The Witness on the Roof (18 page)

Evelyn glanced at Lady Warchester.

“You must go, Joan! I shall be very angry if you do not. I think perhaps, after all, I shall be glad of a chat over old times with Mrs. Spencer!” There was something unnatural in the laugh with which the speech ended.

Joan hesitated.

“Oh, well, if you really don't mind!”

“I don't mind a bit!'' Evelyn led her to the window. “Quick; if he sees you he will not come up to the house!”

“I don't quite see why,” Joan demurred. But she yielded to the stronger will and allowed herself to be hurried away. “Goodbye, Mrs. Spencer,” she called out. “I will write to you about Amy in a day or two.”

Mrs. Spencer seemed not to hear her. She was still standing just inside the room, motionless but for the panting breath that heaved her breast, for the restless eyes that followed Evelyn's every movement.

Miss Davenant stood outside on the grass until she had seen Joan join her husband and heard the car down the avenue; then she stepped slowly into the room. Her face was pale.

“Well,” she said harshly.

Mrs. Spencer did not answer for a moment. She stood staring at the woman confronting her, a look of vindictive triumph on her red face.

“You were going to take that hundred a year from me, weren't you? Well, it isn't a hundred a year that is going to do for me now, I can tell you!”

T
HE OFFICES
of Messrs. Hewlett and Cowham, private inquiry agents, were situated in Bruton Lane, one of the dingy streets running parallel with the Strand on the north side. No. 14 was no better than its neighbours, a tall gloomy-looking building let off as offices to different firms, as the names inside the door testified.

Messrs. Hewlett and Cowham occupied the second floor. There was a large office fronting Bruton Street which was used by both partners for the reception of their numerous clientele; doors on either side were labelled Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Cowham respectively, and there was a small room at the back which just held a desk and the high stool on which the solitary clerk to Messrs. Hewlett and Cowham was perched.

Mr. Hewlett was seated in his private room one morning, engaged in the congenial occupation of planning out the day's work for himself and his subordinates, when there was a knock at the door.

“Inspector Hudger of Scotland Yard, sir,” the clerk announced.

Hewlett sprang up.

“This is good of you, inspector, you got my note?”

“Or I shouldn't be here.” The inspector laughed. “I have brought what you asked me. Don't know that I should have done it for anyone else, but I know the interest you took in the Grove Street case when we were both looking it up, and—well, I made up my mind to stretch a point. You don't mean to say you have found a clue after all this time?”

“I may or I may not,” Mr. Hewlett answered enigmatically. “You shall judge for yourself, inspector. What have you brought me?”

The inspector put his hand into his pocket and brought out a small wooden box.

“Just what you told me—the letter that was found in the lining of Wingrove's coat, and the wedding-ring with the other trinkets that were on the chain that was round the girl's neck.”

“Just so! One minute before you open it, inspector!” Hewlett put out his hand. “As far as my memory served me, the letter is written on common blue paper of a fancy description, with a little flower sprigged over it in darker blue; and among the trinkets round the victim's neck was the half of a broken-sixpence, which was new when the girl died ten years ago. Am I right?”

Inspector Hudger's keen, clean-shaven face took on an expression of surprise.

“Why, of course you are, Mr. Hewlett! It isn't likely you would make a mistake about that, seeing how we used to talk it over and the theories you used to form on the subject.”

Hewlett crossed over to a box in the corner of the room and unlocked it.

“Ay, I was younger in those days! It is a mistake to work on theories, inspector—mostly leads one into a quagmire.” He took out the envelope he had received from Lady Warchester and, opening the letter, handed it to the police officer.

Inspector Hudger studied it in silence for a minute; then from his little box he took a half sheet of notepaper and, placing it beside the other, scrutinized them both, his lips pursed, the fingers of his left hand drumming persistently on the table.

Hewlett watched him attentively.

“Well, what do you make of it?”

The inspector looked up at last.

“These two letters were written by the same hand, not a doubt of it, I should say. If you had got the half of the sixpence—”

Mr. Hewlett dived into the recesses of his box once more.

