CHAPTER IXSARAH NEOBARD SPEAKS OUT
When Ireturned to Montague Street to lunch, my host was still out, and I had to sit down to the meal without him. No uncommon incident this, in the case of any member of the medical profession, and especially one liable to be summoned at any moment to cases of the most desperate nature. Yet I was uneasy at losing sight of the great man for so long just then. The investigation had reached a point at which I was desperately anxious to follow his every move, in order that I might guard the threatened girl towards whom so many signs already seemed to point.
My lunch was nearly over when I was summoned to the telephone. I answered the call with the expectation that Captain Charles had obtained the information he had been asked for; and I was not disappointed.
“You can tell Sir Frank that Lady Violet Bredwardine is down in Herefordshire at her father’s seat, Tyberton Castle. She left London for the Castle the day before yesterday by the noon train, so that she can’t have been present at the Domino Club.”
I was careful to receive this intelligence as though it were news to me. I even asked the Inspector ifhe was perfectly sure that his informants were to be trusted.
“I’m perfectly sure as far as this end is concerned,” he answered in a tone of surprise. “There is no doubt that she left by that train, and that she hasn’t returned. And her letters are being forwarded to Tyberton Castle. But, of course, I can’t answer for her being there without sending someone down to make inquiries on the spot. Would Sir Frank like me to do that?”
I hesitated. I had no reason to fear the result of such inquiries, but I distrusted the tact of Charles and his men, and felt afraid lest their proceedings should come to Lady Violet’s ears and frighten her. On the whole, I thought it best to apply the brake.
“Sir Frank is out just now. I will let him have your report as soon as he comes in, and let you know what he says. I shouldn’t think he would want you to do anything more. It looks as though Lady Violet had a complete alibi.”
“Oh, but——” the voice through the wire objected, “but Sir Frank’s instructions were that I was to follow up Lady Violet. The police were to follow up everyone on the list you sent me, and find out all they could about them. I have a man detailed for each already. We have ascertained that Julia Sebright is dead. Sir George Castleton is abroad; he was last heard of in Naples, in very queer company....”
This was the sort of thing I had dreaded. Atall risks I must try to call the hounds off the trail of Violet Bredwardine’s past.
“That’s all right, so far,” I interrupted. “Of course, Sir Frank wishes you to follow them all up as long as there is any possibility of their being involved in the case. But when they are clearly out of it I feel sure he wouldn’t think it right to pry into their private lives for nothing. It would be taking an improper advantage of information obtained from the books of their doctor. Medical etiquette is very strict on that point, I can assure you. Sir Frank Tarleton himself might get into trouble if it were known that he had made use of Dr. Weathered’s books for such a purpose.”
“What is that about Sir Frank Tarleton getting into trouble?” said a voice in my ear.
The receiver fell from my hand. I looked round to see my chief standing at my elbow. I am a poor dissembler, I fear. I was conscious of a deep flush as I lowered my eyes before the reproachful look in those keen gray ones beneath their frowning brows.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” I stammered. “I was trying to explain to Inspector Charles that it wouldn’t do to annoy Weathered’s patients with inquiries into their private lives unless there were some grounds for suspicion against them.”
Tarleton stepped to the telephone.
“You have heard what Dr. Cassilis said? He is perfectly right. We have no concern with any patient of Weathered’s who is not implicated in themurder. The moment we can dismiss them from the case they must be let alone.”
I hardly know whether I was more astonished or delighted at this handsome endorsement of my words. But I was not yet out of the wood. My chief made the Inspector repeat the information he had just given to me, and Charles naturally took the opportunity to defend himself.
Apparently the Inspector explained to Tarleton that I had not seemed satisfied at first with his report about Lady Violet having gone to Herefordshire before the night of the dance.
It was the physician’s turn to show surprise.
“Why did you question Lady Violet Bredwardine’s alibi, Cassilis?”
It gratified me to feel that the Inspector had done me a good turn unawares.
“I merely thought it right to ask Captain Charles if he was quite satisfied before I took the responsibility of reporting the alibi to you. He offered to send a man down to make inquiries at Lord Ledbury’s seat, and I asked him to take no further steps without your sanction.”
