Comes a Stranger (28 page)

“Owen, you mentioned Miss Kayne and that absurd statement of hers. You don't want us to take it seriously, do you? Surely you haven't got her in your mind?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby.

“Preposterous, ridiculous, impossible,” said the Major slowly and distinctly. He came back to the table and seated himself again. “So have I,” he said heavily. “It's incredible, but so have I.”

“Only,” Bobby added, “I'm not thinking of her more than of two or three others.”

“She can hardly get out of her chair without help,” the Major said. “Certainly, her manner's been very strange lately. But is she physically capable? I mean, could she get about?”

“I've tried to go into that,” Bobby said. “I think she could if she wanted to.”

“Well, even if we were able to prove it, no one would ever believe us,” observed the Major gloomily. “That fat old woman! Do you think she sent the forget-me-nots?”

“There are forget-me-nots in the Lodge gardens,” Bobby said, “by the trees, where the seats have been put for the view. But then there are forget-me-nots in pretty nearly every garden. Also it would be very difficult for Miss Kayne to send anything like that without someone knowing. I suppose it's possible.”

“Well, why should she?” asked the Major. “The murders I mean? Two of them? What for? Of course, we haven't to prove motive in a murder case. Still—”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby.

“You don't suggest she's mad?”

“No sir, I can't see any suggestion of insanity anywhere. It all seems to me to hang together only I can't see how. It's the governing idea that we can't get hold of, it seems to me.”

“There's always what she said to you,” mused the Major, “about the perfect murder, I mean. What did she say that for, and what's its significance? If any. Anyhow, why should it make her commit two more murders, young Kayne and Winders, too? Could they have found out something? Could they have known or suspected anything about this perfect murder she talks about? For that matter, who could she have murdered and what for?”

“There's one thing, sir,” Bobby pointed out, “there does seem to be a record in this case of someone who disappeared and has never been heard of since.”

“You mean, Virtue's story about his cousin, the one who vanished on a European trip. But he was traced to Paris, wasn't he? He vanished there, not here. Besides, there seems no record that he and Miss Kayne ever met each other, except perhaps casually. So far as appears, he had none but business relations here. He bought books from the library and consulted them sometimes. But that's all, as far as we know, and it would be almost impossible to find out anything different after all this time.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby. “Very difficult indeed. At the time one could have tried to find out more; if there was really satisfactory proof he was going about with some unknown girl and if it was really he who was traced to Paris. A false trail might have been laid, but it would be pretty hard to prove that now.”

“Well, then,” said the Major, “there you are, and where are you?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby, quite agreeing with this somewhat involved remark. “Could we try to start from the beginning? I mean, go over what we do know for certain?”

“Precious little we do know for certain,” grumbled the Major. “Well, go ahead.”

“I thought,” explained Bobby, “if we got clear in our minds what we do actually know, some kind of pattern might begin to show. The first thing we do know is that a relative of Mr. Virtue's disappeared on a European trip, and we also know he had some connection with the Kayne library and visited this village. It appears he was traced to Paris, but there's no confirmation. We don't know it's true.”

“You mean—” began the Major and paused.

“I'm trying to keep to the facts we can be certain of,” Bobby repeated. “If a murder were committed in one place and the body hidden there, it might be a good plan to lay a false track somewhere else.”

“But his luggage? hotel registers? all that?”

“His murderers might have secured possession of his luggage. A signature in an hotel register could be forged. In busy hotels guests are not always clearly remembered. I can't agree that it is proved as actual fact that the missing man disappeared in Paris. It may be so. It may not. All we can be sure of is that he did disappear and there's no explanation known. Also we know as fact that Miss Kayne has talked about a perfect murder in the past. Those are two facts. There may be no connection.”

