Mr. Zero Page 18

  Gay whisked round with her cheeks burning.

  “He did not shoot Francis! And they won’t-they won’t! Sylly, how dare you?”

  Sylvia’s lovely eyes widened.

  “I thought they did if you shot people. I thought that’s what they were for.”

  “He didn’t shoot Francis!”

  Sylvia was surprised.

  “But, darling, it would be such a good thing. I mean, everyone thinks he did, and it would clear it all up and settle everything, and the police would go away and not worry us any more. I do hate that old man with the red face-don’t you? They say he bullies his daughters most dreadfully. What I can’t understand is why they don’t arrest Algy and take him away, because if he didn’t do it, they could always let him out again, and if he did-well, I really don’t think it’s quite nice saying good-morning, and talking about the weather, and asking him to pass the salt-not if he shot Francis-I mean, well, is it?”

  Gay caught her by the wrists.

  “Sylly, he did not shoot Francis! Will you get that into your head and keep it there! If it’s the only idea you’ve got in the world, stick to it! Algy-didn’t-shoot-your-husband. It’s as simple as pie. Have you got it? Then hold on to it tight and don’t let go. Algy didn’t shoot Francis.”

  “Then who did?” said Sylvia simply.

  “I don’t know, but Algy didn’t. And when you say you don’t like having him in the house, you seem to forget that he’s done nothing but say hadn’t he better go to an hotel. And Colonel Anstruther kept on saying no and practically insisting on his staying here. You don’t suppose he wants to-you don’t suppose either of us want to? But of course the police like it because it gives them only one house to watch instead of sleuthing you in one place, and me in another, and Algy somewhere else.”

  Sylvia said, “Oh, well-” and spread her hands to the small, uneasy flame which had responded to Gay’s last vigorous poke. “Of course,” she continued, “I don’t want Algy to be hanged if he really didn’t do it, even if it would save a lot of trouble. But I don’t think I should be engaged to him-just in case, you know.”

  “I am engaged to him,” said Gay, with smiling lips.

  “I know, darling. That’s just how I felt when Mummy wouldn’t let me go out with Frank Rutherford any more. He wanted me to be engaged, you know, and if it hadn’t been for Mummy I might have married him.”

  “Suppose you had, Sylly?”

  “Darling, he might have gone on being a curate for years, and years, and years, and I don’t know what they get, but Mummy said it wasn’t enough. And I cried dreadfully, but when Francis asked me to marry him, wasn’t I thankful! Because it doesn’t look nice if you have to break off an engagement-I mean, Francis being so rich, people would have been sure to talk, wouldn’t they?”

  Gay looked at her with a sort of fascinated interest.

  “Do you mean that you would have broken off your engagement to Frank Rutherford if you had been engaged to him when Francis asked you?”

  Sylvia heaved a sigh.

  “It was much nicer not having to do it-wasn’t it?”

  “You mean you would have broken it off?”

  Sylvia put her handkerchief to her eyes.

  “I don’t think you’re being at all kind,” she said, and dropped a tear, but whether for Frank or for Francis was more than Gay could tell. It was only a moment, however, before she looked up with a dawning interest in her eyes. “You know, darling, I rather liked the other one. Couldn’t you be engaged to him instead?”

  Gay stared, sat back on her heels, and said as firmly as her surprise would allow,

  “What other one?”

  “The nice polite one,” said Sylvia. “I’m sure he would if you encouraged him a little. I think he’s rather shy, but so polite. I think he’d make a really good husband.”

  If Sir Francis had been dead a little longer, Gay might have retorted, “Then marry him yourself.” She decided regretfully that it wouldn’t be decent. She said in an exasperated voice,

  “I suppose you know what you’re talking about, Sylly-I don’t.”

  “That nice polite Mr. Brewster. I really was sorry I didn’t see him yesterday when he was here. He’d have been so nice and ordinary after that horrid Colonel Anstruther and all those policemen and people. I think it would be much better for you to be engaged to him.”

  Gay burst out laughing. She really couldn’t help it.

