Mystery of Mr. Jessop (14 page)

He got to his feet to indicate that the interview was over. Bobby knew it would be tactful to follow his example, rise, apologise, depart. Instead, he remained firmly seated, a proceeding which not only made the duke still more indignant, but entirely baffled him as well, for in a life that centred in convention, that was by it bounded, ruled – was, indeed, convention, as it were, incarnate – he had little idea what to do when convention failed. Bobby went on:

“I am so sorry, sir, but every will-o'-the-wisp has to be followed up in a case like this. We may know it is only a will-o'-the-wisp, but we must follow till we find we are actually in the bog. Our job, sir. And murder is always murder. This murder took place just about half past eight last night.”

“Well? Well, what about it?” demanded the duke irritably.

“Your grace,” said Bobby, with scarce so much as a passing thought to that tact so strongly recommended to him, so utterly abandoned, “was no doubt at dinner at that hour?”

The duke looked quite bewildered.

“Are you presuming,” he asked incredulously, “to inquire into My movements?”

“Certainly not; we should never dream of such a thing,” Bobby assured him. “It is merely that our inquiries would be quite a lot helped if your grace could let us know – in complete confidence, of course...”

“I shall do nothing of the sort,” thundered the duke – or would have thundered had not his thin voice broken in the middle of the sentence into something more like a squeak. He crossed to the fireplace and pressed the bell. “I am dining with the Prime Minister next week,” he said, menace in every syllable.

Bobby had a fleeting moment of sympathy for all Prime Ministers. Not even at dinner – still, every job has its drawbacks. He said aloud:

“I wish it had been last night.” The duke glared. Bobby added: “May I ask, too, if Mr. Jessop's taking the necklace to show the duchess again at Hastley Court didn't mean her grace was still thinking of buying?”

The door opened and Fisher appeared. The duke was looking both startled and puzzled. Bobby rose to his feet now, but he was not beaten yet.

“Your grace will agree,” he said, taking care to speak loudly and clearly, so that the eagerly listening Fisher could hear every word, “that this wish to see the necklace again –”

“That will do, Fisher,” interrupted the duke. “I will ring later.”

Reluctantly Fisher withdrew, not only dignity making his movements slow. Bobby thought to himself: “Well, perhaps that wasn't tact, but it touched the spot all right.” The duke said, when the slowly moving door had finally closed:

“Kindly explain what you mean. She saw it here on one occasion certainly. I remember her mentioning it. A young woman formerly in our employ brought it for her to see. But that is all.”

“Our information,” said Bobby, “quite unconfirmed, of course, but from a source we have often found trustworthy, is that Mr. Jessop was asked to take it again to Hastley Court for the duchess to see.”

“Nothing of the sort! Preposterous!” snapped the duke. “Who told you such nonsense?”

“We haven't had time yet to find out exactly where it originated – possibly from talk at the Cut and Come Again,” answered Bobby, not choosing to mention Charley Dickson's name as yet, or to explain that it was from Denis Chenery he had heard the story. “There is the additional complication, extremely troubling, that Mr. Jessop – or possibly someone in his name – rang up the Yard earlier yesterday and complained that the necklace had been stolen. We don't know, but we think that message came from the Cut and Come Again club.”

“Never heard of it,” said the duke, as it were abolishing it from existence.

“No, sir, probably not,” said Bobby. “Quite well known in some circles. Large membership; good class as a rule, but mixed. A lot of gossip goes on there; they say the night's talk at the Cut and Come Again makes next morning's gossip columns. Some of the gossip is curiously accurate,” added Bobby carelessly.

“I believe now I have heard of the place,” admitted the duke. “I think I have heard young Dickson – the duchess's secretary – I think I have heard him mention it.” He pressed the bell again, and when once more Fisher appeared with a promptitude that suggested he had not been far away, the duke said shortly:

“Find out if Mr. Dickson is here. If he is, tell him I want him. If he is not, find him. If her grace is disengaged, ask her if she can spare me a few minutes.”

Fisher retired. The duke turned to Bobby.

