PLAIN WORDS FROM MR. BEALE
Oliva Cresswell did not feel at all sleepy, so she discovered, by the
time she was ready for bed. To retire in that condition of wakefulness
meant another sleepless night, and she slipped a kimono over her, found
a book and settled into the big wicker-chair under the light for the
half-hour's reading which would reduce her to the necessary state of
drowsiness. The book at any other time would have held her attention,
but now she found her thoughts wandering. On the other side of the wall
(she regarded it with a new interest) was the young man who had so
strangely intruded himself into her life. Or was he out? What would a
man like that do with his evenings? He was not the sort of person who
could find any pleasure in making a round of music-halls or sitting up
half the night in a card-room.
She heard a dull knock, and it came from the wall.
Mr. Beale was at home then, he had pushed a chair against the wall, or
he was knocking in nails at this hour of the night.
"Thud--thud--thud"--a pause--"thud, tap, thud, tap."
The dull sound was as if made by a fist, the tap by a finger-tip.
It was repeated.
Suddenly the girl jumped up with a little laugh. He was signalling to
her and had sent "O.C."--her initials.
She tapped three times with her finger, struck once with the flat of her
hand and tapped again. She had sent the "Understood" message.
Presently he began and she jotted the message on the margin of her book.
"Most urgent: Don't use soap. Bring it to office."
She smiled faintly. She expected something more brilliant in the way of
humour even from Mr. Beale. She tapped "acknowledged" and went to bed.
"Matilda, my innocent child," she said to herself, as she snuggled up
under the bed-clothes, "exchanging midnight signals with a lodger is
neither proper nor lady-like."
She had agreed with herself that in spite of the latitude she was
allowed in the matter of office hours, that she would put in an
appearance punctually at ten. This meant rising not later than eight,
for she had her little household to put in order before she left.
It was the postman's insistent knocking at eight-thirty that woke her
from a dreamless sleep, and, half-awake, she dragged herself into her
dressing-gown and went to the door.
"Parcel, miss," said the invisible official, and put into the hand that
came round the edge of the door a letter and a small package. She
brought them to the sitting-room and pulled back the curtains. The
letter was type-written and was on the note-paper of a well-known firm
of perfumers. It was addressed to "Miss Olivia Cresswell," and ran:
"DEAR MADAME,--
"We have pleasure in sending you for your use a sample cake of our
new Complexion Soap, which we trust will meet with your approval."
"But how nice," she said, and wondered why she had been singled out for
the favour. She opened the package. In a small carton, carefully wrapped
in the thinnest of paper, was an oval tablet of lavender-coloured soap
that exhaled a delicate fragrance.
"But how nice," she said again, and put the gift in the bath-room.
This was starting the day well--a small enough foundation for happiness,
yet one which every woman knows, for happiness is made up of small and
acceptable things and, given the psychological moment, a bunch of
primroses has a greater value than a rope of pearls.
In her bath she picked up the soap and dropped it back in the tidy again
quickly.
"Don't use soap; bring it to office."
She remembered the message in a flash. Beale had known that this parcel
was coming then, and his "most urgent" warning was not a joke. She
dressed quickly, made a poor breakfast and was at the office ten minutes
before the hour.
She found her employer waiting, sitting in his accustomed place on the
edge of the table in her office. He gave her a little nod of welcome,
and without a word stretched out his hand.
"The soap?" she asked.
He nodded.
She opened her bag.
"Good," he said. "I see you have kept the wrappings, and that, I
presume, is the letter which accompanied the--what shall I say--gift?
Don't touch it with your bare hand," he said quickly. "Handle it with
the paper."
He pulled his gloves from his pocket and slipped them on, then took the
cake of soap in his hand and carried it to the light, smelt it and
returned it to its paper.
"Now let me see the letter."
She handed it to him, and he read it.
"From Brandan, the perfumers. They wouldn't be in it, but we had better
make sure."
He walked to the telephone and gave a number, and the girl heard him
speaking in a low tone to somebody at the other end. Presently he put
down the receiver and walked back, his hands thrust into his pockets.
"They know nothing about this act of generosity," he said.
By this time she had removed her coat and hat and hung them up, and had
taken her place at her desk. She sat with her elbows on the
blotting-pad, her chin on her clasped hands, looking up at him.
"I don't think it's fair that things should be kept from me any longer,"
she said. "Many mysterious things have happened in the past few days,
and since they have all directly affected me, I think I am entitled to
some sort of explanation."