“Yes,” said the Major. “Yes.” Then he paused and said: “Yes” once more. Bobby continued:

“Another fact we know and the next in the time order, is that Bertram Virtue visited the Kayne library on the occasion of the breaking of the glass case holding the
Glastonbury Psalter
. Afterwards he turned up again when for some reason Mr. Broast refused him admittance. Thereon Virtue told a story, almost certainly false, of having seen a dead man on the library floor. When challenged about that, he demanded that the library should be searched. He has pressed that point since. We know also that Miss Perkins has in her possession a photograph answering to the description Virtue gave of the dead body he said he saw. I think we may say also that Virtue had no knowledge of that, his surprise when he knew was certainly genuine.”

“Yes, I think that, too,” agreed the Major. “What you are getting at is that Virtue thinks his lost cousin was murdered, believes that the body is concealed somewhere in the library, only he daren't say so, but he thinks if he could fix up a search for a supposed other dead body, then some trace might be found of his lost cousin?”

“Yes, sir,” Bobby said slowly. “that's what was in my mind. It seems to me a fair deduction.”

“How did the Perkins girl get hold of the photograph, if it is that of the missing Mr. Virtue? do you think she's in with Bertram Virtue?”

“I thought of that, it's possible but not very likely. It may be she found it in the way she says. I don't know. It seems to have been in her possession ever since she got here. Possibly before. Of course, that will have to be gone into.”

“Only,” the Major pointed out, “all this, though it's interesting and important, doesn't help us much to know who is guilty of these two recent murders?”

“No, sir. At present we are just assembling facts, or trying to. Another fact we know is that Mr. Adams is here under a false name on an errand he won't explain, and that the attempt he made to examine and photograph the Mandeville pages made Mr. Broast extremely angry. Yet we also know—your evidence, sir—that the Mandeville pages are genuine, so why shouldn't any interested person examine them? We know also—my evidence—that Mr. Broast was again extremely angry when I happened to notice that Dryden's autograph was not in a copy of Milton's
Paradise Lost
where he had told us it was.”

“Surely that's trivial,” interposed the Major. “Temper at being found out in a mistake?”

“It's stuck in my mind, sir,” Bobby said apologetically. “I thought it odd at the time, and then it is a fact, and we've so few facts to give us any kind of lead. It's just a fact, like the forget-me-not incident, and like the other fact that everything seems to have begun as soon as it was known a C.I.D. man was on the spot.”

“You've something else on your mind,” the Major said. “Go on.”

“Well, sir, that's about all we know in the way of fact, but I do think we can deduce a few other things we can be reasonably sure of. If I'm right in thinking it's in any way significant that all this started with my own arrival here, then I think it means some one knows something, is anxious it should come out, and yet dares not act openly—either dares not,” Bobby corrected himself, “or has only suspicions, and thought if the police got interested they might dig up something. Both Bertram Virtue and Adams have more or less admitted they're afraid of the consequences if they talk too much.”

“Brings them both into the picture,” commented the Major.

“Another thing I'm inclined to think a reasonable deduction from what we know,” Bobby continued, “is that there's something wrong with the Kayne library. It's difficult to see what. Mr. Broast's reputation seems to make it impossible to think, as I did at first, that the library is full of fakes and forgeries she daren't allow to be seen. He does allow them to be seen, only not by Adams and not by Virtue. That seems to me very difficult to understand. Why are those two barred? Do they know something? Bertram Virtue's no expert, anyhow. Yet it does seem to add up to something wrong, and what else can it be but forgeries Broast is afraid may be discovered?”

“Doesn't seem to hold water,” pronounced the Major. “Not when practically every bibliographical swell in the world knows, for instance, the Mandeville pages and all about them. They're famous. If Broast had made a bloomer about them, even, it wouldn't matter much. They aren't his private property, and if he's wrong, he's wrong in conjunction with all the other experts.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby once more. “I wonder why—it's another fact—Adams was so keen on letting us know Mr. Broast bought yesterday as genuine what Adams describes as a certain fake?”

