Part 8
“Ah, now reason resumes her sway. Let’s begin at the beginning. Herbert Charlecote, rather less than a year ago, was at his wit's end for money. His uncle wouldn’t give him any. Remember the betting-book and pass-book. But at that time he was his uncle’s heir. He arranged with the family doctor, Newton, to have the old man killed. Newton would want to be paid. Probably the arrangement was a bet. Suppose Herbert bet Newton ten thousand to one his uncle wouldn’t die within the year. Remember the ‘N’ in the betting-book. Newton began treating the old man for gastric catarrh. Sent him gallons of medicine. Probably that was poison. But nothing happened because the old man didn’t take it. Remember the valet said he had it all put down the sink. I suspect old Charlecote didn’t much care for his family doctor. The time began to run out. And then came the reconciliation with Geoffrey. There was no time to lose. If the will was altered in Geoffrey’s favour, no use in killing the old man. So Newton had to hustle. He was pretty neat. He chose an Italian knife, and did the killing close to the house where the Italian Mrs. Geoffrey lived. But he did it. Remember the extraordinary efficiency of the assassin. Neat piece of surgery, that murder. And then the bottom fell out of the bucket. The will had been altered. Herbert only got twenty thousand. Hardly enough to pay his debts. And so he wouldn’t stump up Newton’s price. Newton would cut up rough, of course. He threatened, I suppose, and Herbert threatened back. You know, I don’t fancy the late Newton was a man to take kindly to being bilked. It may have been revenge. It may have been that he thought Herbert would give him away. Anyway, he took Herbert out in his car yesterday afternoon. Now we’re coming to evidence which is evidence, Lomas. Newton was out in his car yesterday afternoon. I sent my chauffeur to make inquiries. And Newton drove himself. And his car fits the marks on that road--24 Dunois Orleans, two steel-studded Blake tyres. When they got to that bridge, I suppose Newton stopped the car, pretended there was something wrong, got down, and prepared a chloroformed wad of cotton wool. He clapped that on Herbert, anaesthetized him, and dropped him in the canal. I found scraps of the wool in Herbert’s mouth and nostrils. That’s the case, Lomas, old thing. Come and have tea. There’s rather decent muffins at the Academies’.”
“Good God!” said Lomas. “Muffins!”
CASE V
THE HOTTENTOT VENUS
It was a night in June. The Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department was pensive. “Did you ever want to marry, Fortune?” he murmured.
“Often; but never one at a time.” Reggie Fortune looked curiously at his host. The dinner had been good, the claret very good, the cigars were of the most benignant. But still--“Why this touch of sentiment, Lomas?” said he.
“Some students say women have no minds,” Lomas murmured drowsily. “But that’s partiality. The trouble is, women aren’t human beings. Consider the parallel case of the dog. He is intelligent. But he sets different values on things from our values. Inhuman values. Think of bones, cats, boots. It is so also with women.”
“‘I love a lassie’--but she ate my best pumps. Lomas, my good child, are you merely drivelling or shall we come to something soon?”
“I am much exposed to women,” said the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department pathetically, and roused himself. “But this is a family skeleton. I have a sister, Fortune. She is intelligent. She is almost as omniscient as you, my dear fellow, and much more practical. But she can be quite maddening. She is maddening me now. Unfortunately she has no husband. She had too much intelligence. She owns a princely school at Tormouth. I believe it makes her as rich as Rockefeller. She certainly does herself very well. A month ago she wrote to me that a strange thing had happened. In the night one of the mistress’s rooms had been turned upside down.”
“Do they rag much at girls’ schools?” Reggie yawned. “It might be picturesque.”
“My wonderful sister wanted me to tell her what it meant. I’m not proud, Fortune. I know my limitations. I did not see myself in a girls’ school. Especially as an official. Now she has been writing to me that there are extraordinary developments. The room of another mistress has been upset.”
“They do rag in girls’ schools! Another advance of women. Oh, they'll have the vote soon.”
“You show levity, Fortune. My sister would not like it. This is a crime. A number of photographs were taken--photographs of girls at the school. And there is no clue to the criminal.”
“The great Tormouth mystery. Leader in the _Daily Scream_--‘Brains for Scotland Yard.’ But the independent expert found a pink hairpin in the mouth of the dachshund next door but two and brought the foul deed home to the junior curate.”
