Rolling Stone (27 page)

Terry faced round. She drew breath to speak. She opened her mouth and shut it again.

“Why didn't you?” said Peter in a casual voice.

“Why should I?” said Terry rather quickly.

“Motive—to get rid of me. For good and all, like I said. Opportunity—one which may never recur. Means—this very competent bus. Why didn't you do it?”

Terry said nothing.

“Why didn't you do it, Terry?”

“What do you think I am—” The words rushed out with the effect of having escaped.

Peter said something under his breath. It sounded like “Rather sweet,” but she couldn't be sure of that. The words that had escaped were followed by others.

“If you were fifty Spike Reillys, I wouldn't go off and leave you when you'd just saved my life.”

“If I were fifty Spike Reillys, I'm afraid you wouldn't get the chance, my child. Speaking as one Peter Talbot, I'm extremely glad you didn't. I don't feel like footslogging. I'm in a hurry to see Frank Garrett, and—” his voice changed—“I rather like driving with you, Terry.”

“I don't know why.” She didn't mean her voice to wobble, but it did.

Mr. Peter Talbot remarked, “Liar,” in a pleasant conversational manner.

Terry said nothing at all. She drew rather a quick breath, and consoled herself with thinking that the sound could not possibly have been heard above the running of the car.

Peter laughed.

“I did once offer to tell you the story of my first crime, and you weren't taking any interest. Just as well perhaps, because it really wasn't fit for Jake's ears. But I'm going to tell you about it now. If you are too bored you can always say the multiplication table to yourself, or something like that. Well, Peter Talbot—you are quite clear about my being Peter Talbot now, aren't you?”

“I don't know why you should think so,” said Terry with some spirit.

“That's all right. And you probably know that I'm a cousin of Frank Garrett's.”

“I know Peter Talbot is a cousin of Colonel Garrett's.”

“That's what I said. And I write, you know, but that's not the crime I'm telling you about. I merely mention it because it accounts for my wandering round Europe. Frank Garrett asked me to pick up the trail of the original Spike Reilly. There was an idea that he might be mixed up with a picture-stealing-cum-blackmail racket which was fluttering the dovecots over here. It was all quite private and unofficial, but he had a sort of hunch that Maud Millicent might be mixed up in it, and Maud Millicent makes him see red. She's the nice feminine creature we've just got away from by the skin of our teeth. I've also met her as an old lady with a cough. Frank says she can play any part. She's been wandering in and out of international and political crime for years, and he'd give his eyes to get her. There you have the
mise-en-scène
. The affair boiled up this end when an attempt was made to get away with Solly Oppenstein's Gainsborough. You remember? They didn't get the picture, and the butler, Francis Bird, was shot. That was last Saturday week. Spike Reilly was in England that week-end, but I don't think he had anything to do with the murder. His business was to write the blackmailing letters to the insurance companies. I think he'd begun to get a bit too inquisitive about his employers, and I think they had the bright idea of putting the murder on him. I think somebody was getting rattled.

“Well, things being like that, I walked in on Spike Reilly at the Hotel Dupin in Brussels last Tuesday week, and found him getting ready to die. He actually did die whilst I was there—quite natural causes. And this is where the crime begins. I pinched his passport and came over here as him.”

Terry said “Oh!” on a soft, excited breath, and then, “Why?”

“Well, I found some papers, and he said some fairly compromising things. He talked about Maud Millicent, and I gathered he had had ideas about blackmailing her and some man, but he didn't know who the man was, and I thought I'd like to find out. You know, it was the sort of thing you do first and think about afterwards—if you thought about it first you'd never do it at all. I did it, and I got away with it. I decoded Spike Reilly's cipher instructions, and did just what they told him to do. Nobody seemed to know him by sight over here, or I'd have been done. This sort of organization can't afford to be matey, and I gather that Spike was picked up for them in America by a man called Grey, now deceased.

