Michael had always had an affection for Colchester. He liked the
Essex country; he liked quiet towns; and he had pleasant memories of
staying in some beautiful old houses in the High Street. However,
on this occasion he decided that his mission was too important to
admit of dallying with his friends, and armed with Wilson’s authority
(to be used, the authority had urged, only in cases of absolute
necessity), he set out on the novel task of picking up information.
He began with an annoying setback. At Meston’s office he had not
expected to garner very much, and he was therefore not disappointed
when the clerk-in-charge refused to give him any but the barest
possible information. It was fairly obvious that the clerk knew that
there was something in the wind; it was equally obvious that he had
been strictly ordered to disclose nothing, and Michael did not feel
that he looked important enough to demand to see private papers. Mr.
Meston’s, he learned, were locked in the desk of the senior partner,
who had come over and taken them on the afternoon of the finding of
the body. Yes, Mr. Warden had been in the office at the time; in
fact, both partners had been in every day since Mr. Meston had left.
Neither of them was there at the moment. Mr. Hanborough had gone over
to the inquest, and Mr. Warden to his home. The clerk understood that
his father was worse. Michael was rather relieved, at the moment,
that this should be so, for he was not at all inclined to explain
his mission to Warden’s ingenuous mind; and, having acquired the
private address of both the other partners, he went on his way.
As he reached the door of Meston’s house he saw a man emerging, and
wondered idly what his business was. He was not at all pleased to
gather, from his reception, that the man had come on approximately
the same errand as himself, and had, moreover, apparently pumped
Meston’s housekeeper dry. She did not actually turn him from the
door; but she provided no information, replying morosely that “she
couldn’t say” to direct questions, and rejecting all attempts to draw
her into conversation or gossip. In despair, Michael tried his last
resource, the production of Wilson’s card, but it seemed to carry no
weight with her. She would not even allow an inspection of the man’s
rooms.
“What about Mrs. Meston’s?” Michael asked hopefully.
“There ain’t nothing of hers here,” was the reply, with a pursing of
the lips which suggested that the speaker shared Michael’s views on
the lady’s character. “She took them all away when she came.”
“Oh! When was that?”
“Couldn’t say.” The housekeeper, seeming to feel that she had
inadvertently allowed a morsel of information to escape her, shut up
like a clam, and Michael, after a few more ineffective feelers, came
away in no very pleasant mood, and betook himself to Hanborough’s
house, which was a red brick villa a mile or so from the centre of
the town.
His spirits were not brightened by passing, within a hundred yards
of the gate, the visitor who had preceded him to Meston’s house. The
man obviously recognised him, for he paused in his walk and looked
up almost as if he were going to speak. But he thought better of it,
and Michael passed on with the gloomiest anticipations of his coming
interview.
The reality could not well have been worse. The maid who answered
the door refused to admit him on any pretext; and when he tried to
press her, the only result was to bring down a horrifying and voluble
old lady looking very like a macaw, who screamed furious denials at
him till he retired in despair, convinced that even Wilson himself
could not have got in without physical force. “Confound it! how _do_
detectives get hold of information?” he muttered to himself as he
went away.
His wrath was complete when, on turning into the main road, he beheld
the first caller obviously waiting to see him come out. “Damn the
man!” Michael thought. “I might as well give up my job if he’s going
to get in first and spoil my hand at every turn.” And he prepared his
best scowl for the interloper.
The latter, however, seemed hardly to notice it, but as he came up
addressed him in a quite pleasant voice, though with a tinge of
officialism about it. “Dr. Prendergast?” he inquired.
“You have the advantage of me,” said Michael sulkily.
For answer, the stranger produced a card from his pocket, and handed
it over. It bore the name of Inspector Bille, of the Essex County
Constabulary.
“Well?” Michael said, wondering. “What is it? Do you want to arrest
me?”
Inspector Bille laughed, a low-powered chuckle. “No, indeed, sir,” he
said. “But I noticed you as I was coming away from Meston’s house,
and when I saw you here it struck me you might be wondering what I
was up to. Working with the Superintendent, I take it?” To the Forces
throughout the country, Wilson was always simply “the Superintendent.”
“Yes,” said Michael, slightly mollified--“though I don’t know how you
knew me. I don’t think we’ve met before.”
“Colonel Lockwood pointed you out, sir, this morning,” Inspector
Bille explained. “I was in two minds whether to stop you before you
went in.”
