The following night, at his Highgate home, Foam explained the conspiracy to Viola. They sat before the drawing room fire in opposite chairs. She nursed a dog while he suffered an opportunist cat to stay on his knee, merely to preserve the domestic atmosphere. As Mrs. Foam reported to the doctor in the library, "They were settled in."
This was his story--pruned of Viola's questions and comments.
"To start with, an Anglo-American bunch of crooks got into a huddle to steal Mrs. Stirling's diamonds. They were Raphael Cross, Bergman and Bergman's wife, whom you know as 'Miss Power'. I'll continue to call her that. By the way, 'Raphael' is Cross' real name. He adopted 'Richard' at the time of Evelyn's murder, in case his newspaper publicity should cross the Atlantic.
"When they were unsuccessful, they switched to the idea of kidnapping the daughter and demanding the diamonds as ransom to cut out the risk of hot money. They planned to try their luck during the London visit when they counted on relaxed vigilance. But they were a bit too smart in arranging an accident to the companion, because the Stirlings brought over two detectives in her place.
"Their plot was to lure Beatrice into a room from which there was a secret exit. To carry it out, they formed a small syndicate, with Goya to finance the scheme and Major Pomeroy to provide the essential house property. Goya was a real business shark; but the major was caught on the hop. The poor devil was proud of his financial record when he played the market and faced bankruptcy.
"These two persons had no idea that they were to be involved in anything but a dirty deal. Evelyn's murder shook them up badly. As a matter of fact, they were scheduled to be bumped off later to avoid the risk of leakage, but chiefly to save the gang from sharing the loot. Some of the value of the diamonds was bound to be lost in breaking them up and reselling them; but split among three, it was a rich haul.
"There were two things essential to success. One was to establish confidence. Cross was ideal for this job he had enough personal magnetism to charm a bird from the bough. He was also an expert card player, which got him in solid with Mrs. Stirling on the voyage he was sufficiently clever, too, to overact, with his tall stories and his exaggerated emotions. The touch of comedian was to blind them to any sinister slant in his character.
"Now I'll come to the plot. Cross was supposed to have a daughter--Evelyn. In reality he is unmarried. The blonde was a girl he picked off the street in New York. He promised her a share in the ransom--knowing all she would get would be a sticky finish...To keep myself tough over her, I have to remind myself that she knew exactly what kidnapping would mean for Beatrice when she callously agreed to join the gang.
"Well, Evelyn Cross was supposed to vanish from No. 16, Pomerania House. The major timed the act when he could count upon a witness. She was the flighty typist--'Marlene'--and she was habitually on the prowl. They waited until she appeared on the scene, and then Cross raised Cain and insisted on the room being gutted to expose a hidden place of concealment. Goya did her stuff, and an honest builder was called in to give the place the necessary O.K.
"No. 16 was cleared of all suspicion. That was the whole aim of the act. But so as not to saddle it with even a slur of mystery, Cross gave it out that his daughter had written to him--in proof positive, she was not lingering in Pomerania House in a state of chemical dissolution.
"The next step was to redecorate No. 16, when Cross and the major staged a quarrel over the cost. This was to allay suspicion of any alliance between them. The builder did the papering, but the same night--under pretence of restoring the fixtures--Cross and Bergman did the real job of reconstruction.
"The major got the porter out of the way and admitted them in the disguise of workmen. Incidentally, you and I turned up at an awkward moment. Cross was just carrying in the mirror, but he pretended to stoop under its weight so that I could not see his face.
"That same night the two men cut a doorway in the dividing wall between No. 16 and 17. The major had made his original division of the premises expressly for the kidnapping; so he ordered the builder to put up a thin division, on the ground that it would be only temporary. Of course, this was a dodge to give them an easy job.
"This doorway was then inset in the frame of the mirror which was firmly screwed to the wall of No. 16; but the glass was loose and hinged like a door so that it could swing inwards at a touch. It was secured at the back--in Power's room--and the bolt was concealed by a curtain. On Goya's side, it looked like an ordinary long mirror.
"The police, however, would have discovered the subterfuge, for they would have made a thorough examination of the premises if they had been called in after Beatrice's disappearance. And this brings me to the second essential to success.
"The police had to be kept out.
"To do this, the wretched Evelyn was murdered to serve as an awful warning to the Stirlings. Of course, Cross attributed this to his own appeal to the police. It did not square with his original revenge motive, but his aim was to present himself as a father too crazed with fury and grief to be logical.
