Читать книгу The Frightened Lady - Edgar Wallace - Страница 7

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MR. ARTY BRIGGS reached Victoria Station, desirous of obliterating himself in the crowded city, but having no very great anxiety. The four plain-clothes men who closed round him as he came through the barrier left him in no doubt as to the seriousness of his crisis.

He was taken to Bow Street, and his bag searched. Nobody took a great deal of notice of his statement that the bag was not his, and that he was merely doing a friendly act for an unknown man named Smith by carrying it. The receptacle contained a great deal that Mr. Briggs would very gladly have seen evaporate into air.

"I've never seen the stuff before in my life," he said with oaths, and asked for Divine punishment, instant and drastic, if he were lying.

Later he was interviewed by Chief-Inspector Tanner.

'"Being in possession of counterfeit notes is a mere trifle compared with what's coming to you, Briggs," said Tanner. "You were in the village of Marks Thornton last night. There was a murder committed. What do you know about it?"

Mr. Briggs knew nothing. It was, he said, a great surprise to him that anybody could be murdered in that beautiful place. He asked pointedly if any arms had been found on him, and volunteered to have a stricter and more intimate examination.

"It almost sounds as if you knew this man was strangled," said Tanner.

For his own part he had not the least belief that the man had anything to do with the crime. Briggs was not a killer; he was a regular seller of a commodity which was in demand. Moreover, he was an old lag, and not only his history but his temperament were known to the police.

Tanner could not suspect that this man had seen with his own eyes the strangled chauffeur, and inquiry was not pushed very far. But under the threat of being suspect of the murder, Briggs made a clean breast of the lesser offence, and since there is no honour amongst thieves it was due to his instrumentality that Mr. Zibriski was taken off the Havre boat that night and lodged in a Southampton cell.

Tanner went up to see the Chief Constable on his return to Scotland Yard. In answer to his inquiry, the Chief shook his head.

"No, the local police haven't asked for us, and it is unlikely that they will until the scene is so cold that you could freeze mutton on it. It seems to be a pretty commonplace crime, and the locals think it is an act of revenge. This man Studd seems to have made one or two bad friendships, though apparently he had no real enemies."

He had been talking on the telephone to Horsham, and this was the source of his information.

Bill Tanner secured one or two other scraps of information in the course of the evening, but nothing that excited his interest. Studd had had a quarrel with a gamekeeper who had suspected his pretty wife of philandering—unjustly, as it proved. Nobody mentioned the name of Dr. Amersham. In the reports which came to Scotland Yard his name did not appear, and it was not until a week later, when the "locals" decided to invoke the aid of the Yard, and Tanner and his shadow went down to Marks Thornton, that he heard of the doctor.

He paid a brief visit to Marks Priory, but was coldly received. Casually he mentioned the name of Dr. Amersham to her ladyship.

"He comes here occasionally," she said, "but he was not here on the night of this unfortunate happening. I think he left about ten."

That one glimpse he had of the internal life of Marks Priory told him nothing. It was the typical home of a great aristocrat, and on the occasion of his visit the big hall was in a state of repair. There were scaffold poles against the wall, and Kelver, who was his cicerone, showed him the stone tablets, each holding the coat armour of some ancient member of the family, that were being inset in the walls.

"Her ladyship," said Kelver, with proper reverence, "is an authority on heraldry. She can read a coat of arms, sir, as you and I might read a book. She has an astonishing knowledge of the subject. As you probably know, sir, the family comes from most ancient times. The first Lebanon was knighted by King Richard the First."

"Interesting," said Big Bill, who was no archaeologist. "What can you tell me about Studd?"

Kelver shook his head. "The tragedy of that happening, sir, has kept me awake at night. He was an extraordinarily pleasant man, quite the gentleman, and I have never known him to quarrel with anybody."

He paused, and Tanner misunderstood his hesitation.

The butler had seen nothing, heard nothing. The first news he had had of the chauffeur's death was that conveyed by the policeman who had found him. He had nothing but praise for the dead man, dismissed as impossible any suggestion that he might have had an enemy.

Sergeant Totty, busy in the servants' hall, brought the same story.

"I cherchezed the femme, but she wasn't there," said Totty. "No woman in it at all."

The trail was six days old. It was impossible to pick up anything that was new. There had been a stranger staying at the village inn—too well Tanner knew who that stranger was. There was the usual story of tramps and gipsies, but the nearest gipsy caravan had been twenty miles away. Poachers did not work the Priory fields, but preferred the coverts of Marks Priory Park, and every local poacher had been accounted for.

Tanner saw the photograph of the dead man, examined and took possession of the scarf that had strangled him: a piece of dull red cloth, in one corner of which was a little tin label sewn by the edges, bearing some words in Hindustani, which proved on translation to be the name of the manufacturer.

