The Three Telephones
H.M. was right. It was as though we saw all these people in a new light. We knew them, yet we did not know them, and now we should come to know what they were really like. It occurred to me that I had met each of them when I was under a disguise or mask of some sort: it would be a curious study to see Mrs. Antrim's reactions when she found the Compleat Policeman sitting by the desk in ordinary clothes. H.M. evidently thought so too.
Mrs. Antrim came in at a free stride. Only her face was uncertain. The first person she looked at was Evelyn, and the two took each other's measure. Mrs. Antrim looted more brushed and neat than she had seemed at "The Larches." Her dark-yellow hair was parted and drawn tightly over the ears. Her eyelids seemed a trifle puffy, but the broad mouth was composed. She now wore a brown coat over the white silk blouse; her fingers plucked upwards at the sleeves. When Charters pushed out a chair for her, she was on such an edge of nerves that the way she thanked him was almost coquettish. Then she saw me sitting by the desk. She did not start or make any gesture: people do not do such things, especially women. It was only that her eyes looked a little more strained.
"Siddown, ma'am," said H.M., with a gentle thunder. "Now, now, you don't want to get the breeze up, a goodlookin' sex-appealin' gal like you! I say, we're sorry to, have upset the place like this, bargin' in, and —'
She seemed puzzled, and looked round. "Oh-that? That's all right. I don't mind. I couldn't have slept anyway. But why do you want me in here again? What more can I tell you? I've told you everything about the poison. I've told you everything that happened to me tonight-last night at M — Moreton Abbot." Her gaze went just past me. "I also told it to a policeman there, who turned out to be a bogus policeman. I suppose he was one of your men. Do you think it's fair?"
"Fair, ma'am? Is what fair?"
She opened her mouth, and shut it again. "What did you want to ask me?"
"Now, now. Not about any of those things, ma'am. It's some new evidence that's bobbed up since. It may sound rummy, and you may not see what I'm drivin' at, but just you answer the questions like a good gal-"
This was the best way of handling her, for it shook her up. "You needn't treat me like a child," she said coldly. "I'm quite capable of understanding that the silliest questions may be important. Or may seem so to you."
"Ahhh! That's better. What was your maiden name, ma'am?"
She remained looking fixedly at him. "So," she said in a flat tone. "You know about it, then."
"What was your maiden name?" "Elizabeth Ann Lord."
"And, if the question don't seem too insultin' what was your father's name?"
She spoke quickly. "You say was. You are quite right. My father's name was John Stuart Lord. He is dead."
"The notorious `L.'?" inquired H.M. in an exceedingly casual tone.
"So they inform me. I never knew him well. I–I have not seen him since I was a child."
"When did you learn he was dead?"
"Only three days ago. There was a notification from the police in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Also a long letter from a firm of solicitors-" Her breathing was quicker and her colour heightened: quite suddenly she seemed to drop her defences. "A minute ago I talked to you about fairness. I'll be fair, if you will. Is it something to do with my father? Is that why you've been spying on us?"
"Spying?"
She made a gesture of impatient helplessness. "We can't get anywhere, you can't even accuse me of anything, unless you come out and say what you mean. Yes, spying. That man," she nodded curtly towards me, "was spying on me tonight. And long before that. I thought, when I saw him as a policeman, that he seemed familiar — somehow. Now that I've seen you two together, I remember where I saw him before. He drove up to Colonel Charters's house early in the evening with you. He was the man Larry, my husband, saw driving away from the house. Larry heard then and there that he was there under a false name, and… well, we're not deaf or dumb or blind, Sir Henry Merrivale. We know who you are."
I have seldom in my life felt such a worm as under that brisk little lady's eye. But over H.M.'s face went a change like a shadow off the sun; I could not tell whether it was curiosity, or relief, or mirth.
"Ho ho ho," he said. "And so you thought the old man's hounds were bayin' on your trail, hey? Is that why you been nervous?"
She contemplated him.
"I do not think it is funny," she observed gravely. "Let me tell you something about myself. It is a little easier than I had anticipated. I was born in Germany, and I lived there until I was ten years old, when my mother died: that was just at the end of the war. I did not know what my father was doing. But I saw him kill a man once. It was horrible, because my father was very tall and handsome and pleasant. It was in our flat at Berlin. It was horrible, because his pleasantness did not change: he just took out a gun and shot the man, and afterwards some men came and took the body away. My father bought me a toy because I had been frightened. Several men came often to visit him."
Again I heard that curiously Teutonic inflection in her voice, which I had heard once or twice at the villa in Moreton Abbot. She shook some of it off, and gestured.
