The girl from Scotland Yard
“No, I don’t think she had been there long. I have an uncanny
knowledge when I am being overheard. I had it just at that moment.
Lady Raytham, where is your emerald necklace?”
If she had struck the woman she could not have produced a more
startling effect. Jane Raytham sprang to her feet with a low cry and
put out a hand as though she were warding off some terrible menace.
For a second her beautiful face was distorted with fear.
“Oh!” she gasped out. “Why do you say that?”
“Where is your necklace? Can I see it?”
Jane Raytham thought for a moment, her chin on her breast, and then
slowly raised her eyes.
“Yes. Will you come with me?” she said in a whisper. Leslie followed
her out of the room into the bedroom on the right that opened from the
landing.
She switched on the lights, and they crossed to a corner of the room
where on the wall hung, apparently, a small Rembrandt in a gilt frame.
The picture must have been a very good copy, but it was no more. When
Jane Raytham touched the frame it swung open like a door and showed
behind a small, square safe set in the wall. Lady Raytham turned the
key with a hand that shook--not even her iron nerve could conceal her
emotion. Taking out a jewel box, she carried it to a table, pressed a
hidden spring, and the lid flew open. And there the dumfounded Leslie
saw the emerald chain--intact! Intact even to the square emerald
pendant!
Leslie picked up the jewel and surveyed it in bewilderment. Then,
opening her bag, she brought to light the emerald that had been found
in the dead hand of Druze and placed it by the side of the pendant of
the chain.
They were exactly alike.
“Are there two chains?” she asked.
“No,” said Jane Raytham.
“Is that the one you wore to-night?”
She nodded.
Her eyes were flaming. Even under that terrible strain, she could not
restrain her natural curiosity.
“Where did you get that?” she asked.
“We found it in Druze’s hand,” replied Leslie.
The woman’s mouth opened in astonishment.
“You found--nothing else? No other----” Again she stopped quickly.
“No other part of the chain--no. Wasn’t it this you were looking for?”
Leslie saw her expression change. Was it relief she detected?
Certainly her tone was lighter and less strained when she spoke.
“No, I wasn’t looking for that. Who killed him?”
“Who do you think?”
Eye to eye they stood, silent for the space of a second.
“Why should I suspect anybody?”
Leslie Maughan fired her second shot.
“Shall I suggest a name?” she asked. “Peter Dawlish!”
Again that quick upward jerk of the chin, as though she were meeting
some sickening pain.
“Peter Dawlish?” she said loudly. “Peter Dawlish! You’re mad--mad to
think Peter Dawlish----”
Without warning, she stumbled forward and Leslie had only time to
throw out her arms and take the weight of her as she fell in a swoon
to the ground.
In a second Leslie had pressed the bell and had thrown open the door.
The footman came running up.
“Open one of those windows, and get me some brandy.”
He gaped down at the white-faced woman on the floor.
“Is her ladyship ill?” he asked.
“Don’t ask questions! Open the window! Hurry.”
And as the French windows were thrown violently open, she said:
“Now get the brandy.”
Before the man had come back, Jane Raytham had opened her eyes and
stared inquiringly up into the face that was bent to hers.
“What happened? I fainted. I’m a fool! Let us go out.”
With Leslie’s assistance she rose unsteadily to her feet.
“I’d better put your jewel case back in the safe, hadn’t I? Or perhaps
you’d rather do it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the woman listlessly.
And in that moment Leslie Maughan guessed why Anthony Druze had died.
Slipping her arm round Jane Raytham’s waist, she took her back to the
drawing room, insisted upon her lying on the couch, propping a pillow
under her head, and throwing a heavy silken scarf that drooped on a
chair back over her feet.
“You’re very good,” murmured Lady Raytham, “and I loathe you so much!”
“I suppose you do,” said Leslie, “And yet you shouldn’t, because I
haven’t been at all unpleasant.”
Jane nodded her head in agreement.
“Will you keep very quiet when I tell you this? I haven’t suggested
that you will be under suspicion of shooting Druze.”
She had no need to be a reader of faces to realize that this
possibility had never occurred to Jane Raytham.
“I?” she said incredulously. “But how absurd! Why should I shoot? Oh,
but that is impossible! It is impossible that anybody should think
such a thing!” And, in spite of Leslie’s warning, she struggled erect.
“You don’t think so, do you?”
She was on her feet, peering into the girl’s face, her hand gripping
Leslie’s wrist fiercely.
“You don’t think so? I hated Druze! I hated him, hated him!” She
stamped her foot in her fury. “You don’t know what it has meant to
me--every morning to see his face, every minute liable to his
presence. Do you realize what that meant? I had to school myself so
that I didn’t shudder at the sight of him, and the mock humility of
his ‘yes, my lady’ and ‘no, my lady’ that I might sit unmoved at my
own table and face my own husband, and appear oblivious to the
horrible masquerade----”
She stopped, exhausted by her own vehemence.
Leslie waited a moment and then:
“What is Anthony Druze to you?”
Lady Raytham stared at her.
“To me--you mean---- What do you mean?”
Suddenly she burst into a paroxysm of laughter. It was dreadful to see
her.
“Oh, you fool! You little fool! Can’t you guess? Don’t you know?”
And then suddenly she ran out of the room. Leslie heard her bedroom
door slam and the snap of the turning key and knew that her interview
was ended.
