CHAPTER XX
STILL MORE ABOUT BILLY CLEVEDON
AND now I come to a very pretty and pleasant little adventure which has its own place in the sequence of events. Only part of it came under my own immediate observation; the rest I had to piece together by adroit questioning and the aid of a little imagination.
It began with Kitty Clevedon, who, as she was crossing the park that partly surrounds Hapforth House, was a little startled to see an aeroplane coming rapidly to earth. It alighted only about sixty yards away, and a young man jumped out and came towards her.
“Hallo! Kitty Clevedon, by all that’s lucky!” he cried. “I thought it was, which was why I gave the order to come down.”
“Jimmy! but you are a stranger,” Kitty returned smilingly, as they shook hands. “Are you still in the Air Service? I thought you had been de—”
“Oh, yes, this is my own. I do it for fun now. Care to step aboard the old bus and see what it is like?”
He helped her in and then gave some signal she did not comprehend, and up they went.
“What are you doing?” Kitty demanded. “You have no right to take—”
“None at all,” he admitted cheerfully. “But it would be a dull world if we only did what we have a right to do, wouldn’t it?”
“You must let me get out, Jimmy,” she said, stamping her foot.
“I’m not stopping you,” he retorted, with a laugh, “but it’s a longish step down to Mother Earth—about 600 feet, I should judge. Would you like to have a look out? You are not frightened, are you? Have you ever been up before?”
“Yes, twice,” she replied. “No, I’m not frightened—of the aeroplane.”
“Well, you’re not frightened of me, anyway,” he said. “I’m fierce, but not frightful.”
He pulled back a leathern flap, disclosing an opening, through which he thrust his head. “You ought to go in for flying, Kitty,” he went on. “It’s the real sport—there’s nothing like it. Motoring is tame—and I tell you what, I’ve a good mind to carry you off to see old Billy and butt in on his honeymoon.”
“Billy!” she cried, turning on him suddenly. “Do you mean my brother?”
“Here, steady on!” he said. “You’ll have the old bus over if you jolt us like that.”
“You must put me down at once,” she went on. “I must see Mr. Holt and Mr. Thoyne. Do you hear? At once.”
Jimmy Trevor saw that she was serious, and immediately gave the order to descend.
“I’m awfully sorry, Kitty,” he said. “I was only—it was only a bit of a joke. I would like to apologise, if you—”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Kitty replied sharply. “Only be quick, and don’t talk until we are out.”
“But you will forgive—”
“Oh, yes, yes; and now don’t talk. Let me think.”
They made a safe landing, and Jimmy helped Kitty to alight.
“Now tell me,” she demanded, turning on him suddenly, “do you know where my brother is?
“Why, yes,” he replied, evidently a little mystified at her manner.
“And—and did you say—honeymoon? Is he—married?”
“Good Lord! didn’t you know?” he shouted. “Have I put my beastly number nine foot into it again? He didn’t tell me it was a secret. I was his best man, you know, and saw them off to Jersey for their honeymoon. But he said nothing about keeping it secret. Didn’t you know?”
“Will you come with me to see Mr. Holt?” Kitty asked.
“I will go anywhere you say, anywhere at once,” Jimmy replied.
Kitty started off immediately in the direction of the village, Jimmy Trevor keeping pace with long strides, muttering apologies to her and imprecations on himself at intervals. As they passed through the big gates into the main road they met Thoyne, who glanced at her companion a little questioningly. Jimmy Trevor was a very personable youth, and jealousy is easily aroused.
“Oh, Ronald, this is Mr. Trevor,” Kitty said. “He—he knows where—where Billy is.”
“The devil he does!” Thoyne cried. “And where is he?”
“He is”—she began to laugh a little hysterically, then pulled herself up—“on his—his honeymoon.”
“His honeymoon!”
Thoyne stood stock still in the middle of the road and gazed, first at Kitty and then at Jimmy Trevor, who grinned appreciatively.
“It seems to be news,” the latter said dryly. “Didn’t you know? Am I making the first announcement? I seem to have created a sensation by posing as an amateur Morning Post. Why shouldn’t Billy get married if he wants? And she was a deuce of a nice girl, too!”
“But—the murder—!” Thoyne stammered.
“Murder? What murder? We are talking about a marriage, not a murder.”
“The murder of Sir Philip Clevedon,” Thoyne replied rather angrily. “You must have heard of it.”
“Not a word,” Jimmy responded. “I’ve been abroad, and only returned to England two days ago. Sir Philip Clevedon—why, that’s—then Billy is Sir William and doesn’t know it.”
“We must tell Mr. Holt,” Kitty broke in, and Thoyne nodded his agreement.
And thus it was that they came to me with their story. I listened to them in silence and then put a few questions.
“Had Clevedon arranged that you should be his best man?” I asked Trevor.
“Not at all,” he said, “nothing of the sort. I met him quite by accident on Midlington station, and—”
“It was February 23rd.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Yes, it was February 23rd right enough, because that was the day I had to be in London. It had been fixed up with the lawyer chaps, Finns and Tregarty, who did all my uncle’s business. I went down from Blankester by a train that stops five minutes at Midlington—beastly hole it is, too! Looking out, I saw Billy on the platform. We were at school together, you know, and then in France—good pals. He pulled me out of a damned mess once—a good story that, which I’ll tell you some day. He’s one of the very best, is Billy. I shouted out to him, ‘Billy, Billy,’ and he came up. ‘Good egg, Jimmy,’ he said, ‘I was getting a bit fed up with my own company.’ There was a vacant corner seat, and he took it and we travelled to London together.”
“What time would that be?” I interrupted.