"I think you are," said Mr. Beale, with a twinkle in his grey eyes, "but
I am not prepared to explain everything just yet. Thus much I will tell
you, that had you used this soap this morning, by the evening you would
have been covered from head to foot in a rather alarming and irritating
rash."
She gasped.
"But who dared to send me this?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Who knows? But first let me ask you this, Miss Cresswell. Suppose
to-night when you had looked at yourself in the glass you had discovered
your face was covered with red blotches and, on further examination, you
found your arms and, indeed, the whole of your body similarly
disfigured, what would you have done?"
She thought for a moment.
"Why, of course, I should have sent for the doctor."
"Which doctor?" he asked carelessly.
"Doctor van Heerden--oh!" She looked at him resentfully. "You don't
suggest that Doctor van Heerden sent that hideous thing to me?"
"I don't suggest anything," said Mr. Beale coolly.
"I merely say that you would have sent for a doctor, and that that
doctor would have been Doctor van Heerden. I say further, that he would
have come to you and been very sympathetic, and would have ordered you
to remain in bed for four or five days. I think, too," he said, looking
up at the ceiling and speaking slowly, as though he were working out the
possible consequence in his mind, "that he would have given you some
very palatable medicine."
"What are you insinuating?" she asked quietly.
He did not reply immediately.
"If you will get out of your mind the idea that I have any particular
grievance against Doctor van Heerden, that I regard him as a rival, a
business rival let us say, or that I have some secret grudge against
him, and if in place of that suspicion you would believe that I am
serving a much larger interest than is apparent to you, I think we might
discuss"--he smiled--"even Doctor van Heerden without such a discussion
giving offence to you."
She laughed.
"I am really not offended. I am rather distressed, if anything," she
said, knitting her brows. "You see, Doctor van Heerden has always been
most kind to me."
Beale nodded.
"He got you your rooms at the flats," he replied quietly; "he was also
ready to give you employment the moment you were providentially
discharged from Punsonby's. Does it not strike you, Miss Cresswell, that
every kind act of Doctor van Heerden's has had a tendency to bring you
together, into closer association, I mean? Does it not appear to you
that the net result of all the things that might have happened to you in
the past few days would have been to make you more and more dependent
upon Doctor van Heerden? For example, if you had gone into his employ as
he planned that you should?"
"Planned!" she gasped.
His face was grave now and the laughter had gone out of his eyes.
"Planned," he said quietly. "You were discharged from Punsonby's at
Doctor van Heerden's instigation."
"I will not believe it!"
"That will not make it any less the fact," said Mr. Beale. "You were
nearly arrested--again at Doctor van Heerden's instigation. He was
waiting for you when you came back from Punsonby's, ready to offer you
his job. When he discovered you had already engaged yourself he
telephoned to White, instructing him to have you arrested so that you
might be disgraced and might turn to him, your one loyal friend."
She listened speechless. She could only stare at him and could not even
interrupt him. For her shrewd woman instinct told her so convincingly
that even her sense of loyalty could not eject the doubt which assailed
her mind, that if there was not truth in what he was saying there was at
least probability.
"I suggest even more," Beale went on. "I suggest that for some purpose,
Doctor van Heerden desires to secure a mental, physical and moral
ascendancy over you. In other words, he wishes to enslave you to his
will."
She looked at him in wonder and burst into a peal of ringing laughter.
"Really, Mr. Beale, you are too absurd," she said.
"Aren't I?" he smiled. "It sounds like something out of a melodrama."
"Why on earth should he want to secure a mental ascendancy over me? Do
you suggest----" She flushed.
"I suggest nothing any longer," said Beale, slipping off from the end of
the table. "I merely make a statement of fact. I do not think he has any
designs on you, within the conventional meaning of that phrase, indeed,
I think he wants to marry you--what do you think about that?"
She had recovered something of her poise, and her sense of humour was
helping her out of a situation which, without such a gift, might have
been an embarrassing one.
"I think you have been seeing too many plays and reading too many
exciting books, Mr. Beale," she said, "I confess I have never regarded
Doctor van Heerden as a possible suitor, and if I thought he was I
should be immensely flattered. But may I suggest to you that there are
other ways of winning a girl than by giving her nettle-rash!"
They laughed together.
"All right," he said, swinging up his hat, "proceed with the good work
and seek out the various domiciles of Mr. Scobbs."
Then she remembered.
"Do you know----?"
He was at the door when she spoke and he stopped and turned.
"The name of Mr. Scobbs gives me a cold shiver."
"Why?"
"Answer me this," she said: "why should I who have never heard of him
before until yesterday hear his name mentioned by a perfect stranger?"
