“And you suspected Mr. Liversidge when you began to tell us about paying your debt to him?”
She said yes. The thought of Liversidge’s possible complicity occurred to her at that moment. The next morning Meyer had taken her aside and questioned her closely about the money.
“He seemed to suspect Frankie — I don’t know why — but he seemed to suspect him.”
It was then that Meyer had insisted on paying her the amount that had been stolen. He had not made any definite accusation against Liversidge but had warned her against forming any attachment that she might afterwards regret.
“Did Miss Dacres speak to you about Mr. Liversidge?”
But it appeared Carolyn had said nothing definite though Miss Gaynes had received an impression that Carolyn, too, had something up her sleeve.
“And have you yourself said anything about this matter to Mr. Liversidge?”
Here a renewed display of emotion threatened to appear. Alleyn steered her off it and got her back to the conversation that took place off-stage. She said that, guessing at Meyer’s view of the theft, “all sorts of dreadful thoughts” came into her mind when he was killed.
“Then you thought, at the outset, that it was a case of murder?”
Only, it seemed, because Gascoigne kept saying that there must have been some hanky-panky with the gear. After a great many tedious false starts she at last told Alleyn that, when they were all hustled away from the scene of the disaster, she had blurted out a single question to Liversidge: “Has this got anything to do with my money?” and he had answered: “For God’s sake don’t be a bloody little fool. Keep quiet about your money.” Then he had kept her back and had said hurriedly that for Courtney Broadhead’s sake she had better not mention the theft. “I’d never thought of Court until then,” said Miss Gaynes, “but after that I got all muddled and of course I remembered how hard-up Court was and then I began to wonder. And now — now I–I simply don’t know where I am, honestly I don’t. If Frankie was trying to help Court and I’ve — I’ve betrayed him—”
“Nonsense,” said Alleyn very crisply. “There’s no question of betrayal. You have done the only possible thing. Tell me, please, Miss Gaynes, are you engaged to Mr. Liversidge?”
She flushed at that and for the first time showed a little honest indignation.
“You’ve no business to ask me that.”
“I can assure you I am not prompted by idle curiosity,” said Alleyn equitably. “The question is relevant. I still ask it.”
“Very well, then, I’m not actually engaged.”
“There is an understanding of some sort, perhaps?”
“I simply haven’t made up my mind.” A trace of complacency crept into her voice. Alleyn thought: “She is the type of young woman who always represents herself as a fugitive before the eager male. She would never admit lack of drawing-power in herself.”
“But now—” she was saying, “I wish we had never thought of it. I want to get away from all this. It’s all so hateful — I want to get away from it. I’m going to cable to daddy and ask him to send for me. I want to go home.”
“As a preliminary step,” said Alleyn cheerfully, “I am going to send you off to your hotel. You are tired and distressed. Things won’t seem so bad in the morning, you know. Good night.”
He shut the door after her and turned to the two New Zealanders.
“Silly young woman,” said Alleyn mildly.
But Wade was greatly excited.
“I reckon this changes the whole outfit,” he said loudly. “I reckon it does. If Liversidge stole the cash, it changes the whole show. By crikey, sir, you caught them out nicely. By crikey, it was a corker! He tells you one story about this conversation with the girl Gaynes, and you get the other tale from her and then face her up with it. By gee, it was a beauty!”
“My dear Inspector,” said Alleyn uncomfortably, “you are giving me far too much encouragement.”
“It wasn’t so much the line taken,” continued Wade, explaining Alleyn to Cass, “as the manner of taking it. I don’t say I wouldn’t have gone on the same lines myself. It was indicated, you might say, but I wouldn’t have got in the fine work like the chief inspector. The girl Gaynes would have turned dumb on us very, very easy, but the chief just trotted her along quietly and got the whole tale. You seemed to guess there was something crook about this Liversidge from the kick-off, sir. What put you on to that, if I might ask?”
“In the first instance, Miss Gaynes herself. That night in the train she was full of the theft until she began to account for the money she had spent. She mentioned Francis Liversidge, suddenly looked scared, and then shut up like an oyster. To-night Mr. Liversidge’s gallantry in defending young Broadhead seemed to me to be as bogus as the rest of his behaviour.”
“Including the queenie voice,” agreed Wade. “Sounds as if he’d swallowed the kitchen sink.”
“I fancy,” continued Alleyn, “that Miss Dacres also doubts the integrity of our Mr. Liversidge. I fancy she does. She has made one or two very cryptic remarks on the subject”
“The girl Gaynes never said just why she reckoned he looked suspicious. Was it simply because he’d been in the cabin and seen where she kept the money?”
“That, perhaps; and also, don’t you think, because of whatever Mr. Alfred Meyer said to her on the subject?”
“Cert-ain-ly,” agreed Wade, with much emphasis.
“And if the deceased knew Liversidge pinched the money and let the Gaynes woman see he knew, maybe she put in the good word to Liversidge and he thought: ‘That’s quite enough from you, Mr. Meyer,’ and fixed it accordingly.”
“In which case,” said Alleyn, offering Wade a cigarette, “we have two murderous gentlemen instead of one?”
“Uh?”
“The first attempt on his life was made in the train before the theft was discovered.”
“Aw, hell!” said Inspector Wade wearily. After a moment’s thought he brightened a little. “Suppose Liversidge had found out by some other means that the deceased knew he had taken the money. Suppose he knew the deceased was on to his little game before they left the ship?”
“By Jove, yes,” said Alleyn, “that’d do it, certainly. But look here, Wade, does one man murder another simply because he’s been found out in a theft?”
“Well, sir, when you put it like that—”
“No,” interrupted Alleyn, “you’re quite right. It’s possible. Meyer would give him the sack, of course, and make the whole thing public. That would ruin Liversidge’s career as an actor, no doubt. If he could kill Meyer before he spoke — Yes, it’s possible, but — I don’t know. We’ll have to see Miss Dacres and George Mason again, Wade. If Meyer confided in anyone, it would be his wife or his partner. But there’s one catch in your theory.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“It’s rather nebulous perhaps, but when the little man told me about the assault in the train he was obviously at a complete loss to account for it. Now, if he’d already let Liversidge see he suspected the theft, he would have thought of him as a possible enemy. But he told me he was on terms of loving-kindness and all the rest of it with his entire company, and I think he meant it.”