To Love and Be Wise (11 page)

'I'm glad you sent so soon. It's a great help to be there when the tapes go up. Well, I don't think there is anything else we can do here. We had better get back to Wickham, and I'll take over.'

Rodgers dropped them at the White Hart, and left them with assurances of any help that was within his power.

'Good man, that,' Grant said, as they climbed the stairs to inspect their rooms under the roof—rooms with texts in wools and flowered wall-paper—'he ought to be at the Yard.'

'It's a queer set-up, isn't it?' Williams said, firmly taking the pokier of the two rooms. 'The rope trick in an English meadow. What do you think happened to him, sir?'

'I don't know about "rope trick", but it does smell strongly of sleight-of-hand. Now you see it, now you don't. The old conjurer's trick of the distracted attention. Ever seen a lady sawn in half, Williams?'

'Many's the time.'

'There's a strong aroma of sawn lady about this. Or don't you smell it?'

'I haven't got your nose, sir. All I see is a very queer set-up. A spring night in England, and a young American goes missing in the mile between the village and the river. You really think he
might
have ducked, sir?'

'I can't think of any adequate reason why he should, but perhaps Whitmore can.'

'I expect he will be very anxious to,' Williams said dryly.

But oddly enough Walter Whitmore showed no anxiety to put forward any such theory. On the contrary, he scorned it. It was absurd, he said, manifestly absurd, to suggest that Searle should have left of his own accord. Quite apart from the fact that he was very happy, he had a very profitable deal to look forward to. He had been enormously enthusiastic about the book they were doing together, and it was fantastic to suggest that he would just walk out like that.

Grant had come to Trimmings after dinner, tactfully allowing for the fact that dinner at Trimmings must be very late on broadcast day. He had sent in word to ask if Mr Whitmore would see Alan Grant, and had not mentioned his business until he was face to face with Walter.

His first thought on seeing Walter Whitmore in the flesh was how much older he looked than he had expected; and then wondered whether it was that Walter looked much older than he had done on Wednesday. He looked disorientated, Grant thought; adrift. Something had happened to him that did not belong to the world he knew and recognised.

But he took Grant's announcement of his identity calmly.

'I was almost expecting you,' he said, offering cigarettes. 'Not you personally, of course. Just a representative of what has come to be known as the Higher Levels.'

Grant had asked about their trip down the Rushmere, so as to set him talking; if you got a man to talk enough he lost his defensive quality. Whitmore was drawing too hard on his cigarette but talking quite freely. Before he had actually reached their Wednesday evening visit to the Swan, Grant deflected him. It was too early yet to ask him about that night.

'You don't really know much about Searle, do you,' he pointed out. 'Had you heard of him at all before he turned up at that party of Ross's?'

'No, I hadn't. But that isn't strange. Photographers are two a penny. Almost as common as journalists. There was no reason why I should have heard of him.'

'You have no reason to believe that he may not be what he represented himself to be?'

'No, certainly not. I may never have heard of him, but Miss Easton-Dixon certainly had.'

'Miss Easton-Dixon?'

'One of our local authors. She writes fairy-tales, and is a film addict. Not only did she know about Searle but she has a photograph.'

'A photograph?' Grant said, startled and pleased.

'In one of those film magazines. I haven't seen it myself. She talked about it one night when she came to dinner.'

'And she met Searle when she came to dinner? And identified him?'

'She did. They had a wonderful get-together. Searle had photographed some of her pet actors, and she had reproductions of them too.'

'So there is no doubt in your mind that Searle is what he says he is.'

'I notice you use the present tense, Inspector. That cheers me.' But he sounded more ironic than cheered.

'Have you yourself any theory as to what could have happened, Mr Whitmore?'

'Short of fiery chariots or witches' broomsticks, no. It is the most baffling thing.'

Grant caught himself thinking that Walter Whitmore, too, was moved to think of sleight-of-hand.

'The most reasonable explanation, I suppose,' Walter went on, 'is that he lost his way in the dark and fell into the river at some other spot, where no one would hear him.'

'And why don't you approve of that theory?' Grant asked, answering the tone that Whitmore used.

