“It is not,” said Juan with the faintest trace of an Irish brogue, “and me hair’s the color of me fayther’s bedad, the which is red, ma’m.”
Mrs. Mason laughed again. “You and Mary! What a pair!”
Juan Murphey shook his head and his face fell. “No… not a pair,” he said, and looked straight into the eyes of the woman toward whom he had felt such an instant friendship, the moment that he had begun to talk to her. Her fine eyes showed that she understood.
“Well, and so you determined very wisely to wait until I could seem to come and dine, leaving the world to gossip when it knows — as, of course, it will — that you have given such preference to your new acquaintance, the Spanish Don.”
“Yes, that was so, but there is a good deal more to it than that. You see, Mary sent me a good account of the affair, and also the conclusions to which she had come. I had never thought of taking to her something which was troubling me — about the same subject.”
“A-h-h!” Juan breathed, and sat up very straight. “Now we are coming to it. I wanted, so much to ask you—”
“Yes. And I was about to talk to you, when those dreadful murders happened. Tell me, are they part of this” — her glance strayed to the house next door — “this matter?”
“I haven’t an idea. I was at Scotland Yard this morning, supposedly as Don Jaime, to be questioned about those two deaths, but really to have a general conference with Inspector Cross, and when we came away some one shot into the car and just missed us. We don’t know whether that is part of anything, or not.”
She showed her alarm and interest only by the widening of her eyes. Juan liked her more, and more trusted her nerve and good sense.
“Now that you know our side of it,” he went on, “the best thing you can do is to give me a little more of that delightful coffee and tell me all that you know — or suspect.”
Chapter XV
What Her Next Door Neighbor Saw
“Alma and I have known each other for a long time, in a general way, you see, but never so closely as the last few years when I have usually spent about two months here.
“She is a very sensitive and gentle person, and for a long time after her husband’s death was practically a recluse. Her father built this house of hers, and she was born in it.
“She does not maintain a country place, but usually goes to France and Italy part of the year. Many of the houses about here are really occupied only for, at the most, four months of the year, but Alma always stayed in town a great deal.
“Mr. Batten liked town life and cared very little for the country, and nothing at all for sports. Alma never cared anything for sports, either.”
“This is what we heard from Mrs. Hexter.”
“Well, last year there was a time when I did not hear from Alma. She usually writes me with the utmost regularity about twice a month. Sometimes it is no more than a note — but she writes.
“I finally wrote to ask if she were well, and got a letter saying that she had been temporarily under the weather. Like Mrs. Hexter, I thought that she expressed herself in a way which seemed a little — what is it you Americans say? — high hattish? — well, never mind, and you needn’t laugh. You know what I mean.
“When I came up to town Alma came over at once to see me, though, and to say how glad she was that I had arrived. Now that was something that she had never done before. It was not quite her manner.
“She usually came out in the garden when she saw me looking at the tulip bed, and we’d compare hers and mine. This sounds so inconsequential that, if I had not had Mary’s letter I would never dare tell you of it.
“There were a lot of things like that. For one thing, Alma never used to say really clever things. You know what I mean. She usually replied very intelligently and well to anything that was said, but she did not sparkle — you understand.
“Now she started to slip a sparkle into her conversation. She started to — well, to talk, at times, as I had never known Alma to talk, and yet — there was something shallow and ill-informed about what she said when it came to the larger matters, world conditions, politics, and so on. Mary wrote me that this Mrs. Hexter had remarked that.
“There are a lot of little things like that. I can’t say that they worried me, but they did distinctly puzzle me. I could not mention them, even if I would, to other people, for very few people really know Alma well.
“She has never been the person to encourage intimacies. In fact, I often thought her standards too exacting, so far as people were concerned.
“Taking that into consideration, you can imagine my surprise when I found that she was cultivating a certain half Bohemian set — no, no, I do not mean artists and writers of any standing; it would be an honor to know them — but these are people on the fringe of things.
“I can’t say that I think any the worse of them for trying to get into that house, and I have to admit that the few I have met have behaved well and even proved rather interesting, but the point of the thing is that Alma would never have had these people in her house for intimate guests before this year.
“She was even rather indifferent to artists of real prominence, something which the duke gently chided her for. There seems to be a good deal of drinking going on when the duke is not there.”
“Ah!”
“He is not there as much as he would like to be, for even though all his estates in Russia had been taken from him, he still had a good many interests here in England, being one of the few exiles who are not poor.
“Then, he is looked to by all the Russians here and on the Continent as the active head of the old aristocracy, and he is often away from England.
“The thing which started me to doing some thinking occurred two months ago. I always keep this house open, with the cook and a maid here, in case I decide to run up, or arrive from anywhere, for — just as you heard me say on the Aquitania and as you so cleverly quoted — I detest hotel food.
“Well, I came up for a few days to do some shopping. Alma did not know that I had arrived, for it was a bright, sunny day, and I sent my bag on by a messenger and walked, going in at the side entrance there, to which I always carry a key.
“I came into this room. The curtains were partially drawn, and as I was tired, I sat down to rest in the dim light. I could look right into that small window there, which is a room where the housekeeper often sits and sews. Alma is seldom there.
“Well, on that day, Alma was in that room and there were two of these semi-bohemians with her. One of them is really a Russian, I think. At least, the duke seems to know him.
“The housekeeper was laughing and talking as I have never seen her do before, and Alma was sitting on the table, swinging her feet and laughing. Unless you had known her, Juan Murphey, you could never imagine how that startled me. It would not have surprised me more if she had been standing on her head.