"The murder was committed by one of the Bergmans, who got into Cross' flat by the fire escape. Cross arranged to be at my office for the sake of an alibi, in case he should be suspected of bumping off his daughter. It still sticks in my throat how he spun out the time so that he could be sure or her being dead before he returned to his flat.
"Meantime, you were roped into the plot. Cross could not introduce a female gangster as Beatrice's companion, so he chanced his luck. He summed you up, found out you could furnish the correct social references, and then counted on his personality to control the situation. He must have found you a gift from the fairies with your imagination and dramatic temperament.
"Before long, he got both you girls where he wanted you. He made Beatrice rebellious and determined to assert her independence by a visit to the crystal gazer. And this brings me to the actual kidnapping.
"Its success hung on perfect timing. The gang worked to a schedule and saw to it that their watches agreed--for one second's hesitation would have ruined the show. The mirror door was opened between 16 and 17, and their furniture arranged so that one room would appear to be the reflection of the other. In accordance with plan, the major had furnished all three flatlets alike, although yours was inferior quality, as it was only eyewash. To complete the illusion, Madame divided her bright rugs and cushions between her room and Power's.
"When you stood and looked down into 16, you actually saw a section of 17 with part of a divan and a rug on the floor. The duplication was so perfect that you accepted it for the usual mirror.
"So did Beatrice, until she was close enough to it to realize that she was not reflected in the glass. At that second, according to the timing, the major distracted your attention by telling you about a studio call. Well, Beatrice has told us what happened next. Suddenly Cross appeared inside the frame he smiled at her and put his finger to his lip--when she realized that he was springing a surprise on her to test her self-control.
"As she said, everything after that happened so quickly that she could not remember things clearly. According to her 'A mountain fell on her' and she passed out. Her first experience of being sandbagged.
"The rest was smart teamwork by the gang. All three of them were now in 17. Cross had been hiding behind the kitchen partition when the front door was left open for Mack's inspection. The wardrobe was then blocking the entrance, so Beatrice and the incriminating rug and cushion were locked inside it and the mirror was bolted in its original position.
"As the girl was stunned, she was spared the anguish of knowing that only the back of the wardrobe divided her from her faithful Mack, and that he actually helped to shove it clear. Between them. Cross and Bergman ran it down the stairs and got it on the van. They drove it out to Starfish Avenue, and Power followed to take charge of their prisoner.
"They ran negligible risk of being recognized as fake removal men, for the major had sent the porter on an errand. The main lights in the building were not turned on, so both stairs and landing were on the dark side. Cross butted the wardrobe with his head as he shoved it, hiding his face. That dodge gave Mack no chance of spotting him--and when you came out of 16, you were too steamed up over Beatrice disappearing to notice anything. As for Bergman, you all knew him as a chauffeur and had no idea what he looked like without his goggles and peaked cap.
"Now you understand why you had not a chance to convince anyone when you gave your version of what happened in No. 16. Cross had already pulled that tall story and it had been proved false. On top of the builder's evidence, the major played up with a natural reluctance to be stung twice.
"There was another factor--a prejudice against smashing up new and costly decorations. Then--as a climax--someone saw a girl in a white coat leaving by the outside stairs.
"When the Stirlings arrived on the scene, they fell into Cross' trap and refused to call in the police. Their nerve had been completely shattered by Evelyn's murder. Cross contrived to let Mrs. Stirling see an exceptionally ghastly snap he had taken of the dead girl. Naturally, no mother would risk that fate for her child.
"The gang were sitting pretty--but there was one bad moment. Just before Beatrice arrived at Pomerania House, Goya spilled coffee on the arm of her divan--spoiling the 'reflection.' They hadn't time to rearrange the rooms--as angles and effects had to be studied--so Goya cut a scarf in two to cover up her arm and the opposite number.
"Well, when the show was over, Cross wondered whether Power had remembered to remove her half. If someone found it, it might have started the first awkward question. He stole up to 17 when he heard someone in 16. Making sure it was Goya, he opened the connecting mirror door--and saw you.
"Praise be you cut and ran...If you'd been curious--but I won't go into that...Cross gave you a drink to make you pass out and counted on your thinking you had dreamed the whole thing.
"There remained the stiff fence of collecting the ransom, when Cross banked on being chosen as go-between. Then the gang could cache the diamonds while arranging to smuggle them across to the Continent. They could take their time and realize their fortune gradually, as they still had funds in hand from Goya.
