The Silk Stocking Murders (26 page)

“Yes, I’d thought of that,” Roger nodded. “We must get them away from here, both of them. Miss Carruthers won’t be safe here either.”

“I quite agree. I think they should go as soon as possible. It’s out of the question for them to appear at the theatre to-night, even if Miss Manners were fit to, which she isn’t.” He thought for a moment. “I have a small cottage in Surrey, on the Banstead Downs. I can put that at their disposal.”

“That’s very good of you, Mr. Pleydell,” Anne said gratefully. “Thank you so much.”

“Is that wise, though, do you think?” Roger demurred. “I’m inclined to think they’d be safer in London, at one of the big hotels. Supposing they were traced down to Surrey, you see. Isolation in a cottage might be even more dangerous than here.”

“I see your point,” Pleydell said, and paused. There was a moment’s silence. “Oh, Newsome,” he went on, “would you do something for me? I was called away from my meeting in a hurry, of course, and I find I’ve brought an important document with me. They’ll be entirely hung up for it.

Could you slip down to the city with it and hand it in at an address in Leadenhall Street for me?”

Newsome looked a little surprised at this rather cool request, and still more so when Roger proceeded strongly to back it. “Yes, Jerry, there’s nothing you can do here, and we mustn’t forget in all this excitement that Pleydell’s time is, quite truly, money. Cut along to Leadenhall Street, there’s a good chap. And you can change and come back to my rooms afterwards. I’m dining with some people in Kensington, for my sins, and they asked me to bring an extra man. You’re going to be the extra man.”

“But I say,” expostulated the recipient of these commands.

“Jerry,” said Roger, with mock severity, “I’d have you remember that you’re under orders. Now you’ve got ’em, so cut!” His voice was light, but there was an undertone of real command in it.

Newsome looked sulky, but prepared to obey. “Oh, all right, I suppose, if you make such a point of it,” he said, with no very good grace.

Pleydell drew a long envelope out of his breast-pocket, scribbled an address on it, and handed it over. “Thank you very much,” he said courteously. “That will save a great deal of trouble.”

Newsome nodded and went out without a further word.

Pleydell turned to Anne as if no rather uncomfortable atmosphere had been generated. “I think,” he said quietly, “if you are feeling well enough, that you should pack at once, Miss Manners. It is no good losing time, and the sooner you are out of here, the better.”

“Oh, yes,” Anne said cheerfully. “I can manage now, I think.” She rose and went out of the room.

Pleydell, who had opened the door for her, shut it carefully. He waited for a moment then walked up to Roger. In that short instant his normally rather sallow face had become suffused with blood, and Roger could see that he was trembling all over. “Now can you doubt, Sheringham?” he said, in a low voice that vibrated with passion. “
Now
can you doubt?”

With the utmost deliberation Roger drew out his pipe and began to fill it. “Newsome, you mean?” he said matter-of-factly.

His pointed ordinariness had its intended effect. Pleydell pulled himself together, though it cost him a visible effort to do so. “The only one on the premises, the only one with the opportunity, the only one who even
knew
,” he said, in tones which still shook a little in spite of his attempts to keep them even. “God, I could hardly keep my hands off his throat.”

Roger nodded casually. “I’m afraid there can’t be any doubt of it now. I couldn’t believe it at first, but—well, as you say, it’s impossible to think anything else now. You understood that was why I helped you to get rid of him?”

“Yes. He mustn’t learn where Miss Manners is going, at any cost. My God, Sheringham, if he tries it again I
will
take the law into my own hands, now I’m certain. Nobody has a better right than I to punish that man.”

Roger, praying hard that no further hysterics should be inflicted on him (he could hardly try the same cure with Pleydell), grew more and more normal as the other grew warmer. “Oh, I shouldn’t do that,” he said, as if he were talking about the next day’s big race. “You’ll get your revenge all right when you see the judge calling for his black cap. This is a police matter, you must remember, and after this last effort it passes into their hands. And I know for a fact,” he added confidentially, “if it will make your mind any easier, that Newsome’s arrest is only a matter of hours.”

