The Woman in the Wardrobe Page 12

  Mr Verity rose at once and, throwing a quick glance round, mounted the stairs swiftly, and on tip-toe. The corridors were deserted as he passed the landings, and noises, barely audible, came from behind bedroom doors: the gentle replacing of tea-things by elderly, orderly hands; the routine and wasted toilet in preparation for the evening-meal. The maids slept on the top floor, and Alice’s room—as Matthews had told him—was the last on the right. Here reigned absolute silence—save for his own heavy panting from the long toil up: evidently the maids had already smartened themselves and departed to lay the tables. Nevertheless, the old man stood listening several minutes outside her door before he knocked. He was gratified by receiving no reply. Quickly he ventured in and shut the door. Now that he was actually inside the room, the curious conviction that something of profit could be gained from a personal search, evaporated: he was left feeling rather foolish in the middle of the tiny, shabby room. By this time, of course, any written plan of campaign, any list of points to be remembered, must surely have been destroyed…

  A sudden instinct made him peer under the pillow. Of course there was nothing there. He moved to the window and stared down into the garden, at the hump-backed apple tree in the failing light. Only last night, on his own confession, Winnidge had stood below this window and tossed up pebbles. (He probably thought he had been seen, or he would never have confessed to it.) She had gone down to him, trembling in her dressing-gown down all those flights of stairs: she had met him in the garden and told him all that had happened. How they must have panicked—out there in the dark, warm night!… What had they said to each other, those hard-faced lovers?

  “Destroy everything,” he had whispered. “At once—destroy everything.”

  And of course she had. There was no use looking for anything here. Idly he turned away and opened the first drawer of the dressing-table. It smelt of face powder. There were stockings, handkerchiefs, hundreds of hair-pins. He rummaged through it slowly. Ribbons… bottles… a shawl… a spare cap—or was it a cap? It was square and black and showed two large holes which had been pushed through the silk. He raised the thing carefully to his face and looked at himself with amusement in the cracked mirror.

  For the first time in his life his beard looked absolutely right. But then it was the first time Mr Verity had seen himself in a mask.

  Chapter X

  “It’s all perfectly plain now,” said Rambler heavily. “She was either going to plant this on Cunningham, or say she found it in his room.”

  It was nine-thirty. They were sitting in the lounge eating dinner as they had eaten lunch, away from the hotel guests. There had been no other new developments, save that the regulars at ‘The Bellows’ had more or less confirmed the details of Winnidge’s story.

  Alice came in with the coffee. Verity thought she looked at him with unusual sharpness. They all stopped talking and waited in embarrassment while she poured out.

  “And then there’s Tudor,” Rambler pursued as the door shut. “What the devil can have happened to him?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” said Jackson seriously. “Nothing good, I’m sure.”

  “Well, he must be found! And at once!”

  “I’ve sent out warnings, sir. There’s nothing else we can do for the moment.”

  Rambler grunted.

  “All is very far from being well there. People don’t just disappear like that—especially such vitally important people.”

  “Do you suspect anyone, sir?”

  “Winnidge,” said Rambler shortly.

  “You forget,” said Mr Verity, “that Mr Winnidge himself told me about meeting Tudor. There was no need for him to have mentioned it.”

  “It could have slipped out unintentionally. Or maybe he had a purpose in talking.”

  “But he couldn’t have had the time, sir,” said Jackson. “Mr Verity left Tudor just before lunch and saw Winnidge just after.”

  “Until we know what he has done,” said Rambler judicially, “we can hardly say whether he had time for it or not.”

  “No, sir,” said Jackson, reddening as he always did at even the mildest rebuke.

  “Besides, aren’t you forgetting he has an accomplice?”

  “No!” said Verity in genuine horror. “Impossible! She would never do such a thing!”

  “I am accusing nobody of anything,” said Rambler imperturbably. “I merely said he had an accomplice. Between them, Tudor could have been disposed of quite easily—at any rate for the moment.”

