Crime at Tattenham Corner Page 12

  By now they felt almost like old friends. Harbord talked of his work and its difficulties and, in some cases, dangers. Elsie listened with increasing interest, and when at last he managed to introduce the Burslem Mystery, though he fancied she grew a shade paler, she made no attempt to check him. For a few moments he confined himself to Sir John Burslem’s death and to the tremendous loss to small punters caused by the scratching of Peep o’ Day. Elsie acknowledged to having put most of her savings on the colt, and also to having persuaded her young man to do the same, thus laying the foundation of the estrangement between them.

  Harbord listened and sympathized. Then he skilfully turned the conversation to Ellerby and his disappearance. Here Elsie was inclined to become restive, but Harbord seemed so unconscious of any disinclination on her part and talked on so placidly that she soon quieted down.

  “I have often remarked to a friend of mine,” the young detective said at last, “that I thought it was uncommonly plucky of young girls like yourself to remain in 15 Porthwick Square after all that has happened, or is said to have happened, there.”

  There was no mistaking Elsie’s pallor now.

  “Oh, I wish I need not,” she breathed, clasping her hands. “But we were all told that wherever we went we had to keep the police informed of our whereabouts and hold ourselves in readiness to obey any summons at any time. I couldn’t get another job, not a good one, if I told folks that, and I can’t afford to live at home. So I just stay on at 15 Porthwick Square until things are settled up, and then I shall be jolly glad to get away – jolly glad.”

  “I am sure you will,” Harbord’s voice was very sympathetic. “I don’t know that I should care to stay in the house myself – I don’t believe I should sleep at night.”

  “That is just how I feel,” Elsie breathed. “I used to sleep that sound I was off the moment my head touched the pillow. But now I lie awake and think and wonder. It has been dreadful, dreadful – ever since Mr. Ellerby went away. There’s none of us will sleep alone.”

  “I don’t wonder at that. And you may well say went away. I wonder where he did go,” Harbord said speculatively. “I wonder whether you have any notion, Miss Spencer?”

  “Me – any notion?” repeated Elsie, shuddering. “I should think I have not. Do you think he did go – out of the house, Mr. Harbord?”

  Harbord shook his head. “I would give a good deal to be able to answer that question. There’s only one thing I do think – and that is that some one in the house must have known what has become of Ellerby and how he went – if go he did.”

  “I don’t believe there is anybody that knows anything about it – not on the staff, anyhow,” Elsie contradicted. “If anyone does – it is her ladyship.”

  “Now I wonder why you should say that?” Harbord questioned. “Though I have heard the theory put forward before, mind you. But how should Lady Burslem know anything of the valet’s disappearance? I cannot imagine. What makes you say so anyhow?”

  Elsie shivered. “I don’t suppose it is anything really, and – of course it isn’t. But – but her ladyship was walking about the house that night.”

  “She was!” Harbord could not prevent a note of triumph from creeping into his voice. “But how do you know, Miss Spencer?”

  Elsie began to look thoroughly frightened. “I wish I hadn’t said anything about it. But you – you wheedled it out of me somehow. And now – I don’t know what to do.” Her blue eyes were swimming in tears.

  Harbord just touched her hand.

  “Now don’t you trouble yourself, Miss Spencer. You have done the wisest thing in trusting me. What you tell me goes no farther. And you must tell somebody. I can see it is making you quite ill, the keeping it to yourself.”

  “Yes, that’s right!” Elsie said tearfully. “Well, I will tell you. If it gets me into trouble, I can’t help it. It will be a comfort to have it off my chest.” She stopped and gazed round. “There’s nobody can hear us here, can they?” pointing to a couple at a table on a line with them.

  “Not a bit of it!” Harbord said reassuringly. “Now put the matter in a nutshell. How do you know that Lady Burslem was up and about the house on the night of Ellerby’s disappearance?”

  “Because I saw her,” Elsie said in a whisper.

  Harbord drew a deep breath.

  “I expected as much. Now just tell me exactly what you saw and heard.”

