A Bus-Driver's Holiday
Sir Clinton Driffield, after a careful examination of the lie,
deliberately put down a long putt on the last green of the Lynden
Sands course. His opponent, Stanley Fleetwood, stooped and picked up
his own ball.
“Your hole and match,” he said, handing his putter back to his caddie.
Sir Clinton nodded.
“Thanks for the game,” he said. “We seem to be fairly even. Much more
fun when the thing's in doubt up to the last green. Yes, you might
clean 'em,” he added in reply to his caddie's inquiry. “I shan't want
them until to-morrow.”
A girl had been sitting on one of the seats overlooking the green;
and, as the caddie replaced the pin in the hole, she rose to her feet
and came down towards the players. Stanley Fleetwood waved to her, and
then, in response to her mute question, he made a gesture of defeat.
“This is Sir Clinton Driffield, Cressida,” he explained, as they met.
Sir Clinton had trained himself to observe minutely without betraying
that he was doing so; and he had a habit of mentally docketing the
results of his scrutiny. Mannerisms were the points which he studied
with most attention. As Cressida Fleetwood came slowly towards them,
his apparently casual glance took in mechanically the picture of a
dark-haired girl still in her twenties, slim and graceful; but his
attention fastened mainly on a faint touch of shyness which added to
her charm; and in the expression of her eyes he believed he read
something more uncommon. It seemed as though a natural frankness had
been overlaid by a tinge of mistrust in the world.
“I hope I didn't rob you of a game this morning by taking your husband
away, Mrs. Fleetwood,” he said, as they turned up the path leading to
the hotel.
Cressida reassured him at once.
“As it happened,” she explained, “I didn't feel inclined to play
to-day, so he was left at a loose end; and when you took pity on him,
I was very glad to have my conscience cleared.”
“Well, it was lucky for me,” Sir Clinton answered. “The friend who's
staying with me just now wouldn't come out this morning. He strained
his foot slightly yesterday. So I was left in the lurch, and I was
very fortunate in finding Mr. Fleetwood free to take me on.”
They entered the grounds of the hotel, and, at a turn in the path,
Cressida Fleetwood bowed to a girl who passed their group. The
new-comer was handsome rather than pretty; and there was a hint of
hardness in her face which detracted a little from her charm. She was
dressed with a finish rather unusual at that time of day in a golfing
hotel; and her walk lacked the free swing characteristic of the
athletic English girl. Written fairly plainly on her were the signs of
a woman who has had to look after her own interests and who has not
always come out a winner in the game.
When she had passed out of earshot, Cressida turned to her husband.
“That's the French girl I told you about, Stanley—Mme
Laurent-Desrousseaux. I found her in some difficulty or other at the
hotel desk—her English isn't quite perfect—so I helped her out a
little.”
Stanley Fleetwood nodded without comment; and Sir Clinton had little
difficulty in seeing that he had no desire for his wife to extend her
acquaintance with Mme Laurent-Desrousseaux. He could not help
speculating as to the cause which had brought the Frenchwoman into
this quiet backwater, where she had no amusements, apparently, and no
acquaintances.
Before he had time to turn the matter over in his mind, however, his
train of thought was interrupted by the appearance of a fresh figure.
“How's the strain, squire?” he greeted the newcomer; and, as Wendover
came up to the group, he introduced him to his two companions.
“I hope you enjoyed your round,” said Wendover, turning to Stanley
Fleetwood. “Did he manage to work off any of his special expertise on
you this morning?”
“He beat me, if that's what you mean.”
“H'm! He beats me usually,” Wendover confessed. “I don't mind being
beaten by play; but I hate to be beaten by the rules.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Wendover? You seem to have a grievance,”
Cressida asked, seeing a twinkle in Wendover's eye.
“The fact is,” Wendover explained, “yesterday my ball rolled up
against a large worm on the green and stopped there. I'm of a humane
disposition, so I bent down to remove the worm, rather than putt
across its helpless body. He objected, if you please, on the ground
that one may not remove anything growing. I don't know whether it was
growing or not—it looked to me remarkably well grown for a worm, and
had probably passed the growing age. But, when I urged that, he simply
floored me by quoting a recent decision of the Royal and Ancient on
the point.”