“You might just as well have stopped me,” Michael grumbled, “for all
the help I got. You seem to have turned off the supply of information
pretty successfully at both places.”
Bille laughed again. “Well, sir, people--particularly old Mrs.
Hanborough--don’t very much like answering questions, unless they’re
going to get their names in the papers. And if you’ll pardon me
saying so, you don’t look very much like a newspaper man.”
“My own impression,” said Michael, “was rather that you’d forbidden
either her or Meston’s housekeeper to say a word to any one.”
“We’re a bit exclusive, no doubt,” Bille said. “We don’t, in a
general way, encourage people to chatter more than they need. But
for the Superintendent, it’s a different matter, of course; and as
you’re, so to speak, his representative, if I understand rightly,
I’ll be happy to give _you_ any information I’ve got, sir. If you’re
not doing anything in a hurry, what about taking a spot of lunch with
me, and we’ll talk over anything you want to know?”
Relieved by his affability, Michael made no demur, not even when
it appeared that the Inspector’s taste in lunches was quite other
than his own, and submitted to be seated in a little fly-blown
tea-shop-cum-restaurant, and fed on pale boiled mutton, with soapy
potatoes and nauseating greens.
“What point exactly were you on, sir?” the Inspector began. “There’s
no one else here” (“And no wonder,” thought Michael, swallowing a
piece of gristle) “so you can talk quite freely, if you don’t raise
your voice too much.”
Michael passed on Wilson’s commissions about Meston and Hanborough.
“Yes, I thought so,” the Inspector said. “Now this is what I’ve been
able to pick up. It mayn’t be much, but it’s something. There’s
something very wrong with Meston’s firm, and what’s more, he knew
about it, whether innocently or guiltily I can’t say for certain.
The last week or so before his departure, he’d been taking the books
home almost every night, and looking as worried as a sick cat in the
daytime.”
“Did you see his private papers?” Michael interrupted. “The clerk
wouldn’t let me look at them.”
“I expect he would if I’d asked him,” said the Inspector, not above
rubbing in the advantages of belonging to the regulars; “but I
thought I’d let it lie a bit. If Meston should happen to be innocent,
sir, you see, we don’t want parties that may happen to be guilty--of
anything--too wise to what we’re doing.”
“You think Meston was innocent?”
“I shouldn’t like to say definitely. All I can say is, if he’s guilty
he’s put it away pretty carefully. There’s no sign of his having
been flush at any time in the past few years; there’s nothing odd
about his banking account, and nothing in his will (I’ve seen his
lawyer) that’s any way out of the common. I expect you know, sir, his
wife gets a life-interest as long as she doesn’t marry again; but
there’s very little that doesn’t die with him. Not above two or three
hundred, I should say.”
“Is it true she’d removed all her personal property from her rooms?
And if so, why?”
“Oh, you got that, sir? Yes, it’s quite true. It was while he was
with you--at the Old Malting House, I should say” (as Michael gave
a wriggle of repudiation). “As to why, it seems she was meaning to
leave him finally. What’s more to my mind is, where did she take ’em?”
“Why, to the Grange, surely. Where else?”
“Well, I don’t know. She may or she may not. She’d Mr. Burden, the
actor, with her, for one thing.”
“Running over pigs in Meadon!” Michael interjected.
“That’s so, sir. Of course, she may’ve had anything in her mind.
The housekeeper, who hates her like poison, as good as told me
she’d killed him. Curious how nobody that knows him here cottons
to the idea of suicide. Most of ’em would put it down to his good
lady--though not with any notion how she could have done it, of
course.”
“Well, Hanborough? What about him?”
“Ah, there’s more there, I fancy, than you found. Mr. Hanborough’s
been dipping a bit, there’s no doubt; and from all I’ve heard one
way and another, it’s pretty clear he could always do with a little
extra cash. And this Strake, whom he’s put on to look into matters,
is an old clerk of his whom he sacked; and it’s well known that he
could have had him in the dock if he’d liked. So it’s not likely, to
say the least of it, that he was intended to find out anything that’d
make against Mr. Hanborough’s interests. He’s free with his money, is
Mr. Hanborough, and well enough liked hereabouts; but Newmarket’s a
bit too near for him, if you get me. And about two years ago he was
pretty heavily in debt, which he’s been clearing slowly. I’ve one or
two more points of that kind, which I can work up more closely if
I need to. I don’t want to be starting a lot more talk to-day, you
see--particularly since I’ve found out that Mr. Hanborough wasn’t at
home the night Meston was murdered.”