“I envy your spirits, Fortune,” Lomas sighed. “You have no sister--no maiden sister.”
And the desultory conversation turned feebly to something else. In fact, both men were feeling the strain of that tangled and squalid crime, the Pimlico murder. They had at last contrived to hang (you remember it) the reluctant borough councillor; but only Reggie Fortune could take a holiday. As he was going, he said that he thought of motoring in Devonshire.
“You’d better call on my sister and investigate her case.” Lomas smiled sourly. “If it is a case. Sometimes I think it’s a dream.”
“Ragging in Girls’ Schools. By our Special Commission. ’Orrible Revelations.”
Lomas shook his head. “I’m afraid my sister won’t take to you. She’s not flippant.”
“Lomas, don’t be improper. A flippant headmistress. I blush.”
A few days later Reggie Fortune drove into Tormouth, liked it, liked its hotel, and called on the Hon. Evelyn Lomas. Miss Lomas was her brother’s sister in face and shape, correctly handsome, slight, dapper, not the least like her brother in manner. She was frankly middle-aged, brisk and direct.
“So glad you could spare time, Mr. Fortune.” She sat down to her writing-table. “My brother tells me I can have every confidence in your discretion.”
“So good of him,” Reggie murmured. He was annoyed with Lomas. He had meant only to make friends with the good lady. It appeared that he was to be an official investigator of the silly girls’ school mystery. An embarrassing position. And Miss Lomas was visibly without humour.
“You will understand that discretion is essential in this case, Mr. Fortune. Anything in the nature of publicity would be unpardonable. You look very young.”
“I try to be,” Reggie said modestly.
Miss Lomas coughed. “These are the facts, Mr. Fortune.”
With minute and tiresome detail Reggie heard it all over again and learnt nothing new. One mistress’s room turned upside down in the night, nothing spoilt or taken--an interval--another mistress’s room turned upside down and a number of photographs of girls taken. Only that and nothing more. Reggie was bored, and let his eyes wander from the intensity of Miss Lomas. When at last she stopped, frowning at his lack of attention, and waited in angry majesty for him to say something--
“Are you interested in archaeology?” was what he said.
“I beg your pardon,” said Miss Lomas, in an awful voice.
“I was wonderin’ about this,” Reggie murmured, and took up from her table a little yellowish thing modelled into something like the shape of a woman. “Fascinatin’, isn’t she?”
“It seems to me childish or disgusting, Mr. Fortune,” Miss Lomas snapped at him. “It has nothing to do with the case. But I am afraid my affairs merely amuse you, Mr. Fortune.”
“Oh, please, please,” Reggie protested. “You see, you’re so lucid, Miss Lomas. These odd affairs are hardly ever lucid. Anything may have to do with anything. Just consider. You tell me that in your school there has been happening something unusual.”
“Extraordinary, unprecedented, and disturbing,” Miss Lomas cried.
“And then I find this lyin’ about--a Hottentot Venus in a girls’ school--that’s very highly unusual.”
“The thing is just a little ivory idol,” said Miss Lomas and took it from him and looked at it with disgust. It was crudely and oddly shaped, like a child’s modelling.
“It’s not ivory, and probably it wasn’t an idol,” Reggie snapped. His excellent temper found Miss Lomas trying. “It’s a horse’s tooth, and was no doubt carved as a doll or a work of art. But how did it come into a girls’ school?”
“I quite agree that it is most unsuitable. I should myself call it indecent. That is why I keep it on my desk.” (Reggie mastered a smile.) “It was found recently in the library. No doubt one of the girls having relations in India or Africa was given the thing as an odd savage trinket. She lost it and, recognizing that it was an undesirable thing, is afraid to claim it. As a matter of school discipline I am disturbed and annoyed. I cannot conceive that it concerns you, Mr. Fortune.”
“It’s the only thing that interests me,” said Reggie. He was tired of the lady. “You don’t understand the question, madame. This isn’t the kind of trinket any one can pick up. It’s a jewel. This little lady”--he handled her affectionately--“she’s fifteen thousand years old. She’s palæolithic. There’s only a few of her in the world. Some Frenchman called her type the Hottentot Venus, because she’s a little like the women of that tribe. But the woman she was modelled on may have been an ancestor of yours or mine.”
“I think not, Mr. Fortune.” Miss Lomas was horrified.