CHAPTER VIII.
A SURPRISE FOR LESLIE
It was two o’clock when a taxicab stopped in Severall Street,
Lambeth, and a very weary girl alighted. The detective whom she had
asked by telephone to meet her was waiting at the corner of the street
and ran toward her.
“You want Mrs. Inglethorne’s, don’t you, miss? The house is on the
opposite side of the road.”
He hurried across the street and knocked at a door. Twice and three
times he knocked before a sash went up and the voice of Peter Dawlish
asked:
“Who is it?”
He had hardly asked the question before he recognized the girl.
“I’ll be down in a second!”
But before he could descend, the landlady herself made an appearance.
She was a little tremulous of voice, more than a little whining, when
she recognized the familiar countenance of the detective.
“Whatcher want? There’s nobody here except my young man lodger and
he’s straight. A policeman recommended him.”
“This lady is from Scotland Yard and she wishes to see him, Mrs.
Inglethorne,” said the detective soothingly. “Don’t get worried.”
“Worried! Me workin’ my fingers to the bone and my old man in ‘stir’
though as innocent as a babe unborn----”
By this time Peter Dawlish had descended.
“Do you wish to see me?”
She nodded.
“Where can I see you? Can you come out and sit in the cab for a few
minutes?”
“Certainly.”
“There is another favour I want to ask you. Will you be very annoyed
if I ask you to allow this police officer to search your room?”
He was struck dumb for a second.
“Certainly! Why, is something lost?”
“Nothing.” She turned to the detective and gave him instructions in a
low tone; he pushed past the frightened landlady and went upstairs.
“Now come into the cab. You won’t catch cold?”
He laughed irritatedly.
“I’m so hot with righteous indignation that I would melt an iceberg!”
he said.
He stepped into the taxi and pulled the door tight.
“Now, Miss Maughan!”
She looked sideways at him; the white face of the lantern illuminating
the taximeter formed a reflector that gave some light to the interior
of the car.
“What have you been doing all evening?” she asked.
“From what hour?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“I’ve been in the house. A job came to me this morning addressing
envelopes and I’ve been working since seven till within a few minutes
of your arrival. About two thousand of them are already addressed; I
think that accounts for my time. I only had the envelopes and lists at
six-thirty. Why, what has happened?”
“Druze is dead.”
“Dead?”
“Murdered! His body was found on Barnes Common some time between
eleven forty-five and midnight.”
He whistled softly.
“That is a bad business. How was he killed?”
“Shot--at close range.”
He was silent for a time.
“Naturally, after my wild and woolly threats, you suspected me. Come
up and see the envelopes. My bedroom is the only decent room in the
house.”
She hesitated, then, stretching out her hand, pulled back the lock of
the door.
Mrs. Inglethorne was past surprising. She stood at the foot of the
stairs, an old ulster over her dressing gown, and watched the two go
up without comment.
“There is nothing here, miss,” said the detective before he caught
sight of Peter. “Nothing except these.” He indicated with a wave of
his hand a deal table covered with small envelopes neatly packed.
Leslie smiled.
“You needn’t have told me you’d been working here, Mr. Dawlish,” she
said. “It is like a smoke room!”
The aroma of cigarettes still hung about in spite of the open windows;
the tin she had sent to him was on the table, only half full.
“I’ve been a little extravagant,” he said apologetically, “but the
temptation was great.”
The detective still lingered by the door, evidently in two minds as to
whether it would be proper to leave them in this peculiar environment.
Leslie saved him the responsibility of a decision by:
“Thank you very much. I will be down in a minute or two,” she said.
She sat at the foot of the bed, her arm over the rail, and looked at
Peter. She would not have recognized him; he was clean-shaven, spruce.
There was a certain buoyancy in his attitude which was new to her.
Good-looking, too, and in spite of his approaching thirty years and
all that he had suffered, remarkably youthful. It added a piquant
interest to her scrutiny that she knew so much about his past--so much
more than he guessed.
A husky voice hailed them from the foot of the stairs.
“Would you like a cup of tea, miss?”
Peter Dawlish looked at the girl with a smile.
“She really makes rather good tea,” he said in a low voice.
“I should love one,” she nodded, and he called softly down the stairs
and came back.
“I’m scared of waking Elizabeth,” he said, and added: “You look
fagged!”
“Which means that I look hideous,” she retorted with a frank smile. “I
won’t bandy compliments with you, or I would congratulate you upon the
marked improvement which the barber has brought about. Did you know
Druze very well?”
“Not very well,” he said.
“Tell me something about him--all that you know.”
He frowned at this, evidently trying to remember matters that had
passed, facts that had gone out of his recollection.
“He came to Lord Everreed’s place soon after I took up my post,” he
said. “My aunt the Princess Bellini recommended him----”
“The princess recommended him?” she said quickly. “Why? Was he in her
service?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “He was with Aunt Anita in Java for years. Her
husband held some sort of minor post on one of the plantations: he
was, I believe, a fairly poor man. After his death she came to
England, and Druze came with her; in Java she had afforded the luxury
of a butler; living is rather cheap there, but when she came to
England she got rid of him. I have a distinct recollection of the
letter she wrote to Lord Everreed, which I answered. I call her
‘aunt,’” he explained, “although she was only the half sister of my
father, and in reality no relation to me at all. How long Druze