Pleydell’s eyes gleamed. “Is that so? Then I think I may forgo my private vengeance. Yes, of course you’re right, Sheringham. This is a police matter. But do you know how hard it is to realise that simple fact? All this time I’ve looked on it as
my
matter,
my
matter, and nobody else’s. I tried to get the police to move (you were there yourself), and it seemed that they did nothing. I——”

“Oh, yes, they jolly well did,” Roger interrupted. “They’ve put together a perfect case against Newsome; and this will clinch it. Don’t you worry, Pleydell; the police have been busy all right.”

“I’m very glad to hear it. But I shan’t rest till he’s under lock and key. Think—any moment he may attack some other unfortunate girl.”

“That’s all right,” Roger said soothingly. “Didn’t you hear me make sure of that? You can depend on it that I’m going to keep him under my eye for the short time he’s still at liberty.”

“Thank you. I would have done so myself if you hadn’t. Now about these two girls. I agree that Surrey might be unwise. Where do you suggest?”

“The Piccadilly Palace,” Roger replied at once. “They’ll be far safer in a big, noisy place like that than in a smaller one. I’ll take them there myself.”

Pleydell nodded. “Excellent. Ring me up about them this evening, will you? It’s very good of you to undertake all these duties, Sheringham. I feel I’m shirking my share. But as it happens to-day is a very busy one with me, and though I’d gladly shelve everything if I can be of any real use, I will be extremely grateful if you can take on the smaller duties for me.”

“Of course,” Roger said heartily. “That’s quite all right. You push off at once, if you’re busy. There’s nothing at all for you to stay for. I’ll see to everything.”

And that, I suppose, Roger reflected as Pleydell went, just about sums up the Jewish outlook. They’d give up everything in the world to save the life of a dying friend, or even to ensure that he had a really luxurious funeral if he wanted one; but that doesn’t prevent them from asking the undertaker for a cash discount. And why should it? We call it callous, but it’s only practical. That’s our trouble; we can’t distinguish between real and false sentiment. And the Jews do.

But it had been a nervous ten minutes, for all its aftermath of peaceful moralising.

W
HEN
Gerald Newsome, obedient to discipline but not unresentful, arrived at the Albany that evening, he found a surprisingly cheerful trio awaiting him. Kensington, apparently, had vanished from the map. Certainly it seemed that neither Roger, Anne nor Miss Carruthers had the slightest intention of going to such a foolish place. In the Albany they were going to dine, and the Albany had been commanded to do its best for them.

“I must apologise for talking to you like a sergeant-major, Jerry,” Roger said to his bewildered guest, whom he took the opportunity of waylaying in the hall. “But I could see that Pleydell was thirsting for your blood, and I had to get you out of the way before he began drawing it.”

“My blood? What on earth for?”

“Because he holds very strong opinions about you, my poor Jerry. He’s quite convinced that you’re the villain of this piece, and I knew’ it wasn’t the least use trying to shake his convictions. I had to humour him by pretending to agree with him. At present we’re both gloating over your impending arrest to-morrow.”

“Good Lord!”

“Well, really one can’t blame him,” Roger pointed out. “In addition to all the other evidence against you, we’re now faced with the fact, to be explained away somehow, that you are really the only person who could have attacked Anne. He thinks you jumped out of your little cubby-hole, complete with whiskers and gold-rimmed spectacles, and simply fell on her.”

“Damn the fellow!” said the indignant suspect.

“No, as I said, one can’t blame him. But you’re safe from him here, I fancy; though he did mention that he was itching to get his fingers round your throat. Now that’s enough shop till after dinner. Anne’s got to recover completely during the evening, and I want to take her mind off this business completely. I’ve unhooked the telephone, and we’re all under orders to talk of nothing but frivolities till further notice. Now come along and have some of your cocktails.”

“Anne? Is she here?”

“She is. And so is my excellent friend, Miss Carruthers.”

“Great Scott! Then—then we’re not going to Kensington after all?”

“Where is Kensington?” queried Roger blandly.

And the result was a very cheerful little dinner-party and, so far as one could see, the complete recovery of Anne.

One thing Newsome was surprised to learn, and that was that both the girls were going to spend the night under their host’s bachelor roof.

“I tried to get rooms at the Piccadilly Palace, you see,” Roger explained lightly, “but the place was full up. And if it’s safety that’s wanted, what could be safer than the Albany? Why, the place is a veritable fortress at night.”

