Mystery of Mr. Jessop (8 page)

“Denis will be wondering what's up. He'll be doing something violent soon if we aren't careful,” she said. “That is, if he's still there, poor lamb.”

She opened the door admitting into the tiny vestibule and then the outer door. Over her shoulder Bobby saw that Denis Chenery was still there, leaning against the corridor wall opposite, his arms folded and with a very grim and resolute expression that suggested he was holding himself in a restraint that might not last too long.

“Denis,” she said to him, “Mr. Jessop has been murdered.”

“I thought there was something like that,” he observed coolly.

“You can tell him all about it,” she said to Bobby, who had followed her. “Good night, Denis.”

She went back into the flat, and Bobby had a vision of her making again in solitude the dance her vehicle of thought and contemplation. Denis said to Bobby:

“Know who did it?”

“We have certain information,” Bobby answered cautiously. “You knew Mr. Jessop?”

“I've only seen the blighter once. Quite enough, too.”

“You didn't like him?”

“I didn't like the job he gave Miss May. Might have landed her in a hell of a hole. She might have got murdered herself. I didn't think he was straight.”

“Why?”

“I just didn't think so, that's all. Too fond of keeping things to himself. I knew he had been showing stuff to the Duchess of Westhaven on the q.t. – trying to lead her on. Hilda didn't know that, but I did. If he's got himself done in, as likely as not it was because he was up to something.” Bobby thought that quite probable. But something else Denis had said interested him more.

“Do you know what it was he had been showing the duchess?” he asked.

“Oh, that swagger necklace of theirs; thought he could let her in for buying it. Of course, she hadn't the coin, and the duke wasn't likely to spring it.”

“How was it you knew?”

“Charley Dickson told me – the bounder that took on Miss May's job. He seemed to think it very funny. He said Jessop had been at Hastley Court the day of a big garden spree there was there, and at their London flat as well, only on the strict q.t. Struck me that meant Jessop was up to funny work of some sort.”

“Did you tell Miss May?”

Denis shook his head.

“No good,” he said. “Besides, I didn't know. It might have been O.K. My idea was Jessop was trying to plant the necklace on her without the duke knowing.”

Bobby thought the idea possible, though he did not see exactly where it led. Nor could he afford to spend any more time just then asking questions more or less at random. At any rate, he had now in his mind some idea of the background against which the victim had moved, and at the moment it was more important – or so his superiors would probably think – to get in touch with Mr. Jacks as soon as possible. If Mr. Jacks arrived home before Bobby got there, and rang up Scotland Yard to ask why he was being inquired for, Bobby would certainly be asked to explain his delay in reaching Bayswater. Besides, it was really the business of his superiors to decide the lines interrogations should follow, and Denis, moving towards the automatic lift, remarked:

“Someone will be making a row if we stand gassing here.”

Bobby, following him, said:

“I must get on to let Mr. Jacks know what's happened. But you might give me your card. I expect our people will want to see if there's anything more you can tell them.”

“Don't suppose there is,” Denis remarked, but produced his card accordingly, and the lift conveyed them downwards to the street.

As Bobby had known to be the case before, the bark of headquarters proved worse than its bite, and a cruising police car had been told to look out for him. It picked him up accordingly soon after he left Hilda May's flat, its occupants in a very discontented mood.

“Orders to look out for a bird called Wynne,” one of them grumbled, “and they give us a description to fit half London. Seem to think there'll be a label, ‘Wynne – wanted,' on his back. Murder case, isn't it? And what are you got up like that for? Gone back to uniform for keeps?”

Bobby explained briefly the circumstances, and how his uniform was the outcome of a not very brilliant plan to get near the watchful T.T. Mullins without rousing his suspicions, filled in as best he could from the brief glimpse he had had of him the scanty description supplied of Wynne, and then relapsed into silence, for his long interview with Hilda had left him in a very worried and doubtful frame of mind.

He had a troubling memory, for instance, of that expression she had used when she had spoken of herself as “outside the law,” a phrase, as it seemed to him, of so many implications.