"Of course I knew what was going on. Children do. But I didn't mind, really. When the war was over, and my mother had died, I came to stay with a cousin of hers here in England. My father disappeared. I have not seen him since then, except once about ten years ago, when he came to my `aunt's' house unexpectedly and said he must lie low for a day or two, because — " She stopped. "That does not matter. I visited Germany several times. That was where I met Larry; I think he told you he studied there? Also, that was where he met Mr. Hogenauer, I think.
"But I never saw Mr. Hogenauer until he turned up in this neighbourhood some time ago. That is to say, I thought not. But all the same I could have sworn I had met him somewhere before — and I couldn't think where. I kept racking my brains and racking my brains. It wasn't until three days ago, when I got that letter from America, that I realized. It came to me all of a sudden, when I was reading the letter about my father: I saw a face. Mr. Hogenauer had been one of the men who came to our flat in Berlin when I was ten years old."
She leaned forward, hammering the palm of her hand slowly on the arm of the chair.
"And for a good many months he'd been hanging about us. Why? He was horribly secretive about himself. I thought there was some game, without knowing what game. I still don't know. Then I heard from the colonel that you yes, I'd heard all about you and something about your department were coming down here. I heard something vague about L. On the night you turned up, I had been put into such a position that I gave strychnine salts to Mr. Hogenauer by accident. On top of all that, I found on the desk-blotter in Hogenauer's study the blottings of some words from a letter he'd written, and it showed that there was something-something big, and ugly, and-" Again she stopped. "But why are you spying on us? We haven't done anything. You know that the least bit of scandal will ruin Larry's career. Why? Why?"
There was a silence, after blue devils released at last, and a breathless silence.
"I see," said H.M.
For a moment he remained ruffling the two tufts of hair at either side of his big bald head. The skull looked back at him from the desk. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Evelyn, who was studiously examining every side of her cigarette.
"Ma'am," said H.M., clearing his throat, "it's the blinkin' awful cussedness of things in general that's tangled things up for you as well as us. We've been worried about that somethin' Big and Ugly you talk about. And apparently it's a big ugly turnip-ghost: nothin' else. You've been worryin' yourself unnecessarily. We weren't spying on you."
"I don't believe you," she said sharply, and sat up.
"All right. You don't have to. It's true, though. Here, now. Let's go back to important things. Your husband knew Hogenauer pretty well, didn't he? Wait! I can see you flashin' out with that, `Not particularly, before you even open your mouth. Don't. I mean, he'd got more than a nodding acquaintance? Uh-huh. Leave it at that. Did you know Hogenauer tolerably well too?"
"No more than a nodding acquaintance. No better than I knew any of Larry's other patients. I rather liked him, really; but for some reason-maybe it was subconscious memory; don't laugh! — I felt a bit afraid of him without knowing why."
"Yes. Now…" He turned round towards me, and his mouth silently framed the word, "slush": which gave me something of a start until I remembered the cant term for counterfeit money. I got out of my pocket the inevitable £100-note, which had dogged my travels all night, and handed it over to H.M. He shook it in front of her. "Ever see this before, ma'am?"
She was evidently puzzled, and looking for traps. "Not many of them," she said. "It's a hundred-pound note isn't it?"
"It's a counterfeit note."
"Is it? I wouldn't know."
"Still and all, bein' in this neighbourhood," said H.M. persuasively, "you'd have heard all about the capture of Willoughby, the forger, and the discovery of his plant for makin' slush: hey?"
Quite suddenly Elizabeth Antrim began to laugh. It was an honest sound, and it brought honest colour to her face.
"I'm sorry. I'm terribly sorry, she told him hastily. Her blue eyes were shining-despite the puffiness of the lids. "But — you will have me up on one charge or another, won't you? So. If it's not one thing it's another. I'm not a counterfeiter. Really, I'm not. Ask Colonel or Mrs. Charters."
The question to be taken up next, of course, was that of the newspaper which Mrs. Antrim said she had found in Hogenauer's scullery, and in which the note had been wrapped up. I think we were all a good deal startled when H.M. said nothing whatever about it. He merely folded up the note and put it into his waistcoat-pocket, where he patted it like a handkerchief. Evelyn glanced up quickly from her cigarette.
"Did you know, by the way," asked H.M., without any change of tone, "that there'd been a burglary here last night?"
For several seconds the woman did not speak; she appeared completely incredulous. Then she moistened her pink lips.