  “It – it wasn’t much anyway,” Elsie said, tears vibrating in her voice. “But I was sleeping with Clara Hill, the kitchenmaid, in a room at the back of the house on the third floor. And I got the toothache something cruel. I had some very good stuff for toothache that my sister gave me and I had lent it to Mary Clarke, the head housemaid. She sleeps in a room at the end of our passage, so I made up my mind I would go along and get it. Clara Hill was awake too, and she came with me. I wouldn’t have dared to go by myself since Sir John died – we none of us would. Well, right at the end of the passage there is a green baize swing-door that opens on to the corridor that runs along the front of the house. Just as we got up to Mary’s room we saw a streak of light under the green baize door. We wondered whether it had been forgotten, for when Sir John was alive he was most particular about all the lights being out, and then we thought of burglars and got real scared. At last we just pushed the door very gently and peeped through. Some one – a woman – was coming down the passage carrying an electric torch in one hand and a parcel – a good-sized parcel – in the other. We couldn’t make out at first who it was, then as she came nearer we saw that it was her ladyship.”

  “You are sure?” Harbord questioned half incredulously.

  The girl nodded emphatically. “Certain! We saw her face quite plain – me and Clara both. At first we thought she was walking in her sleep, but then she would not have brought the torch or the parcel, would she?”

  Harbord shook his head. “No, I should say that is out of the question. What else did you see, Miss Spencer? Where did she go?”

  “I – I think downstairs,” Elsie faltered. “But we didn’t wait any longer, me and Clara. We were too much afraid of getting into trouble if we were caught,' so we just hurried back to bed, and I never got the toothache mixture after all; for the seeing her ladyship put everything else out of my head. And the tooth stopped aching just as if by magic. So I kept it warm in bed till morning.”

  “Ah, I have heard that a fright often takes toothache away,” Harbord said thoughtfully. “What time was this, should you say?”

  “Just before three,” said Elsie. “For I heard it strike directly after I got back into bed. Clara made the remark that she wondered what her ladyship could be doing. Then the next day we heard that Mr. Ellerby could not be found, and we have wondered and wondered did the one who was about the house see anything, or know anything, or – or do anything,” her voice dropping to the merest whisper. Harbord had to lean forward to catch it. His face was grave as he sat still, his eyes fixed upon the tiny ripples on the river’s surface. He did not speak.

  After one glance at him, big tears welled up in Elsie’s eyes, and rolled miserably down her cheeks.

  “We have been too frightened even to speak of it to one another. I did just say a word to Mrs. Ellerby when she came to ask about her husband, and I have been sorry ever since I spoke,” she said, her voice shaking. “And now I have been and told you all about it. And – and I don’t suppose I shall ever hear the last of it. Clara will never forgive me.”

  “There is no need she should know anything about it that I see,” Harbord said, rousing himself. “Or anyone else for that matter. What you saw does not affect the Burslem Mystery one way or the other, as far as I can judge, unless it adds a minor one. You I say her ladyship was alone?”

  “Oh, yes. There was nobody else about then.”

  “How was she dressed? I mean, for going out, or in indoor things.”

  “Oh, indoor,” Elsie said quickly. “I mean she looked as if she had just thrown on some sort o
f loose, dark dressing-gown. She hadn’t got a hat or anything on her head, for her hair just caught the torchlight as she came along.”

  “It is a strange thing, and I don’t see what she could be doing. Was she helping Ellerby get away or was she –”

  “Trying to prevent him getting away?” Elsie whispered. “Mrs. Ellerby she makes sure she was – she might be afraid he would talk, Mrs. Ellerby says. And – and we don’t know how much he knew or – or guessed.”

  Harbord could not forbear a slight smile.

  “My dear Miss Spencer, with the best will in the world, I don’t think a slight, rather delicate woman like Lady Burslem could do away with a strong man like Ellerby, or even prevent him getting away from the house, for that matter.”

  “He – he might have been shot or – or poisoned,” Elsie said in the same scared whisper.

  “What became of the body, then?” Harbord questioned, his smile deepening.

