Birds of the Air
1
It was a few minutes after half-past four when Anthony descended to
the street and re-entered his car. Through London he drove fast; clear
of it, terrifically. Always, when he found himself disturbed, he
sought consolation in speed. It was preferable to be on a horse; but
the car was better than nothing. Besides, was there not work to be
done?
On the journey he thought much. One half of his mind was occupied with
a problem of _x_ and _y_; the other with a quantity more obscure even
than _x_. It was that second half of his mind which conceived doubts
of the worthiness of Anthony Ruthven Gethryn. The sensation was new.
As he drove through the great gates of Abbotshall and up the drive,
the clock over the stables struck. A quarter to six! If the distance
from Kensington to Marling is what they say it is, the word
“terrifically” was not misused.
He stopped the car. Round the corner of the house, running, came Sir
Arthur Digby-Coates. Though the thick, gray-flecked hair was unruffled
by the wind of his speed, there was yet an agitation, a wildness about
him, his fluttering tie, his clothes, most unusual.
He panted up to the car. “Gethryn, Gethryn! Just the man I was
wanting! Where’ve you been?”
“London.” Anthony was almost surly. He had been dreaming a dream.
“My God!” Sir Arthur pulled at his collar as if he were choking. “Look
here! I must talk to you. But not here. Not here! Come in! Come in! My
room’ll be best. Come on!”
Anthony was dragged into the house and up the stairs and into Sir
Arthur’s room. They sat, in chairs drawn up to the window. In his,
Anthony lay back, but the elder man hunched himself like a nervous
schoolboy, sitting on the edge of his chair with his feet thrust
backwards and then outwards until they protruded behind and beside
each of the front legs. It was an old trick of his when preoccupied,
and never ceased to amuse Anthony.
It was some time before Sir Arthur spoke. He seemed in his agitation
to have difficulty in finding words. His hands twisted about each
other.
“God!” he burst out at last. “What _are_ we to do?”
“About what?”
“About this awful, this horrible mistake.” Suddenly he jumped to his
feet and stood over Anthony. “Why—is it possible—haven’t you heard?
About Deacon?”
Anthony shook his head.
“Why, man, they’ve arrested him! The coroner’s jury passed a verdict
against him. And the police have arrested him. Arrested him!”
“Quite natural, when you think of it,” said Anthony.
Sir Arthur stared at him. “D’you mean you think he did it?” he roared.
“That boy!”
“No. I’m sure he didn’t.”
Sir Arthur sighed loud relief. “Thank the Lord for that! But, Gethryn,
how was it you hadn’t heard about this? And if you hadn’t, how was it
you weren’t surprised? Weren’t you at the inquest?”
“Only roughly speaking,” said Anthony. “And I wasn’t surprised because
I knew on what evidence the police were working. Pardon me if I seem
flippant—I’m not really—but what we’ve got to do is to find out who
really did kill Cock Robin. That’s the only way of getting Deacon off.
The police take Deacon to be the Sparrow. You and I believe that he
isn’t; but we’ve got to admit that the case against him is good,
extraordinarily good. His size and strength fit the part of the
murderer. And above all his finger-marks were found on the Bow and
Arrow. That last will want a deal of explaining, especially to an
English jury, who don’t, as a rule, know that real life’s more like a
fairy story than Hans Andersen.”
“I know, I know,” Sir Arthur groaned. “Those finger-prints. He must
have touched the—the—what do they call the thing?”
“Wood-rasp. A file for wood.”
“Ah, yes. He—I suppose he _must_ have touched it. Must have. But I’ll
swear the boy had nothing to do with—with John’s death. And he said
he’d never seen the thing. And I believe him!”
“So he’d never even seen the thing,” Anthony said. “Now that’s
interesting. Most interesting!”
But Sir Arthur was not listening. “What I’m feeling so—so damnably,”
he burst out, “is that my evidence helped to make things look worse
for the boy.”
“How?”
“Because they took mine first; and in describing that awful night I
mentioned, like the idiot I am, that Deacon had come into my room at a
quarter to eleven. You see, he’d asked me the time, and I’d told him:
that’s what made me remember. Then later it all came out about the
clock in the study, and now every one says the boy put the hands back
because he knew he had an alibi. Oh! It’s all a ghastly, horrible
mistake!”
