Real Bad Blood
“Well?” Roger asked, as the two of them walked down the drive again
half-an-hour or so later. “Well, what did you make of that young man,
Inspector?”
“A very nice young gentleman, I thought,” returned the inspector
guardedly. “What did you, Mr. Sheringham, sir?”
“I thought the same as you,” Roger replied innocently.
“Um!” observed the inspector.
There was a little silence.
“You brought out your deductions from the wording of that note very
pat and cleverly,” Roger remarked.
“Ah!” said the inspector.
There was another little silence.
“Well, I’m quite sure he knows nothing about it,” Roger burst out.
The inspector bestowed a surreptitious grin on a small rambling rose.
“Are you, sir?” he said. Mr. Roger Sheringham was perhaps not the only
psychologist walking down the drive of Clouston Hall at that moment.
“Aren’t you, Inspector?” Roger demanded point-blank.
“Um!” replied the inspector carefully.
“If he does, he’s a better actor than ever I’ve met before,” said
Roger.
“I was watching him closely, and I’m convinced his surprise was
genuine,” said Roger.
“He certainly believed her death had been accidental,” said Roger.
“I’ll stake my life he knows nothing about it,” said Roger defiantly.
“Will you, sir?” queried the inspector blandly. “Well, well!”
Roger cut viciously with his stick at an inoffensive daisy.
There was another little silence.
They turned out of the drive and began to tramp along the dusty
highroad.
“Still,” said Roger cunningly, “we got some extraordinarily valuable
information out of him, didn’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” said the inspector.
“Which goes some way to confirm a rather interesting new theory of my
own,” said Roger, still more cunningly.
“Ah!” said the inspector.
Roger began to whistle.
“By the way,” said the inspector very airily, “what exactly was the
significance of that question you put to him about Mrs. Vane being an
imprudent woman, sir? Why ‘imprudent’?”
“Um!” said Roger.
In this way the time passed pleasantly till they returned to their
inn. An impartial spectator would probably have given it as his
opinion by that time that the honours were even, with, if anything, a
slight bias in favour of the inspector. Roger retired to telephone his
report through to London, stretching his meagre amount of straw into
as many bricks as possible, and the inspector disappeared altogether,
presumably to chew over the cud of his mission. Anthony was not in the
inn at all.
Returning from the telephone, Roger looked into the little
bar-parlour; three yokels and a dog were there. He looked into their
private sitting-room; nobody was there. He looked into each of their
bedrooms; nobody was there either. Then he took up his station outside
Inspector Moresby’s bedroom, laid back his head, and proceeded to give
a creditable imitation of a bloodhound baying the moon. The effect was
almost instantaneous.
“Good Heavens!” exclaimed the startled inspector, emerging
precipitately in his shirt-sleeves. “Was—was that you, Mr.
Sheringham?”
“It was,” said Roger, pleased. “Did you like it?”
“I did not,” replied the inspector with decision. “Are you often taken
that way, sir?”
“Only when I’m feeling very chatty, and nobody will talk to me or
occasionally when I’ve been trying to thought-read, and nobody will
tell me whether I’m right or wrong. Otherwise, hardly at all.”
The inspector laughed. “Very well, sir. I guess I have been trying
your patience a bit. But now you’ve got that telephone business done
with, perhaps we might have a chat.”
“Distrustful lot of men, the police,” Roger murmured. “Disgustingly.
Well, what about a visit to the sitting-room? That bottle of whisky
isn’t nearly finished, you know.”
“I’ll be with you in half-a-minute, sir,” said the inspector quite
briskly.
Roger went on ahead and mixed two drinks, one stiff, one so stiff as
to be almost rigid. The inspector, smacking his lips over the latter
two minutes later, remarked regretfully that that was good stuff for
nowadays, that was, but it was a pity they filled the bottles half up
with water in these times before the stuff ever got into a glass at
all. It is a hard business, trying to loosen a Scotland Yard
Inspector’s tongue.
“Well, now,” said Roger, pulling himself together and settling down
more comfortably in his chair. “Well, now, Inspector, what about it
all? If you feel a little more disposed to be confidential, isn’t this
rather a good opportunity to review the case as it stands at present?
I’m inclined to think it is.”
