Eternity Ring (11 page)

On Monday morning Chief Inspector Lamb interviewed Miss Lily Ammon, typist and stenographer, a little creature with a turned-up nose and wiry dark hair in a frizz. She looked as if she had been crying, and Lamb, who had three daughters of his own, thought the better of her for it. He had her statement in his hand and took her through it—the lunch with Mary Stokes— the meeting with Joe Turnberry—the scene in the tea-shop.

“You knew her pretty well?”

“Oh, yes, sir. She used to work where I am till she got into Mr. Thompson’s office.”

“Friends—eh?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

Nice little thing—rather taking. Little earnest way with her— pretty voice. He wondered what she had in common with Mary Stokes.

Lily was going on.

“Of course we didn’t see so much of each other after she went to Mr. Thompson’s. And then lately she’d been ill, but she was better again. I was ever so pleased when she rang up and said couldn’t we lunch together. I couldn’t go to the pictures like she wanted me to because of my boy friend—I was meeting him at half past four—so we took our time over lunch and did a bit of shopping, and met Joe Turnberry like I said.”

She wasn’t a bit nervous now. The big man from London that she’d been so frightened about was as easy as easy to talk to. Put her in mind of Uncle Bert, that wasn’t really an uncle at all but they called him Uncle when they were children—sweets in his pocket, and sixpences at odd times—a real kind man and fond of kiddies. Funny this big policeman should put her in mind of him, but he did. Something about the way he looked at you. Uncle Bert used to look that way when he was going to make a joke—ever so grave and solemn. Only this wasn’t any joke— poor Mary—She blinked damp lashes.

“Now, Miss Ammon, you say you took your time over lunch. I expect you had quite a lot to talk about.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I want you to go over it all in your mind very carefully. A lot of it would be just girls’ talk between friends, but I want you to think whether there was anything said that would help us to find out why she was murdered, and who murdered her, Will you try?”

“Oh, yes—” The word didn’t get its full value. She took a quick breath before it was really out.

He said, “You’ve thought of something?”

“I don’t—know—”

“Well, suppose you tell me.” His voice was kind and encouraging.

“Oh, I don’t know—she did say—”

“Just tell me everything you can think of. Don’t mind whether it seems important or not.”

Lily fixed brown serious eyes upon his face.

“It was just I said something about her being out of her job for three months and I supposed she’d be glad to be earning again, and she said maybe it didn’t matter so much. So I said what did she mean, and she looked the way you do when you’ve got something you could tell if you liked but you’re not sure if you will—” She paused, looking at him.

“Yes, Miss Ammon?”

“I thought—well, I didn’t think, I wondered—whether she was going to be married. So I asked her right out—I’m not much of a one for secrets—and she tossed her head and said she wasn’t in such a hurry to take an unpaid job, and she thought any girl was a fool who couldn’t do better for herself than that. I thought she was hinting at me and Ernie—we’re saving up to get married—and I said I didn’t look at it that way.”

Lamb grunted.

“What did she say to that?”

The colour came brightly into Lily’s cheeks.

“She said I’d be a fool all my life, but it wasn’t her style. So I asked her, ‘What do you mean?’ and she laughed and said she liked a bit of fun with a chap, but she’d no notion of paying for it working her fingers to the bone cooking and scrubbing. Then she said, ‘And I don’t want a man to keep me either—at least not that way.’ I said, ‘Whatever do you mean?’ and she laughed and said, ‘Well, I might be coming into a nice little bit of money, but you needn’t say I said so.’ ”

“You’re sure she said that?”

Lily nodded.

“Oh, yes. She looked funny too. And then she began to talk about something else. Afterwards I thought—well, I didn’t know what to think. I wondered—” She hesitated.

“Yes—go on.”

“Well, I wondered about that money—whether she was trying to get it out of someone and—and—”

“That is what we are trying to find out. Now, Miss Ammon— did she tell you anything about a fright she’d had?”

Lily’s eyes were as round as a kitten’s.

“Oh, no!”

“Nothing about seeing something that frightened her in a wood and running down to the village in hysterics?”

“Oh, no, sir.”

“Just this hint that money might be coming her way?”

She nodded and said,

“When we were shopping there was a model coat in Simpson’s, ever so expensive, and she said, ‘Next thing you know I’ll be buying myself one like that.’ ”

“Sure she said that?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“H’m—anything else?”

“Yes, sir. I did think I ought to have put it in my statement, but it was all so dreadful—it didn’t really come to me at the time that it might be important. I was so upset—”

“Well, you can tell me now. What is it?”

She blinked away a tear.

