The Secret of Chimneys (Superintendent Battle 1)

“Something I’m getting at in my own blundering fashion. I take it that you didn’t meet the murdered man?”

“No. To put it like a book he ‘retired to his own apartments immediately on arrival.’ ”

“And of course you haven’t seen the body?”

Virginia, eyeing him with a good deal of interest, shook her head.

“Could you get to see it, do you think?”

“By means of influence in high places—meaning Lord Caterham—I daresay I could. Why? Is it an order?”

“Good Lord, no,” said Anthony, horrified. “Have I been as dictatorial as all that? No, it’s simply this. Count Stanislaus was the incognito of Prince Michael of Herzoslovakia.”

Virginia’s eyes opened very wide.

“I see.” Suddenly her face broke into its fascinating one-sided smile. “I hope you don’t suggest that Michael went to his rooms simply to avoid seeing me?”

“Something of the kind,” admitted Anthony. “You see, if I’m right in my mind that someone wanted to prevent your coming to Chimneys, the reason seems to lie in your knowing Herzoslovakia. Do you realize that you’re the only person here who knew Prince Michael by sight?”

“Do you mean that this man who was murdered was an imposter?” asked Virginia abruptly.

“That is the possibility that crossed my mind. If you can get Lord Caterham to show you the body, we can clear up that point at once.”

“He was shot at 11:45,” said Virginia thoughtfully. “The time mentioned on that scrap of paper. The whole thing’s horribly mysterious.”

“That reminds me. Is that your window up there? The second from the end over the Council Chamber?”

“No, my room is in the Elizabethan wing, the other side. Why?”

“Simply because as I walked away last night, after thinking I heard a shot, the light went up in that room.”

“How curious! I don’t know who has that room, but I can find out by asking Bundle. Perhaps they heard the shot?”

“If so, they haven’t come forward to say so. I understood from Battle that nobody in the house heard the shot fired. It’s the only clue of any kind that I’ve got, and I daresay it’s a pretty rotten one, but I mean to follow it up for what it’s worth.”

“It’s curious, certainly,” said Virginia thoughtfully.

They had arrived at the boathouse by the lake, and had been leaning against it as they talked.

“And now for the whole story,” said Anthony. “We’ll paddle gently about on the lake, secure from the prying ears of Scotland Yard, American visitors, and curious housemaids.”

“I’ve heard something from Lord Caterham,” said Virginia. “But not nearly enough. To begin with, which are you really, Anthony Cade or Jimmy McGrath?”

For the second time that morning, Anthony unfolded the history of the last six weeks of his life—with this difference that the account given to Virginia needed no editing. He finished up with his own astonished recognition of “Mr. Holmes.”

“By the way, Mrs. Revel,” he ended, “I’ve never thanked you for imperilling your mortal soul by saying that I was an old friend of yours.”

“Of course you’re an old friend,” cried Virginia. “You don’t suppose I’d lumber you with a corpse, and then pretend you were a mere acquaintance next time I met you? No, indeed!”

She paused.

“Do you know one thing that strikes me about all this?” she went on. “That there’s some extra mystery about those memoirs that we haven’t fathomed yet.”

“I think you’re right,” agreed Anthony. “There’s one thing I’d like you to tell me,” he continued.

“What’s that?”

“Why did you seem so surprised when I mentioned the name of Jimmy McGrath to you yesterday at Pont Street? Had you heard it before?”

“I had, Sherlock Holmes. George—my cousin, George Lomax, you know—came to see me the other day, and suggested a lot of frightfully silly things. His idea was that I should come down here and make myself agreeable to this man, McGrath, and Delilah the memoirs out of him somehow. He didn’t put it like that, of course. He talked a lot of nonsense about English gentlewomen, and things like that, but his real meaning was never obscure for a moment. It was just the sort of rotten thing poor old George would think of. And then I wanted to know too much, and he tried to put me off with lies that wouldn’t have deceived a child of two.”

“Well, his plan seems to have succeeded, anyhow,” observed Anthony. “Here am I, the James McGrath he had in mind, and here are you being agreeable to me.”

“But alas, for poor old George, no memoirs! Now I’ve got a question for you. When I said I hadn’t written those letters, you said you knew I hadn’t—you couldn’t know any such thing?”

