Читать книгу The Bedford Row Mystery - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 6

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Angelita was suddenly at his side; her hand on his arm.

“Something has happened!” she exclaimed. “You are pale!—ill!—What——”

Richard made an effort to regain his composure. In spite of the fact that he now knew Liversedge to have been right in his surmise, he was looking about the room as if Lansdale might be lurking in a corner. And he caught sight of a photograph, evidently recently taken at a fashionable studio, set up on the mantelpiece, which he instinctively took to be the man he wanted to see. A big man, this, not unlike Henry Marchmont, too, in frame and general appearance—and there, plainly enough to be seen, was the dropped eyelid of which Henry had spoken....

“What is it?—please!” repeated Angelita. “Tell me!”

Richard looked at her. He was wondering what they were going to say to each other, to be forced into saying to each other within the next few minutes.

“Yes!” he murmured. “Something has happened. My uncle is dead! Last night—very suddenly.”

She made a little murmur of sympathy and again laid her hand on his arm.

“Don’t be startled—too much,” Richard went on. “I’ve got to tell you, sooner or later. My uncle was murdered!”

The murmur of sympathy changed to a note of horror as she started away from him, staring incredulously. Richard nodded at her and once more his eyes began to search the room.

“Your father?” he said. “He’s not here? I wanted to see him—about this. You see—it’s difficult to explain, but I’ve found out that your father met my uncle at a dinner in the City, night before last, and there was some arrangement between them for your father to call at my uncle’s office last night. We—we want to know if he did call—if he heard or saw anything——”

A light tap on the door interrupted him and prefaced the entry of Liversedge, who answered Richard’s glance of annoyance with a reassuring nod.

“All right, Mr. Marchmont,” he said. “I’ve ascertained that Mr. Lansdale is not in, but that Miss Lansdale is. And Miss Lansdale can perhaps tell us——”

“I am just asking Miss Lansdale,” broke in Richard. “I think you might have waited a little.”

“Not a time for waiting, Mr. Marchmont, after what I’ve heard outside,” said Liversedge. “I’ve my duty to think about. Mr. Lansdale came in late last night, and was soon afterwards called on by a gentleman with whom, a few minutes later, he went out again. He never returned. Can Miss Lansdale tell me where Mr. Lansdale’s to be found?”

Angelita looked wonderingly from one man to the other.

“But I don’t know!” she answered. “I have no idea. All I know is that my father did not dine here last night—but there was nothing unusual in that. He came home very late—that wasn’t unusual either. I had gone to bed. I heard him come in—indeed, he came to my door and spoke to me. Then, a little later, I heard voices in this room,—my father’s and a stranger’s. After a while, my father came to my room and told me that he was obliged to go out again, on business, and probably shouldn’t return that night. Then he went—and that’s all I know. All!”

“You don’t know who the man was who called, Miss Lansdale?” asked Liversedge. “Your father didn’t mention his name?”

“Oh, no!—he didn’t speak of him at all!” replied Angelita. “I have no idea who he was.”

Richard made an impatient movement as if to get Liversedge out of the room. But the detective showed no sign of response.

“Perhaps you can tell me where Mr. Lansdale is usually to be found in the City?” he said, watching Angelita closely. “I understand——”

“Miss Lansdale doesn’t even know where or what the City is!” exclaimed Richard. “It’s no use bothering her. She doesn’t know where Mr. Lansdale’s to be found——”

“I should like to hear that from the lady herself, Mr. Marchmont,” said Liversedge. “Mr. Lansdale spends his time in the City, mostly, and I suppose he occasionally talks to his daughter——”

“No!” said Angelita. “Never about his business affairs. I do not know where he goes, so I can’t say where you would find him. As a rule, he is out all day, and——”

Another knock at the door heralded the entrance of a page boy who brought in a telegram which Angelita, after opening it immediately, offered to Liversedge. The detective took it from her hand before Richard could intervene.

“That is from my father,” she said. “You see what he says?—that he will be away for a few days on important business. So—that is all I can tell you.”

Liversedge glanced at the telegram and laid it on the table.

“Handed in at the General Post Office,” he remarked. With a polite bow he moved towards the door. “Thank you, Miss Lansdale. Mr. Marchmont, you’ll find me outside—I should like a word or two with you when you’re at liberty.”

