Below Suspicion (13 page)

More than the throb of a headache shot through Butler's brain. His hands tightened on the arms of his chair.

"Besides," Joyce went on, "you're too—too healthy. That's why "

"I see. You interest me very much. Then I am not observant?"

The tone of his voice made Joyce Ellis look up quickly,

"To the whole bench of high-court judges, all twelve of them sitting in a row," pursued Butler, "you could give quite a fascinating lecture on the subject of observance. Forgive me, Miss Ellis, if it does not interest me."

Then Joyce cried out at him. "Oh, won't you ever listen to anybody?"

"On occasion, of course."

"Don't you even want to hear what I have to say?"

Butler got up coolly, glancing at his wrist-watch.

"Some other time, perhaps. If you'll excuse me, I have a number of appointments this morning. I know you'll understand."

"Of course," said Joyce. And, as he made a movement towards the bell: "Don't bother to have anyone show me out, thanks."

Perversely, his conscience smote him. Or perhaps it was because, he told himself, she did have a remarkably fine figure.

"Perhaps," he suggested, "if you could have dinner one evening...."

Joyce whirled round at the door.

"I don't intend to see you," she told him in a thin, light voice, "until I can tell you the name of the real murderer."

Butler laughed outright. "More power to you! But do you think," he asked quizzically, "you can find the solution before I do?"

"I can try," said Joyce. She moved softly across the old polished boards of the passage, and was lost in white mist with the closing of the front door.

It seemed to him, as he stood in the dim room under the walls of old books, that he ended ever)' meeting with her either by cursing her or admiring her—sometimes both. The idea of Joyce as a detective, solving anything, greatly amused him. But the idea of Joyce, and everything connected with Joyce, was swept out of his mind when he met Lucia Renshaw for lunch.

Butler arrived at Claridge's more than half an hour early, just in case it should occur to Lucia to be half an hour early too.

Since by Government order it was not yet time to turn on electric lights, the big foyer at Claridge's had been illuminated by tiers of candles, many reflected in mirrors. They mellowed and softened the walls to a dream-like scene out of the eighteenth century.

But the electric lights were on again when Lucia, half an hour late, hurried through the revolving-doors, up the few marble steps, and greeted him with a face of distress.

"I couldn't get a taxi!" she explained. Then she regarded him with real reproachfulness. "\Vhy are you laughing?"

"I wasn't laughing. Honestly."

"But you were!"

'T was only thinking about Dr. Fell. First about a silver candelabrum," he nodded round the foyer, "and then about that grotesque question: 'Do ladies nowadays still wear garters? Not even red garters?' "

"Patrick," observed Lucia, after a slight pause, "that's not very funny."

"I know it isn't. I was simply wondering what in sanity's name he was talking about. Shall we go in?"

The little brasserie, with its red-leather upholstery and its circle of Swedish hors d'oeuvres, was so crowded that they had to wait for a table. All this time, and during lunch, Lucia made small-talk with a brightness which (her companion could guess) concealed sheer terror. Arrest seemed imminent; the minutes crawled. Her attractiveness, the blue eyes and fair hair set off by a blue costume under the mink coat, drew strength and vitality from that very fear. And how he admired her courage!

They were sitting side by side. Not until the coffee had arrived, and they had both lighted cigarettes, would Lucia refer to any of the tortures in her mind. For some time she had been furtively studying the red leather upholstery. Then she spoke abruptly.

"This Dr. Fell. He's got an awfully big reputation, I know. But he's feeble-minded or something!"

"No, Lucia. I'm afraid not."

She twisted round to look at him. "But you heard the stupid kind of questions he asked!"

"Yes. There were times when I thought he was crackers. But let's face it, which I sometimes won't: Gideon Fell is nobody's fool."

"I even heard," exclaimed Lucia, "that he got into an awful flap about a silver candelabrum; and it was only one of the ordinary candelabra in the drawing room!"

"Yes," agreed Butler. Puzzles, like doubts, gnawed at him. "The reason Dr. Fell got so interested, as far as I could see, was that one of the candle-sockets wasn't clean."

"But it was clean!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Kitty," Lucia assured him rather breathlessly, "told us about it this morning. It upset Miss Cannon, because poor Agnes wants everything spick-and-span. We looked downstairs, and every socket-holder was highly pohshed."

