Chapter XIV

Michael had always had an affection for Colchester. He liked the Essex country; he liked quiet towns; and he had pleasant memories of staying in some beautiful old houses in the High Street. However, on this occasion he decided that his mission was too important to admit of dallying with his friends, and armed with Wilson’s authority (to be used, the authority had urged, only in cases of absolute necessity), he set out on the novel task of picking up information.

He began with an annoying setback. At Meston’s office he had not expected to garner very much, and he was therefore not disappointed when the clerk-in-charge refused to give him any but the barest possible information. It was fairly obvious that the clerk knew that there was something in the wind; it was equally obvious that he had been strictly ordered to disclose nothing, and Michael did not feel that he looked important enough to demand to see private papers. Mr. Meston’s, he learned, were locked in the desk of the senior partner, who had come over and taken them on the afternoon of the finding of the body. Yes, Mr. Warden had been in the office at the time; in fact, both partners had been in every day since Mr. Meston had left. Neither of them was there at the moment. Mr. Hanborough had gone over to the inquest, and Mr. Warden to his home. The clerk understood that his father was worse. Michael was rather relieved, at the moment, that this should be so, for he was not at all inclined to explain his mission to Warden’s ingenuous mind; and, having acquired the private address of both the other partners, he went on his way.

As he reached the door of Meston’s house he saw a man emerging, and wondered idly what his business was. He was not at all pleased to gather, from his reception, that the man had come on approximately the same errand as himself, and had, moreover, apparently pumped Meston’s housekeeper dry. She did not actually turn him from the door; but she provided no information, replying morosely that “she couldn’t say” to direct questions, and rejecting all attempts to draw her into conversation or gossip. In despair, Michael tried his last resource, the production of Wilson’s card, but it seemed to carry no weight with her. She would not even allow an inspection of the man’s rooms.

“What about Mrs. Meston’s?” Michael asked hopefully.

“There ain’t nothing of hers here,” was the reply, with a pursing of the lips which suggested that the speaker shared Michael’s views on the lady’s character. “She took them all away when she came.”

“Oh! When was that?”

“Couldn’t say.” The housekeeper, seeming to feel that she had inadvertently allowed a morsel of information to escape her, shut up like a clam, and Michael, after a few more ineffective feelers, came away in no very pleasant mood, and betook himself to Hanborough’s house, which was a red brick villa a mile or so from the centre of the town.

His spirits were not brightened by passing, within a hundred yards of the gate, the visitor who had preceded him to Meston’s house. The man obviously recognised him, for he paused in his walk and looked up almost as if he were going to speak. But he thought better of it, and Michael passed on with the gloomiest anticipations of his coming interview.

The reality could not well have been worse. The maid who answered the door refused to admit him on any pretext; and when he tried to press her, the only result was to bring down a horrifying and voluble old lady looking very like a macaw, who screamed furious denials at him till he retired in despair, convinced that even Wilson himself could not have got in without physical force. “Confound it! how _do_ detectives get hold of information?” he muttered to himself as he went away.

His wrath was complete when, on turning into the main road, he beheld the first caller obviously waiting to see him come out. “Damn the man!” Michael thought. “I might as well give up my job if he’s going to get in first and spoil my hand at every turn.” And he prepared his best scowl for the interloper.

The latter, however, seemed hardly to notice it, but as he came up addressed him in a quite pleasant voice, though with a tinge of officialism about it. “Dr. Prendergast?” he inquired.

“You have the advantage of me,” said Michael sulkily.

For answer, the stranger produced a card from his pocket, and handed it over. It bore the name of Inspector Bille, of the Essex County Constabulary.

“Well?” Michael said, wondering. “What is it? Do you want to arrest me?”

Inspector Bille laughed, a low-powered chuckle. “No, indeed, sir,” he said. “But I noticed you as I was coming away from Meston’s house, and when I saw you here it struck me you might be wondering what I was up to. Working with the Superintendent, I take it?” To the Forces throughout the country, Wilson was always simply “the Superintendent.”

“Yes,” said Michael, slightly mollified--“though I don’t know how you knew me. I don’t think we’ve met before.”

“Colonel Lockwood pointed you out, sir, this morning,” Inspector Bille explained. “I was in two minds whether to stop you before you went in.”

