THE MAN IN THE MIST
Tommy was not pleased with life. Blunt's Brilliant Detectives had met
with a reverse, distressing to their pride if not to their pockets.
Called in professionally to elucidate the mystery of a stolen pearl
necklace at Adlington Hall, Adlington, Blunt's Brilliant Detectives
had failed to make good. Whilst Tommy, hard on the track of a gambling
Countess, was tracking her in the disguise of a Roman Catholic Priest,
and Tuppence was "getting off" with a nephew of the house on the golf
links, the local Inspector of Police had unemotionally arrested the
second footman who proved to be a thief well known at headquarters and
who admitted his guilt without making any bones about it.
Tommy and Tuppence, therefore, had withdrawn with what dignity they
could muster, and were at the present moment solacing themselves with
cocktails at the Grand Adlington Hotel. Tommy still wore his clerical
disguise.
"Hardly a Father Brown touch, that," he remarked gloomily. "And yet
I've got just the right kind of umbrella."
"It wasn't a Father Brown problem," said Tuppence. "One needs a certain
atmosphere from the start. One must be doing something quite ordinary,
and then bizarre things begin to happen. That's the idea."
"Unfortunately," said Tommy, "we have to return to town. Perhaps
something bizarre will happen on the way to the station."
He raised the glass he was holding to his lips, but the liquid in it
was suddenly spilled, as a heavy hand smacked him on the shoulder, and
a voice to match the hand boomed out words of greeting.
"Upon my soul, it is! Old Tommy! And Mrs. Tommy too. Where did you blow
in from? Haven't seen or heard anything of you for years."
"Why, it's Bulger!" said Tommy, setting down what was left of the
cocktail, and turning to look at the intruder, a big square-shouldered
man of thirty years of age, with a round red beaming face, and dressed
in golfing kit. "Good old Bulger!"
"But I say, old chap," said Bulger (whose real name by the way, was
Mervyn Estcourt), "I never knew you'd taken orders. Fancy you a
blinking parson."
Tuppence burst out laughing, and Tommy looked embarrassed. And then
they suddenly became conscious of a fourth person.
A tall slender creature, with very golden hair and very round blue
eyes, almost impossibly beautiful, with an effect of really expensive
black topped by wonderful ermines, and very large pearl earrings. She
was smiling. And her smile said many things. It asserted, for instance,
that she knew perfectly well that she herself was the thing best worth
looking at certainly in England, and possibly in the whole world. She
was not vain about it in any way, but she just knew, with certainty and
confidence, that it was so.
Both Tommy and Tuppence recognised her immediately. They had seen her
three times in "The Secret of the Heart," and an equal number of times
in that other great success, "Pillars of Fire," and in innumerable
other plays. There was, perhaps, no other actress in England who had so
firm a hold on the British public, as Miss Gilda Glen. She was reported
to be the most beautiful woman in England. It was also rumored that she
was the stupidest.
"Old friends of mine, Miss Glen," said Estcourt, with a tinge of
apology in his voice for having presumed, even for a moment, to forget
such a radiant creature. "Tommy, and Mrs. Tommy, let me introduce you
to Miss Gilda Glen."
The ring of pride in his voice was unmistakable. By merely being seen
in his company, Miss Glen had conferred great glory upon him.
The actress was staring with frank interest at Tommy.
"Are you really a Priest?" she asked. "A Roman Catholic Priest, I mean?
Because I thought they didn't have wives."
Estcourt went off in a boom of laughter again.
"That's good," he exploded. "You sly dog, Tommy. Glad he hasn't
renounced you, Mrs. Tommy, with all the rest of the pomps and vanities."
Gilda Glen took not the faintest notice of him. She continued to stare
at Tommy with puzzled eyes.
"Are you a Priest?" she demanded.
"Very few of us are what we seem to be," said Tommy gently. "My
profession is not unlike that of a Priest. I don't give Absolution--but
I listen to Confessions--I--"
"Don't you listen to him," interrupted Estcourt. "He's pulling your
leg."
"If you're not a clergyman, I don't see why you're dressed up like
one," she puzzled. "That is, unless--"
"Not a criminal flying from justice," said Tommy. "The other thing."
"Oh!" she frowned, and looked at him with beautiful bewildered eyes.
"I wonder if she'll ever get that," thought Tommy to himself. "Not
unless I put it in words of one syllable for her, I should say."
Aloud he said:
"Know anything about the trains back to town, Bulger? We've got to be
pushing for home. How far is it to the station?"
"Ten minutes' walk. But no hurry. Next train up is the 6.35 and it's
only about twenty to six now. You've just missed one."