She had spoken, too, of Denis Chenery as if she had a certain fear of his “violence” of temperament, as if she were not sure how far his self-control was to be trusted. And he, on his part, had spoken of the dead man with what was plainly a deeply felt anger and resentment.

Then, too, it appeared that Denis was in an extremely difficult social position – a probable heir to great possessions who yet was not likely to enter into his inheritance for many years; who might, indeed, never do so. Bobby thought it a cruel situation for any young man, and one likely to affect any character except the strongest. Of course, it could and should have been alleviated by some sort of recognition and allowance made by the present holder of the title and estates of Westhaven, but that, Bobby gathered, had not been done, and, in fact, the general reputation of his grace of Westhaven did not suggest that any idea of the kind was likely to occur to him.

Nor did Bobby forget the further complication that, in spite of Hilda's denial of any engagement, the two young people were evidently on terms of intimate friendship, and that it was this friendship that had cost Hilda her post. Even if their graces of Westhaven saw no necessity to supply a possible heir with any allowance, at least they considered themselves entitled to interfere with his matrimonial plans. Unjust, of course, and injustice, it has been said, makes even wise men mad. Certainly, then, the movements of the two young people that night would have to be carefully investigated, for it was a possibility to be considered that the knowledge Hilda undoubtedly, and Denis most probably, possessed of the Fay Fellows necklace, and the interest taken in it by duke and duchess, had suggested to Denis at least a means of alleviating the difficulties of his position.

Then, in addition, what had Hilda meant by her uncompleted exclamation: “Oh, Denis, have you?”

Had he – what?

Bobby did not much like the looks of the answer that presented itself to his mind. Though he did not phrase it in so many words, the psychological situation seemed to him charged with too many explosive elements to be regarded with any degree of comfort.

“Here you are,” said the driver of the car, drawing up before one of those solid, solemn Victorian houses that still give to Bayswater squares their air of immovable respectability. ‘Hop out and we'll go look for Wynne – and hope we do.”

Bobby paid this jest the expected tribute of a laugh, said “Thank you” for his lift, and then knocked at the door of the house.

He was expected, and the manservant who opened the door relieved him by saying that Mr. Jacks had not yet returned, but was not likely to be much longer. He was not a late gentleman, Bobby was assured. He was given a seat in the hall, and most of the household staff, either not yet retired to bed or risen therefrom for the occasion, surrounded him in an effort to find out what it was all about, his telephone call having plainly caused much excitement.

Bobby resisted these blandishments firmly, and, to his relief, was not long exposed to them, the sound of a car drawing up outside heralding the return of Mr. and Mrs. Jacks, and sending the domestic staff into hasty retirement.

Mr. Jacks was a tall, thin, worried-looking man, his hair quite grey though he was hardly yet middle-aged, with small excited eyes, and very straight thin lips, tightly compressed over a small round chin – an unstable mixture, Bobby fancied, of obstinacy and impulse, a man likely to follow a determined line of conduct with extreme firmness until he swerved from it to follow another quite different line with equal vigour and resolve. A man, too, generally persuaded that his own conclusions must be right; not that that is exceptional.

“Hullo,” he exclaimed, the moment he caught sight of Bobby. “Burglars at Mayfair Square again?”

“Oh, how – dreadful,” said from behind him his wife, a small, round, fat, good-tempered-looking woman.

“No, sir –” began Bobby, but Mr. Jacks did not allow him to continue.

“Didn't get in, eh? You scared them off first? Very smart, of course, though I suppose it's what we pay rates for.”

“It's nothing –” began Bobby, intending to say that his errand had nothing to do with burglary, but again Mr. Jacks interrupted.

“Well, then, if it's nothing, why come bothering at this time of night? Not that I should mind much if it were something. We're insured up to a couple of thousand, and there's never more than that value outside the strong-room. Puzzle all the burglars going to get in there. Barnes,” he added to the manservant, “give the constable a glass of beer, and then we can all get to bed.”

