Crime at Tattenham Corner Read online

  “I hope they have not got the window open or we shall be in the soup,” the first speaker remarked.

  Dead silence followed for a moment. Then the scraping of chairs and a hubbub of conversation showed that the party was breaking up.

  The fact that she had overheard a conversation evidently not intended for her did not trouble Pamela much. The substance of it amazed her too much. True, she had always expected that her stepmother would marry again, but that such an event should be talked about already came upon her as a shock. She was astonished, too, by the mention of the man apparently chosen as her father’s successor. She had been amazed at the sale of Peep o’ Day to the Argentine; it seemed to her now that there must be some link between this and her stepmother’s Argentine secretary, but it was not easy to find.

  She was still puzzling over the problem when Stanyard entered the room. He noticed the signs of perturbation on her face at once.

  “What’s the matter, Pam? Anybody been here?”

  “No.” The girl hesitated a moment. Hitherto, she had avoided the mention of her stepmother to Stanyard, but to-day it seemed inevitable. She poured out the story she had overheard to him.

  Stanyard’s face was grave as he listened. He hesitated a minute or two before he spoke. He was well aware of the general opinion that Lady Burslem had in some mysterious fashion managed to rid herself of her elderly husband in order to marry some secret lover. Only too well was he aware also that at one time his own name had been freely mentioned in this connexion. But this was the first he had heard of the Argentine, and, like the rest of the world, he had marvelled at the sale of Peep o’ Day, and, like Pamela, he was inclined to think there must be some connexion between this and the foreign secretary.

  “Asses those johnnies must be to talk where anybody could overhear what they said,” he remarked at last. “But I should not take any notice of the footlin’ sort of stuff they talked, Pam. Sophie Carlford was always a little duffer at writin’, and that sort of thing. I suppose she has picked up this blighter because he was the only chap at hand, and she havin’ a lot of writin’ to do, bein’ executrix to your father, and all that.”

  “But Lady Burslem isn’t by any means a duffer at writing,” Pamela said, staring at him. “And she has had an awful lot to do since Dad died. Mr. Hetherington Smith says she’s quite wonderful.”

  “Well, if she had any head for figures she kept it dark when I knew her. She was a jolly, good-lookin’ girl, Sophie. And I was a fool about her at the time. But it was a bit of calf love on both sides, I fancy. Anyhow, she soon gave me the chuck when your father came along.”

  “Oh, yes, for the sake of his money,” Pamela said scornfully.

  “No, there I think you wrong her,” Stanyard said thoughtfully. “I always fancied myself that, though the money might have somethin’ to do with it – gilding the gingerbread so to speak – Sophie took a bit of a fancy to Sir John. Makes me feel small when I look back, but there you are.”

  “I don’t believe she did,” Pamela said obstinately. “Anyhow, if ever she liked Dad she got over it pretty soon to help on his – his –”

  “Now don’t say it, Pam,” Stanyard advised with a touch of real feeling in his voice. “I knew Sophie Carlford pretty well all through, and there was nothin’ of that sort about her. Give you my word – Sophie don’t know anythin’ about your father’s death.”

  “Then who does?” Pamela inquired, her mouth setting in grim lines.

  “I don’t know,” Stanyard confessed. “I think about it sometimes till I can’t get to sleep or anythin’, don’t you know. Till I could almost fancy I did it myself so that Perlyon should win the Derby.”

  “I don’t believe Dad had an enemy,” Pamela cogitated. “Do you think it might be Ellerby?”

  “No, I don’t,” Stanyard said sturdily. “Decent sort of a chap, Ellerby. Though what made the old chap do a bunk like that, or how he managed to get away with it I can’t think.”

  “Lots of people think he has been murdered too,” Pamela went on.

  “Lots of people think all sorts of footlin’ things,” Stanyard said. “Stands to sense, dear thing, that a man couldn’t be killed and his body done away with in a house that was being watched by the police, as 15 Porthwick Square was. No, Ellerby scooted right enough. Though why he did it and where he has got to only Heaven knows.”

  A diversion was caused now by the entry of a waiter with their lunch.

