She started by saying carelessly: 'What was that man's name you mentioned last night? Alan Carstairs, was it? I feel sure I've heard that name before.'
'Oh, he was. Distinctly attractive.' 'Funny - his being so like the man who fell over the cliff at Marchbolt,' said Frankie.
'I wonder if everyone has a double.' They compared instances, citing Adolf Beck and referring lightly to the Lyons Mail. Frankie was careful to make no further references to Alan Carstairs. To show too much interest in him would be fatal.
In her own mind, however, she felt she was getting on now.
She was quite convinced that Alan Carstairs had been the victim of the cliff tragedy at Marchbolt. He fulfilled all the conditions. He had no intimate friends or relations in this country and his disappearance was unlikely to be noticed for some time. A man who frequently ran off to East Africa and South America was not likely to be missed at once. Moreover, Frankie noted, although Sylvia Bassington-ffrench had commented on the resemblance in the newspaper reproduction, it had not occurred to her for a moment that it actually was the man.
That, Frankie thought, was rather an interesting bit of psychology.
We seldom suspect people who are 'news' of being people we have usually seen or met.
Very good, then. Alan Carstairs was the dead man. The next step was to learn more about Alan Carstairs. His connection with the Bassington-ffrenches seemed to have been of the slightest. He had been brought down there quite by chance by friends. What was the name? Rivington. Frankie stored it in her memory for future use.
That certainly was a possible avenue of inquiry. But it would be well to go slowly. Inquiries about Alan Carstairs must be very discreetly made.
'I don't want to be poisoned or knocked on the head,' thought Frankie with a grimace. 'They were ready enough to bump off Bobby for practically nothing at all ' Her thoughts flew off at a tangent to that tantalizing phrase that had started the whole business.
Evans! Who was Evans? Where did Evans fit in?
'A dope gang,' decided Frankie. Perhaps some relation of Carstairs was victimized, and he was determined to bust it up.
Perhaps he came to England for that purpose. Evans may have been one of the gang who had retired and gone to Wales to live.
Carstairs had bribed Evans to give the others away and Evans had consented and Carstairs went there to see him, and someone followed him and killed him.
Was that somebody Roger Bassington-ffrench? It seemed very unlikely. The Caymans, now, were far more what Frankie imagined a gang of dope smugglers would be likely to be.
And yet - that photograph. If only there was some explanation of that photograph.
That evening, Dr Nicholson and his wife were expected to dinner. Frankie was finishing dressing when she heard their car drive up to the front door. Her window faced that way and she looked out.
A tall man was just alighting from the driver's seat of a darkblue Talbot.
Frankie withdrew her head thoughtfully.
Carstairs had been a Canadian. Dr Nicholson was a Canadian. And Dr Nicholson had a dark-blue Talbot.
Absurd to build anything upon that, of course, but wasn't it just faintly suggestive?
Dr Nicholson was a big man with a manner that suggested great reserves of power. His speech was slow, on the whole he said very little, but contrived somehow to make every word sound significant. He wore strong glasses and behind them his very pale-blue eyes glittered reflectively.
His wife was a slender creature of perhaps twenty-seven, pretty, indeed beautiful. She seemed, Frankie, thought, slightly nervous and chattered rather feverishly as though to conceal the fact.
'You had an accident, I hear. Lady Frances,' said Dr Nicholson as he took his seat beside her at the dinner table.
Frankie explained the catastrophe. She wondered why she should feel so nervous doing so. The doctor's manner was simple and interested. Why should she feel as though she were rehearsing a defence to a charge that had never been made. Was there any earthly reason why the doctor should disbelieve in her accident?
'That was too bad,' he said, as she finished, having, perhaps, made a more detailed story of it than seemed strictly necessary.
'But you seem to have made a very good recovery.' 'We won't admit she's cured yet. We're keeping her with us,' said Sylvia.
The doctor's gaze went to Sylvia. Something like a very faint smile came to his lips but passed almost immediately.
'I should keep her with you as long as possible,' he said gravely.
Frankie was sitting between her host and Dr Nicholson.
Henry Bassington-ffrench was decidedly moody tonight. His hands twitched, he ate next to nothing and he took no part in the conversation.
Mrs Nicholson, opposite, had a difficult time with him, and turned to Roger with obvious relief. She talked to him in a desultory fashion, but Frankie noticed that her eyes were never long absent from her husband's face.
Dr Nicholson was talking about life in the country.
'Do you know what a culture is. Lady Frances?' 'Do you mean book learning?' asked Frankie, rather puzzled.
'No, no. I was referring to germs. They develop, you know, in specially prepared serum. The country. Lady Frances, is a little like that. There is time and space and infinite leisure suitable conditions, you see, for development.' 'Do you mean bad things?' asked Frankie puzzled.
'That depends. Lady Frances, on the kind of germ cultivated.' Idiotic conversation, thought Frankie, and why should it make me feel creepy, but it does!
She said flippantly: 'I expect I'm developing all sorts of dark qualities.' He looked at her and said calmly: 'Oh, no, I don't think so. Lady Frances. I think you would always be on the side of law and order.' Was there a faint emphasis on the word law?
Suddenly, across the table, Mrs Nicholson said: 'My husband prides himself on summing up character.' Dr Nicholson nodded his head gently.
'Quite right, Moira. Little things interest me.' He turned to Frankie again. 'I had heard of your accident, you know. One thing about it intrigued me very much.' 'Yes?' said Frankie, her heart beating suddenly.
'The doctor who was passing - the one who brought you in here.' Yes?' 'He must have had a curious character - to turn his car before going to the rescue.' 'I don't understand.' 'Of course not. You were unconscious. But young Reeves, the message boy, came from Staverley on his bicycle and no car passed him, yet he comes round the corner, finds the smash, and the doctor's car pointing the same way he was going towards London. You see the point? The doctor did not come from the direction of Staveley so he must have come the other way, down the hill. But in that case his car should have been pointing towards Staverley. But it wasn't. Therefore he must have turned it.' 'Unless he had come from Staverley some time before,' said Frankie.
'Then his car would have been standing there as you came down the hill. Was it?' The pale-blue eyes were looking at her very intently through the thick glasses.
'I don't remember,' said Frankie. 'I don't think so.' 'You sound like a detective, Jasper,' said Mrs Nicholson.
'And all about nothing at all.' 'Little things interest me,' said Nicholson.
He turned to his hostess, and Frankie drew a breath of relief.
Why had he catechized her like that? How had he found out all about the accident? 'Little things interest me,' he had said.
Was that all there was to it?
Frankie remembered the dark-blue Talbot saloon, and the fact that Carstairs had been a Canadian. It seemed to her that Dr Nicholson was a sinister man.
She kept out of his way after dinner, attaching herself to the gentle, fragile Mrs Nicholson. She noticed that all the time Mrs Nicholson's eyes still watched her husband. Was it love, Frankie wondered, or fear?
Nicholson devoted himself to Sylvia and at half-past ten he caught his wife's eye and they rose to go.
'Well,' said Roger after they had gone, 'what do you think of our Dr Nicholson? A very forceful personality, hasn't he?' I'm like Sylvia,' said Frankie. 'I don't think I like him very much. I like her better.' 'Good-looking, but rather a little idiot,' said Roger. 'She either worships him or is scared to death of him -I don't know which.' 'That's just what I wondered,' agreed Frankie.
