Читать книгу Murder in Four Degrees: Being Entry Number Two in the Case-book of Ronald Camberwell - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 7

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This announcement was received by the two detectives with anything but favour: Windover made a face expressive of dislike to the news; Doxford once more made no effort to restrain a prodigious yawn.

‘I was just going home, to get a good sleep!’ he grumbled. ‘Now I suppose we shall have to trail up there!’

‘No trailing!’ said Miss Hetherley. ‘Lord Cheverdale is sending a car for us—it’ll be at the door in a few minutes.’

‘Oh, well——’ said Doxford. ‘All in the day’s work, I suppose.’ He got lazily out of his chair and turned to Chaney. ‘There’s a certain thing we ought to do, in my opinion, when we get there,’ he continued. ‘Lord Cheverdale, no doubt, will have this right-hand man of his, Paley, with him. Now I should like to have a word or two with his lordship in private.—No Paley! What d’ye say, Chaney?’

‘I agree,’ replied Chaney. ‘We should ask for it. Your idea’s—what?’

‘To know—from Lord Cheverdale himself—if there was anything between Paley and Hannington,’ answered Doxford. ‘There may have been.’

‘I’m with you!’ said Chaney. ‘Very well—we ask to see his lordship alone?’

‘You’ll be lucky—or exceptional—if he grants your request,’ observed Miss Hetherley, ‘Lord Cheverdale never sees anybody unless Paley’s present!’

‘Oh?’ exclaimed Doxford. ‘Um! We’ll see about that, Miss Hetherley. But—your meaning is that Paley’s all powerful there—is that it?’

‘Didn’t I say that Mr. Paley is the power behind the throne?’ retorted Miss Hetherley. ‘You’ll see—as things progress. But let’s go down, if you please—the car will be there, and Lord Cheverdale doesn’t like to be kept waiting. He’s—you may as well know it—he’s a good deal of an autocrat.’

We left the luxurious room in which this conversation had taken place, and went down to the front entrance where a magnificent car with a couple of liveried servants stood ready for us. Rolling away from the Morning Sentinel office in great style, in twenty minutes we were set down at the door of Cheverdale Lodge, to be received—with obvious condescension—by a very solemn-looking butler.

‘His lordship awaits you in the morning room,’ announced this functionary, motioning a couple of footmen to take our hats and coats. ‘Be pleased to follow me.’

Led by Miss Hetherley we trooped across a big entrance hall, across an inner and smaller one, and were duly marshalled—as if, Chaney whispered, we had been prisoners ushered into the dock at Quarter Sessions—into a somewhat sombre and depressing apartment, wherein, at the head of a long centre table, with three persons in attendance upon him, sat Lord Cheverdale, looking more formidable than a Lord Chief Justice. Pausing within the threshold, awaiting speech from this portentous figure, we had time to consider and appraise him and his entourage. Paley we had already seen; Miss Chever we had also seen, but Lord Cheverdale was new to us—to me, at any rate—and there was a man sitting by him who was also a stranger, so far as I was concerned, though I had a dim notion that I had once or twice seen him in Bond Street or Piccadilly.

I took a good look at Lord Cheverdale first. He was an elderly man of a solid figure and a heavy solemn face: I could see at once that he had been born without any sense of humour, and that Puritanism in its worst forms had flourished mightily in him. He was the sort of man you see in churches and chapels, habited in black broadcloth and going round with the plate, mouth drawn and eyes veiled; he gave you the instant impression of disapproval of almost everything, and if he had been a judge in wig and robe, and I a miserable prisoner put in the dock before him, I should have pleaded guilty at the mere sight of his eyes turned on me. Indeed, there was something in what Chaney afterwards said—that it looked, and felt, as if the five of us, one woman and four men, were convicts, coming up for deferred sentence. What was most impressive was the silence with which our entrance was greeted; Lord Cheverdale regarded us with pursed lips and penetrating eyes; the others followed his lead. And as a slight relief, and while the pompous butler was marshalling us into chairs at the lower end of the long table, I made an inspection of the man whom I didn’t know.

