Crime at Tattenham Corner (21 page)

“Sophie is doing it in style, you know,” she went on. “Got a private suite of rooms; no dining at the public tables for her, if you please.”

“Are you staying here with her?” Pamela questioned as they got in the lift.

“Me! Bless your young life, no! She rang me up this afternoon and I just dropped in to see her. And then as she was rather pressing I stayed to dinner with her and the secretary man, Señor Jaime da Dominiguez.”

The lift had stopped now and they got out. As they walked down the luxuriously carpeted corridor, Mrs. Jimmy, who had not loosed her hold of the girl's arm, gave it a pinch.

“I hope you are prepared for something happening there. Pam, you will be having a step-papa before you know where you are.”

Pamela freed her arm with a jerk. “I simply could not have such a relative, Aunt Kitty. If Lady Burslem marries again, her second husband will be no connexion of mine. But I can hardly believe, even of her, that she is thinking of replacing my father so soon, and by such a man.”

“Why, you have not seen him yet,” Mrs. Jimmy said, her voice a little subdued as they stopped and she sounded an electric bell, and a smartly dressed maid appeared. “Just like a private flat, isn't it?” she whispered, as they were conducted to Lady Burslem's sitting-room.

Sophie was alone, sitting at a little table near the fireplace, a couple of great ledger-like looking volumes open before her, into which she was rapidly making businesslike looking entries from a small notebook at her side. Of Señor Jaime da Dominiguez there was no sign.

Lady Burslem got up as they came in. “Oh, Pam, I am glad to see you!” she cried, kissing the girl's cheek.

Pamela did not respond in any way. “I was amazed to hear that you were in town again,” she said stiffly. “You didn't even mention coming home when you wrote.”

Lady Burslem's arm, which she had placed affectionately on the girl's shoulder, dropped by her side. She stood quite still, her eyes, in which there lay now a hint of tragedy, gazing at Pamela's face mournfully. “I had no thought of returning when I wrote. It was this Bolivian trouble that compelled me to come. I don't expect to be in town more than a few days. But I hoped you would have been a little glad to see me, Pam.”

Pamela ignored the attempt at conciliation. “Mr. Hetherington Smith said you wanted to see me particularly, so I came!”

“I see you did,” Lady Burslem said in a tired voice. “I thought I should like to talk things over with you. But if you would rather not – well, they can be left a little longer.”

“As far as I know there is nothing to talk over,” Pamela said coolly.

Lady Burslem sighed. “Well, if you feel like that. But I asked you to bring Wilmer; I have some good news for her. Where is she?”

“She walked up. She is always so frightened at lifts. But of course she would wait outside,” Pamela said, looking round.

Lady Burslem turned to the door. “Poor Wilmer: I expect my maid has taken her to my dressing-room. She generally does her sewing there. Shall we go and find her? Kitty, will you come too. I expect Marie has been looking out those patterns you wanted.” “I am sure I hope she has,” responded Mrs. Jimmy. “I will come at once, of course. I should like to see Wilmer too. I have heard a lot about her.”

“Aunt Kitty,” Pamela said suddenly, “hasn't Uncle James come home yet?”

“Well, no, he hasn't, and that's a fact,” Mrs. Jimmy said cheerfully.

“Do you know when he will come?” Pamela pursued.

“No, that I don't. I never know when he will do anything. But I have heard on good authority that he will turn up when I least expect him. Isn't that so, Sophie?” with a playful pinch of the arm.

Lady Burslem's face was white. She shook off Mrs. Jimmy's hand with a shiver. “I suppose so – I mean, I don't know anything about it.”

“Well, we none of us do, if you come to that. Jimmy is rather an unknown quantity, especially lately,” Mrs. Jimmy remarked with a jolly laugh. “Come along, Pam. They have given Sophie an awfully decent bedroom, don't you think so. And she has a bathroom of her own, silver taps and all complete.”

“Quite decent,” Pamela echoed, without a glance in the direction in which Mrs. Jimmy was pointing. “Don't you think it is strange that Uncle James has not written to me since Dad died, Aunt Kitty?”

