 Chapter Twenty-Seven: "my brother was murdered"

On Friday morning the green Bentley drew up outside the Station Hotel at Ambledever.

Frankie had wired Bobby under the name they had agreed upon — George Parker — that she would be required to give evidence at the inquest on Henry Bassington-ffrench and would call in at Ambledever on the way down from London. She had expected a wire in reply appointing some rendezvous, but nothing had come, so she had come to the hotel.

"Mr. Parker, miss?" said the boots.* "I don't think there's any gentleman of that name stopping here, but I'll see." He returned a few minutes later. "Come here Wednesday evening, miss. Left his bag and said he mightn't be in till late. His bag's still here but he hasn't been back to fetch it."

Frankie felt suddenly rather sick. She clutched at a table for support. The man was looking at her sympathetically. "Feeling bad, miss?" he inquired.

Frankie shook her head. "It's all right," she managed to say. "He didn't leave any message?"

The man went away again and returned shaking his head. "There's a telegram come for him," he said. "That's all" He looked at her curiously. "Anything I can do, miss?" he asked.

Frankie shook her head. At the moment she only wanted to get away. She must have time to think what to do next.

"It's all right," she said, and getting into the Bentley she drove away.

The man nodded his head wisely as he looked after her. "He's done a bunk,* he has," he said to himself. "Disappointed her. Given her the slip. * A fine rakish piece of goods he is.* Wonder what he was like?"

He asked the young lady in the reception office, but the young lady couldn't remember.

"A couple of nobs,"* said the boots wisely. "Going to get married on the quiet* — and he's hooked it."*

Meanwhile Frankie was driving in the direction of Staverley, her mind a maze of conflicting emotions.

Why had Bobby not returned to the Station Hotel? There could be only two reasons. Either he was on the trail — and hat trail had taken him away somewhere; or else — or else something had gone wrong.

The Bentley swerved dangerously. Frankie recovered control just in time. She was being an idiot — imagining things. Of course, Bobby was all right. He was on the trail — that was all — on the trail. But why, asked another voice, hadn't he sent her a word of reassurance?

That was more difficult to explain, but there were explanations. Difficult circumstances — no time or opportunity — Bobby would know that she, Frankie, wouldn't get the wind up* about him. Everything was all right — bound to be.

The inquest passed like a dream. Roger was there, and Sylvia — looking quite beautiful in her widow's weeds. She made an impressive figure and a moving one. Frankie found herself admiring her as though she were admiring a performance at a theater.

The proceedings were very tactfully conducted. The Bassington-ffrenches were popular locally arid everything was done to spare the feelings of the widow and the brother of the dead man.

Frankie and Roger gave their evidence — Dr. Nicholson gave his — the dead man's farewell, letter was produced. The thing seemed over in no time, and the verdict was given as suicide while of unsound mind. The sympathetic verdict, as Mr. Spragge had called it.

The two events connected themselves in Frankie's mind. Two suicides 'while of unsound mind'. Was there— could there be a connection between them?

That this suicide was genuine enough she knew, for she had been on the scene. Bobby's theory of murder had had to be dismissed as untenable. Dr. Nicholson's alibi was cast-iron — vouched for by the widow herself.

Frankie and Dr. Nicholson remained behind after the other people departed, the coroner having shaken hands with Sylvia and uttered a few words of sympathy.

"I think there are some letters for you, Frankie dear," said Sylvia. "You won't mind if I leave you now and go and lie down. It's all been so awful."

She shivered and left the room. Nicholson went with her, murmuring something about a sedative.

Frankie turned to Roger. "Roger, Bobby's disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"Yes!"

"Where and how?"

Frankie explained in a few rapid words.

"And he's not been seen since?" said Roger.

"No. What do you think?"

"I don't like the sound of it," said Roger slowly.

Frankie's heart sank. "You don't think —"

"Oh! It may be all right, but — Sh, here comes Nicholson."

The doctor entered the room with his noiseless tread. He was rubbing his hands together and smiling.

