Crime at Tattenham Corner (24 page)

“Well, not when folks die right in the interior,” Mrs. Jimmy qualified, wrinkling up her brow. “I don't think there is much risk in taking it for granted that poor Jimmy is gone. The first I heard of it was at a séance, you know.”

“A séance! Oh, good Lord!” Mr. Williams's dismay was almost ludicrous. “You don't mean that that is all you have to go upon?”

“Of course not! I had private information from some fellow-explorers.” Mrs. Jimmy finished her cocktail and sat back. “They sent me two or three of his personal belongings – things that I know Jimmy would not have parted with if he had been alive.”

“That sounds more like,” Mr. Williams commented as their dinner arrived. “We shall have to be careful, though. For though I don't mind taking any risks for myself – glory in them, for your sake – I shouldn't be willing to put you in any danger. It isn't nice punishment for bigamy.” 

Mrs. Jimmy shivered. “No, no! I shan't run any risk of that. My proof of Jimmy's death is too definite. He will never come back to trouble me, Mr. Williams.”

“Mr. Williams! There you go! I have a Christian name as well as you. It will sound like music from your lips.”

“Oh, dear! What a man it is!” She sighed, noting with satisfaction that her glass was filled to the brim. “Now, how am I to know what your name is?”

“Oh, you know well enough,” Mr. Williams said fondly. “William it is – called Billy by some. One friend I had, gone now, used to call me Willie. I have a fancy I should like to hear you do the same.”

“Well, perhaps you shall – some day,” Mrs. Jimmy responded, with a would-be girlish giggle. “If you are good, that is to say.”

“I always am good,” Mr. Williams assured her. “Particularly to-night, so you can begin right away, Kitty.”

Mrs. Jimmy was a bit of a gourmand. She thoroughly enjoyed her dinner, and towards the end began to wax affectionate; but, communicative as she seemed, Mr. Williams found that she sheered off at any further mention of her sister-in-law and her contemplated second marriage. With regard to the possibility of her own, she was distinctly more communicative, but Mr. Williams failed to extract any more than a vague promise to show him her proof “some day.”

By the end of dinner the man was getting a little tired. His respect for Mrs. Jimmy's powers of conversational fencing grew and strengthened. He began to feel that matters must be left for a time at any rate. He made an imperceptible sign to a passing waiter, and presently the man reappeared with a telegram on a salver.

With a murmured apology Mr. Williams opened it. Then he uttered a sharp exclamation.

“Who was to think of this coming to-night?”

“What is it?” she questioned, her tone somewhat alarmed.

“It – it concerns an investment I made a few weeks ago. I was a little uncertain about it at the time,” Mr. Williams said, his eyes still fixed on the telegram. “Mines are always risky in my opinion. And now it seems water has got into it from an old working. Will you forgive me? This must be seen to without delay.”

“Of course it must,” Mrs. Jimmy assented amiably. “You just see me to a taxi, and then you can go off about it as soon as ever you like.”

“I do like a woman that sees reason,” Mr. Williams said with an air of relief. “The car shall take you back, and I will take a taxi. Yes, I insist. We might fix up a theatre for to-morrow perhaps if I can get this business of the mine finished. Anyway, I will ring you up first thing in the morning.” 

When he had seen Mrs. Jimmy safely off in the car he went back to pay his bill, casting a rueful glance at the total. Then he went out and boarded a passing omnibus that was bound for Highbury Station. From there it was but a couple of minutes' walk to his rooms. He let himself in with his latchkey, and turned into the front room to the right of the door. Somewhat to his surprise Harbord sat by the table writing busily. Before him lay the brown coat, freed from its encasing brown paper.

Harbord jumped up.

“I thought I had better write in case you were not back before I had to go. But what a swell you are, sir!” with an amused glance at the other's evening clothes.

Stoddart tossed off his light overcoat. “I have been courting, and it is hard work,” he said grimly. “And thirsty work. I think a long drink is indicated.” He went to the rather rickety looking sideboard and produced a bottle of whisky and a siphon of soda-water.

