It was long past one when at last Gimblet got to bed. He had had a long
and tiring day, full of strain and excitement, and his head was no
sooner on the pillow than he slept soundly and dreamlessly. It seemed to
him that he had only just shut his eyes when Higgs awoke him the next
morning by coming in with his hot water. He rolled over yawning and
rubbing his eyes, as his servant pulled up the blinds and laid ready his
clothes. When he had finished and gone away, the detective turned over
again for another snooze; but in a minute Higgs was back again.
"The young man from Ennidge and Pring has called, sir," he said, "the
clerk who came with the key last evening, you know, sir. He wants to
know if the inquest is to be to-day, as, if not, he has been given a
holiday and is going to spend it in the country."
"He can go," said Gimblet; "the inquest won't be till to-morrow."
He was thoroughly awakened by now, and went to his bath as soon as Higgs
had departed.
Breakfast was on the table when he entered the dining-room, and he
helped himself to omelet and sat down and poured out his tea before he
took up the morning paper, which lay beside his plate.
As he folded back the sheet and cast his eye over the page, he uttered
a startled exclamation and sat staring incredulously at the paper as he
read:
MYSTERY OF MISSING LADIES PROVES MYTHICAL.
Mrs. Vanderstein is Staying at Boulogne.
"Our correspondent at Boulogne telegraphs that Mrs. Vanderstein,
of 90 Grosvenor Street, is staying at the Hôtel de Douvres in that
town. Having observed her name in the visitors' book of the hotel,
our correspondent inquired of the manager if the lady could be she
who had been reported missing for the last two or three days, and
learnt that, while the manager was unaware of the anxiety which has
been felt in England on her account, it is certainly Mrs. Vanderstein,
of 90 Grosvenor Street, who is at present beneath his roof. Further
conversation with the affable and obliging host of the Hôtel de
Douvres elicited the information that the lady arrived early on
Tuesday morning with the intention of staying for one night only. She
complained of feeling indisposed, however, and sent for a doctor,
who ordered complete rest; so that Mrs. Vanderstein kept her room
till this evening, when, her health being improved, she dined in her
apartment as usual, but afterwards went out to the Casino.
"As luck would have it, the manager was relating these details to
our correspondent at the very moment--about 11 p.m.--when a carriage
drove up to the door, and the lady herself re-entered the hotel. On
our correspondent's introducing himself and explaining that grave
anxiety was being felt on her behalf in this country, she expressed
considerable astonishment, and said that this explained the fact
that letters she had written had not been answered. She conjectured
further that they could not even have been delivered, remarking that
the French postal system left much to be desired. In reply to further
questions, the lady proclaimed her aversion to being interviewed, and
said merely that she would send some telegrams in the morning; upon
which our correspondent withdrew, and she entered the lift and mounted
to the first floor, where she has a suite of rooms.
"Mrs. Vanderstein, who appeared to be entirely recovered in health,
was elegantly dressed in a black and white casino costume, with a
rose coloured toque trimmed with an osprey, which was very becoming
to her dark hair and superb complexion. She was wearing some of the
magnificent jewels with which rumour has been so busy during the last
few days."
Gimblet read the paragraph twice, and then pushing back his chair walked
restlessly about the room. His appetite was gone for the time being; his
eyes glowed again with the excitement of a new problem. One second he
spared, in which to be glad that Mrs. Vanderstein still lived; he was
glad for Sir Gregory's sake, and for Sidney's sake, and even a little
for her own, though he had never to his knowledge set eyes on her. But
from the first he had felt an indefinable sympathy for the fastidious
lady whose house was scented with the delicate, delicious perfume that
he associated with her name. But, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Vanderstein,
alive and well and disporting herself at Boulogne, slipped quickly out
of the place in Gimblet's interest hitherto filled by Mrs. Vanderstein
dead and cruelly murdered. His mind now occupied itself busily and
eagerly with the questions raised by this shifting of rôles in the
tragedy of Scholefield Avenue.
