Читать книгу The Wedding Chest Mystery - Dorothy Fielding - Страница 4

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ARMSTRONG'S valet had meanwhile been asked to go through the dead man's clothing. He could only be sure that one thing was missing, beyond the hat and gloves, and that was Armstrong's gold fountain pen, a Swan, with his initials on it. Mr. Armstrong always carried it on him by day.

Pointer now asked the man for further details of when he had last seen his master.

"This morning, sir. Around nine, or a few minutes before." He went on to say that Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong were dining out with Major Hardy, and that his master had stopped him on the stairs to tell him that he might be very late, but would do his best to get home by eight, but could not possibly be in before that hour at the earliest.

The other question was a general one. Had he any idea, however fantastic, that might throw light on his master's end.

The man said that he had none whatever, except that, as every one knew, tremendous financial issues hung on Mr. Armstrong's various Australian enterprises.

As to any domestic trouble, or any personal reason for Armstrong having taken his life, his manservant scoffed at the idea. He considered Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong to have been an unusually devoted couple.

Pointer touched the doctor on the arm. The body was being carried down to the ambulance waiting below.

"I think Mrs. Armstrong needs you. I'll go up with you and wait outside the door. If it's in any way possible—without danger to her, I must see her. I don't want to speak to her, if she's at all overcome, but I do want to see her."

Dr. Birckbeck nodded. He was a man of few words. They hurried up the stairs. The doctor was a bare minute in the bedroom when he came out.

"She can't possibly be questioned. She needs a hypodermic at once."

"I'll be your assistant," Pointer said promptly. "I've often seen them given."

Again Birekbeck nodded, and they entered together.

The room was very modern. The walls seemed entirely made of mirrors except for inset cupboards of aluminum. The ceiling was of the same metal. The chairs were mere puffs of satin held together by what looked like wires. On the bed with its black silk pillows and sheets lay Mrs. Armstrong fully dressed. Her eyes were closed at the moment. Yes, Pointer thought, she looked as though she had had a very complete, and very recent, shock. He did not need to ask the doctor if this were acting. While the latter opened a bag that he had brought upstairs with him, Pointer swiftly took out a flexible steel rule from his waistcoat pocket, one that coiled up at a touch into a neat metal case. One stretch of his long arms and he knew that Mrs. Armstrong's height from the top of her neatly parted hair to the tips of her high heels was five foot eight.

Birckbeck was used to strange doings on Pointer's part, but he shot him a questioning look which the chief inspector did not choose to see. The doctor on that, motioned to a small bottle marked ether in his bag, a packet of wool, and finally to a place on Mrs. Armstrong's arm.

Pointer swabbed obediently. A woman standing by the window turned and watched him as though she hardly saw him. Mrs. Armstrong's maid brought in a quilt. Pointer told her to come out onto the landing for a word with him as soon as the doctor could spare her.

She did not keep him waiting long. He opened the first door beside him and they stepped into a plainly furnished, comfortable bedroom, Armstrong's room. A constable stood by the window.

"When did you last see Mr. Armstrong?" Pointer asked. Her eyes had told him that she knew who he was.

"He looked in at Mrs. Armstrong this morning before she got up. I was just turning on the bath. About nine, that would be. She's an awfully early riser, too. Though not as bad as he is. He only stood in the doorway for a moment to say that he was off for the day on something very important, and couldn't possibly be back to lunch and very possibly might be late for dinner, too."

"Was his manner as usual?" he asked next.

"Oh, no! Not at all as usual. He had a paper—a letter—in his hand, just drawn out of its envelope, and he kept looking at it as though half-reading it while he talked. Seemed to have given him a rare shock I thought even then. Spoke hastily, too, as though only half thinking of what he was saying. And in a hurry, too. As though impatient to be off. Just opened the door and stood there as though longing to be away."

"What did Mrs. Armstrong say?"

"She said, 'But what about this afternoon, Boyd?' He said impatiently, 'I can't help that. Make some excuse for me. I've got to leave at once and can't possibly be back till this evening.'"

"And what did she say then?"

"Nothing, except 'Very well, Boyd,' or something like that. Anyway, he didn't wait to hear what she said before he shut the door and ran down the stairs."

"Did he speak as though there had been any quarrel between himself and Mrs. Armstrong?"

