The Ginger Cat Mystery (11 page)

Good afternoon, Mr. Vereker,” said Miss Cornell pleasantly as she came up, “for I presume you're the Mr. Vereker that Inspector Heather told us to expect this morning.”

“Quite correct, Miss Cornell,” replied Vereker. “I was just admiring the goldfish in the lily pool and having a siesta before returning to the village.”

“That sounds like a tactful fib to begin with,” she said with a smile. “You were looking terribly serious. I thought you must be concocting a sensational column for the
Daily Report
when I remembered that the inspector said you were a very keen amateur sleuth. Aren't you a special correspondent after all?”

“Officially I am. As for being a detective, that's merely an unofficial business, a secret passion. You see, I must have some excuse for being on the scene. Scotland Yard wouldn't tolerate interference by amateurs and if I wasn't a Press correspondent apart from being a very old friend of the inspector's, I'd have been told long ago to run away and play.”

“I see, and have you solved the mystery, Mr. Vereker?” she asked banteringly.

“Just solved it and I'm going to take out a warrant for your arrest,” replied Vereker. The words uttered with mock gravity caused Miss Cornell's face to turn pale and then almost as suddenly to flush with embarrassment.

“You gave me a horrible fright,” she said as she swiftly regained her composure. “You said the words so seriously that I was almost going to plead guilty right away. You oughtn't to make such grim jokes.”

“I'm very sorry and apologize humbly,” said Vereker. “Won't you take a seat? It's delightful to sit here in the warm sun.”

“I was just going up to the Manor to see Mr. Carstairs. He asked me to have tea with him, but it's early yet so I'll stay here for a while. By the way, Mr. Vereker, do you know anything about music?”

“I used to play ‘God save the King' on a tin whistle with some
brio
when I was younger,” said Vereker taking a good look at Miss Stella Cornell's face as she sat down on the seat beside him and presented a three-quarter view. It was a serious beautiful face, pale with the pallor of health. Her hair in glossy black waves swept over her shapely ears and reflected blue in the high lights. Her eyes were large, dark brown and slumbrous; her mouth small, delicately formed and firm, the upper lip being a trifle too short to be perfect. Her figure was slim but delightfully proportioned, the broad shoulders and well-formed arms and limbs denoting considerable strength.

“And I suppose you were also a virtuoso on the Jew's harp, the ocarina and the tambourine. Be serious, Mr. Vereker. Are you interested in music?”

“Passionately fond of it but I'm out of date. I don't understand its recent developments. I'm not musically educated.”

“Why not educate yourself? You can't appreciate the finest things in any art without some serious study. The average man, for instance, doesn't understand the quality of line in a really beautiful drawing.”

“Quite true, Miss Cornell. I suppose music, like graphic or literary art, has advanced from the simple and generally romantic to the intellectual and subtly abstract. But why do you ask?”

“For a very simple reason. My father's a very keen musician and composer. I think his work's really good but, of course, I'm biased. He's a lonely man and blind. If you'd pay us a visit while you're here and talk music to him it would be doing him a very real kindness. When he heard you were the correspondent of the
Daily Report
, he at once said, ‘I wonder if he's interested in music.' I was then ordered to pump you tactfully and ask you to drop in. Will you do so? I'd be very grateful to you if you would.”

“You ask so persuasively I can't refuse,” said Vereker. “I'll talk music with him but I'm afraid before many minutes he'll put me down as an awful dud on the subject and diplomatically get rid of me. Anyhow it'll be a pleasing change from thinking about crime.”

“Oh, yes, this terrible business,” said Miss Cornell and the expression of her whole face changed as a sunny landscape changes under the shadow of a heavy cloud. “Have you got very far in your investigation?”

“No. I'm afraid in this case I'm really up against it! So far there's very little to work on. Actual clues are remarkable by their absence and those that have come to light seem to lead nowhere. In the circumstances one has to rely on what one can gather in questioning everyone who is likely to shed even the faintest light on the mystery, in learning all about the dead man, all the ins and outs of the family and household, and then trusting to intuition rather than matter-of-fact deduction.”