“We have had time to improve on her, madame,” Reggie bowed. “This is the point. Outside national museums, there are only half a dozen collections which own one of these ladies. Who’s the quaint savant that gives them to a schoolgirl to play with? May I see the names of your girls?”
“I only accept pupils with the highest references, sir,” said Miss Lomas, overawed but fuming.
So Reggie was allowed to inspect her register. He studied it in vain. No name suggested connection with any of the few archaeologists likely to own a Hottentot Venus. He gave it up.
“Well, sir?” Miss Lomas was triumphant and disdainful. “I am very much obliged to you for your courtesy. I regret exceedingly that I have troubled you with my affairs. I need not ask you to waste any more of your valuable time on the case that I foolishly submitted to you.”
“But, my dear Miss Lomas, I’m just gettin’ interested,” said Reggie, with an engaging smile. “You know, my first thoughts were that your children had been ragging.”
“Really, Mr. Fortune! Your way of putting things! Please understand that the girls in my school do not ‘rag’--as you call it. I think my sex leaves that to young men, Mr. Fortune.”
“Women are so revoltin’ nowadays,” Reggie murmured. “I wonder--you have no new woman in the flock? No bold, bad rebel?” The face of Miss Lomas answered him. “I thought so. We must have the second solution. Somebody wanted somebody’s photograph.”
“But why? Why should one girl want to steal photographs of the other girls? It’s nonsensical.”
“Oh, it’s all nonsense,” Reggie agreed cheerfully. “It’s gibberish till we find the key. But here’s one odd thing for certain, the Hottentot Venus. I expect to find a lot more before we’ve done.”
“Do you wish to alarm me, Mr. Fortune?”
“I’m only tryin’ to keep you interested. Now all these things have happened recently. Has any one new come to the school recently? Any new servant? Any new teacher? Well, any new girl?”
“It’s very unusual to have any new girls this term. But we have had one--Alice Warenne. She came with the highest introductions, Mr. Fortune. The Countess of Spilsborough asked me to take her.”
“And who are Alice Warenne’s people?”
“Her father is English but lives abroad. A distinguished-looking man, obviously well off. He has friends, as you see, in the best society. Her mother, I believe, has been long dead. She was brought up in France, and speaks French better than English. But this is all waste of time, Mr. Fortune. Alice Warenne is a delightful girl--a sweet nature. I can’t imagine anything against her. Pray don’t form idle prejudices.”
“And has anybody called to see Alice Warenne since the affair of the photographs?”
Miss Lomas showed some surprise. “Dear me, Mr. Fortune--now you mention it, yes. Her father was over in England and came down to see her a few days ago. He had another man with him, I remember.”
“Another? Do fond fathers often bring a faithful friend down to see how their daughters are growing?”
“Now you mention it, I suppose it is unusual.” Miss Lomas looked at Reggie with apprehension. “Still, it’s quite reasonable, Mr. Fortune.”
“Well--if he were a brother--or a selected fiancé.”
“Really, Mr. Fortune! Alice is a child. Not more than sixteen. This other man was older than her father. I wish I could remember his name.”
“So do I,” Reggie agreed.
“It was nothing uncommon, I think. He was rather an uncommon-looking man--big and handsome, but artistic or Bohemian in his clothes.”
“And after the fond father and the faithful friend saw Alice you found this little lady”--he held up the Hottentot Venus--“in the library?”
“It was--the day after,” Miss Lomas cried. “Good gracious!”
“We are getting on, aren’t we?” Reggie smiled. “But I wonder where we are getting to?”
“They saw her in the library. I shall certainly ask Alice for an explanation,” Miss Lomas said.
Reggie put the Hottentot Venus in his pocket and smiled at her. “I’m sure you’re much too wise. Let’s say nothing till we can say something sensible. I should like to see Alice. Just ‘for to admire’, you know.”
“The girls will be in the playing-field now.”
“Delightful. Suppose you walk me through. Treat me as if I was intendin’ to be a parent.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Miss Lomas, with emphasis.
“Oh, I mean a fond father comin’ to see if it was all nice enough for my darlin’ daughter. Don’t let Alice think I’m interested in her.”
“Very well, Mr. Fortune.” Miss Lomas went off for her hat.
The playing-field was a pleasant place set about with old oaks, in the freshest of their leaves then, through which there were glimpses of the sunlit Devon sea. Comely girls in white, clustered, arms in the air, at basket ball, or ran and smote across the tennis-courts.