  “Ah, this is the sort of thing I want,” Stanyard said approvingly. “Light as love, those omelettes, and I have been telling the landlord how I like my coffee made, like I used to have it in my student days. I have taught my man; he is a dab hand at it. Come, Pam, let us begin before those things have a chance of gettin’ stale.”

  Pamela found that she was really very hungry when she began to eat, and Stanyard succeeded in persuading her to eat a good meal, and also in diverting her thoughts from the mysteries of Porthwick Square.

  He was thankful that, so far, no hint of the latest rumour had reached her, for he knew that it had been freely bruited about that some strange discovery had been made by the police in searching the house after Lady Burslem’s departure. As to what it was, public opinion was divided, but it was generally taken for granted that it was something that showed definitely that Sophie Burslem had some guilty knowledge of her husband’s death. Stanyard himself was inclined to think that the discovery had been exaggerated if not invented, and that the gossip would soon die out if nothing occurred to revive it.

  He was the more disappointed therefore when, on their arrival at Hothmar Place, they were met in the hall by Mr. Hetherington Smith, with the announcement:

  “Your stepmother is in town!”

  “Lady Burslem!” Pamela stared at him. “She can’t be. I passed through Porthwick Square this morning and the house was not opened up.”

  “Oh, she isn’t there!” Mr. Hetherington Smith said quietly. “She is staying with her maid at Stormount’s. She rung me up just now. She told me to ask you to go there either to dinner or later on this evening and to take Wilmer with you, as she has some news for her too.”

  “Dear me! How frightfully early Victorian I shall look, taking a maid with me. But I had better ring her up,” Pamela said, turning to the telephone. “Stormount’s, please. What in the world has brought her back?”

  “Business!” Mr. Hetherington Smith answered shortly. “This Bolivian concession is not going through as it was hoped it would. And Lady Burslem had to be on the spot. She couldn’t pull the wires from Spain.”

  “Nor in town, I should say,” Stanyard laughed. “I don’t fancy it makes much difference where her ladyship is.”

  “Oh, but indeed it does,” Mr. Hetherington Smith corrected. “Lady Burslem has one of the clearest heads and is one of the best business women I know.”

  “Well, then, she has altered since the days when she couldn’t make her bridge score tally with anyone else’s,” Charles Stanyard rejoined.

  CHAPTER 18

  Tormount’s was perhaps the largest of England’s palatial hotels. It was managed on American lines with a staff that was distinctly cosmopolitan. Pamela was not a shy person, but she felt quite small and lonely when she entered the vast lounge, which looked big enough to house a small army. Following her instructions, she had brought Wilmer with her. As she glanced round, to her surprise the first person she saw was Mrs. Jimmy coming across to meet her in a fearsome evening frock of voyant mauve.

  “Hallo, Pam!” she began in her cheerful strident tones. “How are you? Here you are! I told Sophie I would come and meet you. I thought you might be shy without your young man.” She linked her arm in the girl’s with a laugh that made every one within hearing turn and look at them.

  “Sophie is doing it in style, you know,” she went on. “Got a private suite of rooms; no dining at the public tables for her, if you please.”

  “Are you staying here with her?” Pamela questioned as they got in the lif
t.

  “Me! Bless your young life, no! She rang me up this afternoon and I just dropped in to see her. And then as she was rather pressing I stayed to dinner with her and the secretary man, Señor Jaime da Dominiguez.”

  The lift had stopped now and they got out. As they walked down the luxuriously carpeted corridor, Mrs. Jimmy, who had not loosed her hold of the girl’s arm, gave it a pinch.

  “I hope you are prepared for something happening there. Pam, you will be having a step-papa before you know where you are.”

  Pamela freed her arm with a jerk. “I simply could not have such a relative, Aunt Kitty. If Lady Burslem marries again, her second husband will be no connexion of mine. But I can hardly believe, even of her, that she is thinking of replacing my father so soon, and by such a man.”

  “Why, you have not seen him yet,” Mrs. Jimmy said, her voice a little subdued as they stopped and she sounded an electric bell, and a smartly dressed maid appeared. “Just like a private flat, isn’t it?” she whispered, as they were conducted to Lady Burslem’s sitting-room.