This was a man of, apparently, thirty-five to forty years of age, of slim build, middle height, and pleasant appearance—that is to say he had a frank, open countenance, smiling eyes (I could see that he was secretly much amused by our entrance and reception) and, I guessed, cordial manner. He was a very good-looking man, dark hair, dark moustache and carefully trimmed beard, and he knew how to dress himself in the height of fashion without appearing foppish or conspicuous. He sat on Lord Cheverdale’s left-hand side; Miss Chever sat on her father’s right; Paley, with a lot of writing material before him, sat at a corner of the big table. And when we had taken our seats, it was Paley who opened the proceedings; Lord Cheverdale, beyond giving us a general and comprehensive inclination of his head, had scarcely acknowledged our presence. He turned to us pretty much as if—I repeat—we had been prisoners in the dock, and he a Clerk of Assize, asking us to plead to the indictment.

‘Lord Cheverdale has sent for you so that you may give him an account of what you have done so far,’ he said. ‘It will be best, perhaps, if Inspector Doxford, as representing the police authorities, speaks first.’

But Doxford showed himself in no hurry to speak. He turned to Chaney, and after exchanging a few words with him in whispers, looked direct at Lord Cheverdale, ignoring Paley.

‘Before we say anything,’ he said, ‘we should like a few minutes private conversation with your lordship.’

Had Doxford asked for one-half of his lordship’s kingdom, his request could scarcely have produced more surprise. Lord Cheverdale palpably started; his daughter stared; the man I did not know smiled, and Paley turned to the detective with an unpleasant look.

‘There is no need——’ he began.

‘We are the best judges of that, sir!’ interrupted Doxford. ‘We wish for a brief conversation with Lord Cheverdale in private. Otherwise——’

‘Well—what of otherwise?’ asked Paley, with something very like a sneer. ‘What do you mean?’

‘That—otherwise—we shall not make any report, at present, except to our superiors,’ replied Doxford, quietly.

‘You appear to be—’ began Paley.

But Lord Cheverdale had been stirred out of his aloofness. He motioned his secretary to silence and turned to Doxford.

‘What is it you want, Mr.—er, I don’t know your name?’ he said, testily. ‘What is it, eh?’

‘My name is Doxford, my lord—Inspector Doxford. We wish—my colleague, Detective-Sergeant Windover, and these two gentlemen, Mr. Chaney and Mr. Camberwell, whom you are employing privately—to have a few minutes talk with your lordship, in private. Your lordship will appreciate our reason when you hear what we have to say. All we have to say is that we consider it necessary to make this request.’

There was a slight sneering sibilation from Paley as Doxford spoke his last word. But Lord Cheverdale suddenly rose from his chair. Without a word, and with one or two impatient movements of his hand and arm, he motioned us to leave our seats and precede him to a door at the lower end of the room. Driving us before him like sheep, he pointed one of us to throw the door open; again he shepherded us into a small room beyond it, and when the door was closed on us, turned to Doxford with a petulant look.

‘Now, now, what is it?’ he demanded. ‘Not used to being ordered about, you know, in this way——don’t see any need for secrecy, you know——’

‘My lord!’ said Doxford. ‘This is a case of murder! We are policemen. It is for us to judge as to the necessity of asking you certain questions. We wish to put a plain question to your lordship. Does your lordship know if there was any quarrel between the dead man, Mr. Hannington, and your private secretary, Mr. Paley? We want to know!’

It was easy to see that the very idea of this came to Lord Cheverdale as an intense surprise. He threw up his hands and head, shaking head and shoulders vigorously.

‘Oh, no, no, no, no!’ he declared. ‘No, no, no! Utterly ridiculous! Nothing whatever. No dissension, no cause of dissension, no reason for dissension! Besides that my secretary is a man of the utmost probity—as Miss Hetherley there is well aware—most excellent man. Ridiculous!’