  Elsie was not looking at him now.

  “She – she was carrying a parcel. I have asked myself sometimes what could have been in it.”

  “Well, hardly Ellerby, dead or alive, I presume.” A hint of amusement Harbord could not help feeling was creeping into his voice now.

  “No, of course not!” Elsie began indignantly; then the frightened note came into her voice again. “Not – not whole,” she whispered.

  This time Harbord really could not repress a laugh. “Oh, my dear girl, what have you been doing? Having a course of the ‘Mysteries of the Rue Morgue’ or something of that kind? Come, I am going to take you for a walk by the river. And then we will have a drive round and home. That will sweep all the cobwebs away. And you will be all the better for having spoken of your fears to somebody – somebody who is quite safe, moreover. And, believe me, you can put all those same fears away – you are conjuring up an impossibility.”

  CHAPTER 13

  We understand that Peep o’ Day, the late Sir John Burslem’s wonder colt, who was scratched for the Derby at the last moment owing to the owner’s lamented death, has finished his racing career. He has been sold by Lady Burslem to Señor Ramon da Villistara, one of the biggest breeders in Argentina, for £45,000. Peep o’ Day will leave by an early boat and on reaching La Plata will proceed at once to the Ramon da Villistara stud-farm, which with the adjacent estancia stands some distance north of Rosario da Santa Fe. It is rumoured that Señor da Villistara has decided that Peep o’ Day shall serve only his home mares. Enormous fees are said to have been offered by other owners and to have been refused by the Señor, who possesses some of the finest brood mares in the world. The breeding of Argentine racehorses is Señor Ramon da Villistara’s great hobby, and it is for the furtherance of this and the introduction of the best English strain that Peep o’ Day has been purchased.

  “Is there any truth in this paragraph?” inquired Mrs. Aubrey Dolphin, tapping the Daily Wire smartly with the cigarette she was about to light.

  The two sisters – she and Lady Burslem – were sitting in the latter’s sitting-room at 15 Porthwick Square. To the general surprise Sophie Burslem had persisted in staying in town all through the summer, even when the exigencies of the inquest would have allowed of a visit to the country.

  For the inquest had formally concluded now, in a very unsatisfactory fashion, since the verdict that Sir John Burslem had been shot but that by whom the shot had been fired there was no evidence to show.

  “Most unsatisfactory verdict,” the public called it and raised a great outcry about the supineness of the police and the deficiencies of the C.I.D. These sentiments were coupled with adverse comments on the non-discovery of Sir John Burslem’s murderer and scornful inquiries as to what had become of his valet, Robert Ellerby. It spoke volumes for the failure of our police system that a house and its inmates should be under police observation and that a man should absolutely disappear from that house and that the C.I.D. should find no trace of him, dead or alive.

  But these scathing comments of the public, like the police investigations, produced no result, and the whereabouts of Robert Ellerby, like the question of the murderer of Sir John Burslem, remained a mystery.

  The widowed Lady Burslem remained in seclusion and grew thinner and more shadowy looking day by day. The tragic look in her eyes went to the hearts of those who loved her. But she spoke of her excellent health and invited no sympathy. So far as Inspector Stoddart had been able to ascertain, there had been no attempt at communication either on her side or Sir Charles Stanyard’s. And the inspector’s thoughts were more often busy with the person to whom the half letter of Lady Burslem’s that Forbes had brought to him had been addressed than he would have cared to confess.

  Mrs. Dolphin rapped the paper again and repeated her question:

  “Is there any truth in this paragraph?”

  Lady Burslem glanced at the paper listlessly.

  “About Peep o’ Day? Oh, yes, he is sold to Villistara.”

  “You got a good price for him,” Mrs. Dolphin remarked. “But I wonder whether Sir John would have liked him to go to Argentina? He was so proud of Peep o’ Day, and so anxious that English racing should prosper always.”

  “Ah, he quite approved,” Lady Burslem said at once. “He – you know I get into communication with him through Kitty, Mrs. Jimmy Burslem. She has séances at her house nearly every week, and they almost always manage to get through to him.”

