Puzzle of the Silver Persian (26 page)

“Toby always has his breakfast at this time,” he explained. “And beasts are always thirsty after meat.”

“Meowr,” said Toby, and drank his milk with noisy gusto. It did not seem to Miss Withers that he could have had a meal for some time.

“There wasn’t anything but a couple of feathers left of the robin,” Treves informed her. He bore away the empty saucer, and Tobermory leaped up to the bed again and resumed his purring.

Miss Withers had no time to pat him. It was nearly nine o’clock, and she had things to do. Already the first group of tourists were straggling through the lower hall when she went down to the telephone. They stopped short, and stared after her in unison.

Miss Withers barely noticed them. She was beginning to feel a thousand tiny flickering doubts—but one large and important question for the moment overshadowed them. Fifteen days ago Rosemary Fraser was in mid-Atlantic. If she died then, how could her body get to the Thames yesterday?

Ocean currents did strange and wonderful things, she knew. But no ocean current could pick up a dead body, carry it eight or nine hundred miles, and set it down at the exact point at which all the hue and cry was being made—just at the river doorstep of Scotland Yard. That was a little too thick, even in the history of criminology, which, as she knew, bristles with sterling-true coincidences.

Yet Rosemary Fraser could not have died in London fifteen days ago, either. That was equally impossible.

Losing sight of everything else in the face of this problem, Miss Withers was temporarily deaf to the countless hints and impressions which her super-acute mind was usually attuned to receive. Somewhere in the back of that mind a little red warning light was flashing on and off, but she did not heed it.

She called the number of the Queens Hotel in Penzance, and finally heard the voice of the sergeant. “I’ve got information for you,” said that young man, “or at least, information that you may be better able to use than I. Shall I come to the castle?”

Miss Withers was about to say yes, when the door of the little room in which she sat was rudely opened. “And here you see an excellently preserved specimen of a bygone era,” the guide was reciting. His arm pointed at a fireplace beside her, but the sightseers all stared at Miss Withers, and some of them snickered.

She frowned. “I’ll come to your hotel,” she told the young policeman. “This place has all the privacy of a Strand show window.”

She bustled out of the place. Half an hour later, having been forced to phone for the skiff and use the local sixpenny bus service for the rest of the trip, she sat in the hotel lounge, beneath the inevitable potted palms, and listened to young Secker.

“Here we are,” he was saying. “Complete description of the body in the Thames. Female, age about twenty, dark hair, small bones, delicate hands, wearing white evening shoe on one foot, white silk stockings, French underwear of a fine quality, scraps of a white silk gown, and a torn midnight blue scarf around the neck. Scarf badly torn, and had evidently come into contact with a ship’s propeller, because it bore marks of rust and paint. Deep wounds on face and body, some before and some after death. Death caused by one of several severe head injuries, inflicted by edged instrument.”

“Stop,” commanded Miss Withers. “That’s enough to keep me thinking for days.” She was still uneasy. “I must run along home now,” she said. “Must have a talk with my hostess.” The young man protested loudly.

“I know that you’ve got wind of something,” said Secker. “Mind letting me in on it?”

“I know—nothing,” lied Hildegarde Withers. She felt suddenly stifled and hemmed in. “I really must go,” she said. “I’ll telephone you later.”

“Wait,” protested the sergeant. “Can’t you tell me anything? Old Cannon never was convinced of my theory of the murders being committed by Rosemary herself, and I’ve got to give him something. Won’t you—”

She shook her head and stalked away, and the young man stared after her in a very queer manner indeed.

Miss Withers stood for a few moments on the Esplanade, but no sixpenny bus appeared. Finally she set out to walk. A few minutes brought her to Newlyn, and as she came up the single winding main street she saw a sign: “Sailors’ Refuge—reading room, rest, and recreation… All mariners welcome.”

She was no mariner—or at least she sailed strange and hidden seas—but she turned on an impulse and entered that cosy little reading room with a firm and defiant step. Red-faced and weatherbeaten old gentlemen glared at her, a dog snarled from the hearth, but she crossed resolutely to the bookcase and from the meager list chose the most hopeful title—
Standard Seamanship,
by one Captain Felix Riesenberg.