"Which way is it to the station from here?"
"Sharp to the left when you turn out of the Hotel. Then--let me
see--down Morgan's Avenue would be the best way, wouldn't it?"
"Morgan's Avenue?" Miss Glen started violently, and stared at him with
startled eyes.
"I know what you're thinking of," said Estcourt, laughing. "The Ghost.
Morgan's Avenue is bounded by the cemetery on one side, and tradition
has it that a policeman who met his death by violence gets up and walks
on his old beat up and down Morgan's Avenue. A spook policeman! Can
you beat it? But lots of people swear to having seen him."
"A policeman?" said Miss Glen. She shivered a little. "But there aren't
really any ghosts, are there? I mean--there aren't such things?"
She got up, folding her wrap tighter round her.
"Good bye," she said vaguely.
She had ignored Tuppence completely throughout, and now she did not
even glance in her direction. But over her shoulder she threw one
puzzled questioning glance at Tommy.
Just as she got to the door, she encountered a tall man with grey hair
and a puffy red face who uttered an exclamation of surprise. His hand
on her arm, he led her through the doorway, talking in an animated
fashion.
"Beautiful creature, isn't she?" said Estcourt. "Brains of a rabbit.
Rumor has it that she's going to marry Lord Leconbury. That was
Leconbury in the doorway."
"He doesn't look a very nice sort of man to marry," remarked Tuppence.
Estcourt shrugged his shoulders.
"A title has a kind of glamor still, I suppose," he said. "And
Leconbury is not an impoverished peer by any means. She'll be in
clover. Nobody knows where she sprang from. Pretty near the gutter, I
daresay. There's something deuced mysterious about her being down here
anyway. She's not staying at the Hotel. And when I tried to find out
where she was staying, she snubbed me--snubbed me quite crudely, in the
only way she knows. Blessed if I know what it's all about."
He glanced at his watch and uttered an exclamation.
"I must be off. Jolly glad to have seen you two again. We must have a
bust in town together some night. So long."
He hurried away, and as he did so, a page approached with a note on a
salver. The note was unaddressed.
"But it's for you, sir," he said to Tommy. "From Miss Gilda Glen."
Tommy tore it open and read it with some curiosity. Inside were a few
lines written in a straggling untidy hand.
I'm not sure, but I think you might be able to help me. And you'll
be going that way to the station. Could you be at The White House,
Morgan's Avenue, at ten minutes past six?
Yours sincerely,
Gilda Glen.
Tommy nodded to the page who departed, and then handed the note to
Tuppence.
"Extraordinary," said Tuppence. "Is it because she still thinks you're
a Priest?"
"No," said Tommy thoughtfully. "I should say it's because she's at last
taken in that I'm not one. Hullo! what's this?"
"This" was a young man with flaming red hair, a pugnacious jaw and
appallingly shabby clothes. He had walked into the room and was now
striding up and down muttering to himself.
"Hell!" said the red haired man, loudly and forcibly. "That's what I
say--Hell!"
He dropped into a chair near the young couple and stared at them
moodily.
"Damn all women, that's what I say," said the young man, eyeing
Tuppence ferociously. "Oh! all right, kick up a row if you like.
Have me turned out of the Hotel! It won't be for the first time. Why
shouldn't we say what we think? Why should we go about bottling up our
feelings, and smirking, and saying things exactly like everyone else?
I don't feel pleasant and polite. I feel like getting hold of someone
round the throat and gradually choking them to death."
He paused.
"Any particular person?" asked Tuppence. "Or just anybody?"
"One particular person," said the young man grimly.
"This is very interesting," said Tuppence. "Won't you tell us some
more?"
"My name's Reilly," said the red haired man. "James Reilly. You may
have heard it. I wrote a little volume of Pacifist poems--good stuff,
although I say so."
"_Pacifist Poems?_" said Tuppence.
"Yes--why not?" demanded Mr. Reilly belligerently.
"Oh! nothing," said Tuppence hastily.
"I'm for peace all the time," said Mr. Reilly fiercely. "To Hell with
war. And women! Women! Did you see that creature who was trailing
around here just now? Gilda Glen, she calls herself. Gilda Glen! God!
how I've worshipped that woman. And I'll tell you this--if she's got
a heart at all, it's on my side. She cared once for me, and I could
make her care again. And if she sells herself to that muck heap
Leconbury--well, God help her. I'd as soon kill her with my own hands."
And on this, suddenly, he rose and rushed from the room.
Tommy raised his eyebrows.
"A somewhat excitable gentleman," he murmured. "Well, Tuppence, shall
we start?"
