Cards on the Table (11 page)

S
ergeant O'Connor was unkindly nicknamed by his colleagues at the Yard: “The Maidservant's Prayer.”

There was no doubt that he was an extremely handsome man. Tall, erect, broad-shouldered, it was less the regularity of his features than the roguish and daredevil spark in his eye which made him so irresistible to the fair sex. It was indubitable that Sergeant O'Connor got results, and got them quickly.

So rapid was he, that only four days after the murder of Mr. Shaitana, Sergeant O'Connor was sitting in the three-and-sixpenny seats at the
Willy Nilly Revue
side by side with Miss Elsie Batt, late parlourmaid to Mrs. Craddock of 117 North Audley Street.

Having laid his line of approach carefully, Sergeant O'Connor was just launching the great offensive.

“—Reminds me,” he was saying, “of the way one of my old governors used to carry on. Name of Craddock. He was an old cuss, if you like.”

“Craddock,” said Elsie. “I was with some Craddocks once.”

“Well, that's funny. Wonder whether they were the same?”

“Lived in North Audley Street, they did,” said Elsie.

“My lot were going to London when I left them,” said O'Connor promptly. “Yes, I believe it
was
North Audley Street. Mrs. Craddock was rather a one for the gents.”

Elsie tossed her head.

“I'd no patience with her. Always finding fault and grumbling. Nothing you did right.”

“Her husband got some of it, too, didn't he?”

“She was always complaining he neglected her—that he didn't understand her. And she was always saying how bad her health was and gasping and groaning. Not ill at all, if you ask
me
.”

O'Connor slapped his knee.

“Got it. Wasn't there something about her and some doctor? A bit too thick or something?”

“You mean Dr. Roberts? He was a nice gentleman, he was.”

“You girls, you're all alike,” said Sergeant O'Connor. “The moment a man's a bad lot, all the girls stick up for him. I know his kind.”

“No, you don't, and you're all wrong about him. There wasn't anything of that kind about him. Wasn't his fault, was it, if Mrs. Craddock was always sending for him? What's a doctor to do? If you ask me, he didn't think nothing of her at all, except as a patient. It was all her doing. Wouldn't leave him alone, she wouldn't.”

“That's all very well, Elsie. Don't mind me calling you Elsie, do you? Feel as though I'd known you all my life.”

“Well, you haven't! Elsie, indeed.”

She tossed her head.

“Oh, very well, Miss Batt.” He gave her a glance. “As I was
saying, that's all very well, but the husband, he cut up rough, all the same, didn't he?”

“He was a bit ratty one day,” admitted Elsie. “But, if you ask me, he was ill at the time. He died just after, you know.”

“I remember—died of something queer, didn't he?”

“Something Japanese, it was—all from a new shaving brush, he'd got. Seems awful, doesn't it, that they're not more careful? I've not fancied anything Japanese since.”

“Buy British, that's my motto,” said Sergeant O'Connor sententiously. “And you were saying he and the doctor had a row?”

Elsie nodded, enjoying herself as she relived past scandals.

“Hammer and tongs, they went at it,” she said. “At least, the master did. Dr. Roberts was ever so quiet. Just said, ‘Nonsense.' And, ‘What have you got into your head?'”

“This was at the house, I suppose?”

“Yes. She'd sent for him. And then she and the master had words, and in the middle of it Dr. Roberts arrived, and the master went for him.”

“What did he say exactly?”

“Well, of course, I wasn't supposed to hear. It was all in the Missus's bedroom. I thought something was up, so I got the dustpan and did the stairs. I wasn't going to miss anything.”

Sergeant O'Connor heartily concurred in this sentiment, reflecting how fortunate it was that Elsie was being approached unofficially. On interrogation by Sergeant O'Connor of the Police, she would have virtuously protested that she had not overheard anything at all.

“As I say,” went on Elsie, “Dr. Roberts, he was very quiet—the master was doing all the shouting.”

“What was he saying?” asked O'Connor, for the second time approaching the vital point.

“Abusing of him proper,” said Elsie with relish.

“How do you mean?”

Would the girl never come to actual words and phrases?

“Well, I don't understand a lot of it,” admitted Elsie. “There were a lot of long words, ‘unprofessional conduct,' and ‘taking advantage,' and things like that—and I heard him say he'd get Dr. Roberts struck off the—Medical Register, would it be? Something like that.”

“That's right,” said O'Connor. “Complain to the Medical Council.”

“Yes, he said something like that. And the Missus was going on in sort of hysterics, saying ‘You never cared for me. You neglected me. You left me alone.' And I heard her say that Dr. Roberts had been an angel of goodness to her.