"It wasn't highly polished last night, Lucia. I can testify to that. Somebody must have—"

Butler paused. His headache had gone; his wits were alert. That word 'somebody' was beginning to lurk in his mind like a masked face.

"Never mind," he said. "I've got two pieces of news for you."

"Oh? Good news?"

"First of all, you're having dinner with me tonight."

If this was not what Lucia expected, she did not show it. She showed neither hesitation nor coquetry. Putting down her cigarette on the edge of the saucer, she looked full at him in a way that dazzled him.

"I'd love to," she answered, "if you'll let me make a suggestion. I—I think I understand you well enough to know you won't be shocked. Could we dine and dance at some thoroughly disreputable place?"

Butler was delighted.

"By George, we can! And we will!" But a busy barrister, whose life is fairly circumspect, has a limited knowledge of places that can be called thoroughly disreputable. "That is," he added, "if you can think of one."

"J know of one," Lucia said quickly. "I've never been there, but they say it's terribly amusing. You don't," said Lucia, disregarding grammar, "you don't know who you're dancing with."

QO BELOW SUSPICION

"How do you mean, you don't know who you're dancing with?"

"Never mind!" Lucia brushed this aside, with a quick deep breath. "You'll seel Have you got pencil and paper?"

He gave her a pencil and the back of an old envelope.

"I can't remember the name of the club," Lucia went on. "But here's the address." She wrote down 136 Dean Street, underscoring it, and then handed back envelope and pencil. "It's in Soho. And afterwards"—Lucia's woman-of-the-world's air contrasted oddly with the childish innocence of her mouth—"are you game for a real adventure without even asking what it is?"

"Am I!" exclaimed Patrick Butler of the County Antrim. "Am I! Just try me and see! Tell you what—I'll send the car round for you tonight. . . ."

"No, no, no." Lucia spoke in a low voice; her eyes were eager. "You couldn't take a hmousine into that district. No formal dressing, either; wear your oldest clothes. I'll meet you there at eight o'clock."

Their conspiratorial intimacy had increased; Lucia touched his hand.

"If they do arrest me," she breathed, "I'm going to have some fun first!"

"That was the second piece of news I had for you," said Butler, and leaned closer. "I told you last night you weren't to worry."

"Why not?"

"Because now I know how to prove your innocence."

"I wish you'd tell me about that, Mr. Butler," struck in a new, heavy voice from close at hand.

Lucia jumped as though she had been stung. Butler too felt a twinge. Standing by their table, looking down with an expressionless face, was Superintendent Hadley of the C.I.D.

Hadley, even in his ancient raincoat, did not look at all out of place here. He was tall and square-shouldered; his hair and cropped moustache, the colour of dull steel, gave him the air of a retired military man. Patrick Butler hesitated between arrogance and friendliness.

"I didn't know a man of your position," he said, "would condescend to follow people." His hand closed over that of Lucia, who was trembling. "Mrs. Renshaw, may I present Superintendent Hadley of the Criminal Investigation Department?"

"Oh, I didn't follow you," said Hadley. He did not add that Lucia had been under what the C.I.D. call "observation" for two days. "Mind if I sit down for a moment?"

Butler beckoned a waiter, who fetched a chair. Hadley sat down opposite them, and put his bowler hat on the table.

"I don't in the least mind telling you where I stand," Butler went on, "because I believe what Dr. Fell believes. Have you seen him, by the way?"

"Saw him this morning," grunted Hadley, with a shade of wrath in his face. "He was about as comprehensible as usual."

"He believes," Butler stated, "that there's a murder organization which can operate with poison and never leave a clue."

"Lower your voice," said Hadley, without taking his eyes from the others'.

"This lunatic group," Butler insisted, "operates under some kind of 'cloak.' I don't know what. I can't for the life of me," he clenched his fists, "see how it can be deeply concerned with an ordinary candelabrum and a squiggly mark in dust and a woman with red garters. But I'll bet I can tell you who was the head of the whole group."

"All right. Who's the head of it?"

"I said, 'was' the head of it," Butler conected, conscious of the bombshell he was about to explode. "The head of it, who was poisoned so that someone else could take his place, was Mr. Richard Renshaw."

Lucia upset her coffee-cup.