He saw Lord Lebanon and questioned him. That young man could offer him no solution. He was really fond of Studd—that much Bill had discovered through the butler—and was greatly upset by his death.

The third important member of the household he met as he walked across the Priory fields towards the village. Isla Crane was walking towards him with quick steps and would have passed him, but he stopped her.

"Excuse me—you're Miss Crane, aren't you? I am Detective-Inspector Tanner from the Yard."

To his amazement the colour faded from her cheeks; the hand that went to her lips was shaking. She looked at him in wide-eyed apprehension. He had seen such looks before. People suddenly confronted by the police behave oddly, whether they are innocent or guilty, but he had never expected that a girl of her class would betray such emotion. She was frightened, terrified. He thought that she was on the point of collapsing, and his amazement deepened.

"Are you?" she said jerkily. "Yes—I—somebody told me you were...About Studd's death, isn't it? Poor man!"

"I suppose you saw nothing? You can't throw any light whatever on this matter?" he asked.

She shook her head almost before the words were out of his mouth. "No...how could I?"

Then abruptly she walked past him. Looking back after her, he had the impression that she was running.

Sergeant Totty, watching her until she was out of sight turned to his superior.

"That's funny," he said.

"It's not funny at all," snapped Bill Tanner. "I've seen scores of people behave like that. It must be pretty rotten for people of that class to be suddenly brought face to face with a murder."

Yet he went on his way a very thoughtful man.

Isla came to the big porch before the main door of Marks Priory. Gilder, the footman, was sitting there in a chair, reading a newspaper. He got up as she approached, his forbidding eyes upon her, and she had passed him when he spoke.

"Seen that cop?"

She turned.

"The detective?"

He nodded.

"Did he ask you any questions, miss?"

She looked at him for a moment uncomprehendingly.

"Did he ask you any questions, miss?" rumbled Gilder. His deep bass voice was a little unnerving.

"He asked me if I had heard anything, that's all," she said, turned swiftly and went into the house.

Lady Lebanon was sitting in the great hall at her desk. For twelve hours out of the sixteen you might find her there. She would spend whole days examining old heraldic inscriptions and reading over the parchment book of the Lebanons. She was an excellent Latin scholar, and had few equals in her knowledge of ancient English. She was examining the book now, making notes on a writing-pad. At sight of Isla she closed the book, put the pad away in a drawer and deliberately locked it.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

The girl was trembling from head to foot. For some time she could not find her voice.

"He's been asking questions," she said at last. "Mr. Tanner."

"The police officer? What questions did he ask?" And then quickly: "Did he say anything about Amersham?"

The girl shook her head.

"He never mentioned his name. What is going to happen?"

Lady Lebanon leaned back in her chair, rested her elbows on its padded arms, and folded her hands.

"There are times when I can't quite understand you, Isla," she said with some acerbity. "What is likely to happen?"

"Suppose they find out?"

The calm woman at the desk raised her dark eyes to the girl.

"I really don't know what you're talking about, Isla. Suppose who find out? I wish you wouldn't talk about things that don't concern you."

Isla Crane went to her room early that night. She slept in what was known as "the old lord's room," a great, lofty and gloomy chamber, with a huge four-poster bed that still bore on its head-board the faded arms of some forgotten Lebanon—forgotten except by Lady Lebanon, who forgot nothing. It was a long time before she went to sleep.

"Why the devil did she go to bed so early?"

"Don't be difficult, Willie dear," said his mother. "There's nothing in the world for Isla to sit up for."

She looked at the jewelled watch on her wrist.

"It's nearly your bedtime, darling. Don't stay up late. Have you talked to Isla?"

He shook his head. "No, I haven't had a chance since this awful thing happened." He bent his head, listening. "That's a car," he said. "Amersham?"

"He's coming down to-night."

"He was here the night of the murder, wasn't he?"

She looked up quickly. "No, he left very early—about ten, I think."

The boy smiled. "Mother darling, I saw his car go away at seven in the morning. I was looking out of my window. Somebody else told me that he went away the same night."

"Did you correct them?" she asked sharply.

He shook his head. "No; why should I?" He looked up at the vaulted roof and sighed. "This is a devilishly dismal place," he said. "It gives me the creeps. I don't want to see Amersham; I'm going to my room."

The door opened, but it was not the objectionable doctor. Gilder carried a tray, a siphon and a glass. He poured out a modicum of whisky and splashed soda into it. All the time the unfriendly eye of the Lord of Lebanon watched his every movement.

He took the glass from the man's hand and sipped it. Not until the glass was empty did he detect the bitter after-taste.

"Funny whisky that," he said...

It was the last remark he remembered making. Four hours later he awoke with a splitting headache, and, switching on the light, found himself in his own room. He was in bed, in his pyjamas. With a groan he sat up his head swimming. Mr. Gilder was a little careless with the drug he had administered.