"From then on, they had chiefly to avoid being suspected. The major has confessed to his share of the plot, so we know the connecting links. As a matter of fact, his nerve had crashed, and he was about to bale out. He will get off with a term of imprisonment, but the other three will swing.
"Now for the tidying up of the plot. Goya was bumped off by the removal of the lamp on the bridge--and her chauffeur was lucky not to share her fate. Beatrice was to join the legion of 'Lost Girls.' They had worked out a neat method to obliterate her, while the parents were to hope on. By the time they called the police in, any trail would be stone cold.
"The major had to destroy the evidence of the door cut in the wall between 16 and 17. He did this that night by jagging the straight outline to simulate a hole torn in the plaster. The original chunks they had hacked from the wall had been carefully kept, and when these were piled on the floor they bore out his story of a too-heavy mirror.
"Directly afterwards, the builder was to convert the three rooms into office accommodation and thus remove the last shred of evidence.
"Now I must explain how they worked the first 'disappearance' on which the success of the kidnapping depended. Pearce swore he saw Evelyn go upstairs and declared that she never came down. Why?
"The reason was this. She never came in. And since I've got to sell you the idea you are marrying a smart detective, that was the first point I tried to establish. I was suspicious because of Evelyn asking for a light--but Pearce was so convinced that he had watched her go up the stairs, that I had to accept his story.
"The major has told me of an incident which slipped the porter's memory. After the cigarette was lit, Evelyn asked him to investigate the rear of the car. That was her signal to nip back in the car and hide under the seat. At the same moment, Power slipped out of the major's flat into the entrance hall. Pearce could see her back through the glass panes of the door, as she stood talking to the two men--Cross and the major. He was completely taken in because she wore the same black outfit as Evelyn. Her blonde hair was now hanging down her back and she was smoking a cigarette.
"When she reached the landing, she was out of his range of vision. So she was able to slip into her own flat, pull a tweed suit over the black costume and thick stockings over her silk ones, knot up her hair and put on stout shoes. Her smart high-heeled shoes were the only thing which might connect her with the incident--in case the detective who was called in insisted on searching her apartment. That was why she slipped them inside the clock case, where--if found--they could not be traced to her.
"The major tells me he posted the black suit to an imaginary address that night. Then Evelyn lay low at Starfish Avenue. She must have been thrilled when they phoned her to return to Cross' flat the night of her murder...Well, she got a grand time on the voyage...
"Now about my part--From the first, I felt something was fishy. But while the story of a vanishing girl was preposterous, I could see no ulterior motive. Fortunately, I jotted down my first impressions of the people in the case.
"This memory trap first put me on the trail. I had written down Power as 'solid,' while she was slender. You suggested she was wearing one suit over another, confirming my own guess. My second comment was that you had a 'property bias.' Now, in view of the admitted national respect for property, it struck me that No. 16 might have been deliberately redecorated on an expensive scale--to save it from being broken up again.
"By now, other things were beginning to stick out, but I told you about those before. Power was leading me to suspect a general conspiracy. I lumped together the major, Goya, Power, Pearce and the typist--'Marlene.' If I hadn't fallen for you, I should have included Viola Green.
"Pearce, of course, had a clean sheet and Marlene was only the major's stooge. He gave her a white coat and invited her to tea on the afternoon Beatrice vanished. As he was boss, they had to be careful not to advertise their flirtation, and he told her to come down the back stair and wait for him at the basement lobby. There were some crowded offices opposite, and he banked on someone getting a glimpse of a white coat.
"Well, my general suspicions got me nowhere. A conspiracy had to include Cross, and I could not see where he could fit in. I was up against the fact that his own daughter had been murdered. I remembered, too, that the shock of her disappearance had turned his hair white. It was logical for me to accept his grief as genuine because I had been with him when his friend--Nell Gaynor--was killed. He broke down completely and shed real tears.
"In the end, Nell opened my eyes. When she blundered into the plot at the time, she helped to whitewash him further. You could see her genuine affection for him which he returned...Criminals are often soft over their mothers or their old flames, while sensible women are fools over criminals. I expect, when Nell was a small girl, she invested the big bad boy with glamour.
"Cross was worried lest she should gossip about him and his private affairs to Mrs. Stirling's former secretary at the American Club. To stop all danger of leakage, he phoned Bergman to fix up an 'accident' to the secretary. But Bergman decided to stop gossip at the source--Nell. He probably identified her by bringing her a fictitious message from Cross.