“I made sure she’d be staying till the last bus. I don’t remember how it came up, but I said something like that, and she said oh no, she and Joe were going out by the seven-fifty. Well, I suppose I was surprised. She laughed and looked out of the corners of her eyes. ‘I’m the good girl, getting in early! Something new for me, isn’t it?’—that’s what she said. So I teased her a bit—about Joe Turnberry, you know—and she said, ‘Joe Turnberry indeed! I should hope I could do better than that?!’ Then she looked funny again, and she said, ‘I shall get home nice and early, and I don’t suppose I’ll kiss Joe good-night, and then—’ I said, ‘Oh, Mary—what?’ and she said, ‘Wouldn’t you like to know, my dear?’ And I said I would, but she shut right up, so I let it drop.”

Lamb leaned forward.

“Miss Ammon, what do you think she meant—all that about going home early, and being a good girl, and saying goodnight to Joe Turnberry? What sort of impression did you get from it? Come on—honest! What did you think?”

Lily said without any hesitation at all,

“I thought she’d got a date with someone else.”

The Chief Inspector was telling Sergeant Abbott about his interview with Lily Ammon, when the telephone bell rang. They were in the Superintendent’s office at Lenton police station, and for the time being only calls for the two Scotland Yard men would be put through to them. Frank Abbott therefore lifted the receiver, listened for a moment, then handed it to his Chief.

“For you, sir. Wilton speaking from the Yard.”

Standing by the table, Frank was aware of Sergeant Wilton’s voice, thin and small but perfectly distinct.

“That you, sir? Wilton speaking. They’ve traced the young fellow who was going about with Louise Rogers. Name of Michel Ferrand. French national. Got on to him rather a funny way. Car found abandoned in Hampshire. Traced to him through the registration number. He says he lent it to Mrs. Rogers last Friday week, the eighth. That’s the day she disappeared.”

Lamb was leaning forward, one elbow on the table, the receiver to his ear. He grunted.

“How do you mean, abandoned?”

“Well, it was left in front of a garage near Basingstoke some time after dark. They say someone rang them up and said the car would be called for in a day or two. They didn’t attach any importance to the matter, and they’d no idea where the call came from.”

“H’m—what make of car?”

“Old Austin Seven.”

“What day was it left?”

“Friday night. The call came through about half past eight.”

“What about fingerprints on the car?”

“Not a hope, sir. It’s a fairly big garage and every mechanic in the place must have been handling it. You know how it is in those places—they just push the cars about. The doors and the driving-wheel are a mess.”

“We’ll have to have this fellow Ferrand down to see if he can identify the body—Mrs. Hopper’s coming down on the two-thirty. Send someone with them.”

He went on talking for a few minutes.

When he had rung off Lamb turned to Frank Abbott.

“I expect you could hear what he was saying. I’ve told them to send the fellow down. Now about that car. It explains how Louise Rogers got here, but—Basingstoke’s a good twenty miles away. Whoever took it there and left it would have to get back again. The question is how. Train to Lenton—just take a look at the timetable and see what sort of a connection he could get. What time was it that girl Stokes ran screaming in on your tea-party?”

“Just after six. The church clock had just struck—but that was Saturday. Louise Rogers would have been murdered before then. We haven’t managed to find anyone who saw her after she left Mrs. Hopper’s on Friday morning. We don’t know what was going on between then and the time when Mary Stokes saw her lying dead. Look at it this way. It doesn’t seem likely that Mary saw the actual murder. It looks to me as if she’d come to the Forester’s House to meet the man she was in the habit of meeting there. Instead she bumps into a murderer in the act of transporting a corpse to a place of concealment. I don’t think there’s any doubt now that she really did see what she described—it all fits too well. Her footprints show that she ran away from the Forester’s House in a frantic hurry, so it is reasonable to suppose that she saw the corpse in or quite near to the house. But that’s not to say that the murder had only just happened. I can’t believe that Louise was still alive when her car was driven over to Basingstoke and left there. Much more likely that she was already dead and the body hidden somewhere till Saturday evening when arrangements had been made for burying it in the cellar. In the course of moving it the murderer discovered that one of those very noticeable earrings was missing. It must have put the wind up him. I’d give a good bit to know how it came off and where, and whether he found it again.”

The Chief Inspector turned a stolid face and said,

“Teach you to talk at college, don’t they? Or maybe it comes natural. Now how much of that did you think up for yourself, and how much did you cook up with Miss Silver?”

Frank looked down his long nose.

“I really couldn’t say, sir.”

Lamb chuckled.