“No, I don't,” said Mrs. Jimmy bluntly. “And you wouldn't if you knew the sort of place he is in. They haven't post offices round the corner. Besides, he has really seen very little of you. And he didn't get on with your father, you know.”

“Still, he was his only brother,” Pamela argued. “One would have thought –”

“Oh, Pam, you give me the hump worrying about Jimmy.” Mrs. Jimmy turned her shoulder deliberately to the girl. “I suppose he will write when he wants to and gets the chance.”

Pamela looked injured. “Well, I think it is very strange of him,” she persisted. “And Mr. Hetherington Smith told me a friend of his said he felt sure he saw Uncle James in town some time after Dad's funeral.”

“Well, if he was, he didn't let me know,” Mrs. Jimmy said shortly. “And I don't believe he was, either. But do quit talking of Jimmy, Pam. He isn't a subject I'm fond of, and I want to have a gossip about frocks to-day. Come along, child.” Lady Burslem had already passed into the dressing-room. They could hear her talking to Wilmer.

“It was just a memorandum in Sir John's writing, Wilmer,” they heard her say. “But it showed he meant to leave you an annuity of £80 a year. His wishes are sacred to me, so I am taking steps to buy an annuity in one of the great approved benevolent societies for you. Then you will be quite safe.” 

“Oh, my lady, it is too much. I don't know what to say.” And indeed poor Wilmer looked quite overcome.

Mrs. Jimmy went on to the maid, who was busy mending some old lace. “Got my patterns, Marie? I want to get the frocks in hand.”

The maid, a diminutive looking Frenchwoman, got up.

“But yes, my lady – yes, madame. They are all quite ready and I have cut them to Madame's size.”

“That is a good thing,” Mrs. Jimmy smiled. “For I guess it would not be much good me trying to get into her ladyship's.”

The maid smiled too. “No, madame, I think that also.”

Mrs. Jimmy took up an end of the lace shawl the maid held. “How beautifully you are doing this. Look, Pam, isn't it wonderful?”

“It is really,” the girl said admiringly. “Her ladyship has such a lot of lace too, she will be glad to have some one to keep it in order. But I expect you know all about that, Marie.”

“But no,” the girl said, lifting her hands in energetic protest; “for two days I have had time to do very little. For it is only one day in France that I come to Milady and one day here. That is not much.”

“Of course it is not,” Pamela assented. “I quite thought you had been with Milady all the time she was away.”

“Ah, no, mademoiselle. Only the one day. It is a sad story –”

“What is a sad story?” Lady Burslem inquired. “What are you telling Mademoiselle, Marie?”

“Only that I come to Milady only a day or two before she come home. And Mademoiselle she is quite surprised. She tink I have been wiz Milady many months.”

“Ah, yes! Didn't I tell you, Pam?” Lady Burslem turned to her stepdaughter. “Emilia was taken ill and I had to send her to a clinic. I was very fortunate in being able to replace her so quickly; and Marie is very capable.”

Lady Burslem spoke easily enough. But Pamela wondered whether it was only her fancy or did her stepmother look for one moment discomposed. Another fancy of hers, that Lady Burslem glanced quickly as if for help to Mrs. Jimmy, Pamela dismissed as absurd.

“Milady, it was the good fortune for me –”

Marie was beginning when there came a cry from Wilmer:

“Miss Pamela, you had your pearls on when we started. And now they are gone!”

“Gone?” Pamela put her hands to her throat. “They – they have dropped off.” She thrust her hand into the front of her frock. “No, they have not dropped down. What
can
have become of them. Dad's last present to me!”

“I told you I thought the snap was a bit defective when you were putting them on yesterday, Miss Pamela,” Wilmer said, her eyes searching round, “But you wouldn't let me have them.”

“No, I wanted to wear them. But I meant to call at Laycock's and get it seen to.”

“Never mind, they can't be far away if you had them on when you started,” Lady Burslem said sensibly. “They must be either in the hotel or the car. The odds are a million to one against your dropping them when you crossed the pavement, either getting in at the Smiths' or out here.”

Pamela rushed into the bedroom. “If they dropped off in the lounge they mightn't be much safer than in the street. I must go down and ask about them.” She hurried off. Lady Burslem and Mrs. Jimmy followed her. The two maids were left alone.

