“How long do you think he’d stay in any case, sir?”
“Till he had transferred enough hard cash to his own particular charities.
Oh, well, these,” he indicated the passports, “will be enough to frame a nice
little indictment on, so that we can have him under our hands when we want
him. The thing that disappoints me, Williams, is where is the murder in all
this? I don’t mean that he didn’t do it. I’ve no doubt that he was having his
twenty-four hours off at the time. But why did he do it? He came to England
when he heard that she was coming. I think, judging by his woman’s clothes,
that he was possibly broke when he arrived. That was why he took to the Tree
of Lebanon. But the possibilities of the Tree must have occurred to him
pretty soon. Why kill his sister?”
“Went to see her and had a quarrel. The queer hour that’s puzzled us all
would be quite normal for him. Six o’clock would be just as usual as
lunchtime.”
“Yes, that’s true. I’m going now to find out from the Reverend Father
whether Brother Aloysius was out of the monastery a fortnight yesterday. The
Reverend Father would have sat on a very high horse yesterday, but he’ll talk
when he sees what his favorite looks like on these passports.”
But the Reverend Father was not receiving callers. The little
guichet
displayed the sour face of the doorkeeper, who delivered his
stolid message in answer to all Grant’s questions, whether the phrase was
relevant or not. Herbert’s golden tongue had been at work. The
guichet
shut, and Grant was left helpless in the little lane. There was nothing for
it but a warrant. He went slowly away, his feet still aching; admired the job
Herbert had made of oiling the cellar entrance in the pavement, and climbed
into his car. Yes, he had better get that warrant.
He went back to the hotel for his pajamas, razor, and toothbrush (he had
no intention of spending another night there) and was leaving a message for
the sleeping Williams, when he was called to the telephone by the Yard.
Would he go to Dover? The man there wanted him. Something had turned up,
it seemed.
He changed the message for Williams, threw his things into the car, found
time to wonder why he overtipped the frowsy virago for her inattendance,
disgusting food, and deplorable cooking, and set out for Dover.
Something had turned up. That could only mean Champneis. Something out of
the ordinary. If they had merely found where Champneis had spent the night,
it would have been reported by telephone in the ordinary way.
But—something had turned up.
Rimell, the detective in charge—a kind, melancholy-looking boy,
whose greatest asset was his unlikeness to the popular conception of a
detective—was waiting for Grant at that police-station door, and Grant
drew him into the car. Rimell said that he had, after endless delving,
unearthed an old fellow called Searle, a retired deckhand, who had been
coming home from his grand-daughter’s engagement party about half past twelve
on the Wednesday night—or rather, the Thursday morning. He was alone,
because very few people lived down the harborway nowadays. They’d got ideas
and lived up the hill in gimcrack villas you’d be afraid to sneeze in. He had
stopped a minute or two when he had got to the sea level, to look at the
harbor. It still made him feel fine to look at riding lights at night. It was
beginning to mist over, but it was still clear enough to see the outlines of
everything. He knew the
Petronel
was coming in—had seen her
through his glasses before he went to the party—and so he looked for
her now, and saw her lying not at the jetty, but out in the water at anchor.
As he watched, a small motorboat came out from her side and made for the
shore, going slowly with a quiet
chug-chug
as if not anxious to call
attention to itself. As it touched the jetty steps a man moved out of the
shadows by the quay. A tall figure whom Searle identified as Lord Edward (he
had seen him often and had in fact once served aboard a previous yacht of his
brother’s) appeared from the boat and said, “Is that you, Harmer?” and the
smaller man had said, “It’s me,” and then, in a low tone, “Customs all
right?” Lord Edward had said, “No trouble at all,” and they had gone down
into the motorboat together and pushed off. The mist had come down quickly
after that, blotting out the harbor. After about fifteen minutes Searle had
gone on his way. But as he was going up the street, he heard a motorboat
leave the
Petronel
. Whether it came ashore or went out of the harbor
he didn’t know. He didn’t think at the moment any of all this was of any
importance.
“Great Heavens!” said Grant. “I can’t believe it. There just—there
just isn’t one single thing in all the world that these two men have in
common.” (His subconscious added before he could stop it: except a woman.)
