The Lyttleton Case Read online

  After talking the matter over from every point of view, the lovers decided, in order to make assurance doubly sure, to send two cables—one addressed to Mr Lyttleton at the Grand Washington Hotel, New York, asking him to wire news of himself; and the other, reply paid, to the manager of the hotel, asking him to state if Mr Lyttleton, of London, was still staying in the establishment, failing which to telegraph any information he may have left at the hotel as to his future movements.

  The cables were duly despatched; and when they parted, Doris undertook to ring Basil up as soon as she received a reply to either of them.

  Between ten and eleven that night, Basil was sitting in his room at the Daily Gazette office, doing his share in the preparation of the next day’s issue of the paper, and in no way disturbed by the roar of the great presses underneath, when the telephone bell rang, and in a moment he was listening to the very agitated voice of Doris explaining that she had just received a cable from the management of the Grand Washington Hotel, to the effect that her father had departed from there on the morning of the 8th of July, having made a stay of one night only. He had left no word as to his movements.

  Basil tried successfully not to let the uneasiness he felt appear in his tone, as he urged Doris still not to be anxious, pointing out that her father had probably been called away to some other town—Philadelphia or Chicago possibly—and that she would certainly hear from him in a day or so.

  As a concession to her disquietude, however, he proposed that he should meet her in good time the next morning to accompany her to her father’s office in the City, as in all probability his partners were in touch with him and would be able to furnish his address.

  ‘Good-night, dearest,’ said he in conclusion, ‘be sure to sleep soundly and don’t worry.’

  ‘That’s easier said than done,’ was the reply, ‘but I’ll try to take your advice—Au revoir, Basil.’

  The following morning Basil, by dint of getting up an hour earlier than his wont, and forgoing his usual leisurely breakfast in favour of a cup of coffee swallowed as he dressed, was able to meet Doris in Old Broad Street at the entrance to Winchester House, just as the clocks of the city churches were striking the hour of ten.

  The firm of Lyttleton, Menzies, and Lyttleton occupied a handsome suite of offices on the first floor. Established in the late eighteen sixties, ‘Lyttletons,’ as it was called familiarly in the city, could not be compared with such colossi as Rothschilds or Barings, but it had risen steadily from small things to great, and was already a power in the inner circles of finance: there were few important flotations, few ‘deals’ of the first magnitude in which its influence was not felt; and it was said among the initiated that it had had at any rate some share in bringing about at least six wars—each of which had added to the prestige and resources of the firm, and at the same time expanded the boundaries of the British Empire.

  For some years, owing to ill-health, Mr Menzies had taken but little part in the business, the direction of which he had left to his partners, James Lyttleton and Horace Lyttleton, his cousin.

  Despite the close relationship in blood and business, Doris had seen but little of Horace Lyttleton and his family, and what she had seen had not inspired her with desire for a closer acquaintance.

  Accordingly, when she and Basil entered the sumptuous general office, she asked to see Mr Saunders, the manager, instead of inquiring for her relative. An obsequious office boy, recognising her as the chief ‘governor’s’ daughter, hastened to fetch Mr Saunders, who invited her with her escort into her father’s private room.

  David Saunders was about forty years old, slim and of medium height; his black hair was beginning to turn gray over the temples, and to grow thin on the crown. Like most high officials, bank managers, and solicitors, his face appeared to be a sort of conventionalised mask, hiding the presence, or absence, of a personality, in the background. Discretion, accuracy, trustworthiness, caution, were virtues that appeared to radiate from him, but Mr Saunders was anything but a mere machine. He was a man of considerable ability and great ambition. He aimed at becoming himself a financial magnate; and had already begun to operate on the Stock Exchange on a fairly large scale. He was a bachelor and shared a comfortable house at Purley, in Surrey, with his younger brother Frederick, who participated in his ambitions and admired intensely his abilities.

  Twenty-five years’ service with the firm, during which period he had worked his way up from office boy at five shillings a week to manager at nine hundred pounds a year, had taught David Saunders that between a partner and his relations and a mere employee, there is a gulf of caste almost as wide and deep as that which in India sunders Brahmin from Sudra.

