Comes a Stranger (25 page)

“It came this afternoon,” she told Bobby. “It was in your room waiting so I brought it down.”

Bobby thanked her and took the package. It had been posted in Mayfield and he noticed that it was addressed in block capitals. When he opened it he found within a number of freshly-picked forget-me-nots.

“Who are they from?” asked Olive.

Bobby made no answer but sat staring at them with a gloomy and a thoughtful air.

“You've made a conquest,” Olive said presently, but though she spoke in jest, her voice was heavy, her eyes, too, were dark and oppressed with thought.

To both of them those small and lovely flowers, shining up from the cardboard box they had come in, brought in some way they did not understand a message of foreboding, as of some dark crisis approaching, as of evil happenings still to come to pass. Bobby put the lid back in place with a quick, nervous gesture. It was almost as though he hoped in that way to shut up something he had fear of, to prevent thus its escape into the world. It was not like him. Olive, watching, looked on uneasily. The picture in both their minds was that of Miss Kayne, seated and silent, waiting for something that somehow she had long expected, perhaps because she herself had given to it that first impetus from which these happenings had ensued, in her eyes black hatred of that great library which more than once had been described as a source of pride even to the nation itself. Bobby said:

“What's she got against the library? It's hers, it's magnificent, it's one of the finest things going? What's wrong with it?”

Olive did not answer. Her fingers were plucking nervously at the folds of her skirt. Bobby said:

“There's a bed of forget-me-nots in the Lodge garden, behind the seat where the view is, under the trees there.”

“Forget-me-nots are everywhere,” Olive said.

Bobby had the impression that she did not wish to think that these came from the Lodge garden. After a long pause, when she saw how carefully Bobby was examining the address label, she added:

“It's the Mayfield postmark, isn't it?”

“Yes, posted last night,” Bobby agreed. “Not much chance to find out who did the posting. We can try, of course, and we shall have to find out if anyone from here went to Mayfield yesterday. That might possibly give us a lead.”

“No one from the Lodge,” Olive said quickly. “I can tell you that. Miss Kayne hasn't been anywhere for ages—oh, except Mr. Broast, and he was in town. He went again to-day.”

“Are you sure? about yesterday, I mean. He went off early this morning, didn't he? But about yesterday? Is it certain he was in town?”

“Well, he rang up twice. I had to put him through to Miss Perkins. She was there all day anyhow, and so were the maids, and so was I and Miss Kayne—Briggs, too.”

“Do you know where he was speaking from?”

“He said he was at that big book shop at the corner of Mayfair Square. I forget the name. They have an important antiquarian book department.”

“It'll be easy to check that,” Bobby said. “He's a well known man in the book trade. They'll be sure to remember if he was there. Did he ring up from there both times?”

“I don't think he said where he was the second time. He said he had been delayed and wouldn't be back till the last train, and Miss Perkins needn't wait. She had gone home by then, so that didn't matter.”

“Do you know if he has any special reason just now for going up to town, both yesterday and to-day?”

“I think it's some book, autographed copy or something, that they wanted his opinion on because they think it may be forged. Of course, he is almost the greatest expert in the world about that.”

“Yes, I see,” said Bobby, “I suppose so. He had come back by that last train then when you saw him and Miss Kayne together?”

“I don't know, I thought so. You could find that out, couldn't you?”

“Oh, yes, easily,” Bobby agreed. “He's well known, someone at the station is pretty sure to remember. The last train's due about half past eleven, isn't it? If he walked home, and he hadn't the car, and there's no 'bus at that time, it would take him nearly an hour—three quarters, anyhow, even if he hurried.”

“Oh, yes, quite that,” Olive agreed.

“Seems to let him out, as far as this last business is concerned,” Bobby mused. “Not quite perhaps. It'll have to be gone into. He might have had a car parked, a bicycle perhaps, not very probable on the face of it. Have to be gone into, though. Miss Kayne must have been waiting up for him. Did she say she meant to?”

