The Greatest Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding Collection. Dorothy Fielding

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      CHAPTER 9

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      POINTER too, was making for Kew, also for the home of Sir Richard Ash, in his quality as one-time partner of Vardon's cousin.

      The house inside showed the unmistakable signs of a large family, and small means. But the comfortable, untidy, drawing-room struck a pleasanter note than many a prettier one.

      It rang of happy hours.

      Sir Richard was a small, dapper man, with eyes alert and bright.

      "I suppose your call has to do with my late partner's unfortunate cousin," he began without preamble, once the greetings were over and Pointer seated, "Mr. Dorset Steele telephoned us of his trouble."

      The door opened, and Barbara came in. She had just got back.

      She was about to leave the two alone with a murmured word of apology, when her eyes fell on the stranger's card that Sir Richard Ash had laid on a table near the door.

      "Oh!" she came closer, "are you—is that—"

      "I'm from New Scotland Yard," Pointer said with a bow. He thought that she had one of the most taking faces that he had ever seen. Her eyes, at once fearless and penetrating, rested on his in a mute question.

      "Oh, Mr. Chief Inspector, have you found out yet if it was—an accident?"

      "My dear!" her father said gently, but she kept her eyes on the detective officer.

      Pointer was moved by that look.

      "Perhaps I could tell you something—" she began, "something about Mr. Vardon. You know, we're engaged?"

      "My dear!" her father said again gently.

      Pointer looked at her very kindly. Nothing short of absolute necessity would have made him question her. He, who knew so well what snares his questions often held! Not willingly would he lay the burden on her young heart of wondering afterwards if it had been something that she had said, or failed to say, which had led her lover to his death. For, it might yet come to that.

      "I think I shan't need to trouble you," Pointer said easily, "but thank you for the offer."

      Her father looked relieved. She only watched the more intently, trying to read what lay behind the words. A little of the truth she guessed, and went very white.

      "There's nothing like routine-work in a case of this kind," Pointer assured her. "And perhaps if I might speak to Sir Richard—"

      "Alone," chirped Sir Richard in great relief, "my dear—the Chief Inspector's time—"

      "But daddy, you can't tell him as much as I can."

      Pointer saw that there was nothing for it but the truth.

      "It's this way. Suppose you wished afterwards you'd put things differently, mightn't it worry you? I don't think it would be quite fair to you, just because you and Mr. Vardon are engaged."

      She said no more, and left them. It might seem a dreadful thing of which to suspect a nice girl, but the Chief Inspector would have been unwilling to bet on the point, so certain did it seem to him, that outside, with her ear against the door jamb, Miss Ash would have been found.

      "How long has Miss Ash been engaged?"

      Now that was just the question at issue between Barbara and her parents. Sir Richard always attributed it to the wonderful intuition of woman that Barbara hugged him quite especially that night. He replied:

      "She tells us that they became engaged about a week ago. They intended to keep it to themselves till the young man should have a more assured future."

      "You have no objections to the match?"

      "Apart from his lack of means, none at all. I like Philip Vardon. He's been very unfairly treated in the past, to my thinking, and taken it splendidly."

      "You mean?"

      "His Cousin Branscombe's will. Philip Vardon should have had the land left him. Every foot of it was Vardon. It came to Clive Branscombe through his mother. But he was one of those men whom a handsome, imperious woman can twist around her little finger. And Mrs. Tangye, poor soul, was both those things."

      "Otherwise a nice woman?"

      "Most certainly."

      "Ever anything against her? Hint of scandal, or that sort of thing?"

      "Not a breath."

      "Did she strike you as a very, how shall I put it—lawabiding woman? I mean, do you think she would ever lend herself to anything illegal in any way?"

      Pointer was thinking of blackmail.

      "The last woman in the world," Sir Richard assured him with a smile, and very definitely.

      "Or to be mixed up in anything illegal?"

      "Or to be mixed up in anything not strictly above-board, and most respectable. In fact her respectability—I should say—was a shield and buckler nothing could get past."

      He tried Ash on another tack, but Sir Richard СКАЧАТЬ