Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (22 page)

“It may be very difficult to prove,” Harbord said thoughtfully. “If we could get hold of Joan Forester now. But she does not answer the advertisement. I wonder whether she is dead.”

“At any rate we may conclude that she does not see the Agony Column of the ‘Daily Wire,'” Stoddart finished. “Some people never read anything of the kind. I'm going to try broadcasting tonight.

“‘Does anybody know the whereabouts of Miss Joan Forester, who was acting in minor parts at the Morley Theatre in 19—. Friend asks.' That should get 'em.”

“Unless it frightens her,” Harbord suggested.

Stoddart shrugged his shoulders.

“Why should it?”

“Doesn't sound as if there was any money in it,” Harbord said. “Folks don't trouble themselves much about the friends of their youth unless they hope to make a trifle out of them.”

“Anyway, we can but try it,” the inspector said, with an air of finality. “Now I think we will take a ride upon the top of a bus if we can find an uncovered one. It will blow the cobwebs away. Let's see, Baker Street, and then walk up to St. Mary's Church. That will be our best way.”

“Going to look at the register?” Harbord questioned.

The inspector smiled. “Hardly, I think. Somerset House is to be trusted. But I want to see if there is anyone there who remembers the Hailsham-Gossett wedding. Pretty hopeless I'm afraid in a London church. But I'm not missing any chances and sixteen years is not a lifetime.”

“Well, St. Mary's is not a parish church,” Harbord said reflectively. “Naturally there are fewer weddings there. I thought of that.”

The inspector assented.

They managed to get an uncovered bus and a front seat on it. Then Stoddart lighted a cigarette and gave himself up to trying to solve the knotty problem of Peter Hailsham's identity.

St. Mary's, Marylebone, stood back from the main thoroughfare, in a dingy side-street. Outside it was grubby and depressing-looking, but when they opened the door they found a bright and well-cared for church, with beautiful flowers on the altar and an elderly lady sitting in the side aisle. Evidently it was one of those churches open all day for prayer, and watched over by devout spinster members of the congregation. This particular watcher looked up and her face brightened when she saw the two detectives. Stoddart approached her on tiptoe.

“Pardon me, madam, but may I ask you a few questions? I want, if possible, to discover something about a wedding that took place in this church on August 18th, 19—. That is sixteen years ago, before your time.”

Harbord gasped, but the watcher apparently took it in all good faith.

“Well, it is rather a long time ago,” she said coyly. “I cannot remember much of it I am sorry to say. And our vicar has only been here three years, so he would be of no use to you. I dare say you could see the register if that would be of any help, or perhaps Mrs. Sparrow might remember. She is the cleaner, and I believe she has been here nearly twenty years. I fancy she is cleaning the brasses in the vestry now. I will take you to her. Our vicar does not much like our talking in the church.”

Mrs. Sparrow proved to be a round, rosy-looking woman, quite willing to talk to any extent while she rubbed and polished away at a collection of brass and silver that stood on a long oak table beside her.

Their first friend disappeared after explaining their errand.

“The registers – well, I can't show you those, sir. The vicar keeps them locked up and nobody but him or Mr. Dorton, the clerk, is allowed to go to them. But, if it is a matter of twelve or sixteen years ago, I was here then, so was Miss Leonora Wills, her that brought you in, and was watching in the church as they call it – for the parsons, I say, but she says for the burglars. But some folks has better memories than others.”

“You are quite right, Mrs. Sparrow,” the inspector assented. “This was a wedding that we want to know about, the lady has died lately and there is some to-do over her money. Sylvia Mary Gossett, she was; and the bridegroom's name was Hailsham – Peter Hailsham.”

“Well, I never!” Mrs. Sparrow's rosy face grew rounder and rosier with amazement. “But of course I remember the wedding, more by token that I used to know Miss Gossett well. Regular attendant at church she was and used to come to confession to our vicar, as was then. Father Thompson he used to call himself and very set on things such as confession and incense and such like. And do you say that Miss Gossett – Mrs. Hailsham – is dead? Well, all flesh is grass as the saying is, and we are here today and gone tomorrow. It isn't much more than six weeks since she and I were talking it over.”

“Oh, so lately as that. And was she looking well?” the inspector inquired quickly.