Without sitting down, and entirely oblivious of the distrustful and resentful stares of the habitués of the place, she thumbed through the thick volume, peering at diagram after diagram. At length she found what she was searching for, and put back the volume. She stared at the fireplace. So that was it!

On the mantel were several models of sailing ships, and one steamer cut in soft pine. She studied the latter for a time and nodded. Then she hurried back to the street, and the Sailors’ Refuge relaxed into its immemorial peace.

Still there was no sign of the bus that could take her along the shore to the village and Dinsul. She began walking, and before she had reached the curve in the road she was overtaken by the limousine.

“Get in!” shouted Leslie Reverson.

Miss Withers hesitated—for what was almost an impolite lapse of time. Then she stepped into the car and was whisked away so swiftly that she plumped down between the two youngsters. She found a place for her feet between the golf bags.

“How did the match go?” she inquired.

“Great,” said Leslie. “I beat Candy 88 to 94.”

“I was a little off my game,” said Candida. “How can anybody play golf when you insist on—well, you know.”

“It’s no secret,” said Leslie. He was bubbling, buoyant and youthful. “I want her to set the day, you know. Aunt’ll come around—I know she’d forgive us if we ran off to a registrar’s office and got it over with. But Candy won’t say no and she won’t say yes.” He laughed. “I’m afraid I don’t know the proper way to propose. I’m thinking of calling in some help.” He turned to Miss Withers, gayly.
“You
ask her why,” he said.

“I don’t need to ask Candida why she won’t set the day,” said Miss Withers. “Because I happen to know.”

“What? Why?” Leslie leaned forward wonderingly.

Miss Withers smiled rather oddly. She turned to Candida. “Shall I tell him?”

“I suppose—” Candida stopped short and stared.

“Shall I tell him the real reason?” repeated Hildegarde Withers calmly.

Candida said nothing. The car was approaching the causeway, now black as the receding tide splashed against it. Then the girl shook her head slowly.

She felt in the pocket of her overcoat. “Good heavens,” she said. “Stop the car!”

They paused on the slope. “Leslie,” she said, “I’ve left my jeweled vanity on the golf course. I used it when we stopped at that bench near the seventh green, you remember. Where you—I mean, where we rested. Would you mind terribly—”

“Of course not!” Reverson was all politeness. “I’ll drop you at the castle, and then run back for it.”

“Never mind, I’d enjoy the walk across the causeway,” said Candida.

The young man was driven away in the ancient Buick, and Miss Withers and Candida set out, on the narrow black lane above the water, toward Dinsul. For a while they walked in silence.

“How long have you known?” asked Candida finally.

“Since I came down from London,” Miss Withers told her. “But what are we going to do about it?”

Candida didn’t know.

“We’d better have a good talk,” Miss Withers decided. “Meeting of the ways and means committee, you know. It’s not a simple problem.”

“Simple!” cried Candida.

Treves admitted them to the castle. “I hope there are no tourists about,” Miss Withers observed.

“No, madam. The last party just left. But there was a certain unpleasantness, madam. I’m afraid the mistress will be very upset about it when she finds out. One of the visitors, you see, made an attempt to visit the top floor of the castle, which is strictly against the rules. When stopped, he was very unpleasant about it.” Treves rubbed his jaw, which Miss Withers noticed was a trifle swollen. “He was—er—persuaded to leave quietly. You know these Yankees, ma’am.”

“He was a tall young man with a mustache, wasn’t he?” inquired Miss Withers.

“Oh,” said Treves, “you must have met him on the causeway.”

But Miss Withers and Candida were already mounting the stairs. As they approached her room, Miss Withers thought how lucky they were not to run into the Honorable Emily. She would be no help at the interview which was ahead of them.

Miss Withers locked her door, while Candida sank upon the bed. The school teacher took a chair, while Tobermory rubbed against her ankles affectionately.

“The meeting stands open for suggestions,” said Miss Withers. But there were no suggestions. Candida could but wouldn’t, and Tobermory would but couldn’t.

Finally the school teacher said what was in her mind. The two women talked for a long, long time.

At one o’clock Treves knocked on the door. “Luncheon will be served in twenty minutes in the mistress’s sitting room.”

“We’ll be there,” Miss Withers told him. “Oh, Treves! Will you telephone for the limousine and have it waiting in time to catch the four-thirty train for London.”

“Right away, ma’am. Shall I help you pack?”