Doxford glanced at Chaney; Chaney glanced at Doxford. And Doxford turned towards the door.

‘Very good, my lord,’ he said quietly. ‘Sorry to have troubled your lordship. Your lordship, I understand, wishes some account of how things are going?’

Lord Cheverdale, restored to equanimity by his victory, again shepherded us back to the morning room, and resumed his seat.

‘Yes, yes!’ he said. ‘I want to know how you’re getting on, and what you’re doing, and what you think, and so on. Also, I wanted you to come here on purpose to hear something that this gentleman, my business manager’—here he turned and indicated the man who up till then had been a stranger to us—‘Mr. Francis Craye, can tell you—something that in my opinion is very important. But let us know what you have to tell, first, Mr.—eh?—Doxford, perhaps——’

Doxford, thus admonished, set out, clearly and swiftly, all he had to tell. His statement introduced Miss Hetherley, who for the third time that morning had to repeat her story of the visit of this mysterious woman—a narrative which obviously surprised its new audience. Eventually, with all the known facts up to that moment before him, Lord Cheverdale asked Doxford a straight question.

‘Do you think, now, do you think, Mr. Inspector, that Mr. Hannington was followed?’

‘Followed—or waylaid, my lord.’

‘Waylaid?—in my grounds?’

‘That is possible, my lord. He was found dead in your grounds.’

Lord Cheverdale turned to Mr. Craye.

‘I think it is here that you should tell these gentlemen what you have told us,’ he said. ‘Mr. Craye,’ he continued, looking at Doxford, ‘was here last night as one of my guests at a little dinner-party. He left the house on foot—but Mr. Craye will tell you himself what he came to tell me as soon as he heard of the murder.’

Mr. Craye smiled, as if deprecating his own importance as a witness.

‘There is really very little to tell,’ he said. ‘Still it may have some relation to the crime you’re investigating. It is simply this—Lord Cheverdale has already heard the story. Last night, as his lordship has told you, I was one of his guests here, at dinner. My fellow guests left together in a car belonging to one of their number. As it was a fine, moonlit night I thought I would walk home——’

‘You live—where, Mr. Craye?’ asked Doxford.

‘I have a flat in Whitehall Gardens,’ replied Craye. He paused, as if awaiting a further question; as none came, he went on. ‘Well, I walked down the drive to the gates leading into the Inner Circle when I left the house——’

‘You were quite alone?’ interrupted Doxford. ‘No fellow guest with you?’

‘No one was with me. When I turned into the Inner Circle, I saw two men, close by the entrance to these grounds. They were there between the gates, Lord Cheverdale’s gates, and the gates of Bedford College. They were walking up and down, evidently in conversation. When I first saw them they were about twenty yards from me, walking away from me. They turned suddenly and came towards me. Just as they were close to me they turned again and walked away from me. They were walking slowly—sauntering: I was walking sharply—it was a cold night. I passed close to them: they were talking rapidly in some foreign tongue. What language it was, I don’t know—I am familiar with several foreign languages—French, German, Spanish, Italian. It was none of these. From what little I heard, spoken very rapidly, it seemed to me to be of Slavonic type: perhaps Russian.’

Lord Cheverdale nodded his head and sighed deeply. He looked fixedly at Doxford: Doxford showed no sign of anything: he was watching Mr. Craye.

‘Yes?’ said Doxford. ‘Well?’

‘That is about all,’ replied Craye. ‘I passed on. After going a little distance I looked round. The two men were still pacing up and down.’

‘Where you had left them?’

‘Where I had left them—yes.’

‘Fairly close to the gate of Lord Cheverdale’s grounds?’

‘Quite close to the gates.’

‘Didn’t it strike you as being rather a strange thing that two men—you evidently took them to be foreigners——’

‘I did take them to be foreigners!’

‘Well—strange that they should be pacing up and down in the Inner Circle in Regent’s Park at that time of a cold night in winter?’