  “Yes. And their safety really would be endangered if what he saw… Oh, it’s a horrible business!”

  “Horrible, indeed.”

  “Then let’s talk about something else. It’s been a most crowded day.”

  Jackson nodded agreement.

  “I can hardly believe this is only the second day we’ve been at it.”

  “Speed has always been the Verity watchword,” said Rambler.

  “And thoroughness the Porpoise,” Verity replied.

  Miss Framer came in carrying an evening paper. She was very angry.

  “Here!” she said, brandishing it furiously above the table. “Just look at this! It’s disgraceful!”

  “Is it?” said Verity excitedly. “Let me see it! Oh, yes…”

  He unfolded the paper eagerly and called out the headlines:

  “‘THE MYSTERY OF THE WOMAN IN THE WARDROBE!’… Excellent phrase! These men really have a flair for the language!”

  Jackson looked dumbfounded.

  “The hotel will never survive it,” put in Miss Framer bitterly. “Never!”

  “Nonsense. It’ll be the making of it. You’ve risen in the world, don’t you see? Before this, the most you got was a mention in some squalid divorce proceedings, but now—now there will be columns about you: about your delightful grounds, your perfect food, your charming residents… I assure you, Miss Framer, any place I treat with achieves immediate and lasting recognition. Three gentlemen of Ankara were once found with their throats cut in a lodging-house at Marseilles. It was solely because of my investigation that it became thereafter the Mecca of all men of taste who are forced to spend a night in that port.”

  Miss Framer bridled: “I hardly think—”

  “Ah! Wait!… Look here!” He dived into the paper once more. “‘rambler and verity together again.’… Together again! ‘This afternoon the two old hands were hard at work interviewing suspected persons in the neighbourhood… Inspector Jackson, who is in charge of the case, said “I’m very proud to be working with two such famous men.”’ Oh, Jackson!”

  Inspector Jackson turned a bright scarlet and studied the carpet.

  “‘The Charter of Amnestie, for ever associated in the public mind with the sensational divorce trials of Mrs Elsie Carruthers and Lady Enid Watts…’”

  “Has Mr Tudor returned?” asked Rambler hastily.

  “No, he has not! And while we’re on this subject”—her eyes sparked dangerously—“I should prefer it if Mr Verity did not take my waitress for walks in the garden when there is work to be done in the hotel.”

  “Perhaps,” said Verity, looking up from his paper, “you would prefer me to take you instead?”

  “How dare you!”

  “I feel there is a great deal to be gained from such an expedition.”

  “Attempts to incriminate other people in murder,” added Rambler levelly, “are not viewed with favour by the police.”

  Miss Framer took a step back and stared at them horrified.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We found only your finger-prints on that pass-key,” said Verity.

  “Whose else did you want us to find?” asked Rambler.

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t ask Miss Framer leading questions.”

  “I suggest those of Mr Cunningham.”

  “No,” cried Miss Framer. “I didn’t… It was a mistake!”

  “It certainly was.”

  “I never meant any harm by it. I swear I never mean
t any harm!…”

  “I think you did, Miss Framer.”

  “I didn’t know what I was doing!” She turned her head tirelessly from one to the other, like an enthusiastic spectator at a tennis match. “You must believe that! I didn’t realise…”

  “As I recall it,” said Rambler quietly, “you made several rather clumsy attempts to cover up for Mr Paxton. There is no need to go over them now—but clumsiness seems to be the dominant note among criminals in this part of the world.”

  “Criminals!”

  “Yes, criminals. An attempt to mislead the police such as yours I regard as criminal.”

  “And so is an attempt to lie to them,” said Verity. “I remember distinctly that you told me the meeting between Mr Paxton and Mr Maxwell was very cordial—when it couldn’t have been anything of the sort.”

  “And, above all, you denied knowing the late Mr Maxwell apart from his being a guest in your hotel. That, I submit, was a flat untruth.”

