Mr. Zero

XXII

Every window in the study at Cole Lester was shut. The central heating was of a modern and highly efficient type. There was a blazing fire on the deep old-fashioned hearth. Sylvia Colesborough sat on one side of it in a leather-covered chair whose rich crimson threw up the gold of her hair and the pallor of her skin. She wore a thin black dress and an air of extreme fragility. Colonel Anstruther, who had perforce to occupy the seat on the other side of the fire, was being more painfully reminded every moment of a brief and unpleasant period of service in the tropics. His face was almost as red as the leather of his chair. The bald spot on the top of his head glistened. He mopped his brow. Even if the temperature had been some thirty degrees cooler, Sylvia’s confidences might well have brought him to the verge of apoplexy. With Inspector Boyce sitting at Francis Colesborough’s writing-table and taking notes, she had told the Chief Constable all about Mr. Zero from the first telephone call. In a plaintive voice she had described the visit to Wellings, and what friends she and Poppy Wessex-Gardner were-“but Buffo’s just a little bit dull, don’t you think?”-and had then gone on with artless candour to explain how she had opened Mr. Montagu Lushington’s despatch-case and taken out the envelope which Mr. Zero wanted. “And of course it doesn’t sound a very nice thing to do, and I didn’t like doing it a bit, but he said he’d tell Francis about my playing for money when he told me not to, and I was so frightened I’d have done anything, because, you know-” here Sylvia leaned forward a little and gazed at him earnestly-“because, you know, I’d lost five hundred pounds, and I can’t think what he’d have said.”

Colonel Anstruther could have said a good deal, but he restrained himself.

“Now, Lady Colesborough, will you tell me this? When did this Mr. Zero give you the instructions about taking the envelope?”

A tiny line broke the whiteness of Sylvia’s forehead.

“Well, it was on the Saturday-Saturday last week-”

“Yes, yes, but what time?”

Sylvia looked vague.

“Well, I’d had my tea-and I hadn’t started for Wellings-because of course he couldn’t have rung me up if I’d started, could he?”

Inspector Boyce covered his mouth with his hand for a moment. Colonel Anstruther’s little fierce blue eyes looked as if they might at any moment pop right out of his head.

“So I expect it was about five,” said Sylvia with a sigh.

Inspector Boyce made a note of the time. So did a quiet nondescript little man with sandy hair who was standing by one of the closed windows. His name was Brook, and he represented the Home Office, but so unobtrusively that it was difficult to remember that he was there at all. Sylvia had forgotten him long ago. For the most part he gazed abstractedly at the rain, and the wet grey terrace, and the wet green lawn. Sometimes he turned the same blank stare upon the room and its three occupants, sometimes he made a note. He made one now.

Colonel Anstruther blinked.

“And what time was it when you went into Mr. Lushington’s room and took the envelope?”

Sylvia leaned back again.

“I expect it was about half past seven-or eight-but I don’t think it could really have been as late as that, because we were dining at a quarter past eight-because of Francis, you know. He told me to say he was afraid he was going to be late, and he was-we were half way through the fish, so I expect it was about a quarter to eight really. You see, I waited till I heard the bath water running.”

Colonel Anstruther’s complexion took on a livelier ruby.

“Bath water? Whose bath water?”

“Well, I had to wait till he was in his bath-I mean it wouldn’t have been safe, would it?”

“Whose bath are you talking about, Lady Colesborough?”

Sylvia looked surprised.

“Mr. Washington ’s.”

Colonel Anstruther failed to repress a snort. He said in a military voice,

“Lushington, madam-Lushington.”

“I never can remember his name,” said Sylvia. “You see, Poppy and Buffo call him Tags.”

Inspector Boyce’s hand went up to his mouth again. He had a sense of humour, but he did not expect it to intrude upon a murder case. Colonel Anstruther was given up to whole-hearted wonder as to why, if murder was the order of the day, Lady Colesborough had escaped.

