The Mayfair Mystery Page 8

‘Pardell,’ he said, immediately becoming the master, ‘if you wish to give notice, you can.’

  Reggie got up from his seat, placed his cigarette in an ash tray and became Pardell.

  ‘Oh, no, sir,’ he replied hastily.

  ‘You are satisfied with your situation?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And with your wages?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I should think so! But I’m not satisfied with your curiosity. There’s too much of it. You have used the word police. I presume, therefore, that you think I have committed some crime, that I have stolen a pair of plain glass spectacles, or perpetrated some other infamy. You are entitled to your opinions so long as you don’t express them. But I forbid you to gossip with the girl next door.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But supposing she goes to the police with her story?’

  ‘Let her go to the devil with her story. Or, if you are anxious to prevent her doing so, why don’t you marry her and close her mouth?’

  Reggie made no reply to the proposal.

  The master continued.

  ‘I’m going out in a few minutes. I shall not be back for three days.’

  ‘Will you take any luggage, sir?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re going in evening-dress?’

  ‘Yes. You can go to bed. Good-night.’

  ‘Good-night, sir.’

  Reggie went down to the basement, where he slept, and listened attentively for the departure of his master.

  At three o’clock, when he fell asleep, he had heard no sound of a closing door.

  In the morning he got up, went to the hall, and to his surprise found Clifford’s hat and coat hanging on a peg.

  He came to the conclusion that a man who leaves his house in the small hours of the morning without hat, coat or luggage must be mentally deranged.

  At about twelve o’clock there was a ring at the bell.

  On opening the door he saw two determined-looking gentlemen.

  ‘I’m Detective-Inspector Johnson of Vine Street,’ said one, ‘can I see Sir Clifford Oakleigh?’

  Reggie knew in an instant what had occurred. Nellie had made a dash for the £50.

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t,’ he said.

  ‘He’s out, is he?’

  ‘He is out.’

  ‘When will he be in?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘When did he go out?’

  ‘Early this morning.’

  The Inspector glanced sternly at Reggie. Then he said to his assistant, one P. Barlow, ‘Come in.’

  P. Barlow, a man whose chief characteristic was his admiration for his Chief, closed the door.

  Then Johnson turned on Reggie.

  ‘It won’t help either you or your master for you to tell lies.’

  Angrily Reggie retorted:

  ‘What the dickens do you mean by talking to me like that?’

  The indignation he showed was unlike the indignation of a servant. His tones were not those of a domestic.

  The Inspector was for an instant baffled.

  ‘What are you?’ he said. ‘Are you a friend of Sir Clifford Oakleigh’s?’

  ‘Certainly I am. Oh, no…I am his valet.’

  ‘Take that down,’ said the Inspector to P. Barlow, and P. Barlow obediently jotted down something—probably something entirely incorrect—in a note-book.

  ‘You noticed that the servant was confused in his reply?’

  P. Barlow had noticed it. He invariably noticed anything that Johnson told him he had noticed.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Pardell.’

  ‘Put that down.’

  P. Barlow wrote down Parnell.

  ‘Your first name?’

  ‘Reginald.’

  Reginald was not a usual name for a servant. In all his experience Johnson did not recollect having interviewed a single Reginald who followed that calling.

  ‘What are you?’ he inquired.

  ‘I am Sir Clifford Oakleigh’s valet.’

  ‘How long have you been in his service?’

  ‘Oh, a deuce of a short time.’

  ‘How short?’

  Quickly Reggie replied:

  ‘Two or three weeks.’

  ‘And where were you before?’

  ‘Oh, I was in…all sorts of places before.’

  ‘As a valet?’

  ‘No, confound it,’ he said, losing his patience.

  ‘What were you?’

  ‘Look here, I’m not going to be cross-examined by an infernal policeman. If you want to know, I was in the army,’ he added, hoping that this would satisfy the Inspector.

  ‘What regiment?’

  ‘The Cape Mounted Beavers.’

  ‘Private?’