“Mr. Jacks,” said Bobby firmly, “a man has been found shot, and has been identified as Mr. Jessop, said to be your partner. My orders are to ask you to come with me to identify the body.”

Mr. Jacks stared at him, and there came into his eyes a look of sudden terror, of panic almost. Mrs. Jacks screamed, and gave signs of contemplating hysterics or fainting. There was some confusion for a moment or two. Barnes went running for a glass of water; one or two maids appeared from the upstairs landing, where they had probably been listening. Jacks did not seem to notice his wife, or the maids fussing round her. He was evidently holding himself in strict control, and yet his hands were shaking, his whole body, indeed, trembling. He said, as if hoping for a reassurance he yet did not in fact expect:

“Jessop? It can't be! Are you sure?”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and stared at his wife, with the maids murmuring sympathy and proffering help. Bobby wondered if this was because he did not wish his face to be seen. He said over his shoulder:

“It can't be Jessop – must be a mistake.”

“If you will come with me to view the body,” Bobby said, “you can make sure.”

“But what could Jessop be doing at Mayfair Square at this time of night?”

“It wasn't at Mayfair Square it happened,” Bobby answered. “It was at the house of a Mr. Mullins at Brush Hill.”

“Brush Hill? That's beyond Clapham somewhere, isn't it? Who's Mullins? A bookmaker, I suppose.”

This was said with a bitterness Bobby noticed but did not comment on, though he felt it was a thing to remember, as was also the extreme agitation, more of terror than of surprise, Mr. Jacks had shown. It was almost, Bobby thought, as though hidden fears he entertained had been abruptly verified. But that perhaps was fanciful. He said aloud:

“Our information is that your firm has a very valuable diamond necklace, the property of Miss Fay Fellows, you are trying to effect a sale of?”

“What about it? You don't mean... it's in our strongroom – the necklace, I mean. Jessop... shot... who... what do you mean about the Fellows necklace?... Are you sure it's Jessop?”

“It is to be sure that we are asking you to establish identification,” Bobby repeated.

“Well, then, we had better get along,” Jacks said with sudden resolve. “The Fellows necklace – how do you know anything about it? It's in the strong-room.”

“If it is,” said Bobby, “the information we received that it had been stolen must be wrong.”

“Information – information,” Mr. Jacks repeated, stammering a little. He had somehow an air of finding this word alarming. He paused in his resolute march towards front door and waiting car, and with equal determination flung open the door of a small room on the right of the entrance. “Come in here,” he said. “Information – what's that mean?”

Bobby obeyed, but suggested that the sooner they started the better.

“Can we use the car outside?” he asked. “If not, I can ring up and ask for a police car to be sent. But if that is your car, and available, it would save time to use it. The sooner Mr. Jessop's body can be identified the better. Then, too, you may be able to help us.”

“Jessop's body?” repeated Jacks, and, as though the words had called up a picture he had not before been able to visualise, he became very pale and sat down, trembling violently. Bobby observed him with a close attention. Jacks took out his handkerchief and began to mop his face. He said in a loud, unsteady voice: “The Fellows necklace is in the strong-room. Must be.”

“If so, one point will be cleared up,” Bobby remarked. “To-morrow is Sunday, but I suppose you have the key?”

“The thing is worth £100,000,” Jacks said, “and it's not insured – except during business hours. After business hours, it's always kept in the strong-room. We have a key each, Jessop and me and Wright – that's our manager; it takes all three keys to open it. You said you had – information?”

“Mr. Jessop himself – or someone claiming to be him,” said Bobby, “rang up this afternoon. I'm not sure of the exact time, but it'll be on record; it was some time early in the afternoon. He said the Fellows necklace had been stolen – the actual expression used was swindled – ‘swindled out of.' Mr. Jessop – assuming it was him speaking; we had no way of testing that, of course – sounded very excited and was rather incoherent. He had to be told we could do nothing unless he gave us more details. Instead, he rang off. One of our men went round to Mayfair Square to make further inquiries. He couldn't get any answer.”