After an interval he proceeded.

“You say that you never saw Mr. Zero.”

“Oh, no. You see, it was always on the telephone or in the dark. And I met a man the other day who said that they were inventing something so that you could see people on the telephone, but I don’t know that I want to really-because, I mean, you might be having your bath or anything, mightn’t you?”

Inspector Boyce produced a very large white handkerchief and blew his nose. Colonel Anstruther raised his voice perceptibly.

“When you handed over the envelope which you had taken from Mr. Lushington-Lady Colesborough, will you kindly give me your attention.”

Sylvia fixed her eyes upon him with the expression of a docile child.

“Don’t you see, madam, that anything you can tell us about this man is of extreme importance? You say it was dark and you did not see his face, but he took the envelope from you. Did you see his hand? I think you said he had a torch?”

“He had a glove on his hand,” said Sylvia, unexpectedly lucid.

“What kind of a glove?”

“Oh, just a glove-the sort men wear-I expect you do yourself.” Her lips parted in a small ingratiating smile which had no effect.

“Did you notice at what height the hand was?”

Sylvia looked blank.

“Don’t you see, Lady Colesborough, that if the man was tall, the hand which he put out to take the envelope would have been at a higher level than if he had been short? Come over here, Boyce, for a minute.” He turned his head. “And, Mr. Brook-if you would be so good-”

The little man came over from his window. Superintendent Boyce looked down upon the top of a sandy head which barely reached his shoulder.

“Now,” said Colonel Anstruther, “if you will each put out a hand, Lady Colesborough will be able to see what I mean.”

Sylvia gazed earnestly, first at the tall, good-looking Inspector, and then at Mr. Brook, that least noticeable of men. She said in a horrified voice,

“Do you mean that one of them is Mr. Zero?”

Inspector Boyce very nearly disgraced himself. His face stiffened and assumed strange tints. Mr. Brook remained unmoved. Colonel Anstruther said in the tone of a man who prays for patience without a great deal of hope that his prayer will be granted,

“Certainly not. I wish you to observe the difference in the height at which they are extending their hands. I want to know whether this suggests anything. Cast your mind back to the drive at Wellings. You gave that envelope to a man who put out his hand to receive it. Look at the Inspector, look at Mr. Brook. Try and remember whether Mr. Zero’s hand was as high as the Inspector’s or as low as Mr. Brook’s.”

Sylvia looked, and said, “I don’t know. But I’m sure he was tall.”

“Why?”

“Because he was-I mean, I always thought of him that way-at least I don’t know-I did then, but not afterwards.”

“Excuse me, Colonel Anstruther-” said Mr. Brook.

Colonel Anstruther nodded a “That’ll do, Boyce,” and the Inspector went back to his notes.

Mr. Brook brought up a small hard chair and sat down.

“Now, Lady Colesborough,” he said in a soft, pleasant voice, “I want just to ask you one or two questions.”

“I’m so tired of them,” said Sylvia.

“I’m sure you are, but I just wondered what you meant when you said that at first you thought Mr. Zero was tall but not afterwards.”

Sylvia looked blank.

“I don’t know-I just thought he was.”

“You thought he was tall, and then you didn’t think so?”

She brightened a little and said, “Yes.”

“What happened to alter your impression? I mean, why did you think he was tall at first, and then stop thinking so?”

“Oh, but I didn’t,” said Sylvia a little breathlessly.

Mr. Brook was of an admirable patience. He said,

“Will you try and tell me what you mean? It’s very interesting, you know.”

She smiled and relaxed. It was nice to feel interesting. She liked him much better than the old man with the red face. She really tried to remember.

“When he rang me up-you know, just before we went to Wellings-I thought-well, I thought it was wonderful of him to help me, because I was feeling as if I should die if Francis found out what a lot of money I’d lost, and it was all on the telephone, and I didn’t notice about his being tall or anything like that, but when I gave him the envelope in the drive at Wellings he-somehow he frightened me, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know,” said Mr. Brook in his sympathetic voice. “Please go on, Lady Colesborough.”

