The Sea Mystery · Chapter 8 (2/2)

About the Berlyns’ history she could not tell much. Mr. Berlyn had lived in the town for several years before his marriage. He seemed to have plenty of money. He had bought the house on the Buckland road just before the wedding and had had it done up from top to bottom. It was not a large house, but beautifully fitted up. At the same time he had bought the car. Peter Swann, the gardener, washed the car, but he did not drive it. Both Mr. and Mrs. Berlyn were expert drivers and good mechanics. Mrs. Berlyn also used her push bicycle a good deal.

French then came to the evening of the tragedy. On that evening dinner had been early to allow Mr. Berlyn to get away in the car at seven o’clock. It had been her, Lizzie Johnston’s, evening out, but Mrs. Berlyn had told her she would have to take the next evening instead, as some friends were coming in and she would be wanted to bring up supper. About eight o’clock Mr. Fogden, Mr. Cowls, a Dr. and Mrs. Lancaster, and three or four other people had arrived. She had brought them up coffee and sandwiches about half past ten. They had left about eleven. She had got to bed almost at once, and a few minutes later she had heard Mrs. Berlyn go up to her room.

The next thing she remembered was being wakened in the middle of the night by Mrs. Berlyn. The lady was partly dressed and seemed agitated. “Lizzie,” she had said, “it’s nearly three o’clock and there’s no sign of Mr. Berlyn. I’m frightened. I’ve just been out to the garage to see if the car has come back, but it’s not there. What do you think can be wrong?”

They hurriedly discussed the matter. Mr. Berlyn was the last man to alter his plans, and both were afraid of an accident on that dangerous Tavistock road.

In the end they decided that Mrs. Berlyn should knock up Sergeant Daw, who lived near. This she did, while Lizzie dressed. Presently Mrs. Berlyn came back to say that the sergeant was going out to investigate. They had some tea and lay down without taking off their clothes. In the early morning a policeman brought the news of the tragedy.

Mrs. Berlyn was terribly upset. But she grew calmer in time, and the arrangements for the auction and for her removal to London taking her out of herself, in a week she was almost normal.

She had been very nice to Lizzie at the last, giving her an excellent testimonial and an extra month’s wages.

French thanked the girl for her information and rose as if to take his leave.

“I suppose Mrs. Berlyn was something of a needlewoman?” he said, carelessly. “Someone told me she made her own dresses.”

Lizzie laughed contemptuously.

“Made her dresses, did she?” she repeated. “I don’t think. She didn’t hardly know how to wear a thimble, she didn’t. She wouldn’t have sat down to a job of sewing, not for no person on earth she wouldn’t.”

“Then who did the household mending?”

“Yours truly. Anything that was done I had to do.”

“But not the clothes, surely? Who darned Mr. Berlyn’s socks, for instance?”

“Yours truly. I tell you Mrs. Berlyn wouldn’t have touched a sock or a bit of wool not to save her life.”

This was a piece of unexpected luck. French turned away.

“You are a good girl,” he declared. “Would half a sovereign be of any use to you?”

Miss Johnston left him in no doubt on the point.

“Very well,” he went on. “You come down to the hotel after dinner tonight and ask for me. I want you to mend some clothes and socks for me. Or rather,” he paused, “I have to come up in this direction after lunch today in any case, and I’ll bring them.”

No object in advertising the lines on which he was working, he thought. The less that was known of his researches, the more hope there was of their proving fruitful.

A couple of hours later he returned with a small suitcase.

“Here are the clothes,” he said. “I wish you’d see what they want, so that I’ll know when I’m likely to get them.”

He laid four pairs of socks on the table⁠—three brown pairs of his own and the grey pair found in the crate. The girl looked them over one by one. French watched her in silence. He was anxious, if possible, to give her no lead.

“There isn’t much wrong with these,” she said, presently. “They don’t want no darning.”

“Oh, but they have been badly mended. You see these grey ones have been done with a different-coloured wool. I thought perhaps you could put that right.”

Miss Johnston laughed scornfully.

“You’re mighty particular, mister, if that darning ain’t good enough for you. I’d just like to know what’s wrong with it.”

“You think it’s all right?” French returned. “If so, I’m satisfied. But what about these underclothes?”

The girl examined the clothes. They were almost new and neatly folded, just as they had come back from the laundry, so that her contemptuous reply was not inexcusable. At all events, it was evident that no suspicion that they were other than her visitor’s had crossed her mind.

French, with his half formed theory of Berlyn’s guilt, would have been surprised if she had answered otherwise. The test, however, had been necessary, and he felt he had not lost time. Mollifying her with a tip, he returned to the hotel.