Mrs. Vanderstein's jewels

CHAPTER XV

“Drive to the Inanity,” said the detective as he got into the cab; and when the man stopped before the theatre: “Do you know Carolina Road, North West?” he asked him, leaning out of the window to do so.

“Yes,” the driver said. “The other side of Regent’s Park, isn’t it?”

“Then go there.” Gimblet drew his head back and sat down as the man let in the clutch and the taxi started again. It was almost seven o’clock and the roads were comparatively clear of traffic, while the pavement seemed still more deserted, the few people who were to be seen walking quickly to get out of the rain; but it appeared that for the most part the world was within doors, resting after the day’s work, or preparing for the entertainments of the evening.

The taxi went swiftly, and in a short time had drawn near to its destination. As they left the more fashionable streets behind and passed northward into semi-suburban districts, Gimblet leant eagerly forward, noting every characteristic of the neighbourhood with an observant eye and an expectant alertness.

They soon came upon tree-lined roadways, bordered by houses that boasted small plots of ground before their doors. Railings enclosed these plots, and in many cases a minute carriage drive circled from the pavement to the entrance of the house; but as they turned corner after corner and the same scene, with slight variations, continually repeated itself, Gimblet’s hopes gave way to an incredulous disappointment, for of all these dwellings not one answered to the description given by Miss Finner. She had mentioned particularly that the house he was looking for stood alone in its little garden; but in all the streets traversed by the detective not so much as a cottage was to be seen of the kind known technically as “detached.”

They turned at length into Carolina Road and the driver slowed up, looking round as he did so for instructions.

Again Gimblet’s head went out of the window.

“Go back towards the theatre,” he said, “but go another way,” and after much noise and backing – for the street was a narrow one – the cab turned, and off they started again.

Rain was falling heavily by this time in a cold, persistent downpour. The wind blew chill from the west, and the detective, all a-shiver on this summer’s evening, told himself, as he drew up the windward pane, that there must be icebergs sailing down the North Atlantic. He wrapped his coat closer around him, and hugged himself in a corner of the taxi. Again they splashed and bumped over the muddy, streaming macadam; the water swished from the wheels; the driver cowered under his shining waterproof screen; and the car skidded unpleasantly as they swung round corners and narrowly avoided collision with other vehicles in the same plight.

Gimblet kept a look-out no less sharp than before, but with no better result. Here were houses, indeed, in plenty, here were gardens and carriage gates, and dripping trees; but here was no single detached building of any shape or kind whatsoever. Another drive Gimblet took, following devious ways. He felt inclined to ring at Miss Finner’s door and reproach her with inaccuracy; but she had not told him the number in Carolina Road of the house she lived in. Besides, at this hour she would be at the theatre preparing to remove the apple which young Tell was undauntedly balancing.

For an unpleasant moment the detective wondered if she had merely made a mistake, or whether the whole tale were a fabrication. He remembered uneasily the readiness with which he had accepted it and his urgent pressing upon the voluble lady of the reward offered in the papers. No doubt she was laughing at his gullibility, and regaling her friends with an embellished account of how easily she had taken in the well-known detective. Gimblet’s lips tightened as he thought of it. Was he becoming unduly credulous in his old age? There was the story Sidney had told him, too. He had assured himself that he had kept an open mind as to the truth of it, and had reserved his opinion till proofs were offered him; but, as a matter of fact, as he now acknowledged sardonically, he had believed every word spoken by the young man, and allowed himself to be absurdly influenced by an honest face and an appearance of frank trustfulness.

“A nice sort of detective you are!” said Gimblet to his reflection in the little slip of looking-glass that adorned the cab; and he cried to the driver to go back to Whitehall.

Higgs was waiting for him, and reported that he had taken a second advertisement to the advertising agents, and that he had also been to most of the principal taxi garages, where he had made inquiries and posted notices.

“The man is sure to turn up to-morrow morning, sir,” he said.

In the morning there was no news. Gimblet telephoned to Grosvenor Street and was himself called up by Sidney. To him he replied coldly that so far he had nothing to report. Directly after breakfast Sir Gregory arrived, panting. “I couldn’t get you on the telephone,” he said. “Have you heard nothing?”