“If you'd like to ask me any questions, Mr. Vereker, do so. I won't mind a bit,” suggested Miss Cornell with friendly alacrity.

“That's very good of you. I'll try and not be impertinent. If I am, you must just say so.”

“First of all let me say I wasn't in the house on the night of Frank's death so that I may not be very helpful, but I'll do my best.”

“When did you see your cousin last, Miss Cornell?” asked Vereker at once.

“About a week before his death. I was invited to the Manor to meet his fiancée, Miss Mayo.”

“You weren't one of the dinner party on the night?”

“No. I'd been asked to go by Jo, that is, Mrs. Cornell, but I refused. In the first place I didn't want to see Miss Mayo again and I didn't like to leave father all by himself. Not that he would have minded much; he likes being alone at times, but that night he wanted me to write down some music for him. He was in the mood at the time so I made it an excuse for dodging the dinner.”

“Did you sit up late?”

“Not late for us. We both went to bed at about eleven o'clock. We're rather night owls at the bungalow.”

“Why were you anxious to avoid Miss Mayo?” asked Vereker pointedly.

For a few seconds Miss Cornell hesitated, blushed becomingly, and then replied, “Now that question is very personal but there's no reason why I shouldn't answer it. It may sound like taking you into my confidence, but if you haven't heard my story you're bound to hear it sooner or later, so I may as well tell you first-hand.”

“If you'd rather not tell it to a perfect stranger, don't hesitate, Miss Cornell,” suggested Vereker.

“Well, it's nothing very terrible. You see, Frank and I had known one another since we were children and later we grew very fond of one another. Secretly we became engaged—not formally but just between our two selves. When our parents heard about it, for we gave them a hint as to the state of affairs, neither his nor mine would hear of it. The reasons were simple enough. Frank's father was determined that he should make a brilliant match and I was scarcely in that category. Besides I was a cousin. My own father thought I'd rue my choice for the rest of my life, for he thought Frank was leading a very fast life.”

“Was he?” asked Vereker bluntly.

“No, I don't think so. Frank was full of life and fun. He drank perhaps rather more than was good for him, but I'm sure it was just a youthful phase. Many good men have done exactly the same. I was, of course, told that he mixed with questionable women but I couldn't believe it. In any case, he was really good at heart and a most generous, kindly man. That was more to me than all the material astuteness and hardness that usually mark successful men. You see, I loved him…” Miss Cornell's voice broke with sudden emotion.

“I can quite understand your point of view,” said Vereker to cover her momentary embarrassment. “Why didn't you both ignore your parents' wishes?”

“We decided to wait and see. We thought that they might relent. It was a fatal mistake.”

“They continued to be adamant, I suppose,” commented Vereker. “It's an easy role when you're dealing with other people's destinies.”

“Well, we waited too long. Frank went up to London to read for the Bar and we became separated. He was susceptible to the attractions of a pretty woman and he ran across Valerie Mayo. It wasn't long before I noticed a change in his attitude to me. He was just as amiable and jovial and all that but he avoided any approach to our old intimacy. I knew then that he had fallen in love. I tried to blind myself to the truth for I hadn't changed…”

“You were faithful to the last?” interrupted asked Vereker casually.

“Yes. Not that I think faithfulness to the last the virtue some people think it. It's entirely a matter of temperament. If I had met someone who appealed to me more than Frank did, I might have changed. I don't think I would; I was probably born that way, but it's no use discussing the point. The faithful-for-ever lover is probably one whose early teaching has formed something in him stronger than his instincts. I don't know. In any case, Frank changed; it was in his nature.”

“You took the matter very much to heart?” asked Vereker sympathetically.

“Oh, please don't speak about it. It was too terrible for words. In time I might have got over it, but now…”

“Tell me, Miss Cornell,” said Vereker quickly for he saw that she was on the point of breaking down altogether, “when your parents forbade your marriage, did you continue to see one another?”

