Crime at Tattenham Corner (3 page)

Stoddart went in with him. Harbord stood with the other three at the door. They heard a cry of horror, then a hoarse sob, and Ellerby's voice, broken now:

“Oh, it is Sir John, sure enough! Oh, yes, his poor face is all swollen, but I could swear to him anywhere. There is the dress coat I put on him yesterday evening, and his shoes, and his eyeglass on his cord, and his wrist-watch. Oh, it is Sir John safe enough. And what are we going to do without him? And her poor young ladyship – and Miss Pamela?”

He came out wiping his eyes openly.

“You identify the body positively as that of Sir John Burslem?” Major Vincent questioned authoritatively.

“Oh, yes, sir, there is not no doubt possible.” Ellerby's careful, rather precise grammar was forgotten now in his excitement and his own real grief. “I could tell without looking at his face,” he went on, “for there's just the things I put out for him last night, little thinking. And her poor ladyship with a big party today going to the races!”

“The races – by Jove!” Stoddart looked at his watch and then at Harbord. “Of course that accounts for all the traffic on the road; it's Derby Day!” 

“You are right, sir.”

The valet put away his handkerchief and steadied his voice. “It seems but the other day that poor Sir John was telling us to put our shirts on Peep o' Day – ‘Best colt Matt Harker ever trained,' he says, ‘and a dead cert for the Derby; maybe the last we'll have before the tote comes in,' Sir John said, ‘so get the best you can beforehand.' And we did, all of us, at Sir John's own bucket shop.”

Stoddart's face altered indefinably. “I hope you didn't build on the colt winning, Mr. Ellerby.”

“That I have, sir.” The man looked at him half fearfully. “All my own savings and my wife's I have put on, and I borrowed my sister's too. It is a tidy lot I stand to win when Peep o' Day passes the winning-post! Though poor Sir John will never lead her in now.”

“Nor anyone else as the winner of the Derby,” Stoddart said gravely. Don't you realize what that” – with a nod at the barn – “means to all of you who have put your money on Peep o' Day?”

Ellerby began to tremble. “No, sir, I don't. But we got our money on right enough. Sir John, he said it was as safe as if it was in the bank.”

“So he may have thought, though in a gamble there is often a slip betwixt the cup and the lip,” Stoddart said dryly. “But don't you know that an owner's death renders void all his horses' nominations and entries. Peep o' Day is automatically scratched. If Sir John Burslem had died one minute before the race was run, and, not knowing, Peep o' Day's number had gone up, he would be disqualified. Today will be a grand day for the bookies. The favourite scratched at the last minute. You get your money back though, but we must wire at once for the sake of the poor devils who are putting on, on the course. Harker's the trainer, you said.”

“Yes, sir,” Ellerby stammered, his face working painfully. “Matt Harker said that Peep o' Day was the best three-year-old he had ever had in training. He carried all the stable money.”

“Well, it is to be hoped Harker hedged a bit,” Stoddart said slowly. “For Peep o' Day won't run to-day. And I wonder, I wonder –”

Surely, surely, no hour had ever been so long! Sophie Burslem twisted herself round in bed once more. It was morning. Of course it was morning. The sun was streaming through her open window. She could hear the pleasant, familiar sounds of everyday life, but the sound for which she was waiting and watching did not come. At last she caught the echo of voices, distant at first, then nearer. One of the gardeners was talking on the terrace beneath the window.

“Ay! if Peep o' Day brings it off and I ain't no manner of doubt that he will, seeing Sir John himself he said to me, ‘You like a bit of a gamble sometimes, I know, Germain. Well, you will have the safest gamble of your life if you put your shirt on Peep o' Day. Best colt I've ever had,' Sir John said. Well, my missus and me we drawed our nest-egg out o' the post office, an' we put it on Peep o' Day, months ago, and we got 100 to 8 then. I reckon we will be made folks tomorrow.”

“I am wishing I had done the same,” another voice chimed in, “but I thought there's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, and so I waited until this morning, and now I'll only get starting price, and they're saying it will be odds on. So 'tain't any good backing Perlyon for a place as I had reckoned on doing. 'Tis sure to be place betting.”

“Ay, ay,” the first speaker assented. “I had a tip for Perlyon myself, but –”

The voices died away in the distance. As Sophie Burslem lay for a moment perfectly still on her pillow, two tears welled up in her eyes and rolled miserably down her cheeks. Peep o' Day! Peep o' Day! Those poor men had put their savings on Peep o' Day. And now Peep o' Day would never win the Derby!

A minute more and there came the sound for which she had been waiting – a tap at the door. She pulled the lever that raised the latch and her maid came in with her tea. She set it on the table beside the bed.

“It's a lovely morning, my lady. And Sir John was saying yesterday that fine weather was all that Peep o' Day wanted. He likes to hear his hoofs rattle, Sir John said. And if it had been heavy going it would have been all against him.”

“Yes,” said Sophie Burslem faintly.

She was stretching herself lazily while from beneath her half-closed eyelids her eyes were keenly watching every moment of the maid's. Had she not been called a good amateur actress in the days that were gone? She would have to act today if she had never acted in her life before.

“I have put all my savings on Peep o' Day,” the maid went on. “My young man, he has done the same. We shall have something to talk about tonight, I expect, my lady.”

Beneath the silken counterpane Sophie Burslem's hands were twisting themselves together in an agony. Then came another of the sounds she was dreading. In the adjoining room some one was moving about opening and shutting drawers; then came silence; then a loud knocking at the door of her room. She made herself speak quietly:

“What is that, Forbes? Just see, will you?” Then she waited again in that blank, awful expectancy. There was a murmured colloquy at the door; strain her ears as she might she could only catch a word or two.

At last Forbes came back. “It is James, my lady; he wants to know if you can tell him where Sir John is?”

“Sir John! I don't know. Has he gone out?”

“I suppose so, my lady. Somebody wants to see him on important business, and he is not in his room. They are saying he has not slept there, my lady.”

“What?” Sophie Burslem raised herself on one elbow. Then she laughed. “Nonsense! Really for a moment you quite frightened me, Forbes. I expect Sir John has gone out to put a little more on Peep o' Day. He went over to Oxley last night, you know. Mr. Harker said he had never had a colt he felt so confident about. He is a beauty, Forbes!”

“Yes, my lady.” 

But the maid still hesitated. Was she really watching her furtively, Sophie wondered, or was it just her own fancy? Was she always going to be fanciful now?

“James says – please what is he to say to the man on the phone, my lady? He has rung up twice before this morning, James says, and it's from Scotland Yard, my lady.”

“Scotland Yard!” For one moment Sophie Burslem's heart seemed to stop beating; then went on again with great suffocating throbs. This time she was sure that her laugh did her credit. So had she laughed on the stage in the old days at Elmhurst. “Poor Forbes! You really look quite frightened. Don't you know that detectives are down at Oxley watching Peep o' Day? It is something to do with that, of course. But why is James up here? Where is Ellerby?”

“I don't know, my lady. He went out ever so early this morning; we are wondering when he will be back, my lady.”

“Rather an extraordinary proceeding on Ellerby's part,” Sophie commented dryly. “Get my bath ready, please, Forbes, and tell James Sir John will be in directly, I expect.”

She slipped on the side of the bed as she spoke and sat there watching Forbes as she went into the bathroom and turned on the tap.

Sophie Burslem looked very young this morning – too young to be Sir John's wife. She was a dainty vision in her soft, silken night-robe, with her pretty rounded neck and arms bare. Her shingled, chestnut hair was ruffled, it needed no permanent waving. The pink and white skin was as clear as ever, only the great, appealing brown eyes had altered indefinably. In the big pier-glass opposite she fancied that others could see the terrible fear that lurked in them, the dark circles round them. Long ago some one used to tell her that she had laughing eyes. Would anybody ever say that again? she asked herself. Just now they seemed to move of their own volition, glancing here and there into every corner fearfully. Suddenly they were caught by a tumbled heap of white by the sofa near the window. It was the frock she had worn last night just as she had thrown it down. She stared at it in a species of fascinated horror. Surely she was not mistaken. Across one fold there was an ugly, dark stain!

She got up and went over to it, her bare feet pattering over the polished boards between.

Forbes came back. “My lady, my lady, your slippers.”

Sophie turned round and stood before the heap on the floor, her hands behind her, her breath coming quick and fast.

“Nonsense! I don't want slippers. You can go, Forbes. I will ring when I am ready.”

Thus dismissed the maid had no choice but to depart. When the door had closed behind her, Sophie turned, and swiftly, noiselessly, almost threw herself on the tumbled white frock! Yes, she had made no mistake. Right in front, just where the silver girdle was caught up by a buckle of brilliants, a reddish brown stain ran almost down to the hem. She put out one finger and touched it – it was dry, quite dry. But there wasn't one minute to lose. At all hazards that ghastly stain must be done away with. She tore at it with her small, strong hands, but though the silk was soft it was tough, and she could make no impression on it. She caught up a pair of nail-scissors and cut and jagged ruthlessly. Then when she held the long, ragged strip in her hand, she gazed at the remains of what had been one of her prettiest gowns, in despair.

What on earth would Forbes say? But there was no time to think of that now. She caught up the remains of the frock and running into her dressing- room thrust it deep down into the well of the great wardrobe that took up all one side of the room. Then she crammed other things on the top and shut the door firmly. Later on she must think of something to tell Forbes, for now there was nothing to be done but to go on as usual until – She went into her bathroom, crushing up the piece of silk she had torn off in her hand.

She splashed in and out of the warm, scented water, then, when she had rubbed herself down, she lighted a match and tried to set the silk on fire. In vain, it would do nothing but smoulder and make a pungent, acrid smell of burning. What in Heaven's name was she to do? She dashed open the windows as far as they would go; she unstoppered one of the great bottles of scent on the dressing-table and flung the contents about bathroom and bedroom. Then a sudden inspiration came to her.

Inside the dressing-case, with its wonderful gold and jewelled fittings, which had been one of her husband's wedding presents, there was a secret drawer. She ran across, put the silk in the drawer, fastening it with a catch of which she alone knew the secret.

She rang for Forbes. The maid came in, wrinkling up her nose.

“Such a smell of burning, my lady!” Her beadlike, inquisitive eyes glanced round the room.

“I don't notice it,” said Sophie. “Perhaps the gardeners are burning weeds outside. Give me my things quickly, Forbes; I must not be late for breakfast. Sir John means to start early.”

The maid said nothing, but her sniff became accentuated as she went on with her mistress's toilet, set the soft shingled hair, and finally brought out the gown of grey marocain which Lady Burslem had decided to wear for the races.

Sophie let herself be dressed as if she had been a lay figure. All the while she was listening, listening. At last she was dressed, and her maid clasped a short string of pearls round her neck in place of the long necklace she generally wore. 

She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. So she had seen herself look a hundred times – and yet would not the first person she met see the horror shadowing her eyes?

She went down to the breakfast-room. Everything was just as usual. A pile of letters lay beside her plate. Sir John's letters and
The Times
, folded as he liked it, lay by his. She went round the table and sat down. The very orderly, everyday aspect of the room held something sinister, some suggestion of evil to her jaundiced mind.

Though she drank a cup of tea feverishly and played with an omelette, she could not really eat anything. Presently she heard a knock and a ring at the front door.

She caught the echo of a voice in the hall. It sounded like that of her sister Clare – Mrs. Aubrey Dolphin. She was going with them to the races, of course, but She listened again. Another moment Clare came quickly into the room. With a word to the manservant she closed the door behind her. One look at her face told Lady Burslem that the supreme moment for which she had been waiting was here at last.

Clare came swiftly across the room and caught her sister in her arms.

“Sophie, darling, I bring you terrible news. You must be brave, dear, for all our sakes.”

Sophie tried to free herself from the encircling arms. “What is it?” she questioned hoarsely. “Not Dad!”

Mrs. Dolphin would not let her go.

“No, no, my darling. It is John –”

“John –”

If there had been one drop of colour left in Sophie's face it was all drained away now.