“I had an answer to my advertisement,” replied Gimblet, “but I am afraid the information brought me was quite unreliable.”

He told Sir Gregory in a few words of Miss Finner’s visit.

“I tested her story pretty severely yesterday,” he said, “but there still remains a chance that the man who drove her may appear, and be able to remember the exact route by which he took her on Monday night. There is no doubt her own account is so inaccurate as to be worthless; and it is possible,” he added, owning the secret dread he could not keep from his thoughts, “that she was only indulging in a kind of practical joke.”

Sir Gregory was beginning to show the effect of his days of anxiety. Though his face was still pink, the lines on it seemed to have become deeper and more numerous, and he had the weary, listless air of one to whom sleep has denied herself. Gimblet was not anxious for his company, but Sir Gregory would not be shaken off. The detective said he had letters to write and business that must be attended to; but was met by a pleading request to be allowed to remain, in case the taxi driver should make his appearance.

“I don’t know what to do with myself if I go away,” said Sir Gregory miserably. “If I am here I feel that, if any news does come, I shan’t have to wait longer than is necessary for it. Nothing like being at headquarters.”

Finally Gimblet consented to his staying, and himself withdrew into another room with a bundle of papers that needed his attention. When he went back after an hour’s work to the library, where he had left Sir Gregory surrounded by newspapers and books, he found these cast aside or strewn on the floor and the baronet himself standing by the telephone, in the act of hanging up the receiver.

“I got tired of reading,” he explained; “nothing of interest in the papers, or I can’t take any interest in them, whichever it is; so I just thought I’d call up young Sidney, and tell him about the ladies having been seen by that young woman. Relieve his anxiety, poor chap, to have some one to talk about it to.” On the incidental relief to his own feelings afforded by having a listener into whose ears to pour them, Sir Gregory did not think it necessary to expatiate.

Gimblet showed his vexation.

“Really, Sir Gregory, you might have known better than to put him on his guard in that way! Supposing there’s anything in Chark’s suspicions, don’t you see that the more complete Sidney thinks our ignorance and mystification, the better? While, as soon as he knows us to be on the track, we lose any advantage we may have?”

“But – but you said you didn’t suspect him!” stammered Sir Gregory, dumfounded.

“I didn’t say so. I said there was no reason to take a tragic view or to suspect anyone at all at first. I certainly do not accuse anyone now. But day after day is passing, and the matter looks very much more serious with each succeeding hour. It seems impossible, if all were well, that the ladies should not have communicated with their friends before now. This is Thursday. They vanished on Monday. I have been anxious to spare you, Sir Gregory. I know you have been only too ready to imagine the worst, and I did not wish to add to your fears; but this is the third day without news, and it is impossible to disguise any longer that you have grave reason for them.”

Poor Sir Gregory’s last hopes flickered and were extinguished.

“You think – you think – ” he murmured.

“I think there is cause for grave anxiety, but that is not to say that I am without hope. Far from it. Still, it is necessary to act with caution; and it was most imprudent of you to tell Sidney that we had heard anything. It is true that what we have heard is probably a mare’s nest, but in any case there is no need to go blurting things out like that.”

Sir Gregory paid little attention to what Gimblet was saying. “So you do think Sidney may know more of this business than he admits,” he repeated, half to himself. “Well, perhaps it was a pity I spoke to him just now, though I don’t see what harm it can do either. The question is, what do you think he’s done with her? Do you think” – Sir Gregory’s voice seemed to fail him but he cleared his throat and continued with a gulp – “he’s killed her?”

The words came with a rush, and the question was plainer than Gimblet cared to answer. “I don’t think anything,” he replied, still rather testily, “but I must consider everything and anything possible. At present it is all mere suspicion, but things look rather black, though not only against Sidney. As a matter of personal opinion I incline to the idea that that young man is innocent; still, I can’t admit his character cleared on that account. I’ve no evidence worth mentioning one way or the other.”

