The Pleasure Cruise Mystery (22 page)

“Fancy you remembering it! It was a real beauty and the one piece of jewellery I envied her. The rest of her stuff was a bit too flash for me. No lady would wear it.”

“Was the necklace a present from Mr. Mig?”

“Not on your life! He never gave her anything you couldn't buy in Woolworth's. It was a present from Mr. Mesado on her birthday, and Mr. Mig used to quarrel with her often because she wouldn't pawn it when he was short of dough.”

“She used to take drugs at times to sooth her nerves, didn't she?” asked Vereker.

“Drugs? Oh, no, sir, nothing of that sort. She was hysterical at times, and once when a lover had had a row with her she went into a trance. I thought she was dead, but the doctor said no. He said it was a cataleptic state due to hysteria. It seems as if she had these fits at times, but she has only had one since I've been in her service. Though she never took drugs, on the other hand she was very fond of a bottle of Guinness with a drop of port in it. She always said it was strengthening and good for one.”

“I suppose you don't know where Mr. Mesado is?” asked Vereker with suppressed excitement, for Miss Marchant was proving a mine of vital information.

“No. He said good-bye, and I'm sure he was crying when he left her, but he never said where he was going. Miss O'Connor told me his home was somewhere in South America, but I never can remember these outlandish names. Somewhere in the Argentine is all I know about it.”

“Thanks, Miss Marchant. I think that's all I want to know. I have an idea where Miss Maureen has gone. In the meantime what are you going to do about her flat here?”

“Well, I can't stay on here without money to carry on with. She left me enough to run the place for a little while in case she stayed longer than the week-end. I didn't know what to do about it when she didn't return, so I informed the police that she was missing. A very nice man from Scotland Yard came down and said he would look into things and see if he could trace her.”

“Was it Inspector Heather?” asked Vereker quietly.

“That's him. Big handsome man. Patted me on the back and told me not to cry, and spoke so kind to me that I could hardly believe that he was in the police force. Still, I don't like the police. Fair to your face they are, and foul behind your back. They're too inquisitive, and I didn't let him pump me about Miss O'Connor's private affairs. None of his business. As I told him straight, his job was to find her somehow and not ask so many questions about things that didn't concern him. They broadcasted about her being missing on the wireless, but nothing came of it.”

“Did Mr. Mig call again after Miss O'Connor left?” asked Vereker.

“No, I haven't seen him, and if he turns up he'll get marching orders from me. I may get blamed for it afterwards, but I'm taking no risks where that gent is concerned. After he'd been in the house for five minutes something would go missing for certain sure.”

“I'll back you up, Miss Marchant, so don't be afraid to show him the door. In the meantime I'll leave some money with you so that you can carry on. When you need some more just phone me up at my flat in Fenton Street. My name is Anthony Vereker.”

“Thank you very much, sir. If it's a fair question, were you very fond of Miss O'Connor?” asked Miss Marchant boldly.

“No, well, I wasn't in love with her, if that's what you mean,” stammered Vereker, rather abashed by the directness of the question. “More like a brother, if you can understand.”

“I'm glad to hear that,” replied Miss Marchant with unexpected emphasis.

“Why, Miss Marchant?” asked Vereker, nonplussed.

“Well, Mr. Vereker, it's this way. Some women seem to get more lovers than they want, and it's always the fast ones that men run after. They're not faithful to their men. Those women who could be good and true to a man never seem to get a chance. It don't seem fair somehow. It's not as if we were made any different. None of us has got more than two legs in any case. I said I was glad to hear that you weren't in love with her because she'd only break your heart if you were, and you seem to be a real nice gentleman.”

“Too nice to have my heart broken?” asked Vereker with amusement.

“I'm certain of it, sir, and I'm a good judge of character too,” replied Miss Marchant, blushing becomingly.

“It's nice of you to say so, Miss Marchant. I'm sure we shall be good friends. Now I would never break a man's heart,” said Miss Marchant confidently.

“I'm convinced you wouldn't,” agreed Vereker, and hastily added, “In the meantime if Mr. Dias turns up you'll know what to do with him. I don't think he will, because I feel sure he's abroad. If Mr. Heather from Scotland Yard calls, just tell him that he's a Nosey Parker and that Mr. Vereker told you he was hardly worth his beer money as a detective. You might add that, although he's big and handsome, Mr. Vereker thinks he ought to shave off his spikey moustache. Good-bye for the present, Miss Marchant.”

