Richardson Scores Again (19 page)

He found the hospital secretary both competent and helpful when he had explained his business.

“I fancy,” he said, “that we shall have difficulty with the house surgeon when I tell him that a detective from the Yard wants to question one of his patients. You know what doctors are. The house surgeon is omnipotent here when he digs his toes in. Besides, he may say that the man you want to see is seriously ill.”

“I shall not have to see him at all if you can give me the information I want,” said Richardson. “All I want is his address and what his wife's Christian name is, if you know it. I have to find out whether she was the writer of a letter that has come into our hands.”

“You say that you don't know the man's name.”

“I don't, but probably you keep a record of visits to patients. This man, an ex-naval officer, was visited yesterday by a Lieutenant Eccles.”

The secretary took down a ponderous diary and searched the last two pages. “Here we are! Ronald Eccles—is that your man?—visited a patient named Henry Manton yesterday. The man cannot be seriously ill if he was allowed to see a visitor unrelated to him yesterday.”

He took down another tome and searched the index. “Manton, Henry. Page 247.” He turned over the pages. “Here we are! Henry Manton, admitted on the 6th. Address—Thornhill Farm, Millborough, Portsmouth.” (Richardson made a quick note of the name and address.) “Wife's name—Gwendolen Manton, same address.”

“That's all I want to know, sir, thank you. I'm very much obliged to you.”

The morning was still young. Richardson found a taxi waiting at the corner for a fare: he stopped to ask the driver how far it was to Millborough, and whether he knew Thornhill Farm.

“Millborough's a matter of two miles out of the town. As for the name of the farm, these little poultry farms are as thick as gooseberries, but I can soon find it when we get to Millborough.”

Taxi-hire was sure to be queried in his travelling expenses, for detectives are not allowed the luxury of travelling in taxis when trams, buses, or “Shanks's pony” are available. Having ascertained from the taxi-man that there were neither trams nor buses to this suburb of Portsmouth, Richardson drove a hard bargain with the driver and got in. The drive was not inspiring, bounded as it was by two neat rows of brick villas and cottages, but after the first mile and a half the landscape changed to a series of untidy allotments, each dignified with the title of “Farm,” because the occupants were engaged in rearing poultry, and were making so poor a business of it that they had no money to spend on gardens or paint for their fences. The “farm-houses,” such as they were, ranged from single-storey bungalows to shingled cabins of unpainted weather-boarding. In the village of Millborough it was some time before the taxi-man could find somebody who had ever heard of Thornhill Farm, but at last a passing postman put him in the right direction—“the first lane you come to on the left. Thornhill Farm is a couple of hundred yards down the lane on the right. You can't miss it.”

Just as they were about to turn into the lane the taxi slowed down to allow a big touring-car to turn out of the narrow lane into the high road. Richardson's heart gave a jump, for the car was the same as that whose number he had taken in the traffic block an hour or two earlier, and Gordon Pentland was sitting in the tonneau! There was no tar-paving in the lane: Richardson could trace the wheel-marks of the big car, and when his taxi pulled up at the gate of Thornhill Farm, his first concern was to scrutinize the road surface. Yes, it was plain that the big car had gone no farther, for here were the marks of the complicated manoeuvre of turning in the narrow lane. So the man who called himself Gordon Pentland had been paying a call on Mrs. Manton, and had motored down all the way from London to do it.

The farm-house at Thornhill was on a more generous scale than the others. At some time in its sordid little history it must have been more than a poultry farm, for there was a cowshed and a shed for farm implements now falling into decay. The farmhouse, too, was a two-storey brick building. Richardson guessed that it had come into the market cheap and had been acquired by its present tenants at an absurdly low figure. But the hand of decay lay heavy on everything. The front door and window-frames looked as if they had remained unpainted for years; mortar had fallen out of the joints of the chimney-stack; the garden was overgrown with weeds; a few dejected hens were scratching about the front door. There was no bell, but having paid off his taxi, Richardson rapped on the door with his knuckles. It was opened by an attractive-looking woman, not quite in her first youth.