“And then the doctor, he came through into the dressing room with the master and shut the door of the bedroom—and he said quite plain:

“‘My good man, don't you realize your wife's hysterical? She doesn't know what she's saying. To tell you the truth, it's been a very difficult and trying case, and I'd have thrown it up long ago if I'd thought it was con—con—some long word; oh, yes, consistent—that was it—consistent with my duty.' That's what he said. He said something about not overstepping a boundary, too—something between doctor and patient. He got the master quietened a bit, and then he said:

“‘You'll be late at the office, you know. You'd better be off. Just think things over quietly. I think you'll realize that the whole
business is a mare's nest. I'll just wash my hands here before I go onto my next case. Now, you think it over, my dear fellow. I can assure you that the whole thing arises out of your wife's disordered imagination.'

“And the master, he said, ‘I don't know what to think.'

“And he come out—and, of course, I was brushing hard—but he never even noticed me. I thought afterwards he looked ill. The doctor, he was whistling quite cheerily and washing his hands in the dressing room, where there was hot and cold laid on. And presently he came out, with his bag, and he spoke to me very nicely and cheerily, as he always did, and he went down the stairs, quite cheerful and gay and his usual self. So you see, I'm quite sure as he hadn't done anything wrong. It was all her.”

“And then Craddock got this anthrax?”

“Yes, I think he'd got it already. The mistress, she nursed him very devoted, but he died. Lovely wreaths there was at the funeral.”

“And afterwards? Did Dr. Roberts come to the house again?”

“No, he didn't, Nosey! You've got some grudge against him. I tell you there was nothing in it. If there were he'd have married her when the master was dead, wouldn't he? And he never did. No such fool. He'd taken her measure all right. She used to ring him up, though, but somehow he was never in. And then she sold the house, and we all got our notices, and she went abroad to Egypt.”

“And you didn't see Dr. Roberts in all that time?”

“No.
She
did, because she went to him to have this—what do you call it?—'noculation against the typhoid fever. She came back with her arm ever so sore with it. If you ask me, he made it clear to her then that there was nothing doing. She didn't ring him up no more, and she went off very cheerful with a lovely lot of new
clothes—all light colours, although it was the middle of winter, but she said it would be all sunshine and hot out there.”

“That's right,” said Sergeant O'Connor. “It's too hot sometimes, I've heard. She died out there. You know that, I suppose?”

“No, indeed I didn't. Well, fancy that! She may have been worse than I thought, poor soul.”

She added with a sigh:

“I wonder what they did with all that lovely lot of clothes. They're blacks out there, so they couldn't wear them.”

“You'd have looked a treat in them, I expect,” said Sergeant O'Connor.

“Impudence,” said Elsie.

“Well, you won't have my impudence much longer,” said Sergeant O'Connor. “I've got to go away on business for my firm.”

“You going for long?”

“May be going abroad,” said the Sergeant.

Elsie's face fell.

Though unacquainted with Lord Byron's famous poem, “I never loved a dear gazelle,” etc., its sentiments were at that moment hers. She thought to herself:

“Funny how all the really attractive ones never come to anything. Oh, well, there's always Fred.”

Which is gratifying, since it shows that the sudden incursion of Sergeant O'Connor into Elsie's life did not affect it permanently. “Fred” may even have been the gainer!

R
hoda Dawes came out of Debenham's and stood meditatively upon the pavement. Indecision was written all over her face. It was an expressive face; each fleeting emotion showed itself in a quickly varying expression.

Quite plainly at this moment Rhoda's face said: “Shall I or shan't I? I'd like to … But perhaps I'd better not….”

The commissionaire said, “Taxi, Miss?” to her hopefully.

Rhoda shook her head.

A stout woman carrying parcels with an eager “shopping early for Christmas” expression on her face, cannoned into her severely, but still Rhoda stood stock-still, trying to make up her mind.

Chaotic odds and ends of thoughts flashed through her mind.

“After all, why shouldn't I? She asked me to—but perhaps it's just a thing she says to everyone … She doesn't mean it to be taken seriously … Well, after all, Anne didn't want me. She made it quite clear she'd rather go with Major Despard to the solicitor man alone … And why shouldn't she? I mean, three
is
a crowd … And
it isn't really any business of mine … It isn't as though I particularly
wanted
to see Major Despard … He is nice, though … I think he must have fallen for Anne. Men don't take a lot of trouble unless they have … I mean, it's never just kindness….”

A messenger boy bumped into Rhoda and said, “Beg pardon, Miss,” in a reproachful tone.

“Oh, dear,” thought Rhoda. “I can't go on standing here all day. Just because I'm such an idiot that I can't make up my mind … I think that coat and skirt's going to be awfully nice. I wonder if brown would have been more useful than green? No, I don't think so. Well, come on, shall I go or shan't I? Half past three, it's quite a good time—I mean, it doesn't look as though I'm cadging a meal or anything. I might just go and look, anyway.”

