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

Mrs. Tangye might have kept more watch on her cousin's career than was thought. She might have believed him dead, and have met him suddenly in the flesh. More, she might well have known that for some law-breaking exploit of his, his life, or at least, his liberty, was forfeit if he were recognised. Yes, that might explain some, but not all the actions of the next days.

His thoughts passed on to Vardon. Hastily his mind ran over the reports gathered about the artist.

As a boy, at Haileybury he had not been distinguished for games, nor yet for study, but in that most important field on which only the English public school sets its proper value, in character, he was a favourite with men and boys.

"A thoroughly good chap," was the verdict.

At the Royal Academy, where he had studied, the tribute was necessarily of a vague character, but there, too, he had made an excellent impression.

Pointer placed no belief in faces. Your really clever criminal, if not born with an honest expression, cultivates one with all the ardour of a botanist with a new plant. But he believed greatly in the early reputation of boy or girl. Then too, Philip Vardon was an artist. He had chosen that career for himself. Not stepped into his father's shoes, nor sat in a relative's seat. Yet neither was his the burning genius that flames its way through all obstacles. No. Vardon was quite good at his work, but nothing more. He knew that. He must know that. Yet he had kept to a life that could only promise mediocrity, and the pay of mediocrity. Here could be no love of money, one would think, or he would have chosen differently.

And yet...there was that will, and what it stood for in Pointer's mind. The tiny idea of growing, feeding, moving to and fro.

Pointer's thoughts went off to the camera which he believed had figured in that last act. The expert at the Yard had been intrigued, too, with those scratches on Mrs. Tangye's Webley. Pointer and he had coated a similar revolver with wax, and experimented with it, until scratches had been produced that tallied very exactly. They had found that only one ordinary accessible camera was large enough for the purpose, and had the screw in the right position. This was a box type, of the Lux stocked by most dealers, but not often sold on account of its high price.

Pointer had given orders for the necessary checking up of the sales to be done. By to-morrow he hoped to have a list of past purchasers. It might or might not help. Fortunately the camera in question was a comparatively modern make.

Table of Contents

THE Chief Inspector went on to see Vardon again. As he climbed the stairs to the first floor a very sweet tenor reached him. Vardon could sing.

The Chief Inspector opened skilfully, but Vardon either was, or professed to be, in ignorance, as to any callers at his flat last Tuesday evening, or of any object which could have attracted them during his absence.

True, Pointer learned that about a fortnight ago Tangye had been met by chance in the street, and had come on up to see a Patagonian iguana, since presented to the Zoo. But he had stayed a bare fifteen minutes, and had not been alone in the room.

"Did any one telephone to you last Tuesday close on eight?"

"Yes," Vardon said, some one had. So, at least, one of the chambermaids had told him, but, on hearing that he was out, the voice, a man's voice, had said that another time would do as well, and had left no message.

That, at any rate, fitted. Tangye, if not an invited guest, would have wanted to know that Vardon was out, before running up stairs. Even if the artist's rooms had been locked, the key, as Pointer himself had found just now, had doubtless hung below his number on the indicator board, and, in that ill-kept house, any stray passer-by could have taken it.

And if those keys were not taken by Philip Vardon, if they really had been left in his rooms unknown to him, then, since Regina Saunders was below, Pointer believed that the only other person worried by any mention of them, Tangye—was connected with their puzzling re-appearance among the artist's effects.

Pointer, after learning the exact date of Tangye's call at the rooms, which told him nothing, passed on immediately to another important point.

"Why did Mrs. Tangye make a will in your favour?" The question came in exactly the same tones as the preceding ones.

Vardon paled. He said nothing. Pointer repeated the question. Vardon fingered the Spanish book which he had been reading when the Chief Inspector had first come to see him. Pointer was wont to say that as a rule, the less mind a man possessed, the greater difficuty he had in knowing it, but the Chief Inspector did not think that that was the trouble here. Vardon, like Tangye when he had heard of the discovery of the keys, was rather weighing alternatives, neither of which he liked.

"I don't know," he said undecidedly.

"Equally unaware of why you didn't mention the fact to us?"

"Naturally I didn't volunteer information which has no bearing on the case. Things look black enough, in all conscience, without my touching 'em up."

"You know," Pointer said after a second, "if you're innocent, I really think you would do best for yourself to tell us everything. Short of an actual confession on your part, I don't see how the case could look worse—"

Vardon went to his telephone, and tried to reach Dorset Steele, but the solicitor was out of town.

He came back, and again his foot gave a sort of queer little jerk as he crossed the carpet.

"Very well," he said finally, "I'll trust to your being honest. And not trying to trap me into some talk that can be twisted afterwards. You asked me why Mrs. Tangye made that will. I told you I don't know, and you've as good as called me a liar. I don't know, but I can guess. She had evidently, patently, had a definite rupture with Tangye. Hence the gift of the money, and the change in her will. She told me, I've forgotten to mention that, to send the properly drawn-up contract to her bank, not to Riverview."

Pointer nodded.

"She handed you the will fastened up, I suppose?"

"Any one would suppose so. But it wasn't even gummed down. Just as she was rushing out of the room she picked it up from the table, where she had laid it on entering, and said, 'Glance this through and then post it for me, please.' With that she was gone. I took it for granted it was to do with the money lent me, until I read it. And that was really why I nearly went in to see her later in the afternoon.

"That, and to ask her if I mightn't speak, to one particular friend, of her backing our venture. But the will was most in my mind. It didn't seem playing the game. There was no reason for her to swing from one extreme to another." Vardon looked as though he would have taken back that last sentence if he could; "That is—er—it seemed unfair to Tangye. At any rate, I decided not to post the will until I had talked the matter over with her, or written about it to her."

Pointer stared at his boots. Then he looked 'up.

"Was there any question of a silence as to something that had happened in the past—implied or not—on your part, in return for the loan, or for the will?"

Vardon ran his finger along some of the Castilian'words as though spelling them out.

"I consider such a question rather an insult," he said finally, in a low voice.

"It isn't meant in that way." Pointer spoke very earnestly. "You surely don't wish Mrs. Tangye's murderer to escape justice?"

"But she wasn't murdered!" Vardon said shortly.

"She was," Pointer was quite frank now. "To the best of my belief, she was. And a peculiarly cruel, dastardly, murder, too. Surely you're not against me in my hunt for the criminal?"

Vardon seemed stirred by the ring in the other's voice.