The Polo Ground Mystery (3 page)

“By God, I'm thankful, but damme if I ever liked the angle at which Sutton always wore his topper. A trifle, you may think, but psychologically pregnant. It always put the wind up me!”

The final editions of the evening papers announced the stupendous news that Mr. Raymond Braby had been arrested and that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of his partner and right-hand man, whose whereabouts at the moment were unknown. Dealings in the Braby shares were now being transacted at absurd prices. After the Exchange closed, 15s. shares were offered at half a crown in the street and nobody would buy, and through thousands of once bright little homes in Great Britain there stole the appalling conviction that all the hard renunciations of life, bitter oblations to the great God of Security, had been in vain. Those symbols of wealth which they had treasured as the visible rewards of the worship of that deity were so much waste paper. Ruin, to paraphrase Wilde, was drawing the curtains of their beds!

Meanwhile at Nuthill, a resident at the White Hart Hotel, but a stranger to the district, had been behaving in a very singular fashion. He had breakfasted on brandy and continued to drink brandy steadily until lunch. He lunched on brandy and became morosely drunk. John Salt, it appeared, bore some deep-seated and wholly irrational hatred to all financiers, whom he kept calling with increasing difficulty “silk-hatted sneak-thieves.” He was foolish enough to remark when he heard of Sutton Armadale's death, which had occurred not a mile distant from the inn, that it “served the perisher damned well right too!” Later in the afternoon, in a grimly drunken mood, he loudly boasted to a crowded bar that he himself had “bumped the slab-jawed swindler off,” and was promptly arrested. Growing sober under the cooling effects of police interrogation, he proved his complete innocence and was discharged. Of such incongruous stuff is the fabric of life woven!

Anthony Vereker, known as Algernon, unabbreviated, to his intimate friends, sat in the comfortable studio of his flat in Fenton Street, W., with the morning papers strewn on a table in front of him. He was bending over the table, leaning on his left hand and glancing at the various reports of the shooting of Mr. Sutton Armadale. Taking a pair of scissors from a small drawer of a large cabinet in which he kept his assortment of canvases, watercolour papers, and tubes of paint, he cut out these reports, placed them side by side in the centre of the table, and hurled the remainder of the several journals in an untidy heap on the floor. Then he drew a chair to the table, lit a cigarette, and for about half an hour was absorbed in a close comparison of the text of the cuttings. Having mentally digested the principal features of the tragedy he thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets and flung himself back in his chair. At this moment the door bell of his flat rang with a series of short, insistent peals which terminated in a sustained and irritating resonance.

“Hell's bells!” he exclaimed impatiently as he heard Albert, his man-servant, hurry to answer the summons.

“Mr. Ricardo would like to see you, sir.”

“Show him in, Albert,” said Vereker, and a smile erased the frown of impatience that had momentarily clouded his brow.

“Well, Ricky, I'm glad to see you, my boy. Come in and make yourself at home.” Noticing the unusual gravity of his friend's demeanour, he asked, “What's the matter? In trouble again?”

Manuel Ricardo wearily flung his hat, gloves, and stick on to a settee before replying.

“I've come to stay,” he said gloomily.

“You're welcome as ever, but I thought you'd just moved into new digs.”

“I moved out again this morning.”

“Cleared out bag and baggage, eh?” laughed Vereker.

“It's not quite as magnificent as all that. You see, the landlady is sitting tight on my trunks till—till—”

“I see clearly. Never mind, we'll remove her later. What was the cause of the trouble or who?”

“Who? Rachmaninoff!”

“A fellow-lodger?” asked Vereker, bewildered.

“No, the composer and his damnable prelude. Some musical student in the next house with his instrument of torture against my wall. Morning, noon, and far into the night—a whole week of the prelude and nothing but the prelude. Worked it up into a prelude to insanity. It was an incitement to murder as an interlude. I was getting dangerous!”

Ricardo's glance fell on the newspaper cuttings arranged on the studio table.

“Ah, the Armadale case! I thought it would put the kibosh on your painting. What about the Spring Show? Going to give it a miss?”

“No, I'm sending in three exhibits. That one on the easel's an oil. Finished it yesterday.”

Ricardo walked lazily over to the painting and studied it for some seconds.

“Algernon, this is an outrage! I presume your modern art critic would call it architectural painting and say that you had enlarged your formal experience! Of all the gaseous nonsense ever mumbled by fatuous nincompoops... 'struth, I prefer Luke Fildes. What's it supposed to represent, anyway?”