  Doris, however, though ‘born in the purple,’ was not altogether spoiled by her father’s wealth, nor forgetful that the richest are of the same clay as the poorest, and that the same red blood runs in the veins alike of the millionaire and the clerk; she therefore greeted Mr Saunders as an old friend and introduced him to Basil.

  ‘I’m so worried about father, Mr Saunders,’ she said; ‘have you heard from him at the office since his arrival in New York?’

  ‘We have only had one cable, Miss Lyttleton, and that was sent off by your father the day after he arrived in New York. It simply announced his arrival and stated that he would wire again as to the date of his return.’

  ‘I don’t know whatever to do about him, Mr Saunders, he went away the next day from the hotel where he stayed after landing in New York, and left no word as to where he was going: that is now nearly a fortnight ago, so there has been plenty of time for a letter to reach us from him. I do hope there is nothing wrong.’

  ‘Would you like to see Mr Menzies? I informed him of Mr Lyttleton’s absence, and he has been coming up to the office during the last two weeks.’

  ‘Thank you, we will see him before we go. Is Mr Horace Lyttleton here?’

  ‘No, Miss Lyttleton, he is still away on his holiday in France. I notified him by letter of your father’s absence and told him that Mr Menzies was in charge.’

  At this point Basil, who had been looking about him with the eye of a journalist trained to notice whatever was pertinent to any subject in which he was interested, picked up a ‘Red Time-Table’ which was lying on the blotting paper on Mr Lyttleton’s table; and asked:

  ‘Was this time-table here when Mr Lyttleton was last in the office?’

  ‘Yes, the new time-table is placed on his table regularly on the first of every month and the old one removed. You will notice that this is the July number.’

  ‘Has anyone else used it since he went away?’

  ‘That is most unlikely, Mr Dawson, as there is another copy in the general office to which members of the staff can always refer if they wish to.’

  ‘Then it is curious,’ said Basil, ‘that just before leaving for Liverpool, Mr Lyttleton should have turned down a page of towns beginning with “Hi” and should actually have made a pencil mark against the 4.10 train from Victoria to Hillborough.’

  ‘My cousin, Horace Lyttleton, lives at Hillborough,’ said Doris, ‘perhaps he marked the book.’

  ‘I don’t think that is possible,’ said the manager, whose voice and eyes expressed his surprise at the turn the conversation was taking, ‘Mr Horace left for France before the end of June, and we have not seen him at the office since: I understand that his son is away with him and that he has shut his house up till his return.’

  ‘I wonder if your father knew anyone else at Hillborough,’ said Basil to Doris.

  ‘I have never heard of anyone,’ said Doris, ‘he and cousin Horace were not at all intimate outside the office, and I have never known him mention Hillborough before, much less go there.’

  Mr Saunders at this point suggested that he should inform Mr Menzies that Miss Lyttleton and Mr Dawson would like to see him.

  ‘Well, darling,’ said Basil to Doris, as soon as they were alone, ‘there is only one thing for me to do and that is to get
leave from my editor to run over to New York to see if I can obtain news of your father there.’

  ‘That is nice of you, Basil; it would be a tremendous relief to me to know that you were going to find him for me.’

  The door opened, and Mr Menzies entered. He was a delicate, scholarly-looking man, whose appearance was more suggestive of an Oxford don than a city financier, and who grudged the time he was occasionally obliged to devote to the city as being lost to the more essential task of writing a treatise on Greek Coinage Designs from 600 to 200 B.C. which he regarded as the real business of his life.

  He greeted Doris as an old friend. ‘My dear Miss Doris,’ he said, ‘I am so sorry that you are having all this anxiety about your father: he has always been the most precise and business-like of men as regards correspondence, and I cannot understand his prolonged silence. I feel sure, however, that there is some good and quite simple reason for it; and that it will not be long before we hear from him.’

  ‘I hope so indeed, Mr Menzies, but let me introduce you to my fiancé, Mr Basil Dawson.’