“Here it is! Now, Mr. Hudger,” laying the two pieces together, “what do you say to that?” as he showed that they fitted exactly.

The inspector looked at him.

“I should say you are getting close to the solution of the Grove Street Mystery, for I reckon you know where this letter came from. You know who the sister was it was written to?”

Hewlett nodded,

“I know that. And yet, so far from solving the mystery that surrounds the girl who died in Grove Street, I think it is thickening, inspector. You may remember a chat we had when you came in a few weeks back over that Dunsdale affair, when I told you I had been engaged to search for the missing heiress of the Davenant estate—Miss Evelyn Spencer?”

“Yes, I remember.” Inspector Hudger was watching the other's face narrowly. “Only I didn't think it was Spencer you called her, Davenant—that was it—she was to take the name of Davenant as a condition of succeeding to the property. And the younger sister was Lady Warchester, wasn't she? She would come into the property if the other couldn't be found. It is all coming back to me. But you don't mean to say—”

Hewlett looked at him squarely in the face.

‘“The letter I have just shown you was the last written to Lady Warchester by her sister Evelyn. Lady Warchester answered it, but received no further communication from Miss Spencer.”

“And this half of the sixpence was contained in it? I congratulate you, Mr. Hewlett. You have not only found your missing heiress, but you have discovered the identity of the unknown girl who was murdered in Grove Street ten years ago—a question which puzzled us at Scotland Yard, as you know, considerably.”

Mr. Hewlett did not speak for a minute or two as he came round to the inspector's side and once more fitted the halves of the sixpence together. The one that the Scotland Yard official had brought with him had a tiny gold ring through the hole and was slung on a thin gold chain in company with a wedding-ring and a small heart of pink topaz. “Then you think the girl who was murdered in Grove Street was—”

“Why, of course it is plain enough!” the inspector interrupted. “This Miss Evelyn Davenant, or Spencer, for whom you have been searching is the girl who was murdered at No. 18 Grove Street.”

Hewlett was thoughtfully twisting the end of his moustache. His light eyes looked almost vacant.

“Umph! Yes! But there is one drawback to this theory, my dear Hudger—that at this precise moment Miss Evelyn Davenant is at Davenant Hall, its undoubted mistress and Lady Warchester's affectionate sister.”

“What?” Hudger stared at him. “Then what does this mean?”

“That is why I asked you to come here this morning, inspector,” Hewlett replied, his manner becoming more genial as he saw the other's amazement. “That is what we must find out. I think when I spoke to you before about my search for Evelyn Davenant, I told you that I had traced her to a widow's—a Mrs. Winthorpe. With this woman she lodged for some time, being reduced to all sorts of straits. She sang in the chorus of theatres, and when she left Mrs. Winthorpe's she told her she was going to change her name to De Lavelle and go on the music-hall stage. Well, I ascertained that the Sisters De Lavelle had a certain vogue for a year or two at the smaller halls, but that their popularity declined, and that towards the end of 1894 they gave up their partnership and left the stage. That was more than two years before the murder in Grove Street, you will observe. When Lady Warchester showed me this old letter I at once saw the importance of the discovery, for I had had that blue sheet of paper and that weak straggling writing in my mind's eye too often when we were searching for the Grove Street murderer not to feel sure it was the same. Besides, there was the sixpence.”

“And yet you tell me that Miss Evelyn Davenant is at the Hall!” the inspector exclaimed. “Well, of all the extraordinary cases—”

“Yes, I fancy there may be a few tangles to unravel before we come to the end of it,” Mr. Hewlett assented. “I said that Miss Davenant was at Warchester, but, as a matter of fact, she is in London, staying at the Cawdon—she came up yesterday. Now, Mr. Hudger, you know how the case stands. What do you make of it?”

The inspector looked at the poor little trinkets lying on the table, then glanced at the two letters side by side.

“It seems to me that this is pretty conclusive. The real Evelyn Spencer died in Grove Street. The woman at Davenant Hall is an impostor.”

“Umph!”

