Partners in Crime Page 10

  For, with his face distorted with rage, the ‘Duke’ sprang forward, forgetting in his fury to look where he put his feet.

  There was a sudden blue crackle of flame, and he swayed for a minute, then fell like a log. A faint odour of singed flesh filled the room, mingling with a stronger smell of ozone.’

  ‘Whew,’ said Tommy.

  He wiped his face.

  Then, moving gingerly, and with every precaution, he reached the wall, and touched the switch he had seen the other manipulate.

  He crossed the room to the door, opened it carefully, and looked out. There was no one about. He went down the stairs and out through the front door.

  Safe in the street, he looked up at the house with a shudder, noting the number. Then he hurried to the nearest telephone box.

  There was a moment of agonising anxiety, and then a well-known voice spoke.

  ‘Tuppence, thank goodness!’

  ‘Yes, I’m all right. I got all your points. The Fee, Shrimp, Come to the Blitz and follow the two strangers. Albert got there in time, and when we went off in separate cars, followed me in a taxi, saw where they took me, and rang up the police.’

  ‘Albert’s a good lad,’ said Tommy. ‘Chivalrous. I was pretty sure he’d choose to follow you. But I’ve been worried, all the same. I’ve got lots to tell you. I’m coming straight back now. And the first thing I shall do when I get back is to write a thumping big cheque for St Dunstan’s. Lord, it must be awful not to be able to see.’

  Chapter 9

  The Man in the Mist

  Tommy was not pleased with life. Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives had met with a reverse, distressing to their pride if not to their pockets. Called in professionally to elucidate the mystery of a stolen pearl necklace at Adlington Hall, Adlington, Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives had failed to make good. Whilst Tommy, hard on the track of a gambling Countess, was tracking her in the disguise of a Roman Catholic priest, and Tuppence was ‘getting off ’ with the nephew of the house on the golf links, the local Inspector of Police had unemotionally arrested the second footman who proved to be a thief well known at headquarters, and who admitted his guilt without making any bones about it.

  Tommy and Tuppence, therefore, had withdrawn with what dignity they could muster, and were at the present moment solacing themselves with cocktails at the Grand Adlington Hotel. Tommy still wore his clerical disguise.

  ‘Hardly a Father Brown touch, that,’ he remarked gloomily. ‘And yet I’ve got just the right kind of umbrella.’

  ‘It wasn’t a Father Brown problem,’ said Tuppence. ‘One needs a certain atmosphere from the start. One must be doing something quite ordinary, and then bizarre things begin to happen. That’s the idea.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ said Tommy, ‘we have to return to town. Perhaps something bizarre will happen on the way to the station.’

  He raised the glass he was holding to his lips, but the liquid in it was suddenly spilled, as a heavy hand smacked him on the shoulder, and a voice to match the hand boomed out words of greeting.

  ‘Upon my soul, it is! Old Tommy! And Mrs Tommy too. Where did you blow in from? Haven’t seen or heard anything of you for years.’

  ‘Why, it’s Bulger!’ said Tommy, setting down what was left of the cocktail, and turning to look at the intruder, a big square-shouldered man of thirty years of age, with a round red beaming face, and dressed in golfing kit. ‘Good old Bulger!’

  ‘But I say, old chap,’ said Bulger (whose real name, by the way, was Marvyn Estcourt), ‘I never knew you’d taken orders. Fancy you a blinking parson.’

  Tuppence burst out laughing, and Tommy looked embarrassed. And then they suddenly became conscious of a fourth person.

  A tall, slender creature, with very golden hair and very round blue eyes, almost impossibly beautiful, with an effect of really expensive black topped by wonderful ermines, and very large pearl earrings. She was smiling. And her smile said many things. It asserted, for instance, that she knew perfectly well that she herself was the thing best worth looking at, certainly in England, and possibly in the whole world. She was not vain about it in any way, but she just knew, with certainty and confidence, that it was so.

  Both Tommy and Tuppence recognised her immediately. They had seen her three times in The Secret of the Heart, and an equal number of times in that other great success, Pillars of Fire, and in innumerable other plays. There was, perhaps, no other actress in England who had so firm a hold on the British public, as Miss Gilda Glen. She was reported to be the most beautiful woman in England. It was also rumoured that she was the stupidest.