It was a small cup, having little coffee in it, but it clattered harshly against the hum of talk in the restaurant. Lucia's cigarette, on the edge of the saucer, sizzled and died.

"A—a criminal?" she cried incredulously. "That's impossible!" Then, with a curious but startling inelevance: "Dick always chose my clothes, you know."

"You observe," Butler smiled at Hadley with his easy manner, "that Mrs. Renshaw knows nothing about it. That's why Dr. Fell asked all the queer questions last night: to prove she knew nothing about it." Then Butler's voice changed. 'Tind the person who took Renshaw's place as head of the murder-group, and you'll find the poisoner. What do you say, Mr. Hadley?"

The muscles tightened down Hadley's lean jaws.

"We get information, Mr. Butler. We don't give it. At the same time. . . ."

Hadley's fingers drummed on the table-cloth.

"At the same time," he went on, "I'll admit this much. Renshaw kept three separate banking-accounts under three different names." His

glance at Lucia was opaque. "If you do happen to be innocent, Mrs. Renshaw, you'll be a rich woman."

{Good God, I was light!)

Butler's fist crashed on the table. "Why don't you follow that lead, Superintendent?"

"H'm. How would you follow it?"

"A man from a firm called Smith-Smith, Discretion Guaranteed was bashed about by two wide-boys in Renshaw's pay. Smith-Smith, or whoever he is, must know the boys concerned. Trace it back from there to the middle of the Murder Club!"

There was the flicker of a smile on Hadley's hard face.

"It's an odd thing, Mr. Butler. But we've already thought of that. Smith-Smith, whose real name is Luke Parsons—well, he's discretion guaranteed, all right. We couldn't get a word out of him."

"Do you want to bet I can't?"

"I see," remarked Hadley, eyeing him up and down. "Are you thinking of jumping into this thing yourself?"

"With both feet. Yes."

"Bit risky, isn't it?"

Butler was really surprised. "Do you honestly think," he inquired, "I'm afraid of these scum? As a matter of fact, I've been threatened already."

"What's that?"

"Oh, yes. With a note straight out of Sexton Blake. 'Stay out of the Renshaw case. This will be your only warning.' " Butler spoke dryly. "I've had a good deal of professional experience with crooks. Superintendent."

"You've got a lot of them turned loose, if that's what you mean."

"That's exactly what I mean," Butler agreed amiably. "And there isn't a thimbleful of intelligence in the whole lot of them."

Hadley's jaw tightened still more.

"Will you tell me the good of intelligence," he said, "against a straight-bladed razor across your face? Or a potato full of safety-razor blades?"

"I'll worry about that when I meet it."

"Were you ever in a real roughhouse? Do you know how to use your fists?"

"No," Butler answered contemptuously. "I never bothered to learn."

"You never bothered—" Hadley stopped.

Then he leaned forward across the table, leaning his elbows on it. Hadley's hair and moustache had a steel-grey edge against the gaudy restaurant with its chattering crowd.

"Listen, Mr. Butler. These are post-war days. The whole East End has moved slap round Piccadilly Circus. Leave this kind of work to us. I'm warning you, now! Because. . . ."

"Because?"

"Because I can't spare the men to protect you!"

For a moment Butler looked at him, past the smoke of a cigarette which had burned nearly to Butler's mouth.

"And who the devil," he inquired quietly, "ever asked for your protection? Or would take it if you offered it on a plate? —More coffee, Lucia dear?"

Half an hour afterwards Patrick Butler, in all his pride, was sauntering up the stairs towards the agency listed as Smith-Smith, Discietion Guaranteed.

10

YES?" said the girl with the horn-rimmed spectacles, her bun of hair outlined against a dingy window with fading gilt letters.

It was a dreary, grimy building in Shaftesbury Avenue, up one flight of stairs. Patrick Butler observed that the office could contain only two very small rooms of which this was the outer.

Butler had already prepared his plan of attack. But, seeing that the door on his left was very slightly open, he somewhat altered the plan. Assuming his most winning smile, he sauntered across broken linoleum to the bun-haired girl by the window. That door on his left could only lead to the office of Mr. Luke Parsons, alias Smith-Smith.

"Good afternoon," said Butler. "I wonder if I could have a word with Mr. Parsons?"