"By a stroke of justice, Nell avenged her murder. If you remember, she was blunt to rudeness. When they met he remarked that she had not changed, which I suspect was masculine flattery. Now what was her own comment? She did not say, 'Well, you have. What's happened to your hair?' or something like that. That sort of remark would have been in character. Instead she said, 'Neither have you.' And then she went on to criticize his clothes and expose his age.
"I realized then that when she had last seen him, his hair was white, and that he had dyed it for his London visit. It could not have been done to acquire glamour for, in that case, he would not have washed it out again. That didn't make sense.
"No, it was deliberately planned so that his sham grief over his daughter's loss should carry conviction and stamp him as a genuine distracted parent. But what he counted on as a master stroke of strategy proved the actual link which connected him with the conspiracy.
"It was Nell who upset his apple cart, when she practically told me that his hair had not turned white from shock. Such calculated cunning to register emotion suddenly revealed him in a new light--I saw him not as a splendid figure, with warm and generous impulses, but as a cold-blooded criminal. The Raphael Cross I knew had faded into air."
THE END
The story of the alleged disappearance of Evelyn Cross was too fantastic for credence. According to the available evidence, she melted into thin air shortly after four o'clock on a foggy afternoon in late October. One minute, she was visible in the flesh--a fashionable blonde, nineteen years of age and weighing about eight and a half stone.
The next minute, she was gone.
The scene of this incredible fade-out was an eighteenth-century mansion in Mayfair. The Square was formerly a residential area of fashion and dignity. It had escaped a doom of complete reconstruction, but some of the houses were divided up into high-class offices and flats.
This particular residence had been renamed "Pomerania House" by its owner, Major Pomeroy. He speculated in building property and had his estate office, as well as his private flat, on the premises.
The ex-officer might be described as a business gentleman. Besides being correctly documented--Winchester, Oxford and the essential clubs--he had not blotted his financial or moral credit. In appearance he conformed to military type, being erect, spare and well dressed, with a small dark tooth-brush moustache. His voice was brisk and his eyes keen. He walked with a nonchalant manner. He had two affectations--a monocle and a fresh flower daily in his buttonhole.
Shortly after four o'clock on the afternoon of Evelyn Cross' alleged disappearance, he was in the hall of Pomerania House, leaning against the door of his flat, when a large car stopped in the road outside. The porter recognized it as belonging to a prospective client who had called previously at the estate office to inquire about office accommodation. With the recollection of a generous tip, he hurried outside to open the door.
Before he could reach it, Raphael Cross had sprung out and was standing on the pavement. He was a striking figure, with the muscular development of a pugilist and a face expressive of a powerful personality. Its ruthless force--combined with very fair curling hair and ice-blue eyes--made him resemble a conception of some old Nordic god, although the comparison flattered him in view of his heavy chin and bull-neck.
He crashed an entrance into the hall, but his daughter, Evelyn, lingered to take a cigarette from her case. She was very young, with a streamlined figure, shoulder-length blonde hair and a round small-featured face. With a total lack of convention she chatted freely to the porter as he struck a match to light her cigarette.
"Confidentiality, we shouldn't have brought our dumb-bell of a chauffeur over from the States. He's put us on the spot with a traffic cop."
"Can't get used to our rule of the road," suggested the porter who instinctively sided with Labour.
"It is a cockeyed rule to keep to the left," admitted Evelyn. "We took a terrible bump in one jam. I'm sure I heard our number plate rattle. You might inspect the damage."
To humour her, the porter strolled to the rear of the car and made a pretence of examining the casualty before he beckoned the chauffeur to the rescue. When he returned to the hall, the major had already met his visitors and was escorting them up the stairs.
The porter gazed speculatively after them, watching the drifting smoke of the girl's cigarette and the silver-gold blur of her hair in the dusk. The skirt of her tight black suit was unusually short so that he had an unrestricted view of her shapely legs and of perilously high-heeled shoes.
As he stood there, he was joined by an attractive young lady with ginger hair and a discriminating eye. Her official title was "Miss Simpson," but she was generally known in the building by her adopted name of "Marlene." She was nominally private secretary to a company promoter who had his office on the second floor; but as the post was a sinecure she spent much of her time in the ladies' cloakroom on the ground floor, improving her appearance for conquest.