“I've tried to visualize a scene from the Athenian Thesmophoria. The women, as you will remember, walked with phallic emblems in their hands and uttered obscenities. Those feasts symbolized the magic of fertility...”

“Good Lord above!” exclaimed Ricardo piously, and added quietly, “A pretty conceit, Algernon, but to-day, outside the Church the idea's moribund. If you could elaborate something similar about birth control it would be more modish. I'm glad you're returning to crime detection. The saving grace of murder is that it's non-controversial. After your picture I think I'd like a cocktail.”

“It's no longer done, Ricky. Those who know prefer good sherry. There's a bottle of old golden on the buffet in the other room. Help yourself if there's any left. That's Albert's only fault; he has a palate.”

“It's always expensive in a servant and ruinous in a guest,” added Ricardo as he left the room. Returning with a bottle and glasses, he placed them on the table.

“Have you read what the papers have to say about this shooting mystery, Ricky?” asked Vereker, glancing up from the cuttings on the table to which he had suddenly returned.

“I devoured the
Daily Report
's account. Their crime reporter's style's so good I never buy a thriller nowadays.”

“Geordie Stewart, their editor, asked me this morning to go down to Nuthill on their behalf. He remembered my private work on the Bygrave case. Besides, I once met Sutton Armadale, who practically owned the
Report
. He bought one of my pictures some time ago. I had a standing invitation to Vesey Manor to see his little gallery of French painters. I've always been going to run down. He has a couple of Marchains and a Montezin I'd like very much to see.”

“That's most convenient. I shall have the flat all to myself. I must get on with my new serial. About that baggage of mine, can you see your way clear—?”

“How much do you owe your landlady?”

“I've got to pay her three guineas in lieu of a week's notice.”

“You're fairly up to date, then? Astounding, Ricky! And the guv'nor's cheque, isn't that due shortly?”

“What a pestilential memory you've got, Algernon! Yes, it is, but I've earmarked that amount for out of pocket—”

“Don't trouble to explain, Ricky. What's the lady's name this time?”

“Laura Hardinge. You know the Hardinges. I always think Laura's such a beautiful name.”

“So did Petrarch, I believe. To return to the world, here's a tenner. Go and get your baggage and come back without divagation, as Thackeray would have put it. Your camping here while I'm down in the country'll suit me down to the ground. You'll be handy if I want you to ferret out any information up at this end. If I remember well, you were rather useful once before.”

“Useful? Useful? My services were of paramount importance in the Bygrave case. Damned fine mess you'd have made of it without me! As you know, my forte is shadowing. I can follow your man into the most expensive pleasure resorts with the greatest of skill. Thanks for the tenner. I hope repayment by instalments won't inconvenience you. The only thing I liked about
Eric
was the little by little business.”

Vereker was lost in thought for some moments.

“Look here, Ricky, if I leave another twenty quid in my bureau to be used for emergencies will you promise—?”

“Never, Algernon, never! You positively must not! For me every moment is an emergency. If you think your commission will run me into expenses, wire the cash with the commission. My whole life's a kind of post-dated cheque. In money matters you might truthfully say I've always been before my time.”

“Very well, should the need arise I'll wire the money. What do you say to lunch?”

“I always say yes, emphatically! You see, I've been on a breakfast and dinner basis for weeks with a drink of water at midday. Water won't stay put.”

“Then we will lunch at Jacques. You remember Jacques?”

“I never forget a good eating-house or remember a bad debt. I've been to Jacques occasionally since you introduced me to the place. In fact, I'm quite friendly with the
sommelier
. I used to take Edmée there for dinner.”

“Edmée? Who the devil's Edmée?”

“Edmée Cazas. I was very much in love with Edmée.”

“French, I suppose. Where did you pick her up?”

“My dear Algernon, you've assumed an expression as if you'd just encountered a bad smell. I don't pick up women; they always forestall me. I was introduced to Edmée by Aubrey Winter, if you'd like to know. Aubrey was also in love with her. A very high-spirited filly she is, and neither Aubrey nor I had the hands.”

For a few seconds Vereker was silent, and then, bringing his right fist with a report into the open palm of his left hand, exclaimed dramatically:

“Now I've got her!”

“Well, I'm damned, Algernon! You sly dog! Still, you're welcome to her and have my sympathy.”

