Colonel Marsden threw himself back in his chair.
“So Mr. Geoffrey Trent told his ward she could take a crazy rope and go hang! ‘Geoffrey said I could have it.’ Old Humphreys says that’s what she said to him, and he says that Flaxman heard her say it. Well, perhaps he did, and perhaps he didn’t. Again we have only got old Humphreys’ word for that!”
“I believe there is something Miss Muir could say, but she is holding back. Mr. Trent is her brother-in-law, after all.”
“Too many relations mixed up in this affair for my liking! Too many loose ends everywhere, and too many fingers in the pie-gardeners-sisters-in-law-old maid visitors! And as if there wasn’t enough and to spare without anyone else taking a hand, the Yard has been on to me this morning!”
Grayson, silent, attentive, watchful, was able to remark that the temperature of the interview had cooled perceptibly. Old Cole was no longer enemy number one, but a possible reinforcement. He was being confided in rather than attacked. It was in a tone of sympathy that the Superintendent exclaimed,
“The Yard, sir!”
Colonel Marsden jerked open a drawer, rummaged in it, and flung a crumpled sheet across the table.
“There you are! Read it for yourself! Dope! Accidents and murders aren’t complicated enough, it seems! That girl who fell off the quarry, her father ran a business in the Near East. Suspected of trafficking in drugs-nothing proved. Interval for the war. Fellow commits suicide and Geoffrey Trent goes out to clear up the mess. Nothing against him until just now. Seems they’ve had advices from the Mediterranean area that there are some quite lively deals going on. More loose threads, but one of them connects with Geoffrey Trent and his business, and they want to send a man down-name of Howland. Well, of course no objection to that. We don’t pretend to handle international dope traffic-well, do we?”
The Superintendent said, “No, sir.” His tone was a little on the dry side. He had served for fifteen years under the Chief Constable, and he was wondering what it was that he had got up his sleeve. He was to know in a minute.
Leaning back in his chair, and in a manner which could hardly have been more casual, Colonel Marsden said,
“Seems to be some idea that Mrs. Trent has been taking the stuff. Heard anything about that?” His eye travelled from Cole to the Inspector.
“Well, yes, sir.” Grayson was brisk. “There’s been a bit of talk in Bleake about her being strange. I don’t know that it went further than that.”
Colonel Marsden grunted.
“Nice household, I must say! And that girl who fell over the quarry-odd in the head, wasn’t she? And her money all came to Trent. Ever think there might have been more in that case than met the eye, Cole?”
“No evidence, sir.”
“And now Humphreys comes along with a yarn that she told him that Trent had given her leave to take that rope. Rotten, wasn’t it?”
Grayson said,
“Yes, sir-I handled it. It wouldn’t have held a dog’s weight, let alone that poor girl’s. You could break it almost anywhere with a good pull.”
The Chief Constable said in his testiest voice,
“The Yard seem to have got hold of that too! They got on to me this morning, and they said some information had been brought to them. Well, the whole thing ties up together, doesn’t it? If they’ve got all this stuff they’d better use it and be done with it! Seems there’s a suggestion that Mrs. Trent or her sister may be exposed to some risk. Can’t quite see it myself! But of course I haven’t got their information! I don’t want to be told afterwards that something has happened, and that we ought to have known it was going to happen and have prevented it!”
“No, sir.”
The Chief Constable banged his knee.
“How do you mean ‘No, sir’? I tell you I’m not going to take any responsibility in the matter! They can send down anyone they like, and they won’t be able to say we made difficulties about it! If the whole thing turns out to be a mare’s nest, well then, that’s their lookout! We can just sit back and say we said so all along!”
Grayson’s face allowed none of his angry thoughts to show. What old Marsden meant was that he had called in the Yard, and that if anyone was going to get a pat on the back over the case, it wasn’t going to be John Grayson.
The Superintendent was saying,
“You mean that you have asked them to send someone down besides Howland?”
Colonel Marsden nodded.
“Well, they suggest Abbott-Inspector Abbott. Seems some of this information was brought to him, and they think he might as well come down and see if he can dig up anything more. Don’t know if you’ve ever run across him. Very competent fellow. Used to know a cousin of his-extraordinary pretty woman, but no brains. Not that I’m partial to your clever women-too dashed earnest about it, if you know what I mean. But there’s a limit the other way!”
Superintendent Cole said with slightly strained good humour,
“Am I to take it that these chaps from the Yard will be coming down immediately?”
CHAPTER 31
Inspector Howland was a slight middle-aged man with a retiring manner. There were, in fact, times when it became so hesitant that the person to whom he was talking might feel a kindly impulse to help him out. He saw Geoffrey Trent, and asked him a number of questions relating to his business in the Near East. Geoffrey, at first annoyed, passed to a state of rather contemptuous tolerance. If a check-up on these things was required for Customs purposes, he could not imagine why a more competent and businesslike person had not been sent down. In any case, as he told the embarrassed Howland, there were a number of the questions which he could not possibly answer without access to the books of the Company in which he held an interest.
“That would be as trustee for your late ward, Miss Margot Trent?”
The question was put in so small and shy a voice that no offence could be taken.
“Certainly.”
“These interests have now passed to you?”
“Yes, I am sorry to say they have.”
“Sorry, Mr. Trent?” Howland peered through the thick lenses behind which his shortsighted eyes blinked at the world.
“I was very fond of my ward.”
“Ah, it was a sad accident. But to return to this Company. You hold a majority of the shares?”
“About fifty-five per cent-beside some which I hold in my own name. May I enquire why I am being asked all these questions? So far as I am aware everything is in order. If there is an idea that there has been some breach of the Customs regulations-”
“I have no connection with His Majesty’s Customs, Mr. Trent. If you jumped to that conclusion, it was not my fault.”
Geoffrey frowned.
The questions went on, still in that diffident tone, but becoming more and more difficult to answer.
“Do you know a man called Muller?”
“Well, yes.”
“He was the assistant manager of your general trading company?”
Geoffrey raised his eyebrows.
“Was?”
Howland blinked.
“I am afraid he has been arrested.”
“What for?”
“Trafficking in illicit drugs.”
Geoffrey Trent clapped a hand to his head and exclaimed,
“Oh, my God!”
Another person interviewed by Inspector Howland was Florrie Bowyer.
“You work by the day at the Ladies’ House?”
Florrie felt pleased and important.
“Oh, yes, sir-I’m housemaid.”
“Like working there?”
“Oh, yes-Mr. Trent is ever so kind.”
“And what about Mrs. Trent?”
She wouldn’t have answered just anyone who asked her that, but this poor little man did seem so shy you kind of felt you’d got to help him out. She dropped her voice and said,
“She’s been ill-sometimes she’s ever so strange. You won’t say I said so.”