Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 19, No. 99, February 1952
- Автор: Грубер Фрэнк, Кемельман Гарри
- Год: 1952
- Язык: английский
- Год: American Mercury
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 19, No. 99, February 1952». Краткое содержание книги:
“Did Alice stay in Brussels all that time?”
“So they said.”
“Well, they must have written to her to tell her of her father’s death!”
“That’s what they said.”
“And she answered the letters?”
“So they said.”
“Then she must have been in Brussels?”
“Not necessarily. If a dead woman could sign checks for over sixty years, she could answer letters for two.”
“You never saw her when she came back?”
“No, that’s what made me begin to think. If she’d been alive she would have come to me. She’d have wanted to talk about Harry.”
“Was she very much in love with him?”
“Desperately. She’d have done anything for him.”
“What do you think really happened, Mrs. Reason?”
“Mr. Raynor knew. He paid the other man to pick a quarrel with Harry and kill him. Of course, he didn’t tell her that. But he saw that she didn’t trust him and he strangled her that very night.”
“And the body?”
“He buried it in the garden.”
“Weren’t there any servants in the house?”
“Yes, two poor scared creatures. They lived in the cottage at the back.”
“Did you ever ask them any questions?”
“No, they left when Mr. Raynor died. Before I’d begun to be suspicious.”
“And was Mr. Raynor’s death accidental?”
“Of course it wasn’t! She was there, haunting him. She tripped him up with the silken ladder.”
I got up slowly and looked at the glasses again.
“How much are these rummers, Mrs. Reason?” I asked.
“Thirty shillings the pair. They’re good ones. You couldn’t do better.”
“Then I’ll take them... Do you think we’ve heard the last of Alice Raynor, Mrs. Reason?”
“I don’t see why, Mr. Spenlove. If she stayed on all this time it must have been for some purpose. Alice won’t go until she gets what she wants.”
I paid the thirty shillings, hoped that her arthritis would improve, and walked home with the rummers in my hand. There hadn’t been many discrepancies in the story since the last time. But the hand shutting the window was new, and before it was to Paris not Brussels that Alice had been sent. These seemed to be signs that I had just been listening to the maunderings of an old woman’s mind. It certainly was odd that Mrs. Reason was the one person who had never seen Alice Raynor in the streets. Odd, too, that the stone mason had been taken ill so suddenly. But how could one get over the milk bottles and the bank account? Surely the simple, obvious explanation was the true one. It was not that Alice Raynor’s body had died and her spirit remained alive; but rather, as is much more common, that her spirit had died while her body remained alive. That happens to many people. And in spite of all the stories, the only reasonable thing to think was that Alice Raynor had really gone to Brussels and really come back, that she had really grown old and really been killed by a German bomb.
Thus I argued all the way home and for several days afterwards; but I cannot say that I ever entirely convinced myself that Alice Raynor had died in 1940, and not in 1871.
There were no more bombs on the little Kentish town during the war; even the doodlebugs flew harmlessly over it, and the rockets never strayed as far as that. After the first cleaning-up nothing more was done to The Walled House: it remained a scar and became a playground for the noisier children. This was partly for lack of labor and building materials and partly because nobody yet knew to whom the wreckage belonged. So the willow-herb planted itself there, as it did in London, and made quite a show where the delphiniums used to be. Nothing more was seen or heard of Alice Raynor, and with the death of Mrs. Reason in 1942 even the stories about the lady of the Cameo seemed unreal and legendary.
Then one day, when the war had been over for eighteen months, they began to pull up the street that led to The Walled House. No one knew what it was all about at first, but then at the same time timber and bricks began to be unloaded where the house used to be, and finally it became known what was going to happen there. We were going to have a brand-new, automatic telephone exchange.
I don’t think anyone was very pleased when they heard about this. For one thing, when the building began to take shape, it was new and low and long and failed to tone in with the old surroundings. And for another, we resisted change in any form. We were quite satisfied with the old system; and though the operators were slow at times, we should miss the cheerful girl who would inform us when we rang a certain number that it was no good because the owner of that number was in Canterbury having a hair-do.
However, when progress is being wished on you there is not much good resisting. The low oblong building grew brick by brick, and soon it was having a roof put on it. We were relieved when we saw that it was a tiled roof and not slate or corrugated iron. At the same time mysterious complicated machinery was being installed inside, and the day came when they took away our old receiver and gave us a dialed one instead. It was another three months before we were permitted to use the dial; but when we did, we were surprised to get our number rather more quickly than we had in the old days. And finally, the first monthly bill came in.
I frowned when I looked at it, and frowned again when I studied the details. I then looked across at my wife Marjorie who was sitting opposite me at breakfast.
“Darling.”
She looked up from the births, deaths, and marriages, which she always studied before she let me have the paper.
“Yes, darling.”
“You’re not having an affair with someone in London, are you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Or going to an expensive dressmaker?”
“No.”
“Then why are you always ringing up Mayfair?”
“But I’m not always ringing up Mayfair, darling.”
“Well, I’m certainly not. And there it is!”
Marjorie studied the list of calls which I had handed her.
“What fun!” she said at last. “I must be having four affairs, not just one. They’re all different numbers!” It was time for me to go to work and nothing more was said on the matter for the moment. When I came home in the evening Marjorie was in a state of great excitement. I should explain perhaps that Marjorie is a very credulous woman. That is, except when I am trying to pull a fast one on her myself. Then she is quite different.
“Darling!” she began. “I think I know what’s been happening.”
“About what?” I asked vaguely. I had forgotten about the telephone bill.
“The calls to Mayfair. We’re not the only ones.”
“Of course we’re not. Everyone gets telephone bills if they have a telephone.”
“Don’t be silly, darling. The Adamsons and the Greggs have both been charged with calls to Mayfair that they never made. They’ve written in, complaining.”
“Oh, well, I suppose they’re bound to have teething troubles with a new exchange.”
“But it isn’t a question of teething troubles at all. Have you noticed that they are all night calls.”
“Well, no, I haven’t.”
“They’re all one and sixpenny calls. They’d have been two and three if they had been day calls.”
“All right. So what?”
Marjorie looked more mysterious than ever and sat down beside me. Then she went on breathlessly.
“It was in Hyde Park that Harry fought his duel, wasn’t it?”
“According to Mrs. Reason, yes.”
“And where did he live?”
“According to the same rather doubtful source, he lived in Hertford Street at the corner of Shepherd’s Market.”
“That’s quite near Hyde Park?”
“Very near.”
“And it’s in Mayfair?”