At Bertram's Hotel mm-12 Page 11

  "Tea, sir?"

  Father looked up. He was impressed, as everyone was impressed by Henry's personality. Though such a large and portly man he had appeared, as it were, like some vast travesty of Ariel who could materialize and vanish at will. Father ordered tea.

  "Did I see you've got muffins here?" he asked.

  Henry smiled benignly. "Yes, sir. Very good indeed our muffins are, if I may say so. Everyone enjoys them. Shall I order you muffins, sir? Indian or China tea?"

  "Indian," said Father. "Or Ceylon if you've got it."

  "Certainly we have Ceylon, sir."

  Henry made the faintest gesture with a finger and the pale young man who was his minion departed in search of Ceylon tea and muffins. Henry moved graciously elsewhere.

  You're someone, you are, thought Father. I wonder where they got hold of you and what they pay you. A packet, I bet, and you'd be worth it. He watched Henry bending in a fatherly manner over an elderly lady. He wondered what Henry thought, if he thought anything, about Father. Father considered that he fitted into Bertram's Hotel reasonably well. He might have been a prosperous gentleman farmer or he might have been a peer of the realm with a resemblance to a bookmaker. Father knew two peers who were very like that. On the whole, he thought, he passed muster, but he also thought it possible that he had not deceived Henry. Yes, you're someone, you are, Father thought again.

  Tea came and the muffins. Father bit deeply. Butter ran down his chin. He wiped it off with a large handkerchief. He drank two cups of tea with plenty of sugar. Then he leaned forward and spoke to the lady sitting in the chair next to him.

  "Excuse me," he said, "but aren't you Miss Jane Marple?"

  Miss Marple transferred her gaze from her knitting to Chief Detective Inspector Davy.

  "Yes," she said, "I am Miss Marple."

  "I hope you don't mind my speaking to you. As a matter of fact I am a police officer."

  "Indeed? Nothing seriously wrong here, I hope?"

  Father hastened to reassure her in his best paternal fashion.

  "Now, don't you worry, Miss Marple," he said. "It's not the sort of thing you mean at all. No burglary or anything like that. Just a little difficulty about an absent-minded clergyman, that's all. I think he's a friend of yours. Canon Pennyfather."

  "Oh, Canon Pennyfather. He was here only the other day. Yes, I've known him slightly for many years. As you say, he is very absent-minded." She added, with some interest, "What has he done now?"

  "Well, as you might say in a manner of speaking, he's lost himself."

  "Oh dear," said Miss Marple. "Where ought he to be?"

  "Back at home in his Cathedral Close," said Father, "but he isn't."

  "He told me," said Miss Marple, "he was going to a conference at Lucerne. Something to do with the Dead Sea scrolls, I believe. He's a great Hebrew and Aramaic scholar, you know."

  "Yes," said Father. "You're quite right. That's where he-well, that's where he was supposed to be going."

  "Do you mean he didn't turn up there?"

  "No," said Father, "he didn't turn up."

  "Oh, well," said Miss Marple, "I expect he got his dates wrong."

  "Very likely, very likely."

  "I'm afraid," said Miss Marple, "that that's not the first time that that's happened. I went to have tea with him in Chadminster once. He was actually absent from home. His housekeeper told me then how very absentminded he was."

  "He didn't say anything to you when he was staying here that might give us a clue, I suppose?" asked Father, speaking in an easy and confidential way. "You know the sort of thing I mean, any old friend he'd met or any plans he'd made apart from this Lucerne Conference?"

  "Oh no. He just mentioned the Lucerne Conference. I think he said it was on the nineteenth. Is that right?"

  "That was the date of the Lucerne Conference, yes."

  "I didn't notice the date particularly. I mean"-like most old ladies, Miss Marple here became slightly involved-"I thought he said the nineteenth and he might have meant the nineteenth and it might really have been the twentieth. I mean, he may have thought the twentieth was the nineteenth or he may have thought the nineteenth was the twentieth."

  "Well-" said Father, slightly dazed.

  "I'm putting it badly," said Miss Marple, "but I mean people like Canon Pennyfather, if they say they're going somewhere on a Thursday, one is quite prepared to find that they didn't mean Thursday, it may be Wednesday or Friday they really mean. Usually they find out in time but sometimes they just don't. I thought at the time that something like that must have happened."

  Father looked slightly puzzled.

  "You speak as though you knew already, Miss Marple, that Canon Pennyfather hadn't gone to Lucerne."

