"I wondered if it might be a good scheme to get Mr Templar to help me," Valerie went on. "I mean, he seems to have quite a crush on me, so he'd probably be glad to do it if I was nice to him, and he must have had loads of experience at ferreting about and detecting things."
"Grrr," said Mr Fairweather.
If possible, he improved on his performance with the word "but." This time, in one primitive ululation, he added to his symphonic integration of emotions the despairing dolour of the camel whose backbone is just giving way under the final straw, the shuddering panic of the hunted hyena which feels the tiger's fangs closing on its throat, the pitiful expiring gasp of the goldfish which has just been neatly hooked from its bowl by a hungry cat.
"Of course I've been cursing myself for not thinking of it before," said Lady Valerie penitently. "I mean, if those papers really were terribly important, I suppose I ought to have said something about them at the inquest. That's where I'd like your advice. Do you think I ought to ring up Scotland Yard and tell them about it?"
Mr Fairweather had no new depths to plumb. He was a man who had already done all the gamut running of which he was capable.
"Listen," he said with frightfully muted violence. "You must put that idea out of your head at once. The police have no discretion. Think — think of how it might hurt poor Johnny's father. And whatever happens, you mustn't say a word to Templar. You haven't told him about those papers yet, have you?"
"No, not definitely. But you know, I believe he guesses something about them. He's terribly suspicious. Two or three times this evening he asked me if Johnny had ever given me anything to keep for him, or if I knew where Johnny might have kept his private papers. But he can't do anything to me, because I thought I'd better be on the safe side and so I've taken plenty of precautions. You see, Celia Mallard probably knows where I left those papers, and I've written to her about them. She's at Cap d'Ail now, but I'll probably hear from her in a day or two."
"Celia Mallard knows where they are?" moaned Fair-weather. "How the devil does she know?"
"Well, I seem to remember that she was with me when I dumped them, and she's got a perfectly marvellous memory, so she'll probably remember all about it. I told her in my letter that they were worth thousands of pounds, and that the Saint was after them, and so if anything happened to me she was to go straight to the police. That ought to stop the Saint doing anything really awkward, oughtn't it?"
Mr Fairweather's mouth opened. After all his other vicissitudes, he underwent the culminating sensation of having been poured out of a frying pan into an ice-cold bath. The contrast steadied him for a moment; but he shivered.
"I suppose it might," he said. "But what made you say the papers were worth thousands of pounds?"
"I don't know. But I thought, if they really are terribly important, they're bound to be worth a lot of money to somebody, aren't they?" she said reasonably.
"That doesn't follow at all," Fairweather said firmly. "But — er — you know that I'd see you didn't lose by it, in any case. Now, will you let me know directly you hear from Celia Mallard, or as soon as you remember what you did with them? And — um — well, if it's a matter of money, you did tell me once that you needed a car to go with that fur coat, didn't you?"
"How could you?" she said pathetically. "To talk about that fur coat now, and remind me of poor Johnny… Please don't talk to me about it any more; I don't think I can ever bear to hear it mentioned again. You're making me feel dreadfully morbid, Algy, and I've had such a tiring day. I think I'd better ring off now before I break down altogether. Good-bye."
The receiver clicked.
"Wait a minute," Fairweather said suddenly.
There was no answer.
Lady Valerie Woodchester was walking back across the bright modernistic sitting room of her tiny apartment on Marsham Street. She fitted a cigarette into a long holder and picked up the drink that she had put down when she telephoned. Over the rim of the glass she looked across to a small book table where there was propped up the cheap unframed photograph of a dark and not unhappily serious young man.
"Poor old Johnny!" she said softly. "It was a lousy trick they played on you, my dear…"
Mr Algernon Sidney Fairweather jiggled the receiver hook. He took a coin out of his pocket and poised it over the slot; and then he hesitated, and finally put it back in his pocket. He left the booth and made his way to the bar, where he downed a double brandy with very little dilution of soda. His plump cheeks seemed to have gone flabby and his hands twitched as they put down the glass.
Twenty minutes later he was waddling jerkily up and down the carpet of a luxurious room overlooking Grosvenor Square, blurting out his story under a coldly observant scrutiny that made him feel somehow like a beetle under a searchlight.
"Do you believe Her when she says that she's lost this cloakroom ticket?" Luker asked.
He was as calm as Fairweather was agitated. He sat imperturbably behind the huge carved oak desk where he had been writing when Fairweather blundered in and toyed with his fountain pen. The expression in his eyes was faintly contemptuous.
"I don't know what to believe," said Fairweather distractedly. "I — well, thinking it over, I doubt it. I've had enough dealings with her to know what her methods are, and personally I think she's fishing to see how much we're prepared to pay."
"Or how much Templar is prepared to pay," said Luker phlegmatically. "Did you know that she had dinner with him tonight at the Berkeley?"
Fairweather blinked as if he had been smacked on the nose.
"What?" he yelped. His voice had gone back on him again. "But I particularly told her to have nothing more to do with him!"
"That's probably why she did it," Luker replied unsympathetically. "I had an idea that something like this might happen — that's why I've been having them watched. For all you know, he may have put her up to this."
Fairweather swallowed.
"How much do you think she'll want?"
"I don't know. I don't think I care very much. It doesn't seem to be very important. Money is a very temporary solution — you never know how soon you may have to repeat the dose. This cloakroom story may be a myth from beginning to end. She might easily have these papers in her dressing-table drawer. She might easily have no papers at all. Her attitude is the thing that matters; and with this man Templar in the background it would be unwise to take chances." Luker shrugged. "No, my dear Algy, I'm afraid we shall have to take more permanent steps to deal with both of them."
"W-what sort of steps?" stammered Fairweather feebly. "H-how can we deal with them?"
That seemed to amuse Luker. The ghost of a smile dragged at the corners of his mouth.
"Do you really want to know?" he asked interestedly.
"You mean…" Fairweather didn't seem to know how to go on. His collar appeared to be choking him. He tugged at it in spasmodic efforts to loosen it. "I–I don't think so," he said. "I…"
Luker laughed outright.
"There's a sort of suburban piousness about you and Sangore that verges on the indecent," he remarked. "You're just like a couple of squeamish old maids who hold shares in a brothel. You want your money, but you're determined not to know how it's obtained. If anything unpleasant or drastic has to be done, that's all right with you so long as you don't have to do it yourselves. That's how you felt about getting rid of Kennet. Now it's Templar and Lady Valerie. Well, they've got to be murdered, haven't they?"
Fairweather wriggled, as if his clothes were full of ants. His face was glistening with sweat.