Why Didn't They Ask Evans Read online

  'Young Reeves, he was there and saw it happen,' declared Mr Askew.

  Bobby blessed the natural mendacity of the young. The famous accident was now vouched for by an eye witness.

  'Thought his last moment had come, he did,' went on Mr Askew. 'Straight for him down the hill it come - and then took the wall instead. A wonder the young lady wasn't killed.' 'Her ladyship takes some killing,' said Bobby.

  'Had many accidents, has she?' 'She's been lucky,' said Bobby. 'But I assure you, Mr Askew, that when her ladyship's taken over the wheel from me as she sometimes does - well, I've made sure my last hour has come.' Several persons present shook their heads wisely and said they didn't wonder and it's just what they would have thought.

  'Very nice little place you have here, Mr Askew,' said Bobby kindly and condescendingly. 'Very nice and snug.' Mr Askew expressed gratification.

  'Merroway Court the only big place in the neighbourhood?' 'Well, there's the Grange, Mr Hawkins. Not that you'd call that a place exactly. There's no family living there. No, it had been empty for years until this American doctor took it.' 'An American doctor?' 'That's it - Nicholson his name is. And if you ask me, Mr Hawkins, there are some very queer goings on there.' The barmaid at this point remarked that Dr Nicholson gave her the shivers, he did.

  'Goings on, Mr Askew?' said Bobby. 'Now, what do you mean by goings on?' Mr Askew shook his head darkly.

  'There's those there that don't want to be there. Put away by their relations. I assure you, Mr Hawkins, the meanings and the shrieks and the groans that go on there you wouldn't believe.' 'Why don't the police interfere?' 'Oh, well, you see, it's supposed to be all right. Nerve cases, and such like. Loonies that aren't so very bad. The gentleman's a doctor and it's all right, so to speak -' Here the landlord buried his face in a pint pot and emerged again to shake his head in a very doubtful fashion.

  'Ah!' said Bobby in a dark and meaning way. 'If we knew everything that went on in these places...' And he, too, applied himself to a pewter pot.

  The barmaid chimed in eagerly.

  'That's what I say, Mr Hawkins. What goes on there? Why, one night a poor young creature escaped - in her nightgown she was - and the doctor and a couple of nurses out looking for her.

  "Oh! don't let them take me back!" That's what she was crying out. Pitiful it was. And about her being rich really and her relations having her put away. But they took her back, they did, and the doctor he explained that she'd got a persecution mania - that's what he called it. Kind of thinking everyone was against her. But I've often wondered - yes, I have. I've often wondered...' 'Ah!' said Mr Askew. 'It's easy enough to say ' Somebody present said that there was no knowing what went on in places. And somebody else said that.was right.

  Finally the meeting broke up and Bobby announced his intention of going for a stroll before turning in.

  The Grange was, he knew, on the other side of the village from Merroway Court, so he turned his footsteps in that direction. What he had heard that evening seemed to him worthy of attention. A lot of it could, of course, be discounted.

  Villages are usually prejudiced against newcomers, and still more so if the newcomer is of a different nationality. If Nicholson ran a place for curing drug takers, in all probability there would be strange sounds issuing from it - groans and even shrieks might be heard without any sinister reason for them, but all the same, the story of the escaping girl struck Bobby unpleasantly.

  Supposing the Grange were really a place where people were kept against their will? A certain amount of genuine cases might be taken as camouflage.

  At this point in his meditations Bobby arrived at a high wall with an entrance of wrought-iron gates. He stepped up to the gates and tried one gently. It was locked. Well, after all, why not?

  And yet somehow, the touch of that locked gate gave him a faintly sinister feeling. The place was like a prison.

  He moved a little farther along the road measuring the wall with his eye. Would it be possible to climb over? The wall was smooth and high and presented no accommodating crannies.

  He shook his head. Suddenly he came upon a little door.

  Without much real hope he tried it. To his surprise it yielded.

  It was not locked.

  'Bit of an oversight here,' thought Bobby with a grin.

  He slipped through, closing the door softly behind him.

  He found himself on a path leading through a shrubbery. He followed the path which twisted a good deal - in fact, it reminded Bobby of the one in Alice Through the Looking Glass.

  Suddenly, without any warning, the path gave a sharp turn and emerged into an open space close to the house. It was a moonlit night and the space was clearly lit. Bobby had stepped full into the moonlight before he could stop himself.