“Yes, we met secretly,” said Miss Cornell and her eyes wandered with a curious wistfulness round the formal garden.

“Possibly on this very seat,” remarked Vereker who had been intently watching her.

“Yes,” agreed Miss Cornell starting suddenly, almost with an expression of alarm. “How on earth did you guess that?”

“Just a wild shot,” replied Vereker cautiously, for her eyes had told him her secret.

“So you now see why I didn't particularly wish to meet Miss Mayo again, Mr. Vereker,” she said reverting to the origin of her frank confession. “It was simply to avoid very acute suffering. Even my pride couldn't rise to putting a hypocritical face on it and pretending I didn't care.”

“What is your candid opinion of Miss Mayo?”

“I haven't got one. I don't know her. The little I saw of her I didn't like, but that was probably a very natural prejudice. Frank was passionately in love with her.”

“What does Mrs. Cornell think of her?”

“I don't think Jo admires the type, but Jo moves in a curiously detached orbit of her own. She saw that her stepson was bent on marrying the young lady and she accepted that as she would accept an eclipse of the moon—something that interested her up to a point but really had no bearing on her own affairs.”

“She's self-centred?” asked Vereker.

“Oh, no, I wouldn't say that. I think she's perfectly adorable. No one can help liking her, but she has an almost angelic calm and is a terrible fatalist. What is to be, is to be, forms a big lump of her philosophy. When you meet her I'm sure she'll make a big impression on you.”

“She has evidently made one on Doctor Redgrave, if there's any truth in village gossip,” commented Vereker expectantly.

“Gossip can say what it likes now, Mr. Vereker. She's a free woman, but don't let that make you think Jo wasn't absolutely honourable prior to her husband's death. There never was a greater stickler for principles. She told me she was very fond of Doctor Redgrave long ago, but she would never permit even a shadow of intimacy. She had married John Cornell because his character appealed to her quite apart from anything in the nature of love. She admired him immensely. He was persistent, forceful, and old enough to be a very satisfactory intellectual companion. She had never met a man she could love without all sorts of reservations.”

“Now she has met that man, d'you think he'll make her the ideal husband?”

“I don't know. Doctor Redgrave's a very charming man, very handsome, but I'm never at ease with him. He's so much cleverer than I am that he makes me feel my mental inferiority. Also, he has at times a way of smiling at my remarks as if he saw through and through me and was amused at what he saw. I suppose there's something in me that strikes him as ludicrous and no one really enjoys being laughed at even in his very gentle way.”

“He believes in ghosts,” said Vereker almost as if his thoughts were running on two planes.

“What makes you think that?” asked Miss Cornell suddenly.

“Of course you know all about the Marston Manor ghost?” suggested Vereker with his eyes furtively watching her expression.

“We've all heard about her majesty,” replied Miss Cornell and her eyelids fell for a second with a curious air of amused hesitancy.

“You haven't seen the lady in her wedding dress?” asked Vereker.

“No. But what makes you think Doctor Redgrave believes in ghosts?”

“Mrs. Cornell, I'm told, has seen the apparition and on the night of Frank Cornell's death she took Doctor Redgrave to the music room so that he could have a chance of seeing it.”

“And you think he believes Jo's story?” asked Miss Cornell, a hint of a smile curling her short upper lip.

“It looks like it. In any case he didn't succeed and the only result was that Mrs. Cornell mislaid the keys to the music room and the butler had a job to find them when I wanted to have a look round this morning.”

“You've looked round the room?” asked Miss Cornell, glancing at him shrewdly.

“I searched every inch of it.”

“What were you looking for?”

“A pistol or revolver, of course. We haven't found the weapon yet.”

“Oh, I see. But why on earth look in the music room?” asked Miss Cornell with suddenly roused curiosity.

“Well, you have to look everywhere in such an important search.”

“Of course, but the music room door is always kept locked.”

“I know and the butler has charge of the keys. But in my investigation this morning I learned a very curious thing. Once upon a time there were duplicate keys to the music room and not long ago they were missing and no one seems to know anything about them,” continued Vereker.