The Silk Stocking Murders (21 page)

“Yes, I know. Well, you’re showing better feeling than I gave you credit for, Moresby; and I’ll reciprocate by admitting that the evidence is a facer. In fact, it’s hell!” Roger perched himself on a corner of the Chief Inspector’s table and swung a moody foot.

“I don’t know how much you’ve gathered, Mr. Sheringham,” went on the Chief Inspector, dropping into his chair, “but I’ve no objections now the cat is out of the bag to telling you all we know. And if you can show us that your friend isn’t guilty and another man is, why, nobody will be more pleased than we shall.”

“Moresby,” said Roger, “this is highly unprofessional conduct. You don’t seem to have read the story-books at all. No detective from Scotland Yard ever wants his selected victim to escape, you should know. Well, just run over the evidence, will you?”

Moresby complied, and his recital followed precisely the same lines as Roger had anticipated. In the absence of any other strange man in the building at the time Dorothy Fielder died, except the artisan whose alibi was complete, Newsome must be the murderer, both by a process of elimination and by the direct evidence of his connection with the flat in question given by the porter and the taxi-driver; the alibi he had attempted to set up had fallen completely to the ground; the waiter was not prepared to swear that he came in any earlier than a quarter to two, and the doctor had said that death might have taken place as early as one-fifteen. So far as the Fielder case was concerned, Newsome hadn’t a leg to stand on.

The Graeme case was almost as conclusive, and here as well there was the important addition of a powerful motive. Lady Ursula had thrown Newsome over for another man; how many murders had been committed on account of that very thing? “If I can’t have her, then no man shall,” explained the Chief Inspector. “That’s the sort of idea.” Then the notepaper had been traced to Newsome, alone of all the three original suspects; and the police were in a position to prove that the very note supposed to be left by Lady Ursula had actually been written to Newsome himself the day before her death.

“Oh?” said Roger. “I didn’t know that. That’s very interesting. How do you prove it?”

Well, admitted the Chief Inspector, the proof wasn’t absolute, but it was as near as made no odds. Newsome’s valet had stated that Lady Ursula had at one time often dropped in to tea and that sort of thing, but after her engagement her visits had been a good deal rarer. On the afternoon of the day before her death, however, she rang the bell and told the valet that her dog, a little white sealyham, had jumped out of her arms almost outside the door and run out into the road, where, besides being nearly killed half a dozen times, it had got smothered in mud, and she wanted to know if she could clean it up in the bathroom.

“I gathered,” said the Chief Inspector, “that with Lady Ursula asking for permission to do something and saying she was jolly well going to do it, was about the same thing. Anyhow, she made short work of the valet’s objections, if he raised any, and marched straight into the bathroom and gave the dog a bath. The valet did protest a bit when he saw what a mess she was making of the place, but she only laughed at him and said she’d leave a note for Newsome to explain that he hadn’t been bathing a dog in his master’s wash-basin himself.”

“Ah!” said Roger, who had been listening with deep interest.

“Well,” Moresby went on, “she
did
leave the note. She left it in Newsome’s sitting-room, and the valet saw it there himself. In fact he positively identifies the one we’ve got with the one she left. But Newsome swears he’s never seen it before in his life. If it was left for him, he says, he never got it. Now, what do you make of that, Mr Sheringham?”

“I’m going to take it as an axiom that what Newsome says is true, Moresby,” Roger said seriously, “and if the facts don’t square with what he does say, then it’s the facts that are at fault, not him. Which simply means that we don’t know them all yet.”

“Um!” The Chief Inspector did his best not to look sceptical, for he was a kind man and he saw that Roger was seriously perturbed, but his effort was not very successful. “Well, I hope you’ll find out plenty more, Mr. Sheringham,” he said politely.

“When are you going to arrest Newsome?” Roger asked bluntly.

“That depends. He’s not going to run away, is he? You’ve taken on the responsibility now, Mr. Sheringham, and you’ll have to be answerable for him.”

“Very well; I agree to that. No, he won’t run away.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do. We were going to arrest him to-day, but if you undertake that he’ll hold himself at our disposal so to speak, and not on any account leave London, then I’ll put it off till the day after to-morrow to give you a last chance, Mr. Sheringham. That’s the very best I can do, and that’s stretching things a lot, you know.”