  Miss Framer opened her mouth several times and, standing between the two seated detectives, finally began crying: the tears blobbed out and fell heavily, fretting cadent channels in her powdered cheeks.

  “I didn’t mean any harm,” she kept on saying.

  “We are not interested in your past, or even your present relationship with Mr Paxton,” said Verity simply. “At any rate, not for the moment. I know that years ago Mr Paxton helped you out of a—a difficulty. It cost him his professional career. You, I suppose, regarded it as incumbent on you to take a risk for his sake.” Miss Framer resumed her idiotic mouthing. “What he did for you was done out of a mistaken sense of kindness—just as what you did for him was done out of a mistaken sense of loyalty. It threw needless obstacles in the way of the police and caused them to waste valuable time on irrelevancies. I therefore advise you, as strongly as I possibly can, never to try anything like it again.”

  “I—I—never…”

  “Or you will find yourself in prison,” added Rambler. “You are an infernal nuisance!”

  “What?…”

  “Now leave us.”

  “And take some of that powder off your face. At least some of what’s done can be undone!”

  For a moment Miss Framer stood undecisive at their table, torn between contrition at her actions and indignation at those of the police. Then she passed shuddering from the room; her sobs were heard in the hall.

  “I should have realised before,” said Verity ruminatively, “that when she fainted in the vestibule she wasn’t thinking of Maxwell, but of what Paxton might have done to him.”

  “All the same,” said Jackson approvingly, “you were right when you told me the other day you thought she was Paxton’s old client.”

  Verity smiled.

  “It was pretty obvious, really.”

  “Still quite a leap in the dark, sir.”

  “Well, let’s get back to Miss Burton,” said Rambler. “This discovery of the mask is, as I say, rather damning evidence.”

  “It certainly strengthens the case against her,” said Jackson gravely.

  “How odd!” said Verity, getting up and lighting a cigar. “I was just thinking how much it lightened it.”

  “What!”

  “Indeed, yes. I think this mask is the most complicating thing we have met yet. But, as I have said before, we have had a tiring day. It is time to leave off work.” He strolled over to the open French window. “It was nice being able to despatch Miss Framer.”

  “For tonight, at any rate,” said Jackson.

  “Ah!… So you still have your suspicions of her! I admit she’s an unlovely person.”

  “She’s more than that,” said Rambler. “Where are you going?”

  “Home. Home to my statues. I’m still labelling the smaller busts. You can help me if you like—I’m going by way of the beach.”

  “Oh, very well.”

  Rambler heaved himself to his feet and lumberingly followed his friend.

  “Good night, Jackson,” said Verity. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  “If I were you I’d go straight to bed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The twilight dimmed and swallowed them.

  ∙ ∙ ∙

  At ‘Persepolis’ they found Dr Pelham waiting for them. He was sitting on a high stool in the living-room and, with his head on one side and his pince-nez gleaming in the candlelight, he looked rather like a parrot—a parrot with gold teeth that shone when he made a joke.

  “I positively refuse to discuss the case,” said Verity. “If you want to, you can have it out with Porpoise and I’ll go into the garden.”

  “No,” said Rambler. “I’ll go into the garden. Excuse me, Doctor.”

  He inclined his vast body politely and went through the far door.

  “Amazing!” said Pelham, looking after him admiringly. “He never lets it rest, does he?”

  “Not till he’s finished it. But I’m afraid he won’t finish it tonight.”

  “Oh? What makes you so sure?”

  “Because he has forgotten a piece in the jig-saw puzzle.”

  “One of your psychological factors, I suppose?”

  “Oh no, something much more commonplace than that. But I don’t want to tell him now because I’m preparing a little surprise for the morrow.”

  He poured out two glasses of port and, handing one to the doctor, sat down heavily. The statues looked down from their pedestals with chilling indifference.

  “I hear you’ve been talking to our vicar,” said Pelham. “You seem to have confused him terribly.”

  “How odd! I didn’t mean to. I was only telling him what I told Tudor earlier on—by the way, the vicar hasn’t disappeared, has he?”