  At the same moment a woman's figure came round the corner of the house. She was treading very softly, glancing from side to side with - or so it seemed to the watching Bobby - the nervous alertness of a hunted animal. Suddenly she stopped dead and stood, swaying as though she would fall.

  Bobby rushed forward and caught her. Her lips were white and it seemed to him that never had he seen such an awful fear on any human countenance.

  'It's all right,' he said reassuringly in a very low voice. 'It's quite all right.' The girl, for she was little more, moaned faintly, her eyelids half closed.

  'I'm so frightened,' she murmured. 'I'm so terribly frightened.' 'What's the matter?' said Bobby.

  The girl only shook her head and repeated faintly: 'I'm so frightened. I'm so horribly frightened.' Suddenly some sound seemed to come to her ears. She sprang upright, away from Bobby. Then she turned to him.

  'Go away,' she said. 'Go away at once.' 'I want to help you,' said Bobby.

  'Do you?' She looked at him for a minute or two, a strange searching and moving glance. It was as though she explored his soul.

  Then she shook her head.

  'No one can help me.' 'I can,' said Bobby. 'I'd do anything. Tell me what it is that frightens you so.' She shook her head.

  'Not now. Oh! quick - they're coming! You can't help me unless you go now. At once - at once.' Bobby yielded to her urgency.

  With a whispered: 'I'm at the Anglers' Arms,' he plunged back along the path. The last he saw of her was an urgent gesture bidding him hurry.

  Suddenly he heard footsteps on the path in front of him.

  Someone was coming along the path from the little door.

  Bobby plunged abruptly into the bushes at the side of the path.

  He had not been mistaken. A man was coming along the path. He passed close to Bobby but it was too dark for the young man to see his face.

  When he had passed, Bobby resumed his retreat. He felt that he could do nothing more that night.

  Anyway, his head was in a whirl.

  For he had recognized the girl - recognized her beyond any possible doubt.

  She was the original of the photograph which had so mysteriously disappeared.

  CHAPTER 16 Bobby Becomes a Solicitor

  'Mr Hawkins?' 'Yes,' said Bobby, his voice slightly muffled owing to a large mouthful of bacon and eggs.

  'You're wanted on the telephone.' Bobby took a hasty gulp of coffee, wiped his mouth and rose.

  The telephone was in a small dark passage. He took up the receiver..

  'Hullo,' said Frankie's voice.

  'Hullo, Frankie,' said Bobby incautiously.

  'This is Lady Frances Derwent speaking,' said the voice coldly. 'Is that Hawkins?' 'Yes, m'lady.' 'I shall want the car at ten o'clock to take me up to London.' 'Very good, your ladyship.' Bobby replaced the receiver.

  'When does one say, "my lady", and when does one say, "your ladyship"?' he cogitated. 'I ought to know, but I don't.

  It's the sort of thing that will lead a real chauffeur or butler to catch me out.' At the other end, Frankie hung up the receiver and turned to Roger Bassingtonffrench.

  'It's a nuisance,' she observed lightly, 'to have to go up to London today.
All owing to Father's fuss.' 'Still,' said Roger, 'you'll be back this evening?' 'Oh, yes!' 'I'd half thought of asking you if you'd give me a lift to town,' said Roger carelessly.

  Frankie paused for an infinitesimal second before her answer - given with an apparent readiness.

  'Why, of course,' she said.

  'But on second thoughts I don't think I will go up today,' went on Roger. 'Henry's looking even odder than usual.

  Somehow I don't very much like leaving Sylvia alone with him.' 'I know,' said Frankie.

  'Are you driving yourself?' asked Roger casually as they moved away from the telephone.

  'Yes, but I shall take Hawkins. I've got some shopping to do as well and it's a nuisance if you're driving yourself - you can't leave the car anywhere.' 'Yes, of course.' He said no more, but when the car came around, Bobby at the wheel very stiff and correct of demeanour, he came out on the doorstep to see her off.

  'Goodbye,' said Frankie.

  Under the circumstances she did not think of holding out a hand, but Roger took hers and held it a minute.

  'You are coming back?' he said with curious insistence.

  Frankie laughed.