  ‘I know your name quite well, Mr Dawson, and am delighted to have this opportunity of congratulating you both,’ said Mr Menzies. ‘Mr Lyttleton told me all about your engagement when last I saw him.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Basil, ‘I certainly am to be congratulated. Do you know, Mr Menzies, we were just planning, when you came in, that I should go over to New York to see if I can get any news of Mr Lyttleton; but there is just one point that requires clearing up while we are here. I found this time-table on Mr Lyttleton’s desk: the date proves that it was only in his possession for the few hours he was here before leaving for Liverpool; and yet he has turned down a page and marked a train going, not to Liverpool, but to Hillborough. Can you suggest any explanation?’

  ‘I know nothing of Hillborough,’ was the reply, ‘except the fact that Mr Horace Lyttleton lives there; and as he was out of England on the 1st of July, I cannot imagine any reason for Mr Lyttleton wishing to go there. Most probably the mark was made by one of the clerks.’

  After some minutes’ further conversation, during which no one could make any suggestions of value, Doris and Basil took their leave: Doris to motor home to Long Vistas, and Basil to make the necessary preparations for his journey.

  CHAPTER IV

  ‘Who is this masquerader?’

  The Belle’s Adventure

  AS a journalist, Basil was accustomed to travel; and he was thoroughly well up in all the arts by which a journey can be made in the speediest and most comfortable way possible. His preparations therefore, did not take him long; and the evening saw him start for Liverpool to embark on the Moldavia, which was due to sail for New York early the next morning.

  The voyage was pleasant and uneventful; and, but for his anxiety on Doris’s account, Basil would have thoroughly enjoyed the five days of fresh air and sunshine.

  He had arranged that Doris should send him a marconigram if news came to hand about her father; but no message came; and accordingly, as soon as the steamer reached her berth in the Hudson, he drove to the Grand Washington Hotel, booked a room, and sent in his card to the manager with a request for an interview on urgent business.

  The interview was accorded; and the manager, Mr Julius M. Smith, ‘some hustler,’ as his subordinates called him, listened to his story, and when he had finished, rang through to the office and asked a clerk to bring in the register in use on July the 7th.

  ‘I recollect quite well, Mr Dawson,’ said he, ‘receiving Miss Lyttleton’s telegram last week, but I am very much afraid I can’t add to the reply I sent then; however, you shall see the register for yourself.’

  The book arrived; and after some search, Basil discovered the entry ‘James Lyttleton, London, England.’

  ‘But this is not Mr Lyttleton’s handwriting,’ said he. ‘May I ask your clerk one or two questions?’

  ‘Why, certainly,’ said the manager, as he gave the necessary instructions through a speaking tube.

  ‘Johnson,’ said Mr Smith, when the clerk entered the room, ‘I want you to answer any questions Mr Dawson here may put to you.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Basil, pointing to Mr Lyttleton’s name, ‘that you were in charge of the register on the 7th of July when this entry was made.’

  ‘I guess that’s so,’ was the reply.

  ‘The handwriting is not Mr Lyttleton’s: can you explain that?’

  ‘Sure,’ said the clerk, ‘I wrote the name myself. I remember quite clearly what happened. Mr Lyttleton came up to the desk, and said he had just arrived from England and wanted a room. I requested him to register. He said he had cut his finger and asked me to do it for him, which I did.’

  ‘Was there any other conversation between you?’

  ‘He asked if there were any shows worth going to up town; and I told him that Misses and Kisses at the Madison Empire was just first rate. He thanked me and said he thought he would look in at it.’

  ‘Misses and Kisses,’ said Basil, ‘that sounds like a very light musical comedy; I should not have thought it would appeal to a staid old gentleman like Mr Lyttleton.’

  ‘He did not look too old or too solemn when I saw him,’ said the clerk.

  ‘He’s over sixty,’ said Basil.

  ‘I should have guessed thirty-five.’

  ‘But his hair is quite gray.’

  ‘My impression is of a man well under forty,’ said the clerk; ‘if I had seen gray hair I should have put him down for much older. The only sign of age I noticed was his bad eyesight. He seemed to find a difficulty in seeing things, although he wore spectacles.’

