WHO killed Sir John Maxell and his wife? Where had their bodies been hidden? These were the two questions which were to agitate England for the traditional space of nine days. For one day, at any rate, they formed the sole topic of speculation amongst the intelligent section of fifty million people.
The first question was easier to answer than the second. It was obvious to the newsmen that the murderer was Cartwright, whose threats of vengeance were recalled and whose appearance at Bournemouth had been described at second-hand by the detective in charge of the case. First-hand information was for the moment denied the pressmen, for Timothy, fully dressed, lay on his bed in a sound sleep. Happily for him, neither then nor later did any of the enterprising newspaper men associate the “A. C.” in his name with the wanted criminal. He was at least spared that embarrassment.
But the story of his vigil as “a friend of Sir John’s” was in print long before he woke up to find a small and impatient army of reporters waiting to interview him. He answered the reporters’ interrogations as briefly as possible, bathed and changed and made his way to the hotel where the girl was. She was leaving as he arrived, and the warmth of her greeting almost banished the depression which lay upon him. She put her arm through his so naturally that he did not realise his wonderful fortune.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” she said, “unless you know already. All my money has gone.”
He stopped with a gasp.
“You don’t mean that?” he said seriously.
“It is true,” she replied. “I believe it was very little and my loss is so insignificant compared with the other awful affair that I am not worrying about it.”
“But Sir John had money?”
She shook her head.
“I have just seen his lawyers,” she said, “they have been to the bank and there is not a hundred pounds to his credit, and that amount will be absorbed by the cheques he has drawn. He drew a very, very large sum, including my money, from the bank two days ago. You know,” she went on, “I think that Sir John contemplated leaving for America? He had already given me a hint, asking me how long it would take me to pack my belongings, and I fancy that had something to do with the telegram he received——”
“Announcing Cartwright’s escape,” nodded Timothy.
“He was so kind and so gentle,” said the girl, her eyes filling with tears, “that to me he was more like a father. Oh, it is awful, awful!”
“But you?” asked the agitated Timothy. “What are you going to do? Good heavens! It is dreadful!”
“I shall have to work,” said the girl practically and with a little smile. “I do not think that will kill me. Hundreds of thousands of girls have to work for their living, Timothy, and I shall have to work for mine.”
Timothy drew a long breath.
“Not if I can help it, you won’t,” he said. “I am sure I shall make a lot of money. I can feel it in my bones. If a man takes a job——”
“You mustn’t talk like that,” she said, pressing his arm, “and anyway, how could I let you help me or keep me? That sort of thing isn’t done—not by nice girls.”
She laughed, but became sober again.
“Do you know that Sir John was very much interested in you?”
“In me?” said Timothy.
She nodded.
“I told you so the other day. I think he liked you, because he was saying how uncomfortable you must be at Vermont House, living in that queer little room of yours.”
Timothy was startled.
“How did he know I was living at Vermont House?” he said.
She smiled.
“Vermont House happens to be Sir John’s property,” she said. “In fact, I think it is the only realisable piece of property he has, now that the money has gone.”
“What shall you do immediately?” asked Timothy.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I think the first step is to get out of this hotel, which is much too expensive for me. I have a few pounds in the bank, but that won’t last very long.”
At his earnest entreaty she agreed to see a solicitor and appoint him to save whatever was possible from the wreckage of Sir John’s estate. Two hours passed like as many minutes, until Timothy remembered that he had an appointment with a London reporter—one Brennan. Brennan he had known in his cinema days, and Timothy literally fell upon his neck.
“I’ve nothing to tell the boys that hasn’t already been told,” he said, putting down the newspaper which Brennan handed to him. “I am as anxious for news as you are. Have there been any developments?”
“None,” said the reporter, “except that Sir John had no money at the bank and no money could be found in the house.”
Timothy nodded.
“That I know,” he said, “all his securities were drawn out two days ago. That was the stuff that Cartwright was after.”
“Does Miss Maxell know——” Brennan began.
“She does know and she took it like a brick.”
“It was about twenty thousand pounds,” Brennan went on. “The only other clue the police have is that the safe was opened by Maxell’s duplicate key. The old man had two sets made, one of which he used to keep in his combination safe in his bedroom and the other he carried around with him. Miss Maxell told a story that the night before the murder Lady Maxell asked her to secure possession of the keys in order to open a bureau.”
Timothy nodded.
“I see. Is it suggested that Lady Maxell detached the key of the safe and that it was she who opened it?”
“That is one theory,” said the other, “the police have miles of ’em! They’ve got everything except the bodies and the murderer. Now come out with that story, Anderson! You must know a great deal more than you’ve told, and I’m simply without a new fact that these evening papers haven’t got, to hang my story on. Why did Cartwright come to your room, anyway? Do you know him?”
“He was an acquaintance of my father’s,” said Timothy diplomatically, “and perhaps he thought I knew Maxell better than I did.”
“That sounds pretty thin,” said the reporter. “Why should he come to you?”
“Suppose I am the only person he knew or knew about,” said Timothy patiently. “Suppose he’d been all round Bournemouth trying to find a familiar name.”
“There’s something in that,” admitted the reporter.
“Anyway,” said Timothy, “I was a kid when he went to gaol. You don’t imagine I knew him at all, do you?”
He had gone out to meet the girl, forgetting to take his watch, and now he was looking round for it.
“Here is a theory,” said Brennan suddenly. “Suppose Lady Maxell isn’t dead at all.”
“What do you mean?” asked the other.
“Suppose Cartwright killed Maxell and Lady Maxell witnessed the murder. Suppose this fellow had to decide whether he would kill the witness or whether he would go away with her? You said the motor-car which came to the house in the middle of the night was the same as that in which Lady Maxell came home. Isn’t it likely that she should have told the murderer, for some reason or other, that the car was coming, because evidently she had arranged for it to come, and that they went away together? Isn’t it likely, too, that she was in the plot, and that, so far from being a victim, she was one of the criminals? We know her antecedents. There was some trouble over her stabbing a young American, Reggie van Rhyn. In fact, most of the evidence seems to incriminate her. There is the key, for example. Who else but she could have taken the duplicate key? Doesn’t it look as though she planned the whole thing, and that her accomplice came in at the last moment to help her get away and possibly to settle Sir John?
“Take the incident of the two locked bedrooms. Obviously somebody who lived in the house and who knew the family routine must have done that. Both Sir John and Lady Maxell were in the habit of fastening their doors at night, and the servants did not go into the bedrooms unless they were rung for. It seems to me fairly clear that Lady Maxell locked the doors so that the suspicions of the servants should not be aroused in the morning.”
“If I had your powers of deduction,” said the admiring Timothy, “I should never miss a winner. Where the blazes is my watch?”
“Try under the p............