"Oh, no!" The maid's tone was honestly amused. "Oh, dear no! Simply preoccupied and in a tearing hurry."

"Did Mrs. Armstrong make any comment to you on his leaving like that?"

"Yes, several times. She said, 'I wonder what is calling Mr. Armstrong away so unexpectedly,' and 'I can't think what he's in such a rush about.' And once she laughed a little and said, 'I do believe he's running away from the tea party this afternoon, Meade.' Meade is my name. 'How cowardly of him!' But that was only her fun. Mr. Armstrong was terribly rushed by something. Looked as if he hadn't a moment to catch the train, you know what I mean."

Pointer did. There came a tap on the door of the room and a man put his head in. He was one of Pointer's plain clothes men, and said nothing, only showed himself and then vanished, very much as a ghost might do at a séance. But Pointer, unlike sitters at a séance, was in no doubt as to the meaning of the apparition. Major Hardy had arrived.

"Who is that lady in Mrs. Armstrong's room?" he asked, as he thanked the maid and prepared to go downstairs.

"That's Lady Grail. A great friend of Mrs. Armstrong. She was in the Chinese rooms and saw it all. She nearly fainted herself. I had to get her a lot of brandy before she could help with Mrs. Armstrong at all."

"And did Mr. Callard need brandy too?" Pointer asked, a little dryly.

"Didn't he take it coolly! I was in the room when he brought Mrs. Armstrong in, and he said—all he said was, 'Here's your mistress. Mr. Armstrong's just been found dead in Major Hardy's chest.' And laid her on her bed and walked out again. I didn't believe it. Not until Lady Grail came tottering in a moment later."

Pointer had heard from Schofild about Lady Grail's expression before the lid of the chest had been raised, and about Callard's remark to her, and her reply to him. He now asked for a word with her. She came out after some minutes.

"I know nothing whatever about it. Well, then, if I must go into all the horrible details, I'll come downstairs. I need a couple of cocktails first."

Downstairs Schofild joined them. She led the way into one of the roams and pressed a button in the automatic cocktail mixer that stood in a corner behind a so-called bar. Only when she had a glass in her hand did she turn again to the chief inspector. She had large brown eyes that looked either frank or bold, according to her mood, or possibly according to one's point of view. Pointer was amazed at the speed with which that cocktail vanished. She pressed the button again. He decided that if they wanted a clear account from her, the sooner they got it the better.

"Will you be kind enough to tell us just what happened in the Chinese suite," he said in his pleasant, grave way. "This gentleman"—she evidently did not know Schofild, nor recognize him as having been present at the afternoon's horrible happening—"expected to meet Mr. Armstrong here this afternoon. He is helping us to investigate the case."

The glass in her hand shook violently.

"Horrible!" said she, half under her breath. "Quite too shattering for words." She bit her lip, and, tossing down the liquid left in the tumbler, turned once more to the metal friend behind the bar.

"Sorry, but as an eyewitness?" Pointer murmured.

"Well, when she opened the chest she fainted," Lady Grail rapped out sharply, "fainted dead away. I didn't know women ever did that any more."

"But before the chest was opened?" Schofild asked. She looked vaguely at him.

"I don't know what happened before the chest was opened," she spoke impatiently. "I was too far back in the room to see well—until just at the last, when I happened to be near the end of the rooms. I can only tell you that when the lid was lifted, she pitched forward as though some one had struck her down from behind. It really was ghastly."

"What time was this?" Pointer now asked.

"I don't know. Long past five. They were fearfully late in bringing out the chest. I thought they would never come along with it."

Now Schofild knew that the chest had made its appearance from behind the curtain that covered the niche where it had stood—at just a quarter past five.

He suggested this time to her. "Much more like a quarter to six!" she maintained.

Schofild decided that impatience had made the minutes drag; but why the impatience? Further questions brought no new facts to light. Had Mr. Callard been there before the chest was brought in, Pointer inquired. She said that she did not know. He might have been. Probably was, but she had not noticed him.

She was thanked, and allowed to continue her cocktails alone. Before meeting Major Hardy, Pointer telephoned to the family solicitors. They knew the contents of Mr. Armstrong's only will, they said. Told, in confidence, that Mr. Armstrong had been found dead at his house in Charles Street, the head of the firm assured the chief inspector that there was nothing in the will left with them long ago that could have any bearing on either suicide or crime. The will had been signed after his marriage. Everything was left to Mrs. Armstrong absolutely with the exception of a few unimportant legacies. The solicitors in question and Mr. Rufus Armstrong were the trustees.