"Admiring the golden calf?" she asked, appraising the quality of the silken legs herself before they disappeared around the bend of the staircase.
"She's got nothing on you there, Marlene," declared the porter.
He had a daughter who was a student at a commercial school and was biased in favour of typists.
"Except her stockings, Daddy. Where's the boss taking them?"
"I was asking myself that. The gent's a party after an office. There's only a small let vacant, right at the top and that's not in his class."
"Maybe the girl's going to Goya to get her fortune told," suggested the ornamental typist, tapping her teeth to suppress a yawn.
For nearly ten minutes she lingered at the foot of the stairs, chatting to the porter and on the outlook to intercept any drifting male. The place, however, was practically deserted, so presently she mounted the flight on her way back to her office. She paused when she reached the landing of the first floor, where there were three mahogany doors in line, each embellished with a chromium numeral.
Just outside the middle door--No. 16--the major stood talking to Raphael Cross. Impressed by the striking appearance of the fair stranger, she patted the wave of her ginger hair and lingered in the hope of making a fresh contact.
Consequently she became a witness to the beginning of the amazing drama which was later entered in Alan Foam's case book as "Disappearance of Evelyn Cross."
Although she was friendly with the major, on this occasion he was neither responsive nor helpful. He merely returned her smile mechanically. Only a keen observer might have noticed a flicker of satisfaction in his hawk-like eye, as though he had been expecting her.
Then he started the show, like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, by pulling out his watch.
"Your daughter's keeping you a dickens of a time," he remarked to Cross. "I thought she said she'd be only a minute. You're a patient man."
"Used to it." Cross grimaced in continental fashion. "I'll give her a ring."
He prodded the electric bell of No. 16 with a powerful forefinger. After a short interval it was opened by the tenant of the apartment--Madame Goya.
She was stout, shortish and middle-aged. Her blued-white permanently waved hair did not harmonize with an incongruous dusky make-up and orange lipstick. Her eyes were dark, treacly and protruding, in spite of being set in deep pouches. She wore an expensive black gown which flattered her figure and a beautiful emerald ring.
"Will you tell my daughter I'm ready to go,' said Cross.
"Pardon?" asked the woman aggressively. "Your daughter?"
When Cross amplified his request, she shook her head.
"Miss Cross was here only to make an appointment. She left some time ago."
"Left?" echoed Cross. "Which way?"
"Through this door, of course."
He stared at her as though bewildered.
"But the major and I have been standing outside," he said, "and I'll swear she never came out."
"Definitely not," agreed Major Pomeroy. "Are you sure she's not still inside, madame?"
"If you don't believe me, come in and see for yourself," invited Madame Goya.
Throbbing with curiosity, the ornamental typist crept to the closed door of No. 16, after the men had gone inside. She heard voices raised in angry excitement and the sound of furniture being bumped about. Presently the major came out alone. His face wore a dazed expression as he took hold of her elbow.
"You've just come upstairs. Beautiful, haven't you?" he asked. "I suppose you did not notice a blonde in black coming down?"
"No," she replied. "I didn't meet a pink elephant either. It's not my day for seeing things. What's all the blinking mystery?"
"Hanged if I know," said the major helplessly. "Boss out, isn't he? Be a good girl and nip round to every office and flat in the place. Ask if anyone's seen her. They haven't. I know that. But I've got to satisfy her father."
The ornamental typist made no objection to being useful, for a change. She spun out her inquiries to a series of social calls throughout Pomerania House. True to the major's forecast, no one had seen a loose blonde, so presently she returned to the first floor.
Raphael Cross, the fair stranger who had attracted her fancy, had come out of No. 16 and was pacing the landing as though on the verge of distraction. Her first glance at him told her that it was no time for overtures. His features were locked in rigid lines and his eyes looked both fierce and baffled. He glared after the figure of the porter as the man returned to his station in the hall. The major spoke to him in a low voice.
"You heard what the fellow said. I've known him for years before I employed him. He's definitely reliable."
"The hell he is," growled Cross. "Someone's lying. Where's my girl?"
"Oh, we'll find her. I admit it's an extraordinary affair. Almost uncanny. I'm at a loss to account for it, myself. But you may be sure there's some simple explanation."
"I know that. This is a put-up job. There's someone behind all of this. It's an infernal conspiracy."
Major Pomeroy stiffened perceptibly, while the sympathy died from his eyes.
"Who do you suspect?' he asked coldly.