"That went off very well," he said. "Very well indeed. Doctor Davidson was most tactful and considerate. We may consider ourselves very lucky to have had him as our local coroner.”

"I suppose so," said Frankie mechanically.

"It makes a lot of difference, Lady Frances. The conduct of an inquest is entirely in the hands of the coroner. He has wide powers. He can make things easy or difficult as he pleases. In this case everything went off perfectly."

"A good stage performance, in fact," said Frankie in a hard voice.

Nicholson looked at her in surprise.

"I know what Lady Frances is feeling," said Roger. "I feel the same. My brother was murdered, Doctor Nicholson."

He was standing behind the other and did not see, as Frankie did, the startled expression that sprang into the doctor's eyes.

"I mean what I say," said Roger, interrupting Nicholson as he was about to reply. "The law may not regard it as such, but murder it was. The criminal brutes who induced my brother to become a slave to that drug murdered him just as truly as if they had struck him down."

He had moved a little and his angry eyes now looked straight into the doctor's.

"I mean to get even with them," he said, and the words sounded like a threat.

Dr. Nicholson's pale-blue eyes fell before his. He shook his head sadly.

"I cannot say I disagree with you," he said. "I know more about drug taking1 than you do, Mr. Bassington-ffrench. To induce a man to take drugs is indeed a most terrible crime."

Ideas were whirling through Frankie's head — one idea in particular.

It can't be, she was saying to herself. That would be too monstrous. And yet — his whole alibi depends on her word. But in that case —

She roused herself to find Nicholson speaking to her.

"You came down by car, Lady Frances? No accident this time?"

Frankie felt she simply hated that smile.

"No," she said. "I think it's a pity to go in too much for accidents*— don't you?"

She wondered whether she had imagined it, or whether his eyelids really flickered for a moment.

"Perhaps your chauffeur drove you this time?"

"My chauffeur," said Frankie, "has disappeared." She looked straight at Nicholson.

"Indeed?"

"He was last seen heading for the Grange," went on Frankie.

Nicholson raised his eyebrows.

"Really? Have I — some attraction in the kitchen?" His voice sounded amused. "I can hardly believe it."

"At any rate that is where he was last seen," said Frankie.

"You sound quite dramatic," said Nicholson. "Possibly you are paying too much attention to local gossip. Local gossip is very unreliable. I have heard the wildest stories." He paused. His voice altered slightly in tone. "I have even had a story brought to my ears that my wife and your chauffeur had been seen talking together down by the river." Another pause. "He was, I believe, a very superior young man, Lady Frances."

Is that it? Though Frankie. Is he going to pretend that his wife has run off with my chauffeur? Is that his little game? Aloud she said, "Hawkins is quite above the average chauffeur."

"So it seems," said Nicholson. He turned to Roger. "I must be going. Believe me, all my sympathies are with you and Mrs. Bassington-ffreneh."

Roger went out into the hall with him. Frankie followed. On the hall table were a couple of letters addressed to her. One was a bill. The other —

Her heart gave a leap. The other was in Bobby's handwriting.

Nicholson and Roger were on the doorstep.

She tore it open.

Dear Frankie, [wrote Bobby]

I'm on the trail at last. Follow me as soon as possible to Chipping Somerton. You'd better come by train and not by car. The Bentley is too noticeable. The trains aren't too good, but you can get there all right. You're to come to a house called Tudor Cottage. I'll explain to you just exactly how to find it. Don't ask the way. [Here followed some minute directions.] Have you got that clear? Don't tell anyone. [This was heavily underlined.] No one at all.

Yours ever,

Bobby

Frankie crushed the letter excitedly in the palm of her hand. So it was all right! Nothing dreadful had overtaken Bobby.