My chief smiled with the utmost amiability.
“Dr. Cassilis has exactly understood my views,” he said through the telephone. “There is not the least necessity for you to trouble yourself further about Lady Violet for the present. The person in whom I am interested just now is Captain Armstrong, R.A. He is a Fellow of the Royal GeographicalSociety, and a well-known traveller and explorer. I shall be glad if you can let me have his present address.”
There was a brief pause. It was evident that the Inspector had been consulting his note-book, for his reply, which I failed to catch, provoked Tarleton to say testily, “I know, I know. He is not on the books of the Club. I want to get in touch with him for another reason. I think he may be of help in enabling me to decide on the cause of death.”
As soon as Captain Charles had been disposed of, the physician came to the luncheon table and made a hasty meal. I reported my failure to obtain any definite proof of the existence of leopards in Sumatra, and found that the point had lost its importance in his eyes.
“I have been to the British Museum Reading Room,” he told me. “I met Captain Armstrong about two years ago, after reading his book on Sumatra, but I had forgotten his name, and I had to look through the subject index under the head of Sumatra to find it. Then I got out his book,Across Sumatra, and saw from the title-page that he had also written a book on West Africa, where everyone knows there are leopards, so that he had plenty of opportunities of procuring skins and claws.”
The situation was becoming clearer and clearer. There was no need for me to ask the specialist where he had procured the contents of the glass bottle. I could see what must have happened. The explorer’snarrative must have contained some account of an unknown poison peculiar to the Island of Sumatra; the expert’s attention had been drawn to it; he had approached the author, found that he had some of the poison in his possession, and induced him to part with it. His object now must be to find out whether Armstrong had kept any himself, or allowed it to get into other hands.
I was so relieved at the turn the investigation was taking that I had ceased to worry about my own connection with the tragedy. It gave me a disagreeable shock to be reminded that there were other points to be cleared up, when my chief spoke again.
“I think our next step now must be to interview Sarah Neobard. I doubt if she has told us all she knows about Weathered and his woman patients. She may be able to throw some light on the mysterious numbers.”
The numbers in the appointment-book were as mysterious to me as they were to him. I had been able to form no theory as to their significance; nevertheless, I felt that danger lay in that direction. I could not forget that a number had been attached to Violet Bredwardine’s name, and I dreaded to learn why.
The physician was provided with a good excuse for presenting himself again at the house in Warwick Street. It was necessary to make arrangements for the interment of the body. He had decided, he told me, to give a certificate that would dispense withthe necessity for an inquest, and permit of the funeral taking place without delay. For that purpose the body was to be conveyed to the house in the small hours when nobody was likely to be about.
It was a strong thing to do before it had yet been determined whether the murder was to be made the subject of a public prosecution, and the murderer brought to justice. So far as I could see, the authorities both of the Home Office and the Foreign Office were placing entire confidence in my chief, and had given him a free hand. I hoped accordingly that his decision to let the funeral proceed quietly meant that he had made up his mind against any public exposure. But on that point he had been careful not to commit himself, and I was afraid to show too much curiosity.
He took me round with him in the car to Warwick Street, and asked to see Mrs. Weathered. The youthful butler eyed us with the utmost apprehension, and showed us into the patients’ waiting-room. There we were joined presently by the widow and her daughter.
Mrs. Weathered was in deep black. Her manner showed that she was resigned to her husband’s fate by this time, but she was evidently in a state of extreme nervousness, as she well might be while the mystery was unsolved. Sarah, on the other hand, at the beginning of the interview, was as cold and self-possessed as though her part was over, and she had ceased to feel any personal interest in the sequel.
“I have called on you,” Tarleton explained, “to let you know officially that I have examined into the cause of Dr. Weathered’s death, and am prepared to certify that it was due to heart failure.”
I stared. In one sense, of course, almost every death may be said to be due to heart failure. The question generally is what has caused the heart to fail; and I knew perfectly well that the burial certificate would have to be more explicit. But Mrs. Weathered showed herself quite satisfied.