"Anything left to Mr. Rufus Armstrong?" Pointer asked.

"Nothing except any four objects of art which he cares to select from Mr. Armstrong's house, the term to cover furniture as well."

Pointer thanked them, and arranged with them to let him know as soon as they got into touch with the dead man's cousin. Had he any other relatives, the chief inspector asked next. Not close ones, no. The firm in question had looked after the family affairs since the days of Armstrong's grandfather.

Pointer turned away from the instrument not quite so sure as the telephoning solicitor seemed to be that Armstrong's will could have no bearing on the crime—if Armstrong's death proved to be what it seemed, a crime. Percy Callard, for instance, might have a much better chance of dipping his hands in Armstrong's money bags with only a sister in charge of them. And she, as there was no clause about her re-marriage, became a very wealthy prize, and was still considered by many to be a lovely woman.

"Now for the major—do you know him?" Schofild asked, when Pointer, rejoined him and asked him what he had learned of the will.

"Only by sight."

The chief inspector opened the door of the library now, and a figure as tall, well set-up, and soldierly as his own, turned at the sound. Major Hardy was a well-known explorer and collector of trophies. His lean, hard face was bronzed to a point that made the chief inspector's tan look like pallor. The features were strongly molded. The dark eyes, with their thick lids, were set rather close together beneath powerful brows, but that only gave his glance a strongly-concentrated look like an eagle's rather than any hint of slyness. There was daring in the jaw, resolution and perhaps cruelty in the mouth. The small, trim ears were placed unusually high on the well-shaped head.

"I understand that there's been an accident to Armstrong," Hardy began, as Schofild shook hands and introduced the Scotland Yard man. It was to the latter that the major spoke.

"Yes, I'm sorry to say he's dead," Pointer replied. "He was found shot."

Major Hardy's brows drew still closer together as he listened.

"Do you mean suicide, or accident?" he asked.

"Murder probably." Pointer, too, could be as direct as any man.

"Murder!" Hardy stared from one to the other.

"In my opinion suicide is by no means excluded," Schofild said in a comforting voice.

"Where was he found? When?" Hardy demanded next.

"Did you send in a Chinese wedding-chest as a present to Mrs. Armstrong today?" Pointer asked, instead of replying.

"To her husband and to her, yes. What's that got to do with it?"

"Was it sent in today, sir?" Pointer persisted.

"At noon, yes. Why?"

Pointer told him of the events of the afternoon.

It was said of "Bob Hardy" that he did not blink once when a wounded rhino charged him, but his dark, weather-beaten face grew crimson as he heard just what it was that, enclosed in his gift, had been presented to Mrs. Armstrong and her guests. Even his eyes shone red. Hardy was shortly to take up an important position in the colonies. That helped him to keep back some of the words the two with him could almost see struggling to get past his locked lips. For a second he stood rigid. Then, suddenly, without intending to say the words, both Pointer and Schofild thought, he asked sharply, "Where's Farrant?"

"He's not here at the moment. Why, sir?"

"He should be here—to take charge. However"—he pulled himself up, breathing hard. "And Mrs. Armstrong?" he asked thickly—"this must have nearly killed her. They were devoted to each other, she and Boyd."

"Mrs. Armstrong's in the doctor's hands. He's given her an opiate," Schofild replied while Pointer asked:

"The name of the firm from whom you bought the chest?"

"Lee and Son, 19 Limehouse Street. But where are the trees that were inside?" Evidently the major was unable to believe that no trees had been found on the place. "I saw them put in myself," he added in explanation.

"Will you come up a moment, sir, and see if the chest upstairs really is the one you bought? After that, of course, we want to hear how you came to buy it, and all about it."

Once in the Chinese suite Hardy examined the outside of the chest very closely.

"It looks to me like the one I chose. But it might not be—I'm no authority on things Chinese any more than Armstrong was. But that one was filled to the brim with three hundred dwarf birch trees that Armstrong was buying to be distributed as presents to his guests.

"Those"—he gulped—"Chinese must be at the bottom of this, in some way. Armstrong had told me he might come on to Limehouse to have a look at the trees. But I thought that he had changed his mind."