Hewlett looked out of the window. There was not much in the sombre street to attract him one would have thought, yet he glanced up and down with keen interest. The roar and bustle of the Strand reached him, deadened in a measure by the intervening houses.

Inspector Hudger was not the most patient of mortals, as his subordinates could testify.

“Well,” he demanded irritably, “what are you hesitating about, man? There can't be two opinions about that I should say.”

There was a far-away expression in Hewlett's eyes.

“You may be right, inspector, but the Grove Street Mystery is not cleared up yet, not by a long way. Ah, here is the witness I was expecting!” in a tone of satisfaction. “Jones,” opening the door and beckoning his clerk, “please show Mr. Simpson and the lady with him up as soon as possible.”

“Who? What lady?” Inspector Hudger inquired with natural curiosity.

“A lady who has lived at 15 Suffolk Lane, Highgate, for the last fifteen years,” Hewlett answered lightly. “I should say that we ought to learn something interesting from her.”

Jones opened the door and stood back.

“Mr. Simpson and Mrs. Read, sir.”

Mr. Hewlett and the inspector both rose.

“This is very kind, Mrs. Read! I am glad that you were able to come,” the former said gratefully as he set a chair for her.

“Thank you, Mr. Hewlett! I am sure anything I can do,” Mrs. Read began with a simper, as she seated herself and folded her black gloved hands primly on her lap.

She was a faded looking woman of middle age whose attire and mode of dressing her hair betrayed some hankerings after her vanished youth. Her light hair had manifestly been touched up; it was piled up on the top of her head beneath a toque that had some pretension to present-day fashion, and a few straggling curls were straying over the forehead. She wore a black gown trimmed elaborately, as was the fashion, with jet and fringe; an art necklace was clasped round her throat; art bracelets adorned her wrists. Nevertheless, she retained some traces of former good looks; her features were aquiline, the watery grey eyes were large and had probably once been pretty and appealing. Possibly Mrs. Read had been a beauty in her day, and the consciousness of this fact lent a certain old-fashioned coquetry to her manner now.

“That will do, thank you, Mr. Simpson!” Hewlett nodded to the young man who had accompanied her in—a clean-shaven youth, who had the appearance of a clerk or a shopman.

“Now Mrs. Read, I think Mr. Simpson has told you that we wish to procure some information about a young lady who was staying with you on the 10th of May, 1897?”

“Yes, Mr. Hewlett. Certainly!” Mrs. Read eyed him reflectively for a moment. “It would be Miss De Lavelle, I make no doubt. She was a nice, pleasant-spoken-young lady; she lived with us for the best part of a year, and I call to mind that she left on the 11th of May, 1897, having good cause for remembering the date for private reasons of my own, as you will understand, gentlemen, when I tell you that I was married two days later.”

The detective smiled.

“Ah, now we know where we are! That would fix it in your mind, Mrs. Read. How was it that this young lady, Miss De. Lavelle, left you? Was it sudden?”

“No. At least it may have been at the last, but we had been expecting it for some months. She had been looking out for a situation for some time, and at last something turned up—in Florence, I think it was—and of course we knew it would not do to refuse it, though she was terrible upset at having to leave England, but she had her living to get as we knew. And we were glad she should hear of anything.”

“I see!” Mr. Hewlett drew out his pocket-book and made a few notes. “Do you remember the circumstances of Miss De Lavelle's leaving?” he asked after a pause. “How she was dressed and what luggage she took with her?”

“Oh, yes, gentlemen!” This time Mrs. Read's glance took in Inspector Hudger also. “I know it was early in the morning when she went. She walked to Highgate Station; from there she was to take the train to King's Cross, and there a friend would meet her and drive with her to Waterloo or Victoria, I forget which. As for, what she was wearing, it was white china silk, for I made the remark that it wasn't the best thing to travel in, and she laughed and said she liked to look nice, and that she should buy herself a serge costume for the voyage either in London or Southampton.”

“The luggage?” Mr. Hewlett prompted as she paused.

“Oh, that she sent on in front,” Mrs. Read answered at once. “I know she had only a handbag with her, for a young cousin of ours who was staying with us helped to carry her luggage down to the station for her.”