The Studio Crime (24 page)

The taxi drew up outside her cottage gate, behind the mulberry-coloured limousine of Dr. Mordby. Serafine's spirits rose at the sight of it. She felt that a duel with the enemy would appease a little the restless and helpless longing for activity which had taken hold of her. The chauffeur was standing by the car reading the lunch edition of an evening paper, and at the sight she thought: Oh, the newspapers of the next few days! The faint hope of Merewether's innocence that she had managed to keep alive was now finally extinguished. His escape could be only accomplished by the triumph of one man's wits over the entire police organization of England. A forlorn hope, indeed. She remembered how he had said: “There should be a way out,” and shuddered, even while she prayed that he might be able to take it.

Dr. Mordby came down the stairs as she entered the hall. He looked unruffled and self-possessed as ever, treading lightly as a cat, swinging his eyeglass by its broad ribbon, distinguished, prosperous and at peace with the world.

“Good morning, Dr. Mordby. How do you find my aunt?”

He enveloped her hand in his white, boneless fingers and smiled.

“She will be all right after a sleep. A slight shock to one of the nerve-centres. She is anxiously awaiting your return.”

“I passed your car in the High Street not long ago,” said Serafine blandly.

“I was on my way here. You had a lady with you whose face is quite familiar to me, a former patient of mine, I fancy, though I cannot quite place her.”

“Friend of mine,” said Serafine, beginning to enjoy herself. “Just come back from South Africa. A Miss Sykes.”

Not a muscle of Mordby's face moved.

“Ah!” he said negligently. “Then I must have been mistaken in thinking I knew her. I had only the most fleeting glimpse of her as my car passed.”

“The world,” said Serafine sententiously, “is a very small place. A charming girl. I hadn't seen her since our school days until I met her by chance in the High Street just now. But I knew her at once.”

“I am not surprised. From the glimpse I had of her she appeared to be an exceedingly beautiful young lady.”

“Don't suppose I shall see her again for another twenty years. She told me her address, but I've unfortunately forgotten it.”

Mordby's eyes twinkled.

“Too bad. I was hoping for an introduction.” He looked benignly at Serafine with his large head on one side. “What a delightful witness you would make in the law-courts, Miss Wimpole.”

“Yes, I was always a good liar.”

“The penalty for perjury is rather cramping to a talent for mendacity, though.”

“That is why I spend so little of my time in the law-courts. I prefer to practise mendacity as an amateur.”

“An amateur,” repeated Mordby amiably, “one who works for love... Good-bye, Miss Wimpole. Let me congratulate you once again upon the possession of an exceedingly well-balanced mind. A rare gift, as you would know if you followed my profession.”

“Good-bye, Dr. Mordby. Do you take the longest way round or the shortest way home?”

“I shall inquire the way at the taxi-rank,” replied Dr. Mordby blandly.

Serafine shut the door gently.

“Hell-fire and damnation,” she said thoughtfully. “Suppose he does...” She hesitated a moment and then went quickly to the telephone.

“Hullo! Is that Primrose Hill 1397? Is Dr. Merewether in?”

Faint and far away, a woman's voice replied:

“Who's speaking, please?”

“Miss Serafine Wimpole.”

“I am Dr. Merewether's sister. Dr. Merewether is away. Dr. Smythe is taking over his practice until he returns. Dr. Smythe arrives this afternoon.”

“Oh! I didn't know Dr. Merewether was going away!”

“No. It was rather sudden. Dr. Merewether's brother has been taken ill.”

“Can you tell me when he will be back?”

“I'm afraid not.” There was a faint catch in the small ghostly voice at the other end of the wire. “It all depends. I'm leaving myself to-morrow, when Dr. Smythe has arrived. Can I give Dr. Smythe a message from you?”

“Oh, no. No thanks. It doesn't matter. Goodbye.”

Serafine hung up the receiver. Her heart was beating fast, and putting her hands to her flushed cheeks she found them hot as fire. So the hopeless contest had begun! The doctor had not wasted much time since she had seen him little more than an hour ago. His plans, she supposed, had been laid for flight ever since the night of the tragedy, and had been held up by the disappearance of the woman he loved—his female accomplice, as the newspapers would call her. Serafine shuddered, and went slowly up the stairs to Imogen's bedroom.

