Sybil Kean’s amazing letter left Fayre in a condition of mingled
bewilderment and relief. Out of all the tangle of events that he had
been trying in vain to unravel one strand at least had inexplicably
straightened itself. Lady Kean was not only already in possession of
the information he had stumbled on so unexpectedly, information which
he had hoped against hope might possibly be kept from her, but she had
deliberately withheld it from her husband. That the truth was
contained in the letter which she had asked him only to open in the
event of her death he had no doubt, and that she was relying on him to
break the news as mercifully as possible to Kean was equally evident.
Little difference it would make to Edward, Fayre reflected grimly,
once he had lost the one being in whom his whole life was centred.
His last action that night was to switch on the light over his bed and
read her letter again for the tenth time, amazed at the strength and
devotion of the woman he had thought he knew so well, but whom he had
after all understood so little. He realized how greatly he had
underestimated her affection for Kean and how misled he had been in
concluding that her heart was irretrievably buried in her first
husband’s grave, and he wondered by what feminine logic she had
managed to reconcile her conscience with the deception she had
practised on Kean. The one thing that puzzled him in her letter was
her stipulation that he should not read the enclosure in the event of
Leslie’s acquittal. Try as he would, he could see no connection
between the trial and the information he believed the enclosure to
contain. One thing was obvious: at the earliest opportunity he must
see Sybil Kean and tell her that he had surprised her secret. That she
was, literally, worrying herself into the grave he had no doubt.
As it turned out, all his plans were frustrated. For the next three
days Fayre called in vain at the house in Westminster, only to be told
that Lady Kean was allowed to see no one and, on the fourth, that
which the doctor had been dreading occurred, she had another heart
attack even more violent than the last.
For a week she hovered between life and death and then, almost
miraculously, took a turn for the better. Kean was invisible whenever
Fayre called at the house and Grey, who was in hourly dread that Lady
Kean would die, confessed to feeling more and more pessimistic as to
Leslie’s chances.
“It was an amazing piece of luck getting Sir Edward at all,” he
admitted to Fayre. “With such strong evidence against Leslie I never
thought he would have acted. We’ve got Lady Kean to thank for that, I
fancy, and perhaps, for her sake, even if the worst happens, he’ll
pull himself together and do his best for us. I know he’s almost
superhuman when it comes to work, but, unless she takes a turn for the
better soon, I shall begin to regret that we didn’t brief some one
else.”
“And we’ve got no further with the Page clue than when we first
started,” reflected Fayre ruefully.
The clerk Grey had sent to collect evidence as to the car which had
been held up at York had reported a complete failure. Except for the
first letter and number the car had entirely failed to answer to the
description of the Page car. It was a two-seater, the number-plate had
been intact and there was no sign of any damage to either of the
guards, and they had had to face the fact that they had been following
yet another blind alley.
In addition to his other anxieties, Fayre was troubled about Cynthia.
The girl had faced things nobly, but already she was beginning to show
signs of strain and Fayre dreaded the coming ordeal for her. Her
mother had written to her peremptorily ordering her to go home.
Cynthia, lost to everything but Leslie’s danger, had taken no notice
of her mother’s letter. Fortunately, her father’s sister, with whom
she was staying, had proved more humane and had merely stipulated that
the girl should stay in her house until the trial was over, realizing
that she was not in a state to brook opposition. She welcomed Fayre’s
visits and, at her suggestion, he persuaded Cynthia to motor with him
out into the country for a few hours every day.
A few days after Sybil Kean had been declared out of danger Grey rang
him up suggesting that they should meet for lunch.
“I’ve heard from Sir Edward,” he said as soon as he saw Fayre. “I’m to
meet him this afternoon and he would like to see Lady Cynthia. Could
you bring her round to his Chambers at about four o’clock? I gather
Lady Kean really has turned the corner, so luck may be with us, after
all.”
Before sitting down to lunch Fayre rang up Cynthia and arranged to
call for her. Grey followed him into the telephone-box.
“Tell her I’ve seen Mr. Leslie and he’s in fine form. If he can keep
his pluck up till next month he ought to make a good impression.”
“How did you really find Leslie?” asked Fayre as they sat down.
“Just as I said. He’s a plucky young beggar. I think he’s more worried
about her than about himself. Wanted to know how she was looking, and
all that sort of thing. Said it wasn’t only the war that came hardest
on the women. They’re a fine couple.”
Fayre nodded absently. He was feeling horribly depressed and wished
with all his heart that the whole wretched business were over.
“I don’t suppose Sir Edward’s in a laughing mood, but, if he were,
he’d get a certain sardonic amusement out of the Page episode,” went
on Grey. “My man came back from the North yesterday. He’s been kept up
there on some other business till now. He told me a funny thing.”