“Oh, yes, I could,” said Anthony, smiling. “I’ve got a good working knowledge of psychology.”

“You mean your belief in the sterling worth of my moral character was such that—”

But Anthony was shaking his head vigorously.

“Not at all. I don’t know anything about your moral character. You might have a lover, and you might write to him. But you’d never lie down to be blackmailed. The Virginia Revel of those letters was scared stiff. You’d have fought.”

“I wonder who the real Virginia Revel is—where she is, I mean. It makes me feel as though I had a double somewhere.”

Anthony lit a cigarette.

“You know that one of the letters was written from Chimneys?” he asked at last.

“What?” Virginia was clearly startled. “When was it written?”

“It wasn’t dated. But it’s odd, isn’t it?”

“I’m perfectly certain no other Virginia Revel has ever stayed at Chimneys. Bundle or Lord Caterham would have said something about the coincidence of the name if she had.”

“Yes. It’s rather queer. Do you know, Mrs. Revel, I am beginning to disbelieve profoundly in this other Virginia Revel.”

“She’s very elusive,” agreed Virginia.

“Extraordinarily elusive. I am beginning to think that the person who wrote those letters deliberately used your name.”

“But why?” cried Virginia. “Why should they do such a thing?”

“Ah, that’s just the question. There’s the devil of a lot to find out about everything.”

“Who do you really think killed Michael?” asked Virginia suddenly. “The Comrades of the Red Hand?”

“I suppose they might have done so,” said Anthony in a dissatisfied voice. “Pointless killing would be rather characteristic of them.”

“Let’s get to work,” said Virginia. “I see Lord Caterham and Bundle strolling together. The first thing to do is to find out definitely whether the dead man is Michael or not.”

Anthony paddled to shore and a few moments later they had joined Lord Caterham and his daughter.

“Lunch is late,” said his lordship in a depressed voice.

“Battle has insulted the cook, I expect.”

“This is a friend of mine, Bundle,” said Virginia. “Be nice to him.”

Bundle looked earnestly at Anthony for some minutes, and then addressed a remark to Virginia as though he had not been there.

“Where do you pick up these nice-looking men, Virginia? ‘How do you do it?’ says she enviously.”

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nbsp; “You can have him,” said Virginia generously. “I want Lord Caterham.”

She smiled upon the flattered peer, slipped her hand through his arm and they moved off together.

“Do you talk?” asked Bundle. “Or are you just strong and silent?”

“Talk?” said Anthony. “I babble. I murmur. I burble—like the running brook, you know. Sometimes I even ask questions.”

“As, for instance?”

“Who occupies the second room on the left from the end?”

He pointed to it as he spoke.

“What an extraordinary question!” said Bundle. “You intrigue me greatly. Let me see—yes—that’s Mademoiselle Brun’s room. The French governess. She endeavours to keep my young sisters in order. Dulcie and Daisy—like the song, you know. I daresay they’d have called the next one Dorothy May. But mother got tired of having nothing but girls and died. Thought someone else could take on the job of providing an heir.”

“Mademoiselle Brun,” said Anthony thoughtfully. “How long has she been with you?”

“Two months. She came to us when we were in Scotland.”

“Ha!” said Anthony. “I smell a rat.”

“I wish I could smell some lunch,” said Bundle. “Do I ask the Scotland Yard man to have lunch with us, Mr. Cade? You’re a man of the world, you know about the etiquette of such things. We’ve never had a murder in the house before. Exciting, isn’t it. I’m sorry your character was so completely cleared this morning. I’ve always wanted to meet a murderer and see for myself if they’re as genial and charming as the Sunday papers always say they are. God! what’s that?”

“That” seemed to be a taxi approaching the house. It’s two occupants were a tall man with a bald head and a black beard, and a smaller and younger man with a black moustache. Anthony recognized the former, and guessed that it was he—rather than the vehicle which contained him—that had rung the exclamation of astonishment from his companion’s lips.

“Unless I much mistake,” he remarked, “that is my old friend, Baron Lollipop.”

“Baron what?”

“I call him Lollipop for convenience. The pronouncing of his own name tends to harden the arteries.”