Four Strange Women Read online

  Dinner was announced and they went in. Len Glynne and Lady May were already in the room and Becky Glynne appeared just as her father was asking where she was. She and her brother exchanged scowls, and Bobby would hardly have been surprised to see them start throwing the plates and knives at each other’s heads. Bobby found himself seated between the general and Lady May, who was next to their host and opposite Len Glynne. The general, noticing that Len had his thumb bandaged, blinked at it mildly and asked how it had happened, with much such an air of concern as a maiden aunt might show over a small boy’s damaged knee. Len answered loudly that he had been bitten by a vicious cat. Bobby, busy with his soup, saw how Becky went first red and then white with rage, and the general seemed quite distressed and said that was bad, because a cat’s bite was often infectious and might lead to blood poisoning. Len answered that he knew that, that it was because cats were fond of raking dirt over, and therefore he had been very careful to have the bite carefully disinfected. Becky said nothing and appeared to take no notice, but Bobby was very certain that it was all she could do to control the pale fury her features showed. He noticed that she did not finish her soup but put down her spoon and hid her hands under the table, and he knew this was because she could not master their trembling and did not wish it to be noticed.

  “Looks like bad trouble brewing,” Bobby told himself uncomfortably; “and what’s more, their father knows it. A nice hornet’s nest I’ve got myself pushed into.”

  In fact the only two at the table who seemed unaware of the feeling between brother and sister were the mild- mannered general, whose short-sighted eyes appeared to notice so little, and Lady May, who had not, Bobby thought, much of that quick and ready intelligence and alertness of mind most of the others seemed to possess. At any rate she remained quite placid, showed considerable interest in her food, now and again gave a gentle smile round the table, and occasionally lapsed into contemplation of her ring. Half way through the meal Colonel Glynne made some comment on it, and Lady May held up her hand for all to admire.

  “Isn’t it marvellous?” she said. “I daren’t tell you how much I gave for it, only it was less than half what it cost because it’s such a perfect model. It’s an exact reproduction of the Blue John diamond they couldn’t sell the other day. No one offered the reserve. Highams made it to show at the Paris Fine Arts Exhibition because they didn’t want to risk sending the real thing.”

  “It looks awfully genuine,” said Becky, speaking almost for the first time, and Bobby thought so, too, and shared the doubt Becky had made little effort to keep from her voice.

  “I had to give nearly all I’m getting for being photographed holding a glass of Neo-champagne (British make),” Lady May explained. “Isn’t it awful? Neo-champagne, I mean. I don’t know how people can. But they write marvellous cheques.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that sort of thing,” growled Len.

  “Why not, darling?” inquired Lady May, to whom all the world was darling. “If people are such sillies and drink the awful stuff because they think I do, I think it serves them right. Don’t you, Mr. Owen?”

  Bobby, thus suddenly appealed to, choked and stammered out something to the effect that it was only natural for all to follow where Lady May Grayson led, which earned him, from Lady May, one of those famous smiles, of which it has been so rudely said that she always kept them on tap; from Len, a formidable scowl; and a strong mental impression of his own that every one else thought it awful cheek for him to have said anything at all. Fortunately Becky relieved his embarrassment by remarking that most people would have thought it was the genuine Blue John, but no doubt Len, as an expert, would have been able to tell at once it was only a sham.

  “I’m not an expert,” growled Len very angrily.

  “You spotted old Lady Train was wearing artificial pearls anyhow,” Becky pointed out. “Cost you an invite to the Train shoot, too,” she added, not without satisfaction.

  “Any fool could see those pearls were Woolworth’s,” snarled Len, with whom the loss of the Train invitation was evidently a sore point. “And any fool could see that isn’t the genuine Blue John—the tint is far too pronounced. You don’t get the delicate colouring of the real thing.”