She plunged across the road, turned to the right, and then to the left, up Harley Street, finally pausing by the block of flats always airily described by Mrs. Oliver as “all among the nursing homes.”

“Well, she can't eat me,” thought Rhoda, and plunged boldly into the building.

Mrs. Oliver's flat was on the top floor. A uniformed attendant whisked her up in a lift and decanted her on a smart new mat outside a bright green door.

“This is awful,” thought Rhoda. “Worse than dentists. I must go through with it now, though.”

Pink with embarrassment, she pushed the bell.

The door was opened by an elderly maid.

“Is—could I—is Mrs. Oliver at home?” asked Rhoda.

The maid drew back, Rhoda entered, she was shown into a very untidy drawing room. The maid said:

“What name shall I say, please?”

“Oh—eh—Miss Dawes—Miss Rhoda Dawes.”

The maid withdrew. After what seemed to Rhoda about a hundred years, but was really exactly a minute and forty-five seconds, the maid returned.

“Will you step this way, Miss?”

Pinker than ever, Rhoda followed her. Along a passage, round a corner, a door was opened. Nervously she entered into what seemed at first to her startled eyes to be an African forest!

Birds—masses of birds, parrots, macaws, birds unknown to ornithology, twined themselves in and out of what seemed to be a primeval forest. In the middle of this riot of bird and vegetable life, Rhoda perceived a battered kitchen table with a typewriter on it, masses of typescript littered all over the floor and Mrs. Oliver, her hair in wild confusion, rising from a somewhat rickety-looking chair.

“My dear, how nice to see you,” said Mrs. Oliver, holding out a carbon-stained hand and trying with her other hand to smooth her hair, a quite impossible proceeding.

A paper bag, touched by her elbow, fell from the desk, and apples rolled energetically all over the floor.

“Never mind, my dear, don't bother, someone will pick them up sometime.”

Rather breathless, Rhoda rose from a stooping position with five apples in her grasp.

“Oh, thank you—no, I shouldn't put them back in the bag. I think it's got a hole in it. Put them on the mantelpiece. That's right. Now, then, sit down and let's talk.”

Rhoda accepted a second battered chair and focussed her eyes on her hostess.

“I say, I'm terribly sorry. Am I interrupting, or anything?” she asked breathlessly.

“Well, you are and you aren't,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I
am
working, as you see. But that dreadful Finn of mine has got himself terribly tangled up. He did some awfully clever deduction with a dish of French beans, and now he's just detected deadly poison in the sage and onion stuffing of the Michaelmas goose, and I've just remembered that French beans are over by Michaelmas.”

Thrilled by this peep into the inner world of creative detective fiction, Rhoda said breathlessly, “They might be tinned.”

“They might, of course,” said Mrs. Oliver doubtfully. “But it would rather spoil the point. I'm always getting tangled up in horticulture and things like that. People write to me and say I've got the wrong flowers all out together. As though it mattered—and anyway, they are all out together in a London shop.”

“Of course it doesn't matter,” said Rhoda loyally. “Oh, Mrs. Oliver, it must be marvellous to write.”

Mrs. Oliver rubbed her forehead with a carbonny finger and said:

“Why?”

“Oh,” said Rhoda, a little taken aback. “Because it must. It must be wonderful just to sit down and write off a whole book.”

“It doesn't happen exactly like that,” said Mrs. Oliver. “One actually has to
think,
you know. And thinking is always a bore. And you have to plan things. And then one gets stuck every now and then, and you feel you'll never get out of the mess—but you do! Writing's not particularly enjoyable. It's hard work like everything else.”

“It doesn't seem like work,” said Rhoda.

“Not to
you,
” said Mrs. Oliver, “because you don't have to do it! It feels very like work to me. Some days I can only keep going by repeating over and over to myself the amount of money I might get for my next serial rights. That spurs you on, you know. So does your bankbook when you see how much overdrawn you are.”

“I never imagined you actually typed your books yourself,” said Rhoda. “I thought you'd have a secretary.”

“I did have a secretary, and I used to try and dictate to her, but she was so competent that it used to depress me. I felt she knew so much more about English and grammar and full stops and semicolons than I did, that it gave me a kind of inferiority complex. Then I tried having a thoroughly incompetent secretary, but, of course, that didn't answer very well, either.”

“It must be so wonderful to be able to think of things,” said Rhoda.

“I can always think of things,” said Mrs. Oliver happily. “What is so tiring is writing them down. I always think I've finished, and then when I count up I find I've only written thirty thousand words instead of sixty thousand, and so then I have to throw in another murder and get the heroine kidnapped again. It's all very boring.”

Rhoda did not answer. She was staring at Mrs. Oliver with the reverence felt by youth for celebrity—slightly tinged by disappointment.