If Mrs. Vanderstein had not played the piteous part of the victim on
that fatal Monday night, who had? Not Miss Barbara Turner, for she was
described as having very fair hair, while that of the murdered woman was
very dark. And if Miss Turner were not flying from justice, where was
she? Could she and Mrs. Vanderstein have combined to kill their hostess,
when they visited the house hired by Mr. West of tropical origin? In
any case here was a tangled knot to unravel, and a black crime to bring
home to its perpetrator. Gimblet saw that he was not likely to solve
the puzzle off-hand, and reflected that in the meantime he had better
fortify himself with food while he had the opportunity. His breakfast
was rather cold by the time he again sat down to it.
What, in heaven's name, had Mrs. Vanderstein and Miss Turner been doing
in that house on Monday night? Had Miss Finner been mistaken, after all,
and was it not they whom she had seen before the door? If so, by what
astounding coincidence had he been led to search there of all places, by
what incredible freak had Fortune taken him to the scene of this black
and cold-blooded crime? His brain, while he ate, busied itself with
these and such-like riddles.
Soon after breakfast a high official from the Yard called for him in
accordance with arrangements made the night before, and they set forth
together in a taxi for Fianti's.
"For," said the official, as they went, "whether it was Mrs. Vanderstein
or some one else whose body you found, we want the man who did it
equally badly, and we want your help in finding him. I suppose your
commission from Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones dies a natural death now?"
"I suppose so," said Gimblet, "but I'll see him presently and let you
know. There's still Miss Turner to account for, but I daresay she's at
Boulogne too."
"As likely as not," agreed his companion. "It's just the sort of little
detail they'd forget to mention."
"Well, we shall soon know," was Gimblet's only comment.
At Fianti's they sent up their cards by the detective of the regular
force who was always in attendance on the Prince and Princess of
Targona, with a request for the favour of an audience. They had not
long to wait, and were very graciously received by Prince Felipe, who
listened with grave attention to the explanation of the object of their
visit, and read the note presented for his inspection by Gimblet with a
lively curiosity.
No, His Highness was afraid he could not assist them in this matter.
The writing paper was certainly his--how obtained he could offer no
suggestion--the writing was of course a forgery, if that could be called
a forgery which made absolutely no pretence of resembling the original.
He had no notion to whom the appellation of Madame Q. might refer. No
doubt more than one lady whose name began with that initial had been
presented to him on different occasions, but he could not for the moment
recall.... Possibly some of his suite could be of more assistance.
But no one of the Prince's household could give them any help. In the
matter of the writing paper, it was suggested that the hotel servants
might know something as to how it was obtained, but nothing definite
could be found out about it.
The Prince sent for them again before they left, but it was only to say
that they had his best wishes for the success of their investigations,
and to ask a few questions as to points of English police procedure in
which he appeared to be interested.
"Truly, a strange country!" he murmured from time to time on receiving
the answers to his inquiries.
Before they were dismissed, Gimblet once more produced the crumpled
paper which bore the Targona arms over the Prince's name, and asked the
Prince if he could detect a certain odour which clung about it.
"Delicious," said Prince Felipe, when he had pressed it to his nose, "a
delicate, pungent fragrance! But no, I do not know what it is."
The official parted from Gimblet at the door of Fianti's and while the
one returned in a hurried taxi to his sanctum at Scotland Yard, the
other strolled across the street to Mrs. Vanderstein's house.
He found a relieved and rejoicing household.
"You've seen the news, of course, sir," said Blake, himself opening the
door in answer to the detective's ring. "And we've had a telegram this
morning. Here it is."
He handed it to Gimblet, who read:
"Blake 90 Grosvenor Street London W. Think letters must have missed
am staying at Hotel de Douvres Boulogne till further notice writing.
"VANDERSTEIN."
The telegram had been sent off at 8.14 that morning.
"I suppose Miss Turner is with her, sir," Blake was saying, as Gimblet
gave him back the paper, "the newspaper doesn't mention her."