"I'll tell you when I've got my girl back. I don't leave this ruddy place without her. Order that porter to see to it that no one goes out of this building until there's been a systematic search through."
"Certainly...Shall I ring up the police?"
The question checked Cross' hysteria like a snowball thrown in his face. He hesitated and gnawed his lip for some seconds before he made his decision.
"No, Pomeroy." His voice was low. "This may be kidnapping. If it is, the police are best kept out."
The major's hostility melted instantly.
"I understand," he said in a feeling voice. "Come down to my office and I'll ring up a reliable private detective agency."
Halfway down the stairs, he returned to caution Marlene.
"Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut--there's a good girl."
"Cross my heart."
Within two minutes after the men had entered the major's office, she was telling the whole story to the tenant of the flatlet, No, 15. This lady--according to her visiting card inserted in the slot of the door--was named "Viola Green," while her occupation was supposed to be that of a mannequin.
She limped out onto the landing, her hands in her pockets and a cigarette between her lips; yet, in spite of her pose of nonchalance, there was no hint of stereotyped boredom in her face. Her expression in its vivid expectancy was a challenge to the future, as though she claimed the maximum from life and refused to admit to compromise.
She was distinctly attractive, although both face and figure were somewhat too thin. Her short black hair had bright brown gleams and her eyes were hazel-green. She wore black slacks, a purple-blue pullover and rubbed silver sandals.
Although the majority of males in Pomerania House were on friendly terms with Marlene Simpson, the women avoided speaking to her. Viola Green was the exception. She was not only unhampered by snobbery or moral criticism, but she was responsive to a psychic bond between them.
Both girls were held in allegiance to the lure of the profession. Viola had studied at an academy of dramatic art, while Marlene had toured the provinces as a glamour girl in a cheap revue. Total lack of success had forced them into uncongenial jobs, but their thwarted instincts drew them together to discuss the stars of stage and screen with passionate interest.
On this occasion, Viola only wanted to hear the scenario of the drama on the first-floor landing.
"So what?" she asked, with an economy of language familiar to Marlene.
She listened to the story with wide-eyed open-mouthed interest, but at its end she made the requisite ribald comment.
"Well, I've heard of people wanting to reduce quickly, but that's overdoing it...Was she kidnapped?"
"That's what it looks like to me," replied the ornamental typist. "I saw her go up and I was mucking about in the hall all the time afterwards. But she never came down, unless she's the Invisible Man."
"What's your guess?" asked Viola.
"I believe Goya stunned and gagged her. She'd about ten minutes to play with. Then she hid her in a cubby-hole behind the panelling. There might be one behind the mirror or at the back of the clothes closet. But the blonde's father swears he won't go until she is found, so he'll soon scoop her out...Oh boy, you should see father--hundred per cent Aryan and like an earthquake. He's got that look in his eye that tells you he knows all the answers."
Viola, who was growing bored, distracted her attention.
"Your telephone's been ringing for ages," she said.
"Yes, I heard it," commented Marlene. "Sounds quite profane. I seem to recognize my master's voice. Perhaps I'd better listen to his little trouble. See you later. Bye-bye."
She mounted the stairs in a leisurely fashion while Viola stood and gazed down into the hall. About this time, when dusk blurred its modern improvements, the old mansion had power to fascinate her. She did not recall the patched and powdered ghosts of Berkeley Square but only the lately receded tide of the last century, as she thought of the families who had lived private lives within those walls.
In those spacious days, the offices had been double drawing rooms where parties were held. Girls in white tulle frocks had sat on the stairs and flirted with their partners behind feather fans. Children had peeped down enviously from between the banisters.
But now the clocks were stopped and the music stilled. Sighing at the thought, she limped across to the tall windows at the end of the landing. Outside, the Square Garden was spectral with misted shadows and tremulous with tattered leaves shaking from the plane trees. In the distance a sports car hooted through the darkness.
It was driven by Alan Foam, who was on his way to investigate the alleged disappearance of Evelyn Cross.
Viola was still gripped by the story, although her common sense rejected it as nonsense. At that time she was yearning after her old gods and suffering from histrionic starvation. Unable to resist the chance of dramatizing herself, she stretched out her hands and groped in the air. "Lost girl," she whispered. "Where are you?"
As she waited, the lights were turned on throughout the building. She heard the faint tapping of typewriters and the distant ringing of telephone bells. The atmosphere of Pomerania House was entirely normal--commercial and financial.
