Suspects—Nine (4 page)

“That's just it,” murmured Bobby regretfully. “In our narrow, thick-headed, red-tape way, we have to go through the routine even when it's a rat's neck that's got twisted.”

“When I do anything like that,” said Lady Alice slowly, her harsh immobile features harsher, more fixed than ever, the fire in those flint-like eyes of hers a little readier to leap out, “it's little I'll care for you and your routine.”

Bobby let the remark pass. He saw no use in continuing the discussion. He had done what he felt was his duty in warning Lady Alice of the danger of having dealings with a man of Will Martin's character, he would enter the fact in his official diary for record, and there the matter must end as far as he was concerned. He said,

“I called from the people whose trade card I showed you—Olive, Hats. There has been an unfortunate misunderstanding about the hat you bought from them this afternoon. They find it had been promised to another customer. It would be a great favour if you could let us have it back. Of course, a selection of other hats would be sent for you to choose from.”

“That's a very polite message,” said Lady Alice grimly. “I think I expected something stronger.”

Bobby did his best to look both distressed and astonished.

“Really,” he protested, “a firm like ‘Olive, Hats' doesn't send its most valued clients strong messages and it does try to be polite.”

“Suppose I told you to get to hell out of here?”

“I should gather,” answered Bobby, wrinkling a thoughtful brow, “that you did not feel you could see your way to accede to our request. Would that be an accurate assumption?”

Lady Alice again permitted herself that grim contortion of her features that might have been a smile.

“It would,” she said. “Young man, I like you.”

“Very kind of you,” murmured Bobby.

“I like you,” repeated Lady Alice, “either for or against. You would be good to go tiger hunting with. And I think you would be worth while if you were on the side of the tiger—or the rat.”

“I am always on the side of the law,” Bobby told her gravely.

“You're what they call a ‘busy', aren't you?”

“Oh, sometimes, but criminals don't use slang much now—spread of education, probably. A lot of bloodies and hells and damns, you know, just like the upper classes, but not much special slang. By the way, I suppose you can't see your way to change your mind about that hat?”

“No,” said Lady Alice, “I wouldn't have seen you at all if you had only come about that. When Martin rang up to say who you were, I thought I had better find out what you were after.”

“The hat,” said Bobby promptly.

“Forget it,” said Lady Alice equally promptly.

“Then I mustn't keep you,” said Bobby, rising to go. “I wonder what Mr. Martin thought I had come about.”

She looked at him again with that long, blank, steady stare of hers that might mean so many things. She made no direct answer, and Bobby was confirmed in his belief that between her and Martin there was some connection they had no wish should be known to police authorities. She said,

“Suppose I took a rat out fishing in a boat—a mile or two out to sea. And suppose that rat fell overboard. What would you do?”

“Just plod along,” answered Bobby, “that's all we do—plod along.”

“Till when?” she asked.

“Oh, we run on non-stop lines,” Bobby assured her and turned again towards the door and again she interposed.

“That hat was meant for Flora Tamar, wasn't it?” she asked.

“I believe so,” Bobby answered. “I don't know much about the details.”

“Well, it was,” Lady Alice told him. “Flora meant to wear it at the Palace garden party and now she won't and I shall.”

“I'm afraid,” observed Bobby in his most casual tones, “I'm still a bit out of my depth there, but I did hear them arguing about what hats suit who. Seemed to think a hat that might suit one lady might make another look ridiculous.”

“I never look ridiculous,” said Lady Alice simply, and glancing at her strongly-marked features, her tall, gaunt form, her cold and daunting eyes, Bobby was inclined to agree. “I shouldn't look ridiculous if I went in a turban or a man's topper. Flora would. She's one of your pretty-pretties and everything has to be pretty, too, for her.” The words were flung out with a sudden and startling emphasis of hate, so that Bobby, his hand already put out towards the door, turned to look at her. She gave back his gaze with another of her steady and unblinking stares, that reminded him of a caged eagle—but in a cage that had an open door. “She isn't only pretty-pretty, though,” Lady Alice went on. “Or I should have broken her long ago—or rather, it wouldn't have been worth while to try.”

“I hope you don't intend to try,” Bobby said gravely, answering almost in spite of himself something heavy and ominous in her tone.

“Well, I do,” said Lady Alice.

“Oh, yes,” said Bobby.

“If you say ‘Oh, yes' to me like that,” she snarled, “I'll take that knife to you I saw you squinting at.”