  ‘Did you see him when he left the hotel?’

  ‘No, sir, I did not,’ said Mr Johnson, who then went back to his duties.

  Basil felt a curious and undefinable excitement—much the same kind of feeling that he had had before in connection with some of his journalistic ‘scoops’—a sort of presentiment that something would happen; that discoveries were impending if only he could continue to probe in the right direction.

  ‘Now, Mr Smith,’ he said, ‘if you are willing, I would like to see the chambermaid who attended to Mr Lyttleton.’

  The manager assented and rang through the necessary instructions to the chief housekeeper. A few minutes later a trim, collected, observant-looking young woman entered the room.

  ‘The housekeeper told me you wished to speak to me, sir,’ said she, addressing the manager.

  ‘Were you in charge of number six hundred and eighteen on the second floor on the 7th of the month?’

  ‘Surely, sir, I was.’

  ‘Then will you please answer any questions this gentleman may wish to ask you,’ said Mr Smith, indicating Basil, who opened fire at once.

  ‘Do you recollect an oldish gentleman arriving at the hotel on the 7th who stayed in number six hundred and eighteen for one night only?’

  ‘Well, sir, there are so many coming and going in my rooms, that it is not easy to bear them all in mind.’

  ‘He came straight off the steamer from England, does that help to recall him?’

  ‘I can remember a gentleman arriving from England about that date, sir, I noticed the label on his trunk, but he did not strike me as being oldish.’

  ‘Can you describe his appearance?’

  ‘He was fairly tall, and I think was clean shaven and had dark hair. I could tell he was not an American by his accent, but there was nothing very striking about his appearance, except that he seemed very near sighted.’

  ‘What was his trunk like?’

  ‘It was a large leather one, almost quite new.’

  ‘Were there any labels on it?’

  ‘I only noticed the steamer label, sir.’

  ‘Did you notice his clothes?’

  ‘He was dressed as a gentleman, in a dark suit, but I didn’t pay very much attention to him.’

  ‘Did he leave anything behind him when he went away?’

  The girl thought
for a moment, then said hesitatingly: ‘I think I remember that it was in his room I found a collar dropped down behind the dressing table, but I am not absolutely sure, sir. In any case, it was just about that time I found the collar and took it down to the clerk in charge of visitors’ lost property.’

  Here the manager, who had been listening intently, rang through to the office, saying, ‘Send Miss Jacobs in to me at once with the lost property register.’

  After a brief interval, Miss Jacobs, a bright, dark-eyed young woman, whose remote ancestors were natives of Palestine, appeared carrying a large book.

  ‘Miss Jacobs,’ said the manager, ‘will you please turn up your entries for the 8th of July, and tell me if a collar was brought to you on that day by one of the chambermaids.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Smith, here are the particulars: the collar was found in number six hundred and eighteen on the second floor, after the departure of a gentleman called Lyttleton.’

  ‘Has it been claimed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please bring it here.’

  Miss Jacobs disappeared, and in about two minutes returned, carrying a collar in her hand.

  The manager took it and passed it over to Basil, who examined it with great care and noted the following particulars in his pocket-book: ‘A double collar, nearly new, size sixteen and a half, maker’s name: Heath and Dickson, 230 New Bond Street, London—brand: The Improved Mayfair Collar.’

  Miss Jacobs and the chambermaid having been dismissed, Basil took his leave of Mr Smith, after thanking him for his courtesy and helpfulness, and strolled into the lounge, where he rang for some coffee, lit his pipe, and settled down to think over what he had just learned and to plan out the next steps to be taken in his search.

  He was beginning to feel that something was very wrong indeed: both the clerk and the chambermaid had described ‘Mr Lyttleton’ as being on the right side of middle age, though their evidence on the point was not absolutely definite and conclusive; yet Doris’s father, though still active and energetic, with his gray hair, lined face, and somewhat pompous, authoritative manner, could hardly be taken for much less than his age, sixty-two, even by a very unobservant person.