Magridge said: “She’s probably out — and I want the sergeant to go to the Cordovan Ministry. Why don’t you check Whitehaven House yourself?”
Glad of something to do, Hugh took a cab to Kensington Gore. He rang and knocked, but there was no answer. The last of the servants had left, obviously. He let himself in.
The house was cold. Hiding was not Augusta’s style, but he decided to search the rooms anyway, just in case. The first floor was deserted. He went up to the second floor and checked her bedroom.
What he saw surprised him. The wardrobe doors were ajar, the drawers of the chest were open, and there were discarded clothes on the bed and chairs. This was not like Augusta: she was a tidy person with an ordered mind. At first he thought she had been robbed. Then another thought struck him.
He ran up two flights of stairs to the servants’ floor. When he had lived here, seventeen years ago, the suitcases and trunks had been kept jam-packed in a big closet known as the box room.
He found the door open. The room contained a few suitcases and no steamer trunk.
Augusta had run away.
He quickly checked all the other rooms of the house. As he expected he saw no one. The servants’ rooms and the guest bedrooms were already acquiring the musty air of disuse. When he looked into the room that had been Uncle Joseph’s bedroom, he was surprised to see that it looked exactly as it always had, although the rest of the house had been redecorated several times. He was about to leave when his eye fell on the lacquered display cabinet that held Joseph’s valuable collection of snuffboxes.
The cabinet was empty.
Hugh frowned. He knew the snuffboxes had not been lodged with the auctioneers: Augusta had so far prevented the removal of any of her possessions.
That meant she had taken them with her.
They were worth a hundred thousand pounds — she could live comfortably for the rest of her life on that money.
But they did not belong to her. They belonged to the syndicate.
He decided to go after her.
He ran down the stairs and out into the street. There was a cabstand a few yards along the road. The drivers were chatting in a group, stamping their feet to keep warm. Hugh ran up to them, saying: “Did any of you drive Lady Whitehaven this afternoon?”
“Two of us did,” said a cabbie. “One for her luggage!” The others chortled.
Hugh’s deduction was confirmed. “Where did you take her?”
“Waterloo Station, for the one o’clock boat train.”
The boat train went to Southampton — where Micky was sailing from. Those two had always been cronies. Micky smarmed all over her like a cad, kissing her hand and flattering her. Despite the eighteen years’ difference in their ages, they made a plausible couple.
“But they missed the train,” the cabbie added.
“They?” Hugh said. “There was someone with her?”
“An elderly chap in a wheelchair.”
Not Micky, evidently. Who, then? No one in the family was frail enough to use a wheelchair. “They missed the train, you say. Do you know when the next boat train leaves?”
“At three.”
Hugh looked at his watch. It was two-thirty. He could catch it.
“Take me to Waterloo,” he said, and jumped into the cab.
He reached the station just in time to get a ticket and board the boat train.
It was a corridor train with interconnecting coaches, so he could walk along it. As it pulled out of the station and picked up speed through the tenements of south London, he set out to look for Augusta.
He did not have to look far. She was in the next coach.
With a quick glance he hurried past her compartment so that she would not see him.
Micky was not with her. He must have gone by an earlier train. The only other person in her compartment was an elderly man with a rug over his knees.
He went to the next coach and found a seat. There was not much point in confronting Augusta right away. She might not have the snuffboxes with her — they could be in one of her cases in the luggage van. To speak to her now would serve only to forewarn her. Better to wait until the train arrived at Southampton. He would jump off, find a policeman, then challenge her as her bags were unloaded.
Suppose she denied she had the snuffboxes? He would insist that the police search her luggage. They were obliged to investigate a reported theft, and the more Augusta protested the more suspicious they would be.
Suppose she claimed the snuffboxes were hers? It was hard to prove anything on the spot. If that happened, Hugh decided he would propose that the police take custody of the valuables while they investigated the contradictory claims.
He controlled his impatience as the white fields of Wimbledon sped by. A hundred thousand pounds was a big chunk of the money Pilasters Bank owed. He was not going to let Augusta steal it. The snuffboxes also symbolized the family’s determination to pay off its debts. If Augusta was allowed to make off with them, people would say the Pilasters were grabbing what they could, just like any ordinary embezzlers. The thought made Hugh angry.
It was still snowing when the train reached Southampton. Hugh was leaning out of the carriage window as the engine puffed into the station. There were uniformed policemen everywhere. That meant Micky had not yet been caught, Hugh inferred.
He jumped off while the train was still moving and got to the ticket barrier before anyone else. He spoke to a police inspector. “I’m the Senior Partner of Pilasters Bank,” he said, giving the inspector his card. “I know you’re looking for a murderer, but there’s a woman on this train who is carrying stolen property worth a hundred thousand pounds belonging to the bank. I believe she is planning to leave the country on the Aztec tonight, taking it with her.”
“What property would that be, Mr. Pilaster?” said the inspector.
“A collection of jeweled snuffboxes.”
“And the name of the woman?”
“She’s the dowager countess of Whitehaven.”
The policeman raised his eyebrows. “I do read the newspapers, sir. I take it this is all to do with the failure of the bank.”
Hugh nodded. “Those snuffboxes must be sold to help pay people who have lost their money.”
“Can you point out Lady Whitehaven to me?”
Hugh looked along the platform, peering through the falling snow. “That’s her, by the luggage van, in the big hat with bird’s wings on it.” She was supervising the unloading of her bags.
The inspector nodded. “Very well. Stay here with me at the ticket barrier. We’ll detain her as she passes through.”
Hugh was tense as he watched the passengers stream off the train and out. Although he was fairly certain Micky was not on the train, nevertheless he scrutinized the face of every passenger.
Augusta was the last to leave. Three porters were carrying her luggage. When she saw Hugh at the ticket barrier she turned pale.
The inspector was all politeness. “Pardon me, Lady Whitehaven. May I have a word?”