“Oh, no,” said Bobby.

“It's quite true,” she added, turning that unblinking stare of hers upon the knife where it hung above the mantelpiece.

“What is?” Bobby asked.

“You know,” she said.

“Oh, yes,” said Bobby.

She stared at him again.

“All right,” she said. “I'll remember you, whichever side you're on. And I'll tell you something. Keep an eye on Holland Kent.”

“Why?” asked Bobby.

He knew the name well enough. It was that of a favoured son of fortune, whispered about in many quarters as the coming hope of whatever cause it was the whisperer happened to be interested in. Handsome, well born, rich, clever, energetic—all those qualities Holland Kent possessed and yet none of them in excess. His birth was good but there was no hereditary title to trammel his activities; he was rich, but not so rich as to be cumbered by the administration of his wealth; he was handsome but no mere matinee idol; clever, but not so much so as to arouse mistrust or be out of touch with everyday opinion; energetic, but only in the right causes and at the right moments; self confident, and yet always modest in expression. Above all, he smoked a pipe, and in England to smoke a pipe is the highway to success and popularity, both in politics and literature.

Regarded everywhere by those who know as ‘the' coming man, so far he had remained outside party politics. He was not even in Parliament. Some people hoped he intended to abolish Parliament, others that he intended to restore it to its ancient prestige. In general, it was conceded that the ball lay at his feet, though the direction in which he intended to kick it remained still matter for speculation. There was even a story that the Prime Minister himself had asked him at a dinner given by a famous political hostess they had both attended, when he was going to enter the House, and that the young man had had the audacity to reply,

“When the muddle has got so bad that the nation is ready to accept guidance. A bucking colt must be allowed to exhaust itself before whip and spur can be used to advantage.”

“Why Mr. Holland Kent?” Bobby repeated.

“I'm giving you a tip,” Lady Alice told him. “You're a detective. Flora counts her men as I do the unknown places I've visited. Only those places I visited—they are there still. But the men Flora counts—well, they aren't. Perhaps Holland Kent won't be soon.”

“Hardly a police matter,” Bobby said. “Is it?”

“It may be—some day. She has her fun. That's all she cares about. Some day the fun mayn't be so funny. God, how I hate her.”

“Lady Alice,” Bobby exclaimed, this time really startled by the energy of hate and passion with which she spoke.

“Look how she dangles Michael Tamar at the end of her finger,” Lady Alice went on. “Great business man, isn't he? Cold-blooded, ruthless, money-making machine. She thinks he'll stand anything, but will he? Suppose he gets told something, hears something. Holland Kent, too— her latest lap dog. Roger Renfield as well.”

“Who is he?” Bobby asked.

“Michael Tamar's heir—unless there are children,” answered Lady Alice. “He can't borrow so much since his uncle's marriage because now he's only heir presumptive, not heir apparent. And now she's angling for Judy Patterson.”

“Mr. Julius Patterson?” Bobby asked, for he had heard of a certain Julius Patterson and liked such hearings very little. There were too many games of poker at Mr. Julius Patterson's rooms in Mayfair Square and too many complaints that somehow were never pressed.

For sometimes a man who has poured out an incoherent story of doctored whisky, losses at poker, of being thrown into the street when he questioned the run of the cards, will in the morning decide to say no more and to allow a headache, an empty wallet, and a black eye, all to pass as a bad debt.

“Yes, a dear boy,” said Lady Alice with a most unexpected touch of sentiment, of the anxious mother, indeed, in tones so oddly softened Bobby would hardly have recognized her voice if he had not known it was hers. Nor was ‘dear boy' exactly the term he would have applied himself to Julius Patterson, who, however, no more had a police record than had Mr. Will Martin. Not his business, though, and Lady Alice would not probably welcome any further warnings. She went on in the same softened tones, “He's young, he doesn't understand, he has so little experience. She thinks she can do what she likes but she may be making a mistake.”

“Oh, yes,” said Bobby. “I must go. You can't see your way to change your mind about the hat?”

“Still plodding on?” asked Lady Alice. “The hat is mine and I shall wear it and Flora can go on being charming. Perhaps she'll have something else soon to try her charm on,” she added moodily.