“Good-bye, sir, and I'll tell Mr. Heather what you've said. If I hear anything more of Miss O'Connor shall I ring you up?”

That's the idea. I feel sure I'm on her track already, and I won't rest till I find her.”

With these words Vereker took his leave, and was given such an arch glance by Miss Marchant that he began to feel that he really was too nice a gentleman to have his heart broken.

Next day Vereker packed his bag, his easel, canvas and paints and made his way down to Jevington, in Sussex. Taking a conveyance at Polegate Station, he drove up to Firle House, where he was expected. Dobbs, the butler, and his wife, the housekeeper, made him welcome, and on Vereker expressing a wish to have a look around Dobbs escorted him over the whole mansion. Much to his satisfaction he found the butler a garrulous man in spite of his pompous air and reserved mien. Dobbs soon disclosed that he had been a butler to the “quality” nearly all his life and that though the Mesados were wealthy there was an unbridgable gulf between trade and birth.

“A very nice man to work with, you know, sir, but still a furriner and a noover rish. Now Mrs. Mesado was the goods. Came from a good old Norfolk family. Sad business her dying at sea and being buried among a lot of Portuguese cutthroats, but what's going to happen's going to happen. This place is up for sale, and as I've no instructions to the contrary from Mrs. Colvin I suppose it's still on the market.”

“It will be Mrs. Colvin's property now?” asked Vereker, anxious to know how much Dobbs knew of Mrs. Mesado's testamentary dispositions.

“Oh, yes, sir. Mrs. Mesado has often told me that if anything happened to her she was leaving everything she possessed to her sister.”

“It was common knowledge?”

“I think so, sir. Mrs. Colvin often used to joke and say she had a good mind to poison off her sister so that she could be well off.”

“The two sisters were fond of one another?”

“They were like Siamese twins, sir, they hung so well together, and yet Mrs. Colvin was as different from Mrs. Mesado as chalk from cheese. Nevertheless I don't remember ever hearing one snap at the other.”

“What kind of a lady was Mrs. Mesado?” asked Vereker.

“Very changeable, sir. Sometimes as sweet as honey, and next moment a regular spitfire. You never knew when you had her. She led Mr. Mesado a dance at times—regular hornpipe he had to dance too. But I liked madam; she always treated me fair, and you can't wish for more than that.

“And Mrs. Colvin?”

“A perfect saint, sir. Never put out by anything, sir, and always doing a good turn to somebody. But she was very churchy and was dead nuts on atheists and their kidney. Always said they ought to be burned at the stake, though I couldn't see the young lady burning a cockroach. Now Mrs. Mesado, when she lost her temper she was dangerous. She'd pull her enemies to bits with red-hot pincers. I never seen a woman with such a fiery temper.”

“Mr. Colvin used to live with the Mesados too?”

“Yes, sir. He was a sort of companion to Mr. Mesado, doing this, that and t'other thing for him. But he's a toff, sir, a regular toff. Liked a drop of drink, sometimes a drop too much, but he's as good as gold. I don't want a better master than Mr. Colvin, and I'm glad Mrs. Dobbs and me are going with them when they leave. They told us that definite in their letter to us from Portugal.”

“Have you been in Mr. Mesado's service long, Dobbs?”

“Some three years now. Ever since they came to Firle House. I was with Sir Henry and Lady Waterton up in Fakenham, Norfolk, before that, and the Disses and Watertons were great friends always. I've known the Diss sisters ever since they was so high.” Dobbs accompanied his words with an explanatory gesture as to stature.

“There were three of them, I believe? What happened to the youngest, Amy?”

“There was a bit of a scandal about young Miss Amy,” said Dobbs, lowering his voice discreetly. “Got up to mischief with one of their grooms when she was in her teens, and the colonel kicked her out neck and crop. She went up to London, and some say she went all to pieces with men and drink. It's not for me to say, because I don't know. She was the prettiest of the three sisters, and they were all oil paintings fit to marry dooks and as like as triplets to look at.”

“Have you ever seen Miss Amy since then, Dobbs?” asked Vereker casually.

