The Dartmoor Enigma (11 page)

“Oh no, but I'd like to ask him a few questions. He may be an important witness in a case we have on hand. If by any chance you remember that name you forgot, you'll be sure to let us know. Didn't you make him register as he was stopping the night in the hotel?”

“Well, sir, you know what it is, people coming in and out the whole day long. I can't swear to it that he was made to register, especially as he was a hiker. I hope you're not going to mention this to the Devon police and get me into trouble.”

“No,” said Richardson with a smile, “the Devon police must look after their own job.”

Richardson had left Sergeant Jago in Winterton with instructions to see what happened to Pengelly during his absence. When he returned to the police station Jago came out to meet him.

“Pengelly's still in the cells below,” he murmured. “When I asked the Superintendent what time he was going up to the quarry, he said he could do nothing until you came back, because you'd got the car.”

“Quite right, but I'll slip in and tell Mr. Carstairs that I shan't want the car again to-day.”

He found the Superintendent in his own room, looking through a report from his own sub-divisions.

“You haven't been long, Mr, Richardson,” he said. “No, but I've got some quite interesting information by my visit to the Duchy Hotel.” He proceeded to describe his interview with the manager, but he noticed that Carstairs was not listening.

“I suppose you still insist on my sending Pengelly up to the quarry?” said the Superintendent.

“It's not a question of insisting. I thought you agreed this morning that that should be done. The car's at the door now.”

“All right, then; I'll send him up, and if he pays his fine I suppose we must leave him there.”

“Yes, there's no other course possible, if I'm to continue on the case.”

Carstairs went heavily out of the room and could be heard giving orders to two of his men. Presently Pengelly passed the door in handcuffs and was taken out to the car. Richardson found Carstairs on the steps, superintending the operation. He led him aside.

“Those cuffs must come off before he gets to the quarry gate,” he said with decision. “It'll ruin everything if he goes clanking in with the cuffs on. Surely the sergeant can carry them in his pouch and use them only if the man attempts to bolt.”

Very reluctantly, Carstairs gave the desired order; the car drove off.

“Four o'clock,” said Richardson, looking at his watch; “I'll get Sergeant Jago to come with me to The Firs, and ask Mrs. Dearborn to allow us to look for any private papers that her husband may have left behind him.”

“Certainly, Mr. Richardson, you couldn't do better.”

The two officers walked towards The Firs.

“Did you get anything useful out of that manager?” asked Jago.

“It would have been useful if he hadn't got a memory like a sieve.” Richardson related the incident. “If he could have remembered that name I should feel that we were within a measurable distance of clearing up the case, but when a man forgets, and then says that it wasn't quite a common name, and you suggest various names to him, you are asking for trouble. You know the kind of thing, ‘Smith? Jones? Johnson? Wilson? Clark?' Ten to one he'll say it was Wilson, to the best of his belief, and then, when you've found your man and he answers to the name of Carter, your witness will say cheerfully, ‘Yes, how stupid of me, confusing Wilson and Carter.' For all the use that publican is likely to be in the matter of names, I might just as well not have seen him.”

“But that hiker was freckled. Didn't the naval officer talk about a youth with freckles?”

“He did, and I shouldn't be surprised to find that both of them were referring to the same fellow. Unfortunately, we can't sit down and twiddle our thumbs until a youth with freckles chooses to take pity on us.”

They had reached The Firs. As usual at this particular hour, Mrs. Dearborn was in her garden. She had come to look upon Richardson as a personal friend, and she hurried forward to welcome him.

“I'm sorry to trouble you again, Mrs. Dearborn, but we have now definite information that your husband was attacked by a stranger. It is more important than ever that we should know something about his past life—that is, where he came from. Can we look through his papers?”

“I'm afraid you won't find any; I've already been through all the drawers and cupboards which my husband used, and I've gone through the papers in his desk. There were only three or four receipted bills and a sort of balance-sheet of his quarry. It was most disappointing, but here are his keys and I suggest that you do your own searching.”

