Christopher Quarles Part 12

"Did Mrs. Fitzroy have many visitors?"

"None to speak of. Not half a dozen people have called upon her since I have been here. I believe she had no relations. Once or twice a week she would be out all day, and occasionally she has been away for a night or two."

"Where has she gone on these occasions?" I asked.

"I do not know."

"And her correspondence--was it large?"

"She received very few letters," the servant answered; "whether she wrote many, I cannot say. I certainly didn't post them."

"Did she use the telephone much?"

"She gave orders to the tradesmen sometimes, and I have heard the bell ringing occasionally. You see, the kitchen is a bas.e.m.e.nt one, and the bell might often ring without my hearing it."

"Did your mistress smoke?" Quarles asked suddenly.

"No, sir."

"How do you know she didn't?"

"I have heard her say she didn't agree with women smoking. Besides, when doing the rooms I should have found cigarette-ends."

"That seems conclusive," said Quarles. "Yesterday was Wednesday, your night out?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is Wednesday always your night out?"

"It is."

"From six to ten?"

"Yes; it is a standing arrangement; nothing ever interferes with it."

"Very interesting," said the professor. "Now, of course you know what your mistress was wearing when you left her alone in the house last night?"

"A brown dress with----"

"I don't want to know," Quarles interrupted. "But I want you to go to your mistress's room and find out what hat and coat and what kind of boots she put on last night. She wouldn't be likely to go out dressed as you left her. You had better go with the young woman, Baker."

He spoke in rather a severe tone, and, when the girl had left the room with the constable, I asked him if he suspected her of complicity in the affair.

"My dear Wigan, as yet I am only gathering facts," he answered, "facts to fit theories. We may take the following items as facts: Mrs.

Fitzroy did not smoke. She had few visitors. She received few letters.

Once or twice a week she was out all day. The servant's night out is Wednesday. Yesterday, being Wednesday, a taxi waited for a considerable time in Melbury Avenue. The driver has brought his fare to Melbury Avenue on previous occasions."

"And the theory?" I asked.

"Theories," he corrected; "there are many. If the taxi came on Wednesdays on the other occasions, the fare may have smoked this kind of cigarette. If so, he may be the man who kidnapped Mrs. Fitzroy. He may have been hurrying the lady down the narrow path while Baker and his companion were standing on the front door step. Out of such theories a score of others come naturally."

"By this time they may have heard of the driver at the police station.

Shall I telephone?"

"Not yet," said Quarles. "We will try and discover how Mrs. Fitzroy was dressed first."

"And meanwhile we are giving our quarry time to escape," I said.

"We must risk something, and we haven't got enough facts to support any theory yet. I wonder whether Mrs. Fitzroy did use the telephone much?"

The speculation threw him into a reverie until Emma Lewin returned with the information that her mistress must have gone out dressed just as she had left her. No hat nor jacket nor wrap of any kind was missing, and she had not changed her indoor shoes.

"Thank you; that helps us very much. I don't think you can help us any more at present." And then, when the girl had gone, Quarles turned to Baker. "I understand you searched the house last night for Mrs.

Fitzroy?"

"We did."

"Was it a thorough search--I mean did you look into every corner, every drawer, every cupboard for some sign of her? Did you explore the cellars, which, I expect, are large?"

"It was not quite as thorough as that," said Baker, trying to suppress a smile at the idea of finding Mrs. Fitzroy in a drawer, I suppose.

"You expected to find the lady lying on the carpet here?"

"Well, sir, I thought it likely at first; but, with the garden gate unfastened and the taxi in Melbury Avenue, I don't doubt the lady went that way."

"After telephoning to the police that she was being murdered?" said Quarles.

"I don't suggest that she went willingly," said Baker.

"But you do suggest that, being convinced she had gone, your search of the house was not very thorough?"

"I didn't mean to suggest that, either, sir," answered Baker, some resentment in his tone.

"We want Zena here, Wigan, to ask one of her absurd questions,"

Quarles went on. "I'll ask one in her place. Why was the police station rung up at all?"

"The woman rushed to the 'phone for help, and----"

"My dear Wigan, the directory is open at the page giving the number of the police station. What was her a.s.sailant doing while she turned up the number and rang up the exchange?"

"Probably he wasn't in the room, and her woman's wit----"

"Ah, you've been reading sensational fiction," he interrupted. "Let us stick to facts. The call must have been a deliberate one and would take time. There was evidently no desperate struggle in this room last night. The position of the two chairs by the hearth suggests that two persons at some time during the evening were sitting here together--one of them a man, since the hearth shows that he smoked.

The time would be somewhere between six o'clock, when the servant went out, and nine-thirty, when the telephone message was received. If Baker can fix the time of the taxi's arrival in Melbury Avenue, perhaps we can be even more accurate."

"The taxi wasn't there at half-past seven," said the constable.

"Then we may say between seven-thirty and nine-thirty," said Quarles.

"Now the only thing which suggests violence of any kind is the instrument hanging over the table. Had the person using it been forcibly dragged away, the instrument might have fallen in that position, but it would have been a stupendous miracle if the receiver had swung to its place on the hook. No, Wigan, the receiver was replaced carefully to cut the connection, and the instrument was probably hung as it is deliberately to attract attention. I come back to my question, then: Why was the police station rung up at all?"