“The car is for me,” said Candida Noring. “No, thank you, I can manage.” Treves departed in the direction of the telephone.

“Don’t worry,” said Miss Withers to Candida. “I won’t use what you have given me unless it is a matter of life or death for someone. Now, run along and freshen up for dinner. It will all come straight in the end.”

Candida stopped in the doorway. “But the police! Suppose they suspect me?”

Miss Withers smiled a faint smile. “They won’t. Police are all alike. They can’t see the forest for the trees.”

The school teacher washed her hands and face in the bathroom. In spite of the excellent hot-water system of Dinsul, about which the Honorable Emily had bragged so much, the water was barely warm.

Miss Withers then headed for the wing of the castle which was sacred to its mistress. Treves hailed her in the hall, announcing that a gentleman was calling downstairs.

She hurried down and found Sergeant John Secker, very strained and official, in the drawing room. “Sorry to burst in on you,” he said.

“Well?”

He took a slip of paper from his pocket. “You’re in at the death,” he advised her. “It’s all over—and I’ve missed the target clean. I just got this from Chief Inspector Cannon at the Yard. It was sent last night, though some fool of a boy at the hotel shoved it under my door and also under my rug, so I just found it.”

The message was brief enough. It read:

KEEP NORING UNDER OBSERVATION UNTIL I ARRIVE WITH WARRANT IF SHE TRIES TO ESCAPE ARREST HER FOR THE MURDERS OF PETER NOEL AND ANDREW TODD.

“For heaven’s sake,” said Miss Withers. She stared at the young man. “But—this is impossible!”

He shrugged.

“How could Candida get Noel to swallow poison? How could she force Todd to jump down a lift shaft? Even if you believe that she would be capable of exposing herself to the danger of dying with a cyanide cigarette in her mouth, will you answer me this one question—if Candida came down here with the Honorable Emily, as we know that she did, how could she have a black-bordered letter mailed from London two days later?”

“Search me,” said the sergeant. “I think Cannon is crazy myself. But I’m just a cog in the wheel, you know. Mine not to do or die, mine but to reason why, or something…”

“Police!” said Hildegarde Withers. “Ugh!”

“I’ve got my job to do,” said the sergeant. “We don’t have to wait for a warrant, but we like to, in cases where there’s likely to be a trial with a defense attorney accusing us of all sorts of sharp practice. In the meantime, I’ve got to keep this Miss Noring in sight.”

Miss Withers nodded slowly. “You’d better think up some excuse for hanging around the castle. Come on—we’ll call on the Honorable Emily.”

Leslie Reverson threw two golf bags near the door and was introduced to the detective. “What a time,” he told Miss Withers. “Went over the whole course, and couldn’t find Candy’s vanity. Guess I’ll have to get her another.” He was more worried about the lost vanity case than about the advent of the young detective.

Treves was in the upper hall, looking rather uneasy. Miss Withers asked him if luncheon was ready.

“Yes, madam,” he said. “I’ve laid luncheon in the mistress’s sitting room. But—” He shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of it, I don’t. She never did it so long before.”

“Who did what?” Miss Withers demanded.

“The mistress, ma’am. She loves to read and doze in her bath, but she’s never stayed there all morning before. The water is still running, but she doesn’t answer a knock.” He shook his head doubtfully. “The doors to the bath are locked…”

“Come on!” ordered Miss Withers. They came.

Four times Secker flung his weight against the door of the room in which John of Pomeroy had let his lifeblood ebb forth so many years ago. But the door held fast. Miss Withers pushed him away and bent over the keyhole.

“Bolted on the inside,” she decided. She led the way into the hall and around to the other entrance.

“That door is always kept locked,” said Treves.

But Miss Withers was doing things with a bent hairpin. After a moment she straightened up and turned the knob. The door swung inward, and they looked at the woman in the bathtub.

Water still ran from the “hot” faucet—water that was cool. The Honorable Emily lay in the soapy water of the big old-fashioned tub, with her knees arched and her head beneath the surface.

The sergeant knelt beside her. “She’s still warm,” he cried. “There’s a chance…”

Throwing a near-by bathrobe over the figure, he carried the woman in through the door which Miss Withers unlatched, into the bedroom. Putting her down on the bed, he began frantically to apply artificial respiration.