The Mortover Grange Affair/Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MISSING!
Unemotional though he was by nature, and used to sudden surprises by reason of his professional work, Wedgwood experienced a sense of unusual astonishment on hearing this piece of news. He had confidently counted on finding Avice Mortover at her post; the announcement just made took him unawares and threw him off his well-mapped course.
"Perhaps she's ill?" he suggested, lamely.
"It was her duty to send me word in that case," replied the manageress. "I've had no word. She was well enough when she left here night before last." She paused, scrutinizing Wedgwood more closely. "Are you some relative?" she asked.
"No," answered Wedgwood. "I want to see her on business. Important business—legal business. Relating to her private affairs."
"Well, you're not the first to come enquiring for her," said the manageress. "There's been a young gentleman here asking after her twice to-day, and apparently very anxious to find her. I don't know who he is, but one of the other waitresses says she's seen him here now and then talking to Avice Mortover, and once she saw him waiting outside for her when the staff left—saw her join him, in fact."
"Do you know her private address?" asked Wedgwood.
"I do—but I don't know that I ought to give it," replied the manageress. "I've just written to her there asking why she hasn't been to her work. If you call here to-morrow afternoon—"
"No," interrupted Wedgwood, firmly. "Sorry, but my business is urgent." He laid his professional card before the manageress. "You see who I am, and what," he went on. "I'm investigating some business which concerns Miss Mortover———"
"Nothing against her, I hope!" said the manageress. "Nothing———"
"No—no!" protested Wedgwood. "It's in relation to some property to which she has a claim. It's necessary that I should see her at once, and if you give me her address, of course———"
"Oh, well!" said the manageress. "It's 350 Mornington Crescent. But I shouldn't have given it if you hadn't told me who you were."
"Did you give it to the young man you mentioned?" enquired Wedgwood.
"He never asked for it! I shouldn't have given it to him, either. I suppose you'll go there now?"
"At once!" answered Wedgwood.
"Then you might tell her to let me hear from her," said the manageress. "Of course, if she's not well, it can't be helped. But we're short-handed."
Within half an hour Wedgwood was knocking at the door of 350 Mornington Crescent. It was now after dusk, but he could see enough of the house to recognize a typical lodging and boarding establishment of those parts, of the shabby-genteel, seen-better-days order, and he was not surprised when a faded, careworn-looking woman opened the door to him.
"Miss Mortover at home?" enquired Wedgwood. "Miss Avice Mortover!"
Instead of replying the woman held the door open more widely, motioning him to enter. She closed it when he had stepped in, and still preserving silence ushered him into a front parlour and turned up a solitary gas jet.
"Is it some relation of Miss Mortover's?" she asked, eyeing the detective timidly.
"No!" replied Wedgwood. "But Miss Mortover knows me. I want to see her on business."
The woman shook her head in a fashion that denoted perplexity.
"Well, I'm sure I don't know what to say—it's none of my fault that I can see!" she answered after a pause. "But the fact is, I don't know where Miss Mortover may be! She's not been here since night before last! She went out then, and she's never come back nor sent me any word. I don't know what to do about it. There's been a young gentleman here twice day—a young fellow that says he's paying his addresses to her, though I'm sure I never heard of it before, and the last time he called he said I ought to acquaint the police, and that if she wasn't back by the next time he called, to-night, he should do so himself. But I don't like going to the police———"
"Look here, ma'am," broke in Wedgwood. "I may as well tell you I'm a police-officer. Detective-Sergeant Wedgwood. I'm investigating something—legal business we'll call it—in which Miss Mortover is concerned, and I want to see her about it. I've been to the refreshment room at the British Museum———"
"The young man said he'd been there, too," interrupted the landlady.
"Just so! Miss Mortover hasn't been there for two days. Well, now, you say she went away from here night before last? Under what circumstances? Let me know all you can tell me!"
"Well, I don't know that the circumstances were in any way unusual! Miss Mortover came in about her usual time that evening and had her tea. She didn't say anything to me about going out again, and she seemed in her usual spirits. I don't think she had any intention of going out, because after her tea she got out some sewing and started work on it. But about seven o'clock a lady came to the door and asked for Miss Mortover———"
"Stop a bit!" broke in Wedgwood. "A lady? Did you see her?"
"I opened the door to her myself, and showed her in here—to this room."
"Then you can describe her?"
The landlady hesitated.
"Well, not very well, for she was that heavily veiled and wrapped up about her neck and shoulders that I couldn't see her face to be sure of it, anyway. She was a tall, spare woman, and I thought from the country. She didn't speak like a Londoner—I've heard people from the North speak like that."
"How was she dressed?" enquired Wedgwood.
"She'd a heavy fur coat that came down to her ankles, and a good deal of wrap about her neck, and a dark veil—well dressed I should say. And as far as I could judge a middle-aged person."
"Well—she asked for Miss Mortover, did she? Give any name herself?"
"No—she didn't. And I never thought to ask her for one. Miss Mortover was in my sitting-room; she used to sit with me of an evening. I went and told her of this lady, and she came up here at once."
"Did Miss Mortover seem to expect her?"
"Oh, dear me, no! I'm sure she didn't. She remarked as she went out that she wondered who it could be?"
"Did you overhear any conversation between them?"
"Oh, no! This door was shut, of course—besides, my sitting-room is downstairs. No, I heard nothing—at least, no talk. They were in this room some time—half an hour, I should think. Then I heard Miss Mortover go upstairs to her own room. She was there some little time; then she came down again. A minute or two later I heard them go out of the front door. And since then—in fact, since the moment in which she left my sitting-room to come up to the visitor in this parlour—I've neither set eyes on Miss Mortover nor heard a word from her!"