Reggie paused and sank down on a seat. “This is very soothin’ and pretty,” he murmured. “Here are our young barbarians all at play. Why will they grow up, Miss Lomas? They’re so much more satisfying now.”
Miss Lomas stared at him. “Naturally they grow up,” she explained. “They can’t be children all their lives.”
“Some of us never were,” Reggie sighed. “Charming, charming. Like the young things in Homer, what? The maidens and the princess of the white arms they fell to playing at ball. Charming--especially that one. Yes. Which did you say was Alice?”
“That is Miss Warenne.” Miss Lomas pointed with her sunshade to two girls arm in arm. One was a tall creature, a woman already in body and stately, with a fine, bold face, and red-brown hair that glowed.
“Why, she’s a goddess!” Reggie said.
“Oh, dear, no,” said Miss Lomas. “That’s Hilda Crowland. Alice is the little one.”
“Let’s go and look at the basket ball,” Reggie suggested, and to do that walked across the field on a line which brought them for a moment face to face with little Alice Warenne. She was a tiny creature, and had appropriately a round baby face. She was dark and plump and dimpled. But although her hair was not yet up, she need not have been younger than her magnificent companion.
Reggie Fortune’s interest in basket ball was soon exhausted. They went back across the field at an angle which brought them again face to face with Alice Warenne and her imposing friend, and while they passed, Reggie (rather loudly) was asking Miss Lomas questions about the school games and the school time-table. As soon as they were out of hearing of the two girls he broke this off with a sharp, “Great friends are they, those two?”
“They are always together,” Miss Lomas admitted.
“And who is the magnificent creature?”
“Hilda Crowland? Why, she’s been with me for years.”
“And she’s the bosom friend of this girl, who’s only been here a couple of months!”
“Now you mention it, that is odd, Mr. Fortune.”
“Oh, Lord, everything’s odd!” Reggie said irritably. “Who is Hilda Crowland?”
“Well, her mother is a widow and very well off, I believe. She lives in Cornwall. Hilda came to me through Lady de Burgh. Of course you understand, Mr. Fortune, that that implies irreproachable family connections.”
“I dare say. I dare say. Well, Miss Lomas, it’s a queer case. I will take it up and go into it further. Something is being planned rather elaborately in which your school, probably a girl in your school, is concerned. It may be a matter outside your responsibilities. It may be something unpleasant.”
“Good gracious, Mr. Fortune, what do you suggest?” Miss Lomas was rather excited than alarmed.
“I don’t suggest anything. I have no information. The trouble is, Miss Lomas, you know nothing about your girls.”
“Really, Mr. Fortune! As I have told you, I insist upon----”
“Good references. Anybody can find good references. Did your brother never tell you about the Prime Minister’s butler? He came from an Archbishop.”
“Is there anything you advise me to do?”
“Be ordinary. Absolutely ordinary. I shall stay in Tormouth at present. I’m at the ‘Bristol.’”
So he left Miss Lomas rather ruffled, but under that deeply gratified, because her case really was a serious case, her acumen was vindicated, her brother put to shame. Her school found her more masterful than ever.
Reggie’s room at the “Bristol” had a balcony which looked on the sea. There he sat before an empty plate which had held muffins, and lit one of his largest cigars. “Now where the devil have I seen that little minx before?” said he.
Upon that question he concentrated his mind, and (omitting the adventures into blind alleys) his thoughts were like this: “Typewriting . . . why does sweet Alice suggest typewriting? . . . _mes petites manches de satinette_ . . . my little satinette sleeves . . . now what in wonder is that? . . . Oh, my aunt! She was the demure little typist in that play at the Variétés last year. What was her name? Alice Ducher! . . . Oh, Peter! A soubrette from the Variétés in a blameless English girls’ school! Ye stately homes of England! Give me air!”
He took from his pocket the Hottentot Venus and contemplated her severely. “I don’t know which of you is worse, darling,” he said. “You or Mlle Ducher. What are you at, anyway? Lord, I wouldn’t have thought she had anything to do with palæolithic dolls! What’s the connection, darling?” The Hottentot Venus was naturally silent.
