MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES - British Murder Mysteries Collection: 17 Books in One Edition. Marie Belloc Lowndes
morning of pent-up emotion, and of really hard work, had tired him out—made him feel, too, suddenly very hungry. He got up and took his hat off the peg on the door, intending to snatch a hasty meal at a restaurant in Victoria Street hard by.
Then, just as he was turning towards the door, the telephone bell rang. With a feeling of irritation he took up the receiver.
“Yes?” he called out impatiently.
And then there came over him a thrill of intense joy, for the voice which said in a tremulous tone, “Is that you, darling?” was Ivy Lexton’s voice.
She had not called him “darling” once, since her return to London, and that though he knew she often used the endearing term, even to the pet dogs of her women friends.
“Of course it is,” he answered tenderly. “How are you, dearest? A little less tired and”—he forced himself to add the word—“unhappy?”
And then he heard her voice again; but now it was full of a kind of cold urgency.
“I’ve something so dreadfully important to say to you—are you alone in the house?”
“Absolutely alone,” he called back reassuringly.
He did not count Mrs. Huntley, the old woman who lived a door or two off, and who “did” for him, as anybody.
“Please don’t say my name, and I won’t say yours. Telephones are tapped sometimes, and I’m so—so frightened,” came the whispered words.
There followed a long pause, and Gretorex suddenly felt filled with an unreasoning sensation of acute apprehension. There had been that in Ivy’s tremulous tones which he had never heard there before—a note of horrible fear.
“Are you listening?” came at last the beloved voice, sounding now startlingly near.
“I can hear you perfectly.”
“Something so dreadful has happened! I don’t know how to tell you. It’s so—so strange. You’d never guess what it was!”
He tried to curb his anxiety, his suspense, his impatience.
“What is it that has happened?” he asked quietly.
Again there followed a long unnatural pause. Then, at last, Ivy Lexton breathed the words:
“The doctors found out yesterday that poor—you know who I mean—did not die what they call a natural death.”
“Not a natural death?” he repeated in a tone of amazement. “What do you mean, darling?”
“They say he died of some kind of poison.”
“Poison! D’you mean he committed suicide?” he asked incredulously.
“Oh, no, they don’t think that.”
Then, in a tone of great relief, she added: “But I suppose he may have done so.”
Gretorex felt not only exceedingly surprised, but inexpressibly shocked as well.
“I should be very loth to believe that,” he said at last.
“What I really want to tell you is that a dreadful man has been to see me this morning. He’s only been gone about half an hour. I was afraid to telephone from my own—” She waited a moment, then uttered the word “house.” “I’m speaking from a call office.”
“What did the man say? Who was he?” he asked.
“He had to do with the police and he said he was going to see you as soon as he’d had something to eat. I said you generally went to your club to lunch, and that you wouldn’t be back before three.”
“Why should he want to see me?” Gretorex said wonderingly.
“He seemed to know so much about you. So much”—her voice sank—“about us. He asked me such funny questions, darling. Of course I told him—I told him,” her voice faltered, “that you were just a great friend of mine and of—you know of whom?”
“So I am. So I was——”
But Roger Gretorex was no fool, and his whole being had become flooded, these last few moments, with an awful sensation of dismay and foreboding.
“Tell me exactly what it was this man asked you, and what you said to him, my pet?”
He tried to make his voice sound confident and reassuring.
“I can’t tell you everything over the telephone. It would take too long. He wasn’t really disagreeable. In fact, we ended up quite good friends. But he said it was his duty to find out the truth, as that horrible man—you know whom I mean?”
“No,” he called back rather sharply, “I have no idea whom you mean! Can’t you speak plainly, darling? No one is in the least likely to be listening over the wire.”
And then she breathed the one name that she did breathe during that strange, to Gretorex that terrible and ominous, telephone conversation.
“I mean Dr. Berwick, of course. He told them, I suppose, about you.”
“Who do you mean by ‘them’?”
“The people at Scotland Yard.”
“But what could Dr. Berwick tell anybody about me?”
“That you used to come to the flat—that we were friends.”
And then, in an imploring voice that was scarcely audible, she murmured:
“You won’t give me away, dear? You will never let anyone know that——”
Interrupting her he exclaimed, “There’s nothing to give away! You and I have only been friends—nothing more.”
He felt a thrill of relief when she said, in a more natural tone:
“That’s exactly what I said. I mean that’s what I told the man who came from Scotland Yard. I think he did believe me at last, but——”
“Yes?” asked Gretorex anxiously. “But what, my dear?”
“I was silly enough to let out that you had been rather fond of me, in a sort of a way.”
“I’m sorry you did that. I’m afraid that was a mistake. I mean——”
“I know what you mean! The moment I’d said it I saw what a mistake I’d made! But he spoke as if he already knew such a lot, or at any rate, some part of it.”
He said patiently, “What part of it?”
“That even if I didn’t care for you, you had been very fond of me.”
“I don’t see that our private affairs are anyone’s business but our own,” he said savagely.
She answered despairingly, “Neither do I. But there it is! I know he’ll talk about me to you.”
Gretorex felt as if he were living through a hideous nightmare. What could, what did, all that Ivy had said, and was saying, mean?
“There’s something else I must tell you and warn you about, before I ring off. The man actually asked me, darling, if I’d ever been to see you—I mean alone. Of course I said no, that I had never been alone to see you. Why should I? But I did tell him about the time I came to tea with Rose Arundell, when Captain Chichester came too. The man from Scotland Yard is sure to ask you about that—at least I’m afraid so.”
“About my tea-party? Why should he?”
“No, no,” she cried shrilly.
Then, in a low tone, she uttered the words, “He’ll certainly ask you whether I ever came to see you alone, at Ferry Place. Don’t you understand?”
“I hear what you say. But everyone we know is aware that we’ve been great friends. There’s no mystery about