“Well, Miss Silver, I thought you’d like to know that we’ve got it all cleared up-no untidy ends.”
Miss Silver, sitting rather primly upright with her hands in a small round muff of the same date as her fur tie, gave a slight cough and said,
“That must be extremely satisfactory to you.”
“Well, I like to get a job finished up. And I won’t say you haven’t been quite a help. I wouldn’t have liked anything to have happened to that girl-she’s a plucky little thing. And I don’t mind saying I shouldn’t have thought of giving her police protection if you hadn’t put me up to it. You see, you’ve got a pull on us poor policemen. Young ladies don’t come and cry on our shoulders and tell us all their secrets like they seem to do with you-though I have got daughters of my own.”
Sergeant Abbott, propping the mantelpiece and keeping most of the fire off the room, was understood to suggest that Miss Silver should impart her recipe. He got a frown from his Chief Inspector and a recommendation to use the good old English word receipt, if that was what he meant.
“That’s what my mother called it, and what was good enough for her is good enough for me. And what’s good enough for me is good enough for you, my lad, and don’t you forget it! Frenchified words may be all very well in France, but I won’t have them here in my office. And I’ll tell you what I’ve come to notice-that you give way to using them when you’re a bit above yourself. I don’t say you haven’t done a good job of work over this case, because you have-but no need to go up in the air and talk like a foreigner. And now, if you’ll stop interrupting, I’ll get on with telling Miss Silver what we’ve turned up.”
Miss Silver inclined her head.
“I should be most grateful, Chief Inspector.”
Solidly filling his chair, a hand on either knee, Lamb spoke.
“He’d covered his tracks very cleverly of course-these gentry do. And there must have been people helping him we haven’t got hold of, and can’t get hold of. As a matter of fact we shouldn’t have got hold of him if Miss Lyndall Armitage hadn’t recognized his voice when he used the same words to her that she’d heard him use to Annie Joyce. And that was a thing she didn’t tell you, did she?”
Miss Silver coughed.
“No-she kept that back. She has told me about it since. It was extremely unwise of her, and it very nearly cost her her life-and Sir Philip’s. But when I saw her she was, I think, still resisting her own conviction. You see, he had been a friend-a very much trusted friend. I think she had some lingering hope that when she put it to him he would be able to restore that trust. It is not easy for a girl to give a friend up to the police, but she ran a most terrible risk. I am glad that the constable was there, and that he was so prompt and helpful-though it was, I understand, Miss Armitage’s own presence of mind which saved them all. But pray continue.”
“Well, we traced his back history. An uncle of his was the senior Mr. Codrington’s partner-that’s how this Mr. Codrington came to take him on. He’s a qualified solicitor of course. Got bitten with Fascist ideas when they were all the go, but dropped them-or I should say appeared to drop them-when Hitler was showing his hand and they weren’t so popular. He use to go off hiking in Germany. Lots of people did, and no harm in it, but if you wanted a cover-up for any funny business it was quite a good one. Just when he definitely started working for the Nazis, we don’t know, and we’re not likely to, but he must have been playing their game for years. We’ve got Madame Dupont identified. Her name’s Marie Rozen, and she’s a nasty bit of work. I think her husband is just what she said he was-a clever hairdresser, badly broken in health and not in this Nazi business at all. They were only married just before the war-she got in here under his first wife’s name. To get back to Trent. Besides the very respectable rooms where he lodged, he kept a room over a garage in one of those streets off the Vauxhall Bridge Road. He’d an envelope on him addressed there in the name of Thomson, and the people have identified him. That’s where he changed when he wanted to be Mr. Felix or anybody else. We found a couple of wigs, one red and one grey, and all sorts of clothes, some of them very shabby, and a big loose overcoat. With that and the red wig, I don’t suppose his best friend would have known him. He kept a battered old taxi in the garage, and passed as a driver who had been called up for Fire Service. I don’t think there’s much doubt that he met Miss Nellie Collins at Waterloo and told her he was taking her to see Lady Jocelyn. She may have thought she was being driven to Jocelyn’s Holt. He could have made a long way round of it to the lane where she was found. There are plenty of ways you can waste time if you put your mind to it, and she wouldn’t think she had any reason to be suspicious, poor lady. Then, when he’d got her where he wanted, he’d make some excuse to get her out of the car and just run her down. See?”
Miss Silver coughed.
“Dear me-how extremely shocking!”
Frank Abbott put up a hand to his mouth for a moment. A gleam of cynical amusement might have been observed by his companions, had either of them been looking in his direction. His thoughts were of a lively irreverence. “The old fox-he’s cribbed most of that from Maudie, and she’s letting him get away with it-she always does. Now just how far is he really kidding himself, and just how far does he think he is kidding Maudie-and me?” His conclusion being that it was as good as a play, he resumed the enjoyable pose of listener. His Miss Silver had just proffered a neat little bouquet of compliments. His Chief Inspector was accepting it heartily, if not with grace. The atmosphere was genial.
Lamb fairly shone with satisfaction as he said,
“Well, there it is-the police do earn their pay sometimes! Oh, by the way, we found the laundry-basket. It was in the corner of his garage. Nothing inside but a lot of crumpled-up paper. I should say there’s no doubt he took it along in the taxi and waited till he saw Sir Philip come out. Then he’d only to put the basket on his head and walk in and up the stair. It sounds a lot more risky than it was. If he had both his hands up steadying the basket, it would be easy enough to tip it so that anyone he met wouldn’t see his face.”
“You put it so clearly.” Miss Silver’s voice held an admiring note.
The Chief Inspector beamed.
“Oh, well-it’s guess-work. But we’ve got it pretty well figured out. This Annie Joyce would be acting under his instructions. I think we may take it that she’d been told to drug Sir Philip and go through his papers, but meanwhile she had said or done something to make Trent suspect her. He had her followed. He knew she had got at any rate as far as thinking about coming to see you. It’s long odds she had told him what Miss Armitage had overheard. I think she’d be frightened to keep it to herself. What do you say?”
Miss Silver said gravely,
“I think she told him. From one or two things Miss Armitage said, I think Annie Joyce had a grudge against her. Miss Armitage had been very devoted to the real Lady Jocelyn. In a terribly difficult situation, she was trying very hard to maintain the old friendship and affection, but without success. I will give you her own words. They were spoken, I am sure, in deep sincerity. She said, ‘I loved her so much, but after she came back she wouldn’t let me. It didn’t even seem as if she liked me.’ ”
Lamb nodded.
“That would be about the size of it. Well, let’s take it Trent knew they had been overheard. That would give him a very strong motive for getting rid of Annie Joyce. She may, or may not, have known who he really was.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“From the enquiries I have made since his arrest, I do not find that he and the so-called Lady Jocelyn had ever met. I think he would be very careful not to expose his identity. He undoubtedly disguised himself to keep those appointments at the hairdresser’s shop, and from what Sergeant Abbott has told me of the lighting arrangements in the office there, it is clear that the heavily shaded reading-lamp could have been so disposed as to leave him in shadow whilst turning all the light upon a visitor.”