“Well, they accepted me up to a point, and sent me along to Heathacres to take over Mr. Cresswell's Turner. Garrett told me to carry on, so I did. He was mad to get Maud Millicent. And then Spike Reilly's sister turned up to see me—a very decent soul called Louisa Spedding. We had a heart-to-heart talk, and when she knew Spike was dead she was all for helping me to put it across the people who had let him in. It was a very interesting talk indeed. She knew Maud Millicent, really knew her—had been in her service when she was plain respectable Mrs. Simpson before she took to crime. She hadn't seen her for donkey's years till just the other day.
And she had recognized her
. Maud Millicent had certainly never reckoned on that. Terry, she's a devil. Do you know what she did? Rang the poor thing up, sent her to see me—said her dear brother was over and gave her the address. I think they must have wanted to check up on me—to make sure I really was Spike Reilly—perhaps—I don't know. Anyhow Louisa came and saw me, and went away again. Half an hour later she was found shot in a telephone-box at the corner of Sitfield Row, and I'm as sure as I've ever been of anything in all my life that it was Maud Millicent who shot her.”

Terry said “Oh!” again. A cold shiver ran over her. It had so nearly happened to them—it had so very nearly happened to them. Her hand went out involuntarily towards Peter. He dropped his left hand from the wheel and took it in a firm, warm clasp. It felt like ice in his.

“Cold?” he said.

Terry said, “Yes.” Then she pulled her hand away and said in a hurry, “That was a lie. I'm not cold—I'm frightened. She frightens me.”

“She's a devil,” said Peter. “And when she'd shot Louisa and kidnapped you, she sent for me as calm as you please—that was the time she was an old woman with a cough—and killed two birds with one stone by putting me on guard over you. You had to be looked after till the marks on your arm were gone. She was afraid of Jake and the Bruiser getting rough. And she didn't want me to find out about Louisa for a day or two, until she'd got it all fixed up to bump us both off. You were a nuisance, and Spike was a nuisance—and she has a short way with nuisances. We're very well out of it, my dear.”

There was a pause. Then Terry said,

“Are we out of it?”

She heard him laugh.

“We're out of the frying-pan, and with care and a spot of luck we needn't fall into the fire.”

He took a sharp turn to the right as he spoke, and Terry called out,

“That's not right—I know it's not. We ought to have kept straight on.”

“Oh, I'm just being careful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they might get hold of a car. It's not very likely, but suppose they did. I think we'll cut across country a bit and see if we can't strike another main road. I feel we might do better with a road of our own—more haste, worse speed, and all that kind of thing.”

CHAPTER XXXIX

Terry Clive sat in one of Garrett's comfortable old chairs and drank hot soup. It was between one and two in the morning. Garrett had produced soup out of a tin and an aged saucepan to heat it in, tea out of a brown teapot with a cracked spout, an admirable green gorgonzola, a tin of biscuits, and some bar chocolate. With this strangely assorted food she and Peter had refreshed themselves. Terry refused the tea, and got a second cup of soup instead. Garrett, who presumably had dined, partook of everything with zest, finishing up with a breakfast cup of horrifically strong tea well laced with whisky.

“And now,” he said, “we make up our minds what we're going to say to Scotland Yard.”

“What have you said?” Peter asked.

Garrett gave him a malicious glance.

“Oh, I've thrown you to the wolves good and proper. You've been travelling with a false passport, conspiring to obtain a valuable picture, receiving said picture knowing it to be stolen, and even taking a part in the kidnapping of Miss Terry Clive. It will look very well indeed in the headlines, and your next book will sell like hot cakes.”

“I don't think my publishers will care about it,” said Peter. “They are very respectable. I don't think Aunt Fanny will like it either. I think you'd better keep me out of the headlines,
cher maître
.”

Terry looked rather wan. She said, “Can he?” in a frightened voice, and Peter grinned and said, “He's going to.”

“Nepotism,” growled Garrett.

“Not a bit of it! You got me in, and you've got to get me out again.”

Garrett scowled.

“It's Miss Terry Clive who's got to get you out. What are you going to say, Miss Clive, when I take you round to Scotland Yard tomorrow morning—no, by gum, it's this morning? Are you going to tell the truth, or are you going to keep something up your sleeve?”