For some moments Dobbs hesitated and then replied: “Only once, sir, for a few minutes. Just before madam went on this cruise Miss Amy came down here for a week-end. Mrs. Mesado sent me and Mrs. Dobbs up to town that Friday she arrived and told us we could have the week-end off to see our friends in London. Paid all our expenses for the trip. She was real good like that at times. All the house servants except Gautier had been discharged because madam said she was giving up Firle House and wouldn't live in it again. When we returned on Monday morning Miss Amy had gone. Madam said she left suddenly on Sunday night.

“Had there been a quarrel?”

“Gautier hinted at something of the sort, but she and I never got on well together. She was closer than an oyster when she liked. Fancied her luck with the men too.”

“Did Mrs. Mesado and Mrs. Colvin call their sister by the name Amy?” asked Vereker.

“No, sir. When they spoke of her, and that was seldom in my hearing, they called her Maureen. Her real name was Mrs. O'Connor, because she married the groom she fell in love with. He was a handsome Irishman, but as tricky as a monkey. They say he went off with another woman some years later. If it's true he ought to have his skin peeled off him. Leading a young lady astray and then deserting her.

“Had they any children, Dobbs?”

“Only one, I believe. The cause of all the barney, and it was born dead. Merciful I call it.”

“Mrs. Mesado and the Colvins left for Tilbury on Monday morning, the 26th, to join the cruising liner ‘Mars'?”

“Yes, sir, just after we arrived. When they'd had breakfast they set off.”

“Do you know which room Miss Maureen occupied, Dobbs?”

“Yes, sir, the nicest of the guest rooms, and the one we've got ready for you. There's a cupboard in it with some clothes and two pairs of shoes she left behind, but as we were told not to touch her things we have left them there. They won't be in your way, sir, as there's a gentleman's wardrobe in the same room, which has been cleared for your use.”

“Thanks very much, Dobbs. Please don't disturb anything on my account. I may be here for a few days only, so I have brought very little with me.”

“Very good, sir; and there's one drawer in the chest of drawers with some of Miss Maureen's odds and ends in it. Mrs. Mesado left that locked up and said it was not to be disturbed on any account.”

“That won't trouble me, Dobbs. By the way, when did Mr. Mesado leave Firle House? Was it long before his wife went on this cruise?”

“About a fortnight before, sir.”

“Do you know where he has gone?”

“We don't know for certain, but his valet, who went with him, told me on the quiet that he was going back to Buenos Aires. That's his home.”

“Did he stay very much at Firle House?”

“No, sir; he only came down occasionally, and nearly always spent all his time at his flat near Hyde Park Corner. He didn't like the country very much, and madam didn't like the town, which wasn't a very happy business. For a little while after he took this place he was as keen as mustard on it, planning and altering and furnishing, and then he took a sudden dislike to the place. The gentry round here gave him the cold shoulder, and he couldn't stand that. The gentry are very conservative with furriners.”

“Wasn't there some sort of tiff between him and Mrs. Mesado?”

“Well, yes, I suppose there was, but we never knew the cause of it. Probably Mrs. Mesado's fault. Her temper would upset the angel Gabriel at times. Mr. Mesado was one of the easiest men to get on with and every one liked him. Some say he was a bit of a hairy lad with the ladies, but you can't always blame a man for that. It's born in some of them and they can't help theirselves. And it ain't always the man who's to blame, sir,” said Dobbs, turning to Vereker and fixing him impressively with his round grey eyes.

“I suppose not,” remarked Vereker innocently.

“As for Mr. Mesado, whatever he did in that direction he did like a gentleman, and nobody ever knew or heard about it.”

Vereker was obliged to smile at Dobbs's peculiar moral point of view, and the butler's statement shed a confirmatory light on the information he had gathered from Miss Marchant. He was now convinced that there must have been some guilty liaison between Mesado and Miss Maureen O'Connor.

“Did a Mr. Miguel Dias ever come down here, Dobbs?” he asked after a pause.

“Only once, sir. He called to see Mr. Mesado. Said he was a business acquaintance. The master was out, so he stayed to tea with madam and Mr. and Mrs. Colvin and then went back to town. When Mr. Mesado heard of it he was very angry. When the master was angry he always went as white as a sheet and shut himself up in his room. He gave orders that if Mr. Dias ever called again he was not to be admitted, but he never came again to my knowledge. I didn't like the look of the gent. Flashy, handsome man like a cardsharper. The week-end Mrs. Mesado and the Colvins left for their cruise there were only themselves, Miss Maureen and Gautier, the maid, in the house. That's all, sir.”