“If you play a game, you must play _that_ game and not one you invent
on the spur of the moment, squire,” Sir Clinton warned him, with no
sign of sympathy in his tone. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”
“Hark to the chief constable!” Wendover complained. “Of course, his
mind dotes on the legal aspect of things, and he's used to keeping all
sorts of rules and regulations in his head. His knowledge of the laws
of golf is worth a couple of strokes on his handicap on any average
round.”
Cressida glanced at Sir Clinton.
“Are you really a chief constable?” she asked. “Somehow you aren't
like the idea I had of chief constables.”
“I'm on holiday at present,” Sir Clinton answered lightly; “perhaps
that makes a difference. But I'm sorry to fall below your
ideal—especially in my own district. If you could tell me what you
miss, perhaps I could get it. What's wanted? Constabulary boots, or
beetle-brows, or a note-book ready to hand, or a magnifying glass, or
anything of that sort?”
“Not quite. But I thought you'd look more like an official somehow.”
“Well, in a way that's a compliment. I've spent a fair part of my
existence trying hard _not_ to look like an official. I wasn't born a
chief constable, you know. I was once a mere detective sort of person
at the other end of the world.”
“Were you really? But, then, you don't look like my idea of a
detective, either!”
Sir Clinton laughed.
“I'm afraid you're hard to please, Mrs. Fleetwood. Mr. Wendover's just
as bad. He's a faithful reader of the classics, and he simply can't
imagine anyone going in for detective work without a steely eye and a
magnifying glass. It jars on his finer feelings merely to think of a
detective without either of them. The only thing that saves me is that
I'm not a detective nowadays; and he salves his conscience by refusing
to believe that I ever was one.”
Wendover took up the challenge.
“I've only seen you at work once in the detective line,” he confessed,
“and I must admit I thought your methods were simply deplorable,
Clinton.”
“Quite right,” Sir Clinton admitted: “I disappointed you badly in that
Maze affair, I know. Even the success in the end hardly justified the
means employed in reaching it. Let's draw a veil, eh?”
They had reached the door of the hotel, and, after a few words,
Cressida and her husband went into the building.
“Nice pair they make,” Wendover remarked, glancing after them as they
went. “I like to see youngsters of that type. They somehow make you
feel that the younger generation isn't any worse than its parents; and
that it has a good deal less fuss about it, too. Reinstates one's
belief in humanity, and all that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” Sir Clinton concurred, with a faint twinkle in his eye. “Some
people one takes to instinctively. It's the manner that does it. I
remember a man I once ran across—splendid fellow, charm, magnetic
personality, and so on.”
His voice died away, as though he had lost interest in the matter.
“Yes?” Wendover inquired, evidently feeling that the story had stopped
too soon.
“He was the worst poker-sharp on the liner,” Sir Clinton added gently,
“Charm of manner was one of his assets, you know.”
Wendover's annoyance was only half-feigned.
“You've a sordid mind, Clinton. I don't like to hear you throwing out
hints about people in that way. Anyone can see that's a girl out of
the common; and all you can think of in that connection is
card-sharps.”
Sir Clinton seemed sobered by his friend's vexation.
“You're quite right, squire,” he agreed. “She's out of the common, as
you say. I don't know anything about her history, but it doesn't take
much to see that something's happened to her. She looks as if she'd
taken the world at her own measure at first, trusted everybody. And
then she got a devil of a shock one day. At least, if that isn't in
her eyes, then I throw in my hand. I've seen the same expression once
or twice before.”
They entered the hotel and sat down in the lounge. Wendover glanced
from the window across the links.
“This place will be quite good when the new course has been played
over for a year or two. I shouldn't wonder if Lynden Sands became
fairly popular.”
Sir Clinton was about to reply when a page-boy entered the lounge and
paraded slowly across it, chanting in a monotonous voice:
“Number eighty-nine! Number eighty-nine! Number eighty-nine!”
The chief constable sat up sharply and snapped his fingers to attract
the page-boy's attention.
“That's the number of my room,” he said to Wendover, “but I can't
think of anyone who might want me. Nobody knows me in this place.”
“You number eighty-nine, sir?” the page-boy demanded. “There's
somebody asking for you. Inspector Armadale, he said his name was.”
“Armadale? What the devil can he be wanting?” Sir Clinton wondered
aloud. “Show him in, please.”
In a minute or two the inspector appeared.
“I suppose it's something important, inspector,” Sir Clinton greeted
him, “otherwise you wouldn't have come. But I can't imagine what
brings you here.”