"When did you buy the chest?" Pointer asked.

"This morning at eleven. The order had been placed a fortnight ago, but the two Lees wanted me to wait the arrival of a better example that had been shipped to them. They told me this morning that it had got damaged on the way, so I decided to be content with the one in stock, and arranged for the trees to be packed inside and for it to be sent up at once."

A look crossed Hardy's face, as of a man who suddenly remembers something which he considered trifling before but now sees as being of importance.

"It was to be here at noon. I dropped in around twelve to learn what Mrs. Armstrong thought of the trees. As nothing had come by one, I telephoned to the Lees, who told me that there had been a breakdown, but that we should have the thing without fail as soon as possible. It came around two, as a matter of fact. I stayed to see it delivered, helped to have it placed in that alcove over there, locked the door of the suite, hung up the key, it weighs half a ton, and rushed off. It must have been well past the half hour by then."

"Was the chest empty when you bought it?" Schofild asked.

"It was. I had the trees packed in my presence. They just went in."

"Was there any other similar chest on the premises, do you know?" Pointer asked.

"They told me there wasn't. But Chinese assurances!" Hardy finished savagely.

"And about Mr. Armstrong intending to be there?"

"Yesterday afternoon he and I were chatting at Boodle's about a bronze that he had bought. Without being a collector, like his cousin, he had a fancy for bronze, and Rufus Armstrong had told him he ought to see a Han leopard that had just arrived at the Lees' establishment. It had already been decided that he would buy for Mrs. Armstrong a consignment of dwarf birch trees which the Lees had offered me at a great bargain, and Armstrong said he might look in himself this morning and have a glance at the bronze. I told him I should be there at eleven, as I intended to wait till the last moment for something better to turn up—though Rufus Armstrong had already vetted the chest for me and told me it was a wonder in its own line and that we could look at the bronze together. But he evidently forgot all about it, as I did."

"What makes you think that, Major Hardy?"

"Because he didn't refer to it when he called me up this morning on the telephone around nine, or a thought before, and said that he had to go out of town for the day on a very important matter that he couldn't put off."

"He didn't say what it was that called him away?"

"No. All Armstrong said—he was evidently in a tearing hurry—was that he was called out of town for the day and might be late for the dinner Mrs. Armstrong, he, and I had planned to have together before going on to a friend's dance."

"Have you yourself any idea of what called him away in such a hurry?"

"Probably something connected with Westrex, his Westralian Exploration Company. That's a safe bet. For a cable's due any day now. The fact that he was willing to leave town today makes me think it must have been connected with it. But Farrant will know. Farrant is sure to know. That's why I asked for him just now."

"Now, going back to the chest, sir, did you look inside it when it came?"

"Most unfortunately, no! Mrs. Armstrong wanted to, but I was in a hurry. Where can those damned trees have got to?" The major stared around the room, as though they must be in sight.

"Was anything put in the chest to hold them? I mean, could they be lifted out all together, or would they have to be taken out one by one?"

"A piece of embroidered Chinese linen was laid in first. A kumshaw from the Lees. The trees were packed in, and the ends folded down over them and pinned firmly, in place."

"So that they could have been lifted out as one bundle?" Pointer persisted.

"Very possible, I should think."

"Were they damp at all? Would they drip?"

Hardy explained that the trees were planted in small mandarin oranges which had been treated until they were as firm as balls of copper. The aperture for the trees was exceedingly small, and the earth had been covered with some sort of plaster that would break up when watered, but until then would keep the mold from spilling.

"They were as clean to handle as wiped apples," he finished. "Mrs. Armstrong made a point of that. They were Armstrong's, you know. I only bought them for him."

"Can you come with us now to where you bought the chest, or at least one like it?" Pointer asked, leading the way out of the suite and motioning to one of his men to draw his chair against the door inside.

"You don't suppose I'm not going to take a part, however humble, in clearing this up, do you?" the major almost roared. "It was my gift, you know, that chest. Armstrong was a friend in a thousand. And he was found dead—murdered—in my present to him and his wife. Well, if you think I won't do my best to have this cleared up so as to wring the neck of the man who did it with my own hands—" Again the major found a glare safer than words.

This was not exactly the consummation for which Scotland Yard allowed its officers to work, but Pointer only asked:

"When did you see Mr. Armstrong last, sir?"