  Len might not be an expert but he certainly spoke with authority, Bobby thought. After that the dinner, much to Bobby’s relief, passed without further incident. The meal finished, they went into the drawing-room where Sir Harold Hannay, who had a passion for bridge, Lady May, who by some odd freak of nature possessed what is called ‘card sense’, and the two young Glynnes sat down to cards. Hazel went to the piano and played there softly and contentedly, choosing, as Bobby noticed with surprise, exactly those sugary, sentimental tunes he would have expected to possess for her small attraction. Having seen his guests comfortably settled, the colonel took Bobby into his study, a large room with two big writing tables, a card index cabinet, a big safe, a book-case containing many law books, easy chairs and so on. On the whole a comfortable though somewhat severe and official-looking apartment.

  “I get through some of my work here,” the colonel explained, producing cigars and a box of cigarettes. “You understand card indexing?”

  “I’ve never had to keep one, sir,” Bobby answered, “but I know how important they are. I’ve heard it said that card indexing is to organization what newspapers are to publicity.”

  “Well, there’s something in that,” the colonel agreed.

  He lapsed into silence and for a little they sat and smoked, the colonel with his cigar, Bobby with the cigarette he had preferred. Then Bobby said:—

  “I think there’s something, sir, I ought to mention. Lord Henry Darmoor—his father is Lord Whitfield—came to my rooms in London last night, rather late. I had never met him before but I knew his name from seeing it in the papers—he is a well known sportsman; polo, I think. He brought a Miss Gwen Barton with him. He said they were engaged.”

  Bobby went on to describe briefly the interview. Colonel Glynne made no comment, never interrupted, sat so still, his eyes half closed, his neglected cigar smouldering on the table near, one might have thought he was not listening, but for the hard pressure of his clasped hands upon each other, so that the knuckles showed white; but for the air of tension that somehow his humped-up figure in the big arm-chair seemed to show. When Bobby finished he sat for a time in the same silence and immobility, almost as .if he did not even know that Bobby had ceased to speak, and then he got slowly to his feet and went out of the room, coming back in a moment or two with Sir Harold Hannay.

  “Might have been a slam,” the old general sighed, blinking mildly around, “if partner had played up. Probably she wouldn’t. Becky’s not as good at bridge as she is at tennis, Glynne.”

  He settled himself comfortably in a chair, refused a cigar the colonel offered him, remarked that he had already smoked his day’s ration, except for the one cigarette he reserved for the last thing before bed, took out a pair of spectacles and fixed them on his long, thin nose. Colonel Glynne said to Bobby:—

  “I think you know General Hannay is chairman of the Watch Committee. I consulted him when your appointment was first suggested. I believe Sir Harold intends to recommend its confirmation at the next meeting. Of course, your appointment is outside ordinary routine.”

  “Good record,” said the general. He took off his spectacles, looked at them with distaste, and replaced them. “We all come to it,” he sighed. “Lady Markham pressed it. Your father, Lord Hirlpool, isn’t he? I don’t think I ever met him.”

  “Not my father, sir,” said Bobby uncomfortably. He knew that to admit any relationship meant that he became instantly open to an accusation of snobbishness, that he at once exposed himself to a suspicion of nepotism, in fact that he would have to suffer all those disadvantages aristocratic birth imposes when there is no cash to support it, since, curiously enough, no blood is blue for long unless its hue is sustained by the yellow glint of gold. All the same, the connecti
on was there and had to be acknowledged. “My uncle,” he explained.

  “Good birth,” said the general approvingly. “Nothing in it,” he added, sternly now. “My family’s got a pedigree goes back to the Conqueror. Faked, of course. None of us ever done a thing except nose out good land and buy it up cheap.”

  “I want you,” the colonel interposed, speaking to Bobby, “to tell Sir Harold what you have just told me.”