“Ah, but she is careless, this mademoiselle,” Marie said, as she shook out the lace. “She does not know where she has lost her pearls. Dey may be in de lift or outside in what you call de corridor. But we too must find.”

Downstairs Pamela found the management extremely anxious to recover the pearls, but quite evidently displeased at the insinuation that they must be in the hotel, and very much inclined to say that Miss Burslem must have lost them on the way there. At this suggestion Pamela rang up the Smiths to inquire if anything had been heard of them, and to ask if they would send the carriage back at once in case they had fallen off into the rug.

Then it suddenly occurred to her that when she threw off her cloak in her stepmother's sitting-room the pearls might have caught in the lining.

Leaving Lady Burslem and Mrs. Jimmy to superintend operations downstairs, she hurried back to the former's suite.

The lift offered no opportunity of concealment if she had lost them there, but the lift-boy told her that he had gone over the interior inch by inch.

As they entered Lady Burslem's suite, to her amazement, Pamela caught the sound of a woman sobbing. It seemed to come from the sitting-room. She pushed open the door and looked in.

Wilmer was sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, apparently in violent hysterics. Over her the French maid was bending, evidently trying to console her.

Pamela went up and laid her hand on one of those that were trembling so pitifully. “What in the world is the matter, Wilmer? Surely you aren't worrying yourself to this extent about the pearls. It was my own fault, you know – not the least little bit of it yours.”

Wilmer raised her face. It was absolutely white. Every bit of colour seemed to have been washed out of it by the tears that were rolling miserably down her cheeks. 

“It isn't the pearls, Miss Pamela. It is that I have seen what I never thought to see while I am a living, breathing woman.”

“Zat is it,” the French maid interposed; “zat is what she say all the time she have seen a
revenant
– a spirit.”

“I have seen a ghost, Miss Pamela. A ghost Heaven help us all. Ah, Heaven, I wish I had died before this day.”

“A ghost!” Pamela felt excessively provoked.

“Don't be so foolish, Wilmer,” she rebuked. “I thought you had more sense! Whose ghost, pray?” Wilmer burst into something like a howl. “Heaven help me, I don't know – I can't tell you. Miss Pamela.”

“Hoity-toity! What's all this about?” Mrs. Jimmy had come up behind them unobserved. “What is that you say, Wilmer – seen a ghost! Well, there is nothing to make such a disturbance about if you have. The dead will not hurt you. If you lived in constant communion with them as I do –”

“A–h! I would rather die,” Wilmer sobbed.

“Then you would be a bally ghost yourself!” Mrs. Jimmy informed her breezily. “Don't be a fool, Wilmer. Probably it was one of her ladyship's frocks hanging on a chair, or something of that kind you saw. You took it for a ghost. I have done the same thing myself. We have found your pearls, Pam.”

“Oh, where, Aunt Kitty?” Pamela cried, while 

Wilmer kept up a sort of chorus. “Oh, no! It wasn't that! It wasn't that.”

“In the car,” Mrs. Jimmy went on, “the likeliest place of all. They couldn't be seen until we shook the fur rug. However, all's well that ends well!”

“Just in time. I am expecting a visitor this morning,” Inspector Stoddart said, as Harbord entered his room at Scotland Yard. “Mr. Gregg of Gregg & Cook, pawnbrokers of East Foreham Street, Bow. Some things of Sir John Burslem's, notably a brown coat, have been put in pawn with them. I heard from them last night. Here is the letter.” He tossed a typewritten sheet over to his subordinate. Harbord picked it up.

“To the Director of Criminal Investigation, New Scotland Yard” was typed across; Messrs. Gregg and Cook's address beneath.

Then the note began:

“On receipt of this letter by first post this morning, I rang up Gregg & Cook,” the inspector pursued, “and requested that the coat should be sent to us without delay. In reply, Gregg volunteered to bring it up himself. He may be here any minute now.”

“A coat that appears to have belonged to the late Sir John Burslem,” Harbord cogitated. “I wonder what that means exactly. Was it marked? And I don't see what possible bearing this coat of Sir John's can have on the Burslem mystery. He was wearing his dress clothes.”