  ‘No, damn you.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I was a subaltern.’

  ‘And now you are a valet?’ inquired the other incredulously, while P. Barlow took the answers down all wrong.

  ‘And why not, pray? We don’t always remain what we start. I daresay you were an intelligent man once. Now you’re a policeman.’

  ‘Sauce won’t do you any good. Will you kindly tell Sir Clifford Oakleigh that I should like to see him?’

  ‘I have already told you that he went out early this morning.’

  Suddenly the Inspector burst upon him.

  ‘This house was watched all night, and he never went out.’

  ‘Well, you know best,’ answered Reggie, shrugging his shoulders. ‘If he has not gone out, he’s here. Search the house.’

  Johnson communicated in a whisper with P. Barlow. As a result he became more amicable with Reggie. Said he:

  ‘I suppose you haven’t the slightest objection to our looking over the premises…as though we were possible tenants?’

  ‘I have no objection. If you want to look round, you can look round.’

  Johnson winked at him:

  ‘You are naturally anxious about your master. We will help you to find out if he’s concealed anywhere.’

  ‘You can do what you jolly well please,’ was the reply, ‘but I tell you he went out some time after three o’clock this morning.’

  The detective looked incredulously at him.

  ‘Well, then, go and search,’ said Reggie.

  They searched, and they searched in vain.

  Disappointed, Johnson showed Reggie a photograph of Miss Mingey.

  ‘Have you ever seen this lady?’ he inquired.

  ‘Never,’ he answered deliberately,

  ‘Quite sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  The detectives were on the point of leaving. Unconsciously, after the manner of a gentleman dealing with the police, Reggie slipped half-a-crown into the hand of the Inspector.

  This proceeding, coming from a valet, struck Johnson as being extraordinary. However, he made no comment. But as he stepped out into the street he said gravely to P. Barlow,

  ‘The plain clothes man who was on duty last night must have been asleep.’

  CHAPTER XVI

  ‘UNCLE GUSSIE’

  MR AUGUSTUS PARKER was a power in the land.

  He had invented for himself a position in Society of an eminence without parallel. No ball was complete without his presence, and on any dinner-party he shed lustre. Many, indeed, believed that a Society wedding without Mr Parker was illegal. Not particularly handsome, not particularly rich, not particularly amiable, he held a phenomenal position among swift people. If he danced with a girl, that graceful act was far more important than her presentation. It set upon her a cachet that was invaluable.

  Enterprising mothers would give him untold dinners, conscientious fathers offered him as much hunting and shooting as he cared for…if only he would dance with their daughters. Often, indeed, it had occurred that a hesitating suitor had, immediately after he had seen his quasi-inamorata whirling round in the arms of Mr Parker, offered his hand and heart.

  Mr Parker himself
was not married. Any alliance that he might contract could not, of course, be other than a mesalliance. There was not, at the time, an unmarried Queen in Europe.

  Mr Parker sat in the study of his comfortable little flat in Down Street. Mr Parker was baffled. He tugged at his long white walrus moustache and rubbed his right hand over his clean-shaven chin. On the table in front of him lay the cause of his bewilderment.

  It was a letter, written in a somewhat masculine-feminine hand. It was dated from 69 Pembroke Street, and it stated definitely that Miss Clive would have the pleasure of calling upon Mr Augustus Parker at ten-thirty in the morning of this very day. It was now on the point of ten-thirty.

  Mr Parker had never heard of Miss Clive, and anybody of whom Mr Parker had not heard had, in his opinion, and in the opinion of most people who were anybody, no physical existence.

  During the interval between the receipt of the missive and this morning he had made inquiries. But they had been futile. No one of his acquaintance knew anything about the lady. He had even gone so far as to inspect, surreptitiously, the exterior of 69 Pembroke Street, and the house had found favour in his sight.

  But the impertinence of the lady had come as a great shock to this social autocrat. Indeed, he had been in two minds as to whether or no he should receive her. He was still in two minds. In order to decide one way or the other he walked to the window and there hid behind a blind and waited to inspect this singularly audacious person. Should she be of unattractive demeanour, should she come on foot, he would instruct his man to state that he was engaged.

