Collected works of j s f.., p.571
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 571
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| C. A , Esq., |
| The mix re as before |
| No. A.1152 |
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| Note. — This medicine has |
| been dispensed by a fully |
| qualified Chemist with the |
| to possible drugs |
| is guaranteed |
| wishes of |
| the Pres- |
| |
| M.P.S. |
| St. W.C. |
+ —— —— —— —— —— —— —— +
“That bottom label’s the thing, Mr. Hetherwick,” remarked Matherfield. “Let me get that hiatus filled up with the name and address of the chemist, and I’ll soon find out who C. A. blank, Esquire, is! The chemist is one in the West Central district; he’s a member of the Pharmaceutical Society; he’ll have somebody whose initials are C. A. on his books; he’ll recognise the number A.1152 of the prescription. It’s a decided clue; and even if there are, as there undoubtedly are, scores of chemists in the West Central district, I’ll run this one down!”
Hetherwick handed back the photograph and began to pace up and down the room. Suddenly he turned on his visitor, his mind made up to tell him what he himself had been doing.
“Matherfield,” he said, dropping into his chair again and adopting a tone of confidence, “what do you make of this? I mean — what’s your theory? Is it your opinion that the deaths of these two men are — so to speak — all of a piece?”
“That is my opinion!” answered Matherfield with an emphatic nod. “I’ve no more doubt about it than I have that I see you, Mr. Hetherwick. All of a piece, to be sure! Whoever poisoned Hannaford poisoned Granett! I’ll tell you how I’ve figured it out since the doctors told me, only a couple of hours since, what their opinion is about Granett. This way: Hannaford and Granett knew each other at Sellithwaite ten years ago. That night when Granett left Appleyard in Horseferry Road and turned into Victoria Street, he met Hannaford — accidentally.”
“Why accidentally?” asked Hetherwick.
“Well, that’s what I think,” said Matherfield. “I’ve figured in that way. Of course, it may have been by appointment. But anyway, they met — we know that. Now then, where did they spend their time between then and the time they got into your carriage at St. James’s Park? We don’t know. But here comes in an unknown factor — what about the strange man at Victoria, the man muffled to his eyes? Two things suggest themselves to me, Mr. Hetherwick. Did Hannaford take Granett to see that man, or did Hannaford and Granett meet at that man’s? For I think that man, whoever he is, is at the bottom of every thing.”
“Why should they meet at that man’s?” asked Hetherwick.
“Well,” answered Matherfield, “I think that secret of Hannaford’s has something to do with it. He had the sealed packet on him when he left Malter’s Hotel; it had disappeared when we searched his clothing after his death. Now, the granddaughter says it had to do with chemicals. Suppose the tall, muffled man was a chap whose business opinion on this secret Hannaford wanted, and that they met at Victoria and went to the man’s rooms somewhere in that district? Suppose Granett — another man in the chemistry line — came there, knowing both? Supposing the muffled man poisoned both of ’em, to keep the secret to himself? Do you see what I’m after? Very well! There you are. The thing is to hunt out that man, whoever he is. I wish I knew what Hannaford’s secret was, though — its precise nature.”
“Matherfield,” said Hetherwick, “I’ll tell you! You’ve been very confidential with me; I’ll be equally so with you, on condition that we work together from this. The fact is, I’ve been at work. I’m immensely interested in this case. Ever since I saw Hannaford die in that train and in that awfully mysterious fashion it’s fascinated me, and I’m going to the very end of it. Now I’ll tell you all I’ve been doing, and what I’ve discovered. Listen carefully.”
He went on to tell his visitor the whole details of his visit to Sellithwaite, of the results of his investigations there, and of Rhona’s doings and observations at Riversreade Court. Matherfield listened in absorbed silence.
“Is Miss Hannaford going to this secretaryship, then?” he demanded abruptly, at the end of Hetherwick’s story. “Is it settled?”