  ‘Old friends of mine, Miss Glen,’ said Estcourt, with a tinge of apology in his voice for having presumed, even for a moment, to forget such a radiant creature. ‘Tommy and Mrs Tommy, let me introduce you to Miss Gilda Glen.’

  The ring of pride in his voice was unmistakable. By merely being seen in his company, Miss Glen had conferred great glory upon him.

  The actress was staring with frank interest at Tommy.

  ‘Are you really a priest?’ she asked. ‘A Roman Catholic priest, I mean? Because I thought they didn’t have wives.’

  Estcourt went off in a boom of laughter again.

  ‘That’s good,’ he exploded. ‘You sly dog, Tommy. Glad he hasn’t renounced you, Mrs Tommy, with all the rest of the pomps and vanities.’

  Gilda Glen took not the faintest notice of him. She continued to stare at Tommy with puzzled eyes.

  ‘Are you a priest?’ she demanded.

  ‘Very few of us are what we seem to be,’ said Tommy gently. ‘My profession is not unlike that of a priest. I don’t give absolution–but I listen to confessions–I–’

  ‘Don’t you listen to him,’ interrupted Estcourt. ‘He’s pulling your leg.’

  ‘If you’re not a clergyman, I don’t see why you’re dressed up like one,’ she puzzled. ‘That is, unless –’

  ‘Not a criminal flying from justice,’ said Tommy. ‘The other thing.’

  ‘Oh!’ she frowned, and looked at him with beautiful bewildered eyes.

  ‘I wonder if she’ll ever get that,’ thought Tommy to himself. ‘Not unless I put it in words of one syllable for her, I should say.’

  Aloud he said:

  ‘Know anything about the trains back to town, Bulger? We’ve got to be pushing for home. How far is it to the station?’

  ‘Ten minutes’ walk. But no hurry. Next train up is the 6.35 and it’s only about twenty to six now. You’ve just missed one.’

  ‘Which way is it to the station from here?’

  ‘Sharp to the left when you turn out of the hotel. Then–let me see–down Morgan’s Avenue would be the best way, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Morgan’s Avenue?’ Miss Glen started violently, and stared at him with startled eyes.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking of,’ said Estcourt, laughing. ‘The Ghost. Morgan’s Avenue is bounded by the cemetery on one side, and tradition has it that a policeman who met his death by violence gets up and walks on his old beat, up and down Morgan’s Avenue. A spook policeman! Can you beat it? But lots of people swear to having seen him.’

  ‘A policeman?’ said Miss Glen. She shivered a little. ‘But there aren’t really any ghosts, are there? I mean–there aren’t such things?’

  She got up, folding her wrap tighter round her.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said vaguely.

  She had ignored Tuppence completely throughout, and now she did not even glance in her direction. But, over her shoulder, she threw one puzzled questioning glance at Tommy.

  Just as she got to the door, she encountered a tall man with grey hair and a puffy face, who uttered an exclamation of surprise. His hand on her arm, he led her through the doorway, talking in an animated fashion.

  ‘Beautiful creature, isn’t she?’ said Estcourt. ‘Brains of a rabbit. Rumour has it that she’s going to marry Lord Leconbury. That was Leconbury in the doorway.’

  ‘He doesn’t look a very nice so
rt of man to marry,’ remarked Tuppence.

  Estcourt shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘A title has a kind of glamour still, I suppose,’ he said. ‘And Leconbury is not an impoverished peer by any means. She’ll be in clover. Nobody knows where she sprang from. Pretty near the gutter, I dare say. There’s something deuced mysterious about her being down here anyway. She’s not staying at the hotel. And when I tried to find out where she was staying, she snubbed me–snubbed me quite crudely, in the only way she knows. Blessed if I know what it’s all about.’

  He glanced at his watch and uttered an exclamation.

  ‘I must be off. Jolly glad to have seen you two again. We must have a bust in town together some night. So long.’

  He hurried away, and as he did so, a page approached with a note on a salver. The note was unaddressed.

  ‘But it’s for you, sir,’ he said to Tommy. ‘From Miss Gilda Glen.’