  "I knew he wasn't in Lucerne on Thursday," said Miss Marple. "He was here all day-or most of the day. That's why I thought, of course, that though he may have said Thursday to me, it was really Friday he meant. He certainly left here on Thursday evening carrying his B.E.A. bag."

  "Quite so."

  "I took it he was going off to the airport then," said Miss Marple. "That's why I was so surprised to see he was back again."

  "I beg your pardon, what do you mean by 'back again'?"

  "Well, that he was back here again, I mean."

  "Now, let's get this quite clear," said Father, careful to speak in an agreeable and reminiscent voice, and not as though it was really important. "You saw the old idio-you saw the canon, that is to say, leave as you thought for the airport with his overnight bag, fairly early in the evening. Is that right?"

  "Yes. About half-past six, I would say, or quarter to seven."

  "But you say he came back."

  "Perhaps he missed the plane. That would account for it."

  "When did he come back?"

  "Well, I don't really know. I didn't see him come back."

  "Oh," said Father, taken aback. "I thought you said you did see him."

  "Oh, I did see him later," said Miss Marple, "I meant I didn't see him actually come into the hotel."

  "You saw him later? When?"

  Miss Marple thought.

  "Let me see. it was about 3 A.M. I couldn't sleep very well. Something woke me. Some sound. There are so many queer noises in London. I looked at my little clock, it was ten minutes past three. For some reason-I'm not quite sure what-I felt uneasy. Footsteps, perhaps, outside my door. Living in the country, if one hears footsteps in the middle of the night it makes one nervous. So I just opened my door and looked out. There was Canon Pennyfather leaving his room-it's next door to mine-and going off down the stairs wearing his overcoat."

  "He came out of his room wearing his overcoat and went down the stairs at three A.M. in the morning?"

  "Yes," said Miss Marple and added: "I thought it odd at the time."

  Father looked at her for some moments. "Miss Marple," he said, "why haven't you told anyone this before?"

  "Nobody asked me," said Miss Marple simply.

  15

  Father drew a deep breath.

  "No," he said. "No, I suppose nobody would ask you. It's as simple as that."

  He relapsed into silence again.

  "You think something has happened to him, don't you?" asked Miss Marple.

  "It's over a week now," said Father. "He didn't have a stroke and fall down in the street. He's not in a hospital as a result of an accident. So where is he? His disappearance has been reported in the press, but nobody's come forward with any information yet."

  "They may not have seen it. I didn't."

  "It looks-it really looks"-Father was following out his own line of thought-"as though he meant to disappear. Leaving this place like that in the middle of the night. You're quite sure about it, aren't you?" he demanded sharply. "You didn't dream it?"

  "I am absolutely sure," said Miss Marple with finality.

  Father heaved himself to his feet. "I'd better go and see that chambermaid," he said.

  Father found Rose Sheldon on duty an
d ran an approving eye over her pleasant person.

  "I'm sorry to bother you," he said. "I know you've seen our sergeant already. But it's about that missing gentleman, Canon Pennyfather."

  "Oh yes, sir, a very nice gentleman. He often stays here."

  "Absent-minded," said Father.

  Rose Sheldon permitted a discreet smile to appear on her respectful mask of a face.

  "Now let me see." Father pretended to consult some notes. "The last time you saw Canon Pennyfather-was-"

  "On the Thursday morning, sir. Thursday the nineteenth. He told me that he would not be back that night and possibly not the next either. He was going, I think, to Geneva. Somewhere in Switzerland, anyway. He gave me two shirts he wanted washed and I said they would be ready for him on the morning of the following day."

  "And that's the last you saw of him, eh?"

  "Yes, sir. You see, I'm not on duty in the afternoons. I come back again at six o'clock. By then he must have left, or at any rate he was downstairs. Not in his room. He had left two suitcases behind."

  "That's right," said Father. The contents of the suitcases had been examined, but had given no useful lead. He went on, "Did you call him the next morning?"

  "Call him? No, sir, he was away."

  "What did you do ordinarily-take him early tea? Breakfast?"

  "Early tea, sir. He breakfasted downstairs always."

  "So you didn't go into his room at all the next day?"

  "Oh yes, sir." Rose sounded shocked. "I went into his room as usual. I took his shirts in for one thing. And of course I dusted the room. We dust all the rooms every day."

  "Had the bed been slept in?"

  She stared at him. "The bed, sir? Oh no."