“Practically, yes,” replied Hetherwick. “I heard from Lady Riversreade this morning; so did Mr. Kenthwaite. We gave Miss Hannaford — to be known to Lady Riversreade as Miss Featherstone — very good recommendations for the post, and I expect that as soon as she’s had our letters, Lady Riversreade will telephone to Miss Hannaford that she’s to go at once. Then — she’ll go.”
“To act as — spy?” suggested Matherfield.
“If you put it that way, yes,” assented Hetherwick. “Though, from what she saw of her yesterday, Miss Hannaford formed a very favourable opinion of Lady Riversreade. However, I’m so certain that somehow or other, perhaps innocently, she’s connected with this affair, that we mustn’t lose any chance.”
“And Miss Hannaford will report anything likely to you?” asked Matherfield.
“Just so! Miss Hannaford’s duties don’t include any Sunday work; on Sunday she’ll come to town, and if there’s anything to tell, she’ll tell it — to me. She’s a smart, clever girl, Matherfield, and she’ll keep her eyes open.”
Matherfield nodded, and for a while sat silent, evidently lost in his own thoughts.
“Oh, she’s a clever girl, right enough!” he said suddenly. “Um! I wonder who this Lady Riversreade really is, now?”
“This Lady Riversreade!” laughed Hetherwick. “A multi-millionairess!”
“Aye, just so; but who was she before her marriage? If she is the woman who was known as Mrs. Whittingham — —”
“Can there be any doubt about it after what I found out?”
“You never know, Mr. Hetherwick! Lord bless you! they talk about the long arm of coincidence. Why, in my time I’ve known of things that make me feel there’s nothing wonderful about the most amazing coincidence! But — if Lady Riversreade used to be Mrs. Whittingham, then I’d like to know all about Mrs. Whittingham until she became Lady Riversreade, and who she was before she was Mrs. Whittingham, if she ever was Mrs. Whittingham!”
“Stiff job, Matherfield,” said Hetherwick. “I think we shall have enough to do to keep an eye on Lady Riversreade.”
“You anticipate something there?” suggested Matherfield.
“I think something may transpire,” replied Hetherwick.
Matherfield got to his feet.
“Well,” he said, “keep me informed, and I’ll keep you informed. We’ve something to go on — Lord knows what we shall make out of it!”
“You’re doing your best to trace the tall man?” asked Hetherwick.
“Best!” exclaimed Matherfield with an air of disgust. “We’ve done our best and our better than best! I’ve had special men all round that Victoria district; I should think every tall man in that part’s been eyed over. And I believe that Mr. Ledbitter has so got the thing on his brain that he’s been spending all his spare time patrolling the neighbourhood and going in and out of restaurants and saloons looking for the man he saw — of course, without result!”
“All the same,” said Hetherwick, “that man is — somewhere!”
Matherfield went away, and except at the inquest on Granett — whereat nothing transpired which was not already known — Hetherwick did not see him again for several days. He himself progressed no further in his investigations during that time. Rhona Hannaford betook herself to Riversreade Court, as secretary to its mistress’s Home, and until the Sunday succeeding his departure Hetherwick heard nothing of her. Then she came up to town on the Sunday morning and, in accordance with their previous arrangement, Hetherwick met her at Victoria, and took her to lunch at a neighbouring hotel.
“Anything to tell?” he asked, when they had settled down to their soup. “Any happenings?”
“Nothing!” answered Rhona. “Everything exceedingly proper, business-like, and orderly. And Lady Riversreade appears to me to be a model sort of person — her devotion to that Home and its inmates is remarkable! I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, or that I shall ever have anything to report.”
“Well, that’ll have its compensations,” said Hetherwick. “Leave us all the more time for ourselves, won’t it?”
He gave her a look to which Rhona responded, shyly but unmistakably; she knew, as well as he did, that they were getting fond of each other’s society. And they continued to meet on Sundays, and three or four went by, and still she had nothing to tell that related to the mystery of Hannaford and Granett.
Three weeks elapsed before Matherfield had anything to tell, either. Then he walked into Hetherwick’s chambers one morning with news in his face.
“Traced it!” he said. “Knew I should! That five-pound note — brand new. Only a question of time to do that, of course.”