  “It’s all very well to laugh,” said Sylvia in a protesting voice, “but I do think it would be nice to have a safe, ordinary sort of person like Mr. Brewster coming into the family. I mean, I really do think we want someone like that for a change. It isn’t as if we’d been brought up to have criminals in the family, and now they all say Francis was, and you say yourself that Algy is going to be arrested. And what do you think Colonel Anstruther and Mr. Brook said to me this morning? Why, they actually said they could send me to prison for taking that stupid envelope.”

  Gay had stopped laughing.

  “I suppose they could,” she said soberly.

  “It’s all right-they’re not going to,” said Sylvia in a reassuring tone. “They said they’d had a conference or something at headquarters, and they weren’t going to, because they think it was Francis who made me, and Mr. Brook said he didn’t think I realized what I was doing, and there’s some law about its being your husband’s fault if he tells you to do something like that, so they’re not going to arrest me. I think Mr. Brook likes me a little, because I began to cry, and he said not to quite nicely. But Colonel Anstruther only glared and said ‘Tcha!’ ”

  Gay felt a good deal of relief. She thought the law a very convenient one for Sylvia. She said,

  “Why do they think it was Francis who made you take the paper? He couldn’t have talked to you on the telephone without you knowing his voice.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t Francis who talked to me on the telephone. I told them it wasn’t, and they said they never thought it was. But they think Francis told him to do it-Mr. Zero, you know-and told him what to say and all that.”

  “But why should he, Sylly? Why should Francis make you do a thing like that?”

  Sylvia wrinkled her smooth white brow.

  “He was very jealous about me,” she said in a doubtful voice. “He thought a lot about being older than me, and he used to say things like ‘I’ll never let you go. I’ll find a way to keep you, my dear.’ And once he said, ‘I’ve thought of a way to put a chain round your neck, my sweet.’ That was just before it all began to happen, and when I asked him what he meant he said a very horrid thing. He said, ‘You’ll stay because you’ll be afraid to go.’ ”

  Gay said, “You think he made you take the paper so as to have a hold over you?”

  Sylvia nodded.

  “Of course, he wanted the paper too. And he needn’t have been jealous-he ought to have known that. I mean, I’m not that sort-am I, darling? No one in our family ever has been-we just don’t. And Mummy would have had a fit.” Horror widened Sylvia’s eyes. “Oh, darling, isn’t it a good thing they’re not going to arrest me? What would Mummy have said?”

  XXXV

  Mr. Brewster was turning things over in his mind. Like Gay Hardwicke, he felt considerably relieved to learn that there was no intention of putting the law in motion against Lady Colesborough. He had been too discreet to ask any direct question, but it had transpired that the lovely Sylvia would grace the witness box and not the dock. It should be a very interesting trial. The trouble was that until the dock could be, so to speak, filled, no trial would take place. Mr. Brewster considered that Algy Somers would be very suitably cast for the part of prisoner at the bar. He had always disliked Algy a good deal, and although concealing this and some other emotions under a precise and formal manner, he now permitted himself to hope.

  The matter which exercised him most was the exact line of conduct which it would be correct for him to pursue with regard to the widowed Lady Colesborough. The situation
was a very delicate one. She was a newly made widow, and as such to be treated with all possible respect. He, as one of Mr. Lushington’s secretaries, must demean himself with the utmost possible tact and discretion. Yet it was in these very circumstances that an indelible impression might be made upon the feelings of a beautiful young woman who had been so suddenly and strangely bereaved. Now was the moment for delicate sympathy and loyal friendship, now was the moment to plant what might later burgeon and bear fruit. Francis Colesborough’s widow was lovely, rich, and for the moment, friendless. Mr. Brewster thought deeply on the possibility of stepping forward in a true spirit of chivalry to support and comfort the mourner. On the other hand he would have to be very careful, because it was now certain to come out that Lady Colesborough had compromised herself by abstracting papers from the Home Secretary’s despatch-case. There might be no prosecution, but she would remain compromised, he could not afford to associate with persons whose probity was not above suspicion. It was all very delicate and required the most careful handling.