“Jessop said the necklace had been stolen?” he asked. “More likely he sold it and pocketed the money. The fellow was a reckless gambler; ridiculous stakes, in fact. You can never trust a gambler.”

Bobby, a little startled by this remark, that agreed so well with what Mr. Jacks had said, was yet quick to see and seize his opportunity.

“That's exceedingly interesting,” he said. “You see, sir, that is just exactly the kind of information that's such a help, and that we hoped your grace might be able to give if we were permitted to ask a few questions.”

Bobby was inclined to reach over and pat himself on the back for the tact with which he felt this speech positively purred. But the duke did not seem much affected. He turned his back while Bobby was still speaking and walked across the room to the door.

“Oh, yes, quite so,” he said over his shoulder, and then, opening the door: “Fisher!” he called. “Fisher! Where is the fellow? Really, even in one's own house it seems impossible to get proper attention. Oh, there you are, my dear,” he added, as the duchess came out of one of the adjoining rooms. “I thought perhaps Fisher hadn't been able to find you. Sorry to trouble you, but someone is here from the police about a very shocking affair. Jessop – you remember him? Jessop, keeps a jeweller's shop in Mayfair Square; very civil, respectable man. I understand he has been – er – murdered.”

“Murdered – Mr. Jessop?” repeated the duchess. “How dreadful! Murdered? Why, I was past the shop only the other day. Was it a burglar?” 

“For some reason,” continued the duke, ignoring this question, “the police seem to have got it into their heads that we can tell them something about a necklace Jessop was trying to sell – the one I think I remember your mentioning to me. Belongs, apparently, to one of those film-star actress people one hears so much about, one even meets occasionally. Very valuable thing, I understand. Jessop was asking an absurd price. Was it a burglar?”

He turned again to Bobby as he spoke. While he had been speaking to the duchess he had carefully kept his back to Bobby, talking to his wife where she was standing in the hall instead of making way for her to come into the room, as would have been more natural. Bobby found himself wondering if this attitude had been deliberate. Then, too, surely it would have been more in accordance with the ducal habits if he had rung for the butler instead of opening the door and calling for him? And into the duke's generally dry and precise, even expressionless, tones, there seemed now to Bobby to have crept a note of hesitancy and unease. Was it possible, Bobby asked himself, that this apparently deliberate turning of the back, this avoidance of his visitor's gaze, this new note in his voice, were in any way connected with the statement the duke had let slip about Jessop's gambling habits and Bobby's instant response that the information was important?

But, then, why should it disturb the duke that he should have let slip – Bobby was convinced he had let it slip – this piece of information?

The idea seemed to Bobby so improbable he was inclined to put it out of his mind, to attribute that turning of the back to mere accident, that new note in the dry, precise voice to his own too vivid imagination. While these thoughts raced through his mind, he found himself answering:

“We hardly know enough as yet, sir, to say anything definite.”

“But is it really true?” the duchess said to him – she had come into the room now as the duke turned from the door. “Poor man – so very dreadful.”

“I am afraid it is quite true,” Bobby answered. “You will understand, madam, it is necessary to make certain inquiries.”

“But why here? Why should we know anything about it?” asked the duchess in rather a bewildered voice. “Naturally, if we can help you...”

“Any scrap of information may be useful,” Bobby repeated once more. “The most apparently irrelevant detail sometimes turns out to mean a lot. His grace has just told me one thing that may be very important.”

“Oh – but, no, really,” protested the duke hurriedly. “You must not suppose... I dare say I'm quite wrong... I only intended...” He paused, and then continued in a more natural manner: “Gambling is a vice I detest. The moment I know a man bets I know a man it is never safe to trust.”

“We often find the same thing,” agreed Bobby. “Half the petty thieving that we get reported comes from office-boys stealing the stamp money to go to the dogs with. I am sure my superiors will feel it very important to follow up your grace's information.” His grace perceptibly winced, and Bobby was more sure than ever that for some obscure and difficult reason he was uneasy at the thought of possible consequences of what he had said. “Perhaps,” Bobby went on, “you wouldn't mind telling us what makes you think Mr. Jessop was a gambler? If that can be established, it may throw a new light on the whole thing.”