“Very well indeed, sir, and more beautiful than ever, and beautifully dressed too. She hadn't been here for years till then. But I knew her in a minute and she remembered me too. ‘Ah, Mrs. Sparrow,' she said, ‘it seems strange to see you at the old church and to think of Father Thompson being dead and gone.' ‘Ay! It is, ma'am,' I said. ‘But that is what we all have to come to.' And flesh is grass as I said before and as the Bible says, though I never see the sense of that myself. She cried, the poor lady, thinking of her being married in this church, and bringing her baby here to be christened.”

“Yes,” the inspector said quietly, “little John Peter.”

“Bless me, sir, I'm sure I'd forgotten that. Fancy you remembering. I only seen him once when he come to be christened. A beautiful baby he was, as was only to be expected seeing as both his father and his mother were real handsome.”

“Ah, his father.” The inspector allowed no touch of his inward eagerness to appear in his voice. “You would see him at the wedding, of course, Mrs. Sparrow?”

“Which I did, sir. As nice a looking young gentleman as ever I came across. You might have taken your oath that they would have lived, the pair of them, to see their golden wedding. And now to think of them both gone. Well, well, they are at rest and together again, and their baby too.”

The inspector digested this piece of information.

“Do you mean to say that Mr. Hailsham is dead?”

“So he is, sir. Mrs. Hailsham told me so herself. ‘And how is Mr. Hailsham, ma'am?' I asked. And her pretty eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Mrs. Sparrow, I have lost him,' she says, choking like, ‘and my baby too. I'm all alone again,' she says. Eh! poor thing! poor thing! I couldn't talk to her about it. I felt that bad remembering what I have gone through myself. For I'm the mother of five, sir. And three of them killed in the war, and buried two husbands, I have. If there was anyone who could sympathize with her it's me. But, there, they are all together again.”

A passing wonder as to whether the garrulous Mrs. Sparrow referred to her husbands, or to Mr. and Mrs. Hailsham, flitted through the inspector's mind as he drew a case of photographs from his pocket. With some care he selected two and handed them to Mrs. Sparrow.

“Do you recognize either of these, Mrs. Sparrow?”

Standing behind, Harbord recognized the photographs as those of Dicky and Larpent.

Mrs. Sparrow looked at them carefully, took off her spectacles and polished them, then looked at them again.

“No, sir, I can't say I do. Though this one” – tapping that of Dicky – “does seem to put me in mind of someone, though I can't say who.”

The inspector looked disappointed. “And the other one?” pointing to that of Larpent. “You are sure that you do not recognize that?”

Mrs. Sparrow took a good look at Mr. Larpent's photograph.

“Yes, I have seen him too,” she exclaimed at last. “And now – now I am beginning to remember. One of them is Mr. Hailsham – him as married Miss Gossett – and the other was his best man. Why I didn't know 'em at once, it was war time and they were both home on short leave, and like all the soldiers they had their moustaches.”

“H'm!” The inspector made no motion to take the photograph she held out. “Which is Mr. Hailsham, Mrs. Sparrow?”

“Ah, now you're talking!” Mrs. Sparrow beamed all over her face. “And I am sure that is more than I can tell you. After all these years and only seeing them that once and both together. If you were to bring the two gentlemen here, I am sure I couldn't tell which was which.”

The inspector's face fell. “Are you sure, Mrs. Spar-row? Give them another look.”

“It wouldn't be any good,” Mrs. Sparrow assured him, staring at the two obediently for a minute. Then with a sigh she handed them back. “I ain't any use, sir. One o' them two married Miss Gossett, but if I was to look at them all day I couldn't say which it was.”

“I am sorry for that.” The inspector paused in the act of restoring them to his case. “Is there anyone else belonging to the church who might be sure, do you think?”

Mrs. Sparrow shook her head. “1 am pretty certain there isn't, sir. There's none of the old lot who was here when Father Thompson left.”

“And I suppose your late vicar – Father Thompson as you call him – had no family,” the inspector hazarded.

Mrs. Sparrow regarded him pityingly. “Lor' bless your life, sir, I should think he didn't. Thought it was wrong for a priest to get married, though at the same time most particular about being called Father.”

The inspector smiled. “Seems a bit of a contradiction, doesn't it? But there, the ways of parsons are beyond me. Just one thing more” – taking another card from the case – “You will know this I expect,” holding out to her a photograph of Charmian Karslake lying in the mortuary at Hepton surrounded by flowers.