“They just don’t touch anywhere. And yet they’re as thick as thieves.” He sat
silent a little. “All right, Rimell. Good work. I’m going to have lunch and
think this over.”
“Yes, sir. May I give you a friendly piece of advice, sir?”
“If you must. It’s a bad habit in subordinates.”
“No black coffee, sir. I expect you had four cups for breakfast and
nothing else.”
Grant laughed. “Why should you worry,” he said, pressing the starter. “The
more breakdowns, the quicker the promotion.”
“I grudge the money for wreaths, sir.”
But Grant was not smiling as he drove lunchwards. Christine Clay’s husband
and her reputed lover had midnight business together. That was strange
enough. But that Edward Champneis, fifth son of the seventh Duke of Bude, and
a reputable if unorthodox member of his race, should have underhand traffic
with Jason Harmer, of Tin Pan Alley, was definitely stranger. What was the
common bond? Not murder. Grant refused to consider anything
so
outré
as murder in couples. One or the other might have wanted to murder her, but
that they should have forgathered on the subject was unimaginable. The
motorboat had left the
Petronel
again, Searle said. Supposing only one
of them had been in it? It was only a short distance north along the coast to
the Gap at Westover; and Harmer had turned up at Clay’s cottage two hours
after her death. To drown Clay from a motorboat was the ideal way. As good as
his groin theory, with escape both quicker and easier. The more he thought of
the motorboat, the more enamored of the method he grew. They had checked the
boats in the vicinity as a matter of routine at the time of the first
investigation; but a motorboat has a wide cruising radius. But—oh,
well, just “but”! The theory was fantastic. Could one imagine Jason saying,
“You lend me your boat and I’ll drown your wife,” or Champneis suggesting,
“I’ll lend you the boat if you’ll do the work.” These two had met for some
other reason altogether. If murder had resulted, then it had been unplanned,
incidental.
What then had they met for? Harmer had said something about Customs. It
had been his first greeting. He had been anxious about it. Was Harmer a drug
fiend?
There were two things against that. Harmer didn’t look like an addict. And
Champneis would never have supplied the stuff. Risk might be the breath of
life to him, but that kind of risk would be very definitely out.
What, then, was to be kept from the eyes of the Customs? Tobacco? Jewels?
Champneis had shown George Meir, next morning, the topazes he had brought
back for Christine.
There was one thing against all of it. Smuggling Edward Champneis might
descend to, as a ploy, a mere bit of excitement; but Grant could not see him
smuggling for the benefit of Jason Harmer. One ran one’s head continually
against that. What had these two men in common? They had something. Their
association proved it. But what? They were, as far as anyone knew, the merest
acquaintances. Not even that. Champneis had almost certainly left England
before Harmer had arrived, and Christine had not known Harmer until they
worked together on these English pictures.
No digestive juices flowed in Grant’s alimentary tracts during that lunch;
his brain was working like an engine. The sweetbreads and green peas might as
well have been thrown into the chef’s waste bin. By the time coffee had
arrived he was no nearer a solution. He wished he was one of these marvelous
creatures of superinstinct and infallible judgment who adorned the pages of
detective stories, and not just a hard-working, well-meaning, ordinarily
intelligent Detective Inspector. As far as he could see, the obvious course
was to interview one or other of these men. And the obvious one to interview
was Harmer. Why? Oh, because he’d talk more easily. Oh, yes, all right, and
because there was less chance of running into trouble! What it was to have
someone inside you checking up your motives for everything you did or
thought!
He refrained from his second cup of coffee, with a smile for the absent
Rimell. Nice kid. He’d make a good detective someday.
He rang up Devonshire House, and asked if Mr. Harmer could make it
convenient to see Alan Grant (no need to advertise his profession) this
evening between tea and dinner.
He was told that Mr. Harmer was not in London. He had gone down to see
Leni Primhofer, the continental star, who was staying at Whitecliffe. He was
writing a song for her. No, he was not expected back that night. The address
was Tall Hatch, Whitecliffe, and the telephone number Whitecliffe 3025.