Angelita turned to Richard when Liversedge had gone.

“Who is that man?” she asked. “Why does he come here and ask questions?”

“No use in keeping that back, either,” replied Richard. “He’s a detective. He wants to know if your father did go to my uncle’s office last night, and if he did, if he can tell anything. But never mind that, just now—does that telegram mean that you’re to be left alone here, for some days?”

“Not quite alone—I have my maid, you know,” said Angelita, “and I can get a friend to stay with me if I like—a girl whom I’ve had here before. But I’m not afraid of being alone. What’s troubling me now is—your trouble!”

“It’s an awful business!” answered Richard. “I can’t realise it. And—and I’ve got to help this fellow in finding out who—who did it! That man who’s just gone out—you can see for yourself that he’s the sort of man who won’t be put off. And—I’d better get down to him.”

After a few minutes he rejoined Liversedge in the corridor. The detective gave him a meaning look.

“Mr. Marchmont!” he said. “Let me have a friendly word with you—in your own interests. I can see how it is with you and the young lady in there. If you want to clear her father of the suspicion that seems to be coming round him, do all you can to bring him into daylight! He’ll do no good by keeping out of the way.”

“We don’t know that he ever went to Bedford Row last night,” said Richard.

“True—we don’t!” agreed Liversedge. “But the probability is that he did. I think he did, and I think that what happened here, later on, has considerable relation to his going there. Now when you first went upstairs here, I made a few inquiries downstairs about Mr. Lansdale. He came in here last night at half-past ten, and went up to his rooms. Not very long afterwards a gentleman drove up in a private car, a smart, closed car, and asked to be shown up to Mr. Lansdale at once. He was taken up. Within ten minutes he and Mr. Lansdale came down together, entered the car, and drove off. Since then, of course, Mr. Lansdale hasn’t been back to the hotel. So there’s a certain amount of information. But I got a bit more in the shape of a description of the man who called on him and carried him away. The hall-porter says he was a short, rather thick-set, swarthy-complexioned man, a foreigner, he thought, though he spoke good English.”

“I dare say Mr. Lansdale knows a good many foreigners,” remarked Richard. “And as I happen to know that he is extensively engaged in financial transactions, I don’t see how the fact of this man’s calling for him and taking him away need be connected with my uncle’s death.”

“Why, neither do I, Mr. Marchmont, at the moment,” said Liversedge good-humouredly. “But you know, Miss Lansdale says that her father came and spoke to her, at her door, when he first came in, and he was then evidently meaning to stay at home for the night—anyway, he gave her no reason to think otherwise, yet within a few minutes he was back again to say he’d got to go out. Why? Some urgent reason, of course. And what I want to know is—had that anything to do with your uncle’s murder?”

“And how are you going to find that out?” demanded Richard.

Liversedge smiled.

“Can’t give you an answer to that, Mr. Marchmont!” he said. “But I must find Lansdale—and for the young lady’s sake, I advise you to do your best to find him, too. Come with me down to the City, and help me to make an inquiry or two—he must be known there. Now, that managing clerk of your uncle’s mentioned the name of some City man.”

“Mr. Waterhouse, a client,” said Richard.

“That’s it—Waterhouse,” continued Liversedge. “Let us call at the office, get Waterhouse’s address, and go down to the City. I tell you, Mr. Marchmont, the sooner this Mr. Lansdale comes into the full light of day the better for him! Because you know, sir, I can’t be indifferent to what Mr. Simpson told me this morning, and what I heard then I shall have to repeat elsewhere. Damaging, Mr. Marchmont, very damaging indeed—to Mr. Lansdale!”

“You mean—as regards the affair of some years ago?” suggested Richard.

“I mean, sir, precisely this,” replied the detective. “A man absconds under queer circumstances—so queer indeed that the police want him badly. He is never tracked and never heard of again for twenty-five years, when he turns up in London, a rich man under another name. He is recognised by a man who knows all about it!—and he asks that man for a secret interview, in order to explain matters. Well, Mr. Marchmont, human nature is human nature!—and it wouldn’t take your average juryman long, granted the evidence, to make up his mind that the suddenly discovered man, instead of explaining, put a bullet through his detector in order to quiet him—especially if he thought nobody knew anything about this interview! Eh?”