“Then it was a natural death, after all?” she exclaimed in relief.
“There is no reason why you shouldn’t regard it so,” was the answer. “I should advise you to accept that view, and refrain from discussing the matter with anyone. I wish to spare you the trouble and unpleasantness of an inquest, if possible. I propose to have the body brought round here some time to-night, or rather in the early morning; and you can then make your own arrangements for the funeral.”
The widow clasped her hands in gratification.
“That is good of you, Sir Frank. I don’t know how to thank you.” She looked up at her daughter, whose face was overcast. “My dear, we couldn’t have asked for anything better. I have been dreading the inquest more than I can say.”
Sarah’s expression was troubled. She tried to return her mother’s pleading look with one of sympathy. Then she lifted her head, and let her eyes rest on the consultant with quiet scorn.
“My mother has every reason to be grateful to you, Sir Frank,” she said ungraciously. “But you haven’t told us what caused the heart to fail.”
Tarleton returned her gaze with quiet forbearance. It was in his power to crush her with an allusion to her presence at the Domino Club in the character of Salome, but he generously refrained from doing so in her mother’s hearing. Already the poor woman’s face was downcast again, and she glanced anxiously from her daughter to us.
“That is a question which Mrs. Weathered is entitled to raise if she pleases,” the doctor said gravely. “You have just heard me advise her not to do so. At the same time if you would like to go into the question with me privately I am quite willing.”
“Oh, no, no!” The protest broke from the widow’s lips. She caught hold of her daughter’s hand. “Don’t say anything more, dear. I’m sure Sir Frank Tarleton knows best. We must do what he tells us.”
The girl compressed her lips with a strong effort. Her eye sought Tarleton’s and I thought a signal was exchanged between them. Then he rose to his feet.
“Very well, ma’am. I think you are acting wisely. By the way, there is one question which you may be able to answer. In looking through Dr. Weathered’s diary of appointments with his patients I have noticed that some of their names are followedby numbers, and I should like to know what that means.”
The widow received the question with an air of complete surprise. It was impossible to doubt her declaration that she had no idea of the existence of the curious ciphers, much less of their use. But Sarah gave the questioner a quick look, and again I thought a secret understanding was established between them.
The first words uttered by my chief, when we were in the car driving away, told me what the understanding was.
“That girl means to come and see me. She isn’t satisfied; and she won’t be without vengeance on the woman she hates.”
The prediction was promptly fulfilled. The girl must have found some excuse for leaving the house within a few minutes after us. We had been back less than half an hour when she was announced. She burst in upon us like a fury.
“Sir Frank Tarleton, what does this mean? My step-father was murdered, and you know it. You are trying to hush up the case, I suppose, because some of the people involved in it are so high up that the police want to let them off. There seems to be one law for the rich and another for the poor. It’s the high-up people, the people with titles, who are the worst. I’ve seen those numbers in the diary, and I can guess pretty well what they mean. They’re the guilty patients, the ones who were in his power,and had the greatest motive to murder him. If you want to know more you had better apply to Lady Violet Bredwardine.”
It was an appalling shock. Just as I had reached the comforting conclusion that Lady Violet’s alibi had put an end to the investigation as far as she was concerned, this passionate girl had launched a denunciation that threatened to drag everything to light. I turned in consternation to my chief.
He had taken out his gold repeater and begun to swing it to and fro at the end of its scrap of ribbon in a way that told me he was pondering deeply on this new development of the case. He made a motion with his hand towards me.
“Dr. Cassilis, here, can tell you that you are mistaken in thinking that the police are trying to hush up the case, or to screen anyone connected with it. Tell Miss Neobard what they reported to you.”
The indignant Sarah faced me in some surprise. My own surprise was greater than hers. I was at a loss to understand Tarleton’s motive for handing over the vindication of the police to me. Did he expect my word to carry more weight with the excited girl than his own? Or was he simply testing my ability to deal with a critical situation? And if so, how far did he mean me to go? Was I to let the accuser know that the police had been on her track as well as Lady Violet’s? I spoke in some confusion.