  Precisely at ten-thirty a motor-car, which he roughly valued at between £800 and £900, drew up.

  He was pleased with the motor-car. It was a motor-car in which he himself would not hesitate to drive; and from it alighted a woman of radiant beauty. He was pleased with the woman. He would not hesitate to drive in that motor-car with that woman. In fact, he would like to.

  He walked away from the window and assumed an easy attitude, nonchalantly toying with a coroneted envelope.

  His man announced Miss Clive.

  He behaved with extraordinary dignity, with such dignity, indeed, that he gave one the impression that he had been acquired by the nation at his own valuation, and that in his opinion the nation had made a very good bargain.

  ‘To what do I owe the honour…?’ he began.

  But he got no further.

  Miss Clive took a seat, and in a very business-like manner made her statement. .

  ‘Mr Parker,’ she said, and as she spoke the musical notes in her voice appealed to this eminent expert in women, ‘I have come to make an extraordinary proposal.’

  He assumed the air of one to whom extraordinary proposals were the ordinary events of life.

  ‘Proceed,’ he said, with quasi-regal dignity. Was he not the Dictator of Dowagers? Of course he was. Yet this young girl did not seem overawed.

  ‘I am anxious to get into Society,’ she said.

  ‘You, Mr Parker, can get me into Society.’

  He winced at her bluntness.

  ‘I am asking you a great favour,’ she continued.

  ‘Anything in the nature of a favour that I can do by way of return it will be a pleasure for me to do.’

  He saw that she was expensively dressed, that her clothes were the work of first-rate artists; the motor-car and the servants on the motor-car were indicative of wealth. However, he temporised.

  ‘Such a proposal is unheard of,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she answered smiling, ‘one has often heard of such a proposal; one has also heard of such a proposal being accepted. Of course, in return for some such payment as £1000.’

  ‘I know to whom you allude.’ But he had the tact not to mention a well-known but inferior rival of his own.

  ‘I wonder if you do know,’ she laughed. ‘I was for the moment thinking of the case of the pretty Miss Bottlebaum, a somewhat rich Jewess.’

  Her eyes were fixed upon him, and a slight quick movement that he made did not escape her. Also, he knew that she had noticed.

  ‘I think £1000 was the sum in her case. No, I am wrong. It was a thousand guineas. It the case of Miss Nasalheimer of Westborne Terrace that you were content with £1000.’

  It was incredible to him that any woman should dare to come to him and make these statements. But there was something in this girl’s demeanour that kept him completely under control. She was more like a barrister stating facts, crude, bald facts of whose truth he was entirely satisfied, than a débutante who desired to get into Society. And she was approaching the great and only Augustus Parker. How had she obtained this exact knowledge? He knew that there were in circulation rumours to the effect that he accepted payment for launching girls on the high seas of Society. But here were two definite charges succinctly made against him by a girl who did not hesitate to come and see him alone in the morning. He smiled a sickly smile.

  ‘My dear lady,’ he said, ‘you shouldn’t believe all you hear.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t,’ she answered with a rippling laugh, ‘I only believe what I know. You may rely upon me, Mr Parker, for absolute secrecy. I will give you a cheque for £500 today and £500 at the end of the season. That was the course pursued by Mr Nasalheimer, who is a business man.’ Here again was a fact. The girl seemed to him uncanny. If he could actually rely upon her discretion he would be willing to accept her proposal. It flashed across his mind that her interview was intended as a joke, or that, horror of horrors! she was a journalist. He would require more particulars. She seemed to read his thoughts.

  ‘Mine is a very extraordinary case,’ she said.

  ‘I am absolutely alone in the world. I have no relatives at all. I have a beautiful house—I think I may say that without pride—in Pembroke Street, the fashionable side of Pembroke Street, which I have taken from Sir Clifford Oakleigh.’