  "Was it rumpled-creased in any way?"

  She shook her head.

  "What about the bathroom?"

  "There was a damp hand towel, sir, that had been used, I presume that would be the evening before. He may have washed his hands last thing before going off."

  "And there was nothing to show that he had come back into the room-perhaps quite late-after midnight?"

  She stared at him with an air of bewilderment. Father opened his mouth, then shut it again. Either she knew nothing about the canon's return or she was a highly accomplished actress.

  "What about his clothes-suits. Were they packed up in his suitcases?"

  "No, sir, they were hanging up in the cupboards. He was keeping his room on, you see, sir."

  "Who did pack them up?"

  "Miss Gorringe gave orders, sir. When the room was wanted for the new lady coming in."

  A straightforward coherent account. But if that old lady was correct in stating that she saw Canon Pennyfather leaving his room at 3 A.M. on Friday morning, then he must have come back to that room sometime. Nobody had seen him enter the hotel. Had he, for some reason, deliberately avoided being seen? He had left no traces in the room. He hadn't even lain down on the bed. Had Miss Marple dreamed the whole thing? At her age it was possible enough. An idea struck him.

  "What about his airport bag?"

  "I beg your pardon, sir?"

  "A small bag, dark blue-a B.E.A. or B.O.A.C. bag-you must have seen it?"

  "Oh that-yes, sir. But of course he'd taken that with him abroad."

  "But he didn't go abroad. He never went to Switzerland after all. So he must have left it behind. Or else he came back and left it here with his other luggage."

  "Yes-yes-I think-I'm quite sure-I believe he did."

  Quite unsolicited, the thought raced into Father's mind: They didn't brief you on that, did they?

  Rose Sheldon had been calm and competent up till now. But that question had rattled her. She hadn't known the right answer to it. But she ought to have known.

  The canon had taken his bag to the airport, had been turned away. from the airport. If he had come back to Bertram's, the bag would have been with him. But Miss Marple had made no mention of it when she had described the canon leaving his room and going down the stairs.

  Presumably it was left in the bedroom, but it had not been put in the baggage room with the suitcases. Why not? Because the canon was supposed to have gone to Switzerland?

  He thanked Rose genially and went downstairs again. Canon Pennyfather! Something of an enigma, Canon Pennyfather. Talked a lot about going to Switzerland, muddled up things so that he didn't go to Switzerland, came back to his hotel so secretly that nobody saw him, left it again in the early hours of the morning. (To go where? To do what?)

  Could absent-mindedness account for all this?

  If not, then what was Canon Pennyfather up to? And more important, where was he?

  From the staircase, Father cast a jaundiced eye over the occupants of the lounge, and wondered whether anyone was what they seemed to be. He had got.to that stage! Elderly people, middle-aged people (nobody very young), nice old-fashioned people, nearly all well-to-do, all highly respectable. Service people, lawyers, clergymen, American husband and wife near the door, a French family near the fireplace. Nobody flashy, nobody out of place, most of them enjoying an old-fashioned English afternoon tea. Could there really be anything seriously wrong with a place that served old-fashioned afternoon teas?

  The Frenchman made a remark to his wife that fitted in appositively enough.

  "Le Five-o'-clock," he was saying. "C'est bien Anglais ça, n'est-ce pas?" He looked round him with approval.

  Le Five-o'-clock, thought Davy as he passed through the swing doors to the street. That chap doesn't know that "le Five-o'-clock" is as dead as the dodo!

  Outside, various vast American wardrobe cases and suitcases were being loaded on to a taxi. It seemed that Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Cabot were on their way to the Hotel Vendôme, Paris.

  Beside him on the curb, Mrs. Elmer Cabot was expressing her views to her husband.

  "The Pendleburys were quite right about this place, Elmer. It just is old England. So beautifully Edwardian. I just feel Edward the Seventh could walk right in any moment and sit down there for his afternoon tea. I mean to come back here next year-I really do."

  "If we've got a million dollars or so to spare," said her husband dryly.

  "Now, Elmer, it wasn't as bad as all that."

  The baggage was loaded, the tall commissionaire helped them in, murmuring "Thank you, sir" as Mr. Cabot made the expected gesture. The taxi drove off. The commissionaire transferred his attention to Father.

  "Taxi, sir?"

  Father looked up at him.

  Over six feet. Good-looking chap. A bit run to seed. Ex-Army. Lot of medals-genuine, probably. A bit shifty? Drinks too much.