“Who else are you thinking of, when you say things look black against others than Sidney?” asked Sir Gregory eagerly. “I have thought myself, that, perhaps, the servants – ”

“Mrs. Vanderstein’s servants? I don’t think they can have anything to do with it. It would have been impossible for one of them to have got rid of the two ladies, while they were at home, without the knowledge of the others. And we can hardly contemplate the possibility of an organised conspiracy at present. The chauffeur and footman, you think, may have disposed of them by some means when they were supposed to be driving to the opera? But the chauffeur is an old and trusted servant, and, moreover, the box opener says that the ladies occupied their box. There is also the night watchman, who is an ex-corporal of the Foot-guards, and whose character is of the best. Suppose that, on their late return to the house, he let them in quietly, as it was his business to do, and then killed them both in order to possess himself of Mrs. Vanderstein’s jewels. The difficulties that would then confront him before he could dispose of the bodies would be well nigh insurmountable, even if it were possible for him to silence two women simultaneously so effectively as to prevent anyone in the house from being aroused. The probabilities are strongly against the night watchman’s having anything to do with it; and, indeed, I think all the servants may safely be left out of the reckoning.”

“Then who can have harmed them?” Sir Gregory asked.

“I hesitate to mention anything more to you, Sir Gregory, after your recent injudicious conduct. However, I don’t think you’d be able to warn the other person upon whom suspicion may fall. It is odd that it should not have occurred to our friend Chark that Sidney is not the only one who would benefit by Mrs. Vanderstein’s death,” said Gimblet.

“Why, what do you mean; who would benefit?”

“Surely you know. It was you that told me.”

“I told you?” Sir Gregory looked the picture of bewilderment. “I don’t know anyone, except, of course, Miss Turner, who would be a penny the better if my dear friend should die.”

“Exactly.” Gimblet, his chin on his hand, gazed over Sir Gregory’s head at his newly-discovered Teniers, which he had found time to hang up in a central position. “A little further to the right, and it would be still better,” he thought.

But Sir Gregory was bounding in his chair. “Miss Turner! Impossible! A young girl, sir! You don’t know what you are saying.”

“I thought you disliked her.” Gimblet was very calm, almost indifferent.

“That’s a very different thing from thinking her capable … surely it’s impossible… What makes you suspect her?” Sir Gregory finished by asking, his curiosity getting the better of his incredulity.

“I don’t say I suspect her,” Gimblet answered patiently. “I say that suspicion might possibly fall on her more reasonably than on Mr. Sidney, with whom, by the way, I think she is in love.”

“Really, how do you know that?”

“I have evidence that she sympathised very deeply with his troubles, and carried her sympathy to a length unusual in young ladies for men to whom they are not attached. I saw him last Sunday in the company of a girl, who I think must have been she. If it was, there is no doubt about the thing. Anyone could see it in her face at a glance.”

“Still, if that were so, I don’t see why she should injure Mrs. Vanderstein.”

“Love is a very common prompter of crime. I don’t say it is likely, but it is not impossible that this young woman, knowing Sidney to be in terrible straits for want of money, his career threatened, heaven knows what other threats on his tongue, should be prepared to go to desperate lengths to procure him what he needs. You never can tell what they will do in such cases; and the one piece of real evidence that I have shows that she did not mean to sit by idle while her lover went to his ruin.”

Gimblet took Barbara’s telegraph form from his notebook, and spread it on the table before him. “Look at this,” he said; and Sir Gregory got up and peered eagerly over his shoulder, eyeglasses on nose.

“Luck is coming your way at last expect to have good news by Wednesday removing all difficulties.”

“There’s no signature. Who is it from?” he asked.

“It is from Miss Turner. I was able to get this form from the post office and to compare it with a specimen of her handwriting,” said Gimblet. “The absence of signature alone looks as if a good deal of intimacy exists between her and Sidney, though the name may possibly have been omitted accidentally.”

“But what could she mean?”

“Her meaning is plain enough. She promises Sidney that the money he wants shall be forthcoming. I do not know how much he requires, but he told me that the sum is a large one. Now, how was she going to get a large sum by Wednesday?”

“She might raise something on the legacy from old Vanderstein, in which his widow has a life interest,” suggested the baronet.