There was no warning wave from the future to tell her that this was a prelude to a moment charged with horror, when she would cry out in anguish to someone who was not there and get no answer from the empty air.
When Alan Foam was asked why he had become a private detective he explained that he liked solving riddles and wanted an occupation which would take him out-of-doors. His original ambition had been the secret service, but circumstances forced him to accept his father's compromise of a share in the firm of Girdlestone & Gribble.
On the whole he was disappointed with the work. Instead of adventures, his main activities were protecting people from blackmail and aiding them to procure divorce. In the course of a few years he became tough and cynical, with no illusions as to the fragrance of hotel bedrooms and with a conviction that the human species had evolved the most deadly type of blood-sucking parasite.
At times when his mind rebelled against its storage of gross details, he considered the antidote suggested by his mother.
"Why don't you marry, Alan?"
"Waiting for the right girl," he told her. 'I've checked too many hotel registers."
"Well, hurry up and find her." She added inconsequently, "You used to be such a dear little boy." There were times, however, when he was keenly interested in his work, especially when his enterprise had been recognized by his superiors. It was after one of these rare occasions that he leaped to the telephone and tried to disentangle the statement from Major Pomeroy's secretary.
It appeared so unlike the routine case of disappearance that he was afraid it was too good to be true.
"You say she's gone--but she never left the building?" he queried.
"Well, it sounded like that when they were both shouting at me," replied the girl doubtfully. "But it doesn't make sense. I suppose I got it wrong."
"Never mind. I'm on my way."
As Foam scorched through the dun shadows of the Square, he was struck by its derelict appearance. It seemed darkened by a pall of antiquity and decay. The old houses might have been barnacled hulks of vessels stranded in a dry-dock by the receded tide of fashion.
When he approached Pomerania House, it suddenly glowed with lighted windows. A large and powerful car was parked outside, while the porter stood on the pavement, fraternally scanning the stop press in the chauffeur's paper.
Following his custom, Foam looked keenly at both men. The chauffeur was a clumsy Hercules, showing a section of standardized glum face below his goggles. The porter appealed more to Foam as a type of labour. He was elderly, with a square, sensible face and steady blue eyes.
He did not return Foam's approval, for he looked at him sourly. The detective understood the reason for his instinctive antipathy. He knew that he was regarded as a by-product of the police force and consequently to be avoided like a mild form of plague.
The porter stiffened as he spoke to the chauffeur in his official voice.
"Your guv'nor says not to wait for him. He may be kept here till midnight."
"Am I to come back and fetch Miss Evelyn?" asked the chauffeur.
His voice was tinctured with curiosity, but the porter was not to be drawn.
"I've given you the message," he said. After the car had driven on, he spoke to Foam. "From the agency? You're expected. This way." Foam followed him through the lobby and into the hall of Pomerania House. As he looked around him he had partly the sensation of being in a museum. Its proportions were fine, although some of its space had been encroached on by offices. Most of the panelling on the walls had been preserved and also a large oval portrait in a tarnished gilt frame, which hung over the original carved mantelpiece. This was a painting of a former owner of the house by Sir Joshua Reynolds and depicted a Georgian buck with full ripe cheeks and a powdered wig.
The old crystal chandelier--long disused--was still suspended from the ceiling. The statue of a nymph, posed on a pedestal, gazed reproachfully at all who used the telephone booth, as though it were the bathing hut where she had left her clothes and to which they denied her re-entry.
He with these relics of the eighteenth century, the flagged marble floor, as well as the shallow treads of the curving mahogany staircase, was covered with the thick rubber flooring of commerce. The radiators were not concealed and the panel lighting was modern, to correspond with the low painted doors leading to the reconstructed portions. The porter jerked his thumb towards the staircase.
"Up there," he said. "First floor. I can't take you up. My orders are not to leave this door."
"No lift?" asked Foam.
"No. The boss did as little conversion as possible...One never knows."
Foam nodded to show he understood the threat--the shadowy pick of the house breaker swinging over the old mansion. He hurried across the hall and ran up the stairs, covering three steps in each stride.
Three persons--two men and a stout woman--stood on the first landing, while a ginger-haired girl loitered on the flight of stairs leading up to the next floor. Foam recognized Major Pomeroy, whom he knew by sight, but in any case it would have been easy to pick out the father of the missing girl. Cross was plainly gripped by violent emotion, for his large hands were clenched and his jaws set in an effort to control his facial muscles.