"Yesterday afternoon at Boodle's, around six."

A constable murmured something to Pointer. The Yard's locksmith was waiting to speak to him.

"Well, Dewar, has a key been turned in the lock of that side door recently?"

"Not for years and years, sir," came the unhesitating reply. Without taking a lock to pieces, Dewar had a way of inserting thin wires with absorbent pads on the ends that told him all that could be known as to the condition of any lock's interior. "Say five years since a key was even put in, and you'll be on the safe side. And as for the wards—it's not merely dust on them, sir, it's more like the muck of centuries."

"And the hinges?" Pointer asked, though he was sure they had not been tampered with.

Dewar shook his head. "That double door's only a piece of the wall, sir. Except for the fact that you can see through the keyhole, it might as well be bricks. Just put there like a handsome panel might be." And with that the locksmith slung his bag over his shoulder and hurried away.

Pointer told one of his men to telephone to Lee and Son, and ask them to send up a responsible person at once to identify—or not—the chest in the house as the one which Major Hardy had bought of them this morning, telling them in explanation that the trees which were to have been delivered inside it were missing.

The reply of Lee and Son was a sentence in good English that their foreman should start off at once and would be at Charles Street as soon as humanly possible.

Meanwhile the chief inspector had a word with the servants.

Mr. Armstrong was always an early riser. He breakfasted generally at half-past eight. This morning he had done so, and seemed as usual when he came down. While he was still at table, the telephone rang. There were four in the house. It was the library bell that rang. Mr. Armstrong had gone to answer it himself, as he preferred to do when near by.

A little later the butler had seen him going up the stairs and heard him speaking as though to Mrs. Armstrong from the door of her room. He had not heard the words. The voice had sounded as though Mr. Armstrong were hurried and impatient to be off.

The butler had noticed his face as he went upstairs, it had looked so pale that he had wondered if his master were ill, but he had not ventured to ask him if he were feeling ill. A footman in the hall had noticed nothing. Both agreed that he had an opened letter in his hands.

What letters had come this morning for Mr. Armstrong? The butler made a motion with his hands. A pile like that. But Mr. Armstrong hadn't opened any of them when the telephone bell rang, and had told him to put them all on his writing-table in the library, where they were at this moment. He could not say if one of the letters had been opened by Mr. Armstrong while in the room to answer the telephone, but he could say that at lunch he had noticed without meaning to notice, that the letter which he had laid on top of the pile was still on top unopened. It was a New Zealand letter.

Continuing with the events of this morning, Mr. Armstrong had told him to telephone to the garage and have his Sunbeam Sports sent around at once. That always meant, the chauffeur told Pointer, that Mr. Armstrong was going alone, and going far.

All three servants had seen him open out a map and jot down some names and directions on a piece of paper. He had left the map open on a table. The butler now produced it. Pointer only gave it a glance to see that it was unmarked, and a small scale map of the counties lying between London and the Bristol Channel. Such a map as a man would look at who was going some distance west to a familiar place, and wanted to have an idea of main-traveled roads only.

When the car came around, Mr. Armstrong told the butler, as he had his valet, that he would not be in before, at the earliest, eight o'clock in the evening, possibly not till later. Then he drove off, and that was the last that the house servants had seen of him—alive.

"How about having come back earlier than he intended? Could Mr. Armstrong have done that?" Pointer asked.

Humanly speaking, he could have, but the butler seemed to think that human speech counted for very little in this affair. True, the house was upset with preparations for the afternoon's reception, and with a burst pipe in a bathroom over the Chinese suite. There was a door opening into a side street, one Mr. Armstrong often used, but it only led to the library, and Mrs. Armstrong had had lunch served in the library today, as she often did when Mr. Armstrong was not there.

"Mr. Armstrong never came back into this house walking on his own feet, sir," the man finished gravely.

"Who else was in the house? The secretary, Mr. Farrant?"

"Mr. Farrant had left us yesterday, sir. Mr. Armstrong wished him to undertake some very important mission, it seems, that may take months."

Pointer was now told that Mr. Farrant had moved his personal effects out of his two upper rooms yesterday afternoon.

"Who told you about the important commission?"

Mr. Farrant had told one of the footmen. "What about Mr. Callard; he's staying here, isn't he?"