  Tommy tore it open and read it with some curiosity. Inside were a few lines written in a straggling untidy hand.

  I’m not sure, but I think you might be able to help me. And you’ll be going that way to the station. Could you be at The White House, Morgan’s Avenue, at ten minutes past six?

  Yours sincerely,

  Gilda Glen.

  Tommy nodded to the page, who departed, and then handed the note to Tuppence.

  ‘Extraordinary!’ said Tuppence. ‘Is it because she still thinks you’re a priest?’

  ‘No,’ said Tommy thoughtfully. ‘I should say it’s because she’s at last taken in that I’m not one. Hullo! what’s this?’

  ‘This,’ was a young man with flaming red hair, a pugnacious jaw, and appallingly shabby clothes. He had walked into the room and was now striding up and down muttering to himself.

  ‘Hell!’ said the red-haired man, loudly and forcibly. ‘That’s what I say–Hell!’

  He dropped into a chair near the young couple and stared at them moodily.

  ‘Damn all women, that’s what I say,’ said the young man, eyeing Tuppence ferociously. ‘Oh! all right, kick up a row if you like. Have me turned out of the hotel. It won’t be for the first time. Why shouldn’t we say what we think? Why should we go about bottling up our feelings, and smirking, and saying things exactly like everyone else. I don’t feel pleasant and polite. I feel like getting hold of someone round the throat and gradually choking them to death.’

  He paused.

  ‘Any particular person?’ asked Tuppence. ‘Or just anybody?’

  ‘One particular person,’ said the young man grimly.

  ‘This is very interesting,’ said Tuppence. ‘Won’t you tell us some more?’

  ‘My name’s Reilly,’ said the red-haired man. ‘James Reilly. You may have heard it. I wrote a little volume of Pacifist poems–good stuff, although I say so.’

  ‘Pacifist poems?’ said Tuppence.

  ‘Yes–why not?’ demanded Mr Reilly belligerently.

  ‘Oh! nothing,’ said Tuppence hastily.

  ‘I’m for peace all the time,’ said Mr Reilly fiercely. ‘To Hell with war. And women! Women! Did you see that creature who was trailing around here just now? Gilda Glen, she calls herself. Gilda Glen! God! how I’ve worshipped that woman. And I’ll tell you this–if she’s got a heart at all, it’s on my side. She cared once for me, and I could make her care again. And if she sells herself to that muck heap, Leconbury–well, God help her. I’d as soon kill her with my own hands.’

  And on this, suddenly, he rose and rushed from the room.

  Tommy raised his eyebrows.

  ‘A somewhat excitable gentleman,’ he murmured. ‘Well, Tuppence, shall we start?’

  A fine mist was coming up as they emerged from the hotel into the cool outer air. Obeying Estcourt’s directions, they turned sharp to the left, and in a few minutes they came to a turning labelled Morgan’s Avenue.

  The mist had increased. It was soft and white, and hurried past them in little eddying drifts. To their left was the high wall of the cemetery, on their right a row of small houses. Presently these ceased, and a high hedge took their place.

  ‘Tommy,’ said Tuppence. ‘I’m beginning to feel jumpy. The mist–and the silence. As though we were miles from anywhere.’

  ‘One does feel like that,’ agreed Tommy. ‘All alone in the world. It’s the effect of the mist, and not being able to see ahead of one.’

  Tuppence nodded.

  ‘Just our footsteps echoing on the pavement. What’s that?’

  ‘What’s what?’

  ‘I thought I heard other footsteps behind us.’

  ‘You’ll be seeing the ghost in a minute if you work yourself up like this,’ said Tommy kindly. ‘Don’t be so nervy. Are you afraid the spook policeman will lay his hands on your shoulder?’

  Tuppence emitted a shrill squeal.

  ‘Don’t, Tommy. Now you’ve put it into my head.’

  She craned her head back over her shoulder, trying to peer into the white veil that was wrapped all round them.

  ‘There they are again,’ she whispered. ‘No, they’re in front now. Oh! Tommy, don’t say you can’t hear them?’

  ‘I do hear something. Yes, it’s footsteps behind us. Somebody else walking this way to catch the train. I wonder –’

  He stopped suddenly, and stood still, and Tuppence gave a gasp.