“No. She always goes to bed early. Last night it was earlier than usual—before nine, I think, I'm not sure exactly. I went early, too. I think everyone was feeling tired out. The maids, too. It's all been so awful. Everyone's glad to get to bed and think one day is done and perhaps to-morrow will be better.”

“Miss Kayne must have come down again? Most likely she hadn't actually been to bed, then?”

“I don't know. She didn't go straight to her room. When I went up about nine she was sitting in Mr. Broast's room. The door was open and I spoke to her. She wasn't doing anything. She was just sitting there, brooding.”

“Yes,” Bobby said, and seemed to see the old, fat, monstrous woman sitting there like some ancient goddess meditating thoughts of doom. “Did she answer when you spoke?”

“She said something about wondering how Mr. Broast had got on, and it was very worrying and difficult because he had to say whether something or another was genuine or not. I don't know why it was specially worrying this time. He is always being asked for his opinion. I suppose it's why she waited up.”

“Did she stop in Mr. Broast's room?”

“No. She asked me to help her out of the chair, and I did and she went to her own room.”

“You didn't hear her go down stairs again?”

“No. I don't suppose anyone would. She can get about very quietly when she wants to.”

Bobby reflected again that an alibi seemed indicated for Mr. Broast; if, that is, his movements were confirmed on inquiry. But apparently none for Miss Kayne herself. Nothing to show where she had been or how she had occupied herself between the hour when she had retired, ostensibly to bed, and the hour when Olive had seen her talking to Broast in the garden at midnight, long after the hour when a man had died, shot through and through seven time over.

Again a vision came to him, no longer of a woman waiting and passive, but darkly active, slipping, huge, gross, and agile, silently through the night, on her way to keep a rendezvous where one at the meeting place would be death.

He remembered those huge, shapeless marks, footprints perhaps, made in the flower bed near the study window at Highfields. He remembered he had seen Miss Kayne wearing huge, shapeless shoes, almost like carpet slippers, on her swollen feet. Clearly, too, he remembered how she said that once she had committed, a murder never suspected even, never discovered. Had that boast been true? Was it to be made good once yet again? Or had it been, not boast of a past achievement but rather vaunting anticipation?

He felt the problem was for the present at least altogether beyond him. But one thing he made quite clear to Olive, in the plainest possible language. Olive must go back to London at once. There was danger in this quiet, peaceful village. Peril, and who could tell where it would strike next? After all, Olive was in business, wasn't she? A business woman? She had a hat shop, and very clearly that shop required the attention of its owner. One could not, Bobby pointed out earnestly, expect assistants or a manager to take the same interest as the proprietor. She must go and see about it at once. Immediately. The business might be going to rack and ruin. Probably was. Bobby made all that perfectly clear.

Unfortunately Olive made it equally clear she was going to do nothing of the kind.

“Miss Kayne was father's friend and she is mine, too,” Olive said. “She was awfully good to me when I was a tiny. I'm not going to leave her in the midst of all this trouble. Of course,” she added meekly, but not altogether as if she meant it, “when we are married I shall have to do exactly what you tell me—like all the other wives. Obey. But not till then, so don't expect it.”

Nor from that position was she to be moved, and when he talked once more of danger, she said nothing, but put out her hand to his with a quick and sudden look that made him realize one reason why she would not go was that she, too, thought that there was danger was past and over, she did not mean to be very far away.

He tried to argue a little, but soon realized he might as well save his breath. She listened patiently but with a patience as impenetrable as the patience of eternity. He gave it up presently and said:

“Miss Kayne didn't tell you why she had come downstairs again, did she? Was it just to meet Mr. Broast? That wasn't usual, was it?”

“No. She's been so strange lately. She said a day or two ago:—‘I knew her again the moment I saw her.' She wouldn't say who. She said over again she knew her at once, but I couldn't make out who she meant. I suppose you can't wonder at her being strange when things like this are happening. She was worrying about the forged book or whatever it is, and Mr. Broast having to go to town to examine it. I can't think why. She said he might buy it for the library. I shouldn't have expected her to care if every book they have turned out forged. I don't see what there's to worry about over the chance of his buying something else says is a fake. Anyhow, I told her Mr. Broast would be sure to know.”