“Oh!” said Michael. “Why, where was he?” The Inspector sat back, well
pleased with his effect.
“He left home, sir, about 9 p.m., saying he was going to a party at
the Grange and would be in early in the morning. Then he didn’t get
back till after ten next day. His wife’s away, but I got this from
his mother--the old lady you saw. Well, of course, it may be all
right, and it may not--but we’d better keep our eyes----”
At this point the Inspector suddenly stopped, and devoted his
attention to a slab of rice pudding. Michael, seeking an explanation,
saw a slim, fair-haired girl in blue, whose face seemed vaguely
familiar to him, enter rather hurriedly and sit down. He telegraphed
an inquiry.
“Miss Loring,” the Inspector whispered in reply. “The Squire’s
sister.”
So this was Mark Warden’s fiancée. On inspection, Michael decided
that he liked her looks. She was obviously a good fifteen years
younger than her brother, an open-faced, blue-eyed child who
probably valued Warden as much for his cricket as for any other
quality. At the moment she seemed worried and anxious; her fair brows
were knitted, and she looked round the room rather nervously from
time to time.
Michael, on a sudden impulse, leaned over to the Inspector. “I think
I’d like a word with Miss Loring,” he said in a low voice. “Her
fiancé’s a friend of mine. There isn’t anything else we ought to
discuss here, is there?”
“Not as far as I’m concerned, sir,” said the Inspector impassively.
“Anyway, I ought to be getting along. I’ve an appointment at the
Colchester station at two-forty-five. But you’ll remember, sir,
fair’s fair. If you or the Superintendent do get any information
bearing on these matters, I would take it very kindly if you’d pass
it on.”
“I’ll see you have it--if I get anything worth having, which
personally I very much doubt,” Michael promised. “Good-day.” And,
leaving the Inspector stolidly consuming pudding, he made his way to
Edna Loring’s side. “At any rate,” he thought, as she lifted her eyes
and looked at him with frank amazement, “she’s not a siren.”
Siren or no, the girl seemed pleased enough to see him, when once she
had grasped who he was. She declined lunch, saying she had already
had it, but demanded coffee, rather to Michael’s astonishment, since
he could hardly imagine that even unsophisticated youth (if there was
such a thing at Loring Grange) would deliberately choose to drink
its coffee in broken-down tea-shops. The coffee, when it arrived,
confirmed him in this view; but Edna drank it without comment, and
even demanded a second supply. Michael began to get a little puzzled.
What _was_ the Squire’s sister doing here, unattended? and still
more, why did she appear so content, nay, even pleased, with his
rather humdrum company? Michael was no more modest than most men, but
he had never had reason to think himself specially attractive to the
opposite sex. Nor could he now believe that Edna Loring was moved by
any strong personal feeling for him.
She talked, certainly; indeed, it would not be wholly untrue to say
that she chattered. But it was of entirely indifferent things--the
weather, the prospects of Essex county cricket, the various breeds
of sporting dogs, etc.; and she did not appear to have the slightest
interest in the matters which one would have imagined they had most
in common. She mentioned Mark’s health, and his family, but not his
business or his business prospects; and a tentative reference to
Mr. William Meston elicited only a downright opinion that he was
better dead, after which she quite plainly shelved the subject. If
he had not had an uneasy conviction that he was playing truant, like
a schoolboy, from the business he had been set to do in Colchester,
Michael, after his humiliating experiences of the morning, would
have thoroughly enjoyed himself. He liked cheerful, downright young
things, when they were willing to talk to him, and he liked Edna
Loring particularly. But he could not help feeling a little guilty,
and at the same time wondering more and more why the girl should want
to detain him talking there.
He had just reached the conclusion, absurd though he felt it to be,
that she was contemplating an unpleasant interview or task of some
sort for which she wanted a protector, when she suddenly looked at
her watch, and asked, in a quite different tone, “Dr. Prendergast,
would you like to do me a service?”
“Ah!” thought Michael to himself. “Now we’re coming to it.” Aloud
he only said, “I should be delighted,” with more sincerity than he
expected in his voice. Indeed, he would have been quite pleased to
help the girl--if he could reasonably do so.
“Then drive me back to the Grange.”
“What!” This was the last request he would have anticipated.
“Drive me back to the Grange,” Edna Loring repeated, looking at him
earnestly.