Mrs. Sparrow looked at it and some of her ruddy colour faded away.

“Yes, it's Mrs. Hailsham right enough. But you said Mrs. Hailsham was dead. This – this looks as if it had been taken afterwards.”

“So it was,” the inspector told her. “Taken at Hepton Abbey the day before the funeral.”

He purposely mentioned Hepton Abbey and watched Mrs. Sparrow's face to see whether the name made any impression on her.

But Mrs. Sparrow apparently recognized nothing.

“Poor young lady! She does look beautiful.”

“You have not seen that photograph before?” the inspector questioned.

Mrs. Sparrow stared at him.

“Me? No! How should I?”

“It has been in most of the papers,” the inspector told her. “You must have heard of the murdered actress, Charmian Karslake.”

Mrs. Sparrow nodded. “I've heard folks talking about her. But, bless your life, I've no time to read the papers. And murders, I never did care about. But you don't mean as Mrs. Hailsham was –” She stopped short and looked at the inspector, all that was left of the kindly colour in her lips and cheeks fading away.

“She was Charmian Karslake, the great American actress,” the inspector confirmed.

“But – but –” Mrs. Sparrow stuttered, “Mrs. Hailsham wasn't an American. And – and – nobody would have killed her.”

“Somebody did, Mrs. Sparrow. Somebody shot her in her room. And we want to find out who that somebody was, and we want your help.”

“Which I only wish I could give.” Mrs. Sparrow burst into tears. “A nasty brute, I'd like to hang him myself.”

“We'll get him hanged if we can find him,” the inspector said with quiet assurance. “And now I am going to give you another shock, Mrs. Sparrow. You told me that Mr. Hailsham was dead. Now, it will surprise you to hear that both these men, whose photographs you have identified as those of Mr. Peter Hailsham and his best man, are alive at the present moment.”

“One gets some curious side-lights on Charmian Karslake's character as one goes on,” the inspector said musingly.

He and Harbord had returned to the Yard after their encounter with Mrs. Sparrow, and had gone straight to Stoddart's office. “Did she know the real name of the man she married when she was married, or did she only find it out afterwards?”

“When she got to the Abbey, do you mean?” Harbord hazarded.

“No, she knew before then. Have you forgotten the cuttings? Besides, it is inconceivable that she should have been deceived – she, Hepton born, and living within a mile of Hepton Abbey. You remember her brother Bert recognized Dicky Penn-Moreton at once. Besides, Peter Hailsham lived quite near the Gossetts on the Canal bank.”

“She would be less likely to recognize Larpent than Dicky,” Harbord said thoughtfully.

“True enough,” the inspector agreed. “One up to you, Alfred. But it is possible to make out a fairly strong case against either of the two. However, this morning I had the report from the analyst to whom I submitted the stains on Dicky Moreton's coat. They are as I thought – blood – mammalian. Richard Penn-Moreton will have to speak the truth or stand his trial for murder. Possibly both.”

“But Richard Penn-Moreton is well out of the way,” Harbord objected. “Safely on board the ‘White Wings,' there is no saying where he may manage to get to.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, he has had no opportunity of getting away, and he is now on his way back to England. I recalled the ‘White Wings' by wireless and she is now on her way back to Southampton with all the speed she can muster. Mr. Silas Juggs has got his American ‘‘sleuth' on board. And, as I told you, I had a couple of men shadowing Mr. Dicky. They had to turn before they reached Bermuda. We shall be there to meet them at Southampton.”

“And Larpent?”

“Oh, Larpent is being well looked after! You should know that, Alfred.”

“Naturally.” Harbord sat silent for a minute, nursing his knee in both hands, knitting his brows as he gazed unseeingly at the blank wall in front of him. “There is one thing about it I don't understand,” he said at last. “From the very first I suspected Dicky Moreton. I felt sure that he had known Charmian Karslake and that she had scraped acquaintance with Lady Moreton and come down to Hepton in order to meet the young man. I don't suppose he expected to see her. She must have tried threats, perhaps even blackmail. Why he went to her room I have no idea. But they must have quarrelled and in a fit of rage the fatal shot was fired. Then he was terrified at what he had done, realized that discovery would mean ruin, and in his fright conceived this foolish plan of concealment. All that seems fairly possible and fits in with the facts as we know them.”