"She's not the sort of young woman you'd expect to be inconsiderate, I suppose?" asked Wedgwood.
"Anything but! She's always been a most considerate girl to me. That's why I'm afraid there's something wrong. I'm sure that if she'd had any idea of going away for the night she'd have told me. But she went away with this woman without saying a word—and that makes me feel certain that when she left the house it was with the intention of being back again very soon. I never knew her go out at any time before without telling me when———"
At this junction the landlady was interrupted by a loud knock on her front door. She turned to the detective with a look of significant intelligence.
"That'll be the young man I mentioned," she murmured. "He said he'd come back about this time."
"Bring him in here," suggested Wedgwood. "Let me have a word with him."
The landlady went out and after a whispered conversation with her caller in the hall came back, ushering in a young man whom Wedgwood recognized at first glance as a person of character—probably of a somewhat odd and eccentric character. He was a thick-set, sturdily-built fellow, plain of feature, with a snub nose, and innumerable freckles, no beauty in any way, but possessed of a pair of singularly steady and honest eyes which he at once fixed on the detective in a searching, continued gaze. For the rest of him he was attired in a fashionable and expensive suit of rather loud, check tweed, he had a briar pipe between his teeth and a formidable ash-plant stick under his left armpit, and his hands were plunged in the pockets of his trousers. And at his heels, as if it were the shadow of himself, walked an Airedale terrier.
"This gentleman's come to ask about her," the landlady was saying as she came into the room, indicating the detective. "Of course I can't tell either of you anything—I know nothing!"
The young man still examining Wedgwood with steady scrutiny, took his pipe out of his mouth and addressed him.
"Who may you be?" he demanded curtly.
"I might put the same question to you!" returned Wedgwood with a smile. "But I won't! I understand you're the young gentleman who's been enquiring here and at the British Museum for Miss Mortover and that you knew her pretty well. Now instead of asking you the question you asked me I'll ask another: 'Have you been in Miss Mortover's confidence?"
"I was—until this happened," answered the young man. "Thought so, anyhow!"
"Did Miss Mortover ever tell you that she went to Hunter Street police-station last week, and saw a detective-officer there?"
"She did—Wedgwood!"
"Very well, I'm Wedgwood. No doubt Miss Mortover told you all about why she called to see me—about the Wraypoole affair. Since then I've discovered a good deal, and I came here, after calling at the British Museum, to see her about things. And—she's gone!"
The young man had replaced his pipe in his mouth and was steadily drawing at it. He remained silent for a moment; then he suddenly turned to the landlady, nodding his head at the door.
"Just let me and Mr. Wedgwood have a bit of private talk, mistress," he said. "See that no one interrupts—I'll make it all right with you."
The landlady vanished and the newcomer, pointing the detective to a chair at the side of the table, perched himself close by on the table's edge. Wedgwood, watching the pair with something of amused interest, noticed that wherever the master moved the Airedale terrier moved also.
"Look here, Wedgwood!" began this unusual person. "Straight talk! My name's Nottidge, James Nottidge. If you want to know who I am go ask anybody up Belsize Park—I've a house of my own there and I'm a man of substance as my old dad was before me; he left me a rich man, and I know as well how to take care of what I have as this bit of dog-flesh knows how to take care of me—if need be! Now, I'm a man of leisure, d'ye see, and I spend a lot of my time educating myself by visiting museums, picture-galleries, and what not—I've a taste that way. I've gone a great deal to the British Museum of late, and I met this girl in the refreshment room and took a liking to her—honest! And I've seen her home from there, and taken her out a bit, and to cut it short we got engaged the other night, and now—now this damned business has cropped up! And what I say, Wedgwood is—what d'ye make of it?"
Wedgwood gave his companion a keen look.
"You're deeply concerned about it, Mr. Nottidge?" he said.
"Never slept a wink last night, Wedgwood! Look here—I've got to find that girl! If you know anything———"
"I'll tell you what I do know!" exclaimed Wedgwood, with a sudden making-up of his mind. "We're in the same boat! You want to find this girl—so do I! She must be found. . . . Now listen and I'll put it as briefly as I can."
He went on to summarize the result of his investigations, and Nottidge sat silent, watching him intently. The detective noticed that the pipe went out, but its owner kept the stem between his teeth, biting hard on it. . . .
"So—there it is, Mr. Nottidge!" concluded Wedgwood, spreading his hands as he made an end of his story. "Now you know as much as I do! And I'm bound to say that it looks to me as if there's been—I don't like to say or think foul play, but some concerted action on the part of the people—person, perhaps, or persons—who got rid of Wraypoole to get hold of Miss Mortover. My opinion is that the woman who called on her here night before last lured her off somewhere on some very plausible pretext, and that she's detained against her will."
Nottidge got off the table and began to button his coat.
"What can you do about it?" he asked in a tense voice.
"We can start—and we will start—what used to be called the hue-and-cry for her," replied Wedgwood. "Notify her as missing, you know."
"Advertising—is that any good?" asked Nottidge.
"Publicity's an excellent thing," said Wedgwood. "I shall do what I can in that way. And if you want to help you can do something yourself now. Slip down to Fleet Street, call in at the principal newspaper offices and give them information. That might do a lot of good. Publicity, you know———"
Before he could say more Nottidge had seized and violently shaken his hand, chirruped to the dog, and was out of the room and the house; Wedgwood heard him running fast along the street.