Rolling Stone (12 page)

“I expect she saw the same as I did,” said Peter cheerfully. “She must have done. Her window was over the one that was burgled. I saw her looking out of it earlier on—a nice romantic scene. But why does she say it wasn't one of the servants?”

“The cook's too fat. The man's left-handed. And the other three sleep out.” Garrett's tone was one of wrath and gloom.

“Then,” said Peter equably, “it was either Mrs. Cresswell, Mr. Cresswell, Mrs. Yorke, Miss Margesson, Mr. Applegarth, Mr. Ridgefield, Fabian Roxley, or Terry Clive.”

CHAPTER XVII

“Anyhow it's none of my business,” said Garrett explosively. “Burglaries and murders and picture thieves, they've none of them got anything to do with me.” He thrust with the heel of his slipper at the smouldering log. A sliver caught and went up in a shower of sparks. “You said this man Reilly talked. What did he say?”

Peter was reminded of a terrier who has been called to heel and sneaks back to have another smell at the forbidden rat hole. Frank knew he was poaching—had known it all along—but he couldn't for the life of him help nosing a trail.

“What did the fellow say?” growled Garrett.

Peter shut his eyes for a moment. He was calling up the shabby, frowsy room; the tumbled bed; the muttered delirium of the dying man—words that ran into one another and made no sense, sentences which came tumbling out; and then that low incoherent muttering again. He said,

“Wait a minute—get a pencil and paper and write it down.”

“I'm getting it.”

“There's not much.”

Garrett crossed the room, came back, and said,

“Carry on.”

Peter spoke—quite low, so as not to disturb the picture or drown that muttering voice.

“He was pretty far gone. It was this sort of thing—‘The money's not enough.' He kept on saying that, and that they told him there wasn't any risk but he didn't believe it. He said, ‘You're telling me—and perhaps there's something I can tell. I said I'd find out who you were—didn't I? And I will. And when I do, you'll have to pay me more than a postman's wages. And if you think I can't find out, why, then you can think again.'” Peter gave out the words slowly, a few at a time, and heard the scribble of a hard-driven pencil. He went on. “Then he said, ‘I know—I know.' And then, ‘Maud Millicent.'”

Garrett said, “Good Lord!” in a voice exactly like the terrier's bark.

Peter put up a hand.

“Go on—get it down. ‘Maud Millicent,' and, ‘What have you got to say to that? Maud Millicent Simpson. What have you got to say to that? If I could find her, I could find you—and I'm going to find you.' And then he broke off and wanted to know what he'd been saying, and wanted me to get him brandy. And that's about all.”

He looked round and saw Garrett's eyes like points of steel.

“Maud Millicent Simpson. He said that? You're sure?”

“Quite sure. Why?”

“Because,” said Garrett grimly, “if she's in this, I'm in it too.”

The terrier had caught sight of his rat, and there was no holding him. Peter felt just a little sorry for the rat. He thought he would hate to have Garrett on his trail. He asked with some curiosity,

“Who is the lady—an old flame?”

Garrett used a regrettable expression about Maud Millicent Simpson.

“She's beaten me twice, and I suppose she thinks she can do it again.”

“Who is she?”

Garrett showed his teeth.

“Maud Millicent Deane—that's how she started—parson's daughter, and the cleverest criminal alive. She worked with the Vulture, and when we got him, she carried on with what was left of the organization. She married first a bloke called Simpson, and then that gasbag Bernard Mannister. Took her brother's place as his secretary, and took everyone in. Used Mannister as a catspaw. Ran a blackmailing racket, with herself in the middle of it as a medium—called herself Asphodel. That was the Denny affair.
¹
You won't remember it.”

“Yes, I do,” he said—“vaguely.”