“I was dreadfully frightened,” said Sylvia with a catch in her voice. “I ran all the way back to the house. That was the time I was sure he was tall. You know how it is-there’s a sort of up in the air kind of feeling about the way they talk.”

Mr. Brook smiled encouragingly.

“I know exactly what you mean. You would have that feeling about the Inspector perhaps, but you wouldn’t have it about me.”

Sylvia looked pleased. She liked Mr. Brook. The cross old man kept pretending not to understand what she meant, but Mr. Brook knew at once. He had a nice soft voice too.

He said, “Then that was the first time you were actually in contact with Mr. Zero, and you got an impression that he was tall?”

Sylvia’s lovely eyes widened.

“Oh, no,” she said.

“But, Lady Colesborough-”

“It wasn’t the first time.”

“Well, just for the moment I thought we would leave out the telephone conversation you had with him. I suppose that was really the first contact?”

The word puzzled Sylvia, but she said “Oh, no” in quite a heartfelt way.

Colonel Anstruther’s reaction was, “Well, he’s getting it now. I wish him joy of her in the witness-box.”

Mr. Brook showed no sign of disturbance. He said gently,

“Tell me about the first time, will you?”

The little line which meant that Sylvia was puzzled showed for a moment just between her eyes.

“Do you mean the first time he telephoned?”

“The first time he did anything,” said Mr. Brook firmly.

“Oh, that was on a Friday, because I’d just been having my hair done-shampoo and set, you know.”

“You remember it by that?”

“I always remember about my hair,” said Sylvia in a reverential tone. “And he rang up and said he was so sorry-about my losing all that money, you know-and if I would meet him, he was quite sure something could be arranged.”

“Did he say how he came to know you had lost this money?”

“Lots of people knew, but they wouldn’t have told. It was at a party I went to with Poppy. I didn’t know most of them.”

“I see,” said Mr. Brook. “Let us get back to Mr. Zero. He asked you to meet him. And did you?”

“Oh, yes, I did. We were coming down here, and he said if I met him just after twelve o’clock by the window in the yew walk-”

“Then last night was not the first time you had met him there?”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t. And he said would I like to earn some money-”

“One moment, Lady Colesborough-when did he say this?”

Sylvia looked surprised.

“When I met him.”

“I see. And that was down here at Cole Lester at midnight on Friday the twenty-ninth of January?”

“I suppose it was. He said such a lot of things, and it’s so difficult to remember.”

Mr. Brook’s voice was very persuasive.

“Try and remember just what happened when you met him-what he said-what impression he made on you.”

“He said he wanted to help me, and he said would I like to earn a lot of money, and I said I would. And he said I could quite easily, and then he told me how.”

“He knew you were going to Wellings?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Did he mention Mr. Lushington at that time?”

“I don’t know. I suppose he did. Oh, yes, I know he did, because he seemed to think I ought to know about his being something in the Government.”

“You didn’t know Mr. Lushington was Home Secretary?”

“I can’t remember that sort of thing,” said Sylvia in a helpless voice.

Mr. Brook smiled at her.

“It’s dull-isn’t it? Now, Lady Colesborough, I’m not going to bother you any more, but I would just like to know what impression you got about Mr. Zero the first time you met him by the window in the yew hedge.”

“He was outside, and I was in-I didn’t see him at all.”

“He was outside, and you were in all the time, just as you were last night. Well now, how did he seem-all tall, and up in the air?”

“Oh, no, he didn’t. I wasn’t a bit frightened of him then.”

“Thank you, Lady Colesborough. I don’t think we need keep you now. I suppose your husband never mentioned Mr. Zero to you, did he?”

Sylvia, glad to be gone, was already out of her chair. She said with unmistakable truthfulness,

“Oh, no. He didn’t know anything about him. That was the only reason I did it-so that Francis shouldn’t know.”