“It is; and we shan’t mend it by sitting here and talking.” Anthony
got to his feet. “By the way, before I go, tell me: what is Mrs.
Mainwaring, who is she, that this poor swine don’t see her? If it
comes to that, why is she here at all?”
Sir Arthur made a wry face. “Why you haven’t seen her I can’t tell.
Why she’s staying here is, I’m sorry to say, for the notoriety. Any
decent person would have left the house at once. I’m disgusted; I used
almost to like the woman. I would have left, but Laura wished me to
stay. And she’s so apathetic that she won’t get rid of the
Mainwaring.”
“I must see the lady,” said Anthony.
Sir Arthur looked at him with curiosity, but found no enlightenment.
“In fact,” said Anthony, “I must see both ladies.”
Sir Arthur looked at him again, with no result.
“A last question,” Anthony said: “what—without prejudice—do you think
of the man-servant, Robert Belford of the ferret face?”
“I wondered whether you’d ask about him,” Sir Arthur said eagerly. “I
didn’t like to say anything because I really know nothing against him
at all. Never had anything to do with him, in fact. He used to valet
John, and would have me, only I don’t use valets. It’s simply that I
can’t bear the fellow; his looks are enough to make any one
suspicious. And he’s been more furtive than ever—since the—the
murder.”
“H’m,” grunted Anthony.
“It’s really very ungrateful of me,” said Sir Arthur, “to say anything
against the man. He was one—or really two—of the witnesses to the fact
that I was sitting here in this chair from ten until after—until poor
old John was found. But still, joking aside, I have a very real
feeling that Mr. Belford at least knows more than he has told.”
“H’m. Yes,” Anthony said. “And now for Miss Hoode. Where can I find
her?”
“I think she’s downstairs somewhere, but I’m not sure. I say, Gethryn,
you’re not going to—to cross-examine her, are you? I mean I don’t
think she’ll want a lot of talk about——”
“No,” Anthony said, crossing the room, “probably she won’t.”
Sir Arthur opened his mouth to speak; but was left staring at the
closed door.
As he shut it behind him, Anthony caught sight of a black-clad figure
disappearing round the corner by the stairhead. It was a back he had
seen before. It wore an air of stealthy discomfort; and the speed with
which it had vanished was in itself suspicious.
Anthony laughed. “Belford, my friend,” he thought, “if you _have_ done
anything naughty, you’re simply asking to be found out.” He went on
and down the stairs.
2
This evening, thought Anthony, as he stood facing her by the open
windows of the drawing-room, Laura Hoode was even less prepossessing
than she had seemed on the day before. She had risen at his entry, and
though the thin, sharp-featured face was calm, he somehow felt her
perturbation.
She waved him to a chair. He sank into it, draping one long leg over
its fellow.
“What do you want of me, Mr. Gethryn?” The voice was lifeless as the
woman, and Anthony shivered. The sexless always alarmed him.
“A great deal, Miss Hoode.” In spite of his aversion his tone was
blandly courteous.
“I cannot imagine——”
“Please—one moment,” said Anthony. “As you know, I came down here to
Marling to find out, if possible, who killed your brother. A——”
“That task,” said the woman, “has already been performed.”
“Not quite, I think. In my opinion, young Deacon had no more to do
with the murder than I. Each minute I spend in this house increases my
certainty. This morning I found something I had been looking for,
something that may throw a light where one is badly needed, something
which you must tell me about.”
She drew herself yet more upright on her straight-backed chair.
“Mr. Gethryn,” she said, “I like neither your manner nor your
manners.”
“Unfortunately,” said Anthony grimly, “neither manner nor manners
matter just now. Miss Hoode, I started on this business half out of
boredom, half because a friend asked me to; but now—well, I’m going to
finish it.”
“But—but I don’t understand at all what you are talking about.” The
woman was plainly bewildered, yet there seemed in her tone to be an
uneasiness not born of bewilderment alone.
Anthony took from his breast-pocket a thick packet of letters. The
paper was a deep mauve, the envelopes covered with heavy, sprawling
characters. The bundle was held together by a broad ribbon, this too
of deep mauve. He balanced the little bundle in the palm of his hand;
then looked up to see white rage on the bony, dull face of the woman.