“I don’t know the exact conditions of the will; but, supposing she dies before Mrs. Vanderstein, what happens?”

“I don’t know,” Sir Gregory confessed.

“If it reverts to Mrs. Vanderstein, there wouldn’t be much security to borrow money on. In any case, there is little difference between the ages of the two ladies, and rates would be very high. She might not be able to raise nearly enough, even if she could get any at all,” said Gimblet.

“It would be too terrible if a girl like that so much as lifted a finger against one who has been the soul of kindness to her,” Sir Gregory repeated.

“Ah, Sir Gregory, terrible indeed! But terrible things happen every day. Let a crisis arise, and you never know who may not surprise and horrify you by showing the cloven hoof. I hope that Miss Turner is entirely innocent of all knowledge of this affair, but there are two points which are against her.”

“And what are they?”

“One is her parentage. I have been making inquiries about her father, and find that William Turner was a most unholy scoundrel, a man who would shrink at nothing to gain his ends, always escaping the penalties of the law by the skin of his teeth. He slipped from beneath the hand of justice over and over again, and finally bolted to South America, where he is reported to have died. Suppose that there was no truth in that rumour? Suppose he should in reality have returned to Europe, that he is even now in England, in London, his presence unknown to anyone but his daughter? With such a man to instigate her to crime, who can say what the girl might not venture? In any case she has bad blood in her; and there is much truth, Sir Gregory, in the old saying that ‘blood will tell,’ despite the socialistic opinions to the contrary which now prevail.”

“True enough,” murmured the baronet. He was leaning forward listening intently to Gimblet’s every word. “But you said there were two points against her.”

“Yes. The second is what may have prevented you from suspecting her before. It is the fact that she appears to have been spirited away as well as Mrs. Vanderstein. Well, if there has been foul play – which heaven forbid, but we must consider all the possibilities now – if, I say, the vanishing of these ladies has its origin in crime, the disappearance of Miss Turner is the most suspicious part of the whole affair. For why in the world should she share with Mrs. Vanderstein the attentions of any hypothetical criminal? She had no diamonds to be robbed of; she did not go about covered with jewels, having none of any value to display. She could only be an additional danger, and one that no ordinary robber would willingly burden himself with, since her presence could be no possible source of profit.

“No, it seems clear that if Mrs. Vanderstein were to be decoyed away and murdered for her jewels it would be on an occasion when she was unattended by her companion. So far, Sir Gregory, you may take that as an encouragement to think that she is uninjured. It is indeed a most hopeful sign, and one of the reasons why I have refused, until to-day, to take a gloomy view of the business. Still, why has the girl disappeared? We are driven back on the supposition that she did so of her own free will; and, if that was the case, what was her purpose? Remember, all this is the merest theory, which it would be ridiculous to accept before we obtain further facts by which to test it. At present we have a very insufficient acquaintance with anything that does not involve these wild conjectures.” As he finished speaking, Gimblet took out his watch and gazed at it long and significantly.

With a sigh, Sir Gregory was at last obliged to take the hint. It was luncheon time: the footsteps of Higgs as he journeyed between the kitchen and the dining-room; the clatter of the dishes as he placed them upon the table or sideboard; the delicious smell of pie that was wafted in whenever the door was opened – all these proclaimed that the hour had sounded on the stroke of which it was Gimblet’s custom to take his place before the dining table, full of the pleasantest anticipations. He was an eccentric gourmet, devising for himself meals in which strange dishes appeared in the menu, and he had an excellent cook, who was content to humour his taste and to labour secretly to prevent his poisoning himself altogether; so that, when he ordered fried oysters and Schwalbach soufflé for luncheon, or lobster and chocolate ice for dinner, she would intersperse what she considered more wholesome dishes, such as legs of mutton and rice puddings, among those he had chosen for himself, in the vain hope that they might tempt him from his dangerous combinations. He gave up remonstrating with her after a while, although he refused to be coerced into eating what he did not like, and his persistent neglect to partake of the rice puddings caused such distress in the kitchen that Higgs fell into the habit of removing a spoonful from them before he cleared them away, and consumed it himself rather than that the cook should what he called “take on.”