"Burglary," she repeated rather than asked. "But that's impossible! I mean, nothing was stolen. When you say `last night,' do you mean…"
"I mean the night our departed friend Hogenauer called here and asked for bromide," H.M. answered rather testily. "For the sake o' clearness, let's call that last night"
"But that's impossible too-"
Again H.M. hoisted himself up. Charters and I followed, while Mrs. Antrim almost ran after him to the surgery. Evelyn remained where she was, her legs crossed, leaning back in the chair with her arm curled up over the back of it; a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, one hazel eye cocked at the ceiling. I was standing in the door of the surgery, where I could see both Evelyn and Mrs. Antrim. The latter went briskly at the window. Then she turned round with a little-girl expression which belied her briskness.
"Well, now," said H.M., almost sleepily. "Did you notice that this morning, when you came in and found the bottles switched?"
"No. I was too-occupied with other things. But I still think it's impossible!"
"Wow!" said H.M. "Impossible. How?"
She pointed to the room. "You see, Larry and I sleep in the room just over this. I'm a very light sleeper. The catch on this window is broken; look at it. It must have made a crack like doomsday. I'm certain I must have heard it."
"And you didn't hear anything? Or any noise of someone movin' about?"
"No. Besides…"
She was rapt, like a child over a toy. Bending over the scratches on the sill, she studied them. I could understand now the mind of the woman who, shut up alone with a corpse in the little back parlour of Hogenauer's villa, could yet notice the two missing books from the place where the beam of light had rested. She said, "I think Larry's got a magnifying-glass in his desk," and went out briskly into the consulting-room. Evelyn, I observed, looked mildly pained. As Elizabeth Antrim bent over the desk drawers, her back was towards us. But on the other side of the room were the polished glass doors of a bookcase, I caught the reflection of her face in it. She gave Evelyn a hostile glance-a justifiably hostile glance. It was an odd tableau, with the skull on the desk separating them. Then Elizabeth Antrim returned with a small magnifying-glass.
"They're supposed," she said, holding the glass over the scratches, "to be the marks of hob-nailed boots. But look at them. The deep edges of the scratches, the imprint that thins out, goes from here towards the window. If somebody had climbed through there, it would be just the other way round. Wouldn't it? I mean, those were made by somebody in here"
She paused.
"You're quite a Sherlock Holmes," observed Charters coldly, with that formula always used by the older generation. "You young fool (if you'll excuse me), you've proved that-"
"Y' see," interposed H.M., "there's been another theory advanced. There's been a theory that you might really have given Hogenauer bromide, and that somebody later burgled the place to do some hanky-panky." He sketched out the theory, with a sort of wooden dolefulness. "Uh-huh. But now you've proved that it couldn't have happened, and put all of you back in the ring of suspects again. You've proved somebody must have done it from inside the house."
Very slowly she straightened up, turning round towards him. She barely changed colour. I thought then, and I still think, that she was a remarkable woman.
"I'm sorry," she said, after a pause. "I'd have lied to you like a shot, and pretended it was done from outside, if I'd had the Intelligence to think of it in time."
"And also given tolerable good proof of our own innocence," said H.M. rather vaguely. The invisible fly still seemed to bother him. He lumbered out into the consulting-room, with a wandering air, as though he did not know exactly where he was going. We followed him. Elizabeth Antrim opened and shut her hands.
"There's just one other thing, ma'am," H.M. went on, when he had adjusted himself in the chair. "How many telephone extensions have you got in the house?"
"Telephone extensions?" She stopped. "I don't …"
"I know, I know. But just tell me: how many telephones are there?"
"Three. The one on the desk beside you, and one out in the hall, and one up in our bedroom."
"Now, ma'am," pursued H.M., examining his fingers, "we haven't done much of this where-were-you-at-such-and-suchan-hour in this case, because we don't know enough. But I'm goin' to ask you one question about that. Where were you about three hours ago? To be exact, where were you at one thirty?"
The blue eyes widened. "My God, there hasn't been any more-?"
"No more murderin', no. Now, now, take it easy and think. Where were you at one-thirty?"
"Why… in our bedroom, I should think. You remember, they brought me back from Moreton Abbot about midnight. You had the house full of people, so there wasn't anywhere I could go but to my bedroom. I've been there ever since, except when I've been down here with you being questioned. One-thirty!" she considered. "Stop a bit. Yes, I remember, because I was looking at the clock and thinking how long the night was and how I couldn't sleep."
"And you didn't make any 'phone calls?'
"No. Phone calls! Why should I?"
"Was there anybody with you in your room, ma'am?'