‘It did, certainly. That was why I looked back.’

‘Was there anybody else about?’

‘I saw no one.’

‘No policeman?’

‘I saw no policeman until I turned into the Outer Circle near York Gate. Then I saw one.’

‘Did you mention what you had seen to him?’

‘No, I didn’t—it didn’t seem of importance. You see,’ continued Craye, ‘I knew that foreigners are to be found in the districts on each side of Regent’s Park, and I thought that one of these men lived east, the other west, that they were talking a little before taking to their different directions, and that it had nothing in it. In fact, I had almost forgotten the matter until I heard of what had happened at Cheverdale Lodge last night. Then I came here and told Lord Cheverdale.’

‘Can you describe the men, Mr. Craye?’ enquired Chaney.

‘To a certain extent—yes. They were about—perhaps a little below—middle height; sparsely built. Each wore the dark clothes which a certain type of foreigner——’

‘What type of foreigner?’ asked Doxford.

‘Oh, well, perhaps I was thinking of the alien population in the East End. Anyway, you know what I mean—the black-coated sort. Both these men had rather long dark overcoats—longer, I mean, than the present fashion. Each was a good deal wrapped up about the throat and chin.’

‘Could you identify them, or either of them?’ asked Chaney.

But Craye shook his head with a decided negative.

‘No!’ he said. ‘That I certainly could not do! As I told you, they turned sharply as I got near them; they turned sharply again in the very act of my passing them. I had just a mere impression of their faces. I think they were dark, sallow men. But I couldn’t swear to them. Impossible!’

Doxford rubbed his chin, and shook his head.

‘Unfortunate, that!’ he remarked. ‘We’ve no luck! Miss Hetherley saw a man, and she can’t swear to him if she saw him again; Mr. Craye saw two men and is sure he couldn’t recognize them——’

‘I said I couldn’t swear to them—couldn’t positively identify them,’ interrupted Craye. ‘I might have a very good idea, if I saw two men——’

‘Um!’ said, Doxford. He turned towards Lord Cheverdale. ‘Is there anything more your lordship wants to know?’ he asked. ‘Because, if not——’

‘I want to know what conclusion you have come to,’ replied Lord Cheverdale with some asperity. ‘You have now heard——’

‘If your lordship will excuse me for saying so,’ broke in Doxford, ‘we’ve not heard anything, so far, that justifies us in coming to any conclusion, and I should say that it will probably be some time before we do. All we can say at present is that Mr. Hannington was murdered by somebody in your lordship’s grounds last night. Why? For what reason? What was the murderer’s motive? We can’t say anything. We know—nothing!’

‘Of course, we have ideas,’ remarked Windover. ‘I’ve a theory, at any rate.’

‘Yes, yes!’ exclaimed Lord Cheverdale. ‘Your theory, now? What is it?’

‘Well, I understand that Mr. Hannington had been going for these Bolshevik chaps in the Morning Sentinel,’ replied Windover. ‘Now, I take it, my lord, that the woman who went to see Hannington yesterday took him some important papers about that matter. I think she was followed. I think Hannington was followed, or, more likely, waylaid. I think the people concerned would guess that he’d bring those papers here, to your lordship——’

‘Very ingenious, very ingenious!’ muttered Lord Cheverdale. ‘Highly probable. Continue!’

‘And that they—two of ’em, probably the two Mr. Craye saw hanging about—waited for him here,’ Windover went on, ‘and in your lordship’s grounds, killed him for the sake of the papers. That, to me, appears certain. All his valuables were there, untouched—but he had no papers on him. And we understand he was accustomed to stuff his pockets with papers. Well—what can one think?’

‘Very admirable reasoning!’ said Lord Cheverdale. ‘Excellent! Don’t you agree with your colleague?’ he asked, suddenly turning on Doxford. ‘Very good argument—I quite agree with it myself.’