He was on the trail — and by a coincidence on the same trail as herself. She had been to Somerset House to look up the will of John Savage. Rose Emily Templeton was given as the wife of Edgar Templeton of Tudor Cottage, Chipping Somerton. And that again had fitted in with the open A.B.C. in the St. Leonard's Gardens house. Chipping Somerton had been one of the stations on the open page. The Caymans had gone to Chipping Somerton. Everything was falling into place. They were Hearing the end of the chase.

Roger Bassington-ffrench turned and came toward her. "Anything interesting in your letter?" he inquired casually.

For a moment Frankie hesitated. Surely Bobby had not meant Roger when he ad jured her to tell nobody? Then she remembered the heavy underlining — remembered, too, her own recent monstrous idea. If that were true, Roger might betray them both in all innocence. She dared not hint to him her own suspicions. So she made up her mind. "No," she said. "Nothing at all."

She was to repent her decision bitterly before twenty-four hours had passed.

More than once in the course of the next few hours did she regret Bobby's dictum that the car was not to be used. Chipping Somerton was no very great distance as the crow flies, but the journey involved changing three times, with a long, dreary wait at a country station each time, and to one of Frankie's impatient temperament this slow method of procedure was extremely hard to endure with fortitude.

Still, she felt bound to admit that there was something in what Bobby had said. The Bentley was a noticeable car. Her excuses for leaving it at Merroway had been of the flimsiest, but she had been unable to think of anything brilliant on the spur of the moment.

It was getting dark when Frankie's train, an extremely deliberate and thoughtful train, drew into the little station at Chipping Somerton. To Frankie it seemed more like midnight. The train seemed to her to have been ambling on for hours and hours. It was just beginning to rain, too, which was additionally trying.

She buttoned up her coat to her neck, took a last look at Bobby's letter by the light of the station lamp, got the directions clearly in her head, and set off.

The instructions were quite easy to follow. Frankie saw the lights of the village ahead and turned off to the left up a lane which led steeply uphill. At the top of the lane she took the right-hand fork and presently saw the little cluster of houses that formed the village lying below her and a belt of pine trees ahead. Finally, she came to a neat wooden gate and, striking a match, saw Tudor Cottage written on it.

There was no one about. Frankie slipped up the latch and passed inside. She could make out the outlines of the house behind a belt of pine trees. She took up her post within the trees where she could get a clear view of the house. Then, her heart beating a little faster, she gave the best imitation she could of the hoot of an owl. A few minutes passed and nothing happened. She repeated the call.

The door of the cottage opened and she saw a figure in chauffeur's dress peer cautiously out. Bobby! He made a beckoning gesture, then withdrew inside, leaving the door ajar.

Frankie came out from the trees and up to the door. There was no light in any window. Everything was perfectly dark and silent. Frankie stepped gingerly over the threshold into a dark hall. She stopped, peering about her.

"Bobby?" she whispered.

It was her nose that gave her warning. Where had she known that smell before — that heavy, sweet odor?

Just as her brain gave the answer chloroform, strong arms seized her from behind. She opened her mouth to scream and a wet pad was clapped over it. The sweet, cloying smell filled her nostrils.

She fought desperately, twisting and turning, kicking. But it was of no avail. Despite the fight she put up she felt herself succumbing. There was a drumming in her ears, she felt herself choking. And then she knew no more.

 Questions and Tasks

1. Find the words and expressions in the chapter, translate the sentences into Russian. Memorize the words.

a maze

to go wrong

proceedings

to conduct (v.)/ conduct (n.)

a farewell

to rub one’s hands

to whirl

Her heart gave a leap

superior (inferior)

2. Answer the following questions.

1) Why did Frankie become suddenly sick?

2) How did the inquest pass?

3) What did Frankie tell Roger after the inquest?

4) What was Dr. Nicholson’s reaction to the news about Bobby’s disappearance?

5) What were the contents of Bobby’s letter?

6) Why was Frankie to repent her decision?

7) What happened to Frankie at Tudor Cottage?

3. Write down the translation of Bobby’s letter to Frankie.

4. Make up a short story using the words from task 1.

5. Retell the chapter as if you were Frankie.