“Forty-eight hours to prove Jerry’s innocence,” murmured Roger. “My sacred hat! All right. Moresby. Thanks. That’s a bargain.”

O
NE
promise Moresby obtained from Roger before he left, and that was that Newsome’s impending arrest should remain a profound secret between the two of them; he had no objection to Newsome himself being told as he must already have guessed so much and there was no object in secrecy, but beyond that it must not go. Roger bound himself to silence, although this meant that he would not be able to share his knowledge with his two lieutenants, and gave a similar promise on behalf of Newsome.

As he taxied back to the Albany he tried hard to grapple with the problem. If he was to establish Newsome’s innocence in a paltry two days he had got to get to work without delay, but where was he to start? He could see no jumping-off place from which to attack in a new direction. The valet and the note, perhaps? That seemed the only new fact that had come to light.

His first action on arriving at his rooms was to ring up Pleydell. While keeping strictly to his promise, he told the latter that events of great importance might be expected at any minute, and it was essential that the arrangements made yesterday should be put in hand with the utmost speed. Pleydell replied that they had been in hand since yesterday, but that he would hurry them up so that the first sitting could be held that same afternoon; he had already warned the men that had been allotted to him. On Roger’s surprised query as to how this could be done, as it was already past eleven o’clock, he said laconically that if he said it should be done, it would. Accepting this, Roger asked him if he would mind taking the sitting that afternoon as he himself was going to be busy in another direction. Pleydell replied that he would, with pleasure.

“My aunt, that man doesn’t let grass grow under his feet,” Roger commented as he hung up the receiver.

“Pleydell?” said Newsome. “Whatever was all that about?”

Roger told him of the alliance that had been formed, and its plans.

“The Jerry Newsome Defence League, I think we ought to call it now,” he concluded. “By the way, you mustn’t tell anybody about it, or what we’re going to do; especially not the police.”

“But good Lord, is there the slightest hope that you’ll get any results?”

“Not the faintest, I should imagine,” Roger replied equably. “If the man does turn up, he must be mentally deficient in all ways instead of only one; and I’m quite sure he’s not that. But there is a tiny hope in the plan, and there’s none in any other that I can see, so we’re going to give it a trial at least.”

“I’d like to meet that girl again,” remarked Newsome. “Anne Manners, by Jove! I wouldn’t have believed it. She must be a well-plucked ‘un.”

“She’s got the smallest body and the biggest heart of any nice girl I’ve ever met,” affirmed Roger, with unwonted feeling. “I’m jolly well going to make her the heroine of my next book.”

“The poor kid!” commented Mr. Newsome, into whom not even impending arrest could apparently instil any respect for his boyhood’s friend’s literary talents. “Whatever has she done to deserve that?”

Roger disregarded this ribaldry. “Stop being funny, Jerry, and tell me this; did the police ask you about a note Lady Ursula was supposed to have left for you the day before she was killed?”

“Yes, they did say something about one. But they’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I never, had one from her. She called in to wash a dog or something equally mad, Johnson told me (that’s my man), but——”

“Come on,” Roger interrupted. “We’ve got no time to waste.”

“Where are we going?”

“To have a word with Johnson.”

They hurried off.

Johnson proved to be a small, desiccated man with protruding teeth, who was plainly devoted to his master, and just as plainly not at all devoted to the police. Before he had been speaking to him three minutes, Roger began to realise what a task they must have had to extract from him such information as they did.

Yet his story was simple enough. Lady Ursula had left such a note. He had seen it with his own eyes lying on the table when she went into Mr. Newsome’s bedroom to tidy herself after washing the dog (one gathered that the minor conventions meant nothing in Lady Ursula’s life). Undoubtedly it was the same one that the police had got.

Johnson had had no idea that his master had not received it, or he would not have said a word about it.

“It was lying flat on the table, then?” Roger asked. “Not folded and put in an envelope?”

No, it was lying flat. Johnson would not have read it if he had known what it was, it went without saying, but seeing it lying there he had fancied it was something of Mr. Newsome’s and was going to tidy it away till he saw that it was Lady Ursula’s note.