Terry said, “What do you mean?”

The scowl was turned on her.

“You've been keeping cards up your sleeve all along, haven't you? Nobody knows what they are except yourself. May be rubbish—may be all the winning trumps. Are you going to put those cards down on the table and let us see what they are?”

Terry said, “Yes.”

“All right. We know all about the house-party at Heathacres. We know all about the guests. We know that it must have been one of the guests who came through the glass door on to the terrace at one-fifty a.m. and took a pane out of the drawing-room window from the outside. Half an hour later Cresswell's Turner was handed out through that broken pane to Peter, who had been told off to come and take it over. You were looking out of your window, Miss Clive, and you saw something. What did you see?”

“I saw someone come out of the door and take out the pane,” said Terry.

“Who was it?”

She put down her empty cup and leaned forward.

“Colonel Garrett, I don't know. The moon had gone behind a very thick bank of cloud. I just saw a shadow—Oh! How do you know I saw anything?”

“Well, you told Fabian Roxley you did, and he told me. Your window was directly above the glass door, wasn't it?”

“Not directly. It was farther along.”

“But you looked down on the person coming out of the door?”

“Yes, I looked down.”

“Now, Miss Clive—you say you saw a shadow. You must have got some impression from what you saw—at the time, I mean. I want to know just what impression you got. Did you think you were seeing a man, or a woman?”

“I couldn't say.”

Garrett was sitting astride a small chair, his arms across the back and his chin down on his arms.

“Suppose you had to say.” He shot the words at her like bullets. “Suppose you had to choose between its being a man or a woman?”

“I don't know. Do you want me to say what I think now, or what I thought then?”

“What you thought then.”

Terry took a long breath.

“I think—if I'd had to say then—I should have said it was a man.”

Garrett looked hard at her.

“And if you had to say now?”

She put a hand to her cheek.

“It wasn't Emily Cresswell—I know that. I don't think it was Pearla Yorke—oh, no, I'm sure it wasn't. And—no, it wasn't Norah Margesson.”

“Why wasn't it Emily Cresswell?”

Terry laughed and shook her head.

“She couldn't—that's why. If she tried to cut a picture out of its frame she'd drop it and bring the house down. She's rather like the White Queen, you know.”

Peter laughed and said, “Alice Through the Looking-glass,
cher maître
, in case you've forgotten—vague, and her hair coming down.”

Colonel Garrett said “Tcha!” and pursued his interrogation. “Why wasn't it Pearla Yorke?”

“Not her line, and not tall enough.”

Garrett pounced.

“Now we're getting something! It was a tall shadow, was it?”

“Taller than Pearla Yorke. She's very slender too.”

“And the shadow wasn't? Well, Miss Margesson is tall. Why wasn't it she? You'd just seen her take Mrs. Cresswell's pearls, hadn't you?”

“That's why,” said Terry. “She knew I'd seen her, and she was scared stiff—she wouldn't have dared.”

Garrett nodded.

“That's a point. That leaves the four men. James Cresswell—by all accounts crazy about this picture, crazy about losing it—financial position secure, no reason in the world to play a trick on an insurance company—”

“Oh, no, it wasn't Mr. Cresswell.”

Garrett snapped, “How do you know?”

“He's got a way of walking—it's not exactly a limp. Oh no, it wasn't he.”

Garrett grinned suddenly.

“We're getting on! The other three men are all tall, and that fits. Take Applegarth first—no motive at all—very wealthy man—complete alibi for the Oppenstein affair. What are your reactions to Applegarth, Miss Clive—considered as a shadow?”

“He's too broad and stout. He wouldn't fit at all.”

“And that brings us down to Fabian Roxley and Mr. Basil Ridgefield.” Colonel Garrett's eyes were like points of steel.

Terry felt a sudden terror of what she had said—of what he might be going to make her say. She beat her hands together and cried out in a frightened way,

“But it can't be Fabian or Uncle Basil—it can't be anyone!”

“It was someone,” said Garrett with a rasp in his voice.