The rage, he thought, was not unmixed with fear; but not the kind of
fear he had expected.
“These,” he said, “are what I want you to explain. To explain, that
is, who they are from, and why you took them from your brother’s desk
and hid them again in your own room.”
She rose to her feet; moved a step forward. “You—you——” she began, and
choked on the words.
Anthony stood up. “Oh, I know I’m a filthy spy. Don’t imagine that I
think this private inquiry agent game is anything but noisome. It has
been nasty, it will be nasty, and it is nasty, in spite of the cachet
of Conan Doyle. I know, none better, that to rifle your room while you
were at the inquest this morning was a filthy thing to do. I know that
brow-beating you now is filthier—but I’m going to find out who killed
your brother.”
“It was that boy,” said the woman, white-lipped. She had fallen back
into her chair.
“It was not that boy. And that’s why I shall go on thinking and spying
and crawling and bullying until I find out who it really was. Now,
tell me why you stole those letters.” He moved forward and stood
looking down at her.
An ugly, dull flush spread over her face. She sat erect. Her
colourless eyes flamed.
“You think—you _dare_ to think _I_ killed _him_?” she cried in a
dreadful whisper.
Anthony shook his head. “Not necessarily. I shall know better what I
think when you’ve told me what I want to know.”
“But what have those foul scratchings to do with—with John’s death?”
She pointed a shaking finger at the little package in his hands.
“Nothing, everything, or just enough,” said Anthony. “You’re asking me
the very questions which I want you, indirectly, to answer.”
She said: “I refuse,” and closed tightly the thin-lipped mouth.
“Must I force your hand?” he asked. “Very well. You must tell me what
I want to know, because, if you don’t, I shall go to Scotland Yard,
where I have some small influence, and lay these letters and the story
of how I found them before the authorities. You must tell me because,
if you don’t, you will lead me to believe that you do, in fact, know
something of how your brother met his death. You must tell me because,
if you don’t”—he paused, and looked at her until she felt the gaze of
the greenish eyes set in the swarthy face to be unbearable—“because,
if you don’t,” he repeated, “the contents of these letters and their
implication are bound to become known to others beside you and me. You
will tell me because to keep that last from happening you would do
anything.”
Even as he finished speaking he knew that last shot had told, fired
though it had been in the dark. The woman crumpled. And in her terror
Anthony found her more human than before.
“No, no, no!” she whispered. “I’ll tell. I’ll tell.”
Anthony stood, waiting.
“Did you read those—those letters?” The words came tumbling from her
lips in almost unseemly haste.
Anthony nodded assent.
“Then you must know that this _woman_—the _Thing_ that wrote them was
John’s—John’s—mistress.”
Again he nodded, watching curiously the emotions that supplanted each
other in the nondescript face of his victim. Fear he had seen and
anxiety; but now there were both these with horror, indignation,
tenderness for the dead, and a fervour of distaste for anything which
savoured of “loose living.” He remembered what he had been told of the
lady’s rigid dissentingness, and understood.
She went on, more confidently now that she had once brought herself to
speak of “unpleasantnesses” to this strange man who watched her with
his strange eyes.
“You see,” she said, “nearly a year ago I found out that John was—was
associating with this—this woman. I will not tell you how I found
out—it is too long a story—but my discovery was accidental. I taxed my
brother with his wickedness; but he was so—strange and abrupt—his
manner was violent—that I had to leave him with my protest barely
voiced.
“Afterwards I tried again and again to make him see the folly, the
horror of the sin he was committing—but he would never listen. He
would not listen to me, to me who had looked after him since he left
school! And I was weak—sinfully weak—and I gave up trying to influence
him and—and tried to forget what I had learnt. But those letters kept
coming and then John would go away, and I—oh! what is the use——” She
broke off, covering her face with her hands.
Anthony felt a growing pity; a pity irrationally the stronger for his
own feeling of sympathy with the dead man in what must have been a
sordid enough struggle against colourless Puritanism.
She dabbed at the red-rimmed eyes with a handkerchief and struggled
on.