“About the car that was held up?” asked Fayre rather wearily. He found
it difficult to see anything amusing in connection with the Draycott
murder.
“No; that belonged to a harmless little commercial traveller. But when
he was looking over the back reports in search of a clue to our man he
caught another fish altogether, Sir Edward Kean himself! He got hung
up at York on March 14th for traveling without side-lights.”
Fayre, who was blessed with a quick and accurate memory, stared at him
in amazement.
“But Sir Edward came down to Cumberland by train!” he exclaimed. “He
didn’t have his car with him! I know, because I met him myself at the
station. I’d gone down to see about a lost suitcase.”
“His chauffeur must have been joy-riding. The licence was the
chauffeur’s. It’s not the first time that’s happened. Sir Edward,
apparently, paid the fine without a murmur. What he said to the
chauffeur is another matter!”
Fayre, knowing Kean, did not envy the delinquent.
Grey looked at his watch and rose.
“I must go,” he said. “Now Leslie has been moved to Carlisle it will
be more difficult for Lady Cynthia to see him. Tell her to let me know
when she goes North again and I’ll do my best for her. It’ll buck him
up more than anything if he can have a few minutes with her.”
“And be uncommonly hard on Cynthia,” remarked Fayre grimly.
He and Cynthia arrived punctually at Kean’s Chambers. He had not
returned, but had left a message asking them to wait for him. As Fayre
sat chatting with Cynthia, his eye fell on a photograph of Sybil Kean
that stood in a plain silver frame on the writing-table. He remembered
suddenly that, owing to her illness, he had never answered her letter
and it struck him that, if she were better and conscious, she might be
worrying as to whether it had reached him. He decided to send a few
noncommittal lines by Kean, saying that he had received it and would
be delighted to do her commission. This would convey nothing to any
one should she be too weak to read her own letters and would at least
reassure her.
There were some sheets of writing-paper on the table and, with a word
of explanation to Cynthia, he sat down and drew one towards him.
Having written his note he looked about for an envelope, but could
find none. Instinctively his hand went to the top drawer of the
writing-table. It was unlocked and slid out easily and Fayre peered
into it in search of the thing he wanted. He did not find it, but in
the front of the drawer was lying an object he knew only too well, the
“Red Dwarf” pen he had picked up near the gate of Leslie’s farm. The
cap the tramp had given him was now fitted neatly over the nib. He
picked the pen out of the drawer and turned it thoughtfully in his
fingers. The mud stain still clung to the side, half obliterating a
long smear of black ink. Here, after all, he reflected, lay the real
clue to the puzzle. Leslie, he knew, had never used a stylo and Mrs.
Draycott was the last person to carry a cheap pen of that type in her
gold bag. Everything pointed to its having been dropped by the
murderer. As a last resort, Grey had inserted an advertisement in most
of the daily papers asking Page to come forward and it had appeared
for the first time that morning. If Page were the owner of the pen,
Fayre concluded, he was hardly likely to make himself known.
With a sigh he replaced the “Red Dwarf” in the drawer. As he did so
his sleeve caught in the edge of a large envelope that was lying near
the back of the drawer and shifted it a few inches. Cynthia, who was
standing near the window watching for Kean, did not hear the quick
intake of his breath as he picked it up to replace it. For perhaps
five minutes he sat motionless, the envelope in his hand, then he put
it gently back in its place and closed the drawer. The letter to Lady
Kean he slipped into his pocket, having apparently given up the idea
of sending it.
When Cynthia looked round he was immersed in a copy of the _Times_ he
had found lying on Kean’s table.
“Edward has just driven up in the car,” she said, and almost as she
spoke the door opened and he came in. He looked distressingly worn and
tired, but was more cheerful than Fayre had dared to hope. The doctors
had given a good report of Sybil that morning, he told them, and they
considered that she was responding to treatment better than she had
done after the former attack. Fayre wondered whether the letter she
had sent him had not been at least partly responsible for her illness
and whether, now that the effort of writing it was over, she was not
benefiting by the relief to her mind.
“I was afraid we’d have to leave town without seeing you,” he said.
“It was too much to expect you to give your mind to anything while
Sybil was laid up.”
Kean looked up sharply.
“I should have carried on, in any case,” he answered quickly. “If it’s
humanly possible to get Leslie off I’m going to do it.”
Fayre was astonished at the depth of feeling in his voice, but he
realized that Kean meant what he said and that he would fight for
Leslie as he had never fought before. What would happen if he failed,
Fayre did not dare contemplate. He was convinced now that, for some
reason he could not fathom, the lines of Leslie’s fate were
inextricably intermingled with those of Sybil and Edward Kean and he
had a grim conviction that more than Kean’s professional reputation
was at stake should he fail to get an acquittal.