Imogen, sitting up in bed and dabbing eau-de-Cologne on her neck, murmured reproachfully:

“Serafine! Where
have
you been? I've been lying here just thinking of all the dreadful things that might have happened to you.”

“You haven't. You've been talking to your psychoanalytical adviser and enjoying yourself no end.”

“I don't know what was the matter with Dr. Mordby this morning,” murmured Imogen discontentedly. “I had to tell him the dream I had last night three times over, and then he didn't take it seriously. I think I shall give it up, I don't believe there's anything in it. After all, one can buy a twopenny dream book and get interpretations of one's dreams that are much more agreeable than Dr. Mordby's, and just as likely to be true... Serafine!” she exclaimed suddenly, as if inspired: “I wonder whether you oughtn't to have your tonsils out.”

“What for?”

“Probably they're septic. You're not looking well. Not as well as you generally do.”

“I'm not as young as I generally am,” replied Serafine with a sigh, and turned away from the window and the sight of a newsboy running up the street. How would she bear to open a paper to-morrow and the days after?

“I do think,” said Imogen plaintively, “you might remember that I'm twenty years older than you are and not keep talking about your age.”

Hembrow's first thought, when he had recovered from his chagrin at the sight of Frew's posthumous message, was that the envelope had been tampered with, either by Mrs. Rudgwick or by Gilbert Cold. But the most minute examination failed to reveal any signs of forgery. He was forced rather reluctantly to the conclusion that this absurd inscription was genuine and must be accepted in place of the incriminating will he had confidently hoped to find.

“Like most familiar quotations,” said Christmas thoughtfully, “it's true.”

“True?” growled Hembrow, for once a little out of humour. “I dare say it is. But that doesn't explain why anybody should commit a burglary to get hold of it.”

“Oh, but it does,” said John. “It explains the burglary as much as the burglary proves its truth.”

“You'll be telling me next,” said Hembrow rather sourly, “that it's exactly what you expected to find in that envelope all along.”

“No, it isn't what I expected to find. I expected to find what the burglar expected to find. And now I seem to hear the shade of our late lamented friend Gordon Frew laughing at me just as he would have laughed at the burglar. He was fond of practical jokes, like most uncivilized people. But he didn't reckon on this practical joke going quite so far. He never thought the victim of his practical joke would be practical enough to stick a knife in him.”

“You think—” began Hembrow, staring with a moody frown at the paper under discussion.

“I think that the burglar expected to find in this envelope his own discreditable past. He didn't expect to find it quite so pithily expressed. Nor did I.”

“But why the mystery?” asked Hembrow in exasperation. “Why the registered post, and the secrecy and all the rest of it?”

“Did you never, Hembrow, when you were a small and wicked child, celebrate April Fool's day by sending to one of your long-suffering relations a large, elaborate and interesting-looking parcel consisting entirely of brown paper and string? And did you not, on such occasions, use much ink, sealing-wax and care to make the parcel look like a real parcel and arouse the expectations of the victim? In the same way, though not for such innocent reasons, Frew tried to make his blackmail look like real blackmail. The Shakespearean quotation he wrote out with such care is just a rather apt way of saying ‘Sold!' to any victim who might be driven by fear into risking his safety to get hold of the envelope. You may be sure that he let his victim know of the existence of the envelope. It would be an added anxiety to the poor wretch to know that not only was his enemy in possession of the more shady facts of his career, but that those facts were also stowed away in the keeping of a third person.”

“But they weren't.”

“How was the poor wretch to know that? Frew made him believe that they were. Perhaps they weren't even in Frew's possession. Perhaps the whole thing was a bluff from beginning to end. Frew was clever enough for anything.”

“Your idea being, Mr. Christmas,” said the Inspector slowly, “that Frew himself was a blackmailer?”

“Of a kind. A refined form of blackmailer. Not a blackmailer for money, but for love—or rather hate. He managed to make some unfortunate person believe that he could blackmail him if he chose. Probably he kept the victim on tenterhooks by a perpetual threat to publish his past misdeeds. He was writing his reminiscences at the time of his death.”

“Pointless sort of blackmail if there was no money in it,” muttered Hembrow.