“She got away that time by the skin of her teeth. Then she cropped up again, impersonating Henry Postlethwaite.
²
He's a distinguished professor. She went to him as his secretary, managed to isolate him from his family, and was caught out on the edge of murdering him and a niece. Well, she got away that time too. If she's in this business, she won't get away again if I can help it. But if she's in it, you're up against something—all of us are. She can write any hand, use any voice, impersonate a dozen different types. In these two affairs I've been telling you about she passed unquestioned as Mannister's secretary, a correct and colourless young man—as Asphodel, an exotic type of medium—as Della Delorne, an ex-chorus girl—as Miss Cannock, an old maid secretary—and as Henry Postlethwaite himself. Nobody suspected her in any of these roles. Whatever part she's playing now, nobody's suspecting her—you may take that for gospel. She's a damned sight too clever.”

“How old is she?” said Peter.

Garrett shook himself.

“Thirty-eight—thirty-nine—something like that. Mannister died a couple of years ago, so she's a widow again. You're sure Spike Reilly said Maud Millicent Simpson?”

“Absolutely certain. He'd got a letter about her too.”

“
What!”
Garrett fairly shouted the word. “Why didn't you say so?”

“
Cher maître
, I am saying so. Anyhow it was in his pocket-book, and in case you're interested, here it is.” He extracted two flimsy sheets and passed them over.

Garrett glared at him and at them, snorted, read at a furious rate, and then turned back again to the beginning.

“Who the devil's Louie?”

“I'm afraid I can't help you.”

Garrett made the sound which is usually written “Pshaw!”

“What's the good of educating the masses? Here's a woman who's had some sort of an education, probably at the country's expense—doesn't put her address, doesn't put a date, and she signs herself Louie!”

Peter chuckled.

“She didn't know that the Foreign Office was going to be interested. The late Spike obviously knew her surname, and where she lived.”

“Then I wish he could change places with you,” said Garrett brutally.

Peter burst out laughing.

“My dear Frank, you overwhelm me—a little more than kin and less than kind, and blood's thicker than water, and all that! In fact a live Spike Reilly is what you want, and if you could consign me to his cemetery and have him here instead, it would be O.K. by you.”

Garrett actually betrayed an irritable but distinctly human feeling.

“Don't be more of a damned fool than you can help,” he growled. He banged the sheets with his fist. “Don't you see, this woman knew Maud Millicent sixteen years ago or so when she was married to Simpson. She knew her then, and she knows her now. Whenever this letter was written, it wasn't more than a week or two ago. The ink's quite fresh, the creases in the paper are quite fresh. It mayn't have been written more than a few days ago. And I'm prepared to eat my boots if Maud Millicent Simpson isn't behind this picture racket and the whole bag of tricks. They're tricks she's used before, and there's nothing she don't know about them. Intrigue, blackmail, murder—she's used them all. And here we've got someone who knows Maud Millicent—knows
who
she is and
where
she is—and we've got to find her.”

Peter lifted a hand and let it fall again.

“Well, you can always try. A pity I'm not Spike Reilly—he knew.”

Garrett kicked the log again viciously. This time it broke into a blaze and scorched his coat. A reek of burning wool joined the shag and the smell of leather.

“What did he want to die for when he might have been useful?”

Peter laughed.

“You know, I very gravely doubt whether he had any urge to be useful—especially to you. He was all set for a little quiet blackmail, I think. And in any case if he was alive instead of me, he wouldn't be sitting here talking to you, and you wouldn't know that he'd ever heard of Maud Millicent Simpson.”

Garrett gave his short barking laugh.

“Well, that's true enough.”

“And now,” said Peter, straightening up and taking his arm from the mantelpiece—“now, Frank, what do I do next? There's a stolen Turner in my car. What about it? Do I turn it over to the police and tell them what I know, or do I go on standing in with my criminal employers in the hope of finding out who they are?”

Garrett said, “You go on standing in.”

“And if I'm arrested with the Turner on me—what happens then? For all I know, it may be part of the plan to have me arrested and put the Oppenstein murder on me too.”

Garrett shook his head.

“You're all right about that—you weren't in England.”

“True,
cher maître
. The real Sherlock touch! You know, I keep on forgetting I'm not Spike Reilly—and he would have been for it, because he
was
in England.”

“Of course I could tell them about you at the Yard,” said Garrett in a reluctant voice.

Peter turned a determined face on him.

