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

"But she didn't!"

"Didn't kill herself? I think—in spite of many difficulties, perplexities—that she did."

"Of course you do. No offence, Wilmot, but that's what the Company expects you to do until actually convinced. That's your brief."

Wilmot looked at him with surprise on his face. "Do you mean to say that you suspect this double confession or confidence, of just now? In Heaven's name, why?"

"Why should I believe it? That's more to the point."

"'Pon my word, it's too bad!" Wilmot's voice was frankly peevish. Here was the case, his case, settled, and here was this obstinate policeman still holding up the traffic.

"There are two sides to every question," Pointer reminded him.

"Not to a circle. A never-ending circle, which this case seems to be in your eyes," was Wilmot's tart rejoinder. "Indeed? What about inside and outside?"

Wilmot laughed, almost against his will. "What makes you doubt what we've just heard?" he asked finally.

"My dear fellow! If Tangye had carried a banner inscribed, 'I'm doing a neat bit of acting. What price a brain-wave?' It couldn't have been clearer. Miss Saunders too, was very pleased with her star-turn. In the beginning."

They reached the station. Haviland had returned. He now listened eagerly.

"Ah, I thought Tangye wouldn't be able to explain away the fact of those keys!" Haviland said gleefully. "Funny he should try to. I wonder what really did happen to them?"

"I wonder too," Pointer said. "Certain it is that Tangye could tell us if he wished to."

"Looks as though Vardon and Tangye have an understanding of some sort, in fact," Haviland thought. "And that's why Miss Saunders wanted to help him as well as Tangye—at least, I suppose that's why..."

"She's the owner of a 'one-good-turn-a-day' nature, you think? You two chaps make me tired. Forgive my frankness," Wilmot stifled a yawn, "but why cudgel your brains for some recondite solution? Miss Saunders and Tangye went off on Sunday. She's quite willing to snatch at any alleviation on the sly. Like most of her sex. Tangye's right; there's no murder here. There's suicide. And there's possibly, but only possibly, a theft."

"Suicide? Because Mrs. Tangye saw her husband and her companion looking at orchids together? Her sense of proportion must have been out of action. Come, Wilmot, you don't believe that yourself!"

"I believe," Wilmot said earnestly, "that Mrs. Tangye had far more ground than that. Far more reason. That she had fought a losing battle well and long. That finding she was steadily being driven back, in spite of all her efforts, she got tired of the useless struggle, and ended it. That has, up to now, been my theory, unless it really was an accident. Failing either of those, my own mind turns more and more to that missing cousin of hers. The man with the love of money and the streak of cruelty in his character. I suppose you're getting into touch with the Frenchman, Filon?"

"Trying to. Also with Fez. There, of course, we shall have no difficulty. They will doubtless be able to furnish us with photographs and finger-prints of the man they shot. The man who called himself Olivier."

Table of Contents

POINTER had found one other thing among Vardon's effects which might have a bearing on the case. This was a packet of four letters tied with a shoe-lace. They were all from an address which he had seen already given in the police reports as the home of Sir Richard Ash, the partner of the late Branscombe.

The notes were short ones. Beginning "Dear Philip," and ending "Sincerely yours, Barbara Ash."

And sincere enough the writer seemed to have been. Phrases such as "you're sleeping life away," varied with, "can't you wake up, and show what's really in you?" Once came the surprising aphorism, "There's no use your saying that content's a jewel. It isn't. It's awfully cheap paste."

Pointer had sat awhile thinking, after he read them. All but one were undated. The envelopes were missing, but the shortness, the absence of general news, the thick linen paper suggested that the notes had been sent to some one in England. They were the kind of letters that might be expected to have some effect. Had they stirred a man up to commit a crime? It was possible. It would depend on the man, and on whether they came as a final touch on the dipping scales of right and wrong. The keys were a different matter.

These damning keys. Seen in the morning-room at Riverview just before the end—if Florence was right—and found lying among a lot of oddments in the bottom of Vardon's valise marked for the hold. Pointer did not think that they had been slipped in after the things on top had been packed. Apart from how Vardon had got hold of them, why had he kept them? Were they to be used again? If so, why pack them in the bottom, and in a bag not intended for the voyage?

"A gentleman from New Scotland Yard to see you, sir," Bates announced immediately after the interview with Tangye, laying Pointer's card down beside the young man who sat reading the Araucana. In spirit back in the New World, listening to a war-chief's song.

Fiery and fresh, the lines still hummed in his head.

"No—I—eh—" Before he could collect his thoughts sufficiently to finish his protest, Pointer was bowing to him. Vardon did not ask what the Chief Inspector wanted. He waited. Pointer explained himself at once.

"I'm in charge of the investigations about that missing money. Would you mind telling me how the note which has been traced to you, came into your possession? I ought to tell you that a criminal charge may follow, and that, if so, what you say may be used against you. You are quite at liberty to refuse to answer—if you think it wise."

Vardon looked as though greatly tempted to avail himself of the freedom. But after a moment, he told Pointer the same story as he had the solicitor.

"And how do you explain the fact that her keys have been found in your luggage?" the Chief Inspector asked when the artist was silent.

"Her keys? Impossible! Mrs. Tangye's keys!" Vardon sat open-mouthed.

Pointer said that it was true, nevertheless.

Vardon, after staring at him, as though he might be joking, finally suggested that Mrs. Tangye must have dropped them unnoticed on his table when she was in his room. The artist went on to say that he had started his packing, by shaking the tablecloth into his valise, and then throwing in other things on top. The valise bore out this simple method.

"What hour did Mrs. Tangye come to your room?"

"About three."

"And what hour did you start packing?"

Vardon thought that he had begun about a quarter past eleven, when he came in from a musical play to which he had gone.

"Did you have any other visitors in your rooms on Tuesday?"

Vardon said that, as far as he knew, nobody had come to see him.

"And now, why did you—well—decamp, when Superintendent Haviland and an inspector of his called on you yesterday morning?"

Vardon flushed hotly. Up and up, the crimson surged, until his very ears burned a brick red against his fair hair.

"I lost my head," he said bitterly. "I wanted time to think things over."

"And to get rid of the remainder of the notes," Pointer finished to himself.

"Few people care to be caught in a tight corner by the police," Vardon went on. "That note I got Mrs. Tangye to write was in my bag. My bag had gone. Not that it's of any value except for that precious bit of paper. You must confess the outlook was pretty bad for me."

Naturally, since a man cannot be both hare and hound, Pointer never considered any outlook so bad that jockeying the police would better it.

"May I ask—by the way, we're verifying the whereabouts of every one, of course—merely a matter of routine—where you were this last Sunday?"