The smile died away from his face.
"Who mentioned him! No, it isn't idle curiosity," he said in face of her
derisive finger. "I am really serious. Who mentioned his name?"
"A visitor of Doctor van Heerden's. I heard them talking through the
ventilator when I was bolting my door."
"A visitor to Doctor van Heerden, and he mentioned Mr. Scobbs of Red
Horse Valley," he said half to himself. "You didn't see the man?"
"No."
"You just heard him. No names were mentioned?"
"None," she said. "Is it a frightfully important matter?"
"It is rather," he replied. "We have got to get busy," and with this
cryptic remark he left her.
The day passed as quickly as its predecessor. The tabulation at which
she was working grew until by the evening there was a pile of sheets in
the left-hand cupboard covered with her fine writing. She might have
done more but for the search she had to make for a missing report to
verify one of her facts. It was not on the shelf, and she was about to
abandon her search and postpone the confirmation till she saw Beale,
when she noticed a cupboard beneath the shelves. It was unlocked and she
opened it and found, as she had expected, that it was full of books,
amongst which was the missing documentation she sought.
With a view to future contingencies, she examined the contents of the
cupboard and was arrested by a thin volume which bore no inscription or
title on its blank cover. She opened it, and on the title page read:
"The Millinborn Murder." The author's name was not given and the
contents were made up of very careful analysis of evidence given by the
various witnesses at the inquest, and plans and diagrams with little red
crosses to show where every actor in that tragedy had been.
She read the first page idly and turned it. She was half-way down the
second page when she uttered a little exclamation, for a familiar name
was there, the name of Dr. van Heerden.
Fascinated, she read the story to the end, half-expecting that the name
of Mr. Beale would occur.
There were many names all unknown to her and one that occurred with the
greatest frequency was that of James Kitson. Mr. Beale did not appear to
have played any part. She read for an hour, sitting on the floor by the
cupboard. She reached the last page, closed the book and slipped it back
in the cupboard. She wondered why Beale had preserved this record and
whether his antagonism to the doctor was founded on that case. At first
she thought she identified him with the mysterious man who had appeared
in the plantation before the murder, but a glance back at the
description of the stranger dispelled that idea. For all the reputation
he had, Mr. Beale did not have "an inflamed, swollen countenance,
colourless bloodshot eyes," nor was he bald.
She was annoyed with herself that she had allowed her work to be
interrupted, and in penance decided to remain on until six instead of
five o'clock as she had intended. Besides, she half expected that Mr.
Beale would return, and was surprised to discover that she was
disappointed that he had not.
At six o'clock she dismissed the boy, closed and locked the office, and
made her way downstairs into the crowded street.
To her surprise she heard her name spoken, and turned to face Dr. van
Heerden.
"I have been waiting for you for nearly an hour," he said with
good-humoured reproach.
"And your patients are probably dying like flies," she countered.
It was in her mind to make some excuse and go home alone, but curiosity
got the better of her and impelled her to wait to discover the object of
this unexpected visitation.
"How did you know where I was working?" she asked, as the thought
occurred to her.
He laughed.
"It was a very simple matter. I was on my way to a patient and I saw you
coming out to lunch," he said, "and as I found myself in the
neighbourhood an hour ago I thought I would wait and take you home. You
are doing a very foolish thing," he added.
"What do you mean--in stopping to talk to you when I ought to be on my
way home to tea?"
"No, in engaging yourself to a man like Beale. You know the reputation
he has! My dear girl, I was shocked when I discovered who your employer
was."
"I don't think you need distress yourself on my account, doctor," she
said quietly. "Really, Mr. Beale is quite pleasant--in his lucid
moments," she smiled to herself.
She was not being disloyal to her employer. If he chose to encourage
suspicion in his mode of life he must abide by the consequences.
"But a drunkard, faugh!" The exquisite doctor shivered. "I have always
tried to be a friend of yours, Miss Cresswell, and I hope you are going
to let me continue to be, and my advice to you in that capacity is--give
Mr. Beale notice."
"How absurd you are!" she laughed. "There is no reason in the world why
I should do anything of the sort. Mr. Beale has treated me with the
greatest consideration."
"What is he, by the way?" asked the doctor.
"He's an agent of some sort," said the girl, "but I am sure you don't
want me to discuss his business. And now I must go, doctor, if you will
excuse me."
"One moment," he begged. "I have a cab here. Won't you come and have
tea somewhere?"
"Where is somewhere?" she asked.
"The Grand Alliance?" he suggested.
She nodded slowly.