“Well?” inquired Hetherwick.
“It was one of twenty fivers paid by the cashier of the London and Country Bank in Piccadilly to the secretary of Vivian’s,” continued Matherfield. “Date — day before Hannaford’s death. Vivian’s, let me tell you, is a swell night club. Now then, how did that note get into the hands of Granett? That’s going to be a stiff ‘un!”
“So stiff that I’m afraid you mustn’t ask me to go in at it,” agreed Hetherwick good-humouredly. “I must stick to my own line — when the chance comes.”
The chance came on the following Sunday, when, in pursuance of now established custom, he met Rhona. She gave him a significant look as soon as she got out of the train.
“News — at last!” she said, as they turned up the platform. “Something’s happened — but what it means I don’t know.”
CHAPTER X
THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
THE HEAD-WAITER IN the restaurant to which Hetherwick and Rhona repaired every Sunday immediately upon her arrival now knew these two well by sight, and forming his own conclusions about them, always reserved for them a table in a quiet and secluded corner. Hither they now proceeded, and had scarcely taken their accustomed seats before Rhona plunged into her story.
“I expect you want to know what it’s all about, so I won’t keep you waiting,” she said. “It was on Friday — Friday morning — that it happened, and I half thought of writing to you about it that evening. Then I thought it best to tell you personally to-day — besides, I should have had to write an awfully long letter. There are things to explain; I’d better explain them first. Our arrangements down there at Riversreade, for instance. They’re like this: Lady Riversreade and I always breakfast together at the Court, about nine o’clock. At ten we go across the grounds to the Home. There we have a sort of formal office — two rooms, one of which, the first opening from the hall, I have, the other, opening out of it, is Lady Riversreade’s private sanctum. In the hall itself we have an ex-army man, Mitchell, as hall-porter, to attend to the door and so on. All the morning we are busy with letters, accounts, reports of the staff, and that sort of thing. We have lunch at the Home, and we’re generally busy until four or five o’clock. Got all that?”
“Every scrap!” replied Hetherwick. “Perfectly plain.”
“Very well,” continued Rhona. “One more detail, however. A good many people, chiefly medical men and folk interested in homes and hospitals, call, wanting to look over and to know about the place — which, I may tell you in parenthesis, costs Lady Riversreade a pretty tidy penny! Mitchell’s instructions as regards all callers are to bring their cards to me — I interview them first; if I can deal with them, I do; if I think it necessary or desirable, I take them in to Lady Riversreade. We have to sort them out — some, I am sure, come out of mere idle curiosity; in fact, the only visitors we want to see there are either medical men who have a genuine interest in the place and can do something for it, or people who are connected with its particular inmates. Well, on Friday morning last, about a quarter to twelve, as I was busy with my letters, I heard a car come up the drive, and presently Mitchell came into my room with a card bearing the name Dr. Cyprian Baseverie. Instead of being an engraved card as, by all the recognised standards, it should have been, it was a printed card — that was the first thing I noticed.”
“Your powers of observation,” remarked Hetherwick admiringly, “are excellent, and should prove most useful.”
“Thank you for the compliment! — but that didn’t need much observation,” retorted Rhona with a laugh. “It was obvious. However, I asked Mitchell what Dr. Baseverie wanted; Mitchell replied that the gentleman desired an interview with Lady Riversreade. Now, as I said before, we never refuse doctors, so I told Mitchell to bring Dr. Baseverie to me. A moment later Dr. Baseverie entered. I want to describe him particularly, and you must listen most attentively. Figure, then, to yourself a man of medium height, neither stout nor slender, but comfortably plump, and apparently about forty-five years of age, dressed very correctly and fashionably in a black morning coat and vest, dark striped trousers, immaculate as to linen and neckwear, and furnished with a new silk hat, pearl-grey gloves and a tightly rolled gold-mounted umbrella. Incidentally, he wore a thin gold watch-chain, white spats and highly polished shoes. Got that?”