“The police have made full inquiries about Lady Violet Bredwardine. She was a patient of Dr.Weathered’s and a member of the Domino Club, apparently. But they have ascertained that she wasn’t in London on the night when he met his death. She was down at her father’s place in Herefordshire.”
“I don’t believe it,” was the angry reply. “I don’t mean that you are trying to deceive me, but the police haven’t told you the truth. I am as certain that she was there that night as I am that I am in this room. She was with him in the very alcove where he was found dead.”
In her wrath she had given herself away. Her statement almost amounted to saying that she had seen them together. I looked at my chief in the hope that he would pounce on the admission, but he contented himself with nodding to me to go on.
“You speak very positively, Miss Neobard. May I ask you how you know that?”
The question plainly disconcerted her. It must have opened her eyes to the fact that she was saying too much.
“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” she answered stubbornly. “You can ask anyone who was there. Ask them if they saw someone wearing a Roman helmet and breastplate with a skirt underneath. That was her disguise.”
I was staggered. The girl’s persistence irritated me, and I spoke sharply.
“You can’t possibly know that, when she was more than a hundred miles away at the time. Didyou speak to her—to whoever it was that was wearing that costume?”
It appeared that I had let myself go too far this time. I saw Tarleton frown disapprovingly. Sarah Neobard gazed at me in alarm.
“I speak to her?” she echoed. “What do you mean? I wasn’t—I’m not a member of the Club.”
A warning glance from my chief stopped the retort that was on my lips. I was longing to tell the accuser that she had been under suspicion herself, but I saw that in Tarleton’s opinion I was taking the wrong line. My indignation on Violet Bredwardine’s behalf had betrayed me into showing our cards too soon.
The girl herself seemed to feel that some explanation was needed for her confident assertions.
“If you want to know who was wearing that disguise, ask Madame Bonnell. She is the manager of the Club, and she can tell you everything that went on there.”
A swift movement of the physician’s eyebrows told me that this was the sort of admission he had been watching for. He intervened, I had little doubt, to prevent my drawing attention to it.
“I think Miss Neobard ought to be told that the wearer of the Zenobia costume was not the only one whose movements attracted attention on that night.”
I was eager to take the cue. It was time to give Lady Violet’s enemy a taste of her own medicine.
“Yes,” I said sternly, “the dancer who was seenoftenest in company with Dr. Weathered that night wore the costume of Salome. Can you tell us anything about her?”
For an instant Salome blanched. She was quite intelligent enough to see the red light. She didn’t need to be told that if her movements had attracted the notice of the police her identity could hardly fail to come out before very long, if it hadn’t come out already. Yet she struggled against what was coming.
“She had nothing to do with the crime. She was a friend of Dr. Weathered’s. Her only motive for being there was to protect him from the other women.” She spoke almost in a whisper.
“To protect him from being poisoned, do you mean? Or do you mean that she was jealous, and wanted to prevent him from dancing with anyone but herself?”
At last Tarleton had fired the shot which he had had in preparation. Its effect was startling indeed. A dark red flood overspread the girl’s face; for a moment she fought with her emotions, and the next she broke down in a flood of tears.
“You know it was I,” she sobbed out. “You have been playing with me. You think I am a bad woman, I suppose. But I’m not. I take Heaven to witness that I only meant to do what was right. I never dreamed that I had any feeling for him that—that wasn’t—that wasn’t right. I was angry with him for the way he treated my mother. When he began to neglect her and go after other women, pretendingthat they were only his patients, I hated them. I never thought of anything else. I thought I was doing my duty to my mother in watching him. But he found me out. He knew everything about women. He saw that I was jealous on my own account as well; and he set himself to soothe me. He could fascinate any woman if he tried. He pretended to confide in me. He told me about his patients, and complained that they wouldn’t leave him alone. Sometimes I believed him, and thought it was their fault, and then I thought it was his. I didn’t know what to think at last. I went there that night to see if I could find out....”
The broken utterance ended in a wail of grief.