Dorothy Fielding - Chief Inspector Pointer's Cases - 12 Golden Age Murder Mysteries

"I suppose Vardon'll be allowed to give his explanation?" Wilmot asked a little curiously.

"In due time." It was Pointer speaking. "But as Tangye's leaving town for a week-end, we'll go to Riverview first. He's kept in the house with a cold, so he told me. Are you coming with us, Haviland?"

But a dull affair of a burgled boot-shop deprived the Superintendent of that pleasure.

"As a matter of fact, perhaps Vardon was the person Tangye suspected all along," he said, hopefully, trying to cheer himself by the suggestion that he was not about to miss much.

Pointer and Wilmot walked to the house. The sun was shining. A rather apologetic sun, as though begging spectators not to ask too much. To remember that this was November—and England. His rays, faint and pale, seemed to cool rather than warm. Yet their touch spelled beauty. They brought out the thrushes' song. They lifted the lark.

They set free the strain of wren and robin in a clump of evergreen beside Richmond Bridge. Plaintive and sweet notes. Joyous and pearly. A blind man might have thought it spring, so mild was the day. But the trees knew better. They were only waiting for the coming of a wind with which to wrestle. Like giants stripped for a fight, their old clothes, the withered leaves, lying in tumbled heaps below them, they could now give back as good as they got. Beautiful to look at, fine and firm, they swayed aloft. Concerned solely with their own affairs, till the burden of giving shade and shelter should be theirs once more.

Pointer's and Wilmot's arrival evidently roused Tangye from a revery in an armchair. He looked very haggard. Very unhappy. He turned an alert eye, none the less, on them when they were ushered in.

"What I have to say is in strict confidence," Pointer began. Tangye nodded. Looking an almost savage interest.

"One of the missing notes has been traced. To a Mr. Vardon."

"Vardon! Philip Vardon?" There was stupefaction in the other's voice. And something that sounded very like chagrin.

"You know him, sir? Who is he?"

"Why, a cousin of my late wife's first husband. A cousin of Clive Branscombe's. There's a mistake been made somewhere, Chief Inspector."

"Not unless the mistake was in the number of the notes given us." Pointer lobbed that ball back very swiftly.

"Is he with you now?" Tangye half rose.

"Unfortunately he tricked us by a tale of a document, and got away."

"Well—I'm—damned," Tangye repeated under his breath, his eyes goggling. Pointer gave him the outlines of what had happened.

Tangye listened with at least every appearance of breathless interest. "He says Mrs. Tangye gave him the money on Tuesday afternoon," he repeated thoughtfully. He was the business man now, weighing both sides. "In that case he's sure to have that paper he spoke of. It wouldn't be like her not to have the agreement in writing—nor like any woman—" a sudden passion rang in the grudging tone, "perhaps he merely rushed away to find it. Remembered he'd left it behind him in his lodgings. Hasty thing to do, but I think you'll find everything's all right when you get into touch with him again." Tangye strode over to his tantalus. Things were unlocked, tumblers clinked. As before, Pointer, and this time Wilmot, declined a drink. Tangye stood eyeing his cocktail with a bitterly disappointed air, as though his favourite recipe had gone back on him. As though the mixture were anything but what he had expected to see.

"But that would hardly explain how he came to have her keys packed away in his suitcase," Pointer continued.

Tangye's glass gave a postman's knock against the table.

"Let me see..." Pointer seemed to ruminate, "isn't he a crack shot? Bisley prize-winner, or something of that kind?"

"I never heard so. He's quite fair with a gun. Can be trusted out with a keeper, at any rate."

"Has he ever spoken to you about this proposition of his?"

"Once. But I don't go in for that sort of thing. Never touch a speculation. Apparently my wife decided after all to have a try with him."

"I suppose he called here frequently on the subject," Pointer suggested.

"He's never been to the house."

"But a friend of your wife's, I suppose?"

"They had never met."

"Of yours, then?"

"Not especially. I've known him off and on since we were boys. He, too, was at Haileybury, though after my time. Of course you'll stop all proceedings. Naturally he'll have a perfectly understandable explanation of both keys and money."

Pointer said nothing.

Tangye looked at him sharply. " I lodged the complaint, or information, or whatever the official name is, and now I withdraw it—until we hear from Vardon."

"Very good," Pointer was unperturbed. "Personally I'm only interested in the missing money, and the keys, in so far as they may concern a theory regarding Mrs. Tangye's death."

"Regarding it as what?" Tangye stopped his glass midway to his lips.

Pointer looked very official. Wilmot's face showed nothing. He had been listening and watching with equal keenness.

"It looks as though Vardon's capture might end the inquiry that we've been making—as a matter of routine—into Mrs. Tangye's death. In other words, sir, I fancy the charge against Mr. Vardon may have to be murder. I'm sorry to use the word about your wife's death, but that's what it looks like at present. You understand that this is entirely confidential. Is not to go any further."

"What—on—earth—do—you—mean, Chief Inspector?" Tangye seemed unable to believe his ears. His hand shook so that he replaced the glass hastily on the table. "Wilmot here claims that Mrs. Tangye's death was a suicide. I have maintained, and the Coroner has maintained, that it was due to an accident."

"But we at Scotland Yard are wondering if it mayn't be due to a crime," Pointer said concisely.

"Things look very black against Mr. Vardon," the Chief Inspector went on in his level, unemotional tones, "other things than I am at liberty to speak of."

"How black?" burst from Tangye. It was an odd question.

"Black enough to dangle him at a rope's end," was Pointer's reply. Made with calculated brutality. "Those notes together with those keys in his luggage will do the trick alone."

"You forget I saw the keys here at the house long after Mrs. Tangye was dead," Tangye said instantly. He evidently was not too rattled to think swiftly.

"So if Mr. Vardon says Mrs. Tangye handed them to him, or dropped them in his room by accident, as she gave him the money, he's lying?" pounced the Chief Inspector.

Tangye splashed the soda water that he was pouring out, in a fine fireman's spray over himself. He set the tumbler down hastily, and mopped. Then he picked up the glass again. He hesitated. Finally he almost threw it on a side-table and poked the fire. Very much to its detriment.

"I must have mistaken some other bunch of keys for my wife's. Obviously that's what I did. Miss Saunders' probably. But in any case there's no question of murder, nor of foul play of any kind here. As a matter of fact, solid fact," he glanced at Wilmot and flushed, "Mrs. Tangye shot herself. That's the honest truth. She did commit suicide. I meant to keep it to myself. But of course I can't let a man be arrested for what never happened. And that's why I believe she let him have the money. It would be all of one piece."

"You're sure Mrs. Tangye's death was suicide?" Pointer asked.

"Haven't I just said so? I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. She told me she was going to do it. Told me on Monday afternoon. I didn't believe her—then!"

Wilmot had hard work not to show how great was his triumph at this news. Even as it was, a good deal leaked through.

"And about those keys of Mrs. Tangye's found among Mr. Vardon's things. Have you any idea how they got in his possession?" Pointer asked thoughtfully.