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

He left the room, and a moment later Hetherwick saw him cross the road and descend into the basement of the flats. Within a quarter of an hour he was back, and evidently primed with news.

“Soon settled that for you, mister!” he announced triumphantly. “He knew who you meant! The lady’s name is Madame Listorelle. Here, I got him to write it down on a bit o’ paper, not being used to foreign names. He thinks she’s something to do with the stage. She’s the tenant of flat twenty-six. But he says that of late she’s seldom there⁠—comes for a night or two, then away, maybe for months at a time. He saw her here yesterday, though; she hadn’t been there, he says, for a good bit. But there, it don’t signify to him whether she’s there or away⁠—always punctual with her money, and that’s the main thing, ain’t it?”

Hetherwick added to his largess of the early morning, and went away. He was now convinced that Lady Riversreade, for some purpose of her own, kept up a flat in Paddington, visited it occasionally, and was known there as Madame Listorelle. How much was there in that, and what bearing had it on the problem he was endeavouring to solve?

Late that night, when Hetherwick was thinking things over, a pounding on his stairs and a knock on his outer door heralded the entrance of Matherfield, who, with an expressive look, flung himself into the nearest easy chair.

“For heaven’s sake, Mr. Hetherwick, give me a drop of that whisky!” he exclaimed. “I’m dead beat⁠—and dead disappointed, too! Such a day as I’ve had after that woman! And what it all means the Lord only knows⁠—I don’t!”

Hetherwick helped his evidently far-spent visitor to a whisky and soda, and waited until he had taken a hearty pull at it. Then he resumed his own seat and took up his pipe.

“I gather that you haven’t had a very successful day, Matherfield?” he suggested. “Hope it wasn’t exactly a wild-goose chase?”

“That’s just about what it comes to, then!” exclaimed Matherfield. “Anyway, after taking no end of trouble she got clear away, practically under my very nose! But I’ll tell you all about it; that’s what I dropped in for. When I went out of that house in St. Mary’s Terrace, she was just turning the corner to the right, Bishop’s Road way. Of course I followed. She went over the bridge⁠—the big railway bridge⁠—and at the end turned down to Paddington Station. I concluded then that she was going up by some early morning train. She entered the station by the first-class booking office; I was not so many yards in her rear then. But instead of stopping there and taking a ticket she went right through, crossed the station to the arrival platform and signalled to a taxicab. In another minute she was in it, and off. Very luckily there was another cab close by. I hailed that and told the driver to keep the first cab in sight and follow it to wherever it went. So off we went again, on another pursuit! And it ended at another terminus⁠—Waterloo!”

“Going home, I suppose,” remarked Hetherwick, as Matherfield paused to take up his glass. “You can get to Dorking from Waterloo.”

“She wasn’t going to any Dorking!” answered Matherfield. “I soon found that out. Early as it was, there were a lot of people at Waterloo, and when she went to the ticket office I contrived to be close behind her⁠—close enough, at any rate, to overhear anything she said. She asked for a first single to Southampton.”

“Southampton!” exclaimed Hetherwick. “Um!”

“Southampton!” repeated Matherfield. “First single for Southampton. She took the ticket and walked away, looking neither right nor left; she never glanced at me. Well, as I said yesterday, I don’t believe in starting out on anything unless I go clean through with it. So after a minute’s thought I booked for Southampton⁠—third. Then I went out and looked at the notice board. Southampton, 5:40. It was then 5:25. So I went to the telephone office, rang up our headquarters and told ’em I was after something and they needn’t expect to see me all day. Then I bought a timetable and a newspaper or two at the bookstall, just opening, and went to the train. There were a lot of people travelling by it. The train hadn’t come up to the platform then; when it came down a minute or two later I watched her get in; she was good to spot because of her tall figure. I got into a smoker, a bit lower down, and in due course off we went, me wondering, to tell you the truth, precisely why I was going! But I was going⁠—wherever she went.”

“Even out of the country?” asked Hetherwick, with a smile.

“Aye, I thought of that!” assented Matherfield. “She might be slinging her hook for anything I knew. That made me turn to the steamship news in the paper, and I saw then that the Tartaric was due to leave Southampton for New York about two o’clock that very afternoon. Well, there were more improbable things than that she meant to go by it, for reasons of her own, especially if she really is the Mrs. Whittingham of the Sellithwaite affair ten years ago. You see, I thought it out like this⁠—granting she’s Mrs. Whittingham, that was, she’ll be astute enough to know that there’s no time-limit to a criminal prosecution in this country, and that she’s still liable to arrest, prosecution, and conviction; she’d probably know, too, that this Hannaford affair has somehow drawn fresh attention to her little matter, and that she’s in danger. Again, I’d been working out an idea about her and this man Baseverie. How do we know that Baseverie wasn’t an accomplice of hers in that Sellithwaite fraud? In most cases of that sort the woman has an