“I never knew Alma to make the slightest motion which was not dignity itself. But that is not all. All of them were drinking, and this was what was especially strange.
“The whisky was not in any decanter, of which Alma had some wonderful examples, but in a common bottle, and the glasses were ordinary whisky glasses.
“This is something which you would have to estimate by the light of what Alma is really like. She never drinks spirits, except when chilled, and then only in the smallest quantity, and she is especially particular about the way that everything is served in her house.
“As for her taking guests of even very ordinary caliber into the housekeeper’s room, having in a bottle of whisky and drinking with them and with the housekeeper out of large, coarse glasses — well, I tell you that I have never had such a shock.”
“I don’t wonder,” said Juan.
“It doesn’t sound like much, but it was just as bad as if I had seen Alma stealing, or hugging her own butler or something like that. The queer thing was, too, that the housekeeper sat with her hand on Alma’s knee.
“Alma is always kind to her servants, but in all the years I have known her I have never seen the slightest familiarity permitted them. The housekeeper is devoted to Alma, and has been with her many years. She is one of the most silent women that I have ever known, and the servants have told my servants that for weeks at a time they never saw any more of her than when they were called into her room to receive their orders and when she went through the house or the kitchens inspecting their work.
“Alma once told me that Mrs. Keenan had had a great tragedy in her life which was the reason for her peculiar manner. Well, imagine what it seemed like to see that solemn woman laughing and talking.
“The whole scene was so out of character that long after they had all left that room I just sat there in a daze.
“I told the housemaid that I was tired and would lie down and not to raise any of the windows or disturb the curtains, and then I lay on that couch over there and thought.
“It was growing dark and I had no idea of seeing anything more, but as I gazed absently at the window I saw that people had come into the room opposite again, and that time I went to my windows and looked carefully through the dusk.
“Mrs. Keenan was there and the Russian and they talked, and both of them drank as they talked. Nothing unusual to tell, but there was such an air of equality — and that woman, whom I had never seen raise her eyes in all these years — well, of course, she raised them, but I mean that she never seemed to pay attention to anything or anybody — that woman talked away with her eyes and her hands and her whole body, in a way that was not nice, like some rough character.
“For a moment I could have sworn that she was a bad person of some kind. And listen to this. Those two went out of that room arm in arm!”
“I… see!” said Juan, drawing a long breath. “Well, what did you do?”
“I? I didn’t do anything. I went to bed with a headache and laid awake half the night. Once I got up and went to my window, which is also on this side and looked out, thinking that I had heard a noise next door and sure enough, there was a light in the back bedroom window which is Alma’s dressing room.
“I was so worried that I watched it for a long time, and I am sure that I saw the shadows of several people passing the shade. You will laugh at me for deducing anything from such slight evidence, but I do believe that there were several people there — and that they were all drunk.
“Can you imagine what I felt? Drunken men in Alma’s dressing room at three o’clock, a.m. It would be different if she were different.”
“I… see,” said Juan again.
“Well, I have never seen anything like that since, but I have felt a great difference in Alma. She seems to have rather intimate association with this Russian whom I saw talking to the housekeeper in that familiar way.
“His name is Bravortsky and he is said to have been a major in the Czar’s forces. I have heard him mention the regiment and many details, but I never do remember anything about army or navy matters.
“Bravortsky is at the house a good deal, more often when the duke is not there than when he is. Once, when I went over to see Alma about some roses which we both have in our gardens the butler seemed startled when he saw me at the door, and I thought that I saw Alma run up the stairs; in fact, I could be almost sure that I saw her, and yet he said that she was not in.
“I am sure that I saw him look backward over his shoulder as if to make sure that she was out of sight. Of course, such a thing might happen at any time if a woman did not wish to see a chance visitor, but it is unthinkable that Alma should not see me. I think that Edith Hexter and I are her only real friends.
“When I went to see Mary Smith, a week ago, I did not think of presenting this problem to her. I often save any handwriting of celebrities that I happen to have, and as I had a number with me and wanted to see her anyway, I took them in, in person.
“What she wrote me as to her deductions about the handwriting of Alma, which Edith Hexter had just received, knocked me cold. You see, I had seen some things that would seem to give a good deal of color to that preposterous idea of Mary’s.”
“Not preposterous,” Juan shook his head. “When Mary gives her professional opinion in that slow, careful way of hers, you may be sure that she is not mistaken. I am sure of her.
“You see, the old system of identification by handwriting totally ignored the graphological deductions of character and therefore was often inaccurate, but the union of the handwriting expert and the graphologist gives a true result.
“I’m going on the premises that Mary is right, and that the woman about whom we are now talking is not your old friend, not the old friend that Mrs. Hexter knows, but a woman who has been substituted for her. Tell me if you notice anything in her appearance which is different?”
“N-no… I can’t say that I do, but I can say that her eyes do not seem the same. They are more beautiful, if anything, than they used to seem. Her voice is richer, too. She has more animation.
“All I can say is that it is as if you had taken rather a dim portrait and painted it in high colors. As I told you, what she does is not really different, but there is a little more impulsiveness about her.
“However, that which, to my mind, is most peculiar of all is this. Alma never cared for anything outside of her own home. She disliked sports, never walked except when in the country, and never set foot outside her own house after nightfall unless she went in a car.
“But lately I have seen her, on four different occasions, dressed very inconspicuously, leave the house after nine o’clock at night and walk away into the dark.
“Once I am sure that a man who had been standing at the corner of Hyacinthe Road and Camberwall Street turned and walked with her. I can only repeat that you would have to have known Alma to know how unusual such an action on her part would seem.”