Grant rang Whitecliffe 3025, and asked when Mr. Harmer could see him.
Harmer was in the country motoring with Fraülein Primhofer and would not be
back before dinner.
Whitecliffe is a continuation of Westover: a collection of plutocratic
villas set on the cliff beyond the cries of trippers and the desecration of
blown newspaper pages. Grant still had a room at the Marine, and so to
Westover he went, and there Williams joined him. All he could do now was to
wait for a warrant from the Yard and a visit from Harmer.
It was cocktail time when Harmer presented himself.
“Are you asking me to dinner, Inspector? If not, say you are and let the
dinner be on me, will you; there’s a good sport. Another hour of that woman
and I shall be daffy. Loco. Nuts. I have known stars in my time, but holy
mackerel! she takes the cake. You’d think with her English being on the
sticky side that she’d let up now and then to think a bit. But no! Jabbers
right along, with German to fill in, and bits of French dressing here and
there to make it look nice. Waiter! What’s yours, Inspector? Not drinking?
Oh, come on! No? That’s too bad. One gin and mixed, waiter. You don’t need to
climb on the wagon with a waist like that, Inspector. Don’t say you’re
Prohibition from conviction!”
Grant disclaimed any crusading interest in the drink traffic.
“Well, what’s the news? You have got news, haven’t you?” He became
serious, and looked earnestly, at Grant. “Something real turned up?”
“I just wanted to know what you were doing in Dover on that Wednesday
night.”
“In Dover?”
“A fortnight last Wednesday.”
“Someone been pulling your leg?”
“Listen, Mr. Harmer, your lack of frankness is complicating everything.
It’s keeping us from running down the man who killed Christine Clay. The
whole business is cock-eyed. You come clean about your movements on that
Wednesday night, and half the irrelevant bits and pieces that are weighing
the case down can be shorn off and thrown away. We can’t see the outline of
it with all the bits that are covering it up and hanging on to it. You want
to help us get our man, don’t you? Well, prove it!”
“I like you a lot, Inspector. I never thought I’d like a cop so much. But
I told you already: I lost my way looking for Chris’s cottage, and slept in
the car.”
“And if I bring witnesses to prove that you were in Dover after
midnight?”
“I still slept in the car.”
Grant was silent, disappointed. Now he would have to go to Champneis.
Harmer’s little brown eyes watched him with something like solicitude.
“You’re not getting your sleep these days, Inspector. Heading for a
breakdown. Change your mind and have a drink. Wonderful how a drink puts
things in their place.”
“If you didn’t insist on sleeping in the car, I’d have a better chance of
sleeping in my bed,” Grant said angrily, and took his leave with less than
his usual grace.
He wanted to get at Champneis before Jason Harmer had time to tell him
that Grant had been making inquiries. The best way to do that was to
telephone and ask Champneis to come down to Westover. Offer to send a police
car for him at once And if necessary keep Harmer talking until Champneis
would have left town.
But Champneis had already left town. He was in Edinburgh addressing a
polite gathering on “The Future of Galeria.”
That settled it. Long before anyone could get to him, Harmer would have
communicated with him either by telegram or telephone. Grant asked that both
means of communication should be tapped, and went back to the lounge to find
Jason still sitting over his drink.
“I know you don’t like me, Inspector, but honest to God I like you, and
honest to God that woman is a holy terror. Do you think you could sort of
forget that we are famous-detective and worm-of-a-suspect, and eat together
after all?”
Grant smiled, against his will. He had no objections.
Jason smiled, too, a little knowingly. “But if you think by the end of
dinner I won’t have slept in that car, don’t kid yourself.”
In spite of himself, Grant enjoyed that meal. It was a good game: trying
to trap Jason into some kind of admission. The food was good. And Jason was
amusing.
Another telephone message came to say that Lord Edward was returning on
the first train in the morning, and would be in London by teatime. Grant
could expect the warrant for Gotobed by the first post in the morning.
So Grant went to bed at the Marine, puzzled but not suicidal; at least
there was a program for the morrow. Jason, too, slept at the Marine, having
declared his inability to face Leni anymore that day.