  Sophie was alone, sitting at a little table near the fireplace, a couple of great ledger-like looking volumes open before her, into which she was rapidly making businesslike looking entries from a small notebook at her side. Of Señor Jaime da Dominiguez there was no sign.

  Lady Burslem got up as they came in. “Oh, Pam, I am glad to see you!” she cried, kissing the girl’s cheek.

  Pamela did not respond in any way. “I was amazed to hear that you were in town again,” she said stiffly. “You didn’t even mention coming home when you wrote.”

  Lady Burslem’s arm, which she had placed affectionately on the girl’s shoulder, dropped by her side. She stood quite still, her eyes, in which there lay now a hint of tragedy, gazing at Pamela’s face mournfully. “I had no thought of returning when I wrote. It was this Bolivian trouble that compelled me to come. I don’t expect to be in town more than a few days. But I hoped you would have been a little glad to see me, Pam.”

  Pamela ignored the attempt at conciliation. “Mr. Hetherington Smith said you wanted to see me particularly, so I came!”

  “I see you did,” Lady Burslem said in a tired voice. “I thought I should like to talk things over with you. But if you would rather not – well, they can be left a little longer.”

  “As far as I know there is nothing to talk over,” Pamela said coolly.

  Lady Burslem sighed. “Well, if you feel like that. But I asked you to bring Wilmer; I have some good news for her. Where is she?”

  “She walked up. She is always so frightened at lifts. But of course she would wait outside,” Pamela said, looking round.

  Lady Burslem turned to the door. “Poor Wilmer: I expect my maid has taken her to my dressing-room. She generally does her sewing there. Shall we go and find her? Kitty, will you come too. I expect Marie has been looking out those patterns you wanted.” “I am sure I hope she has,” responded Mrs. Jimmy. “I will come at once, of course. I should like to see Wilmer too. I have heard a lot about her.”

  “Aunt Kitty,” Pamela said suddenly, “hasn’t Uncle James come home yet?”

  “Well, no, he hasn’t, and that’s a fact,” Mrs. Jimmy said cheerfully.

  “Do you know when he will come?” Pamela pursued.

  “No, that I don’t. I never know when he will do anything. But I have heard on good authority that he will turn up when I least expect him. Isn’t that so, Sophie?” with a playful pinch of the arm.

  Lady Burslem’s face was white. She shook off Mrs. Jimmy’s hand with a shiver. “I suppose so – I mean, I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Well, we none of us do, if you come to that. Jimmy is rather an unknown quantity, especially lately,” Mrs. Jimmy remarked with a jolly laugh. “Come along, Pam. They have given Sophie an awfully decent bedroom, don’t you think so. And she has a bathroom of her own, silver taps and all complete.”

  “Quite decent,” Pamela echoed, without a glance in the direction in which Mrs. Jimmy was pointing. “Don’t you think it is strange that Uncle James has not written to me since Dad died, Aunt Kitty?”

  “No, I don’t,” said Mrs. Jimmy bluntly. “And you wouldn’t if you knew the sort of place he is in. They haven’t post offices round the corner. Besides, he has really seen very little of you. And he didn’t get on with your father, you know.”

  “Still, he was his only brother,” Pamela argued. “One would have thought –”

  “Oh, Pam, you give me the hump worrying about Jimmy.” Mrs. Jimmy turned her shoulder deliberately to the girl. “I suppose he will write when he wants to and gets the chance.”

  Pamela looked injured. “Well, I think it is very strange of him,” she persisted. “And Mr. Hetherington Smith told me a friend of his said he felt sure he saw Uncle James in town some time after Dad’s funeral.”

  “Well, if he was, he didn’t let me know,” Mrs. Jimmy said shortly. “And I don’t believe he was, either. But do quit talking of Jimmy, Pam. He isn’t a subject I’m fond of, and I want to have a gossip about frocks to-day. Come along, child.” Lady Burslem had already passed into the dressing-room. They could hear her talking to Wilmer.

  “It was just a memorandum in Sir John’s writing, Wilmer,” they heard her say. “But it showed he meant to leave you an annuity of £80 a year. His wishes are sacred to me, so I am taking steps to buy an annuity in one of the great approved benevolent societies for you. Then you will be quite safe.”

  “Oh, my lady, it is too much. I don’t know what to say.” And indeed poor Wilmer looked quite overcome.