“You might just as well have stopped me,” Michael grumbled, “for all the help I got. You seem to have turned off the supply of information pretty successfully at both places.”

Bille laughed again. “Well, sir, people--particularly old Mrs. Hanborough--don’t very much like answering questions, unless they’re going to get their names in the papers. And if you’ll pardon me saying so, you don’t look very much like a newspaper man.”

“My own impression,” said Michael, “was rather that you’d forbidden either her or Meston’s housekeeper to say a word to any one.”

“We’re a bit exclusive, no doubt,” Bille said. “We don’t, in a general way, encourage people to chatter more than they need. But for the Superintendent, it’s a different matter, of course; and as you’re, so to speak, his representative, if I understand rightly, I’ll be happy to give _you_ any information I’ve got, sir. If you’re not doing anything in a hurry, what about taking a spot of lunch with me, and we’ll talk over anything you want to know?”

Relieved by his affability, Michael made no demur, not even when it appeared that the Inspector’s taste in lunches was quite other than his own, and submitted to be seated in a little fly-blown tea-shop-cum-restaurant, and fed on pale boiled mutton, with soapy potatoes and nauseating greens.

“What point exactly were you on, sir?” the Inspector began. “There’s no one else here” (“And no wonder,” thought Michael, swallowing a piece of gristle) “so you can talk quite freely, if you don’t raise your voice too much.”

Michael passed on Wilson’s commissions about Meston and Hanborough.

“Yes, I thought so,” the Inspector said. “Now this is what I’ve been able to pick up. It mayn’t be much, but it’s something. There’s something very wrong with Meston’s firm, and what’s more, he knew about it, whether innocently or guiltily I can’t say for certain. The last week or so before his departure, he’d been taking the books home almost every night, and looking as worried as a sick cat in the daytime.”

“Did you see his private papers?” Michael interrupted. “The clerk wouldn’t let me look at them.”

“I expect he would if I’d asked him,” said the Inspector, not above rubbing in the advantages of belonging to the regulars; “but I thought I’d let it lie a bit. If Meston should happen to be innocent, sir, you see, we don’t want parties that may happen to be guilty--of anything--too wise to what we’re doing.”

“You think Meston was innocent?”

“I shouldn’t like to say definitely. All I can say is, if he’s guilty he’s put it away pretty carefully. There’s no sign of his having been flush at any time in the past few years; there’s nothing odd about his banking account, and nothing in his will (I’ve seen his lawyer) that’s any way out of the common. I expect you know, sir, his wife gets a life-interest as long as she doesn’t marry again; but there’s very little that doesn’t die with him. Not above two or three hundred, I should say.”

“Is it true she’d removed all her personal property from her rooms? And if so, why?”

“Oh, you got that, sir? Yes, it’s quite true. It was while he was with you--at the Old Malting House, I should say” (as Michael gave a wriggle of repudiation). “As to why, it seems she was meaning to leave him finally. What’s more to my mind is, where did she take ’em?”

“Why, to the Grange, surely. Where else?”

“Well, I don’t know. She may or she may not. She’d Mr. Burden, the actor, with her, for one thing.”

“Running over pigs in Meadon!” Michael interjected.

“That’s so, sir. Of course, she may’ve had anything in her mind. The housekeeper, who hates her like poison, as good as told me she’d killed him. Curious how nobody that knows him here cottons to the idea of suicide. Most of ’em would put it down to his good lady--though not with any notion how she could have done it, of course.”

“Well, Hanborough? What about him?”

“Ah, there’s more there, I fancy, than you found. Mr. Hanborough’s been dipping a bit, there’s no doubt; and from all I’ve heard one way and another, it’s pretty clear he could always do with a little extra cash. And this Strake, whom he’s put on to look into matters, is an old clerk of his whom he sacked; and it’s well known that he could have had him in the dock if he’d liked. So it’s not likely, to say the least of it, that he was intended to find out anything that’d make against Mr. Hanborough’s interests. He’s free with his money, is Mr. Hanborough, and well enough liked hereabouts; but Newmarket’s a bit too near for him, if you get me. And about two years ago he was pretty heavily in debt, which he’s been clearing slowly. I’ve one or two more points of that kind, which I can work up more closely if I need to. I don’t want to be starting a lot more talk to-day, you see--particularly since I’ve found out that Mr. Hanborough wasn’t at home the night Meston was murdered.”