“Help yourself,” he said as he set a couple of glasses on the tray.

Harbord declined. “I have had a couple of pegs already to-day,” he observed. “And that is more than my usual allowance.”

“I don't go in for allowances,” the inspector grinned as he poured himself out a liberal tot. “And I'm pretty well pumped out to-day. However, everything comes to an end sometime and this Burslem case isn't going to be any exception.”

“Isn't it?” Harbord questioned dubiously. “Don't see any way out of the tangle myself.”

“Nevertheless there are indications.” Stoddart took a long pull at his whisky and soda, then he pointed to the brown coat. “Have you found out anything?”

“Well, I have not been altogether unsuccessful,” Harbord said with modest pride. “I worked Fountain Street and Mrs. Halliday for all I was worth, beginning at Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Beach, as you advised. Both of them disclaimed any knowledge of the brown coat. At last by the process of elimination I arrived at a certain Mrs. Johnson. She swore she hadn't seen the coat and knew nothing about it. Mrs. Halliday had only worked for her just lately and she hadn't given her any presents she vowed. She had just done a few days' odd jobs and that was all she knew of Mrs. Halliday. But I didn't take to Mrs. Johnson from the first. There was something fishy about her I thought. She had asked me into the sitting-room before she knew my business, and I took the opportunity of looking round. Then, suddenly there came a knock at the front door. Mrs. Johnson looked scared as if she was expecting bad news and thought it had come. I heard her talking to some one in the hall, but, try as I would, I couldn't make out what it was about. At last they went upstairs and I caught sight of a waste-paper basket poked away under a table. I went over to it; there were several bits of paper there and I was rewarded by finding among them – this.”

He held out an empty envelope that had been through the post. It was addressed to “Mr. Ellerby, 56 Lorraine St., Northlands Square, Bow, E.”

The inspector raised his eyebrows as he read it.

“A find, indeed. You have done well, Harbord.”

“Wait a bit, sir, I am all at sea still,” his subordinate observed. “I was just looking about to see what else there was to be seen when an untidy little slavey came in and said her missus was very sorry but that she would not be able to spare me any more time, and she did not know nothin' about the brown coat. I thought this was a bit of unexpected luck, so I showed her the envelope. ‘Is this gentleman here now?' ‘No, he hasn't been here for ever so long, but the missus she keeps taking his letters in. He is her brother, you see.' Well, that did give me a start, I must say, but I hadn't much time to spare, so I just showed her the brown coat. ‘Ever seen this before, miss?' I said. Her eyes grew round with amazement. ‘Why – I believe – I do believe it is one as used to hang in Mrs. Ellerby's room, but I never saw him wearing it.' ‘When did you last see Mr. Ellerby himself?' I said. She looked at me. ‘I come here in middle of August. He were 'ere sometime after that. Beginning of September it would be when he went away I should think.' ‘Where did he go?' I asked her. She fidgeted with the corner of her apron. ‘I dunno. Missus, I heard her say somethink about foreign parts, but I don't rightly know where.'”

“Well done, Harbord! Now we really have something to go upon.” The very sound of the inspector's voice told that he was well pleased. “Ellerby disappeared from 15 Porthwick Square on June 30th. If he was staying with his sister in Fountain Street in September, that at any rate makes it certain that no harm happened to him – that he merely ran away. And why – that is what we want to know. We must set all our wits to work to find Ellerby and make him explain himself.”

“Yes, sir. But it isn't all such plain sailing as it sounds,” Harbord said slowly. “I thought of the snapshot of Ellerby that we both have. Of course I had mine in my pocket. I fetched it out and showed it to her. ‘Is this a good likeness of Mr. Ellerby?' I asked her. She stared at it. ‘No! That it ain't. So 'elp me, I never saw anybody like this gent.' Rather a facer, wasn't it, sir?”

“It was undoubtedly.” Stoddart's face had altered. He was frowning, biting the end of the pencil with which he had been making notes of what Harbord told him. “Did you ask her any more?”

“Yes. I questioned her as to what the Mr. Ellerby who had stayed there was like. But I didn't get much out of her. She said he looked older than the Ellerby of the photograph, older and whiter – not a bit like him anyway.”