“I see him — his clothes and things, I mean,” assented Hetherwick. “Fashionable medico sort, evidently! But — himself?”
“Now his face,” continued Rhona. “Imagine a man with an almost absolutely bloodless countenance — a face the colour of old ivory — lighted by a pair of peculiarly piercing eyes, black as sloes, and the pallor of the face heightened by a rather heavy black moustache and equally black, slightly crinkled hair, thick enough above the ears but becoming sparse and thin on the crown. Imagine, too, a pair of full, red lips above a round but determined chin and a decidedly hooked nose, and you have — the man I’m describing!”
“Um!” said Hetherwick reflectingly. “Hebraic, I think, from your description.”
“That’s just what I thought myself,” agreed Rhona. “I said to myself at once, ‘Whatever and whoever else you are, my friend, you’re a Jew!’ But the creature’s manner and speech were English enough — very English. He had all the well-accustomed air of the medical practitioner who is also a bit of a man of the world, and I saw at once that anybody who tried to fence with him would usually come off second-best. His explanation of his presence was reasonable and commonplace enough: he was deeply interested in the sort of cases we had in the Home, and desired to acquaint himself with our methods and arrangements and so on. He made use of a few technical terms and phrases which were quite beyond my humble powers, and I carried in his card to Lady Riversreade. Lady Riversreade is always accessible when there’s a doctor in the case, and in two minutes Dr. Baseverie was closeted with her.”
“That ends the first chapter, I suppose?” said Hetherwick. “Interesting — very! A good curtain! And the next?”
“The events of the second chapter,” replied Rhona, “took place in Lady Riversreade’s room, and I cannot even guess at their nature. I can only tell of things that I know. But there’s a good deal in that. To begin with, although Dr. Baseverie had said to me that he desired to see the Home — which, of course, in the ordinary way meant his being either taken round by Lady Riversreade or by our resident house physician — he was not taken round. He never left that room from the moment he entered it until the moment in which he left it. And he remained in it an entire hour!”
“With Lady Riversreade?”
“With Lady Riversreade! She never left it, either. Nor did I go into it; she hates me to go in if she has anybody with her at any time. No! — there those two were together, from ten minutes to twelve until five minutes to one. Yet the man had said that he wanted to look round!”
“Is there any other way by which they could have left that room?” suggested Hetherwick. “Another door — or a French window?”
“There is nothing of the sort. The door into my room is the only means of entrance or exit to or from Lady Riversreade’s. No — they were there all the time.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“Nothing! The house in which Lady Riversreade set up this Home is an old, solid, well-built one — none of your modern gimcrack work in it! — it’s a far better house than the Court, grand as that may be. All the doors and windows fit — I never heard a sound from the room.”
“Well,” asked Hetherwick, after due meditation, “and at the end of the hour?”
“At the end of the hour the door suddenly opened and Dr. Baseverie appeared, hat, gloves and umbrella in hand. He half turned as he came out and said a few words to Lady Riversreade. I heard them. He said, ‘Well, then, next Friday morning at the same time?’ Then he nodded, stepped into my room, closed the door behind him, made me a very polite, smiling bow as he passed my desk, and went out. A moment later he drove off in the car — it had been waiting at the entrance all that time.”
“I suppose that’s the end of chapter two,” suggested Hetherwick. “Is there more?”
“Some,” responded Rhona. “During the hour which Dr. Baseverie had spent with Lady Riversreade I had been very busy typing letters. When he had gone I took them into her room, so that she could sign them. I suppose I was a bit curious about what had just happened and may have been more than usually observant — anyway, I felt certain that the visit of this man, whoever he is, had considerably upset Lady Riversreade. She looked it.”
“Precisely how?” inquired Hetherwick.
“Well, I couldn’t exactly tell you. Perhaps a man wouldn’t have noticed it. But being a woman, I did. She was perturbed — she’d been annoyed, or distressed, or surprised, or — something. I saw signs which, as a woman, were unmistakable — to a woman. The man’s visit had been distasteful — troubling. I’m as certain of that as I am that this is roast mutton.”