"No," said Gimblet. "Still, as you say, I daresay she is there all the
same. It is Mrs. Vanderstein, and above all Mrs. Vanderstein's jewels,
that the public is interested in."
He went back to his flat, where he found Sidney and Sir Gregory, both
radiant.
"What splendid news!" Sir Gregory greeted him as they met, with a
joyful cry. "I could not believe it at first; it seems too good to be
true. But oh, Mr. Gimblet! what a night I have spent! I shall send that
reporter man a fiver. These newspaper chaps sometimes have their uses,
after all!"
"I hope you see now," Sidney remarked, "what a mistake it is to suspect
people of doing impossible things."
Sir Gregory looked towards them with a puzzled expression. Gimblet,
however, merely smiled.
"I am delighted to be in the wrong, Mr. Sidney," was all he said.
"She will laugh when she hears what a fuss I've been making," resumed
Sir Gregory, pursuing his own thoughts. "I think I shall run over to
Boulogne to-morrow and see her. I assure you, Mr. Gimblet, I feel ten
years younger again. What a nightmare it has been!"
"I found a wire for me at the club," put in Sidney; "she says she is
sorry we have been worried, and that her letter must have missed the
post. It's jolly good of her to wire to me; I didn't think she meant to
have anything more to do with me when I last saw her."
"It looks as if she had forgiven you, doesn't it?" said Gimblet.
He was thinking that it was not every young man in Sidney's position who
would have looked so delighted to hear that his aunt was alive after
all, when all his difficulties seemed removed by her supposed death.
"She doesn't say a word about Miss Turner," Sidney continued. "She might
have, you'd think. Of course she doesn't realise in the least that we've
been imagining her murdered."
"I telegraphed this morning as soon as I'd seen the paper," said Sir
Gregory, "and said we had been most anxious and that I trusted they were
both well. I expect there will be an answer for me by the time I get
back. Must be going now in fact. You see she has been ill; kept her room
till last night, the hotel man said."
"It's a very odd business," said Gimblet. "I have done a little
telegraphing on my own account, I may tell you, for I want to know
whether Mrs. Vanderstein did go to Scholefield Avenue, or whether Miss
Finner took some one else for her. I ought to get the reply any minute.
And the police are sending a man of theirs over to see her, by the
afternoon boat. They want me to help them with investigations of the
tragedy we discovered yesterday. I suppose, Sir Gregory, that I can be
of no further use to you?"
"Thankee, Mr. Gimblet, I hope I shan't trouble you any more."
After a little more mutual congratulation the two visitors took
themselves off, and Gimblet composed himself to await the answer to his
telegram, which was now due.
He was sitting contemplating his Teniers, the beauties of which he had
not had much leisure to gaze at of late, and munching sweets as he
mused, when the expected ring came at the door of the flat; but instead
of the message he thought to receive it was Inspector Jennins from
Scotland Yard, an astute and good-humoured officer, who had before now
been his associate in more than one important case.
"I came round to tell you, Mr. Gimblet," he exclaimed as he was shown
in, "that the young lady has been found."
"What, Miss Turner?"
"That's it. She's in the Middlesex Hospital and, what's more, has been
there all the time."
"Then how in the world was it that no one knew it? That was one of the
first places I inquired at, and I daresay you did too."
"Yes; she was brought in on Wednesday morning about 3 a.m. by a police
constable who had been on night duty in Regent's Park. He saw her
knocked down by a man, and picked her up unconscious, and she has been
so ever since. The man got away in the dark, and at the hospital no one
recognised the young lady from the description given in the inquiries
that were made, as the account of the clothes she wore was all wrong.
But there have been a lot of photographs of her and Mrs. Vanderstein
in the papers to-day and yesterday, and this morning one of the nurses
who'd been studying her portrait recognised the original in spite of her
wounds. The hospital authorities communicated with us, and I'm off to
the hospital now. I thought perhaps you'd like to come."
"I should, certainly," said Gimblet, and they were soon on their way.