“But----” Michael, rather disconcerted, temporised. “I haven’t got a
car. I came over by train. And I can’t drive to speak of.”
“Oh!” Edna obviously thought this an odd state of things. “Well, you
could hire one, couldn’t you?”
“But--didn’t you come by car?”
“Yes, but it’s Wallace’s. Wallace Burden’s, you know. And I don’t
want him to drive me back. I want _you_ to take me back, if you will.”
“But doesn’t Mr. Burden want to go back?” said Michael obtusely.
“Yes, he does. And I don’t want him to. Don’t you see?” As Michael
apparently did not, she added impatiently, “Oh, Dr. Prendergast,
you do make it difficult! Must I put everything in words of three
letters? I don’t want Wallace because I don’t want him to make love
to me, don’t you see?”
“But----” Michael was conscious of gaping like an idiot, but the
sudden shift of Mr. Burden’s affections was too much for him. “But I
thought--Mrs. Meston----”
“Yes, that’s what I mean. I don’t want any more of Sylvia Meston’s
cast-offs. And I don’t like Wallace, anyway.”
“Cast-offs?” Michael repeated.
“Well, you know what I mean. You all but said so yourself. Wallace
and Sylvia had a row of sorts this morning. So he hadn’t anything
to do, and he offered to drive me into Colchester. I didn’t know
anything about it then, or I wouldn’t have let him. Of course, I
found out as soon as we’d started, and then--pah! I always seem to
get hold of people who want to hold Sylvia’s hand, and think mine
will do next best if they can’t get it. I used to slap them,” said
Edna reflectively, surveying her own vigorous brown hand, “but you
can’t slap people for ever. I hate men!” she finished suddenly.
“Including Warden?” Michael asked, with slight amusement.
“Mark! _Mark_ isn’t men! Oh, don’t be silly; you know what I mean.
Of course, if I could get hold of Mark, I shouldn’t be asking you. I
mean----” At this point Edna, realising her extreme candour, burst
out laughing. “I don’t suppose I can pretend that was tactful, Dr.
Prendergast. But I thought you’d understand. Truthfully, there’s
been such a bother lately that I’ve got fed up. I almost thought of
running away at one time; and if I have much more of Wallace, I shall
commit murder or something. You do see that, don’t you? I got rid
of him after lunch, and came in here because I thought I’d be safe;
but I’ve half promised to let him take me to tea with some people
he knows. And then we’re going home. Well, I simply can’t face it. I
know Wallace, and he’s like a hippopotamus; he can’t believe that any
innocent young thing wouldn’t give a thousand pounds to squeeze his
hand. So, when you came over, I wondered if you weren’t an angel from
heaven--you know what I mean”--as Michael laughed--“and if we could
arrange to go back together, and give Wallace a hint, it would be so
much nicer. But probably you can’t.”
“But if he’s a hippopotamus,” Michael, finding the situation
embarrassing if pleasant, suggested, “will he take a hint? And I
really can’t drive.”
“Oh, Wallace won’t make a third,” said Edna, with decision. “If I
say I’m going with you, he’ll go off somewhere and sulk. He won’t
call you out. Of course, if you can’t drive, you can’t. But I could
drive. Or we could hire a man with the car, and he could take it back
from the Grange. That would perhaps be the best way. Would you mind
very much, Dr. Prendergast? I should be most awfully grateful--if you
could bear it.”
Michael was not at all sure whether he minded or not; but eventually
he agreed, subject to Edna’s herself undertaking to get rid of the
spare cavalier, and subject also to his being given the afternoon to
make one more attempt to acquire the information for which he had
been sent. He liked the girl, and his sympathy for her immediate
predicament was enhanced by the cordial dislike of Wallace Burden
which he had conceived from the first glimpse he had caught of that
gentleman’s classic profile. His friends’ fiancées, whether or not
desirable in themselves, ought to be preserved from Wallace Burdens,
he felt. There was, further, the added chance, whose attractiveness
he would not have admitted to himself, of seeing at close quarters
the ménage at the Grange, of which so many rumours were current.
Michael was himself quite certain that the Grange was the kind of
place to harbour any number of murderers; and possibly a visit there,
under Edna Loring’s wing, might provide him with a clue. So, moved
by a mixture of chivalry, wrath, and curiosity, he consented to go
and hire a car, and to meet Edna again for tea at a somewhat more
inspiring rendezvous--Burden, it was to be hoped, being by that time
satisfactorily removed from the picture.