  Bobby repeated his story, as nearly as possible in the same words that he had used before. Both men listened closely. Bobby had the impression that every least word he uttered was to them full of a dark and horrid threat. Neither of them moved or spoke, moved not a finger, breathed not a syllable. The room was brightly lit. There was the ceiling light, a floor lamp, a table lamp. Yet Bobby had the impression, though he knew it was only fancy, that as he talked a darkness crept about them, that his slow speech, for he spoke deliberately and with care, called up strange powers of evil that lurked in the darkness of the night without, that hid in the corners of the room, menacing and mocking. As he finished, the clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour, and Bobby heard the clear, silver chimes as though they were the muffled drums of doom. To his astonishment he found that he was trembling slightly. Colonel Glynne remained motionless, immobile in the frozen tension of his attitude. General Hannay took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead and his wrists. They had been damp with perspiration. He said, or rather whispered:—

  “I think I’m afraid.”

  Neither Bobby nor the colonel answered. General Hannay said again:—

  “Done anything to your clock, Glynne?”

  “No. Why?” answered the colonel, surprised.

  “Nothing. There’s a tale in our family that when we are threatened with death or disgrace, we hear muffled drums, the drums the General Hannay of that time had played when he shot a number of prisoners after Sedgmoor.”

  “What’s the connection with my clock?” Glynne asked. “Nothing,” the other answered. Then he said abruptly:—“Nice ring that of May Grayson’s. You remember? She showed us. You saw it, Owen?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bobby.

  “Imitation, she told us,” mused the general. “Jolly good I thought.” ’

  “Yes, sir,” said Bobby again, as the other was looking full at him.

  “Shouldn’t have thought it artificial, the way it sparkled,” the general insisted. “Would you?”

  “No, sir,” said Bobby.

  “No business of ours you mean, eh?” observed the general. “Quite right. It isn’t.” He turned to the colonel. Both men seemed more normal now. General Hannay was polishing his spectacles and blinking around like a benevolent grandparent, approving the younger generation. Colonel Glynne had helped himself to another cigar, his first having gone out and one of his pet beliefs being that a relighted cigar is unsmokable. The general went on:—“Better come clean, Glynne, as they say on the films. I like films,” he added thoughtfully; “the sillier they are and the worse they are, the more I like ’em. Only they are never so silly or so bad as life. Carry on, Glynne.”

  The colonel seemed to have some difficulty in beginning. He said to Bobby:—

  “Very likely you’ve guessed by now I felt I wanted help .I had a feeling—” He paused without completing the sentence or explaining what the feeling was. Then he said:— “Mr. Owen, I shall think none the worse of you if you consider you’ve been brought here on false pretences, that the job isn’t what you expected, if you decline to have anything more to do with it—or us. I will let London know I fully understand and that you are entirely justified in refusing an appointment of which the conditions were wholly different from those you had been led to expect.”

  “What conditions do you mean, sir?” Bobby asked.

  Neither of them answered him. They looked at each other. General Hannay replaced his spectacles on his nose. He said in the mildest, most commonplace tone imaginable:—

  “The powers of hell have broken loose and they are all about us.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bobby.

  The colonel said again:—

  “I shall think none the worse of you if you say you will take the first train back to town to-morrow morning.”

  “I might think the worse of myself, sir,” said Bobby.

  “Good lad,” said the general.

  “Thank you,” said the colonel; though whether he spoke to Bobby or to Sir Harold, Bobby was not sure. “Well, then, to begin with, you can take what Darmoor told you as being pretty accurate. What he said is mostly what I meant to tell you myself.”