"I have only once seen Miss Turner, and that was only a passing
glimpse," Gimblet said as the taxi sped along. "Don't you think it would
be a good plan to take one of the Grosvenor Street servants with us to
identify the young lady? It is possible that the nurse may be mistaken;
people look so different in a horizontal position. And their saying that
her clothes were wrongly described looks to me as if there were some
error somewhere."
"I think that's a very good idea of yours," agreed Jennins, and putting
his head out of the window he told the driver to go to 90 Grosvenor
Street.
They called for Amélie, Mrs. Vanderstein's maid, who appeared after a
few minutes, in high delight and excitement at the prospect of assisting
the police. She looked rather reproachfully at Gimblet, as though she
would have liked to point out to him that it was to be regretted that he
had hitherto failed to appreciate how valuable her co-operation might
be. "Ah, cette pauvre demoiselle," she murmured as they got into the
cab; and her manner indicated that she would have liked to add: "How
different it would have been if you had consulted me earlier."
At the hospital there was a little delay before they were led upstairs
and handed over to the guidance of a pleasant-faced nurse who led them
to a ward full of casualty cases, which had suffered various injuries at
the hands of Fortune.
In one bed was a woman who had been knocked down by a van; in the next a
child who had fallen into the kitchen fire; in the third a woman whose
husband had kicked her to the very verge of the grave; the fourth held
a girl with an arm crushed in the machinery of the factory she worked
in--so the nurse informed the inspector.
She led the party through the ward, keeping up a running commentary as
they advanced, till they reached the end bed of all, in which lay a
young girl whose head was covered with bandages, and who lay quiet and
still as if asleep.
"Here she is," said their guide.
Gimblet looked at Amélie.
"Mais oui, monsieur," she answered his unspoken question. "C'est bien
Mademoiselle Turner. Ah, là là! the poor one, what have they done to
her?"
Barbara looked terribly white and fragile. Her face had grown thin to
emaciation, and there were deep blue lines under her eyes.
"Poor young lady," said the nurse, "she's got concussion of the brain,
and it must have been a frightful blow that did it."
When they left the ward Gimblet asked: "How was it Miss Turner was not
recognised till to-day?"
"Well," said the nurse, "you see the pictures in the papers aren't very
good, and her hair is so hidden by the bandages that it's rather hard to
see the likeness. But what really put us off here was the description of
the clothes she was supposed to have been wearing. Of course no one ever
thought of connecting her with a young lady in a white evening dress
and a red opera cloak!"
"Why," asked Jennins, "were those not the colours she wore?"
"Just wait a moment," said the nurse; "I'll show you her things."
She hurried away and returned in a minute with a bundle of apparel.
"Look at them," she said, and held them up for them to see. "Look
at this old black coat and skirt; do you see how threadbare and
old-fashioned it is? It isn't even very clean. And this horrible hat,"
she pointed to a battered straw, "it is almost in pieces; and the boots
are, quite. Her underclothes were of such coarse, stiff calico that you
would take them for workhouse things, and all darned and mended till you
could hardly see the original stuff. The stockings weren't even mended.
They were just one large hole. And there was no blouse under the coat
at all. Nothing but a chemise. How was one to imagine that this was the
young lady who was being inquired for? There's a tremendous amount in
appearances, and she appeared to be the poorest of the poor."
Gimblet seized upon the miserable garments and examined them eagerly.
But they rendered him no information. Nothing was marked, the boots were
odd ones and of a prehistoric age; there was no distinctive feature
about any of the things.
With injunctions that they should be telephoned to if Miss Turner awoke
to consciousness, they left the hospital and dismissed Amélie, who went
back to Grosvenor Street to pack and return to the hospital with some
of Barbara's belongings, so that she might find them there if they were
needed.
"Now what I want is to see the constable who brought that young lady
into the hospital," Gimblet said to Jennins.
"So do I," said the inspector. "He's been sent for and should be at the
Yard by now," and they drove off in another taxi.