“Shop!” said Anne, and Roger bowed his head.

But when the two girls had gone into the sitting-room and Roger and Newsome were left alone, Roger dropped the bantering air he had worn all the evening and became very serious indeed.

“This is a perfectly damnable business, Jerry,” he said, “and I simply don’t know what to do about it. We’ve
got
to get that man under lock and key somehow, and pretty quickly too. Anne’s life isn’t worth a halfpenny if we don’t, I’m convinced.”

“I say,” Newsome gasped. “Is it really as bad as that?”

“Well, I may be exaggerating, of course, but I don’t think so. And then there’s your arrest to-morrow. That’s bound to stop police activities for a time, till they do find out that you’re the wrong man.”

“And you haven’t any idea at all who this damned man is who disguises himself as a solicitor?”

“Well, I don’t mind admitting that I have got a theory now. But it’s really only a theory. And I may be miles off the track.
I
don’t know.”

“Can’t you get hold of any evidence to support it?”

“None, that I can think of; at least, not without a search-warrant. And even then almost certainly none either. I
can’t
prove it, though I feel in my bones I’m right.”

“Who do you think it is?”

Roger hesitated. “Well, I don’t think I’ll say that yet, even to you. But I’ll tell you that if I published my theory in
The Courier
there’d be such a shout of laughter throughout the entire country that my ear-drums would immediately burst. And you, Jerry, would probably be shouting as loud as any of them. I’m afraid that at first hearing my theory might sound, to put it mildly, a trifle fantastic.”

“But do you think you’re on the right lines?”

Roger got up and began to pace restlessly up and down the room. “I
think
so. In fact, I’m almost sure. When the idea first occurred to me, only a little time ago, I nearly laughed at myself. But I’ve applied every conceivable test since then, and it seems to stand up to them all right. It stretches the probabilities here and there, it’s true, but not into impossibilities by a long chalk. Oh, damn it, I’m certain I’m right. But I
can’t
prove it! And I’ve simply got to, if you’re to marry Anne and bring up a family of small Jerries.”

“What!” exclaimed his astonished audience “I say, Roger, you don’t think—I say, she wouldn’t think of——Good Lord, do you really think she——”

“Stop blethering! We’re up against the stiffest proposition either of us has ever encountered, not excluding the War, and you sit there and bleat like a sheep about would she, and do I think and does she think, and do I really think. Do I really think? My hat, I’ve got to really think to-night, I can tell you. And so have you, so begin at once.”

“Oh, hell!” muttered the discomfited swain, and lapsed into silence.

Roger continued to prowl.

“I remember saying once that Scotland Yard’s methods would never solve this case,” he burst out after a minute or two, “but that French ones might. I still think I’m right about the first part, but French methods haven’t proved very successful yet, have they?”

“Was that a French method this afternoon?” asked Newsome, almost timidly.

“As French as a haricot bean,” said Roger shortly. “And if only the brute hadn’t been wearing his whiskers, we’d have got him by now.”

“I say, I’ve been wanting to ask you ever since: how on earth did he get away?”

“Thought he’d done the job, and was going down the stairs when he heard me bounding up like a bull elephant. If I’d been in carpet-slippers I’d have run straight into him. As it was all he had to do was to step aside, into a bathroom or anywhere, wait for me to pass, and then walk calmly out.”

“And you knew something was up because the ten-minutes’ bell didn’t ring? By Jove, it was lucky that was arranged.”

“Partly, I was just going on that account, when suddenly the alarm signal went off. The fellow must actually have stepped on it himself, of all ironical things. Thank heaven for that, at any rate. Anne might have been dead now if he hadn’t. The luckiest accident!”

“My hat!” Newsome breathed. “But, I say, it’s funny that, isn’t it? I thought the idea was that he’d found out about the arrangements, and wanted to eliminate Anne in spite of them. He evidently hadn’t found out that one.”

“So it would seem,” Roger said absently. “Oh, Jerry, my excellent but thick-skulled Jerry, isn’t there
anything
you can suggest? We’ve got about eighteen hours to get this creature, and it would take me about eighteen weeks to collect enough evidence to prove my case in the orthodox way, even assuming I could do so at all, which I very much doubt. Because we’ve got to remember that this fellow is just about as cunning a maniac as there’s ever been.”