Suspects—Nine (7 page)

“I see,” said Bobby thoughtfully. “Unfortunately, I don't see how we could get Lady Alice's finger-prints without explaining.”

“Mustn't do that,” declared Mr. Tamar. “Can't you work it somehow? You do, don't you?”

“In exceptional circumstances when they seem to justify us,” Bobby answered, “but it's not approved of. If there is any real reason to suspect people, we tell them so and give them a chance to explain.”

“Pretty feeble way to set about it,” commented Mr. Tamar. “Not my idea of smart detective work. Why it's practically warning them.”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Bobby. “That's the idea. We find it saves a lot of trouble. Sometimes we get told a pack of lies or else they run for it. Then we know and we can rule out the others. Sometimes they give us a perfectly sound explanation and then we can rule them out. Great help. Simplifies things.”

Mr. Tamar looked as if he didn't think so.

“Well,” he said, “I want you people to find out who wrote that letter but I don't want you to go plunging about, asking a lot of fool questions. I want it handled with discretion. Quietly. See?”

“Police can only act on a formal complaint,” Bobby explained, “and then it is their duty to act as seems proper in the interests of justice.”

“Meaning to say it don't matter what I want?” asked Tamar, almost amused at such a suggestion. “We'll see about that. I'm not without friends. I know how to get things done.” He nodded at Bobby and then put back the letter in the drawer wherefrom he had taken it. “How would it be,” he asked abruptly, “to leave that hundred and see what happened?”

“That is purely a question for yourself,” Bobby answered. “I am sorry I can't be of more use. If you wish it taken up officially, you must please make formal complaint. Personally, I am inclined to think it is merely a try on, on the off chance of bluffing you out of some money. It is worded so carefully I don't know that either ‘false pretences' or ‘obtaining by threats' could be maintained. If I were you, I should be inclined to take no notice. If there are any developments, you could let us know. There's always some one on duty, night and day. Or, if you like, you could ask the local police to keep watch and see if any one turned up there that night. That would be for them to arrange, though, not for us at the Yard.”

“It's open country,” Tamar remarked. “No cover anywhere near, not enough to hide a mouse. Even that bush the fellow talks about is only a foot high. It's a fine viewpoint, so lots of people go there.”

“I'm sorry there's nothing else I can suggest at present,” Bobby said. “I'll report, of course, to my inspector. He may be able to suggest something.”

Tamar only grunted and remained sitting, watching sulkily and without speaking as Bobby departed to find his own way out. In reality Bobby was a good deal more disturbed than he had allowed to be seen. The coincidence of the date mentioned with that on which had occurred the suicide he had been told of, suggested unwelcome possibilities. He decided to suggest that the police in the Weeton Hill district should be asked to be on the lookout. Probably not much good, but they had better be warned. At any rate, he would put forward the suggestion. Better risk a snub for being officious than a rebuke for negligence, those two horns of dilemma between which subordinates have always to choose. In the hall, when he found his way there, he met Munday, looking a little surprised at his appearance alone.

“Can you let me out?” Bobby asked him. “Mr. Tamar seems worried. I don't think he has any reason to be. I left him in the study. Oh, by the way, you know I'm from Scotland Yard, I suppose? Are you sure you have no idea who it was left that letter?”

“Not the foggiest,” declared Munday and, as he escorted Bobby to the front door, he added, “That was only Mr. Tamar's fun about me putting something on with a street bookie. Very humorous gentleman, Mr. Tamar.”

“Is he indeed?' said Bobby dryly.

“I,” explained Munday, not without pride, “have an account with Ronnie—you know the adverts: ‘Ronnie Ready money always?”

“Oh, yes,” said Bobby. “Very good people to lose your money with, I'm told. Who do you think it was left that letter? Have a cigarette?”

They had reached the street now. Bobby produced his cigarette case. A young man came hurriedly round the corner. Bobby noticed his fat, pale face in the fleshiness of which his unusually small nose and mouth seemed lost. He had little eyes, too, but big ears, and a light and quick step. As he passed he gave them a sharp and apparently not too friendly look and then walked straight into the house with the air of one whose home it was or who was at least familiar there. In answer to Bobby's look of inquiry, Munday said,

“Mr. Renfield, the guv'nor's nephew.”

