Re-enter Mr. X
It seemed to “Pinkie” Kerr that her entire world had come tumbling
hopelessly about her ears. That she had been relentlessly caught in
the mesh of misery. The news that had awaited her upon her arrival at
Tranfield had produced in her a species of mental paralysis. Her brain
was numbed. The telegram that had summoned her from her Devonshire
home and holiday had not told her all. Bannister had deliberately
tempered the blow to her by partly preparing her for the inevitable
shock. She sat in the dining-room of “Rest Harrow” with the brilliant
July sunshine pouring through the windows and tried hard to realise
that she would never see her beloved Miss Sheila again in this
transitory world of hopes, doubts and fears. And the mental paralysis
that had so completely taken hold of her mercifully prevented her from
experiencing this bitter realisation to its full poignancy. To her,
representative as she was of her class, a telegram was always regarded
as the harbinger of evil and when it had reached her on the evening of
the previous day, she had felt instinctively and assuredly that this
particular telegram would prove no exception to the sinister rule. She
had obeyed its startling summons almost mechanically—dumbly as it
were—making no articulate complaint against the bludgeoning of Fate
and accepting the scroll of punishment with a bowed head and the
better part of a contrite heart. As she sat in the comfortable chair
in the room at “Rest Harrow” and faced Chief-Inspector Bannister,
supported left and right by Anthony Bathurst and Sergeant Ross, her
sixty-odd years weighed heavily upon her but she tried hard to collect
the best qualities of her intelligence for the sake of her “bairn”
that had been so foully struck down and so ruthlessly taken from her.
The only real consciousness that she possessed was clamouring for
vengeance. She was half Devonian and half Scots and for the moment the
Scots strain had struggled for the mastery and after the habit of its
kind had succeeded in obtaining it. One thought was being registered
clearly in her sorely-afflicted brain and one thought only. She might
be the means of bringing Miss Sheila’s murderer to the penalty of
Justice. An idea here or a suggestion there might well prove to be a
shaft of enlightenment to the skilled brains that were waiting to
question her. She sat there, fighting hard against the chaos of her
mind. There was not only Miss Sheila’s memory for her to serve! There
was also Colonel Dan’s! Colonel Dan to whom she had ministered
faithfully for more years than she cared to remember. Colonel Daniel
Delaney had been a gentleman—more than that even—he had been an Irish
gentleman and as his faithful servant had informed more than a few
persons in her time, an “Irish gentleman was the finest gentleman in
the world.” When the news was brought home to her years ago that he
had been found drowned it had plunged her into genuinely deep
distress—distress that persisted—but her supremely loyal nature after
a time asserted itself and the distress became alleviated by the
loving care that she showered upon the dainty blossom that Colonel Dan
had left behind. When Colonel Dan’s widow followed him a few years
later to “the bourne from which no traveller returns,” this care
became even more assiduous—it became in the nature of a Religion. But
now she was assailed by a black and devastating sense of complete and
utter loneliness. All her loving care had been brought to naught—she
had laboured in vain! The edifice that she had built so lovingly had
been eternally shattered. As she sat there sobbing convulsively her
tall spare frame shook with the paroxysm of her grief. She dabbed
continually at her streaming eyes with her handkerchief and Bannister
was sufficiently sensible to let the first flood of her sorrow run its
full course before he attempted to put any questions to her. Gradually
it began to show signs of subsiding and as the intervals between her
shuddering sobs grew more lengthy he saw that before very long she
would quieten down considerably. He waited patiently and Anthony could
not help admiring his dignified control—so many men of his
acquaintance would have rushed their fences and achieved in the
rushing entirely inadequate results.
“We want you to help us,” he commenced very quietly, and with a
delicate suggestion of sympathy, “we understand your feelings
thoroughly. But please do your best to control them—if you do—you will
not only help us in our investigations but you will also help the poor
girl who has gone. Please understand that——” he added sympathetically.
“What is it you want to know?” she asked listlessly.
“We want to know as much as you can possibly tell us,” said Bannister,
“about your young mistress—about her life here with you—what friends
she had in her life—you know the kind of things I mean.”
She nodded. “I’ve lived with poor Miss Sheila ever since she was
born—I was with her mother when she came—my name is Agnes Kerr—my home
is in Devon—I had gone there for a holiday, the address on your
telegram is my home.” She stopped for a moment and pushed the buff
envelope on to the edge of the table. It would have fallen but for the
agility of Mr. Bathurst who gallantly retrieved it. Bannister nodded
encouragingly. “We found the address here. We got it from your
postcard to Miss Delaney,” he explained.
