THE EFFECT ON LADY RAYTHAM
In a few words she told her companion. For his part he was too
worried about her presence to comprehend fully.
“You had better get into the car, Leslie. Driver, take Miss
Maughan----”
“I’ll stay here,” said Leslie in a low voice. “I’m not very shocked.
And please don’t touch that overcoat.”
He was stooping to unfasten the button when she spoke.
“Not till you let me see it.”
Mr. Coldwell hesitated a moment and then stepped aside, and the girl
bent over the figure, keeping her eyes averted from that white face.
“I thought so,” she said. “The second button has been fastened to the
third buttonhole. Whoever killed him, put on his overcoat and buttoned
it. Now you can unfasten it.”
Mr. Coldwell sent the chauffeur for assistance and resumed his
examination of the body. The man had been shot at close range through
the heart; the waistcoat had been burned by the explosion. There were
no other injuries that he could see. One side of the figure was yellow
with dust, as though it had been dragged some distance along the
ground.
“I wish you wouldn’t----”
Coldwell looked round in helpless distress. He had taken an electric
flash light from the car before he sent it away, and this he had
placed on the path so that the rays spread fan-shape over the body.
“Couldn’t you wait at a little distance?”
“Please don’t worry about me, Mr. Coldwell,” said Leslie. There was no
tremor in her voice, he noted with satisfaction. “I am not going to
faint. You seem to forget that the majority of nurses are women; and
death isn’t so horrible to me as some expressions of life. Can I help
you at all? I’ve got a tiny little pencil lamp in my bag.”
He scratched his chin.
“I don’t know,” he said dubiously. “You might look in the road and see
if you can find any marks of a body being dragged, and then search
around a bit.”
She got out the lamp, which, in spite of its smallness, gave a very
bright light, and carried out his instructions methodically. She had
not to look far before she found the traces she sought: a serpentine
smear that reached from the centre of the road to the sidewalk. There
were stains--little red smudges that were still wet when she put her
finger to them.
The conditions were favourable to an undisturbed search, for Barnes
Common was unusually free from traffic. One motor bus lumbered past, a
homeward-bound limousine from town was succeeded by another, and if
the chauffeurs were interested in the spectacle of a man kneeling by
what looked like a heap of rags on the sidewalk, the occupants of the
cars did not apparently share their curiosity.
She paced the trail, judged it to be between twelve and thirteen feet
from the place where the body was found. On the other side of the
footpath was rough, common land: grass and bushes in irregular
patches. She began to search the ground; and here she had an unusual
reward, for, passing round a thick, low bush, she saw, lying together
on the grass, a number of objects. The first was a flat pocketbook
that had been opened and its contents pulled out, for round about was
a litter of papers, which she collected quickly. Fortunately, it was a
still night, and there was no wind to carry them away. The second
package was a brown envelope, and she made a brief examination.
There was a steamship ticket issued to “Anthony Druze, First Class
Saloon, Southampton to New York.” In this envelope was a new passport.
The third object was also a pocketbook--brand-new--the perfume of the
Russian-leather cover told her that. This also had been opened in such
a hurry that the strap about it had been broken. It was stuffed tight
with thousand-dollar notes.
She collected the three packages and sought for more, but there was
none. And then she took stock of the place where she had found them.
It was immediately behind a big bush which effectively screened all
view of the road. She put her lamp close to the ground and moved it
slowly. Here was a curiously mottled patch of grass; in some places it
was gray with frost, in others wet and crushed. The ground was too
hard for footprints, but without their aid she could reconstruct all
that had happened here less than an hour ago. Somebody had come behind
this brush to examine the contents of the pockets; the papers had been
taken out one by one, examined and thrown away, and the object had not
been robbery. The tightly filled pocketbook proved that. It could not
have been a chance thief who came upon the body; no honest person
would have made this search. It had been somebody looking for a
definite thing.
She went back to Coldwell with her discoveries just as the police car
came flying over the railway bridge, followed by a motor ambulance.
She told Coldwell hurriedly what she had found, and he was not
surprised.
“I’ve been searching his pockets; most of them are inside out,” he
said. And then, abruptly: “Where is Peter Dawlish?”
She stared at him open-mouthed.
“Peter Dawlish? What has he got to do----”
And then she remembered Peter’s threat, and saw that it was inevitable
that suspicion should attach to him.
“He hadn’t a pistol yesterday,” she said, “and I doubt whether he’s
got one now. If Druze had been shot dead in the street I should think
he’d be under suspicion, but Peter Dawlish would hardly shoot a man,
put him in a car, and drive him to Barnes.”
The old man nodded.
“I agree with you, Leslie, but we shall have to pull him in and make
inquiries. Druze has been shot three times; that’s rather a queer
thing, and he has been shot through the heart! We shan’t know exactly
until the pathologist has seen him, but I think I am right. And
listen, did you see the footprints?”
He pointed to the smooth granite curb, and she saw for the first time
the indubitable impressions of a bare foot; the ball of the foot and
toe prints were unmistakable.
He put the three packages Leslie had found in his overcoat pocket.