  'Of course. I only meant goodbye till this evening.' 'Don't have any more accidents.' 'I'll let Hawkins drive if you like.' She sprang in beside Bobby, who touched his cap. The car moved off down the drive, Roger still standing on the step looking after it.

  'Bobby,' said Frankie, 'do you think it possible that Roger might fall for me?' 'Has he?' inquired Bobby.

  'Well, I just wondered.' 'I expect you know the symptoms pretty well,' said Bobby.

  But he spoke absently. Frankie shot him a quick glance.

  'Has anything - happened?' she asked.

  'Yes, it has. Frankie, I've found the original of the photograph!' 'You mean - the one - the one you talked so much about the one that was in the dead man's pocket?' 'Yes.' 'Bobby! I've got a few things to tell you, but nothing to this.

  Where did you find her?' Bobby jerked his head back over his shoulder.

  'In Dr Nicholson's nursing home.' 'Tell me.' Carefully and meticulously Bobby described the events of the previous night. Frankie listened breathlessly.

  "Then we are on the right track,' she said. 'And Dr Nicholson is mixed up in all this! I'm afraid of that man.' 'What is he like?' 'Oh! big and forceful - and he watches you. Very intently behind glasses. And you feel he knows all about you.' 'When did you meet him?' 'He came to dinner.' She described the dinner party and Dr Nicholson's insistent dwelling on the details of her 'accident'.

  'I felt he was suspicious,' she ended up.

  'It's certainly queer his going into details like that,' said Bobby. 'What do you think is at the bottom of all this business, Frankie?' 'Well, I'm beginning to think that your suggestion of a dope gang, which I was so haughty about at the time, isn't such a bad guess after all.' 'With Dr Nicholson at the head of the gang?' 'Yes. This nursing home business would be a very good cloak for that sort of thing. He'd have a certain supply of drugs on the premises quite legitimately. While pretending to cure drug cases, he might really be supplying them with the stuff.' 'That seems plausible enough,' agreed Bobby.

  'I haven't told you yet about Henry Bassingtonffrench.' Bobby listened attentively to her description of her host's idiosyncracies.

  'His wife doesn't suspect?' 'I'm sure she doesn't.' 'What is she like? Intelligent?' 'I never thought exactly. No, I suppose she isn't very. And yet in some ways she seems quite shrewd. A frank, pleasant woman.' 'And our Bassingtonffrench?' 'There I'm puzzled,' said Frankie slowly. 'Do you think, Bobby, that just possibly we might be all wrong about him?' 'Nonsense,' said Bobby. 'We worked it all out and decided that he must be the villain of the piece.' 'Because of the photograph?' 'Because of the photograph. No one else could have changed that photograph for the other.' 'I know,' said Frankie. 'But that one incident is all that we have against him.' 'It's quite enough.' 'I suppose so. And yet ' 'Well?' 'I don't know, but I have a queer sort of feeling that he's innocent - that he's not concerned in the matter at all.' Bobby looked at her coldly.

  'Did you say that he had fallen for you or that you had fallen for him?' he inquired politely.

  Frankie flushed.

  'Don't be so absurd, Bobby. I just wondered if there couldn't be some innocent explanation, that's all.' 'I don't see that there can be. Especially now that we've actually found the girl in the neighbourhood. That seems to clinch matters. If we only had some inkling as to who the dead man was ' 'Oh, but I have. I told you so in my letter. I'm nearly sure that the murdered man was somebody called Alan Carstairs.' Once more she plunged into narrative.

  'You know,' said Bobby, 'we really are getting on. Now we must try, more or less, to reconstruct the crime. Let's spread out our facts and see what sort of a job we can make of it.' He paused for a moment and the car slackened speed as though in sympathy. Then he pressed his foot down once more on the accelerator and at the same time spoke.

  'First, we'll assume that you are right about Alan Carstairs.

  He certainly fulfils the conditions. He's the right sort of man, he led a wandering life, he had very few friends and acquaintances in England, and if he disappeared he wasn't likely to be missed or sought after.