“Oh, yes,” said Bobby, remembering he had heard the name, Roger Renfield, as that of the heir to a substantial portion of Tamar's estate in the event of there being no direct issue. He thought, too, that Renfield's not too friendly look in their direction had called up one of defiance in the butler's eyes. The idea came quickly into his mind that just possibly this mutual distrust might be connected with the delivery of the anonymous letter. He said, “You know anything told the police is confidential, anything withheld means you become an accessory. Was it Mr. Renfield you think you saw leaving the letter?”

Munday gave a little jump, looked very startled, said hesitatingly,

“I couldn't swear to it, not for one moment I couldn't. But it's gospel truth that's what I thought at the time. “Why, it's Mr. Renfield,' I said to myself, only rigged up in an old hat and coat with its collar up to his ears. But the next moment I was thinking, no, it isn't him at all, and only for that light dancing step of his I wouldn't have given it another thought.”

“I see,” said Bobby slowly.

“Only don't you go saying I said so, I won't stand for it if you do,” Munday added warningly. “Got it in for me already, he has, threatened to do me in if I didn't mind.”

“Do you in?” repeated Bobby, now startled in his turn. “What did he mean? What for?”

“Along,” said Munday resentfully, “of me spotting him doing a cuddle with a skirt what was the missus or I've got no eyes in my head. He as good as told me he would out me if I said a word. As if I would, with only my word against his and the missus's too, and even if I was believed sure of the sack and no chance of another job. But all excited like he was.”

“Do you mean he actually threatened you?” Bobby asked.

“Well, it wasn't so much what he said as the way he looked,” Munday admitted. “Pretty well off his head with excitement he was. He needn't have, most of us knew the missus had her hooks in him same as in every pair of trousers what comes near her.”

Bobby both looked and felt thoughtful. All this was very interesting, it suggested a disturbing possibility of developments to come, and yet was no concern of his, nor indeed of any other outsider. Very possibly, too, he thought, for he was not much inclined to trust Munday too far, the whole story was simply the exaggeration of a gossip-loving and malicious servant who had, perhaps, been rebuked for some indiscreet show of curiosity.

He bade Munday good night, thanked him for the information given, promised again that it should be held strictly confidential, and as he walked away, glanced back once more at a house that held, he felt, so many strange and ominous possibilities. As he did so he saw Renfield come out again and speak to Munday. They both looked in Bobby's direction and he felt certain Renfield had heard something inside about the recent visit of a Scotland Yard man.

Had that disturbed Renfield and had he come out again to question the butler about it?

Bobby was in thoughtful mood when he arrived back at the little shop in the side street near Piccadilly where Olive and Vicky were awaiting his return with a nervousness much relieved when they heard that Flora and her friends had seemed almost as much amused as annoyed at what had happened.

“Especially,” added Bobby, “when Mrs. Tamar knew you weren't going to charge for her next hat.”

“I thought,” said Vicky complacently, “that would take the coconut.” With slow conviction she added, “A new hat free, for nothing, would fetch any one. It would me. You, too, Olive.”

“I'm getting,” said Olive with passion, “to hate the sight of hats.”

“Now, now, dear,” protested Vicky, “you mustn't say things like that. It isn't—Right. Now, is it?”

With that she took her leave and Bobby suggested going out somewhere to get some food, of which he felt both he and Olive stood in need after so much excitement.

A brief argument followed. Olive, on the ground of expense, opposing a firm negative to the restaurant Bobby suggested and putting forward a rival suggestion of an egg on toast and a cup of coffee at the nearest tea shop.

“I should enjoy it much more,” she protested wistfully.

A compromise was arrived at on the basis of an eighteen-penny table d'hôte at a popular establishment not far away, and there, after Bobby had managed to squeeze in the extravagance of a cup of coffee each before Olive had realized it was not included in the menu, he asked if she had ever heard anything about a case of suicide Lady Alice believed Mrs. Flora Tamar had been responsible for.

Olive shook her head.

“We hear such a lot of stories,” she said, “people sit and try on hats all the morning sometimes, talking all the time. Perhaps Vicky might know.”

