Patricia Wentworth - Mr. Zero

“Always?”

“Oh, yes, always.”

“Are you telling the truth?” said Mr. Zero.

Sylvia was very much affronted. She drew herself up against her pillow and said,

“I always tell the truth.”

She heard that horrid laugh again.

“ Always ?”

“Except when I can’t .”

“I see. And you’re sure this isn’t one of those times?”

He had puzzled her again.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“No-my fault-sorry. Back to the infant class again. Your husband’s man stays in the dressing-room all the time?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, what happens at night? What does he do with the keys then?”

“He puts them under his pillow.”

Mr. Zero said briskly,

“A very prudent habit. And is he a sound sleeper?”

“Oh, yes, very.”

“Then it is all quite easy. You wait till he is asleep, you take the keys from under the pillow, and you come downstairs and open the left-hand dining-room window-the one on your own left as you come into the room. You will give me the keys out of the window.”

“Oh no-I couldn’t!”

“You will give me the keys, and you will wait till I give them back to you. I shall only be a few minutes. Then I will give them to you again, and you will put them back under your husband’s pillow. It is all as simple as eating bread and milk. I shall be waiting by the dining-room window from one to two tomorrow night, and you will bring me the keys then.”

“I don’t think I can,” said Sylvia in a weak and yielding voice.

Mr. Montagu Lushington looked up at the sound of the opening door. He was sitting at a writing-table in the study of his own house. He was rather a handsome man with a noticeable crop of grey hair, and hazel eyes which could be shrewd, dreamy, or restless. They were restless now. He drummed with his fingers on the arm of his chair and said,

“Come in and shut the door, Algy.”

Algy Somers wondered what he had done. There had been signs of dirty weather all the week, but this had the appearance of a gale warning to all coasts.

“Sit down,” said Mr. Lushington.

Algy began to wonder if he was going to get the sack. Only if Monty was going to sack him, would he ask him to sit down? He said,

“Yes, sir?”

Mr. Lushington leaned back. The movement was an impatient one.

“What sort of memory have you got, Algy?”

Dismay invaded Algy’s mind. What had he forgotten? He said modestly,

“Oh, I don’t know-pretty fair as a rule. I hope I haven’t been forgetting anything, sir.”

Mr. Lushington frowned.

“That remains to be seen. I want you to cast your mind back to last Saturday.”

Algy’s mind went back to a very pleasant evening spent with Miss Gay Hardwicke. He had no difficulty in recalling the agreeable details, but it did not seem at all likely that they would interest Monty. He said,

“Saturday, sir?”

“Last Saturday I went away for the week-end. I went down to Wellings to stay with the Wessex-Gardners, and just before I started a special messenger turned up with a memorandum which I had asked for from the Intelligence. Now take over and tell me exactly what happened. Who saw the messenger?”

“Mr. Carstairs saw him, sir.”

“I want you to go over the whole thing-I want every detail.”

“Mr. Carstairs and I were in here. Mr. Carstairs had just come down from seeing you. Parkinson came in and said there was a messenger, and Carstairs-Mr. Carstairs-went to the door and took the letter. He was going up with it, but the telephone bell rang, and it was someone for him, so he told me to take the letter.”

Mr. Lushington drummed with his fingers.

“One moment, one moment. Were you and Carstairs alone? Where was Brewster?”

“Oh, he was somewhere around.”

“Can’t you be accurate? What on earth do you mean by somewhere around?”

“Well, he was in the offing, don’t you know, sir? Nose to the grindstone and all that sort of thing.”

“You mean he was in this room?”

“Oh, yes-definitely.”

“But he didn’t handle the letter?”

“Oh, no, sir.”

“Did you see Carstairs take the letter from the messenger?”

Algy considered for a moment.

“Well, I heard him say, ‘Mr. Lushington is upstairs. I will take it up to him.’ And I heard the man say, ‘Thank you, sir.’ And then Mr. Carstairs came back into the room with the envelope in his hand, and the telephone bell rang, and he told me to take it up to you, and I did.”

“No one else touched it?”

“No one.”

“And you came straight up with it? It wasn’t out of your hand at all?”

“Oh, no, sir.”

Montagu Lushington said,

“Very well then-go on.”

Algy restrained an expression of surprise.

“But you know all the rest, sir. You were in your dressing-room, and I put the envelope down on the table.”

Mr. Lushington nodded.

“Go on. I have my own recollection of what happened, but I want yours-every detail, please.”

“You were packing your suit-case, sir. It was on the bed, and so was your despatch-box. They were both open. You put a pair of socks into the suit-case, and then you took up the envelope and said, ‘What’s this?’ And I said, ‘Just come round by messenger from the Intelligence. Mr. Carstairs told me to bring it up.’ And you said, ‘Yes, yes-I asked them to let me have it,’ and you picked it up, and put it in on the top of your despatch-box, and locked the case, and put the keys back in your pocket. And you said that was all, and I cleared out.”

“You saw me put the envelope in the despatch-case and lock it away?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a silence. Montagu Lushington looked long and shrewdly at his young cousin. In the end he said,

“Did you notice how the letter was addressed?”

What in the name of fortune did this mean? Algy tried to keep surprise out of his voice as he said,

“No-I didn’t look at it, I’m afraid. Carstairs-Mr. Carstairs-gave it to me. He said it was the sabotage memorandum you had asked for from the Intelligence, and told me to take it up to you. I never thought of looking at it.”

Mr. Lushington said, “I see. You didn’t notice the envelope at all? Now what I want you to tell me is this. You put the envelope down on the table, and I picked it up and put it away in my despatch-case. Think before you speak, please. Did you see me look at it or read the address?”

“I don’t think I did.”

“You don’t think-that’s not good enough. Can’t you be more exact than that?”

“I’m afraid I can’t, sir. I wasn’t taking very much notice. You see, I’d given you the envelope, so I wasn’t thinking about it any more.” He paused, and then went on again. “I think you just picked it up and put it into your despatch-box. I don’t think you looked at it.”

Mr. Lushington pushed back his chair.

“I expect you are wondering what this is all about.”

“It’s not my business to wonder, is it, sir?”

Mr. Lushington frowned.

“It may be. I am going to talk to you in confidence, Algy. You are a member of my family as well as a member of my staff, and I wish to make it quite clear that what I am saying is not to go any farther. To begin with, the papers which you brought me have disappeared. I went down to the Wessex-Gardners, as you know, and I did not open my despatch-case until round about midnight, when I went up to my room for the night. When I did open it, there was a plain manila envelope right on top of the other papers. It bore no address, and there was a sheet of blank foolscap inside. That is why I asked whether you had noticed the address on the envelope you brought me.”