  Here was light at last. He knew Clifford Oakleigh. He would go and see him.

  ‘I have an income,’ she pursued, ‘of, roughly speaking, £20,000 a year. Really,’ she laughed, ‘it seems very egotistical to talk like this but I have been well educated. As a matter of fact, I am far better educated than most women. I can hold my own with most men on politics, science or history.’

  ‘You are indeed a paragon,’ he interposed, and she did not know whether there was a sneer inside the word.

  ‘No,’ she added, ‘I have one fault. I can’t hold my own with women about dress.’

  ‘That is a fault,’ he replied, ‘which is almost a virtue. But you must admit that all this is very mysterious.’

  ‘I do admit it.’

  ‘When did your parents die?’

  ‘With regard to my parents I can give you no information. You must look upon me as though I had suddenly sprung from nowhere.’

  ‘But that is very hard to do,’ he muttered.

  ‘You must try and do it.’

  ‘When did you spring from nowhere?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I sprung from nowhere, well, within the last few days.’

  ‘Don’t you know anybody in London?’

  ‘Scarcely anybody except my solicitor, Mr Mudge; and Mr George Harding, the K.C., is a friend of mine.’

  ‘An old friend?’

  A shade of irritation passed over her forehead.

  ‘I have no old friends.’

  The mention of Mr Mudge and the K.C. was very much in her favour. They were people who, though not, of course, in Society from Mr Parker’s point of view, were solid people.

  ‘If only you could get…’ ‘References’ was on the tip of his tongue, and she knew it.

  She laughed her silvery laugh.

  ‘Oh, that would be too absurd, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t like me to go to Mr Harding and say, “Mr Harding, will you kindly write out a testimonial to the effect that I am a fit person to be introduced into Society by Mr Parker for the sum of £1000.” I couldn’t go very well, hat in hand…’ She stopped abruptly. He was lost in thought,
so she continued: ‘It would be ridiculous for me to go to Mr Mudge and ask him if I might refer you to him. No, Mr Parker, you must trust me as I trust you. It would be no more to my interest to say that I had got into Society through subsidising you than for you to spread abroad a similar report.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘But women do talk.’

  Impatiently she said, ‘But I’m not a woman…of that sort.’

  ‘That may be, that may be,’ he muttered half to himself as he moved uneasily about the room.

  ‘By the by,’ she said firmly, ‘there is one privilege that you have accorded to débutantes which I don’t bargain for, and that is driving in your brougham.’

  She was standing erect, her hands on her breast, in a manner suggestive of the way in which a barrister in cross-examination holds his gown.

  Mr Parker shot a quick glance at her. The glance said very clearly, ‘What do you mean?’

  Very slowly she spoke, with half-closed eyes.

  ‘Do you remember dining at a house in Grosvenor Gardens? Do you remember taking a girl on in your brougham to a dance at the Grafton Galleries?’

  ‘Such a thing has often occurred,’ he replied.

  ‘Do you remember that when the bicycle was first introduced and people used to annoy cyclists, riders often used to carry ammonia squirts? They used them to squirt at the eyes of offensive people. The girl in the brougham, Aggie Craven-Hill…’

  ‘That was not her name,’ he snapped, foolishly taken off his guard by his delight in finding her out in an inaccuracy.

  She shook her head and laughed.

  ‘You’re quite right, Mr Parker. Aggie Craven-Hill was not the girl who used the ammonia squirt on you in the brougham. That girl’s name was Gwendolen Oakleigh, a niece of Sir Clifford Oakleigh’s. Aggie Craven-Hill it was who found that your brougham took an hour to drive from Hill Street to Grosvenor Square. I’m afraid she never really cared for you, Mr Parker, but she seems to have cared for Gwendolen. That is why she warned her of the extraordinary method of transit you sometimes employed. Hence, also, we have the ammonia squirt.’

  A sinister smile, almost concealed by his large white moustache, played about his lips.

  ‘Considering that you have come from nowhere within the last few days, you have heard a lot of scandal.’