The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation, J. S. Fletcher [best fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

Fullaway, with supreme assurance. "What the singing woman, as you call her, can tell us will most likely make all the difference in the world to our investigations. Remember the shoe-buckle! Have it ready to exhibit when I lead up to it. Then—we shall see."

The prima donna, back for her engagement at eleven o'clock, came in flushed and smiling—the extraordinary warmth and fervour of her reception by the audience which she had at first been so inclined to treat with scant courtesy had restored her to good humour, and when she had eaten a few mouthfuls of delicate food and drunk her first glass of champagne she began to laugh almost light-heartedly.

"Well, I suppose you've been doing your best, Fullaway," she said, with easy familiarity. "I declare you turned up at the very moment, for that fat Weiss would have been no good. But I'm still wondering how you came to be here, and what this gentleman—Mr. Allerdyke, is it?—is doing here with you. Allerdyke, now—well, that's the same name as that of a man I came across from Christiania with, and left at Hull."

Fullaway kicked Allerdyke under the table.

"You haven't heard of that Mr. Allerdyke since you left him at Hull, then?" he asked, gazing intently at their hostess.

"Heard? How should I hear?" asked the prima donna. "He was just a travelling acquaintance. All the same, I had certainly fixed up to see him in London on a business matter."

"You don't read the newspapers, then?" suggested Fullaway.

"Not unless there's something about myself in them," she answered, with an arch smile at Allerdyke.

"If you'd read this morning's papers, you'd have seen that the Mr. Allerdyke with whom you travelled—this gentleman's cousin, by the by—was found dead in his room at the hotel in Hull not so long after you quitted it," said Fullaway coolly. "In fact, he must have been dead when you passed his door on your way out."

The prima donna was genuinely shocked. She set down the glass which she was just lifting to her lips; her large, handsome eyes dilated, her lips quivered a little. She turned a look of sympathy on Allerdyke, who, at that moment, realized that she was a very beautiful woman.

"You don't say so!" she exclaimed. "Well, I'm really grieved to hear that—I am! Dead?—and when I left! Why, I was in his room that very night we reached Hull, having a talk on the business matter I mentioned just now—he was well enough and lively enough then, I'll swear. Dead!—why, what did he die of?"

The two men looked at each other. There was a brief pause; then Allerdyke slowly produced a small packet, wrapped in tissue-paper, from his waistcoat pocket. He laid it on the table at his side and looked at his hostess.

"I knew you had been in my cousin's room," he said. "You left or dropped your shoe-buckle there. I found it when I searched his room. Then the hotel manager showed me your wire. Here's the buckle."

He was watching her narrowly as he spoke, and his glance deepened in intensity as he handed over the little packet and watched her unwrap the paper. But there was not a sign of anything but a little surprised satisfaction in the prima donna's face as she recognized her lost property, and her eyes were ingenuous enough as she turned them on him.

"Why, of course, that's mine!" she exclaimed. "I'm ever so much obliged to you, Mr. Allerdyke. Yes, I wired to the hotel, in my proper name, you know—Zélie de Longarde is only my professional name. I didn't want to lose that buckle—it was part of a birthday present from my mother. But you don't mean to say that you travelled all the way to Edinburgh to hand me that! Surely not?"

"No!" replied Allerdyke. He wanted to take a direct share in the talking, and went resolutely ahead now that the chance had come. "No—not at all. I knew you'd come to Edinburgh—found it out from that chauffeur who was driving you when you and I met at Howden the night before last, and so I came on to find you. I want to ask you some questions about my cousin, and maybe to get you to come and give evidence at the inquest on him."

"Inquest!" she exclaimed. "I know what that means, of course. Why—you don't say there's been anything wrong?"

"I believe my cousin was murdered that night," answered Allerdyke. "So, too, does Fullaway there. And you were probably the last person who ever spoke to him alive. Now, you see, I'm a plain, blunt-spoken sort of chap—I ask people straight questions. What did you go into his room to talk to him about?"

"Business!" she replied, with a directness which impressed both men. "Mere business. He and I had several conversations on board the Perisco—I made out he was a clever business man. I want to invest some money—he advised me to put it into a development company in Norway, which is doing big things in fir and pine. I went into his room to look at some plans and papers—he gave me some prospectuses which are in that bag there just now—-I was reading them over again only this evening. That's all. I wasn't there many minutes—and, as I told you, he was very well, very brisk and lively then."

"Did he show you any valuables that he had with him—jewels?" asked
Allerdyke brusquely.

"Jewels! Valuables!" she answered. "No—certainly not."

"Nor when you were on the steamer?"

"No—nor at any time," she said. "Jewels?—why—what makes you ask such a question?"

"Because my cousin had in his possession a consignment of such things, of great value, and we believe that he was murdered for them—that's why," replied Allerdyke. "He had them when he left Christiania—he had them when he entered the Hull hotel—"

Fullaway, who had been listening intently, leant forward with a shake of his head.