The searching did not take long. As Mrs. Dearborn had said, there were practically no private papers except a bank pass-book and the quarry accounts. With her help they looked through the dead man's clothes, searching for any name or mark that might give them a clue, but they found none—nothing that would throw any light upon Dearborn's past life. When the officers took their leave they made for the railway station and inquired from the man who clipped the tickets whether he remembered a youth abundantly freckled passing the barrier on Sunday.

“Freckled, you say? What sort of age was he?”

“Oh, eighteen or nineteen, I should say.”

The railway porter and the lamp man had drifted up to listen to the conversation.

“I remember the chap,” said the porter. “Don't you remember,” he added to the ticket-collector; “don't you remember me asking you if you'd ever seen freckles like that before? There were more freckles than skin on his face. He went by the afternoon train to North Road.”

“I remember the chap now,” said the ticket man.

“He had a return third to Paddington.”

A
S THEY WALKED
back from the railway station Richardson was in the depths of gloom. “To search London for a sandy-haired young man with freckles—and that's all we have to go upon—would be sheer lunacy.”

“Couldn't you advertise?” asked Jago hopefully.

“What, and call attention to a physical defect as an inducement for a youth to come forward? Probably he spends every spare shilling in buying lotions for the face.”

“But the people who laugh at his freckles might answer the advertisement.”

“Some hundreds of them would, in the hope of getting a free trip down into Devonshire, but think of the expense. What would the Receiver of the Metropolitan Police say about it?”

“Where are we going to now?” asked Jago, giving up the attempt to lift the clouds from his chief's face.

“To the police station, I suppose,” said Richardson wearily.

The station sergeant was standing on the steps, gazing down the road; he disappeared as soon as he saw them, apparently to report their arrival to the Superintendent, for Carstairs himself lumbered out on to the threshold.

“You're wanted on the telephone, Mr. Richardson—badly wanted, I judge, by the tone of the speaker.”

“Did he give his name?”

“He did. He said he was Lieutenant Cosway; he's holding the line now.”

Richardson hurried to the instrument. “Is that you, Mr. Cosway? Chief Inspector Richardson speaking.”

“Praise be to God! I've got you at last. Come as quick as you can to The Firs and I'll start right away from here and meet you half-way, to tell you what it's all about. You'll hear something to your advantage.”

Richardson stopped only to tell Sergeant Jago to stand by until the car returned from the quarry and then to follow him to The Firs with the news whether Pengelly had paid his fine or not. Then he hurried off. He could walk fast but the naval lieutenant could walk faster still; he met him at less than halfway.

“Be prepared for a shock, Mr. Richardson,” he said. “You're going to meet what I've never seen before—the publicity agent of a film star, straight out of Hollywood. Probably you know the breed. If he came on board my ship I should chuck him into the sea without referring to the captain in the hope that he couldn't swim.”

“Where is he?”

“Closeted with that poor widow in The Firs. She's looking round helplessly for a dictionary of Hollywood American. When I left her she had grasped the startling fact that his client is the first Mrs. Dearborn.”

“Good God!”

“You have used the exact words that came to my lips when I saw the gentleman. I'll tell you how it all happened. My mother wished to be kind to the poor widow and sent me down to ask if she might call. I found Mrs. Dearborn in the garden, and while we were fixing things up a monstrous Rolls Royce pulled up at the gate, and out of it rolled a thing in a fur coat with a cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth. He came towards us and asked, ‘Say, are you Mrs. Dearborn? Well, I've come down to break some bad news to you gently. The first Mrs. Dearborn is still alive. You'll have seen her on the screen many times in your sweet life—Jane Smith, that's her. A stunt of mine to give her a plain name—we've had too many high-falutin' ones. I'm her publicity agent.'”

“How did Mrs. Dearborn take it?”

“Oh, she was very calm. She asked the animal to come into the house, and told me to ring you up and get you to come round to deal with him. If he hasn't eaten her, we shall find them in the sitting-room. I suppose with your vast experience you'll know how to handle the situation.”