"Well, Larry was more or less constantly in and out of the room. He can't and couldn't keep still, as you can understand. I believe he put his head into the room about one thirty and spoke to me, now you mention it. But what is all this? What do you want to know now?"
H.M. waved his band. "Thank you, ma'am," he said sleepily. "That's all. Here, Sergeant, you just be a gent and escort Mrs. Antrim "
"And see that I don't confer with or communicate with anyone," the woman said sweetly, with a flashing grin over her shoulder. "I understand. You needn't worry. Larry and I won't concoct a story between us."
"— and ask Dr. Antrim if he'll just come down and see us," concluded H.M. woodenly. The woman gave us a polite nod; then Sergeant Davis's broad back blotted her out. H.M. remained twiddling his thumbs for a moment, after which he grunted and spoke cryptically:
"Y'know, that woman's got possibilities."
"I agree," said Evelyn.
"You got a temper, you have," said H.M., peering over at her. "I warned Ken he oughta look out for it. I say, what's put your back up so about that gal? She seemed nice and pleasant and attractive to me. No, don't answer. I can see your face gettin' pink. Point is, the first of the group has passed and done her mannequin-paces. Time for a first vote of the jury. What's the verdict on Elizabeth A.? Guilty or not guilty?"
"Not guilty," said Charters.
"Not guilty," said I.
"Me," observed Evelyn thoughtfully, "I reserve judgment. It seems, though, that at least one thing is established out of it. She's confirmed Stone, and his story is straight enough. I'm going to be very much interested to hear what her husband has to say: I mean our Liz's husband. There's just one thing I'm wondering about. Why didn't you ask her more about that counterfeit note?"
H.M. was querulous. "Because we've got to learn more about it ourselves, that's why. So far there are only two things we do know about it: we know it's counterfeit, and we know it was in a newspaper at Hogenauer's house. Humph. The first thing we got to find out definitely is whether it's a part of the Willoughby slush… I say, Charters: is there any way of definitely tellin' where this note came from? You didn't make a list of all the Willoughby stuff, did you?"
"Certainly," said Charters, as though he rather resented this. He had been staring curiously at the door, as though something bothered him, but now he came back to business. "I took the numbers even of the forged notes. Dammit, man, the stuff was in my safe; it wouldn't do for there to have been a mix-up. That is to say, it wouldn't do for the Chief Constable of the County to give somebody a counterfeit note out of his own pocket. I can identify that one for you easily. Shall I go over and get the list?"
"In a minute, in a minute," said H.M. querulously. He looked thoughtful. "But, oh, my bleedin' eye, ain't we goin' to be up the pole if it turns out that that hundred-quid note didn't come from Willoughby's packet?"
This stopped us for a second.
"The business," I said, "is confused enough without your trying to tangle it up still more. That note must have come from the Willoughby stuff! If it didn't — look here, you don't think there are two gangs of counterfeiters operating within a dozen miles of each other, do you?"
"Oh, no. I was just sittin' and thinkin', you understand. I was just devisin' ways and means to convey something to somebody. We won't get much forrader until we have a go at Serpos and Bowers. The idea's got into my head that Serpos is both the key and the door to this business; and that's a dual role that's goin' to bother us a whole lot. But Bowers — yes, I got great hopes of Bowers."
"The little one?" asked Evelyn curiously. "Why?"
"'Hi, cocky'," quoted H.M. "I've had one go at Bowers already, and he strikes me as being a devilish shrewd lad. Burn me, look at his conduct back at the villa in Moreton Abbot! Look at the way he saw that spindle and knob missing from Hogenauer's parlour door, and immediately tumbled to what had happened, and ducked down on the floor and found the knob before Ken's thick wits had even clicked over! That wasn't half bad, you know. Well, you've been askin' yourselves a lot of questions about that hundred-quid note; but you've missed most of the important ones. Who would 'a' been closest to it? Bowers's particular province was cleanin' up litter — like newspapers. Bowers's province was the kitchen and the scullery. If anybody was likely to observe how a big bank-note got mysteriously wafted into the Daily Telegraph, it should 'a' been Bowers. Didn't he ever read the newspapers, after Hogenauer had finished with 'em? Most servants do. And, I repeat, he's an observant lad. Finally, there's one thing I want to impress on your fat heads. Ken, do you remember only to-night, when we were drivin' up there, I gave you a list of Hogenauer's accomplishments? Do you remember what I said was his greatest accomplishment?"
"You said," I answered, "that there wasn't much about engraving he didn't know, or inks, or dyes"
"Right," said H.M., and opened his eyes slightly, just as there was a knock at the door.
"Dr. Antrim, sir," said Sergeant Davis.