“What did she say?”

“She said yes, Broast would know. She said that twice over, and then she gave me a funny sort of look and she went away. If he does make a mistake and buy a fake for once, what's it matter?”

“Perhaps she might think other things in the library were fakes, too?”

“Good gracious, Bobby,” said Olive, beginning to laugh, “why Mr. Broast—well, I should just like to hear anyone tell him he wouldn't know a fake a mile off. Murder would happen then all right. At least, unless he just lay down and died from the shock.” She added more seriously: “Bobby, you may be quite sure. Mr. Broast would no more mistake a fake for the genuine article than you would mistake a football for a cricket bat.”

“I see,” Bobby said slowly, though a vague, a faint suspicion was beginning to stir, as it were, in his mind.

“It was a very early copy of youthful poems by Tennyson that friends of his printed privately,” Olive explained. “Very rare, only copy known, all that sort of thing. Mr. Broast bought it for the library after he had examined it very carefully, he said, so that shows you what he thought. He paid £100 for it, he told Miss Kayne.”

“Stiff price,” Bobby remarked, though absently, for his thoughts were still busy. He said, half to himself:—“She would know where the two-two automatic was kept if he had it.”

“What do you mean?” Olive asked quickly.

Bobby did not answer, but the troubled look on his features grew more marked. Olive had become very pale. After a pause she almost whispered:

“Bobby, you can't mean… you can't… not Miss Kayne, that's too awful.”

He took her hand in both his and held it, speaking very gently:

“Dearest love,” he said, “I've to follow the truth where it leads, no matter where it leads. If you are going to marry a policeman, you mustn't forget that. But,” he added more lightly, “don't jump to conclusions; that's about the first thing we are taught, never to jump to conclusions.” After another pause, he said: “I can't get it straight. Don't you worry, Olive. Nothing certain yet by a long way. Look here, don't you think you really ought to clear out of this? It's not the sort of thing to be mixed up in if you can help it?”

“I am staying with Miss Kayne,” Olive answered. “She's my friend and that's all that matters.”

She was looking straight at him, with something of anger and defiance in her expression, that changed suddenly as a flush spread over her pale cheeks and she looked away, for she had seen the admiration, the love, and the approval in his eyes.

It was time by now, and more than time, for Bobby to return to the little police station that had become such a centre of hustling activity, that existed now in a state of perpetual siege, with eager-eyed reporters swarming about it, like flappers round a film star. First he saw Olive on her way back to the Lodge, and then he went on to the police station, where he found Killick in some excitement over a fresh bit of information that had just arrived. Someone had come forward to identify Virtue as having been one of those in the library some weeks previously, when had been broken the glass of the case containing one of the library's most cherished treasures—the
Glastonbury Psalter
.

“What's more,” said Killick excitedly, “he don't attempt to deny it—we've had him in and he owned up he was there. Gives a pretty clear lead, don't it? That was a try-on that didn't come off, and the whole thing adds up to attempted theft of some of the old stuff there that's worth thousands of pounds—to them as thinks so. The Major's very bucked.”

“Has Virtue been held?” Bobby asked.

“No,” admitted the superintendent with slightly diminished enthusiasm. “He wouldn't own up to anything except that he was in the library that day. He refused to say anything more, said he understood it was our job to prove it was him broke the glass, and he could swear he wasn't anywhere near at the moment, and there was a girl ran round by where he was standing could swear to his being on the other side of the library when they all heard the smash. Then he said he was a business man in good standing and he wasn't a thief. Perhaps he isn't, but you know how crazy these collectors are, everyone knows that. Anyhow, we can't hold him on it, except for malicious damage if we had proof. He meant to pinch the Psalms thing all right, if he got the chance, but you can't send a man up on intention. It's a clear lead, though.”