“Oh!” said Michael. “Why, where was he?” The Inspector sat back, well pleased with his effect.

“He left home, sir, about 9 p.m., saying he was going to a party at the Grange and would be in early in the morning. Then he didn’t get back till after ten next day. His wife’s away, but I got this from his mother--the old lady you saw. Well, of course, it may be all right, and it may not--but we’d better keep our eyes----”

At this point the Inspector suddenly stopped, and devoted his attention to a slab of rice pudding. Michael, seeking an explanation, saw a slim, fair-haired girl in blue, whose face seemed vaguely familiar to him, enter rather hurriedly and sit down. He telegraphed an inquiry.

“Miss Loring,” the Inspector whispered in reply. “The Squire’s sister.”

So this was Mark Warden’s fiancée. On inspection, Michael decided that he liked her looks. She was obviously a good fifteen years younger than her brother, an open-faced, blue-eyed child who probably valued Warden as much for his cricket as for any other quality. At the moment she seemed worried and anxious; her fair brows were knitted, and she looked round the room rather nervously from time to time.

Michael, on a sudden impulse, leaned over to the Inspector. “I think I’d like a word with Miss Loring,” he said in a low voice. “Her fiancé’s a friend of mine. There isn’t anything else we ought to discuss here, is there?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned, sir,” said the Inspector impassively. “Anyway, I ought to be getting along. I’ve an appointment at the Colchester station at two-forty-five. But you’ll remember, sir, fair’s fair. If you or the Superintendent do get any information bearing on these matters, I would take it very kindly if you’d pass it on.”

“I’ll see you have it--if I get anything worth having, which personally I very much doubt,” Michael promised. “Good-day.” And, leaving the Inspector stolidly consuming pudding, he made his way to Edna Loring’s side. “At any rate,” he thought, as she lifted her eyes and looked at him with frank amazement, “she’s not a siren.”

Siren or no, the girl seemed pleased enough to see him, when once she had grasped who he was. She declined lunch, saying she had already had it, but demanded coffee, rather to Michael’s astonishment, since he could hardly imagine that even unsophisticated youth (if there was such a thing at Loring Grange) would deliberately choose to drink its coffee in broken-down tea-shops. The coffee, when it arrived, confirmed him in this view; but Edna drank it without comment, and even demanded a second supply. Michael began to get a little puzzled. What _was_ the Squire’s sister doing here, unattended? and still more, why did she appear so content, nay, even pleased, with his rather humdrum company? Michael was no more modest than most men, but he had never had reason to think himself specially attractive to the opposite sex. Nor could he now believe that Edna Loring was moved by any strong personal feeling for him.

She talked, certainly; indeed, it would not be wholly untrue to say that she chattered. But it was of entirely indifferent things--the weather, the prospects of Essex county cricket, the various breeds of sporting dogs, etc.; and she did not appear to have the slightest interest in the matters which one would have imagined they had most in common. She mentioned Mark’s health, and his family, but not his business or his business prospects; and a tentative reference to Mr. William Meston elicited only a downright opinion that he was better dead, after which she quite plainly shelved the subject. If he had not had an uneasy conviction that he was playing truant, like a schoolboy, from the business he had been set to do in Colchester, Michael, after his humiliating experiences of the morning, would have thoroughly enjoyed himself. He liked cheerful, downright young things, when they were willing to talk to him, and he liked Edna Loring particularly. But he could not help feeling a little guilty, and at the same time wondering more and more why the girl should want to detain him talking there.

He had just reached the conclusion, absurd though he felt it to be, that she was contemplating an unpleasant interview or task of some sort for which she wanted a protector, when she suddenly looked at her watch, and asked, in a quite different tone, “Dr. Prendergast, would you like to do me a service?”

“Ah!” thought Michael to himself. “Now we’re coming to it.” Aloud he only said, “I should be delighted,” with more sincerity than he expected in his voice. Indeed, he would have been quite pleased to help the girl--if he could reasonably do so.

“Then drive me back to the Grange.”

“What!” This was the last request he would have anticipated.

“Drive me back to the Grange,” Edna Loring repeated, looking at him earnestly.