The inspector set down his glass and wiped his moustache. “You mean,
while there’s only two of us to do the discussing instead of three?”
he asked with a large wink.
“Exactly. My cousin’s outlook is—well, not altogether unprejudiced.”
“And is yours, sir?” asked the inspector shrewdly.
Roger laughed. “A palpable hit. Well, I certainly do _not_ think the
young lady in whom you’ve been taking so much interest has anything to
do with it, I must confess. In fact, I’ll go further and say that I’ve
absolutely made up my mind on the point.”
“And yet the evidence points more conclusively to her than to anybody
else,” remarked the inspector mildly.
“Oh, no doubt. But evidence can be faked, can’t it? And you yourself
were pointing out to me only a few hours ago that things aren’t always
what they seem.”
“Was I, now?” queried the inspector, with an air of gentle surprise.
“Oh, Inspector, don’t start fencing with me again!” Roger implored.
“I’ve given you a perfectly good drink, I’m prepared to hand over to
you all my startling and original ideas—do try to be human!”
“Well, Mr. Sheringham, what is it you want to discuss?” asked the
inspector, evidently trying hard to be human.
“Everything!” returned Roger largely. “Our interview just now; my idea
about Mrs. Russell; your suspicions of Miss Cross (if you really have
suspicions, and aren’t just pulling my leg)—everything!”
“Very well, sir,” said the inspector equably. “Where shall we start?”
“Well, we began just now with Miss Cross. I want to add a word to the
very dogmatic statement I made, though it’s not really necessary. You
know, of course, why I’m so convinced she had nothing to do with it?”
“Well, I won’t make you wild by saying ‘because she’s an uncommonly
pretty girl,’” the inspector smiled. “I’ll wrap it up a bit more and
say ‘because you think she couldn’t commit a murder to save her
life.’”
“That’s right,” Roger nodded. “In other words, for overwhelmingly
psychological reasons. If that girl isn’t as transparently straight as
they make ’em, may I never call myself a judge of character again!”
“She _is_ uncommonly pretty, I must say,” remarked the inspector
non-committally.
Roger disregarded the irrelevance. “You must have to make use of
psychology in your business, Inspector, and continual use too. Every
detective must be a psychologist, whether he knows it or not. Don’t
all your instincts tell you that girl’s as innocent—I don’t mean
merely of this crime, but innocent-_minded_—as you’d wish any daughter
of your own to be?”
The inspector tugged at his moustache. “We detectives may have to know
a bit about psychology, as you say, sir; I’m not disputing that. But
it’s our business to deal in facts, not fancies; and the thing we’ve
got to pay most attention to is evidence. And in nine cases out of ten
I’ll back evidence (even purely circumstantial evidence like this)
against all the psychology in the world.”
Roger smiled. “The professional point of view, as opposed to the
amateur. Well, naturally I don’t agree with you, and as I said, I’m
not at all sure that you aren’t pulling my leg about Miss Cross all
the time. Let’s go on to that interview of ours this evening. I
needn’t ask you whether you saw that Master Colin wasn’t being
altogether as frank with us as he might have been. He was keeping
something back, wasn’t he?”
“He was, sir,” the inspector agreed cheerfully. “His real reason for
breaking with Mrs. Vane.”
“Yes, that’s what I meant. You don’t think it was the reason he
certainly wanted us to believe, then—that he was bored with her?”
“I know it wasn’t,” the inspector returned shrewdly. “He’s a
chivalrous young gentleman as far as the ladies are concerned, is Mr.
Woodthorpe, and he’d never break with an old flame who was still
desperately in love with him merely because he’d got bored with her.
There was some much more powerful reason than that behind it.”
“Ah!” said Roger. “I was right; you are a psychologist, after all,
Inspector. And what do you think of this reason that friend Colin is
so industriously hiding from us?”
“I think,” the inspector said slowly, “that it would go a long way
toward clearing up the case for us, if we knew it.”
Roger whistled. “As important as all that, eh? I must say, I hadn’t
arrived at that conclusion myself. And have you got any inkling as to
its nature?”
“Well—!” The inspector took a sup of whisky and wiped his moustache
again with some deliberation. “Well, the most likely thing would be
another girl, wouldn’t it?”
“You mean, he’d fallen seriously in love elsewhere?”
