The Grell Mystery. Frank Froest
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‘She always was headstrong,’ remarked the Duke of Burghley to the devilled kidneys, and stared moodily into the fire.
Since his wife had died he had always been governed by his impetuous, strong-willed daughter, and accepted the situation philosophically so long as he had his books and his club. He led a complacent life from which he was rarely stirred. But he was hit harder than he cared to admit by the way in which she accepted the tragedy. He wondered vaguely what he ought to do, and decided to consult Brown—Brown being the senior member of his firm of family solicitors.
In his room at Scotland Yard Superintendent Heldon Foyle, a cigar between his teeth, was studying the book which his staff was compiling. Already it formed a bulky volume of many hundred typewritten pages. Here were reports, signed statements, photographs, personal descriptions, facsimiles of finger-prints, telegrams, letters, surveyors’ plans, notes—everything, important and unimportant, that might have a possible bearing on the case. The superintendent turned over the pages with a moistened forefinger, and made a note now and again on a writing-pad by his side.
‘Puzzling cases are like a jig-saw puzzle,’ he had once said. ‘You juggle about with the facts until you find two or three that fit together. They give you the key, and you build the rest up round ’em. But it’s no good trying to do it unless you’ve got your box of pieces complete.’
His box of pieces was not complete, and he knew it. Nevertheless, he could not resist trying to fit them together. But the announcement made by his clerk of the arrival of Lady Eileen Meredith came while he was still puzzling. She stood in the doorway, a dainty figure in furs, a heavy veil drawn over her face.
‘Mr Foyle?’ she asked hesitatingly.
He bowed and wheeled a big arm-chair near his desk.
‘Yes. Won’t you sit down, Lady Eileen? You have just missed one of our men. I sent him round to break the news to you. I need not tell you that we recognise how you must feel in these terrible circumstances. We shall trouble you as little as possible after you have answered a few questions.’
He was studying her shrewdly while he spoke, and her strange composure struck him at once. Even to her he had decided to say nothing of the identity of the murdered man. That could wait until he had had a better opportunity to judge her.
She sat down and rested her chin on one slim, gloved hand, her elbow on the desk.
‘That’s very good of you,’ she said formally. And then broke direct into her mission. ‘Have you found out anything, Mr Foyle?’
‘It’s rather early to say anything yet,’ he hedged. ‘Our inquiries are not completed.’
‘There is no need for further inquiry. I can tell you who the murderer is.’
Superintendent Foyle coughed and idly shifted a piece of paper over the notes on his blotting-pad. His face was inscrutable. She could not tell whether her statement had startled him or not. For all the change in his expression she might have merely remarked that the weather was fine. Had it been anyone else he would have said that before the day was out he expected a dozen or more people to tell him that they knew the murderer—and that in each case the selection would be different. As it was he merely said with polite interest—
‘Ah, that will save us a great deal of trouble. Who is it?’
‘He is—I believe him to be Sir Ralph Fairfield.’
The superintendent’s eyelids flickered curiously; otherwise he gave no sign of the quickening of his interest. He was a judge of men, and although Fairfield had rebuffed him he did not believe him to be a murderer. Still, one never knew. Those who kill are not cast in one mould. If Sir Ralph had slain Goldenburg in mistake for Grell, and Lady Eileen knew there must be a motive—for that motive he had to look no further than the beautiful, unsmiling face before him.
‘You realise that you are making a very grave accusation, Lady Eileen?’ he said. ‘What reason should there be?’
She spoke rapidly, steadily, and he did not interrupt her. His pen rushed swiftly across the paper, taking down her words. They would presently be neatly typed and added to the book. When she paused, he replaced the pen tidily in its rack.
‘This is what it comes to—that at eleven o’clock Sir Ralph said Mr Grell was with him. You say that you had refused an offer of marriage from Sir Ralph, and think that he murdered Mr Grell from jealousy. I may say that, though we know Sir Ralph was at his club for dinner and at eleven o’clock, we can find neither servants nor members who can say for certain that he was there at the time the murder was committed.’
She caught her breath. ‘Then it was he!’ she exclaimed eagerly. ‘Bob had not another enemy in the world. You will arrest him.’
‘Not yet,’ Foyle retorted, and noted that her face fell. ‘All this is only suspicion. We must have proof to satisfy a jury before we can do anything with a man in Sir Ralph’s position. And now, if you don’t mind, I should like to put a few other questions to you.’
When she left after half an hour, Foyle threw back his head with a jerk.
‘A pleasant girl,’ he commented. ‘Seems wonderfully anxious to have Fairfield hanged. I suppose she was really infatuated with Grell. You never know how women are going to take things. I wonder if I can get a set of his finger-prints. That ought to settle the matter one way or the other, so far as he is concerned. But it won’t clear up what Goldenburg was doing in Grell’s place. I’ll have to fix that somehow.’
THE overmastering energy of Heldon Foyle was at once the envy and despair of his subordinates. There was a story that once he went without sleep for a week while unravelling the mystery of the robbery of the Countess of Enver’s pearls. That was probably exaggerated, but he certainly spent no unnecessary time for rest or food when work was toward—and he saw also that his staff were urged to the limits of human endurance.
Having spent four hours sleeping in his clothes, he deemed that he had paid full courtesy to nature. He unlocked a drawer, picked out a deadly little automatic pistol, and dropped it into his jacket pocket. He rarely went armed, and had never fired a shot in his life, save at a target. But on certain occasions a pistol was useful to ‘back a bluff’. And on the mission he had in mind he might need something. He felt in his breast-pocket to make certain that the enlarged photograph of the finger-prints found on the dagger were there, and sallied forth into the dusk.
In his own mind he had definitely decided on the immediately important points in the inquiry. There was Ivan, the missing servant, to be found, as also the Princess Petrovska. The police of a dozen countries were keeping a look-out for them. Then there was the knife with its quaint, horizontal hilt of ivory. Rigorous inquiry had failed to elicit its place of origin, yet so strange a weapon once seen would infallibly be recognised again. Finally, there was the question of Sir Ralph Fairfield.
The evening papers had seized avidly on a mystery after their own heart, and glaring contents-bills told of ‘Millionaire Murdered on Wedding Eve. Strange Mystery’. But Foyle had already seen the papers. He held straight on for the Albany.
‘Was Sir Ralph Fairfield in?’ The question was superfluous, for he had already seen Chief Detective-Inspector Green standing outside apparently much interested in an evening paper. And Green would not have been there unless Sir Ralph were about.
Foyle was received coldly by the baronet, and his quick eyes noted a half-empty decanter on the table. Fairfield was palpably nervous and ill at ease. He was plainly distrustful of his visitor’s purpose. The detective was apologetic and good-humoured.
‘I have come to apologise for my rudeness at Grosvenor Gardens,’ he began. ‘I was worried, and you were, of course, upset. Now we are both more calm, I come to ask you if you would like to add anything to what you said. Of course, you’ll be called