A fine mist was coming up as they emerged from the Hotel into the cool
outer air. Obeying Estcourt's directions, they turned sharp to the
left, and in a few minutes they came to a turning labelled Morgan's
Avenue.
The mist had increased. It was soft and white, and hurried past them in
little eddying drifts. To their left was the high wall of the Cemetery,
on their right a row of small houses. Presently these ceased, and a
high hedge took their place.
"Tommy," said Tuppence. "I'm beginning to feel jumpy. The mist--and the
silence. As though we were miles from anywhere."
"One does feel like that," agreed Tommy. "All alone in the world. It's
the effect of the mist, and not being able to see ahead of one."
Tuppence nodded. "Just our footsteps echoing on the pavement. What's
that?"
"What's what?"
"I thought I heard other footsteps behind us."
"You'll be seeing the ghost in a minute if you work yourself up like
this," said Tommy kindly. "Don't be so nervy. Are you afraid the spook
policeman will lay his hand on your shoulder?"
Tuppence emitted a shrill squeal.
"Don't, Tommy. Now you've put it into my head."
She craned her head back over her shoulder, trying to peer into the
white veil that was wrapped all round them.
"There they are again," she whispered. "No, they're in front now. Oh!
Tommy, don't say you can't hear them?"
"I do hear something. Yes, it's footsteps behind us. Somebody else
walking this way to catch the train. I wonder--"
He stopped suddenly, and stood still, and Tuppence gave a gasp.
For the curtain of mist in front of them suddenly parted in the most
artificial manner, and there, not twenty feet away a gigantic policeman
suddenly appeared, as though materialised out of the fog. One minute
he was not there, the next minute he was--so at least it seemed to the
rather superheated imaginations of the two watchers. Then as the mist
rolled back still more, a little scene appeared, as though set on a
stage.
The big blue policeman, a scarlet pillar box, and on the right of the
road the outlines of a white house.
"Red, white, and blue," said Tommy. "It's damned pictorial. Come on,
Tuppence, there's nothing to be afraid of."
For, as he had already seen, the policeman was a real policeman. And
moreover, he was not nearly so gigantic as he had at first seemed
looming up out of the mist.
But as they started forward, footsteps came from behind them. A man
passed them, hurrying along. He turned in at the gate of the White
House, ascended the steps, and beat a deafening tattoo upon the
knocker. He was admitted just as they reached the spot where the
policeman was standing staring after him.
"There's a gentleman seems to be in a hurry," commented the policeman.
He spoke in a slow reflective voice, as of one whose thoughts took some
time to mature.
"He's the sort of gentleman always would be in a hurry," remarked Tommy.
The policeman's stare, slow and rather suspicious, came round to rest
on his face.
"Friend of yours?" he demanded, and there was distinct suspicion now in
his voice.
"No," said Tommy. "He's not a friend of mine, but I happen to know who
he is. Name of Reilly."
"Ah!" said the policeman. "Well, I'd better be getting along."
"Can you tell me where the White House is?" asked Tommy.
The constable jerked his head sideways.
"This is it. Mrs. Honeycott's." He paused, and added evidently with
the idea of giving them valuable information: "Nervous party. Always
suspecting burglars is around. Always asking me to have a look around
the place. Middle-aged women get like that."
"Middle-aged, eh?" said Tommy. "Do you happen to know if there's a
young lady staying there?"
"A young lady," said the policeman, ruminating. "A young lady. No, I
can't say I know anything about that."
"She mayn't be staying here, Tommy," said Tuppence. "And anyway, she
mayn't be here yet. She could only have started just before we did."
"Ah!" said the policeman suddenly. "Now that I call it to mind, a young
lady did go in at this gate. I saw her as I was coming up the road.
About three or four minutes ago it might be."
"With ermine furs on?" asked Tuppence eagerly.
"She had some kind of white rabbit round her throat," admitted the
policeman.
Tuppence smiled. The policeman went on in the direction from which they
had just come, and they prepared to enter the gate of the White House.
Suddenly a faint muffled cry sounded from inside the house, and almost
immediately afterwards the front door opened and James Reilly came
rushing down the steps. His face was white and twisted, and his eyes
glared in front of him unseeingly. He staggered like a drunken man.
He passed Tommy and Tuppence as though he did not see them, muttering
to himself with a kind of dreadful repetition.
"My God! My God! Oh, my God!"
He clutched at the gate post, as though to steady himself, and then, as
though animated by sudden panic, he raced off down the road as hard as
he could go in the opposite direction to that taken by the policeman.