“_And_ wanted to get engaged to her,” the inspector amplified. “_Was_
engaged to her secretly, if you like. That’s the only thing I can see
important enough to make him resolve to break with Mrs. Vane at all
costs.”
Roger nodded slowly. “Yes, I think you’re right.—But I’m blessed if I
see how knowing it for certain is going to clear up the case for you?”
“Can’t you, sir?” the inspector replied cautiously. “Well perhaps it’s
only a whim of mine, so we’ll say no more about it for the time
being.”
Roger’s curiosity was piqued, but he knew that its gratification was
impossible. Accepting defeat, he turned to another aspect of the case.
“What did you think of that Russell theory of mine, by the way?” he
inquired.
“Since you ask me, sir,” answered the inspector with candour,
“nothing!”
“Oh!” said Roger, somewhat dashed.
“I’d already collected all the gossip on those lines,” the inspector
proceeded more kindly, “and I’ve had a few words with the lady
herself, as well as her husband. It didn’t take long to satisfy me
that there was nothing for me there.”
Roger, who had confidently assumed that the Russell idea had been his
and his alone, looked his chagrin. “But it _was_ a woman who was with
Mrs. Vane before she died,” he argued. “And a woman with large feet at
that. In fact, it hardly seems too much to assume that it was a woman
with large feet who pushed Mrs. Vane over that cliff. Find a woman
with large feet who’d got a big grudge against Mrs. Vane, and—! Well,
anyhow, why are you so sure that Mrs. Russell is out of it?”
“She’s got an alibi. I followed it up, naturally. Cast-iron. Whoever
the woman was, it wasn’t Mrs. Russell. But don’t forget what I said
once before, will you, Mr. Sheringham? Footprints are the easiest
things in the world to fake.”
“Humph!” Roger stroked his chin with a thoughtful air. “You mean, they
might have been made by a man with small feet, wearing a woman’s shoes
for the express purpose?”
“It might have been anything,” said the inspector guardedly. “All that
those footprints mean to me at present is that there was another
_person_ on that ledge with Mrs. Vane.”
“And that person was the murderer?”
“You might put it like that.”
Roger considered further. “You’ve gone into the question of motive, of
course. Has it struck you what a tremendous lot of people had a motive
for wishing this unfortunate lady out of the way?”
“The difficulty is to find anybody who hadn’t,” the inspector agreed.
“Yes, that’s what it really does amount to. Very confusing,
considering how valuable a motive usually is. Establish your motive
and there’s your murderer, is a pretty sound rule at Scotland Yard, I
understand. Help yourself to some more whisky, Inspector.”
“Well, thank you, sir,” said the inspector, and did so. “Yes, you’re
right. I can’t say I ever remember a case when so many people had a
reason, big or little, for wishing the victim dead. Here’s luck, Mr.
Sheringham, sir!”
“Cheerio!” Roger returned mechanically.
They fell into silence. Roger realised that the inspector, while
pretending outwardly to be ready enough to discuss the case, was in
reality determined to do nothing of the kind, at any rate so far as
giving away his own particular theory was concerned. Official
reticence, no doubt, and of course perfectly right and proper; but
distinctly galling for all that. If the inspector would only consent
to work with him frankly, Roger felt, they really might achieve
excellent results between them; as it was, they must work apart. This
professional jealousy of the amateur was really rather petty,
especially as Roger would not insist upon any large share of the
credit for a swift and successful solution. Well, at least he would
present his rival (for such, apparently, was what the inspector was
determined to be) with no more gratuitous clues such as that
interesting scrap of paper, that was flat!
In the meantime, all being fair in love and war, it was always open to
him to pick his opponent’s brains to the best of his ability. He tried
a new tack.
“You were asking me on the way back what I meant by applying the word
‘imprudent’ to Mrs. Vane,” he said with an air of ingenuous candour.
“I’ll tell you. From what I can gather about her, the lady was
anything but imprudent. She certainly married the doctor for his
money, so far as my information goes; she cozened that extremely
generous settlement out of him; and I’m quite sure that over anything
which might affect her material welfare, imprudent is the very last
thing in the world she would be. So if she struck that boy as being
so, she was bluffing.”
“You mean, that she never intended to tell her husband at all? I see.
Yes, that’s my opinion too. It wouldn’t square with my information
about her either, not by a long chalk.”
