“Yes, but—”
Colonel Melchett left the sentence unfinished. Harper, however, understood him.
“You don’t think it’s likely in this case? Well, I don’t either, as far as that goes. But it’s got to be gone into all the same.”
“Oh, of course.”
Harper went on:
“If, as Mr. Jefferson says, Mr. Gaskell and Mrs. Jefferson are already well provided for and in receipt of a comfortable income, well, it’s not likely they’d set out to do a brutal murder.”
“Quite so. Their financial standing will have to be investigated, of course. Can’t say I like the appearance of Gaskell much—looks a sharp, unscrupulous sort of fellow—but that’s a long way from making him out a murderer.”
“Oh, yes, sir, as I say, I don’t think it’s likely to be either of them, and from what Josie said I don’t see how it would have been humanly possible. They were both playing bridge from twenty minutes to eleven until midnight. No, to my mind there’s another possibility much more likely.”
Melchett said: “Boy friend of Ruby Keene’s?”
“That’s it, sir. Some disgruntled young fellow—not too strong in the head, perhaps. Someone, I’d say, she knew before she came here. This adoption scheme, if he got wise to it, may just have put the lid on things. He saw himself losing her, saw her being removed to a different sphere of life altogether, and he went mad and blind with rage. He got her to come out and meet him last night, had a row with her over it, lost his head completely and did her in.”
“And how did she come to be in Bantry’s library?”
“I think that’s feasible. They were out, say, in his car at the time. He came to himself, realized what he’d done, and his first thought was how to get rid of the body. Say they were near the gates of a big house at the time. The idea comes to him that if she’s found there the hue and cry will centre round the house and its occupants and will leave him comfortably out of it. She’s a little bit of a thing. He could easily carry her. He’s got a chisel in the car. He forces a window and plops her down on the hearthrug. Being a strangling case, there’s no blood or mess to give him away in the car. See what I mean, sir?”
“Oh, yes, Harper, it’s all perfectly possible. But there’s still one thing to be done. Cherchez l’homme.”
“What? Oh, very good, sir.”
Superintendent Harper tactfully applauded his superior’s joke, although, owing to the excellence of Colonel Melchett’s French accent he almost missed the sense of the words.
II
“Oh—er—I say—er—c-could I speak to you a minute?” It was George Bartlett who thus waylaid the two men. Colonel Melchett, who was not attracted to Mr. Bartlett and who was anxious to see how Slack had got on with the investigation of the girl’s room and the questioning of the chambermaids, barked sharply:
“Well, what is it—what is it?”
Young Mr. Bartlett retreated a step or two, opening and shutting his mouth and giving an unconscious imitation of a fish in a tank.
“Well—er—probably isn’t important, don’t you know—thought I ought to tell you. Matter of fact, can’t find my car.”
“What do you mean, can’t find your car?”
Stammering a good deal, Mr. Bartlett explained that what he meant was that he couldn’t find his car.
Superintendent Harper said:
“Do you mean it’s been stolen?”
George Bartlett turned gratefully to the more placid voice.
“Well, that’s just it, you know. I mean, one can’t tell, can one? I mean someone may just have buzzed off in it, not meaning any harm, if you know what I mean.”
“When did you last see it, Mr. Bartlett?”
“Well, I was tryin’ to remember. Funny how difficult it is to remember anything, isn’t it?”
Colonel Melchett said coldly:
“Not, I should think, to a normal intelligence. I understood you to say just now that it was in the courtyard of the hotel last night—”
Mr. Bartlett was bold enough to interrupt. He said:
“That’s just it—was it?”
“What do you mean by ‘was it’? You said it was.”
“Well—I mean I thought it was. I mean—well, I didn’t go out and look, don’t you see?”
Colonel Melchett sighed. He summoned all his patience. He said:
“Let’s get this quite clear. When was the last time you saw—actually saw your car? What make is it, by the way?”
“Minoan 14.”
“And you last saw it—when?”
George Bartlett’s Adam’s apple jerked convulsively up and down.