'Well, for one thing, Searle had eyes like a cat. I had slept out with him for four nights, and I know. He was wonderful in the dark. Secondly he had an extra-good bump of locality. Thirdly he was by all accounts cold sober when he left the Swan. Fourthly it is a bee-line from Salcott to the river-bank where we were camped, by the hedges all the way. You can't stray, because if you walk away from the hedge you walk into plough or crop of some kind. And lastly, though this is hearsay evidence, Searle could swim very well indeed.'

'There is a suggestion, Mr Whitmore, that you and Searle were on bad terms on Wednesday evening. Is there any truth in that?'

'I thought we should get to that sooner or later,' Walter said. He pressed the half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray until it was a misshapen wreck.

'Well?' Grant prompted, as he seemed to have nothing more to say.

'We had what might be called a—a "spat", I suppose. I was—annoyed. Nothing more than that.'

'He annoyed you so much that you left him at the pub and walked back by yourself.'

'I like being by myself.'

'And you went to sleep without waiting for his return.'

'Yes. I didn't want to talk to him any more that night. He annoyed me, I tell you. I thought that I might be in a better humour and he in a less provocative mood in the morning.'

'He was provocative?'

'I think that is the word.'

'About what?'

'I don't have to tell you that.'

'You don't have to tell me anything, Mr Whitmore.'

'No, I know I don't. But I want to be as helpful as I can. God knows I want this thing cleared up as soon as possible. It is just that what we—disagreed about is something personal and irrelevant. It has no bearing whatever on anything that happened to Searle on Wednesday night. I certainly didn't lie in wait for him on the way home, or push him into the river, or subject him to violence.'

'Do you know of anyone who would be likely to want to?'

Whitmore hesitated; presumably with Serge Ratoff in his mind.

'Not that kind of violence,' he said at length.

'Not what kind?'

'Not that waiting-in-the-dark kind.'

'I see. Just the ordinary sock-in-the-jaw kind. There was a scene with Serge Ratoff, I understand.'

'Anyone who gets through life in close proximity to Serge Ratoff and doesn't have a scene with him must be abnormal,' Walter said.

'You don't know of anyone who might have a grudge against Searle?'

'No one in Salcott. I don't know anything of his friends or enemies elsewhere.'

'Have you any objection to my looking through Searle's belongings?'

'I haven't, but Searle might. What do you expect to find, Inspector?'

'Nothing specific. A man's belongings are very revealing, I find. I am merely looking for suggestion of some sort; help of any kind in a very puzzling situation.'

'I'll take you up now, then—unless there is anything else you want to ask me.'

'No, thank you. You have been very helpful. I wish you could have trusted me far enough to tell me what the quarrel was about——'

'There was no quarrel!' Whitmore said sharply.

'I beg your pardon. I mean, in what way Searle riled you. It would tell me even more about Searle than it would about you; but perhaps it is too much to expect you to see that.'

Whitmore stood by the door, considering this. 'No,' he said slowly. 'No, I do see what you mean. But to tell you involves—— No, I don't think I can tell you.'

'I see you can't. Let us go up.'

As they emerged into the baronial hall from the library where the interview had taken place, Liz had just come out of the drawing-room and was crossing to the stairs. When she saw Grant she paused and her face lighted with joy.

'Oh!' she said, 'you've come with news of him!'

When Grant said no, that he had no news, she looked puzzled.

'But it was you who introduced him,' she insisted. 'At that party.'

This was news to Walter and Grant could feel his surprise. He could also feel his resentment at that flash of overwhelming joy on Liz's face.

'This, Liz dear,' he said in a cool, faintly malicious tone, 'is Detective Inspector Grant from Scotland Yard.'

'From the Yard! But—you
were
at that party!'

'It is not unheard of for policemen to be interested in the arts,' Grant said, amused. 'But——'

'Oh, please! I didn't mean it that way.'

'I had only looked in at the party to pick up a friend. Searle was standing by the door looking lost because he didn't know Miss Fitch by sight. So I took him over and introduced them. That is all.'

