’s true,” conceded the inspector, casting a reluctant eye on his tankard. He rose to his feet. “You won’t be gone when I come back?”

“No, I shall be here, even if I can’t say the same for my cousin. That little two-seater I saw outside wouldn’t have anything to do with you, Anthony, of course?”

Anthony coloured slightly. “Well,” he began, “I –”

“Enough!” Roger interrupted kindly. “You haven’t taken it back yet, therefore you’re proposing to use it again. Well, the country looks very charming by moonlight, I’m told.
Bon voyage!
Oh, Inspector!”

Inspector Moresby paused, his hand on the doorknob. “Yes, sir?”

“Did you find anything out about that shoe, by the way?”

Inspector Moresby continued to pause. “Do you expect me to tell you that, Mr Sheringham, when you’re witholding your own information?”

“A promise,” said Roger smugly, “is a promise, Inspector.”

“Well, and I can’t say it wasn’t made for services rendered. Very well, sir, I’ll return good for evil. I traced that pair of shoes (we found the other one all right, I should say).”

“Traced it, did you?” said Roger with interest. “Do you mean, found out whom it belonged to?”

“Just that. The inner soles, with the name of the maker, had been torn out, but it wasn’t a difficult job. The servant-girl recognised ‘em at once, and the mistress admitted to ‘em without hesitation.”

“Stop this cat-and-mouse act!” Roger implored. “Whose were they?”

The inspector gazed at him stolidly for a moment, enjoying his impatience. “Mrs Russell’s, sir,” he said, and withdrew.

As the door closed Roger emitted a long whistle of astonishment. “Mrs Russell’s! Good Lord, that’s an unexpected development. How on earth –? What do you make of that, Anthony?”

“Goodness knows,” said Anthony frankly.

Roger mused, helping himself abstractedly to gooseberry pie and cream. “Well, I suppose it’ll fit in all right. I shall have to think that over.”

“Are you going to keep me in the dark too about the bird with the thumbprint?” Anthony asked.

“You?” Roger recalled himself from his meditations. “Oh, no. I’ve got to tell somebody or bust. Anthony, I’ve had a heart-rending day. Man, woman and child, I’ve been cross-questioning them all till my throat, hardened as you might think it, nearly collapsed under the strain; and not a helpful word could I elicit. And then at the very last gasp, quite literally, a child led me toward the light. I found an urchin who’d actually been on the spot and seen just what I wanted him to have seen.”

“Good egg!” quoth Anthony.

“I had a job to charm his information out of him, as his business on the cliffs (I never did discover what it was) seems to have been of an illicit nature; however, fearful oaths of secrecy and a couple of half-crowns did the trick. He was close to the top of the nearer flight of steps at half past three that afternoon, apparently in hiding, and saw a man go down them and walk along the ledge. He is even prepared to swear, Anthony, that the man had a paper in his hand which didn’t seem to be folded quite like a newspaper and might well have been a copy of the
London Opinion
.”

“Coo!” said Anthony. “And were you able to make out who the cove was?”

“There was no need to do that. The urchin very kindly supplied that information himself. Anthony, my lad, who do you think it was? Just about the very last person you’d expect.”

“Who?”

Roger regarded his companion with triumphant eyes. “That blighted little parson, with a face like a goat – the Rev. Samuel blinking Meadows!”

“
What!
”

“Yes, that’s a bit of a facer, isn’t it? So off I made in a bee-line for Samuel. He’d pressed me to drop in whenever I got the chance, so there was no difficulty about that. I dropped. He was delighted to see me – oh, delighted! And I was delighted to see him. We were both delighted. We almost wept on one another’s necks with delight. It was a touching scene. He wanted to discuss the murder, but I didn’t. I wanted to discuss something quite different. Theology, Anthony.”

“Ah!” said Anthony.

“Quite so. I discussed theology. He didn’t. He didn’t even know the name of Moses’ father-in-law, Anthony. Shocking ignorance for a clergyman, wasn’t it? Of course I didn’t let him see how shockingly ignorant I thought him. I was a model of tact. I told him that Omar Khayyám was my favourite among the minor prophets, and he never turned a hair. I remarked that if Queen Elizabeth hadn’t written the Athanasian Creed, Cardinal Manning would never have condemned Joan of Arc to a diet of worms, and he batted no eyelash. Oh, we
did
enjoy ourselves.”

“What you’re getting at, I suppose,” observed Anthony acutely, “is that the chap isn’t a parson at all.”

“Anthony, you read my thoughts. No, the chap isn’t a parson at all.”

“Good!” said Anthony.

“So all I had to do then was to get his fingerprint in the orthodox manner, and come swiftly away. So that’s that.”

“How did you manage the fingerprint?”

“Oh, that was simple enough. He was reading a newspaper when I was shown in. I professed to find something extremely interesting on the page he had been perusing, and he readily gave me permission to tear it off and take it away. To hold a newspaper it is of course necessary to grip the edge quite firmly. For a clergyman, Mr Meadows evidently doesn’t wash his hands as often as he might. It has also been a hot day. Nicely planted in the margin was the perfect impression of a somewhat greasy thumb. Thank you, Mr Meadows.”