“Looked to me.” Bobby observed, “as though there were rather a lot of explosive material lying about the Tamar establishment. That Holland Kent chap was carrying on with Mrs. Tamar pretty openly and I'm not sure Tamar wasn't rather overdoing it in pretending not to notice.”

“I've only seen Mr. Tamar once,” Olive said. “He called at the shop. I couldn't quite make out what he wanted. Vicky said it was to see if Flora was there.”

“Was she?”

“No. She had been. With Holland Kent. But they had gone.” Olive added, “I don't think Mr. Tamar struck me as the sort of man likely not to notice things.”

Bobby thought the same. Then he said,

“It's possible he doesn't care. He seemed to be taking a lot of interest in another girl there.”

“That wouldn't make any difference,” Olive said. “I mean, it would be all right for him, but it wouldn't make any difference to how he would feel if he thought any one else was trying the same thing with Flora. And Flora would think it fun.”

“Only fun?” Bobby asked and Olive made no answer. Bobby went on: “It all looked a bit nasty to me and what's more, Tamar's getting anonymous letters offering to tell him something he ought to know if he'll leave a hundred pounds in one-pound notes at a place called Weeton Hill.”

“Weeton Hill?” repeated Olive in a startled voice.

“Yes. Why? Do you know it?”

“Lady Alice asked me once where it was,” Olive answered, looking still more troubled. “She knew I used to have a week-end cottage in Epping Forest and she thought it was near there.”

“Is it?”

“No, it's a long way further on, only more towards the river, I think. People go there sometimes to picnic and for the view, but it's lonely and out of the way.”

“Deserted sort of place at night?” Bobby suggested.

“Oh yes, though there's a road quite close—two roads, really, because of a side turning just before you reach the hill. Mr. Tamar won't leave any money there, will he? I think it would be stupid.”

“I don't know what he means to do,” Bobby answered. “He showed me the letter because he wanted us to trace the writer. Said it was blackmail. I told him I couldn't see it was that exactly and if he wanted us to take action he would have to make a formal complaint. I don't see myself it's anything more than offering to sell him information—dirty trick, very likely only a try on, but not blackmail and no threats used. He got a bit ratty when I said that and talked about using influence, so I came away.”

Olive was still looking thoughtful and a little worried.

“I hope it's not Lady Alice,” she said.

“Who wrote the letter? Tamar talked about her but the butler, a chap called Munday—I don't like his looks much, by the way—”

“I've seen him,” Olive interrupted. “He's been to the shop, too. I don't like him either. He hinted he ought to have a commission.”

“Cheek. What for? For helping Mrs. Tamar to choose her hats?” asked Bobby, amused.

“Servants can do a lot if they want to, if they are that sort,” Olive replied. “Of course, most aren't, but some are. Vicky says she's known a hat box opened after it's been delivered, and the hat spoiled, and then the box done up again. The customer thinks it's you, of course, and you're careless and stupid and next time she goes somewhere else.”

“But a butler, not his job, is it?”

“Stands in with the maid,” Olive explained.

“You didn't give him anything?”

“I told Vicky she wasn't to, but I noticed there was five shillings down for extras for that hat, and Vicky was a bit vague when I asked her what they were. I told her I wanted to see a receipt for any extras for Flora's next hat.”

“What did she say?”

“She said: ‘Certainly, Moddom,' and she called me ‘Moddom' all the rest of the day. She always does when she's cross and wants to get her own back. She knows it makes me furious.”

“Well, anyhow,” Bobby continued, “Munday let out when I pressed him a bit that he thought it was a fat, unwholesome-looking chap called Renfield, Roger Renfield, some sort of relative of the Tamars. Know him?”

Olive nodded.

“He's bought hats once or twice for girls he says are friends of his. Brought one of them in with him once. I wish I could say ‘friends' the way Vicky does—sounds like a book of etiquette, a gossip column, and the commination service all in one. It was some time ago, though. Vicky says he's too hard up now to buy any one anything, and no one will lend him any more, because, if Mr. and Mrs. Tamar have children, he loses his interest in the original Tamar fortune—thirty or forty thousand pounds, I believe, though, of course, Mr. Tamar has made lots more now.”