“Let’s see; it was the 11.23 at Midlington, and 4.7 in London. We put up at the Terminus Hotel, both of us, had dinner there, and went to see Jimson’s Joy Ride at the Lyric. Then we trotted round to one or two places we know of and got back to the Terminus at 1 a.m., and so to bed, as What’s-his-name would say.”
“If we could make absolutely sure of the date—” I began.
“The date is right enough,” Jimmy Trevor replied. “You don’t come into a little wad of fifteen thousand pounds every day, and that date is in red letters in my almanac. But ask the lawyers—they’ll have it down—or try the Terminus Hotel. Our names will be in the register.”
“Well,” I returned, “you went to see Jimson’s Joy Ride, then to bed. Next morning—?”
“‘I’ve got to go to Jersey!’ Billy said to me, ‘to get married. The young lady is there, waiting for me—suppose you come with me and be best man.’ I had four weeks or so empty and plenty of money, so I said ‘Right ho!’ The lawyers had come down with some coin and didn’t want me for a bit until they’d straightened things some more. And then Billy got a telegram, ‘Lost my luggage; bring some clothes—Elsie.’ So off he went to a large shop and interviewed the manageress. ‘I want some clothes for a young lady,’ he said, ‘all sorts of clothes: nightdresses, stockings, whatever young ladies usually wear; plenty of them, and some frocks—and you see that young lady over there with the red hair?’ The manageress cast her optics round. ‘Yes, I see her,’ she said, ‘but you’d better not let her hear you describe her hair as red.’ Old Billy was a bit put out. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but she is about the build. What’ll fit her will fit the other.’ It was all easily arranged—anything is easy to arrange, you know, when you have the money to pay for it, and Billy seemed to have plenty. He came out of the shop carrying a brand new suit-case containing about eighty pounds’ worth of female garments. When he told me about it I said he was a silly Juggins; that what the telegram had meant was that he was to go to her flat and tell her maid to pack another box; which is what she told him when we got to Jersey. ‘We’ll do both,’ Billy said, and we went to the flat and got another lot of feminine mysteries. So we got to Jersey, and I saw him tied up and then went on to St. Malo. That’s how I never heard anything of Sir Philip Clevedon, and I bet Billy’s heard nothing, either.”
“And who is the—the girl?” Kitty demanded, quite naturally a little angry when she recollected the suspense and misery she had endured through her brother’s unexplained absence.
“She’s Elsie MacFarren,” Jimmy replied.
I knew her quite well. Miss Elsie MacFarren was a youthful American actress who had come across with a boisterous Yankee comedy, entitled Chick Tottle’s Turnout. The play itself had been a failure, but Elsie had been a success, and had remained here to earn one of the big salaries the British theatre-loving public willingly pays to those who take its fancy. She was not only pretty, but clever; and invitations to return to America—invitations heavily larded with dollars—were cabled to her at short intervals. But she stayed here proof against all temptations.
“And now,” I added briskly, “the next thing is to wire Sir William Clevedon to return immediately. He must come back. His presence here will dispel a lot of suspicion, and the story of his romance will counteract some ugly rumours. We will meet them in London.”
When I told Pepster the story I thought he would never stop laughing.
“This case,” he said, “is the absolute limit.”
“You’ll come with us to London?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for a fortune.”
We duly met the honeymoon couple at Paddington.
“Where the hell have you been?” Thoyne demanded harshly.
“Where?” Billy echoed. “On my honeymoon. There is Mrs. Billy Clevedon, and—”
“No,” I interrupted suavely; “Lady Clevedon.”
He swung round facing me.
“Who the hell are you, and what the devil do you mean by that?” he asked.
“Sir Philip Clevedon is dead,” I replied quietly.
He stood glaring at me for a moment or two, as if he thought I was mad, then, reading confirmation in the faces around him, he turned to his wife.
“Do you hear that, Elsie?” he shouted. “Sir Philip is dead, and I am Sir William, and you are My Lady, and, yes, by gad! I’ve got pots of money. By Jove! yes. Poor old Philip—he was a bit of a—but there, he’s dead. What a life it is!”
“The fact is,” I went on, cutting short his excitement, “that Sir Philip Clevedon was murdered, and”—I paused a moment or two so that I might get the full effect—“there is a warrant out for your arrest.”
“Murdered!” he echoed. “Arrest!”
“Well,” Pepster interrupted slowly. “I wouldn’t say arrest. The police are interested—you see, your absence seemed to require—”
“And where the devil do you come into the picture?” the new Sir William demanded.
“I—oh, I am the police,” Pepster retorted.
“But, surely,” Kitty said haltingly, “Mr. Trevor has proved—Billy was in London on the night of the 23rd—an alibi—”
“There can be no alibi in a poison case,” I returned gravely. “The crime is committed, not when the victim dies but when the poison is placed—wherever it is placed. For example, if I were to put prussic acid now in some whisky which you were to drink next Sunday, I might go off to Paris, or be on the high seas far off enough, anyway, when you drink the whisky, but I should still be guilty of—”
“Is that the story?” Billy broke in. “Did I put prussic acid in Philip’s whisky? Come, we’ll get back to Cartordale. I am Sir William and White Towers belongs to me. I’m going to take possession. And if anyone thinks I killed Sir Philip, well, let them prove it and be damned to them.”
He broke off with an angry laugh and stood facing us. His lovely little bride thrust her hand through his arm.
“Yes,” she said, in that musical voice of hers that had charmed huge crowds on two continents, “let them prove it and—be damned to them!”
But her laugh was one of real amusement. Lady Clevedon was looking forward to enjoying life and had no objection to a sensation or two. Possibly she had found the honeymoon just a trifle slow. Anyway, she made a charming picture of loyalty and confidence as she stood arm-in-arm with her husband facing those who were practically accusing him of murder.