  Aloud he said, "Ex-Army man?"

  "Yes, sir. Irish Guards."

  "Military Medal, I see. Where did you get that?"

  "Burma."

  "What's your name?"

  "Michael Gorman. Sergeant."

  "Good job here?"

  "It's a peaceful spot."

  "Wouldn't you prefer the Hilton?"

  "I would not. I like it here. Nice people come here, and quite a lot of racing gentlemen-for Ascot and Newbury. I've had good tips from them now and again."

  "Ah, so you're an Irishman and gambler, is that it?"

  "Och! now, what would life be without a gamble?"

  "Peaceful and dull," said Chief Inspector Davy. "Like mine."

  "Indeed, sir?"

  "Can you guess what my profession is?" asked Father.

  The Irishman grinned.

  "No offense to you, sir, but if I may guess I'd say you were a cop."

  "Right first time," said Chief Inspector Davy. "You remember Canon Pennyfather?"

  "Canon Pennyfather now, I don't seem to mind the name-"

  "Elderly clergyman."

  Michael Gorman laughed.

  "Ah now, clergymen are as thick as peas in a pod in there."

  "This one disappeared from here."

  "Oh, that one!" The commissionaire seemed slightly taken aback.

  "Did you know him?"
>
  "I wouldn't remember him if it hadn't been for people asking me questions about him. All I know is, I put him into a taxi and he went to the Athenaeum Club. That's the last I saw of him. Somebody told me he'd gone to Switzerland, but I hear he never got there. Lost himself, it seems."

  "You didn't see him later that day?"

  "Later- No, indeed."

  "What time do you go off duty?"

  "Eleven-thirty."

  Chief Inspector Davy nodded, refused a taxi and moved slowly away along Pond Street. A car roared past him close to the curb, and pulled up outside Bertram's Hotel, with a scream of brakes. Chief Inspector Davy turned his head soberly and noted the number plate. FAN 2266. There was something reminiscent about that number, though he couldn't for the moment place it.

  Slowly he retraced his steps. He had barely reached the entrance before the driver of the car, who had gone through the door a moment or two before, came out again. He and the car matched each other. It was a racing model, white with long gleaming lines. The young man had the same eager greyhound look with a handsome face and a body with not a superfluous inch of flesh on it.

  The commissionaire held the car door open, the young man jumped in, tossed a coin to the cornmissionaire and drove off with a burst of powerful engine.

  "You know who he is?" said Michael Gorman to Father.

  "A dangerous driver, anyway."

  "Ladislaus Malinowski. Won the Grand Prix two years ago-world champion he was. Had a bad smash last year. They say he's all right again now."

  "Don't tell me he's staying at Bertram's. Highly unsuitable."

  Michael Gorman grinned.

  "He's not staying here, no. But a friend of his is-" He winked.

  A porter in a striped apron came out with more American luxury travel equipment.

  Father stood absent-mindedly watching them being ensconced in a Daimler hire car while he tried to remember what he knew about Ladislaus Malinowski. A reckless fellow-said to be tied up with some wellknown woman-what was her name now? Still staring at a smart wardrobe case, he was just turning away when he changed his mind and entered the hotel again.

  He went to the desk and asked Miss Gorringe for the hotel register. Miss Gorringe was busy with departing Americans, and pushed the book along the counter towards him. He turned the pages. Lady Setma Hazy, Little Cottage, Merryfield, Hants. Mr. and Mrs. Hennessey King, Elderberries, Essex. Sir John Woodstock, 5 Beaumont Crescent, Cheltenham. Lady Sedgwick, Hurstings House, Northumberland. Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Cabot, Greenwich, Connecticut. General Radley, 14, The Green, Chichester. Mr. and Mrs. Woolmer Pickington, Marblehead, Massachusetts. La Comtesse de Beauville, Les Sapins, St.-Germain-en-Laye. Miss Jane Marple, St. Mary Mead, Much Benham. Colonel Luscombe, Little Green, Suffolk. Mrs. Carpenter, The Hon. Elvira Blake. Canon Pennyfather, The Close, Chadminster. Mrs. Holding, Miss Holding, Miss Audrey Holding, The Manor House, Carmanton. Mr. and Mrs. Ryesville, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The Duke of Barnstable, Doone Castle, N. Devon… A cross section of the kind of people who stayed at Bertram's Hotel. They formed, he thought, a kind of pattern.