“Then what do you think her game was? Do you imagine she was genuinely
in love with him?”
“Well, sir, that’s impossible to say, isn’t it? But knowing what I do
about the lady, I should say she’d got some deeper game on than that.
Something that was going to turn out to her material welfare, as you
put it, I wouldn’t mind betting.”
“Of course you’ve had her past history probed into?” Roger remarked,
with careful indifference. “That’s where you Scotland Yard people can
always score over the free-lance sleuth. Did anything interesting come
to light? I gather she was a bit of a daisy.”
The inspector hesitated and filled in a pause by application to his
glass. Clearly he was debating whether any harm could be done by
divulging this official secret. In the end he decided to risk it.
“Well,” he said, wiping his moustache, “you’ll understand that this is
strictly confidential, sir, but we _have_ had a man on the job—or two
or three men, for that matter, both in London and up in the north,
where the lady originally came from; and a few very interesting facts
they were able to bring to light, too. Nobody has the slightest idea
down here, of course, but the woman who called herself Mrs. Vane—well,
she _was_ a bit of a daisy, as you say.”
Roger’s eyes gleamed. “What do you mean, Inspector? _Called_ herself
Mrs. Vane? Wasn’t she really?”
The inspector did not answer the question directly. He leaned back in
his chair and puffed at his pipe for a moment or two, then began to
speak in a meditative tone.
“There’s real bad blood in that family—proper criminal stock, you
might call ’em. The great-grandfather was one of the smartest burglars
we’ve ever had in this country; they knew all about him at
headquarters, but they never caught him. He never _was_ caught, in
fact. A lot of his jobs were put down later on to Charlie Peace, but
they weren’t, they were his all right; and he was lucky, while Peace
wasn’t. His son was a cut above burglaring. The old man left him a lot
of cash, and he set up a bucket-shop in Liverpool. But he did
over-reach himself. He served one stretch of three years, and one of
five.
“This chap had two daughters and one son. They were left in pretty
poor circumstances, because before he died their father managed to get
rid of all the money he’d been left and all he’d made for himself
besides. He’d managed to get rid of one of his daughters, as well
before this, however—Miss Cross’s mother, who married an army officer
and passes out of the family history. The son was a bit of a bad egg,
but he went over to America and operated there; he’s still alive, and
as a matter of fact in prison at the moment. Confidence-man, his
little game is.
“The other daughter, Mrs. Vane’s mother, we’ve got nothing particular
against either. She married a tradesman in Liverpool in a fair way of
business, but ran away with another man after she’d brought him into
the bankruptcy court by her extravagance, leaving her child, then ten
years old, behind her. Her husband removed to London, taking the child
with him, and took a post with a firm of wholesale chemists. He died
when Mrs. Vane was seventeen, leaving nothing but debts.
“That left the girl a bit in the air. She got three months for
shoplifting under an assumed name soon after her father died, and that
taught her to be a bit more careful. She went out for bigger game
after that. She was part-owner, and incidentally decoy, for a gambling
joint in the West End till the police shut it up, and when times were
hard she was usually able to make her keep out of the sort of rich
young idiot who can be taken in by a baby face and a clinging
manner—or rich old idiot too, for that matter. However, when she met
Vane she really does seem to have been on her uppers. Still, she took
him in all right, and he went further than all the other idiots and
offered her marriage. She played him well, one must say, because she
must have been in a blue funk all the time in case anything came out
about the sort of person she really was. Anybody can see that the
doctor’s got the very devil of a temper, and once he found out
anything it would all be U. P.” The inspector paused and refreshed
himself with a meditative air.
“Go on, Inspector!” Roger cried. “I know you’re keeping the tit-bit
for the last.”
“Can’t put anything past you, Mr. Sheringham,” grinned his companion.
“Yes, during the war, we’ve discovered, before she ever met Vane she
went through a form of marriage with a man called Herbert Peters. We
don’t know anything about Mr. Herbert Peters, but we’ve been looking
for him pretty hard during the last day or two. No, we haven’t found
him yet, and for all we know he may be dead.—He might even,” the
inspector added judicially, “have been dead at the time of her
marriage to the doctor.”
“But you’re pretty sure he wasn’t, eh?” asked Roger softly.
“I’d take my Bible oath on it!” returned the inspector piously.