  Mr. Brewster looked at his watch and found the time to be half past three. He thought he would take a walk. Fresh air and exercise would assist his mental processes. A strong inclination to walk in the direction of Cole Lester presented itself. He was engaged in a prudent resistance, when the telephone bell rang and a voice demanded Mr. Lushington. He recognized the voice as that of Mr. Brook and made a note of the fact that the tone suggested urgency.

  When staying at Railing Place, Mr. Lushington was accommodated with a sitting-room which opened out of his bedroom. Both rooms were provided with telephone extensions. Mr. Brewster informed his chief that he was wanted on the line and withdrew. But at the same moment that Mr. Lushington was saying “Hullo!” his secretary was opening the bedroom door and very carefully closing it again. It was essential that he should discover what had brought that urgent tone into Mr. Brook’s voice. He crossed silently to the bedside instrument, lifted the receiver, and listened in. He had lost nothing except the preliminary “Hullo!” for he could hear the Home Secretary saying, “What is it, Brook?” And then Mr. Brook, still with that subdued urgency, “Well, sir, I thought I had better tell you. There’s something come to light among those papers we took out of the safe.”

  “Yes, Brook?” Montagu Lushington’s tone was quiet.

  “Well, sir, I’m afraid it’s conclusive.”

  “Will you tell me what has been found?”

  “A scrap of paper with a couple of lines of cipher on it-just a bit that had been torn off and had got caught up in a pile of bills. That’s why it wasn’t noticed before.” Mr. Brook’s voice dropped a shade. “I’ve just had it decoded. It runs: ‘To have one of Lushington’s secretaries in our pay is worth all he asks-and more.’ I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid it is quite conclusive. The Chief Constable is having Mr. Somers arrested at once.”

  “I see,” said Montagu Lushington in a tired voice. What he saw was family disgrace, public scandal, and the end of his own career.

  Mr. Brewster slipped quietly out of the bedroom, and downstairs and out of the house. Whatever prudence counselled, he was going to walk over to Cole Lester. It would be worth some risk to see Algy Somers arrested.

  He took a short cut across the fields which would reduce the distance from five miles to three. The path presently skirted a deserted quarry and came by way of a rough cart track out upon the high road again.

  XXXVI

  Algy Somers looked up from the letter he was trying to write and said, “Come in.” The knock which he thought he had heard was so weak and hesitating that it might have been any chance sound. He was therefore faintly surprised when the door opened and displayed William in a condition of acute embarrassment.

  “Yes?” said Algy. “What is it?”

  William stood and twisted the handle. It went sharply through Algy’s mind that the police had come to arrest him, and that William knew it. He managed a smile, and said,

  “Out with it, William. What is it?”

  William came a hesitating step into the room, let go of the handle, fumbled for it again, and reverting to a less polished standard than that set up by the late Mr. Sturrock, reached with a nervous foot and kicked the door to behind him.

  “If you please, sir-” he said, and stuck.

  “Well, William?” said Algy.

  William dragged a handkerchief from his cuff and wiped a clammy brow.

  “If I might have a word with you, sir-”

  Relief rushed in on Algy. So it wasn’t his arrest-not yet. He said cheerfully.

  “As many as you like. What’s up, man? Why are you dithering?”

  “I don’t rightly know how to begin, sir.” But the handkerchief went back into his cuff and his brow remained fairly dry.

  “Begin at the beginning. What’s it all about anyway?”

  William turned bright plum colour.

  “I’ve got a young lady, sir-”

  Algy very nearly said, “So have I,” but it seemed well to keep William to the point if possible, so he substituted an encouraging “That sounds all right.”

  “She works at the Hand and Flower at Railing,” said William.

  Algy sat up and began to take notice.

  “The deuce she does! Well, that’s very interesting. What about it?”

  William’s forehead began to glisten again.

  “It don’t seem as if I ought to hold my tongue.”

  “Then I shouldn’t.”

  “Only my young lady she don’t want to be drawn into it, if you take my meaning, sir.