“What was written on the top?” Roger asked. “Was there a name or anything like that?”

“To the best of my knowledge the word‘Jerry’ was written on the top, sir,” replied Johnson, with a deprecatory air, as if apologising for having to allow his master’s nickname to pass the barrier of his teeth.

“I see. Now, who came here between Lady Ursula’s departure and Mr. Newsome’s return?”

“No one, sir,” Johnson replied with decision.

“No one? Then how did the note vanish?”

“I can’t say, sir, I’m sure. I left it here, I know. I can only surmise that Mr. Newsome overlooked it, and it was tidied away the next morning without my noticing it.”

“So that both of you overlooked it? No, that doesn’t seem right. Now this is an important point, Johnson, so try and jog your memory. Are you certain you let nobody else in here that afternoon?”

“Quite certain, sir. You see, I went out myself shortly after Lady Ursula went. I remember distinctly. Mr. Newsome was going to be out till late, and he had kindly said that I need not stay in if I cared to take a little air. I remained out till past six o’clock.”

“What doing?” Roger asked sharply.

Johnson looked hurt. “I went to a cinematograph performance, sir,” he replied, with dignity.

Roger forbore to comment on Johnson’s preference in air. “Well, this seems a mystery,” he said. “Somebody’s got hold of that letter somehow, I’m convinced. Has the porter downstairs a pass-key to this flat?”

“No, sir. But since you raise the matter I might mention that one of our own keys appears to have been mislaid. There used to be three, and now there are only Mr. Newsome’s and my own. The spare one has been lost.”

“For how long?”

“Oh, for some months now. But perhaps it would be as well not to attach too much importance to that, sir.” Johnson’s parched face again took on its deprecatory look. “Mr. Newsome sometimes does lose things, if he will forgive my mentioning it.”

“Johnson’s trying to tell you politely that I lost the extra key myself,” Newsome laughed. “It was my own key, and I had my pocket picked. I not only lost the key, but my pocket-book as well, with a nice little bundle of notes in it. There’s nothing in that.”

Roger nodded. “Thank you, Johnson. That’s all.”

When they were alone he turned to Newsome. “It’s deuced odd about that note. It can’t have been overlooked by both of you. Is Johnson absolutely reliable?”

“Absolutely,” Newsome said emphatically. “He’s been with our family since he was a boy.”

“Well, he had one interesting thing to tell us,” Roger mused. “The note was not in an envelope, you heard. Well, when we got it it
had
been folded.”

“Wouldn’t the fellow who got hold of it have folded it?”

“He would, yes. But the interesting part is the way in which it was folded. Not that it helps us in the slightest, and I’m afraid it won’t interest the police; as a matter of fact it’s just a tiny point in your favour, but we won’t bother about it now. I’ve got to run up to Maida Vale and warn Anne Manners to be ready for the sitting this afternoon.”

“I’ll run up with you,” said Newsome promptly.

“Right you are,” Roger agreed. “And your sleuth can run behind.”

They went out into the street and Newsome looked up and down it. “Hullo,” he said. “My sleuth doesn’t seem to be here.”

Roger looked. Not a lounger, a passer-by or a loiterer was in sight. “Well, that
is
sporting of Moresby,” Roger said warmly. “I’ll tell the world it is.”

Anne and Miss Carruthers received them kindly, and Newsome proceeded to renew his slight acquaintance with the former. Roger, however, had no time for light dalliance. He was not quite sure what he ought to do, but he knew it had got to be done at once. Newsome, on the other hand, could very well be left where he was for the time being. Apparently there was nothing more to be learnt from him, and his present surroundings might be even better for his morale than Roger’s own flat.

On pretext of being shown out, Roger drewAnne out on to the landing with him, firmly shut the sitting-room door and told her that the sittings were to begin that very afternoon.

Anne’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, I am so glad,” she said. “The men were in here so early this morning that I hoped we might be able to begin to-day. I told the landlord they were plumbers to see the kitchen taps, and he seemed so relieved at not being expected to pay for them that he took it without a word. He lives on the ground-floor.”