Inspector Armadale glanced at Wendover, and then, without speaking, he
caught Sir Clinton's eye. The chief constable read the meaning in his
glance.
“This is a friend of mine, inspector—Mr. Wendover. He's a J. P. and
perfectly reliable. You can speak freely before him, if it's anything
official.”
Armadale was obviously relieved.
“This is the business, Sir Clinton. This morning we had a 'phone
message from the Lynden Sands doctor. It seems the caretaker at a big
house hereabouts—Foxhills, they call it—was found dead, close to his
cottage. Dr. Rafford went up to see the body; and at first he thought
it was a case of apoplexy. Then he noticed some marks on the body that
made him suspicious, and he says he won't give a death certificate. He
put the matter into our hands at once. There's nobody except a
constable hereabouts, so I've come over myself to look into things.
Then it struck me you were staying at the hotel here, and I thought
I'd drop in on my way up.”
Sir Clinton gazed at the inspector with a very faintly quizzical
expression.
“A friendly call?” he said. “That's very nice. Care to stay to lunch?”
The inspector evidently had not expected to find the matter taken in
this way.
“Well, sir,” he said tentatively, “I thought perhaps you might be
interested.”
“Intensely, inspector, intensely. Come and tell me all about it when
it's cleared up. I wouldn't miss it.”
Faint signs of exasperation betrayed themselves in the inspector's
face.
“I thought, perhaps, sir, that you'd care to come over with me and
look into the thing yourself. It seems a bit mysterious.”
Sir Clinton stared at him in well-assumed amazement.
“We seem to be rather at cross-purposes, inspector. Let's be clear.
First of all, I'm on holiday just now, and criminal affairs have
nothing to do with me. Second, even if I weren't on holiday, a chief
constable isn't specially attached to the find-'em-and-grab-'em branch
of the service. Third, it might cause professional jealousy,
heart-burnings, and what not, if I butted into a detective's case.
What do you think?”
“It's my case,” Armadale said, abandoning all further attempt at
camouflage. “The plain truth is, from all I heard over the 'phone,
that it seems a rum business; and I'd like to have your opinion on it,
if you'd be so good as to give me it after you've examined things for
yourself.”
Sir Clinton's face relaxed.
“Ah,” he confessed. “Now I seem to have some glimmerings of what
you're after; and, since there's no question of my having interfered
without being asked, I might look into the affair. But if I'm doing
you a favour—as you seem to think—then I'm going to lay down one
condition, _sine qua non_. Mr. Wendover's interested in detective
work. He knows all the classics: Sherlock Holmes, Hanaud, Thorndyke,
etc. So, if I come in, then he's to be allowed to join us. Agree to
that, inspector?”
The inspector looked rather sourly at Wendover, as though trying to
estimate how great a nuisance he was likely to prove; but, as Sir
Clinton's assistance could evidently be secured only at a price,
Armadale gave a rather ungracious consent to the proposed arrangement.
Sir Clinton seemed almost to regret his own decision.
“I'd hardly bargained for a bus-driver's holiday,” he said rather
ruefully.
A glance at the inspector's face showed that the expression had missed
its mark. Sir Clinton made his meaning clearer.
“In the old horse-bus days, inspector, it was rumoured that when a
bus-driver got a holiday he spent it on somebody else's bus, picking
up tips from the driver. It seems that you want me to spend my holiday
watching you do police work and picking up tips from your methods.”
Inspector Armadale evidently suspected something behind the politeness
with which Sir Clinton had turned his phrase. He looked rather glumly
at his superior as he replied:
“I see I'm going to get the usual mixture, sir—help and sarcasm, half
and half. Well, my hide's been tanned already; and your help's worth
it.”
Sir Clinton corrected him with an air of exactitude.
“What I said was that I'd ‘look into the affair.’ It's your case,
inspector. I'm not taking it off your shoulders, you understand. I
don't mind prowling round with you; but the thing's in your hands
officially, and I've nothing to do with it except as a spectator,
remember.”
Armadale's air became even gloomier when he heard this point of view
so explicitly laid down.
“You mean it's to be just the same as the Ravensthorpe affair, I
suppose,” he suggested. “Each of us has all the facts we collect, but
you don't tell me what you think of them as we get them. Is that it,
sir?”
Sir Clinton nodded.
“That's it, inspector. Now, if you and Mr. Wendover will go round to
the front of this place, I'll get my car out and pick you up in a
minute or two.”