“I see,” murmured “Pinkie,” “I thought perhaps that was how it came
about. When Colonel Delaney died some years ago—I stayed on with Mrs.
Delaney and when Mrs. Delaney was taken too, I had to be mother and
father to Miss Sheila, sort of combined. What else do you want me to
tell you?” she inquired of him, plaintively.
“Who were her friends? With whom did she mix?” demanded Bannister.
“Who was in the habit of visiting here?”
“Since Major Carruthers was killed—scarcely anybody,” came “Pinkie’s”
answer.
“Come now,” said Bannister, gently and persuasively, “surely somebody
came here sometimes?”
“A few girl friends—very occasionally—and a year or so ago young Mr.
Alan Warburton was a pretty frequent visitor—up to the time, say, that
the Major’s accident took place. But he hasn’t been near here for a
long time now. Sir Matthew Fullgarney and Lady Fullgarney would come
perhaps once every two or three months but latterly there was no one
at all who came here anything like regularly. You can rest easy on
that,” she added.
“You say Alan Warburton was a regular visitor a year or so ago. Why
did he suddenly cease to come—any idea? Was there any trouble between
them that you know of?”
“I don’t know about trouble exactly—Miss Sheila told me though in the
early part of last year that Alan Warburton needed ‘putting in his
place.’”
“Putting in his place, eh?” exclaimed Bannister with interest.
“And what did you understand by that remark?”
“I thought perhaps he had presumed on his friendship with Miss
Sheila.”
“How far had this friendship extended?”
“What do you mean?” “Pinkie” looked a trifle scared.
“I mean this. Rumours have reached me from more than one source that
Miss Delaney and Alan Warburton were looked upon as lovers at the time
of which you speak. Would you subscribe to that opinion?”
“Pinkie” demurred—vigorously shaking her head. “No! Mr. Warburton
admired her very much—it’s true—a blind man would have been able to
see that. And Miss Sheila liked him a great deal, too. I can tell you
that much. But I wouldn’t admit anything beyond that. Sheila, in my
opinion looked upon him as a close friend—but I wouldn’t say that it
was anything more than that.” She repeated her denial.
“I see,” soliloquised Bannister. “So that it would be altogether an
unfair statement to say that Miss Delaney’s attitude changed towards
Mr. Warburton consequent upon the Bank scandal in which his uncle—Sir
Felix Warburton—was involved?”
“Utterly untrue,” responded Miss Kerr, vehemently. “A thing like that
wouldn’t alter Sheila’s feelings in any way towards anybody she
regarded as a friend. She would have scorned to do such a thing. Such
conduct would have been completely foreign to her nature.” She began
to sob again—engulfed once more in a tide of poignant memories. Her
mention of Sheila had brought them all rushing home to her again.
“Please calm yourself,” entreated the Inspector, “there’s something
else I want to ask you.”
She pulled herself together as the result of a supreme effort and
faced him confidently. “Had your mistress a lover?”
“Pinkie” shook her head but in such a way that Bannister was quick to
see it and follow up his question with another.
“No? Are you absolutely certain that there wasn’t a secret lover in
her life? Would you swear to it?”
She hesitated—then framed her reply. “No one to my knowledge—but——”
Bannister pounced. “But what?”
“I am _not_ absolutely sure.”
The admission seemed to have been wrung from her. Her reluctance was
plain to behold. The Inspector looked her over keenly—obviously
wondering what it was exactly that was in her mind. “What do you
mean?”
“I have noticed a change in her.”
“What kind of a change?”
“She was just a little bit secretive over one or two small
things—didn’t confide in me so much.”
“Give me an example.”
“Pinkie” bent her head for a moment, thinking. “Well—just this. It’s
hard to explain to anybody else. She has been to London about
half-a-dozen times within the last twelve months—when she has returned
here—she hasn’t been so full of what she had done, like she used to
be—in the past she had always confided in me and told me everything.
Then she has had letters from time to time in a handwriting that was
strange to me—also I can remember a few postcards. I don’t know where
they came from.”
Bannister frowned, but Mr. Bathurst evidently considered the point of
some importance.
“Did you ever actually see one of these?” he inquired with his most
engaging smile.
“See one?”
“Read one, if you like? I’m not accusing you of spying on your
mistress’s correspondence, if that’s what you fear—but sometimes it
may be hard to avoid seeing something that isn’t intended for us.”
“Pinkie” nodded in acquiescence. “On two occasions I did happen to
notice an initial at the foot of the card,” she contributed.