  “Byatt was a nice lad,” General Hannay said. “I heard in a roundabout way that he was attracted by Hazel. They were about together a good deal. No objection on my side. He had a title, money, position. I liked what I saw of him. I dropped a hint to Hazel that I rather fancied myself as a grandpapa. Hazel only laughed. Said Byatt bored her stiff. It was fun at first, she said, but she was fed up and she was going to choke him off. Afterwards stories got about that he had committed suicide for Hazel’s sake, and there was more talk when it came out that the famous Byatt sapphires were missing and there was only a paste duplicate at the bank. It had been made years before for Byatt’s mother when she wanted to show off a bit but not to have the risk and worry of wearing the real things. It’s a common dodge, of course. You had better know, too, that Byatt called at Higham’s—the big Bond Street jeweller—with the genuine sapphires and wanted to know their present- day value. A lady was with him. He addressed her as Hazel. He referred to her as Miss Hannay. Higham’s can give no satisfactory description of her. Probably they don’t want to. They say they didn’t notice her much, no reason why they should. It was the sapphires interested them and she was muffled up in a big fur coat with the collar turned up. She wore a veil, too. Sometimes the ladies—men, too—who go to Higham’s don’t want to be recognized, and Higham’s aren’t very keen on recognizing them, either. Saves trouble and better for business if they can say they don’t know. By the way, the fur coat was good Persian lamb. Hazel has one. Hazel was never at Higham’s or anywhere else with Byatt alone. I believe that because she says so and she’s my daughter and I believe her. I have no proof to show you or any one else. Well?”

  “I don’t think I can make any useful comment, sir,” Bobby answered, even though he well understood what a depth of emotion lay beneath the old man’s calm and level tones.

  “There was nothing we could do,” the general continued. “We knew gossip was going on, but legal action would only have spread it further even if there had been anything we could get hold of. I suppose,” he added, blinking at Bobby, “you’re thinking of alibis and clues and all that.”

  “You’ve suggested some useful clues, sir,” Bobby answered. “I don’t see where they lead. I don’t see at the moment what to do. I’ll try to get a full report of the inquest. It’s not like being on the spot. The evidence and the witness are very different. Truth and lies look the same on paper, not in the eyes or on the face. Of course, identity is always important—I mean, establishing time and place.”

  “Place is known all right but not the time—dead two or three weeks the doctors said, and that seemed as near as they could get,” the general told him. “Hazel is always rushing about from one tennis tournament to another. She was playing at Bath about that time. People don’t forget that.”

  “The place where Lord Byatt’s body was found may be known, but it doesn’t follow necessarily that the death took place there,” Bobby pointed out. “Probably it did but it might not. Miss Hannay is friendly with Lady May Grayson?”

  “They were at school together.”

  “Lord Henry Darmoor said that Mr. Andy White paid marked attentions to Lady May, that he was last seen in her company, that a girl is known to have visited the cottage he rented in Wales. She is said to have arrived on a motor-bicycle. Can I take that as accurate?”

  “Yes,” said Colonel Glynne. “I made inquiries. Lady May has a
motor-cycle she uses sometimes. It was given her by the manufacturers. She made excursions on it, got photographed at hotel doors and no bills to pay, published articles on week-end trips into the country someone else wrote and she signed.”

  “Times change,” said the general. “In my young days, that sort of thing would have shocked people out of their lives. Now they think it smart. Hazel does. I suppose I’m old-fashioned. I don’t like making money out of your social position. Hazel laughs. Men always did, she says, guinea pig directors and so on, so why shouldn’t girls?”

  “According to Lord Henry,” Bobby went on, “Mr. White bought an extremely valuable diamond necklace shortly before his death. Nothing is known as to what became of it. Can you tell me if that is generally known or talked about?”

  “Not that I know of,” Sir Harold answered. “Do you, Glynne?”

  The colonel shook his head and before all three of them rose a vision of Lady May’s white and slender hand, on the middle finger a gem it was not easy to believe was only artificial.

  The colonel said:—

  “There’s a Count Louis de Legett, well-to-do young fellow well known in London. It’s a Holy Roman Empire title. The family say it was given an ancestor of theirs during the war of the Spanish Succession and that George I gave them permission to use it.”

  He paused as if reluctant to continue. General Hannay said:—

  “He’s been running after Hazel. She was rather taken with him at first. Then she got the idea that he only wanted to flirt, and she turned him down. Apparently he is still trying to hang on. Apparently he has mentioned Hazel’s name, told someone in confidence at the club he would marry her or no one. Hazel sticks to it he wasn’t serious. It seems he talked about buying the Blue John diamond when it was put up at Christie’s. Apparently that didn’t come off.”