First of all he had to demand Detective-Sergeant Stock. There was a delay. He was asked politely to state his business. He said his business was with Detective-Sergeant Stock.
“I’m sorry, sir. Detective-Sergeant Stock is not available. Who is calling him?”
“It doesn’t matter who’s calling. I want to speak to him personally.”
“He’s not on hand, sir. Will you leave a message?”
“No, I will not leave a message!”
He slammed the receiver down hard. He paced the still untidy flat, his mind erupting. The police! What was the good of the police? When you wanted them, they were never available.
It was quite a few minutes before he got round to the thought that he should have left the telephone number for Stock. Or he should have asked where he could get in touch with Jordaens, if the fellow were still in England. He took another turn or two before he started for the telephone again. Then, as he reached out a hand, the instrument exploded into ringing noise.
Scotland Yard! They had traced his call! Or wasn’t that possible with the automatic exchanges?
“Hello!” he said angrily.
“Hello! Is Dr. Maclaren there?”
His heart jumped as he recognised the voice. “Dr. Maclaren speaking,” he said weakly.
The voice said: “This is Ruth Meriden. I didn’t recognise your voice. You were shouting. I just thought you might like to know that I have been visited by the police.”
“Oh!” He was still recovering.
“You don’t seem very interested. Anyway, it was nothing. Just routine questions. When I said I had never met Kusitch, that was almost the end of it. There was nothing about the yawl.”
“I didn’t think there would be. Was the fellow a Belgian, named Jordaens?”
“No. He was from Scotland Yard. Quite a pleasant person. Not at all the sort you led me to expect.”
“Not Detective-Sergeant Stock?”
“Yes. That was the name.”
“Oh!”
He thought he would tell her about his burglar, but hesitated. It might alarm her. He must consider it first.
“You sound odd,” she said. “Has anything happened?”
“Nothing of consequence.” He had a sudden wish to see her again, a wish that made everything else appear trivial. “May I run out tomorrow?” he asked her.
“If it’s anything important, you’d better tell me now,” she answered. “Tomorrow is impossible for me. I’m going to be busy. I have to call at the Blandish Gallery in the morning.”
“What about lunch?”
“No good, I’m afraid.”
“Oh! Well… let me know if you find anything in the diaries.”
“Of course. I must be off now. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
It sounded inane to him even while the words were being said. He put the telephone down slowly. He held it for a moment on the cradle, then snatched it up quickly, moved by sudden fear.
“Hello!” he called. “Hello! Hello!”
He was too late. There was just a dialling tone. He replaced the instrument again and reasoned against his anxiety. It was absurd. She could be in no danger. The fact that his flat had been entered that afternoon was almost an assurance of her safety. No one had followed him to the country. The shadow had been otherwise engaged, and had secured what he had been after all along, the registration number of the yawl. Even if the man deduced from the gibberish of Charley Botten that the yawl was the property of John Quayle Meriden, there was nothing to lead him to Walden House. The only possible contact with her was through Botten’s friends, the Pascoes in Falmouth; and the Pascoes were unlikely to give the address to a stranger. It was certain that, too, Kusitch had not helped them much; otherwise his murderers would have gone straight for their objective, instead of chasing after a harmless doctor.
So the girl was safe…
He looked at his watch. He wanted to confirm his reasoning. He called up Charley Botten, but got no response.
The second time he called up, Charley gave him his confirmation. He had tried every available source for Meriden’s address before telephoning to Falmouth.
“Do me a favour, Charley,” Andrew urged. “Phone Pascoe again and ask him to see that the address is given to nobody; not even to Scotland Yard.”
“What the devil are you up to?” Charley demanded.
“Sticking my long neck out, only it isn’t so long.” He tried to speak lightly but in his own ears sounded merely feeble. “Will you make that call to Falmouth at my expense?”
“I will if you’ll tell me what you’re doing.”
“Not tonight. I’m busy.”
Andrew went to a restaurant in the neighbourhood for an early dinner. His purpose was less to get a meal than to find out if he were still being followed. Before he reached the restaurant he was reasonably certain that there was no one on his trail. Going home, he took a circuitous route and made elaborate tests. The result was negative. He felt quite pleased with himself when he bolted the door of his flat. He was no longer being watched, and the enemy had got virtually nothing for his pains. At this moment of satisfaction, he decided against a second effort to report the burglary to Stock. He could not give up this important evening to the further entertainment of Inspector Jordaens and his taciturn yes-man. He had far too much to do.
He proceeded to do it. He sat in Lang’s armchair with tobacco, cigarettes, and the Meriden diaries on the table beside him. The books he had brought from Walden Hall covered the years from 1944 onward. Ruth Meriden had promised to examine the diaries from ‘39 to ‘43, but he believed he had selected the more promising period. The yawl must have been recovered after the war, if it had been recovered at all, but he began with the year ‘44 and read steadily for two hours, taking up one book after another. He made coffee, rested a while, then returned to the job.
The diaries were the dull, stupid reflections of a dull, stupid man. John Quayle Meriden had loved John Quayle Meriden dearly; and in this passionate affair there had been room for no other person. He had been absorbed completely by everything about himself. His purchases, his collections, his hates, his petty vengeances, what he said to a careless servant, even the state of his digestive tract, everything was recorded with remorseless attention to detail. And throughout it all, recurring like an hallelujah, was the John Q. Meriden word of praise and triumph-”cheap.”
“Bought copy of the Canova Venus cheap… Am offered two genuine Copleys cheap… Got onto Pierce-Arrow in good condition cheap… Mill and cottage cheap… brasswork cheap… cheap
… cheap… cheap…”
Ruth Meriden was a constant cause of displeasure. The school reports were never good enough, the fees were always too high. It was a sheer waste of money, because the girl, like her useless mother, had nothing in her. No culture. No talent. Give her domestic training and marry her off. Get rid of her.
Yet there had been quite a storm when Ruth had insisted on going to Aunt Clara in Belgium in the second year after the war’s end. Why couldn’t she finish her education in England? And, anyway, a girl of eighteen should be thinking of settling down, acquiring some sense of responsibility, preparing for the great fortune she would inherit.
That was curious, and there was to be more of it. It went on as if John Quayle Meriden had suddenly taken a new view of himself. He was now the devoted guardian whose one aim had been to accumulate a store of wonderful things, of money and property, for the girl. And his reward was that she must go gadding about in Europe with the detestable Aunt Clara.
Then sculpture! More expensive lessons. Not worth the money. The girl had no idea of art, making tinkling toys out of wire and bits of brass. And this, after all the trouble he had taken to surround her with the great works of the Masters. If she wanted sculpture, let her look in the garden at Cheriton Shawe.
He had grandiose plans for the restoration of Walden Hall, as soon as an ungrateful government had settled