‘I neither quite agree, nor quite disagree, my lord,’ replied Doxford. ‘I say it’s extremely likely that he’s right. But—it’s a little soon to say that truth’s here, or there, or anywhere.’

‘And you—you?’ asked Lord Cheverdale, fixing his gaze on Chaney. ‘What do you say? Mr. Chaney, eh?—I’ve heard of you.’

‘I say, my lord, that I prefer, at present, to say nothing,’ answered Chaney. ‘This story only began twelve hours ago. We’re not half-way through the first chapter!’

‘But—but—something must be done!’ declared his lordship. ‘We must do something! We must be active! Can’t somebody suggest——’

‘I suggest that we find the woman,’ said Chaney. ‘If that can be——’

At that juncture the pompous butler entered the room.

‘Person on the telephone desiring to speak with Inspector Doxford, my lord,’ he announced. ‘From Scotland Yard, my lord.’

Doxford left the room without ceremony, and within three minutes was back again.

‘First bit of information, through the newspapers,’ he said as he resumed his seat. ‘A taxi-cab driver has come forward who says that he drove a gentleman from Whitehall to Regent’s Park last night. I’ve told them to bring him here, my lord—I thought your lordship would like to hear what he’s got to say.’

‘Quite proper, quite proper!’ murmured Lord Cheverdale. ‘It will be a relief to hear something definite.’

The conversation became general while we waited—general, that is, between Lord Cheverdale, Doxford, Windover, and Chaney. As for Paley, he drew figures or sketches on a blotting pad, occasionally exchanging a whispered word with Craye: as for Miss Chever she did nothing but stare from one to the other of us—her vacant expression, prominent eyes, and parted lips made me convinced that her father’s brain-power had not descended to her. And yet, Craye, obviously a smart, clever, polished man, was going to marry her! Then I remembered that Lord Cheverdale had the reputation of being a multi-millionaire.

Ushered in by the footman, Harris, who had shown Chaney and myself the scene of the murder, there presently appeared before us a young detective officer who introduced a taxi-cab driver. Doxford took him in hand.

‘You’ve been to the Yard with some information?’ he asked.

‘I have, sir! Along o’ this here piece what I reads in the papers—larst edition. ‘Cos I drove a gentleman up here last night.’

‘To—whereabouts up here?’

‘Between this here Cheverdale Lodge, sir, and the College, bit lower down. That was where he pulled me up, anyhow.’

‘What sort of man was he?’

‘Well, I should say the gentleman might be about forty years, sir. Bearded gentleman—dark overcoat—one o’ these here grey hats.’

‘Could you identify him if you saw him—dead or alive?’

‘I could, sir! Alive—or dead.’

‘Where did he engage you?’

‘Whitehall, sir—right opposite the Horse Guards.’

‘Did you see where he came from?’

‘I did not, sir. He was standing on the kerb when I see him a-waving to me to come over.’

‘What time was that?’

‘Just fairly about ten o’clock, sir.’

‘And he told you to drive up here?’

‘He told me, sir, to go up to this here Inner Circle, through York Gate, and he’d tell me where to pull up. He pulled me up as I’ve said.’

‘And you’d get up here about—what time?’

‘Oh, in about quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, sir.’

‘Did you see anybody about in the Inner Circle when you were in it? Any men?’

‘I did not, sir. Never see a soul!’

‘What did the gentleman do when he left your cab? Did you see?’

‘I did, sir. He walked sharp towards these here gates.’

‘Did you see him turn in?’

‘No, sir, can’t say as I did. I was turning my cab round.’

At this point Doxford was once more summoned to the telephone. This time he was away several minutes, and when he came back his yawniness seemed to have vanished and his face looked alert and at the same time very grave. He addressed the lot of us.

‘Here’s some very serious news!’ he said. ‘It’s just reached headquarters. A woman has been found murdered in a flat in the West End. And from such information as has come to hand I don’t think that there’s much doubt that she’s the woman who called on Mr. Hannington!’