“Go along and see Lady Raytham and tell her what has happened. Take
this with you, and for the love of Mike don’t lose it!”
He put the square emerald in her hand, and she dropped it into her
bag.
“If it’s the pendant, as you say, find out what has happened to the
rest of the necklace.”
He bundled her into the police car, and she was glad to escape,
because by now the large force of police on the spot had been
augmented by that curious crowd which sooner or later gathers from
nowhere on the scene of any tragedy.
The windows were in darkness when she drove up to the house in
Berkeley Square, and instead of ringing she wielded the heavy knocker.
She had to wait a little time, and then it was a footman who opened
the door, and his manner and mien were both respectful and a little
nervous.
“Do you want to see her ladyship, miss?” he said. “She’s upstairs with
Mrs. Gurden; there is Mrs. Gurden now.”
Greta was coming down the stairs. She was in that peculiar style of
evening dress which she affected. Greta made most of her own clothes
from the latest Paris models and usually in the most unsuitable
material. Their “home-madeness” was never blatant. They did not
proclaim but hinted it.
Leslie looked up at the rouged face and the black, staring eyes, and
it required no particular acumen on her part to detect Greta Gurden’s
agitation.
“Oh, my dear Miss whatever-your-name is,” she said, “do come up and
see Lady Raytham! You are Miss what-is-your-name? Maughan, isn’t it?
I’m so glad! Druze has been a perfect beast.” She held out her hand
dramatically; it was shaking. “You don’t know how glad I am to see
you.”
Her eyelids were blinking up and down with a rapidity that fascinated
and would have amused Leslie in any other circumstances.
“What has Druze been doing?” she asked.
“Won’t you come up and see Lady Raytham?” begged Greta. “She’ll tell
you so much better than I. My dear Jane can put everything into the
most understandable terms. Druze has been simply awful: made a
terrible scene and walked out quite suddenly. It’s dreadful what
servants are coming to, isn’t it? I think it must be the war or----”
A cool voice from the darkness above interrupted her flow of
disjointed explanation.
“Ask Miss Maughan to come up. I want to see her--alone.”
Leslie went up the stairs, and as she reached the first turn, she saw
that the drawing-room door was open. There was no light on the stairs,
save for that which came from the open door. In one corner of the
spacious landing she saw a small-wheeled table.
She walked in, closing the door behind her. Lady Raytham was standing
behind a little table near the fireplace. She wore a dark day dress
without ornamentation, and Leslie’s quick woman’s eyes saw that she
had changed her stockings; the very fine-textured, flesh-coloured
hosiery she had seen on her earlier that evening had been replaced by
a slightly darker pair. But only for a second did the details of the
dress interest her. What a change had come to Jane Raytham’s face! She
was made up, that was clear. The delicate flush of her cheeks was
neither natural nor normal in her; she had helped her lips toward a
verisimilitude to a healthy red. Her eyes, however, defied all
artificial aid; they seemed to have sunk into her head; great dark
circles, which even careful powdering could not disguise, surrounded
them.
“Have you brought me any news?” she drawled out. It was not like Lady
Raytham to drawl. “I telephoned to you about an hour ago, but
unfortunately I could not catch you. On the whole, I think I prefer
that a woman officer should deal with this case.”
“Has he stolen anything?” asked Leslie bluntly, and to her amazement
Lady Raytham shook her head.
“No, I’ve missed nothing; I shouldn’t imagine he would steal. He may
have, of course, but I shall be able to tell you more about that
to-morrow. He was grossly insulting and left me at a second’s notice.”
“Have you been out?”
“Yes, I went to a dinner with Princess Anita Bellini; we intended
going on to the theatre, but I had a headache and decided to return.”
“What time did you come back?” asked Leslie.
Lady Raytham raised her eyes to the ceiling.
“It may have been half-past nine--probably a little earlier,” she
said. “We dined at a little restaurant which the princess knows----”
“And then you came back and had another dinner!” said Leslie steadily.
“The table is still on the landing--set for two, so far as I could
see.”
For a second the woman was staggered out of self-control. Her hand
went up to her lips.
“Oh, that?” she said awkwardly. “My friend Mrs. Gurden came later,
and--and we gave her some supper.”
Leslie shook her head.
“I wish you would be frank with me, Lady Raytham,” she said. “The
truth is, you didn’t go out to dinner at all, did you?”
For a second the woman made no reply.
“I don’t know what I did,” she said.
Between despair and suppressed anger her voice was a wail.
“He drove everything out of my mind. Oh, if I had known! If I had
known!”
She covered her eyes with her hands, and Leslie heard the sobs she
could not stifle.
“What did he say to you before he went?” she asked inexorably.
Lady Raytham shook her head.
“I can’t tell you. He was dreadful, dreadful!”
Leslie had waited this opportunity to fire her shot.
“He is in our hands,” she said. “Shall we bring him here?”
The woman uncovered her eyes and stepped back with a little scream.
“Here? Here?” she said huskily. “My heavens, not here! He must go to
the mort----”
She stopped herself, but too late.
“How did you know he was dead?” asked Leslie sternly.
Under the rouge the woman’s face was gray.