  'So far, good. Alan Carstairs comes down to Staverley with these people - what did you say their name was - ?' 'Rivington. There's a possible channel of inquiry there. In fact, I think we ought to follow it up.' 'We will. Very well, Carstairs comes down to Staverley with the Rivingtons. Now, is there anything in that?' 'You mean did he get them to bring him down here deliberately?' 'That's what I mean. Or was it just a casual chance? Was he brought down here by them and did he then come across the girl by accident just as I did? I presume he knew her before or he wouldn't have had her photograph on him.' 'The alternative being,' said Frankie thoughtfully, 'that he was already on the track of Nicholson and his gang.' 'And used the Rivingtons as a means of getting to this part of the world naturally?' 'That's quite a possible theory,' said Frankie. 'He may have been on the track of this gang.' 'Or simply on the track of the girl.' 'The girl?' 'Yes. She may have been abducted. He may have come over to England to find her.' 'Well, but if he had tracked her down to Staverley, why should he go off to Wales?' 'Obviously, there's a lot we don't know yet,' said Bobby.

  'Evans,' said Frankie thoughtfully. 'We don't get any clues as to Evans. The Evans part of it must have to do with Wales.' They were both silent for a moment or two. Then Frankie woke up to her surroundings.

  'My dear, we're actually at Putney Hill. It seems like five minutes. Where are we going and what are we doing?' 'That's for you to say. I don't even know why we've come up to town.' 'The journey to town was only an excuse for getting a talk with you. I couldn't very well risk being seen walking the lanes at Staverley deep in conversation with my chauffeur. I used the pseudo-letter from Father as an excuse for driving up to town and talking to you on the way and even that was nearly wrecked by Bassington-ffrench coming too.' 'That would have torn it severely.' 'Not really. We'd have dropped him wherever he liked and then we'd have gone on to Brook Street and talked there. I think we'd better do that, anyway. Your garage place may be watched.' Bobby agreed and related the episode of the inquiries made about him at Marchbolt.

  'We'll go to the Derwents' town residence,' said Frankie.

  'There's no one there but my maid and a couple of caretakers.' They drove to Brook Street. Frankie rang the bell and was admitted, Bobby remaining outside. Presently Frankie opened the door again and beckoned him in. They went upstairs to the big drawing-room and pulled up some of the blinds and removed the swathing from one of the sofas.

  'There's one other thing I forgot to tell you,' said Frankie.

  'On the 16th, the day you were poisoned, Bassingtonffrench was at Staverley, but Nicholson was away - supposedly at a conference in London. And his car is a dark-blue Talbot.' 'And he has access to morphia,' said Bobby.

  They exchanged significant glances.

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nbsp; 'It's not exactly evidence, I suppose,' said Bobby, 'but it fits in nicely.' Frankie went to a side table and returned with a telephone directory.

  'What are you going to do?' 'I'm looking up the name Rivington.' She turned pages rapidly.

  'A. Rivington & Sons, Builders. B. A. C. Rivington, Dental Surgeon. D. Rivington, Shooters Hill, I think not. Miss Florence Rivington. Col. H. Rivington, D.S.O. - that's more like it - Tite Street, Chelsea.' She continued her search.

  'There's M. R. Rivington, Onslow Square. He's possible.

  And there's a William Rivington at Hampstead. I think Onslow Square and Tite Street are the most likely ones. The Rivingtons, Bobby, have got to be seen without delay.' 'I think you're right. But what are we going to say? Think up a few good lies, Frankie. I'm not much good at that sort of thing.' Frankie reflected for a minute or two.

  'I think,' she said, 'that'll you have to go. Do you feel you could be the junior partner of a solicitors' firm?' That seems a most gentlemanly role,' said Bobby. t! was afraid you might think of something much worse than that. All the same, it's not quite in character, is it?' 'How do you mean?' 'Well, solicitors never do make personal visits, do they?

  Surely they always write letters at six and eightpence a time, or else write and ask someone to keep an appointment at their office.' 'This particular firm of solicitors is unconventional,' said Frankie. 'Wait a minute.' She left the room and returned with a card.

  'Mr Frederick Spragge,' she said, handing it to Bobby. 'You are a young member of the firm of Spragge, Spragge, Jenkinson and Spragge, of Bloomsbury Square.' 'Did you invent that firm, Frankie?' 'Certainly not. They're Father's solicitors.' 'And suppose they have me up for impersonation?' 'That's all right. There isn't any young Spragge. The only Spragge is about a hundred, and anyway he eats out of my hand. I'll fix him if things go wrong. He's a great snob - he loves lords and dukes, however little money he makes out of them.' 'What about clothes? Shall I ring up Badger to bring some along?' Frankie looked doubtful.