  Mrs. Jimmy went on to the maid, who was busy mending some old lace. “Got my patterns, Marie? I want to get the frocks in hand.”

  The maid, a diminutive looking Frenchwoman, got up.

  “But yes, my lady – yes, madame. They are all quite ready and I have cut them to Madame’s size.”

  “That is a good thing,” Mrs. Jimmy smiled. “For I guess it would not be much good me trying to get into her ladyship’s.”

  The maid smiled too. “No, madame, I think that also.”

  Mrs. Jimmy took up an end of the lace shawl the maid held. “How beautifully you are doing this. Look, Pam, isn’t it wonderful?”

  “It is really,” the girl said admiringly. “Her ladyship has such a lot of lace too, she will be glad to have some one to keep it in order. But I expect you know all about that, Marie.”

  “But no,” the girl said, lifting her hands in energetic protest; “for two days I have had time to do very little. For it is only one day in France that I come to Milady and one day here. That is not much.”

  “Of course it is not,” Pamela assented. “I quite thought you had been with Milady all the time she was away.”

  “Ah, no, mademoiselle. Only the one day. It is a sad story –”

  “What is a sad story?” Lady Burslem inquired. “What are you telling Mademoiselle, Marie?”

  “Only that I come to Milady only a day or two before she come home. And Mademoiselle she is quite surprised. She tink I have been wiz Milady many months.”

  “Ah, yes! Didn’t I tell you, Pam?” Lady Burslem turned to her stepdaughter. “Emilia was taken ill and I had to send her to a clinic. I was very fortunate in being able to replace her so quickly; and Marie is very capable.”

  Lady Burslem spoke easily enough. But Pamela wondered whether it was only her fancy or did her stepmother look for one moment discomposed. Another fancy of hers, that Lady Burslem glanced quickly as if for help to Mrs. Jimmy, Pamela dismissed as absurd.

  “Milady, it was the good fortune for me –”

  Marie was beginning when there came a cry from Wilmer:

  “Miss Pamela, you had your pearls on when we started. And now they are gone!”

  “Gone?” Pamela put her hands to her throat. “They – they have dropped off.” She thrust her hand into the front of her frock. “No, they have not dropped down. What can have become of them. Dad’s last present to me!”
>
  “I told you I thought the snap was a bit defective when you were putting them on yesterday, Miss Pamela,” Wilmer said, her eyes searching round, “But you wouldn’t let me have them.”

  “No, I wanted to wear them. But I meant to call at Laycock’s and get it seen to.”

  “Never mind, they can’t be far away if you had them on when you started,” Lady Burslem said sensibly. “They must be either in the hotel or the car. The odds are a million to one against your dropping them when you crossed the pavement, either getting in at the Smiths’ or out here.”

  Pamela rushed into the bedroom. “If they dropped off in the lounge they mightn’t be much safer than in the street. I must go down and ask about them.” She hurried off. Lady Burslem and Mrs. Jimmy followed her. The two maids were left alone.

  “Ah, but she is careless, this mademoiselle,” Marie said, as she shook out the lace. “She does not know where she has lost her pearls. Dey may be in de lift or outside in what you call de corridor. But we too must find.”

  Downstairs Pamela found the management extremely anxious to recover the pearls, but quite evidently displeased at the insinuation that they must be in the hotel, and very much inclined to say that Miss Burslem must have lost them on the way there. At this suggestion Pamela rang up the Smiths to inquire if anything had been heard of them, and to ask if they would send the carriage back at once in case they had fallen off into the rug.

  Then it suddenly occurred to her that when she threw off her cloak in her stepmother’s sitting-room the pearls might have caught in the lining.

  Leaving Lady Burslem and Mrs. Jimmy to superintend operations downstairs, she hurried back to the former’s suite.

  The lift offered no opportunity of concealment if she had lost them there, but the lift-boy told her that he had gone over the interior inch by inch.

  As they entered Lady Burslem’s suite, to her amazement, Pamela caught the sound of a woman sobbing. It seemed to come from the sitting-room. She pushed open the door and looked in.

  Wilmer was sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, apparently in violent hysterics. Over her the French maid was bending, evidently trying to console her.