“There’s still no evidence that there ever was any interview,” remarked Richard. “Lansdale may not have been near Bedford Row.”

Whether he really believed that or not, Richard could not have made any absolutely positive assertion. He was in the position of a man who is having a fact forced upon him, but who fights tooth and nail to keep it from before his eyes. But when he and Liversedge reached Bedford Row again he found another link added to the chain which was being slowly and surely forged.

Simpson, just inside the hall, was talking to a respectable-looking woman, who, from the fact that she wore neither shawl nor bonnet, evidently lived close at hand. He drew the detective’s attention to her.

“This is Mrs. Capstick,” he said. “She’s caretaker of next door, and she lives on the premises. Having heard of Mr. Marchmont’s death, she’s come in to tell me of something she saw last night. She’s told me—she’d better tell you. Tell it again, Mrs. Capstick.”

“Which it is just this, gentlemen,” responded Mrs. Capstick readily, “and same as I have just told to Mr. Simpson here, as has knowed me this many years and thoroughly respectable and not the sort to go spreading idle stories with nothing to the bottom of ’em. Which last night, gentlemen, as is my invariable custom, I went out to fetch the supper beer for me and Capstick, a pint and a half of old-and-mild which we favour and from the public around the corner as we have patronised ever since coming next door, which is a long time ago and never gone elsewhere. And as I was a-coming back the jug in one hand and a matter of small change in the other I see a gentleman come out of Mr. Marchmont’s front door, hasty-like, shut it behind him, and walk very sharp up the street, which I took it to be Mr. Marchmont himself and thought no different till he passed me under one o’ them gas-lamps when I see it was not but another gentleman though uncommonly like Mr. Marchmont—a tall, fine-made man, and as near as I would tell in the gas-light, a fresh-coloured one. And all I know is, gentlemen, that I see such a man and that he walked very quick in the direction of Theobald’s Road, top of this here Row, where of course there is buses and trams.”

“What time was this, ma’am?” inquired Liversedge.

“Which it would be all about half-past eight, sir,” replied Mrs. Capstick, “with a preference to being a little more inclined to nine, half-past being my hour for going for the supper beer and sometimes getting off a minute or so before the half-hour, me being of a methodical persuasion and liking to have my meals at fixed hours.”

“You didn’t stop talking in the public-house at all?” suggested the detective.

“Which it is not my habit ever so to do, sir,” said Mrs. Capstick. “As the young man in charge of the bottle-and-jug entrance at the Plume of Feathers will assure you if circumstances so require and knowing as I go straight in and straight out without wasting no words. At all about half-past eight you could put it down as certain, sir.”

“A tall, well-made gentleman, you say—something like Mr. Marchmont?”

“Uncommon like him in build, sir: a fine gentleman as walked very fast—a-talking to hisself, excited like.”

“Seemed excited, did he?” asked Liversedge. “Talked to himself, eh? All right, Mrs. Capstick—much obliged to you. Now then, just you and your husband keep all that to yourselves till I see you again. That’s Mr. Lansdale, Mr. Marchmont!” he murmured, turning to Richard as Mrs. Capstick withdrew. “Lansdale, for certain. We’ll get Mr. Waterhouse’s address and go along to the City.”

But Mr. Waterhouse, in the City, could give them no help; at least, what help he could give was of little use. He had seen Lansdale at the dinner at which Henry Marchmont had met him; he knew two or three men who knew Lansdale, slightly, and he put Richard and the detective in touch with them. None of these men had seen Lansdale that morning nor on the previous day; none could give any definite information about him or his usual movements.

Towards evening, Richard, wearied of the search, left Liversedge still busied at it and went westward. There was much for him to do at Bedford Row, and he also wanted to see Angelita again. He drove to the hotel first, anxious to make sure that Angelita was all right before he settled down to the arrangement of matters with Simpson. But he had scarcely asked for Miss Lansdale when another shock came full upon him.

“Miss Lansdale is not in the hotel, sir,” said the inquiry clerk. “Soon after you were here this morning Miss Lansdale received a letter by express delivery. And soon after that she and her maid went out together, and up to now they have not returned.”