“Broast is as likely to be right as Adams,” observed the Major. “A difference between two experts, and Broast backs his opinion to the tune of a £100. Nothing in that, surely?”

“No—o, sir,” said Bobby, though doubtfully. “It is a bit odd that Mr. Broast seems to have disposed of it pretty effectively, and won't say how, so that apparently no independent opinion can be obtained. That may mean nothing or it may mean a lot, but at any rate another fact is that apparently now we can't say for certain who was right—Adams in saying it was a fake or Broast in backing his opinion to the tune of a £100.”

“Is it relevant?”

“I don't know, sir. I can't see where it fits, but it's there. It may be a part of the puzzle or it may be something altogether outside. It's a fact, though, that there's conflicting evidence, and the point can't be decided because the exhibit has disappeared owing to action on the part of Mr. Broast.”

“If it's not genuine, why should he pay a good fat sum for it?” demanded the Major.

Bobby ignored a question to which he did not know the answer. He went on:

“Another fairly obvious deduction is that the murderer must be someone connected with the Kayne library in some way. Miss Kayne herself, if she is Miss Kayne and not Mrs. Broast; Miss Farrar, who is studying at the lodge; Miss Perkins, who works in the library; Briggs, the butler; the two maids; Mr. Broast himself; Virtue and Adams, who want to get into the library and aren't allowed. I think the murderer must be one of them, though I also think the innocence of some is fairly certain.”

“Yes, but which of them, and which is the one we want?” asked the Major, shaking his head sadly at what seemed an almost unsolvable problem. “Take Adams. He has no alibi. He was the first to discover Winders's body. He won't give us his proper name and address or explain what he's doing here. For all his prim appearance, we know from his war record he is capable of a good deal when he's put to it. There seems to be no motive unless, as Broast has hinted, there's been some plan on foot to rob the library. Pretty valuable stuff there. Is it possible young Kayne was behind some such plan? He may have wanted to draw back, hesitated, quarrelled in some way, and his accomplices felt he had to be silenced. Winders may have suspected something, and so he had to be silenced, too. How is that for a theory to work on?”

“Quite good, sir, but not complete,” Bobby said, “not enough to take action on.”

“No,” agreed the Major. “No. Or perhaps Adams has been selling Broast faked stuff and was afraid of its coming out? Not very strong that. Well, what about Virtue?”

“It's clear he is very anxious for the library to be searched, and the suggestion seems to be that he thinks his cousin was murdered there and the body hidden, but he daren't say so without proof.”

“I should think not,” growled the Major. “Bodies are hidden in queer places sometimes, I admit, in cellars and so on. But in a library, a world-famous library?”

“Well sir, the library has a cellar,” Bobby remarked. “It's where a fifteenth century printing press stands. Mr. Broast uses it still, I believe.”

The Major shook his head, evidently unconvinced. Then he said:

“Look here, Owen, how's this for an idea? Virtue does believe his cousin was murdered here, perhaps for the sake of some specially valuable book or as a result of some quarrel. Wasn't there something about the
Dictes
of Caxton he had bought? Well, Virtue can't get proof, but he doesn't mean the murderers to get away with it. So he takes the law into his own hands, shoots the two he believes guilty, and invent that yarn about seeing a dead body on the library floor to give himself an alibi?”

“Well, sir, in that case, if it's like that,” said Bobby hesitatingly, “wouldn't you have expected Broast to be a victim, not the two trustees?”

Major Harley played absently with his fingers on the surface of the table. He was silent for a time, but his look was troubled, and Bobby watched him with some surprise. Slowly, in a low voice he said:

“Well, perhaps he'll be next.”

Bobby, unnerved, muttered:

“Oh, well, now then, I never thought of that.”

It had not struck him until then that perhaps even yet the series was not finished. He had advised and wished Olive to leave, but not because he had really thought any further danger existed, merely because he wished her away from unpleasant and depressing events. But now Major Harley's words, still more his anxious look, called up worse apprehensions.

He said presently: