Mr. Zero (19 page)

Gay dried her eyes, and presently went upstairs to Sylvia.

XXVI

Sylvia was lying on the old-fashioned couch in her room. She looked pale and depressed, but she brightened up when Gay came in.

“Are they still asking everybody questions?” she said in a plaintive voice. “They do ask a lot, don't they? I'm sure they went on and on at me until I felt quite giddy. Will they go away soon, do you think?”

“I don't know,” said Gay. Her heart felt like a heavy stone inside her and her throat was dry. She would have liked to put her head down in Sylvia's lap and weep, but you couldn't do that sort of thing.

Sylvia sighed.

“It would be nice if they would go away, wouldn't it? I don't mind Algy—he's nice, but I wish the Inspector would go away, and that Mr. Brook, and Colonel Anstruther. Why did they want to ask me all those questions? It isn't as if they could possibly think that I shot Francis.” She shivered, and her voice had a frightened sound. “They
couldn't
think that—Gay, they couldn't!” They kept wanting to know why I picked up the pistol. And I
don't
know. It was all so quick and so dreadful. But they can't think I did it. Why, you were there, and Algy. Why couldn't it have been Algy?”

“Sylvia!”

“I mean, why don't they think it was Algy?”

“They do,” said Gay, and felt a cold breath of terror touch her and go past.

Sylvia said, “Oh,” and then, “What a good thing.”

“
Sylvia!
”

A little colour had come into Sylvia's cheeks.

“You needn't say
‘Sylvia!'
like that. I mean, if they think it was Algy they won't go on thinking it was me, will they, darling? And then they won't go on asking me all those silly questions.”

Bright anger looked out of Gay's eyes, but it faded again. What was the good of being angry? It never had been any use with Sylvia. She said,

“Sylly, don't you truly remember how you came to have the pistol? Let's go over it together and see if it doesn't come back to you. What was the first thing that happened when you got to the window in the hedge?”

“I had my torch,” said Sylvia, “and the light went through the window, and Mr. Zero said, ‘Is that you?' and I said, ‘Yes.' And he said, ‘Have you got those letters?' and I said I had, and he asked if I'd looked at them and I said of course I hadn't. I mean, why should I—horrid things. But he went on about was I sure I hadn't, and I said, “Don't be silly.' And then he said, ‘Hand them over quick and put out that torch!' I think he said ‘that damned torch.' And I wanted to know why, and he got angry and said, ‘Put it out at once, I tell you!' And then Francis came running, and there was a fight, and the pistol went off and I picked it up.”

“Sylly, how could you pick it up when they were on one side of the hedge and you were on the other?”

Sylvia stared with those blue eyes of hers.

“He shot Francis, and he threw it down and I picked it up.”

“You mean he threw it in at the window? Is that what you mean?”

“I suppose so,” said Sylvia in a helpless voice. “Yes, that's what he must have done, because something hit my shoulder and made a bruise there. I expect it was the pistol.”

“Did you tell Colonel Anstruther that?”

“Oh, no darling,” said Sylvia. “I've only just thought about it myself.”

“You must tell him,” said Gay. “Now, Sylly—think! What happened to the letters?”

“I don't know, darling.”

“Just think. Did you give them to Mr. Zero? You say he told you to, but did you do it? Did you?”

“I don't know, darling—at least—”

“Good girl—go on.”

Sylvia looked puzzled.

“If I'd given them to him I wouldn't remember crunching them up in my hand when they were fighting, would I?”

“I shouldn't think so. Is that what you remember?”

Sylvia's voice had a groping sound.

“Well, I did think so—just now—when you asked me—but I don't know really—I just had the sort of feeling of the corners running into my hand—” She gazed at her open palms as if she expected to find the mark of the stolen letter there.

“But Sylly—”

The telephone bell rang from the table beside the big four-post bed. Sylvia got up as if she were glad of the interruption. She put the receiver to her ear, and heard a voice which set her heart knocking against her side.

“You know who is speaking, Lady Colesborough.”

Sylvia said, “Do I?” And then panic took her, and she added in a choking hurry, “Yes, yes, yes—of course I do. What do you want?”

The voice said, “I want those letters. Where are they?”

“I don't know. Everyone asks me that, and I don't know.”

“The police haven't got them?” Mr. Zero's voice was smooth, but there was a sound in it as if the smoothness might break—quite suddenly, at any moment.

Sylvia said, “Oh,
no
. Oh, I'm sure they haven't, because they keep asking me—everyone does.”

“And what do you say?”

“I don't know,” said Sylvia. “I mean, that's what I say, but I
don't
know.”

“Keep right on saying it,” said Mr. Zero, and rang off.

Sylvia, turning round with an expression of relief, was met by a demanding look from Gay and a quick “What was that?” The relief faded.

“He wanted to know about the letters too. I told him I didn't know.”

“Sylly, who was it? Who were you speaking to? Who asked you about the letters?”

“It was Mr. Zero,” said Sylvia. Her voice began confidently and then shook. It shook most on the name.

“Mr. Zero!”

Sylvia caught her breath in something like a sob.

“He oughtn't to, ought he? Not if he shot Francis. I don't think he ought to ring me up like that.”

Gay had a startled look.

“You ought to tell them at once. They ought to find out where the call came from.”

But Sylvia shook her head.

“Oh, no,” she said.

“Sylly!”

“He wouldn't like it at all,” said Sylvia with conviction.

Gay looked, opened her mouth to speak, shut it again, and ran out of the room. What was the good of speaking to Sylvia?

She ran all the way downstairs and into the study. The three men who were there all turned to look at her. Inspector Boyce admired the scarlet in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes. Mr. Brook wondered what had brought her there in such a flying hurry. Colonel Anstruther was confirmed in his convictions that girls had no manners nowadays.

Gay stood with the open door in her hand and said, with the words tripping over each other,

“He's just called her up! He's been talking to her—on the telephone—Mr. Zero! So it couldn't be Algy—you
must
see that it couldn't be Algy if he's just been talking to Sylvia on the telephone!”

Colonel Anstruther said, “Bless my soul!” and Mr. Brook said, “Won't you please come in and shut the door, Miss Hardwicke, and sit down and tell us what you mean?”

She came in, and the door fell to with a bang.

“You must see that it can't be Algy now!”

Mr. Brook said, “Why?” and looked at her.

She stamped an angry foot.

“Didn't you hear what I said? Or are you all too stupid to take it in? I tell you Mr. Zero rang up—just now, just this minute, while I was up in Sylvia's room. He wanted to know about the letters. So how could he be Algy? Algy couldn't be telephoning to Sylvia—you must see that. Algy's in the house.”

Colonel Anstruther said “Tcha!” and would have gone on to say something else, but Mr. Brook was before him.

“Mr. Somers went out in his car about twenty minutes ago,” he said.

XXVII

When Algy left Gay in the drawing-room he went straight down to the stables and got out the Bentley, which had been consigned to a coach-house. He wondered whether anyone would stop him. Hardly, at this juncture—unless they were prepared to arrest him then and there. No, he fancied that they wouldn't do that—not till the safe had been opened at any rate. His own feeling was that if he stayed in the house another minute he would find himself telling Gay just what he thought of her, or old Anstruther just what he thought of him, and he didn't want to do either. He wanted to get on a straight road and let the Bentley out.

He emerged upon the lane, turned right-handed, and was aware of a plodding figure head, a figure in a dark blue suit and a bowler hat, not at all the figure of a man who walks for pleasure in the muddy lane. Algy recognized Sturrock the butler, wondered where he was off to, and then remembered that this was Sunday afternoon. It was probably Sturrock's afternoon out, and the fact that his master had been shot last night was not, apparently, to interfere with his taking it. On an impulse Algy slowed down as he passed, opened the door on the butler's side, and said,

“Like a lift, Sturrock?”

The man stood still. He had an egg-shaped face, pale and smoothly shave. His manner was respectful as he said,

“I should be very much obliged, if it wouldn't be troubling you, sir.”

His voice suggested that he served a house in mourning—a rich voice, with a kind of funeral hush upon it. Algy didn't like it very much—or him. He was shortly, “No trouble at all—jump in,” and shut his own door again.

At any time in the past fifteen years it would have been impossible for Sturrock to jump. He climbed in at the back and closed the door noiselessly behind him. A man of weight, a man of dignity, a man who certainly would not walk for choice. Algy wondered where he was bound for, and said without turning round,

“Well, where can I drop you? Colebrook?”

“If you are not going any farther, sir.”

“Railing any good to you?”

“I shall be very grateful, sir. I was afraid I might have missed the bus, but I shall get one back all right. It's my half day, and there seemed no reason why I should stay in. I mentioned it to the Inspector.”

“I'm afraid I didn't,” said Algy.

Sturrock pursued the subject in an earnest, painstaking manner.

“The Inspector said it would be quite all right, sir. But I shall not be taking the full time. There is a bus at half past four—I thought of catching that. I shall be in the house again before five o'clock. I told the Inspector that such was my intention. I told him I shouldn't feel comfortable about being out of the house for long—not in the circumstances. William has only been there a short time, and, as I said to the Inspector, if there was to be any emergency it would be beyond him, especially after last night.”

Algy was profoundly bored with Sturrock's scruples. Railing was, mercifully, only four miles away. He dropped the butler in the market-place, and as he drove out of the square on the farther side, his driving mirror showed him a blue suit and bowler hat disappearing within the doors of the Hand and Flower. If the walls had been transparent, he would presently have seen them esconced within a telephone booth, the bowler hat a thought pushed back, the eyes beneath its brim intent, watchful, and aware.

Algy Somers got back to Cole Lester at half past four. Mr. Patterson, Sir Francis Colesborough's solicitor, had arrived, and the business of opening the safe was going forward in the study behind closed doors. It fell therefore to Algy to receive Mr. Montagu Lushington when he arrived at about a quarter to five. He had Mr. Brewster with him, and explained that they were on their way back to town—“And I must say, Algy, that you have a singular knack of getting into the limelight. Why you must needs get yourself mixed up in a murder case at this juncture! Heaven knows there's enough talk already. I'll see Brook, but things will just have to take their course. Maud is staying on with her sister for a day or two, so I'm taking Brewster back with me. I hope Lady Colesborough won't think we're intruding. I suppose she is keeping to her room.”

Algy very nearly said, “Lady Colesborough doesn't think,” but pulled himself up in time. It seemed rather difficult to find the right thing to say. If Brewster hadn't been there, he could have talked freely to Monty, but there was Brewster, a little embarrassed, a little shocked, and obviously just a little thrilled at finding himself in the midst of a case which would be front page news in every paper in the country tomorrow, and actually shaking hands with the principal suspect.

Algy said he didn't think Sylvia would come down. He supposed that someone would bring them some tea. They were in the drawing-room, and to the drawing-room upon the stroke of five tea was borne processionally by Sturrock and two attendant footmen. Algy thought the butler had cut his afternoon uncommon short. He ventured a “Got your bus all right, Sturrock,” and received a glance of dignified rebuke and a quiet “Yes, thank you, sir.”

Neither Gay nor Sylvia appeared, but presently Colonel Anstruther and Mr. Patterson came in, from which Algy deduced that the business of clearing the safe had been despatched. If he expected any information he was disappointed. Colonel Anstruther drank several cups of tea all scalding hot, and half emptied the sugar-basin without perceptibly sweetening his temper. He also partook of buttered toast, scone, and three slices of chocolate cake. These exertions left no room for conversation. He ate, he drank, he appeared to be on the point of saying “Tcha!” several times, and he regarded Mr. Brewster's painstaking endeavours to make conversation with warm dislike. Mr. Patterson, who only drank hot water and refused food rather as if he suspected it of being poisoned, was quite as uncommunicative. Algy thought he had never seen an elderly gentleman in a worse temper.

Monty discoursed upon migratory birds, a perfectly safe subject in which no one took any interest except Cyril Brewster, who, like a dutiful acolyte, supplied at intervals such responses as “How wonderful!” and “Marvellous indeed!” Not one of those meals which lend gaiety to social life.