“No, you don't, Frank! You don't tell anyone, or I'm off. The job's quite dangerous enough without making it any worse. You don't know, and I don't know who it is we're up against, and if a whisper of what I'm doing gets to him, or to her, or to them, well, I'd be for it. You wouldn't get stung for a wreath this time. No fuss, no flowers, no drums, no funeral notes—just a particularly inconspicuous grave, or perhaps not even that. An unknown body fished up out of the Thames a good deal the worse for wear. Somehow I don't fancy it, and if you're going to open your mouth to a single solitary soul, I'm off.”

Garrett looked at him in silence. For once his face was expressionless. Then he said,

“Mean that literally?”

“Quite.”

“Roxley saw your letters.”

“Both of them?”

Garrett jerked his head in an affirmative nod.

Peter tried to remember what he had said. In the first letter he had spoken of Spike Reilly and said he was following him to his pub. In the second, the short note written after he had changed passports, he had said to watch Preedo's Library on the Friday morning, and—“I shall be there.” But Roxley wouldn't have expected him to be there, because Roxley must have been told that Peter Talbot was dead. Roxley must have believed that Peter Talbot was dead. Roxley must go on believing that. Everyone must go on believing that. He said in a decided voice,

“Roxley's got to think I'm dead. You're certainly not to tell Roxley.”

“Why, you damned young fool, he's my secretary. What have you got in your head?”

“Your own list of suspects,” said Peter coolly. He proceeded to recite the list in a perfectly level voice. “James Cresswell, Emily Cresswell, Joseph Applegarth, Mrs. Yorke, Norah Margesson, Terry Clive, and Fabian Roxley.”

¹
Walk with Care, by Patricia Wentworth
.

²
Dead or Alive, by Patricia Wentworth
.

CHAPTER XVIII

At ten o'clock on Monday morning Miss Blanche Hollinger opened her front door and stood for a moment looking up at the sky. Was it going to rain, or was it not? And if it was going to rain, would she have time to go round the corner to that nice flower shop and get back before the rain began? Or would it be better to take an umbrella? She had on her second-best shoes, quite stout with laces—they would not matter. And her black cloth coat was no longer new, but the fur collar would get damp, and when it was damp the worn places looked a great deal worse than they really were. And then of course a hat, however old, was not improved by a shower.

Miss Hollinger's hat was a summer hat which she was wearing out. With care it might do for rainy days in the spring. It was black like her coat, with a straw crown and a brim of alternate bands of ribbon and straw. There was a round paste ornament on the right-hand side, and a bunch of mixed clover on the left. The clover had an extremely fatigued appearance, but Miss Hollinger thought it did very well. She had a scarf which combined the clover colours about her neck, and she thought the effect highly successful.

She was of middle height and rather indeterminate colouring. Her hair might once have been brown and have lost its colour preparatory to turning grey, or it might from childhood have straggled about her neck in these same mouse-coloured wisps. She did her best with a crimp, with pins, with combs, and a controlling net, but odd pieces and ends were prone to escape, and even in church Miss Hollinger could be seen adjusting them. In feature she was as indeterminate as in colouring. Her expression was mild and hesitant. Her eyes peered through slightly tinted glasses.

Perhaps the glasses made the sky seem greyer than it really was. She went back into the house and came out with her umbrella on her wrist and an old drab raincoat over her arm.

In the flower shop she asked the price of everything.

“I want a few flowers for a friend—a bereaved friend. Those lovely roses now.… Oh, no, I'm afraid—not six shillings a dozen, much as I should like to. Orchids would not be suitable—and of course very expensive. But what about those beautiful carnations?… Six-pence each! Oh well, I am afraid—you see it would take so many to make a bunch. Now those are really very beautiful chrysanthemums.… Oh, yes, of course—specimen blooms, and perhaps not really appropriate—in the circumstances. I think perhaps something simpler—just a simple bunch. Now what about these?”

“Those are two shillings, madam—all except the pink ones.”

Miss Hollinger put her head on one side and peered at a slightly dashed bunch of magenta chrysanthemums.