  “Really, Sophie.” Mrs. Dolphin sat back in her I chair and crossing her legs gazed at her sister in amazement as she lighted her cigarette – “how you can talk such arrant nonsense amazes me! Is it likely that John, who detested Mrs. Jimmy in his life, should spend his time in communication with her after his death?”

  Lady Burslem’s lips quivered slightly. “Death alters everything. Heaven forbid that we should take our enmities and dislikes into the next world. And John lets me know his wishes through Mrs. Jimmy.”

  “I expect his wishes mostly concern Mrs. Jimmy’s,” said Mrs. Dolphin sceptically. “Give poor Kitty a tenner or something of that sort, probably. I suppose you will be told to give her a good piece of Peep o’ ‘Day’s price.”

  “I don’t think so,” Lady Burslem dissented. “A good deal of that will be invested in Argentina. John had a great belief in the future lying before that country when its resources are fully developed.”

  “Had he really?” Clare Dolphin’s tone was not convinced. “Did he say so in his lifetime? Or did he communicate this belief of his through Mrs. Jimmy?”

  “Oh, I have heard him say so heaps of times,” Lady Burslem said decidedly. “And I don’t think you should scoff at communication with the dead, Clare. Look at all the clever people who do believe in it: Oliver Lodge and – and heaps of others.”

  “I was not scoffing at communication with the dead,” Clare Dolphin said, regarding her sister with pitying eyes. Heaven forbid that I should. But I don’t imagine that Sir Oliver Lodge has much to do with Mrs. Jimmy’s little game. What I object to is her exploitation of you for her own ends.”

  Lady Burslem drew her lips together in an obstinate line with which her sister was only too familiar. “I don’t agree with you at all. I am getting quite fond of her. She has done everything she could to help me since John’s death.”

  “And that is precious little, I expect,” Mrs. Dolphin remarked. “Well, Sophie, I am sorry you have taken this quite extraordinary liking to Mrs. Jimmy. But we cannot all think alike. I want to know where you are going abroad and when. Now that this tiresome business is over I suppose you can go when you like.”

  “I suppose so,” Sophie said languidly. “Oh, yes, of course I can. But there is a lot of business to be done in connexion with John’s affairs. Still I must have a change. Forbes is going next week and I have engaged a new maid, an Italian. So I think I shall go to the Italian lakes first, then work round to Biarritz and perhaps go on to Madrid. I have always wanted to see the Escorial.”

  “I don’t think that is at all the kind of ch
ange you want,” Clare Dolphin said decidedly. “Racing about like that! And who are you going to take with you, may I ask? I am sure you are not fit to go by yourself, and I could not possibly manage it. I must go to Scotland with Aubrey. He will not hear of anything else. If you would come with us –”

  Lady Burslem shook her head. “You are very kind, but I couldn’t,” she said decidedly. “I was there, you know, last year, with him – John. I must go somewhere I have never been before – somewhere I can try to forget.”

  Mrs. Dolphin shrugged her shoulders. “Well, if that is how you feel I can do nothing. But you will take Pam.”

  Sophie smiled faintly. “How we should both hate it! No, Pam will go to her friends, the Stanmore- Greens, probably yachting. I shall be all right.”

  “You cannot go with only a maid – a strange maid too!” Mrs. Dolphin’s eyes were wide with amazement.

  Lady Burslem’s smile deepened, though there was little enough of real amusement in her eyes.

  “Why not? You seem to forget that I shall be alone – always – now.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.

  “Do not be a sentimental idiot, Sophie!” reproved her sister, delicately flicking her cigarette ash into the tray. “You have had your time of mourning for John Burslem – quite long enough in my opinion – and now it is your duty for your own sake and that of your relatives to pull yourself together and buck up. And as for being alone always – rot! You may have been fond of your husband, no doubt you were – a great deal fonder than I ever gave you credit for being, for that matter – but you are young, you have your life before you. As for being alone always – well, I expect you will tell a very different tale this time next year. Of course you will marry again and have children of your own, and –”