“Older and whiter,” the inspector repeated staring at Harbord in a puzzled fashion. “Still, people do alter, you know.”

“But the girl was very positive that this was not, could not have been, their Ellerby, whom she described as more or less of an invalid, rarely going out.”

“Did she really?” the inspector drummed with his fingers on the table. “Well, I think I will have another tot while I think matters over. Can you get hold of this child again?”

Harbord smiled. “I thought of that. She is only a day girl, but she has to be at Mrs. Johnson's by eight o'clock in the morning and she stays there till eight o'clock or after at night. She gets an hour or two off on a Sunday afternoon, and that is her only recreation, poor kid.”

The inspector rose and took a turn or two up and down.

“Well, there is nothing else to be done; you will have to meet this girl going to work to-morrow morning.”

“To-morrow morning? That won't be losing much time.”

“No, and there isn't much to be lost,” the inspector said with a curious glance at the young man's face. “I will give you another photograph and you must see whether she can recognize it.” 

“She was so very definite about this one that really I don't think it is much use trying her with another,” Harbord said doubtfully.

“No,” assented the inspector. “But suppose – just suppose – that it is not a photograph of the same man!”

“It is inevitable!” Inspector Stoddart said, and there was no faintest shadow of yielding in his tone.

The manager of Stormount's stood a minute staring at the inspector's card. At last he looked up.

“It is extremely awkward. I don't see how it is to be managed in the circumstances.”

“It must be managed,” the inspector said emphatically. “Surely you frequently engage fresh waiters?”

“Naturally. But our waiters don't get much chance of seeing Señor Jaime da Dominiguez. His meals are served in the dining-room of Lady Burslem's suite; and he, as well as Lady Burslem when she takes her meals there, is waited upon by Lady Burslem's own maid.”

“Isn't that rather extraordinary?” Stoddart questioned.

The manager shrugged his shoulders.

“It may be; we are used to all sorts of eccentricities on the part of our guests. I don't know that I have given it a second thought.”

“Lady Burslem herself dines downstairs in the public room, I think you said?”

“Sometimes – not always. I made inquiries, as you desired, and find that Lady Burslem has not dined out since coming to the hotel. Either she has remained in her own rooms or dined at the table d'hote. She has received no visitors that I have been able to trace, except her father Lord Carlford, Miss Burslem, Mrs. Aubrey Dolphin twice, and Mrs. James Burslem. The last-named lady comes most days. Of course there have been other people connected with the late Sir John's business.”

“And Lady Burslem does not go out.” Stoddart frowned.

“Her ladyship's instructions when she came were that she was only in town for a few days on important business, and that nobody was to be admitted to her without an appointment. Every day of course, as you probably know, she goes down to Sir John's business place.”

The inspector pricked up his ears.

“What time does she go?”

“Almost always, but not invariably, in the morning. Occasionally she goes down after lunch as well.”

“And the secretary remains upstairs, dealing with her correspondence?” the inspector said incredulously.

“He remains upstairs certainly,” the manager assented. “According to her ladyship's maid, ‘He write – write all day.' This piece of information she gave to one of the chambermaids and I happened quite accidentally to overhear it.”

The inspector thought for a moment. “As far as I can see the waiter is the best plan I can think of. He must make a mistake and get into the room.”

The manager looked distinctly opposed to this suggestion.

“I really don't think I can allow –”

The inspector held up his hand. “The responsibility is mine, not yours. As for not allowing, that card” – pointing to the one in the manager's hand – “is your authority.”

The other man took a few steps up and down as far as the narrow confines of his office would permit.

“I understand that fully, and also that I have no choice in the matter. But this and similar hotels in Paris and Brussels are the property of a syndicate. I hope you will speak for me should my conduct come up before my committee.”

“I don't think it is likely to do so,” Stoddart observed comfortingly. “But, should anything be said to me, I will of course bear testimony to your complete innocence in the matter.”

The manager did not look satisfied, but he perforce had to remain silent.