He sat through the long interview between Kean and Cynthia like a man
in a dream and his report of their conversation, had he been called
upon to make one, would have been both vague and garbled. It was only
at the close, when Kean offered to drive her back to her aunt’s house,
that he woke to a sense of his surroundings and managed to rouse
himself to action.
“If you are going to steal Cynthia I’ll be off,” he said pleasantly.
“I’ve one or two things I must do on the way home.”
They were so absorbed that they hardly noticed his departure; but if
Kean had happened to glance out of the window, he would no doubt have
wondered why Fayre, instead of going directly about his business, had
chosen to waste fifteen minutes or so in desultory chat with the
chauffeur of Kean’s car.
His talk finished, he hailed a taxi and drove to the club. Arrived
there he went straight to his room and looked up the address Gregg had
given him when he suggested that he should look up his chemist friend,
Lloyd. Then, from the bottom of his portmanteau, he unearthed a pile
of old photographs, adding to them the snapshot he had borrowed from
Miss Allen. Thrusting them into his pocket he ran downstairs and got
into the waiting taxi, giving the driver Lloyd’s address.
He found him at home, an unkempt little man with a face not unlike
that of an abnormally intelligent monkey, surmounted by a shock of
untidy grey hair. Evidently he had been expecting to hear from Fayre
and showed no surprise at his visit. His manner was business-like and
a trifle brusque. He impressed Fayre as a man who had little time to
give to the affairs of others, but who invariably bent his whole mind
to the matter in hand, whatever it might be.
“I can’t do much for you,” he began frankly. “Never have known who the
chap was that I saw with Mrs. Draycott in Paris and I don’t suppose I
ever shall, unless I run into him somewhere. And that’s unlikely, as I
never go anywhere if I can help it. Beastly waste of time. Hate
society. Tepid tea and a lot of silly talk about nothing. Better ask
me what you want to know. Quicker and more satisfactory.” He ran his
hand through his untidy hair and, sitting perched on the edge of his
littered writing-table, blinked at Fayre expectantly through his
strong glasses.
“If you’d give me an account of what happened in Paris I should be
grateful,” suggested Fayre. “I’m a bit vague as to dates, for
instance.”
“One gift I have got,” went on Lloyd abstractedly. “That’s a memory
for faces. Never forget a face. Beastly bore sometimes it is, too. I
should know that man if I saw him again. As regards dates, it was in
the spring of 1920 that I saw him. Went over to Paris to consult a man
at the Sorbonne and ran into this chap and Mrs. Draycott in a little
restaurant in Montmartre. Sort of place I go to because it suits me,
but this fellow wasn’t the sort to go there at all. Wrong place for
Mrs. Draycott, too. They were there because they didn’t want to be
seen and, of course, they were seen. That’s how things happen. I’d met
Draycott once and I knew this man wasn’t he. Mrs. Draycott being what
she was, I put the worst interpretation on it. May have been mistaken,
of course. Don’t quite know to this day why I followed them. Gregg was
a pal of mine and I knew he was jumpy for fear she would make a grab
at the boy and I’d just finished a big job and was at a loose end for
the moment with a blank evening in front of me. Anyway, it was the
third night I’d seen them and I happened to leave just behind them.
She never even looked my way and, if she had, she probably wouldn’t
have recognized me. They were walking and I just went too. It was a
dark night and I tagged along behind till they got to their hotel and
watched them go in. A little place bang in the middle of the Latin
Quarter. By that time I’d had about enough of it and I didn’t wait to
see if either of them came out, but a couple of days later I was in
that part of the world and I dropped in and asked to see the visitors’
book. Drew a complete blank. The only English names registered for
months were a Mrs. Grant, whom I took to be Mrs. Draycott, and a
George Collins. Apparently there was no other English man or woman
staying in the hotel. I wrote to Gregg, telling him what I’d done and
there the matter ended. I found out afterwards that Draycott was in
Egypt at the time. I’m afraid that’s the best I can do for you.”
“You say you’d recognize the man if you saw him?” asked Fayre eagerly.
“Could pick him out anywhere. I tell you, I’ve got an abnormally good
memory for faces.”
Fayre took half a dozen photographs from his pocket, the snapshot
among them, and placed them on the table.
“Do any of these suggest him to you?” he asked.
Lloyd ran through them quickly, then stabbed one of them with a long,
yellow-stained forefinger.
“That’s the fellow,” he pronounced unhesitatingly. “It’s an unusual
head and quite unmistakable.”
Fayre picked it up with a hand that shook a little. He had had a vague
notion that Lloyd might pitch on the snapshot, though, in his secret
heart, he had prayed that he would recognize none of the photographs.
This, of all others, was the last he had expected him to select.