“There is not much more to tell you except—except that I—stole those
letters for the very reason which you used to—to force me to tell you
about them. It is wicked of me, but though John did sin, had been
living a life of sin, I determined to keep him clean in the eyes of
the world; to keep the knowledge of the evil that he did from the
sordid newspapers which would delight in making public the sins of the
man they are lamenting as a loss to the nation. And he is a loss to
the nation. My poor brother—my poor little brother———” She leant her
head against the back of her chair and wept, wept hopelessly,
bitterly. The tears rolled slowly, unheeded, down the thin cheeks.
Anthony felt himself despicable. A great surge of pity—almost of
tenderness—swept over him. Yet the thought of the great-bodied,
great-hearted, cleanly-sane man who was like to be hanged held him to
his work.
“Do you know,” he asked, leaning forward, “the name of this woman?”
“Yes.” Her tone was drab, hopeless; she seemed broken. “At least, I
know that which she goes by.”
Anthony waited in some bewilderment.
“She is a dancer,” said the woman, “and shameless. They call her
Vanda.”
“Good God!” Anthony was startled into surprise. He was a fervent
admirer, from this side the footlights, of the beautiful Russian. He
reflected that politicians were not always unlucky.
He got to his feet. The woman started into life.
“The letters!” she cried. “Give me the letters!”
He handed them to her. “My only stipulation,” he said, “is that
they’re not to be destroyed until I give the word.” He looked at her
searchingly. “I know that you won’t attempt to be rid of them until
then. And please believe, Miss Hoode, that you have my sincere
sympathy, and that there will be no idle talk of what we two know.”
“Oh, I believe you,” she said wearily. “And now, I suppose you are
happy. Though what good you have done Heaven alone knows!”
Anthony looked down at her. “The good I have done is this: I have
added to my knowledge. I know, now, that you had nothing to do with
your brother’s death. And I know there is a woman in the business and
who she is. She may not be concerned either directly or indirectly,
but the hackneyed French saying is often a useful principle to work
on.”
The pale eyes of Laura Hoode regarded him with curiosity. He felt with
surprise that she seemed every minute to grow more human.
“You are an unusual person, Mr. Gethryn,” she said. “You spy upon me
and torture me—and yet I feel that I like you.” She paused; then went
on: “You’ll tell me that you know that the young man Deacon did not
kill my brother; you tell me that although I have behaved so
suspiciously you know also that I had nothing to do with—with the
crime. How do you know these things?”
Anthony smiled. “I know,” he said, “because you both told me. I know
that neither of you did it as you would know, after talking to him,
that the bishop hadn’t really stolen the little girl’s sixpence, even
though all the newspapers had said he did. Now I must go. Good-night.”
He left Laura Hoode smiling, smiling as she had not for many months.
As he entered the hall from the passage, a woman rushed at him. She
was tall, and suspiciously beautiful. She drooped and made eyes. She
was shy and daring and coy.
“Oh!” she gasped. “Is it Colonel Gethryn? _Is_ it? Oh, you _must_ be?
Oh, Colonel, how _thrilling_ to meet you! How _too_ thrilling!”
Mrs. Roland Mainwaring pleased Anthony not at all. It is to be
deplored that he was at no pains to conceal his distaste.
“Mrs. Mainwaring?” he said. “Madam, the thrill is yours.”
She stood blocking his path. Perforce he stood still.
“Oh, colonel, _do_ tell me you don’t think that _sweet_ boy—oh! the
beastly police—it’s all _too_, too horrible and _awful_!”
Anthony laughed. The thought of Deacon as a “_sweet boy_” amused him.
The lady regarded his mirth with suspicion.
Anthony became ponderously official. “Your questions, madam, are
embarrassing. But my opinions are—my opinions; and I keep them”—he
tapped his forehead solemnly—“here.”
Awe-stricken eyes were rolled at him. “Oh, colonel,” she whispered.
“Oh, colonel! How _won-derful_!” Then, coyly: “How lucky for little me
that I’m a poor, weak woman!”
“I have always,” said Anthony gravely, “believed in equal rights for
women. They occupy an equal footing with men in my—opinions.” He bowed
and brushed past her, crossing the hall.