“You come down off your high horse and look up those trains same as I told you! Remember he’d have twenty miles to cover in an Austin Seven, and the likelihoods are that it would be dark all the way. He’d got to get to the outskirts of Basingstoke, drop the car, and catch a train. Now what is there for him to catch?”

Frank was turning over the pages.

“Here we are. Let’s see—she’s not so likely to have been murdered by daylight. If you put the murder at five o’clock on the Friday, he’d got to hide the body and get the car off the map. It would be pretty good going if he got to Basingstoke station by a quarter past six. If he did that, he could get a train at six-twenty that would get him to Lenton, with one change, by half past seven. He could ring up the garage from there. Why do you suppose he risked calling them up?”

“Didn’t want them turning the car over to the police. Wanted to gain time—get any fingerprints well messed up. Even if he wiped off his own, or wore gloves, he wouldn’t want the girl’s prints identified.”

“Yes, I suppose so—but it seems a bit of a risk.”

“No risk at all. A garage isn’t going to bother about where a call comes from. He’d not want anyone making inquiries about that car for as long as he could put them off. He’d want time—time for people to forget they’d travelled with him or seen him taking a ticket. Well, Basingstoke’ll have to get busy and see if anyone noticed a man taking a ticket in a hurry for that six-twenty. The people here can tackle Lenton.”

Frank’s eyebrows rose.

“What a hope!”

Lamb nodded.

“It narrows down at the Deeping end, my lad, and this second murder’s going to help. We’ve got to find the man Mary Stokes was meeting. He may be the murderer, or he mayn’t, but I expect he could tell us a thing or two, and we’ve got his fingerprints. Now are you going to tell me that that girl was carrying on like we know she was carrying on and no one knew anything about it?”

“They don’t seem to.”

“H’m! Villages must have changed a lot since I was a lad!”

“There’s another way you can look at it. There must have been some very strong reason for secrecy. Someone was being particularly careful.”

Lamb nodded.

“Who fills that bill?”

“Not Joe Turnberry.”

“We know it wasn’t Joe she was meeting, because of the fingerprints. And it wasn’t Joe that was shifting Mrs. Rogers’ body on Saturday just before six, because he was home at his lodgings—Mrs. Gossett says so. Between you and me, I think Joe’s out of it. He couldn’t have taken that car to Basingstoke on Friday evening, because he was on duty. You’d better check over the times with Smith, but I don’t think he could have done it—let alone being able to drive.”

“Oh, he can drive all right—did a year or two in a garage as a boy before he joined the Army.”

“Well, if Joe’s out, who’s in? That Mary Stokes thought herself a cut above the village, didn’t she? There’s a Mr. Mark Harlow not so far from that Dead Man’s Copse, isn’t there? What about him? And the other chap, the one that’s doing experimental farming—what’s his name— Hathaway?”

Frank’s face was expressionless.

“He’s married to my cousin, Cicely Abbott.”

“H’m—happy couple?—united?”

In a voice as expressionless as his face Frank said,

“No—they’re separated.”

“Well, we’ll have his fingerprints—Harlow’s too. Either of them could have been carrying on with the girl. Smith is seeing to it now and finding out what they were doing when Louise Rogers was being murdered and her car being driven to Basingstoke on the Friday, and when her body was being moved on the Saturday.”

Mrs. Hopper, in floods of tears, had identified her lodger, and fortified by strong hot tea, was now on her way back to Hampstead. At Lenton police station Michel Ferrand, tinged with green under a swarthy skin, was making a statement. There was a bright, hot fire in the Superintendent’s office, but he shivered continually—a thin, frail young man with a prematurely lined face. He too had identified the body and wept over it as profusely as Mrs. Hopper. Now his eyes were dry. He sat close up to the fire and couldn’t keep his hands still. In fluent English but with a strong accent and a foreign turn of phrase he poured out the statement which Sergeant Abbott was taking down.

“You knew Mrs. Rogers well?” This was Lamb leading off.

Ferrand threw out those shaking hands.

“If I knew her well! Mon dieu—who should know her if I do not! Our parents are friends—we are like brother and sister. I am a little younger. I adore her—I follow her about always like a little dog”—a shudder took him—“that is when we are children.”

Lamb’s eyes bulged. Foreigners were so excitable. He said in his driest voice,

“I’m not asking you about when you were children, Mr. Ferrand.”

“But you wish that I tell you what I know. How can I do that unless I tell you how I know it? I substantiate myself. I am not what you call pick-up—I am friend of the family. I am to tell you that Louise is of a family very respectable, very rich. Her father is Etienne Bonnard who has a jewellery establishment in Rue de la Paix.”

“Where’s that?”