Yes, Mr. Callard had arrived for a visit the day before yesterday, and had spoken this morning as though intending to stay some time. But Mr. Armstrong had mentioned three days. Well, no, one could not say that Mr. Armstrong was pleased to see his brother-in-law. He had very patently ignored Mr. Callard whenever the two were alone together, and had tried, the butler thought, to have such occasions be as few as possible. Mr. Callard, on the other hand, had seemed not to mind Mr. Armstrong's manner. He was just back from Cannes, and had let his own rooms at Knightsbridge for a week. There was an idea among the servants that Percy Callard was in low financial water, but as that impression was due to his saying on every possible occasion that he hadn't "a bean," things might not be so dark as they seemed.

Mr. Callard had breakfasted around nine this morning, very unusually early for him, and had then left the house. He had got back about two this afternoon.

"Just when we were all busy getting that huge chest up the stairs, sir. I never thought we could do it."

"What about Major Hardy? Does he often come to the house?"

Very often indeed, he was told. He and Mr. Armstrong were good friends. The major had come around twelve today and seemed surprised when he heard that a Chinese chest, which he had ordered as a present for the Armstrongs, hadn't arrived. He had been heard telephoning for it, and then telling Mrs. Armstrong that the van carrying it had had engine trouble, but that another would bring it on. He had lunched at the house and the van had finally arrived around two. Major Hardy had superintended the carrying of the chest up to the niche. He had barely glanced at it, the butler thought, and had not opened it. Mrs. Armstrong had suggested doing this, but he had said, "Oh, everything's all right inside. They're packed as tight as peas in a pod, three hundred of the little beggars tied up in a princely napkin. I kept tally myself."

Had the chest seemed heavy when it was taken upstairs?—Very heavy. Pointer went over every detail of the carrying in of the chest and of its placing in the Chinese suite. He made quite sure that it had not been out of sight until the major had locked the great double doors and hung up the key, except for one short interval, when Mrs. Armstrong had stepped back to take a last glance at the suite. The men had all stood panting about the doors until she reappeared. It had seemed long to the butler, but he had had his eyes on his watch, and it had not been three minutes all told. The doors were in full sight of the stairs and front hail. Pointer had already found that it was impossible to open or shut them without a sound like the beating of gongs, and that the key, though it turned easily, made a noise that could not possibly be missed anywhere in the house.

The men sent with the chest by Lee and Son were Irish, said the servants. They had asked if it contained stones or cement when drinking their beer afterwards in the servants' hall.

Major Hardy had left as soon as the doors were locked again. The butler had heard him tell Mrs. Armstrong as he hurried off that he would like to stay and support her through the afternoon's 'fuss' "his word, sir," the butler interpolated primly—"but that he had another of his own to worry through, and that there was no need to give up their little dinner party—it could, and would, wait until whatever time Mr. Armstrong got back in the evening."

As for the preparations for the tea which was to be served in the first of the three rooms, the butler had superintended its arrangement. At no time was he, or any one else, alone in the suite, as the tables had been prepared downstairs and set up quickly in the one corner of the big room. A service lift beside the entrance doors made all this part of the work exceedingly expeditious.

Pointer had already given orders to his men to search the house for any trace of the missing dwarf birch trees. Not that he expected them to be found at Charles Street, but the improbable as well as the probable must be investigated.

"And when was Mr. Rufus Armstrong last in the house?" Pointer asked the butler.

"He came this morning, sir, around eleven, just after Mrs. Armstrong had gone out, but when he heard that the chest wasn't expected until twelve, he said he wouldn't wait, and shouldn't be able to see it in place until next week."

"When did he leave?"

"I suppose at once, sir," the man suggested vaguely.

"Did you show him out?"

"No, sir. I was trying to find the main cock below stairs and turn off the water."

"Then who did show Mr. Rufus out?"

The butler left Pointer to make some inquiries. He returned to say that all the servants had been too busy trying to help mop up the overflow, or get to the plumber, to remember.

"In other words, you don't know that he left the house at all," the chief inspector said quietly.

The butler looked tolerant.

"Well, sir, as he isn't here now, and hasn't been seen since Mrs. Armstrong spoke to him. I should say he left the house there and then. He said he couldn't wait, you remember."

Pointer thanked the butler, and collected Major Hardy and Schofild on his way to the car.