“Mrs. Manton?” asked Richardson, removing his hat.

The lady smiled assent, and asked him to come in. Through the tiny entrance-hall she conducted him into the living-room, which was furnished with dilapidated second-hand furniture, a few photographs and cheap framed prints hung upon faded wallpaper which had begun to peel from the plaster.

“I'm sorry to hear that Mr. Manton is in hospital,” said Richardson. “I hope that it is nothing serious. He is a friend of Lieutenant Eccles, I believe.”

For a moment the smile died out of the lady's face. “Do you know Mr. Eccles?” she asked.

“Only professionally, madam. I should explain that I am a detective-sergeant from New Scotland Yard. My name is Richardson. You may have heard that some days ago there was a burglary and murder at the house of Mr. Eccles' uncle, and that a large sum of money was stolen.”

She shook her head. “I don't quite understand why you have come to me.”

“That is easy to explain. As Mr. Eccles was the only person who was aware that a large sum of money was in the house, some suspicion attached to him at first, and it was important to prove that he could not have been in London. He would not say where he was on the morning before the burglary, but there is now reason to believe that he was in this house. If you could confirm that it would remove every breath of suspicion, and would at the same time be of considerable service to the police.”

“Though perhaps you would not admit it, I suppose that Mr. Eccles told you all this,” said the lady bitterly.

“No, madam, for some reason that we don't understand, he positively refused to tell us where he was.”

“Just like him! Well, there's no secret about it. He came here on a matter of business in response to a letter I wrote him. He was here for about two hours. I can't give you the exact date, but that was the only time he has been here since his ship came in.”

“You have known him for years, I suppose?”

“My husband has. You see, they were shipmates for the whole of one commission before my husband retired from the Navy, and they were great friends.”

“And you have known him—how long?”

“Oh, ever since my marriage I saw him off and on.” Her ease of manner had returned to her, and she was now all smiles.

Richardson determined to play up to her. “I hope that your husband is succeeding in making your farm pay in these hard times. You must be a great help to him.”

“I doubt if he thinks so, poor man. No, the farm doesn't pay. I doubt if it ever did before we were fools enough to take it.”

Richardson heaved a sigh. “I come from farming people in Scotland myself, and it is much the same with my people.”

“Mr. Eccles was good enough to help us once, and I believe that if he had liked he could have helped us out of our difficulties again. I was never brought up to this kind of life and I loathe it, but what can we do with bankruptcy staring us in the face. I can see plainly that we shall have to leave this place. It's awful for a girl who was accustomed to pleasure and gaiety and pretty clothes to be imprisoned in a place like this. If it wasn't for a few generous friends, we should have left it before now.”

Richardson allowed a look of sympathy and admiration to appear in his face. “It must be a sad change for you. I've no doubt that in the old days you must have had gaiety and amusement, and—may I say?—admirers.”

The lady sighed and languished. “It makes me cry sometimes when I think of those old days, when really I had everything I wanted. I scarcely dare to look in the mirror now; my troubles have changed me so.”

“I think you are worrying needlessly. At any rate, you've kept more than your share of good looks, madam,” said Richardson with forced gallantry.

“I'd like you to see how I looked in those days. Sit here a moment while I run upstairs and look for a photograph. I shan't be a minute.”

“I ought not to give you this trouble, but I confess that I should like to see whether it is like my conception of you.” Richardson scarcely recognized himself in this unwonted role, but the temptation to get her out of the room was overmastering, for as he had passed through the hall he had noticed, hanging on the hat-rack, a man's felt hat of strange exotic shape, and he wanted to examine it. And so, when he heard the lady's footsteps safely overhead, he slipped into the hall and took down the hat. The maker's name had disappeared; he tried it on his own head and found that it was large enough to come down well over his ears. Had the absent husband as large a head as this?