“Been trying to think. Had it before lunch yesterday. Was going for a spin in the afternoon. But somehow, you know how it is, went to sleep instead. Then, after tea, had a game of squash and all that, and a bathe afterwards.”
“And the car was then in the courtyard of the hotel?”
“Suppose so. I mean, that’s where I’d put it. Thought, you see, I’d take someone for a spin. After dinner, I mean. But it wasn’t my lucky evening. Nothing doing. Never took the old bus out after all.”
Harper said:
“But, as far as you knew, the car was still in the courtyard?”
“Well, naturally. I mean, I’d put it there—what?”
“Would you have noticed if it had not been there?”
Mr. Bartlett shook his head.
“Don’t think so, you know. Lots of cars going and coming and all that. Plenty of Minoans.”
Superintendent Harper nodded. He had just cast a casual glance out of the window. There were at that moment no less than eight Minoan 14s in the courtyard—it was the popular cheap car of the year.
“Aren’t you in the habit of putting your car away at night?” asked Colonel Melchett.
“Don’t usually bother,” said Mr. Bartlett. “Fine weather and all that, you know. Such a fag putting a car away in a garage.”
Glancing at Colonel Melchett, Superintendent Harper said: “I’ll join you upstairs, sir. I’ll just get hold of Sergeant Higgins and he can take down particulars from Mr. Bartlett.”
“Right, Harper.”
Mr. Bartlett murmured wistfully:
“Thought I ought to let you know, you know. Might be important, what?”
III
Mr. Prestcott had supplied his additional dancer with board and lodging. Whatever the board, the lodging was the poorest the hotel possessed.
Josephine Turner and Ruby Keene had occupied rooms at the extreme end of a mean and dingy little corridor. The rooms were small, faced north on to a portion of the cliff that backed the hotel, and were furnished with the odds and ends of suites that had once, some thirty years ago, represented luxury and magnificence in the best suites. Now, when the hotel had been modernized and the bedrooms supplied with built-in receptacles for clothes, these large Victorian oak and mahogany wardrobes were relegated to those rooms occupied by the hotel’s resident staff, or given to guests in the height of the season when all the rest of the hotel was full.
As Melchett saw at once, the position of Ruby Keene’s room was ideal for the purpose of leaving the hotel without being observed, and was particularly unfortunate from the point of view of throwing light on the circumstances of that departure.
At the end of the corridor was a small staircase which led down to an equally obscure corridor on the ground floor. Here there was a glass door which led out on to the side terrace of the hotel, an unfrequented terrace with no view. You could go from it to the main terrace in front, or you could go down a winding path and come out in a lane that eventually rejoined the cliff road farther along. Its surface being bad, it was seldom used.
Inspector Slack had been busy harrying chambermaids and examining Ruby’s room for clues. He had been lucky enough to find the room exactly as it had been left the night before.
Ruby Keene had not been in the habit of rising early. Her usual procedure, Slack discovered, was to sleep unti
l about ten or half-past and then ring for breakfast. Consequently, since Conway Jefferson had begun his representations to the manager very early, the police had taken charge of things before the chambermaids had touched the room. They had actually not been down that corridor at all. The other rooms there, at this season of the year, were only opened and dusted once a week.
“That’s all to the good as far as it goes,” Slack explained gloomily. “It means that if there were anything to find we’d find it, but there isn’t anything.”
The Glenshire police had already been over the room for fingerprints, but there were none unaccounted for. Ruby’s own, Josie’s, and the two chambermaids—one on the morning and one on the evening shift. There were also a couple of prints made by Raymond Starr, but these were accounted for by his story that he had come up with Josie to look for Ruby when she did not appear for the midnight exhibition dance.
