The Charing Cross Mystery, J. S. Fletcher [portable ebook reader .txt] 📗

“What’s she doing at Vivian’s?” muttered Matherfield. “Queer, that!”

“But she’s going away from it,” said Hetherwick. “Come on!⁠—let’s see where she goes. We can easily come back here. But why not follow her first?”

“Good!” agreed Matherfield. “Come on then! easily keep her in sight.”

Lady Riversreade at that moment was turning out of the passage, to her left hand. When the two men emerged from it, she was already several yards ahead, going towards St. Martin’s Church. Her tall figure made her good to follow, but Matherfield kept Hetherwick back; no use, he said, in pressing too closely on your quarry.

“Tall as she is and tall as we are,” he whispered, as they threaded in out of the crowds on the pavement, “we can spot her at twenty yards. Cautiously, now⁠—she’s making for the cab rank!”

They watched Lady Riversreade charter and enter a taxicab: in another minute it moved away. But it had scarcely moved when Matherfield was at the door of the next cab on the rank.

“You saw that cab go off with a tall woman in it?” he said to the driver. “There!⁠—just rounding the corner, know its driver? Right!⁠—follow it carefully. Note where it stops, and if the woman gets out. Drive slowly past wherever that is, and then pull up a bit farther on. Be sharp, now⁠—this is⁠—” he bent towards the man and whispered a word or two: a second later he and Hetherwick were in the cab and across the top side of Trafalgar Square.

“This is getting a bit thick, Mr. Hetherwick,” remarked Matherfield. “Your clerk tracks his man to Vivian’s on Friday night, we find Lady Riversreade coming out of Vivian’s on Monday night. Now I shouldn’t think Lady Riversreade, whom we hear of chiefly as a humanitarian, a likely sort of lady to visit Vivian’s!”

“She came out of Vivian’s, anyway!” replied Hetherwick.

“Then, of course, she’d been in!” said Matherfield. “But why? I should say⁠—to have a meeting with Baseverie, or with somebody representing him, or having something to do with the business that took him to Riversreade Court. What business is it? Has it anything to do with our business? However, there’s Lady Riversreade in that cab in front, and we’ll just follow her to find out where she goes⁠—no doubt she’s bound for some swell West End hotel. And that knowledge will be useful, for I may want to see her in the morning⁠—to ask a question or two.”

“Somewhat early for that, isn’t it?” suggested Hetherwick. “Do we know enough?”

“Depends on what you call enough,” replied Matherfield dryly. “What I know is this: that man Granett was poisoned. He had on him a brand new five-pound note. That note I’ve traced as far as Vivian’s, where it was certainly paid to some customer in change on the very day before Granett and Hannaford’s deaths: Vivian’s is accordingly a place of interest. Now I hear of a mysterious man visiting Lady Riversreade⁠—the man is tracked to Vivian’s⁠—I myself see Lady Riversreade emerging from Vivian’s. I think I must ask Lady Riversreade what she knows about Vivian’s and a certain Dr. Baseverie, and, incidentally, if she ever heard of a place called Sellithwaite and a police-superintendent named Hannaford? Eh! But we’re leaving the region of the fashionable hotels.”

Hetherwick looked out of the window, what he saw seemed unfamiliar.

“We’re going up Edgware Road,” said Matherfield. He leaned out of the cab and gave some further instructions to the driver. “I don’t want to arouse any suspicion there in front,” he remarked, dropping into his seat again. “The probability is that she’s going to some private house, and I don’t want her to get any idea that she’s followed. Ah!⁠—now we turn into Harrow Road.”

The cab went away by Paddington Green, turned sharply at the Town Hall, and made up St. Mary’s Terrace. Presently it slowed down; proceeded still more slowly; passed the other cab which had come to a standstill in front of a block of high buildings; a few yards farther on it stopped altogether. The driver got down from his seat and came to the door.

“That tall lady!” he said confidentially. “Her as got into the other cab. She’s gone into St. Mary’s Mansions⁠—just below.”

“Flats, aren’t they?” asked Matherfield.

“That’s it, sir,” answered the driver. He looked down the street. “Cab’s going off again, sir. Porter came out and paid.”

“That looks as if she was going to stay here awhile,” remarked Matherfield in an undertone. “Well, we’ll get out, too, and take a look round.” He paid and dismissed the driver, and crossing over to the opposite side of the roadway, pointed out to Hetherwick the block of flats into which Lady Riversreade had disappeared. “Big place,” he muttered. “Regular rabbit-warren. However, no other entrance than this⁠—the old burial ground’s at the back, no way out there, I do know that! So she can’t very well vanish that way.”

“You’re going to wait, then?” asked Hetherwick.

“I don’t believe in starting out on any game unless I see it through,” replied Matherfield. “Yes, I think we’ll wait. But there’s no necessity to hang around in the open street. I know this district⁠—used to be at the police station round the corner. You see all these houses on this side, Mr. Hetherwick? They’re all lodging-houses, and I know most of their keepers. Wait here a minute, and I’ll soon get a room that we can watch from, without being seen ourselves.”

He left Hetherwick standing under the shadow of a neighbouring high wall, and went a little way down the street. Hetherwick heard him open the gate of one of the little gardens and knock at a door. There some little delay. Hetherwick passed the time in staring at the long rows of lighted windows in the flats opposite, wondering to which of them Lady Riversreade had gone and what she was doing there at all. It was clear to him that this was some adventure connected with the mysterious Baseverie and with Vivian’s Night Club⁠—but how, and of what nature?

Matherfield came