  Algy laughed a little grimly.

  “I don’t suppose any of us wanted to be drawn into it.”

  “No, sir. All very well on the pictures murders are, but close at hand there’s something ’orrid about them to my way of thinking.”

  “Two minds with but a single thought,” said Algy. “Now what about coming to the point-getting the stuff off the chest?”

  William produced the handkerchief again.

  “Sunday nights when I have my evening out I go over to Railing, but Sunday nights when I don’t my young lady she comes over here, and I can slip out and we do a bit of walk up and down in the lane, and last night-”

  “You slipped out?”

  “Yes, sir. And Ellen she says to me-her name is Ellen Hawkins and she’s got a married sister that keeps a toy-shop in Railing-very nice people they are, and Ellen she’s at the Hand and Flower-”

  “What did she say?”

  “Well, she hadn’t heard about Mr. Sturrock being shot. She’d had the afternoon off from four o’clock, so she wasn’t there when the police come, and she didn’t know nothing about it, and she says, ‘Oh, William,’ she says, ‘how ’orrid! I wouldn’t ha’ come over if I’d ha’ known.’ And ‘It don’t seem hardly right, and you’ll have to take me home, for I won’t go by myself and that’s flat,’ she says, so I done it.”

  “Is that all?” said Algy after a prolonged pause.

  William shook his head.

  “Oh, no, sir. We got talking while we were going along like, and Ellen she told me something, and I told her she didn’t ought to keep it to herself.”

  Algy regarded William with admiration.

  “Good man! What did she tell you?”

  “We had quite a difference of opinion about it, sir, and I don’t say there wasn’t something in what she said.”

  “Well, what did she say?”

  “Well, she put it this way, sir-if the police come and asked her, she’s be bound to tell them, and if they didn’t ask her, then it wasn’t none of her business. ‘And look what come to poor Mr. Sturrock,’ she says. ‘You won’t make me nor anyone else believe that he didn’t know something,’ she says, ‘and that’s why he was done in. And I wish I’d held my tongue and not told you anything,’ she says.”

  “What did she tell you?” said Algy.

  William turned an even brighter plum.

  “If you’ll excuse me, sir, there’s ta
lk about the police thinking you done it. And I said to Ellen, ‘You wouldn’t let them go and arrest Mr. Somers and all for the want of a word.’ And that’s where we had our difference of opinion, because Ellen she said she would but of course she don’t know you, sir.”

  “And you’ve known me how long? About a day and a half.”

  “It don’t take as long as that to know what a gentleman’s like,” said William. “No one’s going to make me believe you shot Mr. Sturrock nor Sir Francis neither. Now the other-”

  “That’s very nice of you and all. And now suppose you tell me what Ellen told you.”

  “Well, sir, it was this way. Ellen’s second housemaid at the Hand and Flower, and she hasn’t any business in the smoke-room on a Sunday afternoon, so I wouldn’t like to be getting her into trouble.”

  “You won’t,” said Algy. “Get on.”

  “Well, sir, it was her afternoon off like I told you, and she was all dressed to go out, and the smoke-room being empty, she slipped in to have a look at one of the papers there-something about the pattern of a dress she seen the picture of and was wanting to copy and she wasn’t sure she’d got it right. Well, then she got a fright. She heard voices in the passage, and one of them was Mr. Rudge, the proprietor. She didn’t want him to find her there, so she stepped behind the curtain, which was a right-down silly thing to do, because it made her look as if she was doing something wrong. She took a look through the curtain, and the talking had stopped, and then she got another fright, because Mr. Sturrock come into the room. He walked over to the table and stood looking down at the papers that was on it, and Ellen thought whatever should she do if he was going to stay. But he didn’t. He went back to the door and looked along the passage, and after a minute he went out and Ellen she come out from behind the curtain, but when she got to the door, there was Mr. Sturrock in the telephone-box right opposite, and she dursn’t pass him, so she stayed where she was, and that’s how it come that she heard what he was saying.”

  “Those boxes are supposed to be sound-proof, aren’t they?”