There had been a heap of letters and general rubbish in the pigeonholes of the massive mahogany desk in the corner. Slack had just been carefully sorting through them. But he had found nothing of a suggestive nature. Bills, receipts, theatre programmes, cinema stubs, newspaper cuttings, beauty hints torn from magazines. Of the letters there were some from “Lil,” apparently a friend from the Palais de Danse, recounting various affairs and gossip, saying they “missed Rube a lot. Mr. Findeison asked after you ever so often! Quite put out, he is! Young Reg has taken up with May now you’ve gone. Barny asks after you now and then. Things going much as usual. Old Grouser still as mean as ever with us girls. He ticked off Ada for going about with a fellow.”
Slack had carefully noted all the names mentioned. Inquiries would be made—and it was possible some useful information might come to light. To this Colonel Melchett agreed; so did Superintendent Harper, who had joined them. Otherwise the room had little to yield in the way of information.
Across a chair in the middle of the room was the foamy pink dance frock Ruby had worn early in the evening with a pair of pink satin high-heeled shoes kicked off carelessly on the floor. Two sheer silk stockings were rolled into a ball and flung down. One had a ladder in it. Melchett recalled that the dead girl had had bare feet and legs. This, Slack learned, was her custom. She used makeup on her legs instead of stockings and only sometimes wore stockings for dancing, by this means saving expense. The wardrobe door was open and showed a variety of rather flashy evening dresses and a row of shoes below. There was some soiled underwear in the clothes-basket, some nail parings, soiled face-cleaning tissue and bits of cotton wool stained with rouge and nail-polish in the wastepaper basket—in fact, nothing out of the ordinary! The facts seemed plain to read. Ruby Keene had hurried upstairs, changed her clothes and hurried off again—where?
Josephine Turner, who might be supposed to know most of Ruby’s life and friends, had proved unable to help. But this, as Inspector Slack pointed out, might be natural.
“If what you tell me is true, sir—about this adoption business, I mean—well, Josie would be all for Ruby breaking with any old friends she might have and who might queer the pitch, so to speak. As I see it, this invalid gentleman gets all worked up about Ruby Keene being such a sweet, innocent, childish little piece of goods. Now, supposing Ruby’s got a tough boy friend—that won’t go down so well with the old boy. So it’s Ruby’s business to keep that dark. Josie doesn’t know much about the girl anyway—not about her friends and all that. But one thing she wouldn’t stand for—Ruby’s messing up things by carrying on with some undesirable fellow. So it stands to reason that Ruby (who, as I see it, was a sly little piece!) would keep very dark about seeing any old friend. She wouldn’t let on to Josie anything about it—otherwise Josie would say: ‘No, you don’t, my girl.’ But you know what girls are—especially young ones—always ready to make a fool of themselves over a tough guy. Ruby wants to see him. He comes down here, cuts up rough about the whole business, and wrings the girl’s neck.”
“I expect you’re right, Slack,” said Colonel Melchett, disguising his usual repugnance for the unpleasant way Slack had of putting things. “If so, we ought to be able to discover this tough friend’s identity fairly easily.”
“You leave it to me, sir,” said Slack with his usual confidence. “I’ll get hold of this ‘Lil’ girl at that Palais de Danse place and turn her right inside out. We’ll soon get at the truth.”
Colonel Melchett wondered if they would. Slack’s energy and activity always made him feel tired.
“There’s one other person you might be able to get a tip from, sir,” went on Slack, “and that’s the dance and tennis pro fellow. He must have seen a lot of her and he’d know more than Josie would. Likely enough she’d loosen her tongue a bit to him.”
“I have already discussed that point with Superintendent Harper.”
“Good, sir. I’ve done the chambermaids pretty thoroughly! They don’t know a thing. Looked down on these two, as far as I can make out. Scamped the service as much as they dared. Chambermaid was in here last at seven o’clock last night, when she turned down the bed and drew the curtains and cleared up a bit. There’s a bathroom next door, if you’d like to see it?”
The bathroom was situated between Ruby’s room and the slightly larger room occupied by Josie. It was illuminating. Colonel Melchett silently marvelled at the amount of aids to beauty that women could use. Rows of jars of face cream, cleansing cream, vanishing cream, skin-feeding cream! Boxes of different shades of powder. An untidy heap of every variety of lipstick. Hair lotions and “brightening” applications. Eyelash black, mascara, blue stain for under the eyes, at least twelve different shades of nail varnish, face tissues, bits of cotton wool, dirty powder-puffs. Bottles of lotions—astringent, tonic, soothing, etc.