They had reached the gate. Mrs. Dearborn had left the sitting-room; she was at the front door.

“Where is he?” asked Cosway. She pointed mutely to the room behind her. “Come along,” said Cosway, “we'll tackle him together.”

Cosway had not exaggerated the appearance of the visitor; blatancy oozed out of him—it was, after all, his bread and butter. Cosway introduced Richardson as Mrs. Dearborn's legal adviser.

“Ah! Then you're just the guy I need. I've come down to get the death certificate of the late Dearborn and I guess you can supply the goods. I tell you, boy, this is going to be the finest publicity stunt Jane's ever had. I haven't brought the cameraman with me to-day, but I'll have them all here tomorrow and you'll all be in it. Even you, sir, a naval officer and all. You can stick on your uniform tomorrow—I don't mind the expense of shooting you once—and then we'll have the death certificate ten times life-size, and, of course, the second Mrs. Dearborn in her widow's weeds. Say, but it's going to be a cinch!”

“This is the moment for that half walking-stick,” murmured Cosway. “Have you got it handy?”

Richardson took a note-book from his pocket and as soon as the publicity agent stopped for breath he said, “May I ask you a few questions, and will you make the answers as short as possible? When did this lady whom you call Jane Smith marry Mr. Dearborn?”

“I haven't got the date with me, but I bet she has.”

“Where did the marriage take place?”

“I can't tell you that either, but she'd know.”

“Have you a photograph of the man she married?”

“Not with me, I haven't.”

“But she has?”

“Sure.”

“May I have your business card?”

“Sure you may.” The publicity agent lugged out of his pocket a packet of cards of outsize and Richardson read, “Mr. Franklyn Jute.”

“And now you have my card I'll ask you to deliver the goods. The certificate of death is what I need. I'm willing to pay for it, but have it I must if I'm to get back to London to-night.”

Richardson assumed an expression of judicial severity which he was far from feeling. “You come down here, sir, with an unsupported statement, without a tittle of evidence, and expect us to give you copies of official documents. You'll get nothing of the kind until the lady you represent produces her proofs. She must come here herself.”

“She can't do that. She's rehearsing at Twickenham for this new film of hers.”

“Very well, then, if you'll give me her address, I'll go up and see her.”

“She has an apartment—number 21 Arcadia Mansions.”

“Good. Then I'll be up to-morrow.”

“I warn you that she doesn't hand out interviews as easy as that. She's rehearsing all day.”

“Except on Sunday,” corrected Richardson. “I'm in no hurry; I can wait until Sunday, but if you want to get on with it perhaps you can arrange for her to see me to-morrow afternoon at five o'clock.”

“Wall I knew this country was slow before I crossed the pond, but I didn't know it was as slow as this. It means I've had all this journey for nothing, and it puts off the publicity stunt that I was banking on.”

“Because you didn't bring your proofs with you.”

“Wal now, if I'm beat I'm beat and that's all there is to it. But remember this, not a word to any of the folks down here. I don't give over my best stuff in dribs and drabs. All or none is my motto—all or nothing, that's me. I guess it'll be waste of time for me to hang around if I'm not to get any more without what you call proofs. It's a disease you all have over here and that's why you can't get on. Lord! In my country a guy that wants proofs before he'll get a move on would go under. I'll be getting back to the Savoy—that's my perch in slow old London—and I'll ring up Jane and get her to hand out an interview with you at five o'clock to-morrow. You come around to the Savoy Hotel at four to-morrow and I'll take you to her. So long!”

They heard the Rolls Royce begin to purr in the road outside, and at the same moment Sergeant Jago knocked at the door. Richardson went out to him.

“Pengelly has paid his fine,” said Jago in a hoarse whisper.

“So that's that,” said Richardson; “and now we need another starting-point.”

“Won't this come to anything?”

“I can't say yet, but I mean to catch the next train to London.”