“Not at all,” snapped the duke. “I only meant I had seen Jessop occasionally on the racecourse and he seemed to be betting freely.”

“If your grace could give me the dates and places...” Bobby suggested.

“I can do nothing of the sort,” retorted the duke angrily. “I don't remember. Why should I? I was only giving a general private impression – very likely quite wrong. I know nothing about it really. This kind of cross-examination is becoming intolerable.”

He glared, he fumed, he bristled, he was evidently extremely angry – and Bobby wondered if this anger was not of that kind which springs from a hidden fear. Wanly he remembered that tact had been enjoined upon him – tact; and here was the duke nearly suffocating with rage. He began to feel the sergeant's stripes he did not wear growing very insecure upon his arm. For the old saying current in the eighteenth century, “Anger of a lord is sentence of death,” is even yet not entirely obsolete. He murmured:

“I will report, then, that your grace feels unable to give any further information.”

“Do so,” said the duke, a little as if monosyllables were all that at the moment he could trust himself to utter. Then, recovering himself, he said more quietly: “I see no reason why it should be mentioned at all.”

Bobby was aware of a possibly erroneous impression that something like bribery was hanging in the air. But it was no part of his duty to allow any such unlawful act to develop; an officer of police must be careful, whatever the temptation, never to act as
agent provocateur
. All the same, his impression was strengthened that the duke was really uneasy, really regretted and was alarmed by what he had said. In that case it was probably true, reflected Bobby. But Bobby felt also that he had pressed the point as far as was possible at the moment. Any attempt to continue would only result, he felt, in his being promptly and peremptorily ordered out of the house – a doom he felt was on the very razor-edge of pronouncement.

“I will be careful to say,” he murmured deprecatingly, “that your grace is sure it's of no importance.”

Fortunately, at this moment the arrival of Charley Dickson made a diversion. And very uneasily and reproachfully the young man looked at Bobby, with the evident intention of reminding him of his promise to say nothing about that Saturday evening “binge,” as he had called it. Bobby gave a small, reassuring nod, and the duke, perhaps, like Bobby, glad of the diversion caused by Charley's appearance, said to him quickly:

“Oh, Dickson, I'm told you're a member of some club – the Come and Go Away Again, is it?”

“Cut and Come Again, sir,” interposed Bobby.

“The actual name,” said the duke coldly, “is immaterial. I am told, Dickson, that a great deal of gossip goes on there?”

“Oh, no, sir; none, at least, as far as I know. I never heard any,” protested Charley, looking quite shocked. “Of course, I'm not there often. Of course, in any club – well, there's talk. I expect even in the Athenaeum –”

“We are not speaking of the Athenaeum,” remarked still more coldly the duke, with whom it was a sore point that so far that famous club had omitted to elect him.

“I'm perfectly certain,” interposed the duchess abruptly, “they talk there just as much as anywhere. I know 'em – bishops and professors; authors, too,” she added by way of climax. “They've all got tongues,” she said, “and they all like spice.”

“Possibly,” said the duke, “but the – Cut and Come Away, is it? – is not, I imagine, a club of the same kind as the Athenaeum?”

He paused for confirmation, which Bobby supplied with a murmured:

“Entirely different.”

“Men aren't,” pointed out the duchess.

“It seems,” continued the duke, “there has been gossip there about this necklace Jessop's firm was trying to sell – at a most exorbitant price, in my opinion.”

“I'm sure I never heard any, sir,” Charley protested. “But, then I'm so seldom there,” he repeated, looking extremely virtuous – not to say smug.

“They showed it me once when I happened to be at the Mayfair Square shop,” the duke continued. “No doubt very valuable thing, but the figure mentioned was quite out of reason. One is used to being asked exorbitant prices,” he added with a patient sigh, “but this was really too much. I lost all interest. I think you have seen it, haven't you?” he added to his wife.