“Do you like the wallpaper?” asked Mrs. Oliver waving an airy hand. “I'm frightfully fond of birds. The foliage is supposed to be tropical. It makes me feel it's a hot day, even when it's freezing. I can't do anything unless I feel very, very warm. But Sven Hjerson breaks the ice on his bath every morning!”

“I think it's all marvellous,” said Rhoda. “And it's awfully nice of you to say I'm not interrupting you.”

“We'll have some coffee and toast,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Very black coffee and very hot toast. I can always eat that anytime.”

She went to the door, opened it and shouted. Then she returned and said:

“What brings you to town—shopping?”

“Yes, I've been doing some shopping.”

“Is Miss Meredith up, too?”

“Yes, she's gone with Major Despard to a solicitor.”

“Solicitor, eh?”

Mrs. Oliver's eyebrows rose inquiringly.

“Yes. You see, Major Despard told her she ought to have one. He's been awfully kind—he really has.”

“I was kind, too,” said Mrs. Oliver, “but it didn't seem to go down very well, did it? In fact, I think your friend rather resented my coming.”

“Oh, she didn't—really she didn't.” Rhoda wriggled on her chair in a paroxysm of embarrassment. “That's really one reason why I wanted to come today—to explain. You see, I saw you had got it all wrong. She did seem very ungracious, but it wasn't that, really. I mean, it wasn't your coming. It was something you said.”

“Something I
said?
”

“Yes. You couldn't tell, of course. It was just unfortunate.”

“What did I say?”

“I don't expect you remember, even. It was just the way you put it. You said something about an accident and poison.”

“Did I?”

“I knew you'd probably not remember. Yes. You see, Anne had a ghastly experience once. She was in a house where a woman took some poison—hat paint, I think it was—by mistake for something else. And she died. And, of course, it was an awful shock to Anne. She can't bear thinking of it or speaking of it. And your saying that reminded her, of course, and she dried up and got all stiff and queer like she does. And I saw you noticed it. And I couldn't say anything in front of her. But I did want you to know that it wasn't what you thought. She wasn't ungrateful.”

Mrs. Oliver looked at Rhoda's flushed eager face. She said slowly:

“I see.”

“Anne's awfully sensitive,” said Rhoda. “And she's bad about—well, facing things. If anything's upset her, she'd just rather not talk about it, although that isn't any good, really—at least, I don't think so. Things are there just the same—whether you talk about them or not. It's only running away from them to pretend they don't exist. I'd rather have it all out, however painful it would be.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Oliver quietly. “But you, my dear, are a soldier. Your Anne isn't.”

Rhoda flushed.

“Anne's a darling.”

Mrs. Oliver smiled.

She said, “I didn't say she wasn't. I only said she hadn't got your particular brand of courage.”

She sighed, then said rather unexpectedly to the girl:

“Do you believe in the value of truth, my dear, or don't you?”

“Of course I believe in the truth,” said Rhoda staring.

“Yes, you say that—but perhaps you haven't thought about it. The truth hurts sometimes—and destroys one's illusions.”

“I'd rather have it, all the same,” said Rhoda.

“So would I. But I don't know that we're wise.”

Rhoda said earnestly:

“Don't tell Anne, will you, what I've told you? She wouldn't like it.”

“I certainly shouldn't dream of doing any such thing. Was this long ago?

“About four years ago. It's odd, isn't it, how the same things happen again and again to people. I had an aunt who was always in shipwrecks. And here's Anne mixed up in two sudden deaths—only, of course, this one is much worse. Murder's rather awful, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is.”

The black coffee and the hot buttered toast appeared at this minute.

Rhoda ate and drank with childish gusto. It was very exciting to her thus to be sharing an intimate meal with a celebrity.

When they had finished she rose and said:

“I do hope I haven't interrupted you too terribly. Would you mind—I mean, would it bother you awfully—if I sent one of your books to you, would you sign it for me?”

Mrs. Oliver laughed.

“Oh, I can do better than that for you.” She opened a cupboard at the far end of the room. “Which would you like? I rather fancy
The Affair of the Second Goldfish
myself. It's not quite such frightful tripe as the rest.”

A little shocked at hearing an authoress thus describe the chil
dren of her pen, Rhoda accepted eagerly. Mrs. Oliver took the book, opened it, inscribed her name with a superlative flourish and handed it to Rhoda.

“There you are.”

“Thank you very much. I have enjoyed myself. Sure you didn't mind my coming?”

“I wanted you to,” said Mrs. Oliver.

She added after a moment's pause:

“You're a nice child. Good-bye. Take care of yourself, my dear.”

“Now, why did I say that?” she murmured to herself as the door closed behind her guest.

She shook her head, ruffled her hair, and returned to the masterly dealings of Sven Hjerson with the sage and onion stuffing.