“Very cunning,” Anthony approved.

“I rather thought that, too,” Roger admitted.

“And you’re not going to say anything about it to the inspector?”

“For the time being, no. I like having Moresby on toast for a change, I must say, but also I don’t want to commit myself. If anybody’s going to solve this pretty little mystery, I want it to be Roger Sheringham; so I’m not giving any information away unnecessarily. Of course it
may
turn out that this chap had nothing to do with it, but candidly, I don’t see how that can possibly be the case.”

“And you think they’ll know about him at Scotland Yard?”

“It seems a reasonable inference. People don’t go about masquerading as clergymen just as an interesting concomitant of their summer holiday. He may never have been in the hands of the police at all, but there’s always the hope.”

“It’ll make a better case against him if he has.”

“Yes, and help us in other ways too. You see, what I’m really hoping is that he’s a slice out of Mrs Vane’s past. If so, we ought to be able to clear up quite a lot of things that are obscure at present. He might even –” Roger paused. “Oh, there are all sorts of possibilities,” he corrected himself.

There was a little pause.

“Well, thank goodness Margaret seems to be outside it at last,” said Anthony.

“Yes, and talking of Margaret, Anthony, I want you to treat what I’ve told you as highly confidential. It’s much better for her not to know about this for the time being, at any rate till we hear from Scotland Yard. It may only raise false hopes, and in any case I don’t want it talked about. You can simply say that I’m still pursuing my enquiries. Is it a bet?”

“I’m quite sure,” Anthony began, “that Margaret can be trusted not to –”

“It isn’t a case of that at all,” Roger interrupted peremptorily. “It’s simply that this information is to be looked on as my private property till I choose to make it public. If I can’t rely on you to keep things to yourself when I don’t want them to go any further, then I simply shan’t be able to tell you anything. Now then, what about it?”

“Of course, if you make such a point of it,” said Anthony, a little sulkily.

“I do!”

“All right, then.”

“Then that’s settled,” Roger said cheerfully. “Have some more beer.”

Anthony rose. “No thanks. As a matter of fact I – I’ve got to be getting along now.”

“Isn’t that girl getting sick of the sight of you, Anthony?” Roger asked with frank curiosity. “The only times you leave her alone seem to be at meals.”

“Well, she’s all by herself,” Anthony replied defiantly. “She never sees the other two, except at meals. If I didn’t go along there, she’d be quite alone.”

“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you to wonder whether she wouldn’t prefer that?”

“Funny ass,” said Anthony tolerantly. “Well, cheerio! See you later, I expect.”

“Grrrrr...” said Roger coarsely.

However, Roger did not spend an uninteresting evening. For three whole hours he was able to enjoy the unbounded felicity of listening to Inspector Moresby trying by every means in his power, subtle and official, to obtain the name of the man whose thumbprint was on its way to London. In gently balking all these indefatigable attempts, Roger managed to enjoy himself quite considerably.

The next day was a Sunday, and Roger made it a day of rest. He did not welcome inactivity, but pending the arrival of Scotland Yard’s report on the thumbprint he did not quite see what there was to do. During the morning he lay on the little grassy ledge and lazily discussed the case and life in general with Margaret and Anthony; during the afternoon he lay there alone, with a book, while Margaret and Anthony discussed other aspects of life somewhere else by themselves. The inspector appeared to be busy on some trail of his own, and was not in evidence.

In the evening Roger and Anthony both went to supper at Dr Vane’s. It had appeared the doctor had taken a liking to Roger, and the invitation had come from him. He even went so far as to close the laboratory altogether from six o’clock onwards, which Roger rightly interpreted as a compliment of the first magnitude. They passed a pleasant if quiet evening, and no reference was made by anyone to Mrs Vane, her death or the resulting investigations. “In fact,” as Roger confided later to Anthony during their walk home, “if one hadn’t been told it was a house of mourning, one would never have guessed for an instant that the mistress of it died violently less than a week ago.”

Roger found himself returning Dr Vane’s liking almost with interest. The big, burly man was so genuine, so sincere, and (as Roger felt) so transparently honest. His predilections he did not attempt to disguise, and where he hated Roger was sure he would be no less candid. Summing up his impressions on their rather silent walk home, Roger found himself convinced that, whatever his feelings may have been once, the doctor had very little affection for his wife at the time of her death. Equally certainly his attitude toward Miss Williamson was one merely of rather impersonal camaraderie.

“A disheartening business for any modest girl who’s trying as hard as that lady is, I should imagine,” Roger told himself.

The next day was also a period of enforced rest. On this occasion, however, Roger had not only himself but Anthony as well to amuse. Margaret, it transpired, burdened by the household duties of a Monday, was unable to devote a single minute to anything outside them. Roger, fancying that he was able to appreciate these tactics, watched a restless Anthony moodily kicking small stones on the road in front of the inn till eleven o’clock, when the second post brought no official envelope for Inspector Moresby, and then carried him off in the hired two-seater to spend the day in Sandsea. They got back at half past seven (the two-seater, which was of a decidedly decrepit nature, having behaved not at all well by the roadside) and found the inspector awaiting them in the sitting-room.