A moment later the woman was by his side, displaying a faded photograph of an overdressed girl with an arch smile, as if the camera had said something that amused her. She was pretty in a rather vulgar style.

“There! That was taken when I was eighteen. What do you think of it?”

Richardson could in that moment have qualified for the comedy stage. He caught his breath with admiration, and dwelt for a moment on the portrait as if he could not bear to part with it. “Simply lovely!” was all he said as he gave it back to her. The ice was broken, but though he felt that he had established himself in the lady's good graces, he was too wise to press his advantage by questioning her.

R
ICHARDSON
covered the two miles back to Portsmouth on foot. He wanted to think. The case on which he and Foster were engaged had now become complicated by the disinclination of his superiors to give him a free hand to investigate side issues of the case, and yet he was now more than ever convinced that it would be in these side issues that the Hampstead mystery would be solved.

He was in time to catch an afternoon train to London—a train that reached Waterloo too late for him to find his chief at the office. He decided to have his interview with Lieutenant Eccles that evening, and not to leave him until he had succeeded in breaking down his barrier of reserve on the subject of his relations with the lady who signed herself “Gwen.” During the train journey he occupied himself in rehearsing his method of attack, knowing how important it would be not to put the young man on the defensive from the start. By the time he reached Waterloo and was on the way to Hampstead by the Tube, he had settled his plan.

Mr. Eccles was at home, the servant told him as she showed him into the library and invited him to sit down. “Aren't you the gentleman who called the other day from Scotland Yard? I thought I remembered your face.”

Two minutes later Ronald Eccles made his appearance: he seemed to be in a jocular mood, which was all to the good.

“Well, sergeant, I suppose that you have come to congratulate me on being still a free man.”

“Yes, sir, I was very glad when I read a short account of your case at Bridgwater in the paper. I hope that you were satisfied with the way in which Mr. Meredith handled your case?”

“Yes; I suppose he did it very well. He knew what I was up against, but I can tell you that I didn't like being made to promise to plead guilty and keep my mouth shut under every kind of provocation. If he'd given me my head, I should have told that row of dead-beats on the Bench things about their policemen that would have made them sit up and take notice. There was one blighter in particular whom I'd have liked to meet outside the court when the case was over. He would have gone home to his family a sadder and a wiser man when I'd done with him.”

Richardson laughed. “Perhaps, sir, it was just as well that you couldn't wait about for him.”

“As it happened I couldn't wait. I had a train to catch.”

“The three-fifteen to Portsmouth? Yes, sir, it's a good train.”

Eccles stared at him. “How did you know that?

“I was down at Portsmouth this morning, sir. You wanted to visit your old friend, Mr. Manton, in the Royal Hospital. You'll be glad to hear that he's getting better.”

“Well, I'm damned. Is there anything that you sleuths from the Yard don't know?”

“Oh, quite a lot of things, sir; in fact, I wish we knew more, but when I was at Thornhill Farm seeing Mrs. Manton early this afternoon—”

“Hell!” interrupted Eccles. “What in God's name took you out to that benighted hole?”

“I was merely making inquiries in your interest, sir. You will remember that you declined to tell us where you had been on the morning you left the ship, and it was this that prevented some of my colleagues from entirely dismissing you from the case. Well, sir, the result of my inquiries has entirely cleared up that part of the mystery. We had Mrs. Manton's letter to you—the letter signed ‘Gwen'—which we found in your pocket-book in this garden, but we hadn't her postal address because the man who dropped the pocket-book had taken the precaution to cut it off. So we had to find her as best we could.”

Eccles' face darkened. “I suppose she told you a lot of lies?”

“I don't think so, sir. She said that you had been very kind to them both.”

Eccles was breathing hard. “Wretched little fool! What idiots naval officers are for falling in love with the wrong kind of women! I'll bet that she ran upstairs to bring down a photograph of what she looked like at the age of eighteen.”

“She did, sir.”

“And then she made eyes at you?”