“Not at all. There are other satisfactions besides the possession of large quantities of money. There are satisfactions that no amount will bring. Frew didn't want money, he'd got plenty. He wanted the satisfaction of feeling that he had an enemy in his power, and he wanted his enemy to feel it too. I don't suppose he really had the slightest intention of publishing anything libellous. The continual threat was enough. Enough to keep the poor wretch in a state of perpetual suspense. Enough to keep the amiable Frew in a state of perpetual amusement. Enough, in the long run, to slip a knife between Frew's shoulder-blades. Frew knew a good deal about the shadier side of human nature, no doubt. But he didn't allow for what Mordby calls the breaking-point.”

“You think that, having silenced Frew, the murderer then attempted burglary at Camperdown Terrace in order to get possession of documents incriminating himself and prevent Mrs. Rudgwick from stepping into Frew's shoes as blackmailer?”

“No. Not the murderer. Another of Frew's victims.”

“Come, Mr. Christmas! I don't see that there's any need to suppose that there were more than one of them!”

“Don't you? I do rather,” said John quietly.

Hembrow looked at him shrewdly.

“I can guess why, Mr. Christmas. The evidence being so strong, you can't help believing that Merewether had a hand in the burglary at Camperdown Terrace. But you can't bring yourself to believe that he had a hand in the murder as well. So you invent a second person to be the murderer. Am I right?”

“More or less,” admitted John amiably, rising to his feet.

Hembrow shook his head.

“You'd far better stand out of this affair.”

“Not I. I'm just beginning to get really interested. Good-bye, Hembrow. I can see I haven't much time to lose if I'm to find the murderer for you before you make an ass of yourself by arresting Dr. Merewether.”

Hembrow laughed.

“I shan't make an arrest until I'm quite certain I'm right.”

“I trust you won't reach that dizzy pinnacle of complacency until I've had time to prove you're wrong,” replied John with a smile, and departed.

Outside the Yard he called a taxi and directed the man to drive him to Temple Court. Arrived there he strolled through the peaceful precincts where the rustle of brown leaves under his feet and the twittering of sparrows seduced the ear from the roaring and hooting of the traffic that was so close and yet shut out, as if in another world. Passing under a dim stone archway into a sort of cloistered darkness he rung at a door which carried a small brass plate: Mr. Sydenham Rampson. The door was opened by an elderly man-servant who recognized John and smiled.

“Mr. Rampson is in his work-room, sir.”

“Right. I know the way.”

He went up the dimly-lighted stairs and entered a small light room fitted up as a laboratory. His friend Rampson, a short, stockily-built man of about thirty-five with thick fair hair for ever standing on end and a fresh-coloured, humorous face, was standing at a bench with his eye to the microscope, manipulating a tiny slide. He said without taking his eye from the instrument:

“Hullo, John. Take a chair if you can find one. I shan't be a second.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Solomon wouldn't have let anybody else come bounding in here like that. He'd have left them down below while he made inquiries, as he jolly well ought.”

“Am I to understand that I'm a favourite of yours?”

“Of Solomon's. Not of mine, particularly,” replied his friend, turning with his wide grin from his instrument and perching himself on a high wooden stool. “However, it's quite pleasant to see your amiable and idiotic face occasionally. What've you been doing all these months? Frittering away the precious hours of your youth, as usual, I suppose.”

“Yes,” assented John meekly. “And I suppose you've had your eye glued to that microscope ever since I saw you last. However, it seems to suit you. You look horribly healthy. How you manage it in the complete absence of fresh air and exercise beats me.”

“I still keep up my football. But it's getting rather a bore. I shall drop it next winter. Too much to do.”

John smiled. He liked and admired Rampson and was endlessly amused by the contrast between his appearance and manner and his anchorite's mode of life. With the physique of an athlete and the cheerful friendliness of a young man about town, Rampson combined a passion for analytical chemistry which made all other interests negligible or tiresome. He was a remote cousin of John's, and John had first known him as a solemn and good-natured Sixth-Form boy, making extraordinary messes and smells and endangering life and limb with chemical experiments in an attic in his father's house which he had fitted up as a laboratory. Having inherited a comfortable income he had devoted himself soon after leaving the university to research work, and for the last eight years had lived in these rooms in the Temple with his old servant Solomon, pursuing studies which brought him much prestige but little money, free of all necessity or desire to follow other interests, a kind of cenobite of science and a completely happy man.