Sergeant Abbott took it on himself to say, “Paris, ” and received a quenching look.

Ferrand nodded in an animated manner.

“When I say he has this establishment, it is of course before the war. Monsieur Bonnard is dead. He could not survive the fall of France—he had a seizure on the day that the government left Paris. His wife, who is English, renders to him the last offices of affection—she is plunged in grief. The Germans advance daily. In the end she revives enough to think of her daughter—of the future. She decides to save herself and as much of the stock as they can conceal—”

“Look here, Mr. Ferrand, how do you know all this? Were you there?”

“Me? No. I am with my mother in the south. It is Louise who tells me this when we meet in London. Perhaps, monsieur, you know what it is like, that flight from Paris, when everyone has the same idea, and the trains are not running, and there is no petrol. Louise drives the car till the petrol is all gone. The roads are jammed with cars that will not move. There is not enough food. Sometimes the Boche comes over and bombs them, making a sport of it. There are children born by the side of the road, and there are old people who die there. Madame Bonnard is one of those who is dying. Louise is in despair. She has a case filled with diamonds in her hand—necklaces, bracelets, brooches, rings—and they will not buy her a bottle of wine or a crust of bread to save her mother’s life. She sits by the side of the road and waits. Just before it is dark there is more bombing—she sits there and waits for death. When it is dark she is still there. All the time people are passing—pushing through the crowd, cursing, screaming, weeping, shouting. Then, figure to yourself, she hears a man who swears in English—she gets up and runs to him. She is, I think, a little mad. She has seen some dreadful things. She catches hold of his arm in the dark, and she says, ‘You are English. My mother is English too. Will you help me?’ He says, ‘What can I do? I cannot even help myself.’ Then, I think, she is quite mad. She says, ‘This case is full of diamonds. I will give you half.’ He says, ‘Show me!’ He takes a torch out of his pocket and turns it on. She opens the case. He puts his hand down into it and turns the diamonds over, very bright and sparkling under the light. Then suddenly it is all dark again and the case is gone. She feels it wrenched out of her hand and it is gone. All her fortune is gone, and the man is gone.”

He threw out his hands in a wide gesture.

“Imagine to yourself her despair. She goes back to her mother. In the morning Madame Bonnard is dead. Shock—exposure— fatigue—I do not know—there was no one to say. Louise goes on walking. In the end she comes to a place she knows. There is a family who takes her in. She has lost everything in the world except a string of pearls and a necklace she is wearing. They are valuable and she is able to sell them—not at that time but later. When the war is over she marries an English officer, one called Rogers. It is not very happy. They separate. He goes to England—she stays in France. Then she hears that he is dead. She comes to England to settle his affairs. There is a little money, but not much—he has left it to her. That is how I meet her again.”

Frank Abbott’s hand travelled to and fro across the paper. Lamb said,

“You were in England at the time? What were you doing here?”

The young man had steadied as he told his tale. The fire had warmed him, his hands no longer shook. His answer was quite an animated one.

“Oh, yes, monsieur. My father, he is hôtelier—hotel-keeper. When Louise and I are children he is manager of a hotel in Paris. Now he has his own hotel at Amiens. He has a friend who is manager of the Luxe in London. He sends me there to make my English perfect—to gain experience, you understand—it is done all the time in the hotel business. That is where I meet Louise whom I have not seen for ten years.”

Lamb goggled at him.

“Are you telling me you recognized her?”

A smile changed the dark, thin face, flashing out for a second and then gone again.

“But no, monsieur—I cannot say that. I see her—it is in the evening—she wears a black dress, very chic. I see the blonde hair, the brown eyes, and I think that is not so common. Then I think that she reminds me of someone, and before I have time to think who it is I see the earrings and I know that it is Louise.”

“The earrings—”

Michel waved pale, expressive hands.