“And what was it?” inquired Anthony.
“Just the one letter ‘X’—that was all.”
Anthony looked across at the Inspector and waited for his next move.
The latter caught Mr. Bathurst’s meaning. He produced the postcard
found amongst Miss Delaney’s belongings in the bedroom and handed it
across to the woman. “Is this one of those to which you are
referring?”
“Pinkie” gazed at it with wide-opened eyes. “Yes—yes! That is one of
the cards I mentioned. That’s in a handwriting I don’t know. Where did
you get this?”
“I’ll show you later on,” observed Bannister with a touch of severity,
“meanwhile you can definitely state that Miss Delaney has received
several communications in the same handwriting as this postcard—yes?”
“Pinkie” nodded, “Several, sir.”
“How long would you say they had been coming? Could you give a time?”
questioned Anthony.
She puckered her brows as she sat there and thought over the question.
“Let me help you with a suggestion,” broke in Anthony. “Would it be
correct to say that they commenced to come somewhere about the time
that Alan Warburton’s visits began to get less frequent? Could you
agree with that?”
“Let me think” she answered. The three men watched her closely. “As
far as I can remember the first time I saw this handwriting was about
Eastertide last year. I think it was on the Maundy Thursday. Yes, it
was about then when young Warburton stopped coming here. Let me think
again. If I’ve given you the impression that his visits _gradually_
dropped off, I’m afraid I’ve confused you. They didn’t—now I can think
more clearly. They stopped quite suddenly—I should say a month or so
before I noticed these letters and things coming. I know!”—she
concluded on a note of triumphant remembrance. “He hasn’t been here
since the Hunt Ball at Westhampton—early last year.”
Mr. Bathurst felt his blood course a little more fiercely through his
veins. He remembered the trenchant query that he had put to himself
upon the occasion of his first visit from the Crown Prince of
Clorania. “What was it that had happened at the Hunt Ball at
Westhampton in the February of the previous year?” Find the right
answer to that, he argued to himself and he would go a long distance
towards solving the entire mystery. Bannister’s thoughts were
evidently following similar lines for the expression on his face
showed that he thought “Pinkie’s” statement to be extremely important.
“That was in the February,” she continued, “only a few weeks before
Major Carruthers was killed in his motoring accident. I’m certain, now
I come to think of it, that young Mr. Warburton hasn’t been here to
see Miss Sheila since then.” She spiced her statement with
unmistakable emphasis and certainty.
“Did you notice this change in Miss Delaney that you speak of
immediately after?” queried Anthony.
“After when?”
“After this Ball that you have mentioned?”
She thought for a while before she answered. “Yes, I think I can say
now that it _was_ after that, that she began to alter. Just a little.
Perhaps some people wouldn’t have noticed it. But in small ways——”
Anthony interrupted her. “So that it might be a perfectly reasonable
inference for one to make—that Miss Delaney met somebody at the Ball
whom she preferred to Mr. Alan Warburton? What would you say to that?”
“Yes—it might,” she conceded with a quick movement of the hand.
“Let’s ask her to have a look at the bedroom,” put in Bannister, “she
may be able to help us there too.”
Ross crossed the corridor and opened the bedroom door; Bannister
piloted her to it and shewed her the indescribable scene of confusion
in the room itself.
“Any idea what they were looking for?” he demanded of her sharply.
“Pinkie” slowly shook her head.
“None whatever! All Miss Sheila’s valuables—except her own personal
jewellery of course, were always kept at the bank.”
“H’m,” grunted Bannister, “you’re sure she kept nothing valuable in
any of these drawers?”
“I’m quite sure—although———”
“Although what?”
“Well, she was in the habit of keeping that small drawer on the right
there always locked. I’ve often noticed that.” She pointed to the
drawer she mentioned.
“Why?” ventured Anthony, “do you know?”
“I am sure that she kept nothing that you could call
_valuable_—there—in the real sense of the word—that is——” She
hesitated again. “I think that she just kept private things in there.
Things that she considered valuable, let us say—but that nobody else
would.”
Anthony nodded. “And I think I agree with you, Miss Kerr. I think it
extremely likely that she would do so.”
“Another point,” Bannister cut in, “when you went home to Otterton for
your holiday the other day—were you aware then that Miss Delaney was
intending to go to Seabourne?”
“No. I knew she intended going away _somewhere_—as my card showed
you—but I didn’t know to what particular part of the world she was
going. I understood when I left her here, that she didn’t know for
certain, herself—that she hadn’t made up her mind. She was always
inclined to leave holidays till the last minute.”