“You misunderstand me, Ricky ; I mean that I've placed the lady.”

“Sorry! I thought you'd misplaced your affections.”

“No, with me that would be a tragedy; with you, it has simply become a bad habit.”

“That's the natural evolution of tragedies, Algernon, but in what connection have you placed Edmée Cazas?”

“She was one of the guests staying down at Vesey Manor, Sutton Armadale's place in Surrey. Do you know anything about her?”

“Quite a lot! By profession she's a ballerina, by nature a Bacchante, behaves like a Begum, Belgian nationality, born in Britain, a bewitching brunette—in fact, she's everything beginning with a b except a bore or a Beguine!”

“Ricky, I see you're going to be helpful. Can you tell me how long she has known the Armadales?”

“She got to know them last year at Nice. The Armadales had taken a Villa there for the season. Aubrey Winter—he's Angela Armadale's cousin—was among the guests. Aubrey was painfully in love with Edmée—at the sonnet-writing stage, if you understand.”

“I thought that stage was a sort of afterglow.”

With a poet, yes, but Aubrey's merely a part of a motor-car, a Bentley spare, you might say. Well, Edmée was taken into the bosom of the family, chiefly Sutton's. The result was catastrophic. I don't know whether I should tell you the details. I got them from Aubrey.”

“In confidence?”

“Not exactly. He poured out his tale of woe to every one patient enough to listen. Besides, to tell me anything in confidence would be as foolish as putting a burglar in command of the Bank Guard. You see it concerns Edmée, and I'm very fond of her.”

“I thought Laura Hardinge was in the ascendant at the moment.”

“I know, I know, but Edmée's not an ordinary woman, Algernon; she's a relapsing fever. She gets into your blood. You take an injection of common sense and you think you're cured. You even begin to look happy, and then without the slightest warning you're as bad as ever again. I may have a relapse at any moment.”

“And Laura's an alternating fever, I suppose.”

“No, no, she's too sweet for that. She's almost a convalescence.”

“Well, never mind. I'm discretion itself, Ricky. You can trust me with the details; they'll go no further.”

“Then let's begin at the beginning. It's just a little over two years ago since Sutton Armadale married Angela Daunay. She had been the loveliest debutante of her year, so every one said. It's a relative kind of compliment as a rule; the standard's so low. Still, every one would call Angela beautiful, I think, beautiful with a
noli-me-tangere
face. Flaxen hair, blue eyes, complexion of milk and roses. Not my colouring; I've always disliked Dresden Shepherdesses since I broke one of my mother's treasures as a small boy. There's one thing, however; Angela's a thoroughbred. ‘Fruity' Fanshaugh says she has the most perfect pasterns he has ever seen. Everything about Angela is fine; it's an overpowering quality in some women. I'm rather afraid of her, to tell the truth. One glance from her turns me from a baboon into a courtier. About his first wife I don't know very much. A very estimable person, I believe, but not quite out of the top drawer. She was fourteen stone and always dressed as if she weighed seven. Had a bourgeois taste in jewellery and wore it like a publican's wife. I've seen her enter a room caparisoned like a durbar elephant. But she was an amiable, kind-hearted soul with a
Family Herald
streak in her mental make-up. I think her favourite author was Berta Ruck. Anyway, Sutton was very happy with her and was very cut up when she died. He knew her and understood her; he'd got the feel of her as one does of a favourite stick. Now, like many successful business men, Sutton had no insight where women were concerned. He met Angela Daunay, liked her streamline, knew she was a top-notcher as far as birth was concerned, and thought she'd put the right
cachet
on his wealth. Nobody thought Angela would look twice at him. But there's something about these financiers that's inexplicably, almost spookishly magnetic. I've a theory that it's the secret of their success. Angela, to everybody's surprise, accepted him. I was going to say jumped at him, but it would be wrong. She accepted him with about the same enthusiasm as royalty accepts a large donation to a charity. She was glad but impersonally glad. She had accepted him as if he were going to be a pleasant adjunct to her dignity and comfort—more of a rich fur coat than a husband. Sutton's second excursion, if rumour speaks the truth, was unfortunate. In less than six months they were cold soup to one another. Edmée says they ought to have taken a warning during their engagement when they found they couldn't dance well together. ‘Their vital rhythms varied,' were her words, and I dare say lasting love's only a matter of good timing. In any case, there was a big disparity in their ages. Sutton was forty-eight and Angela twenty years younger.”