  For the curtain of mist in front of them suddenly parted in the most artificial manner, and there, not twenty feet away, a gigantic policeman suddenly appeared, as though materialised out of the fog. One minute he was not there, the next minute he was–so at least it seemed to the rather superheated imaginations of the two watchers. Then as the mist rolled back still more, a little scene appeared, as though set on a stage.

  The big blue policeman, a scarlet pillar box, and on the right of the road the outlines of a white house.

  ‘Red, white, and blue,’ said Tommy. ‘It’s damned pictorial. Come on, Tuppence, there’s nothing to be afraid of.’

  For, as he had already seen, the policeman was a real policeman. And, moreover, he was not nearly so gigantic as he had at first seemed looming up out of the mist.

  But as they started forward, footsteps came from behind them. A man passed them, hurrying along. He turned in at the gate of the white house, ascended the steps, and beat a deafening tattoo upon the knocker. He was admitted just as they reached the spot where the policeman was standing staring after him.

  ‘There’s a gentleman seems to be in a hurry,’ commented the policeman.

  He spoke in a slow reflective voice, as one whose thoughts took some time to mature.

  ‘He’s the sort of gentleman always would be in a hurry,’ remarked Tommy.

  The policeman’s stare, slow and rather suspicious, came round to rest on his face.

  ‘Friend of yours?’ he demanded, and there was distinct suspicion now in his voice.

  ‘No,’ said Tommy. ‘He’s not a friend of mine, but I happen to know who he is. Name of Reilly.’

  ‘Ah!’ said the policeman. ‘Well, I’d better be getting along.’

  ‘Can you tell me where the White House is?’ asked Tommy.

  The constable jerked his head sideways.

  ‘This is it. Mrs Honeycott’s.’ He paused, and added, evidently with the idea of giving them valuable information, ‘Nervous party. Always suspecting burglars is around. Always asking me to have a look around the place. Middle-aged women get like that.’

  ‘Middle-aged, eh?’ said Tommy. ‘Do you happen to know if there’s a young lady staying there?’

  ‘A young lady,’ said the policeman, ruminating. ‘A young lady. No, I can’t say I know anything about that.’

  ‘She mayn’t be staying here, Tommy,’ said Tuppence. ‘And anyway, she mayn’t be here yet. She could only have started just before we did.’

  ‘Ah!’ said the policeman suddenly. ‘Now that I call it to mind, a young lady did go in at this gate. I saw her as I was coming up the road. About three or four minutes
ago it might be.’

  ‘With ermine furs on?’ asked Tuppence eagerly.

  ‘She had some kind of white rabbit round her throat,’ admitted the policeman.

  Tuppence smiled. The policeman went on in the direction from which they had just come, and they prepared to enter the gate of the White House.

  Suddenly, a faint, muffled cry sounded from inside the house, and almost immediately afterwards the front door opened and James Reilly came rushing down the steps. His face was white and twisted, and his eyes glared in front of him unseeingly. He staggered like a drunken man.

  He passed Tommy and Tuppence as though he did not see them, muttering to himself with a kind of dreadful repetition.

  ‘My God! My God! Oh, my God!’

  He clutched at the gatepost, as though to steady himself, and then, as though animated by sudden panic, he raced off down the road as hard as he could go in the opposite direction from that taken by the policeman.

  II

  Tommy and Tuppence stared at each other in bewilderment.

  ‘Well,’ said Tommy, ‘something’s happened in that house to scare our friend Reilly pretty badly.’

  Tuppence drew her finger absently across the gate-post.

  ‘He must have put his hand on some wet red paint somewhere,’ she said idly.

  ‘H’m,’ said Tommy. ‘I think we’d better go inside rather quickly. I don’t understand this business.’

  In the door way of the house a white-capped maid-servant was standing, almost speechless with indignation.

  ‘Did you ever see the likes of that now, Father,’ she burst out, as Tommy ascended the steps. ‘That fellow comes here, asks for the young lady, rushes upstairs without how or by your leave. She lets out a screech like a wild cat–and what wonder, poor pretty dear, and straightaway he comes rushing down again, with the white face on him, like one who’s seen a ghost. What will be the meaning of it all?’