Bobby took his departure then, by no means comfortable in his mind. Lady Alice's obscure hints and the dark fire he had seemed to see lurking in her eyes, her employment of such a man as Martin and the fact that Martin as soon as he saw Bobby had thought it necessary to warn her, the burning hatred of Flora Tamar she had made so little effort to disguise, the hint of some sort of rivalry over ‘Judy' Patterson—himself a young man of somewhat doubtful reputation—all of this put together seemed to him to add up to a totality of coming trouble.

Nothing could be done about it, he supposed—certainly not by the police. Police are only called in when the milk is already spilt, not while its balance is merely uncertain. All the same, they would appreciate it at the Yard when he told them he had been hearing Judy Patterson described as such a dear boy and so young and inexperienced. Inexperienced indeed! he who had crammed into his young days as much mischief and more as most people twice or three times his age.

Bobby knew the Tamars' address. He rang up Olive to tell her he had had no luck in recovering the hat, and then, seeing a 'bus going in the required direction, he jumped on. A few minutes later he alighted at the corner of the street of old detached houses dating from early Victorian days and mostly standing in gardens of some size, wherein was situated the Tamar establishment.

The street where the Tamars lived was a long, straight thoroughfare, carrying a good deal of traffic, so that parking was not encouraged by the police. No long line of waiting motor-cars stood outside, therefore, to give warning that one of Mrs. Tamar's celebrated cocktail parties was in progress. Nor, as it was getting late, was there any constant procession of arriving guests to convey to Bobby the same warning.

From the street to the house door stretched a long, old-fashioned glass porch—even corridor it might have been called. The door of this stood open, so Bobby went through to the inner door, that admitting to the house, Before he had time to knock, it opened. Within, on duty, to welcome the coming, speed the parting guest, stood the Tamar butler, a tall, slim man, aristocratic, almost distinguished in bearing though with dull, greedy features. Before Bobby well understood what was happening or had time to explain his errand, he was deprived of his hat and stick, his name was demanded, he was ushered to the door of a large room near, his name was cried aloud in clarion tones, and there he was left on the edge of a sea of seething humanity, not one of the component members of which took the least notice of him.

The room was long and lofty, with windows opening on gardens which seemed extensive and well kept. In each corner stood tables laden with various sorts and kinds of liquid to assuage thirst and with various forms of highly-spiced condiments to stimulate it. The company was somewhat mixed, for Mrs. Tamar threw her nets wide, and if big business predominated, that was simply because big business does predominate in our modern world. But Society and Politics, the Stage—even Literature and Art in a minor degree—were also represented. Oh, and sport as well, of course, by three tennis finalists and an amateur jockey or two.

Bobby, looking round, wondered who was his hostess. He saw no one answering his idea of Flora Tamar, that prominent leader of fashion, society, and—occasional— patriotic effort, without whose photograph no self-respecting weekly ever dreamed of going to press. He ought, Bobby told himself, to withdraw at once, since apparently he had ‘gate-crashed' into a private entertainment, but it was rather amusing, and then it was really important, for the sake of Olive's business, that so influential a customer as Flora should be specially and swiftly informed of what had happened. It might alleviate a little her probable and not unnatural annoyance. Then he caught sight of the young man Lady Alice had mentioned, ‘Judy' Patterson, standing near one of the windows in the company of a tall, golden-haired young woman, with a well-shaped head on a long, graceful neck, and with small, but strongly marked features that seemed somehow familiar. He wondered if he had ever seen her before or if it was only that she reminded him of some one. Judy seemed to be talking eagerly and earnestly, Bobby noticed. A big, broad-shouldered youngster this Judy Patterson, good-looking, too, but with good looks a little spoilt by a sullen, reckless expression that seemed usual with him, though, as Bobby watched, he saw it change to a boyish, pleasant smile at something the girl said and that she followed with a low, bubbling laugh that Bobby liked, for it reminded him so much of the sudden laugh the usually grave and quiet Olive would sometimes allow to escape her. Edging a little nearer, Bobby could see that the young man's eyes were red and bloodshot and that the hand in which he was holding a glass shook a little. Well, that was nothing new. Strong drink is the oldest of the snares in which the feet of men are tangled, but Bobby found himself hoping that the golden-headed girl was not going to get hurt. The apparently permanent sneer the young man's discontented mouth above that heavy chin of his seemed to have acquired should be a warning to her; and yet there was something dashing and attractive about the boy, too, that accounted for the fascination he seemed to exercise on many women, as apparently he had done on Lady Alice.