Police-Constable Matterson of S division had already arrived, and was
awaiting them when they reached Scotland Yard. Jennins called him into
his private office, and there, in response to their questions, he told
his story.
"At about 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning," said he, "it being a dark, wet
night, with the rain pouring down like water out of a bucket, and the
thunder claps as near overhead, and as frequent, as ever I heard, I
was on duty near St. Mark's Church just outside Regent's Park. There
is a small bridge for foot passengers across the canal opposite and I
crossed it on my way to the outer circle of the Park. I was just resting
a minute on the bridge, for I didn't like to stay under the trees more
than I need with that storm so close, when a flash of lightning that
must have been almost over me, it was that bright, showed up the canal
below, as I leant on the parapet, so clear that I could have counted
every blade of grass. There was the canal winding out of sight, and the
surface of it all jumping and hissing as the rain-drops hit it; and
there were the banks on either side and the trunks of the trees lit up
as light as day. But the thing that caught my eye was the sight of two
people struggling on the bank, a few yards from the water. It was a man
and a woman, and he seemed to be trying to catch hold of her round the
neck, while she was dodging and defending herself as best she could.
It was all very clear for half a second and then the dark swallowed
everything up again, and the thunder burst, as it seemed, just on my
head.
"Apart from what I had seen it seemed to me that folks wouldn't be out
for any good in that weather, and at that hour and place; and when the
noise of the clap rumbled away I caught the sound of the tail end of a
scream which made me sure of it. I turned my lantern towards the place
and hollered back, running to get over the fence and down to the canal
as I did so.
"As I came near to where I'd seen the pair, two successive flashes
coming close one after the other showed them up again no more than a
few yards away, and they saw me in the same instant. The man had got a
great spade in his hand, and when he caught sight of me he lifted it up
sideways and aimed a fearful blow at the woman with the edge of it. She
ducked and dodged again--very active she was, poor thing--and he missed,
so that the blade glanced off her shoulder and he as near as possible
lost his balance. But he recovered himself at once and threw up his arms
again with the spade clutched in both hands, as I saw by the second
flash, and brought it down with all his force flat on the top of her
head.
"I didn't see her go down, for the light went before the blow had
fallen, and in the dark I lost him, and he got clear away.
"While I was groping about with my lantern, I fell over the body of the
girl, lying where he had struck her to the ground, and at the first
start off I thought he had done for her sure enough. So I let her lie
for a few minutes, while I blew my whistle and kept on searching around
for the scoundrel. Two more of our men came up after a time and we had a
regular hunt, but he'd got a good start and we never saw him. On turning
our attention to the girl again, we found that she was still alive,
though unconscious, so we got an ambulance and took her to the hospital.
There was nothing to show who she was, but from her clothes I judged her
to be one of the lowest and poorest class. I reported the occurrence at
the time, and made a further search by daylight on the spot. I picked up
the spade near by, where the fellow had evidently dropped it as he ran;
it had a piece of stout cord attached to the handle about four or five
feet long, but was otherwise without distinguishing mark of any kind.
It's outside, if you wish to see it, sir."
Jennins told him to bring it in.
"Of course," he said to Gimblet, "no one ever thought of connecting this
story of violence and brutality with the two missing ladies. The report
didn't come my way, as it happens, but I don't suppose for a moment I
should have been a scrap the wiser if it had. Still, it makes one feel a
bit foolish now, I'll own."
Matterson returned with the spade and cord, which proved to be very
ordinary; and Gimblet's inquiring lens could discover nothing about them
in any way remarkable.
"What was the man like?" he asked the policeman.
"I didn't have much time to take notice, sir," replied Matterson, "but
he was a dark fellow with a black beard, and tall."
"Did you see if he wore gloves?"
"Come to think of it, now you ask me, sir, I believe he did. I saw his
hands plain enough as he lifted the spade, and I ought to know. But I
couldn't swear to it, I'm afraid, though my impression is that he did,
and that it struck me as curious at the time, in the sort of way a thing
will strike you for a moment and then slip out of your memory like a
dream does."