“Yes, yes, monsieur—the earrings! It is Monsieur Bonnard, the father of Louise, who designs them and gives them to her when she is eighteen. There is a little what you call ‘tiff’ about it. Monsieur Bonnard, he does it for a surprise, but Madame Bonnard says Louise is too young—a young girl must not wear diamonds. But Louise is enchanted. She weeps, she begs, she cries, and in the end she has them. They are, you must understand, of a design quite unique, so when I see them I know that it is Louise. I approach her—I speak. I say, ‘Is it that you have forgotten Michel Ferrand?’ and at once she knows me. If we were not in a so public place we would embrace. She tells me she is dining alone. We cannot talk there. We make an appointment to meet—she tells me everything. After that we meet often. One day I find her very pale, very agitated. She has been away for a few days. Her business takes her to Ledlington, where the parents of Captain Rogers had a house, and where they died. The house is rented and the furniture put in store. Louise goes down to see what is to be sold. She is in a hotel there which is called the Bull—three, four hundred years old. There is an archway going into a courtyard and the hotel is built round it. Louise is in a room looking on to this courtyard. She is undressed, in her nightgown ready to get into bed. It is not late, not much after nine o’clock, but she is fatigued. She puts out the light, approaches the window, and opens it. It is a fine night— the stars are beautiful—she regards them. Then all in a moment she is turned to stone. Under her window a man stumbles— something drops and he swears. Monsieur, she tells me—she protests to me—that the words, they are the same which she heard on the road from Paris. She says never will she forget them. The man under her window brings it all back. It is the same voice, he uses the same words. She swears to me that it is the man himself—she cannot be mistaken.”

Lamb gazed at him with a stolid air.

“Come, Mr. Ferrand—that’s a bit of a tale!”

The hands moved in a quick nervous gesture.

“It is not my tale, monsieur—I tell you what Louise tells to me. She says it is the same voice, the same words, but that is not all. She says the man takes out a torch and turns it on to look for the thing which he has dropped. It is a cigarette-lighter. It lies before him on the stones, he puts his hand down into the light to pick it up. And it is not only the voice and the words, but the hand of the man on the Paris road. Monsieur will remember that he turned on a torch to see the jewels, and put his hand into the light to turn them over. There was a mark on that hand, monsieur. I do not know what it was—Louise did not tell me. But she sees it on the night that the jewels are stolen, and she sees it again that night at the Bull. Then, on the instant, the man is gone. She cannot run down in her bare feet— in her nightdress. She puts on some clothes quickly, quickly— she runs down to the courtyard. It is all dark, all quiet. She asks the hotel porter to find out who has been there. She gives him a very large douceur—what you call ‘tip.’ He comes back and says a car has just gone out—two gentlemen who come in for a drink whilst their chauffeur changes a wheel. She asks what are their names, and he says they are strangers—they come in for a drink, they go out again—no one asks where they come from or where they go. She is in despair. She asks if anyone has noticed the number of the car. Because the tip is so good, the porter takes trouble to find out. It seems that no one has noticed it. Louise is at the end of her forces—she turns to go away. She goes up to her room, she weeps. Suddenly there is a knock at the door. It is the porter. He says one of the gentlemen has dropped an envelope in the garage—it has just been brought to him. It is only an empty envelope, but—Louise takes it, she gives him another tip. The envelope has upon it a name and an address—”

The Chief Inspector said in a hearty voice,

“Well, now we’re getting somewhere! Let’s have them if you please!”

Michel Ferrand threw out his hands.

“Alas, monsieur, I do not know them. Louise tells me everything else—but the name—the address—that she does not tell me.”

Lamb stared in heavy displeasure.

“She didn’t tell you?”

“No, monsieur.” He leaned forward. “She is like that always from a child—she tells something, but she does not tell all—the thing that matters, she keeps it always in her own hand. She does not like that anyone says to her, ‘See, this is the way that you must do.’ She tells something because she is lonely, because she is a little fond of me, my poor Louise, but she does not wish to be advised, to have me say, ‘No, that is imprudent—that you must not do.’ ”

Lamb said, “H’m!” Really very excitable people the French. But he thought the boy was speaking the truth. He said,

“What about the car? When did she borrow it—how long after this Ledlington business?”

Ferrand considered.

“The jour de l’an—New Year’s Day. That was when she told me she was going to Ledlington. She was there three, four days. Then she comes back to Hampstead. I see her on the sixth—we dine together—she tells me what I have told you. She asks me to lend her my car—she says she is going away. I say, ‘You are going to find this man. Do not do it, I beg of you. Put it in the hands of the police.’ She laughs and says, ‘Men are all the same—whatever a woman wishes to do, they always say don’t.’ I say to her very seriously, ‘Louise, I beg of you, wait at least until next week. I will get permission to come with you.’ She looks at me and she says, ‘Concern yourself with your own affairs, my friend.’ Then she laughs again and tells me it is not that at all, I jump at the conclusion. She borrows the car to pay a little visit to the aunt of her husband Captain Rogers who is his only surviving relative. She tells her name, Miss Rogers, and she says she inhabits a village six miles from a railway. ‘If I am to go by train,’ she tells me, ‘it will take all the day—one changes continually.’ I do not know whether I believe her or not, but I lend her the car. It is not the first time. If she wants something she must have it—Louise is like that.” He plunged his head in his hands and groaned. “That is all, monsieur.”