“Had Seabourne been mentioned between you?” persisted Bannister.
“To my knowledge,” she answered, “never—that is to say in connection
with this last holiday of Miss Sheila’s.”
“Now think, Miss Kerr,” exclaimed the Inspector, still quietly
persistent, “has anything at all unusual or abnormal happened here,
lately?”
“How do you mean?” she returned.
“In any way,” he reiterated, “in the country one day is very like
another—full up with the ‘trivial round and common task’—has
_anything_ happened recently to disturb this? Has anything occurred
that you could call unusual?”
She thought. “All I can think of was the Indian’s visit about a month
ago,” she declared.
“The Indian!” cried Bannister, “what Indian?”
“I think his name was Lal Singh or something like that. He called here
one afternoon to see Colonel Delaney. He had been the Colonel’s
body-servant years ago in India and said he didn’t know that the
Colonel was dead. He was a big—tall man—getting well on in years—Miss
Sheila interviewed him here and I fancy helped him financially. I was
glad to see the back of him—he rather frightened me. He asked after
Major Carruthers and also Sir Matthew Fullgarney. He had known them as
well, when they were with the Colonel in India. I think that Miss
Sheila thought he intended to call upon Sir Matthew from what she told
me he said to her. I don’t know whether he actually did.”
“Strange thing him turning up,” observed Bannister musingly, “did you
see him again at all?”
“No,” replied “Pinkie,” “I haven’t ever seen him since.”
Anthony turned this new piece of information over in his mind. The
case certainly became more puzzling as it progressed. He couldn’t
forget that he had two trails to follow. Would the trail that led to
the blackmailer of the Crown Prince also lead to the murderer of
Sheila Delaney? He couldn’t feel sure . . . yet something seemed to
tell him that they were intertwined. He heard Bannister put another
question to the woman who sat in the room.
“How long did this Indian chap stay with Miss Delaney?”
“How long—less than half an hour, I should say.”
“Did you hear any of the conversation?”
“No. None at all. All I heard was his greeting to her when I took him
into her. If Miss Sheila had wished me to hear what he came to see her
about she would have asked me into the room where the interview took
place. She didn’t—so I heard nothing. All I know is what she was
pleased to tell me of it afterwards. She gave him money. That’s all I
can tell you.” “Pinkie” tossed her head rather defiantly—she was
unable to rid herself of the idea that she had been suspected of
eavesdropping.
Bannister turned to Ross. “Seen anything of this Lal Singh in the
neighbourhood—heard of him anywhere?”
Ross shook his head. “Not so far as I know—I’ve heard nothing. But
I’ll inquire for you if you like when I get back?”
“Do,” said the Inspector—“it may be worth following up. I should have
thought he would have been a pretty conspicuous figure.”
“There was an Indian chap found about ten years ago wandering round
Nillebrook Water but the doctors reckoned he was ‘scatty’—bats in the
belfry—you know. They brought him in as a lunatic ‘without settlement’
and bunged him in the County Mental Hospital. The Nillebrook
ratepayers have had the somewhat doubtful pleasure of maintaining him
ever since.” Ross chuckled and proceeded. “Perhaps he’s escaped,” he
added, jokingly.
Bannister made no reply to what he considered an extravagant and
inappropriate suggestion but returned to the woman. “You can assure
me, I suppose, that your mistress had no money troubles?”
“Pinkie” scouted the idea on a strong note of indignation. “Absurd!
You can clear your mind on that point,” she declared. “Miss Sheila was
left very comfortably off—and with a considerable reserve,” she hinted
darkly.
“That’s all right then,” put in Bannister, “I can rest easy on that
score—eh?” He watched her carefully for a moment.
“Where will you be staying during the next few days?” intervened
Anthony, “in case the Inspector or I should want a word with you?”
“I thought about going to stay with some friends in Westhampton—the
name is Lucas—they live at——”
Anthony handed her an envelope that he took from his pocket. “Address
this to yourself, would you mind? Then I can use it if I should find
it necessary.” He handed her his fountain pen, and carefully put the
envelope inside his wallet when she had addressed it. Later on, in the
privacy of his bedroom he carefully studied it. A careful observer
might have imagined that the handwriting afforded him some peculiar
fascination. For a grim smile played round the corners of his lips as
the words leapt vividly from the paper to his inquisitive eyes, “Miss
Agnes Kerr, c/o Mrs. Lucas, 21, Crossley Road, Westhampton.” “Now that
gives me much food for thought,” he soliloquised.