Reggie sighed and put her away, and began to contemplate the beauties of nature. Tormouth, you know, is placed upon an agreeable bay, its sands are white, and its headlands of a dark rock which in a flood of sunshine discover gleams of crystal amid a reddish glow. So Reggie saw them as the western sky grew crimson and the flood-tide sparkled in a thousand golden jewels. A delectable scene. It was laborious to go on thinking. Tormouth is an anchorage favoured by yachts, and though it was early summer two or three white craft lay out in the bay. Reggie went into his room and came out again to the balcony with a binocular. The influence of the evening was upon him and he felt a need of futile diversion. He focused the glasses upon the yachts. There was a big schooner and two steam-boats--one a small packet with the white ensign of the R.Y.S., the other a big craft under the Italian flag. He could not make out the names.
A waiter came to take his tea away. “I want the local paper. And do you keep Shearn’s Yacht List?”
Both were brought. The yachts in Tormouth Bay were reported as _Sheila_, _Lorna_, and _Giulia_. He turned them up in the list and whistled. The owner of the _Giulia_ was the Prince of Ragusa.
“This is getting relevant,” said he.
The Prince of Ragusa, hereditary ruler of some ten square miles and fabulously wealthy, was known to the learned as a zealous archæologist. He was one of the half-dozen men in the world whose collection might contain a Hottentot Venus. But, unless his reputation belied him, he was very unlikely to know or care anything about a soubrette from Paris. And why should he send his Hottentot Venus to a girls’ school?
“Still several unknown quantities,” Reggie reflected. And yet there was the Hottentot Venus in the Tormouth school and there off Tormouth lay the Prince of Ragusa. “I think we’ll make Brer Lomas sit up and take notice,” said Reggie, and devoted himself to the composition of Latin prose. Thus:
“De academia sororis nonnihil timeo nec quid timean certe scio. Sunt qui conjurarint et fortasse in flagitium. Si quid improvisum vel mihi vel academiae eveniret principem de Ragusa et navem eius capere oporteret.”
This he wrote on telegraph forms, and with his own hand presented to the lady at the post office, who was justly horrified.
“But what language is it?” she protested.
“There you have me,” Reggie confessed. “It would like to be Latin, but I left school when I was young.”
The lady sniffed but, looking at it again, saw that it was addressed to Scotland Yard, and said, “Ah, I understand.”
“I wish I did,” Reggie murmured. For the sense of that mysterious telegram is: “I am anxious about your sister’s school, and don’t quite know what I am afraid of. There is a conspiracy on foot which may be criminal. If anything unforeseen happens to me or the school, catch the Prince of Ragusa and his yacht.” “Yes. Nuts to crack for Lomas,” said Reggie. And he went to dinner.
It is now necessary to employ the narrative of Miss Somers, B.Sc. On the next day there was a lecture given in the Tormouth assembly rooms by Mr. Horatio Bean, the photographer of a recent expedition to the Arctic regions. To such edifying entertainments Miss Lomas was accustomed to send her girls. Miss Somers, B.Sc., was in charge of the detachment which marched to the assembly rooms on this occasion. Her narrative, purged of emotion unfit for a female bachelor of science, goes like this: She noticed nothing till the pictures began--that is, till the room was darkened. Then two girls got up in a hurry. One of them, who was Alice Warenne, whispered to her as she passed that Hilda Crowland didn’t feel very well. Alice was going out with her and would look after her. They went. At the close of the lecture, one of the attendants approached Miss Somers and said he had been asked to tell her that the two young ladies had gone back to the school.
Upon this naturally follows the report of Constable Stewer of the Tormouth borough police. To this effect: Was on duty 3.30 p.m. on the quay; motor-launch from Italian yacht came in and lay by number one steps; two young ladies came in a hurry and entered launch; gentleman who had been smoking cigar in vicinity thrust paper and half-crown into my hands, saying “Constable, wire that immediate”; gentleman then took flying leap into launch, which was already shoved off, and engine started; launch steered for Italian yacht; returned to station to make report.
The paper when examined by inspector on duty was found to bear these words: “Lomas, Scotland Yard. Two girls on _Giulia_. Me too.--F.” A telegram was sent. About tea-time Scotland Yard telephoned to know whether the yacht _Giulia_ was still at Tormouth. A serjeant hurrying to the harbour found P. C. Stewer back at his post watching a smudge of smoke on the horizon. About that time Miss Lomas called at the police station to ask if anything had been heard or seen of two of her girls. So we leave the inspector almost exploding with a sense of the importance of his office.