'And now you've come down here to—to investigate—'

'To investigate his disappearance. Have you any theories, Miss Garrowby?'

'I? No. Not even a rudimentary one. It just doesn't make sense. It's
fantastically
senseless.'

'If it isn't too late may I talk to you for a little when I have been through Searle's belongings?'

'No, of course it isn't too late. It isn't ten o'clock yet.' She sounded weary. 'Since this happened time stretches out and out. It's like having—hashish, is it? Are you looking for anything in particular, Inspector?'

'Yes,' Grant said. 'Inspiration. But I doubt if I shall find it.'

'I shall be in the library when you come down. I hope you will find something that will help. It is very dreadful being suspended from a spider's thread this way.'

As he went through Searle's belongings Grant thought about Liz Garrowby—Marta's 'dear nice Liz'—and her relations with William's 'push-ee'. There was never any saying what a woman saw in any man, and Whitmore was of course a celebrity as well as a potentially good husband. He had said as much to Marta, coming away from the party that day. But how right had Marta been about Searle's power to upset? How much had Liz Garrowby felt Searle's charm? How much of that eager welcome of hers in the hall had been joy at Searle's imagined safety and how much mere relief from the burden of suspicion and gloom?

His hands turned over Searle's things with automatic efficiency, but his mind was busy deciding how much or how little to ask Liz Garrowby when he went downstairs again.

Searle had occupied a first-floor room in the battlemented tower that stuck out to the left of the Tudor front door, so that it had windows on three sides of it. It was large and high, and was furnished in very superior Tottenham Court Road, a little too gay and coy for its Victorian amplitude. It was an impersonal room and Searle had evidently done nothing to stamp it with his personality. This struck Grant as odd. He had rarely seen a room, occupied for so long, so devoid of atmosphere. There were brushes on the table, and books by the bedside, but of their owner there was no trace. It might have been a room in a shop window.

Of course it had been swept and tidied since last it was occupied six days ago. But still. But still.

The feeling was so strong that Grant paused to look round and consider. He thought of all the rooms he had searched in his time. They had all—even the hotel rooms—been redolent of their late occupier. But here was nothing but emptiness. An impersonal blank. Searle had kept his personality to himself.

Grant noticed, as Liz had noticed on that first day, how expensive his clothes and luggage were. As he turned over the handkerchiefs in the top drawer he noticed that they had no laundry mark, and wondered a little. Done at home, perhaps. The shirts and linen were marked but the mark was old and probably American.

As well as the two leather suitcases, there was a japanned tin case like a very large paint-box, with the name 'L. Searle' in white letters on the lid. It was fitted with a lock but was unfastened and Grant lifted the lid with some curiosity, only to find that it was filled with Searle's photographic material. It was built on the lines of a paint-box, with a top tray that was made to lift out. Grant hooked out the top tray with his forefingers and surveyed the deeper compartment below it. The lower compartment was full except for an oblong of empty space where something had been taken out. Grant put down the tray he was holding and went to unroll the camp outfit that had been brought back from the river-bank. He wanted to know what fitted into that oblong space.

But there was nothing that fitted.

There were two small cameras in the pack and some rolls of film. Neither separately nor together did they fit into the space in the tin box. Nor did anything else in the pack.

Grant came back and stood for some time considering that empty space. Something roughly 10 inches by 3½ by 4 had been taken out. And it had been taken out when the box was in its present position. Any heaving about of the box would have dislodged the other objects from their packed position and obliterated the empty space.

He would have to ask about that when he went downstairs.

Meanwhile, having given the room a quick going-over, he now went over it in detail. Even so, he nearly missed the vital thing. He had run through the rather untidy handkerchief-and-ties drawer and was in the act of closing it, when something among the ties caught his attention and he picked it out.

It was a woman's glove. A very small woman's glove.

A glove about Liz Garrowby's size.

Grant looked for its mate but there was none. It was the usual lover's trophy.

So the beautiful young man had been sufficiently attracted to steal one of his beloved's gloves. Grant found it oddly endearing. An almost Victorian gesture. Nowadays fetish-worship took much more sinister forms.