“But----” Michael, rather disconcerted, temporised. “I haven’t got a car. I came over by train. And I can’t drive to speak of.”

“Oh!” Edna obviously thought this an odd state of things. “Well, you could hire one, couldn’t you?”

“But--didn’t you come by car?”

“Yes, but it’s Wallace’s. Wallace Burden’s, you know. And I don’t want him to drive me back. I want _you_ to take me back, if you will.”

“But doesn’t Mr. Burden want to go back?” said Michael obtusely.

“Yes, he does. And I don’t want him to. Don’t you see?” As Michael apparently did not, she added impatiently, “Oh, Dr. Prendergast, you do make it difficult! Must I put everything in words of three letters? I don’t want Wallace because I don’t want him to make love to me, don’t you see?”

“But----” Michael was conscious of gaping like an idiot, but the sudden shift of Mr. Burden’s affections was too much for him. “But I thought--Mrs. Meston----”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. I don’t want any more of Sylvia Meston’s cast-offs. And I don’t like Wallace, anyway.”

“Cast-offs?” Michael repeated.

“Well, you know what I mean. You all but said so yourself. Wallace and Sylvia had a row of sorts this morning. So he hadn’t anything to do, and he offered to drive me into Colchester. I didn’t know anything about it then, or I wouldn’t have let him. Of course, I found out as soon as we’d started, and then--pah! I always seem to get hold of people who want to hold Sylvia’s hand, and think mine will do next best if they can’t get it. I used to slap them,” said Edna reflectively, surveying her own vigorous brown hand, “but you can’t slap people for ever. I hate men!” she finished suddenly.

“Including Warden?” Michael asked, with slight amusement.

“Mark! _Mark_ isn’t men! Oh, don’t be silly; you know what I mean. Of course, if I could get hold of Mark, I shouldn’t be asking you. I mean----” At this point Edna, realising her extreme candour, burst out laughing. “I don’t suppose I can pretend that was tactful, Dr. Prendergast. But I thought you’d understand. Truthfully, there’s been such a bother lately that I’ve got fed up. I almost thought of running away at one time; and if I have much more of Wallace, I shall commit murder or something. You do see that, don’t you? I got rid of him after lunch, and came in here because I thought I’d be safe; but I’ve half promised to let him take me to tea with some people he knows. And then we’re going home. Well, I simply can’t face it. I know Wallace, and he’s like a hippopotamus; he can’t believe that any innocent young thing wouldn’t give a thousand pounds to squeeze his hand. So, when you came over, I wondered if you weren’t an angel from heaven--you know what I mean”--as Michael laughed--“and if we could arrange to go back together, and give Wallace a hint, it would be so much nicer. But probably you can’t.”

“But if he’s a hippopotamus,” Michael, finding the situation embarrassing if pleasant, suggested, “will he take a hint? And I really can’t drive.”

“Oh, Wallace won’t make a third,” said Edna, with decision. “If I say I’m going with you, he’ll go off somewhere and sulk. He won’t call you out. Of course, if you can’t drive, you can’t. But I could drive. Or we could hire a man with the car, and he could take it back from the Grange. That would perhaps be the best way. Would you mind very much, Dr. Prendergast? I should be most awfully grateful--if you could bear it.”

Michael was not at all sure whether he minded or not; but eventually he agreed, subject to Edna’s herself undertaking to get rid of the spare cavalier, and subject also to his being given the afternoon to make one more attempt to acquire the information for which he had been sent. He liked the girl, and his sympathy for her immediate predicament was enhanced by the cordial dislike of Wallace Burden which he had conceived from the first glimpse he had caught of that gentleman’s classic profile. His friends’ fiancées, whether or not desirable in themselves, ought to be preserved from Wallace Burdens, he felt. There was, further, the added chance, whose attractiveness he would not have admitted to himself, of seeing at close quarters the ménage at the Grange, of which so many rumours were current. Michael was himself quite certain that the Grange was the kind of place to harbour any number of murderers; and possibly a visit there, under Edna Loring’s wing, might provide him with a clue. So, moved by a mixture of chivalry, wrath, and curiosity, he consented to go and hire a car, and to meet Edna again for tea at a somewhat more inspiring rendezvous--Burden, it was to be hoped, being by that time satisfactorily removed from the picture.