“Do you mean to say,” he murmured feebly, “that women use all these things?”
Inspector Slack, who always knew everything, kindly enlightened him.
“In private life, sir, so to speak, a lady keeps to one or two distinct shades, one for evening, one for day. They know what suits them and they keep to it. But these professional girls, they have to ring a change, so to speak. They do exhibition dances, and one night it’s a tango and the next a crinoline Victorian dance and then a kind of Apache dance and then just ordinary ballroom, and, of course, the makeup varies a good bit.”
“Good lord!” said the Colonel. “No wonder the people who turn out these creams and messes make a fortune.”
“Easy money, that’s what it is,” said Slack. “Easy money. Got to spend a bit in advertisement, of course.”
Colonel Melchett jerked his mind away from the fascinating and age-long problem of woman’s adornments. He said to Harper, who had just joined them:
“There’s still this dancing fellow. Your pigeon, Superintendent?”
“I suppose so, sir.”
As they went downstairs Harper asked:
“What did you think of Mr. Bartlett’s story, sir?”
“About his car? I think, Harper, that that young man wants watching. It’s a fishy story. Supposing that he did take Ruby Keene out in that car last night, after all?”
IV
Superintendent Harper’s manner was slow and pleasant and absolutely noncommittal. These cases where the police of two counties had to collaborate were always difficult. He liked Colonel Melchett and considered him an able Chief Constable, but he was nevertheless glad to be tackling the present interview by himself. Never do too much at once, was Superintendent Harper’s rule. Bare routine inquiry for the first time. That left the persons you were interviewing relieved and predisposed them to be more unguarded in the next interview you had with them.
Harper already knew Raymond Starr by sight. A fine-looking specimen, tall, lithe, and good-looking, with very white teeth in a deeply-bronzed face. He was dark and graceful. He had a pleasant, friendly manner and was very popular in the hotel.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you much, Superintendent. I knew Ruby quite well, of course. She’d been here over a m
onth and we had practised our dances together and all that. But there’s really very little to say. She was quite a pleasant and rather stupid girl.”
“It’s her friendships we’re particularly anxious to know about. Her friendships with men.”
“So I suppose. Well, I don’t know anything! She’d got a few young men in tow in the hotel, but nothing special. You see, she was nearly always monopolized by the Jefferson family.”
“Yes, the Jefferson family.” Harper paused meditatively. He shot a shrewd glance at the young man. “What did you think of that business, Mr. Starr?”
Raymond Starr said coolly: “What business?”
Harper said: “Did you know that Mr. Jefferson was proposing to adopt Ruby Keene legally?”
This appeared to be news to Starr. He pursed up his lips and whistled. He said:
“The clever little devil! Oh, well, there’s no fool like an old fool.”
“That’s how it strikes you, is it?”
“Well—what else can one say? If the old boy wanted to adopt someone, why didn’t he pick upon a girl of his own class?”
“Ruby Keene never mentioned the matter to you?”
“No, she didn’t. I knew she was elated about something, but I didn’t know what it was.”
“And Josie?”
“Oh, I think Josie must have known what was in the wind. Probably she was the one who planned the whole thing. Josie’s no fool. She’s got a head on her, that girl.”
Harper nodded. It was Josie who had sent for Ruby Keene. Josie, no doubt, who had encouraged the intimacy. No wonder she had been upset when Ruby had failed to show up for her dance that night and Conway Jefferson had begun to panic. She was envisaging her plans going awry.
He asked:
“Could Ruby keep a secret, do you think?”
“As well as most. She didn’t talk about her own affairs much.”
“Did she ever say anything—anything at all—about some friend of hers—someone from her former life who was coming to see her here, or whom she had had difficulty with—you know the sort of thing I mean, no doubt.”