To tell the truth, Sir Gregory was not without hope that Gimblet would have asked him to stay to lunch; but it was plain to the most sanguine that the detective had no such intention, and with hesitating reluctance the baronet was obliged to depart. He turned in the doorway, however, to say firmly: “I shall come back this afternoon,” and then hurried away before Gimblet had time to put into words the objection his lips were struggling to form.

Sir Gregory walked to his club, and regaled himself on cold lamb and a glass of claret. He had no appetite, and soon pushed away his plate and wandered into the smoking-room, where he fidgeted about, disconsolate and dejected. Several members whom he knew, aware of his friendship with the ladies whose mysterious disappearance was by now arousing general interest and, as a topic, shared the favour of the newspapers with the preparations for the Royal function that was to take place during the following week, came up to him and tried to get him to talk about it. But if they hoped to glean from him some grains of gossip beyond the reach of common knowledge, too scandalous possibly for a decorous press, wherewith they should proceed to acquire a libellous popularity among their acquaintances, these gentlemen were to know the leaden flavour of disappointment. Sir Gregory, with the sting of Gimblet’s reproaches fresh in his mind, shut his mouth like a vice at any attempt to turn the conversation in the forbidden direction, and scowled as horribly at his friends as his naturally amiable cast of countenance rendered practicable; so that they soon moved off, telling each other that old Jones was becoming a cantankerous old fool and seemed likely to go off his head altogether, as far as they could judge.

It happened in this way that the baronet found himself more and more neglected and alone; till, after standing it for a couple of hours, he could at last bear no longer a state of things as disastrous to his nerves as it was wearing to his temper. About half-past four he put his pride in his pocket, and leaving the smoking-room caught up his hat and hastened from the building. Ten minutes later he was again ringing at Gimblet’s door.

Scarcely had he been ushered into the detective’s presence than the bell rang again, and Higgs came in to say that a taxi driver had arrived in answer to an advertisement, and asked to see Mr. Gimblet.

To Sir Gregory’s despair Gimblet at once left him, and called the man into the little waiting-room.

“Good afternoon,” he said to the taxi man, an intelligent looking fellow with a clean-shaven face, who returned his greeting civilly as he followed him into the room; “are you the man who drove a lady from the Inanity on Monday night to a house in Carolina Road?”

“That’s me, sir,” answered the man, “leastways, as you may say, I drove one of them there.”

“What?” said Gimblet. “Was there more than one?”

“Yes, sir, there was two young ladies when I took them up, but only one of them went to Carolina Road.”

“What happened to the other?”

“I took her to another address first, sir,” said the driver; “I forget the exact number, but somewhere about half-way down Hilliard Street it was, and on the right hand side as I went. That’s Maida Vale way, Hilliard Street is.”

“And you went there first,” cried the detective, “why then, of course I see it all now; the lady only told me she went from the theatre to Carolina Road, and my not knowing of the detour you made on the way has led me to some wrong conclusions.”

“To Hilliard Street first. Those were the orders they give me,” repeated the man.

“Yes, of course,” said Gimblet. “Now, as you drove on from there to Carolina Road, do you by any chance remember seeing two ladies, very richly dressed, standing in front of the open door of a house, which had a small garden or yard between it and the street?”

“Now you’re asking me a riddle,” said the taxi man. “I may have seen two ladies, or again I may have seen a hundred of them, or I mayn’t have seen none at all. That’s more than I could tell you.”

“You didn’t happen to notice any particular two?”

“No, sir, I did not. If I was to go driving about the streets a-looking at all the pretty ladies I see about, I’d be troubling the insurance people a bit too often. I keep my eyes on what’s in the roadway and that takes me all my time, I don’t think.”

“Quite so,” said Gimblet. “Of course you are perfectly right not to look about you. Well now, perhaps you could tell me this. In going from Hilliard Street to Carolina Road, would you pass through a row of single detached houses on the way? Houses all standing in their own gardens some little way apart from each other?”

The man considered, mumbling to himself the names of the streets, as he made a mental journey along the route the detective indicated. In a minute he looked up.