"Stop at that, Allerdyke," he said. "We don't know, now, that he did have them when he entered the hotel at Hull! He mayn't have had. Miss Lennard—we'll drop the professional name and turn to the real one," he said, with a bow to the prima donna—"Miss Lennard here thinks she had her jewels in her little box when she entered the Hull hotel, and also when she came to this hotel, here in Edinburgh, but—"

"Do you mean to say that I hadn't?" she exclaimed. "Do you mean—"

"I mean," replied Fullaway, "that, knowing what I now know, I believe that both you and the dead man, James Allerdyke, were robbed on the Perisco. And I want to ask you a question at once. Where is your maid!"

Celia Lennard dropped her knife and fork and sat back, suddenly turning pale.

"My maid!" she said faintly. "Good heavens! you don't think—oh, you aren't suggesting that she's the thief? Because—oh, this is dreadful! You see—I never thought of it before—when she and I arrived at Hull that night she was met by a man who described himself as her brother. He was in a great state of agitation—he said he'd rushed up to Hull to meet her, to beg her to go straight with him to their mother, who was dying in London. Of course, I let her go at once—they drove straight from the riverside at Hull to the station to catch the train. What else could I do? I never suspected anything. Oh!"

Fullaway leaned across the table and filled his hostess's glass.

"Now," he said, motioning her to drink, "you know your maid's name and address, don't you? Let me have them at once, and within a couple of hours we'll know if the story about the dying mother was true."

CHAPTER X THE SECOND MURDER

It had been very evident to Allerdyke that ever since Fullaway had mentioned the matter of the missing maid, Celia Lennard had become a victim to doubt, suspicion, and uncertainty. Her colour came and went; her eyes began to show signs of tears; her voice shook. And now, at the American's direct question, she wrung her hands with an almost despairing gesture.

"But I can't!" she exclaimed. "I don't know her address—how should I? It's somewhere in London—Bloomsbury, I think—but even then I don't know if that's where her mother lives, to whom she said she was going. I did know her address—I mean I remembered it for a while, at the time I engaged her—a year ago, but I've forgotten it. Oh! do you really think she's robbed me, or helped to rob me?"

"Never mind opinions," answered Fullaway curtly. "They're no good. Is this the maid you brought with you once or twice when you called at my office some time ago, over the Pinkie Pell deal?"

"Yes—yes, the same!" she answered.

"A Frenchwoman?" said Fullaway.

"Yes—Lisette. Of course she went with me to your office—that was eight or nine months ago, and I've had her a year. And I had excellent testimonials with her, too. Oh, I can't think that—"

"Can't you make an effort to remember her address?" urged Fullaway.
"What can we do until we know that?"

Celia drew her fine eyebrows together in a palpable effort to think.

"I've got it somewhere," she said at last. "I must have it somewhere—most likely in an address-book at my flat—I should be sure to put it down at the time."

"Who is there at your flat?" asked Fullaway.

"My housekeeper and a maid," answered Celia. "They're always there, whether I'm at home or not. But they couldn't get at what you want—all my papers and things are locked up—and in a hopeless state of confusion, too."

Fullaway pushed aside his plate.

"Then there's only one thing to be done," he said, with an accent of finality. "We must go up to town at once."

Allerdyke, still quietly eating his supper, looked up.

"That's just what I was going to suggest," he said. "There's no good to be done hanging about here. Let's get on to the scene of operations. If Miss Lennard's maid has stolen her jewels, she's probably had some hand in the theft from my cousin. We must find her. Now, then, let me come in. I'll look up the train, settle up with these hotel folk, and we'll be off. You give your attention to your packing, Miss Lennard, and leave the rest to me—you won't mind travelling the night?"

Celia shook her head.

"I don't mind travelling all night for half a dozen nights if I can track my lost property," she said lugubriously. "You're dead sure it's no use stopping here?—that the robbery didn't take place here?"

"Sure!" answered Fullaway. "We must get off. That French damsel's got to be found—somehow."

The supper-party came to an end—the prima donna and her temporary maid began to bustle with garments and trunks, the two men attended to all other necessary matters, and at two o'clock in the morning the three sped out of Edinburgh for the South, each secretly wondering what was going to come of their journey. Allerdyke, preparing to go to sleep in the compartment which he and Fullaway occupied by themselves, dropped one grim remark to his companion as he settled himself.

"Seems like a wild-goose chase this, my lad, but it's one we've got to go through with! What'll the next stage be?"

The next stage was an arrival in London in the middle of a lovely May morning, a swift drive to Celia Lennard's flat in Bedford Court Mansions, the hurried rummaging of its owner amongst an extraordinary mass of papers, books, and documents, and the ultimate discovery of the French maid's address. Celia held it up with a sigh of vast relief, which changed into a groan of despairing doubt.

"There it is!" she exclaimed. "Lisette Beaurepaire, 911 Bernard Street, Bloomsbury—I knew it was Bloomsbury. That's where she lived when I engaged her, anyhow—but then her sick mother mayn't live there! The man who met her at Hull, who said he was her brother, didn't say where the mother lived, except that it was in London."

"We must go to Bernard Street, anyway, at once," said Fullaway. "We may get some information there."

But such information as they got on the door-step of 911 Bernard Street was scanty and useless. The house was a typical Bloomsbury lodging-place, let off in floors and rooms. Its proprietor, summoned from a neighbouring house, recollected, with considerable difficulty and after consultation of a penny pocket-book, that he had certainly let a top-floor room to a young Frenchwoman about a year ago, but he had never caught her name properly, and simply had