  Dr Pelham looked blank.

  “Not that I know of. What did you say to upset him?”

  “Oh, just some stuff about old authority giving place to new—or rather to none at all.”

  “The ‘none at all’ bothered him, of course. It’s a favourite jeremiad of clergymen.”

  “Exactly. That’s why I’m surprised to hear that I confused the vicar. I’m afraid Mr Tudor took it even worse. I told him that the people’s mandate had made me the power in the land.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” said Pelham after a moment, cocking his head on one side. “Of course we doctors are even luckier in that respect: we wield control all the time.”

  “Some of you do, at any rate. I hear the air is rather too good in Amnestie for you personally to exercise much power.”

  “Unfortunately that’s true. All the same, I still manage to make myself indispensable to the healthy. Take old Mrs Treacher, for instance.”

  “Mrs Treacher?”

  “An oldish woman who lives here. There is absolutely nothing the matter with her but indolence. She lay in bed for two months and did nothing but eat chocolates and read American magazines. In fact she was enjoying herself hugely until she made the mistake of calling me in.”

  “Why did she do that?”

  “Because it is still de rigueur to call in a doctor to justify one’s idleness. And once I was called in I had my own way entirely. Just because I was a doctor—and she hadn’t even personally checked up on that—I could inflict any indignity and any inconvenience upon her.”

  “And did you?”

  “Certainly I did. First I forbad her chocolates. Then I refused her all the pillows she had been propping herself against. That meant she had to lie against the iron bedstead to read. But she had put herself so completely into my hands that even that didn’t make her rebel.”

  “It’s amazing!”

  “Yes, indeed. After a time I told her reading was affecting her metabolism and that she would have to give it up. There was a little struggle over that—but of course she lost.”

  “What happened then?”

  “She just lay there. Nothing I did could make her get up on her own initiative. In the end I had to lance her.”<
br />
  “What?”

  “In the behind. Then I told her she was better. Oh, I gave her some Latin word for her complaint to satisfy her—just as the priest of olden times would have told her he was chasing out the devil Voluptas, or What-have-you. After that she just couldn’t stay in bed. It was physically impossible.”

  “Yes,” Mr Verity agreed. “I have to admit that your authority is the firmest: not even the infliction of indignity can shake it.”

  He looked out at the garden where the butt of Rambler’s cigar glowed in the darkness.

  “Maxwell’s was such an authority too,” said the doctor. “You might say it thrived on indignity.”

  “Yes. I spoke last night of my Sicilian gardener—of a man who took pleasure in destroying what was young and excited and free. I do not speak of insensitivity—that is a crime which by common participation has become a mere fault. On the contrary the man was too sensitive: the thing he smashed shamed him by its beauty. I fancy Maxwell as just such a man—a being who felt shamed by the health and charity of other people. Remember that Paxton did his early crime to save a friend, and Miss Burton to help her father.”

  “I think I agree with you. Such a man contaminates. Both the man and the girl could so easily have recovered if he hadn’t been there to prevent it.”

  “And now both lie under suspicion of murder.”

  “He’s an awful warning to us,” Pelham said, draining his glass. “We have the power—but sometimes I wonder how long even we will be allowed to keep it.”

  “Tudor declared to me this morning that power must always be wielded by the few over the many.”

  “Maybe that is true, but in the last resort the many can revoke it.”

  “Or it can be revoked in the name of the majority by a higher power.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Let me tell you the legend of my Sea Goddess.”

  He got up slowly and laid his hand on a gaunt stone head behind him.

  “Look at this. This is the Minerva of the Aegean. Years and years ago this figure was washed up by the sea upon the shores of a small village in Greece. Look at her closely: her authority was once unquestioned.” He reached for a candle and held it up to the pedestal: the rough face of an old woman stared at them with its hollow eyes. On her brow the hair was coiled like sleeping black snakes; her nose was still straight and beautifully formed, but the mouth—a smooth, round hole—was almost entirely worn away.