Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery Read Free Page A

called Moresby. You seen or heard of him by any chance?”
    “Mr Moresby?” beamed the landlord. “Why, he’s staying ‘ere, he is. Took ‘is room this very mornin’, he did. Well, fancy that!”
    “Fancy it indeed! You hear that, Anthony? Dear old Moresby staying under the very same roof-tree! What do you think of that, eh?”
    “Good enough,” Anthony agreed.
    “I should say so.” He took another pull at his tankard. “Been having some excitement down here, landlord, haven’t you? Lady fell over a cliff, or something?”
    “Mrs Vane, sir? Yes. Very sad business, very sad indeed. A wonderful nice lady she was too, they say, though I can’t say as how I knew ‘er meself. A bit of a stranger in these parts, she was, you see. ‘Adn’t been married to the doctor more nor five years.”
    “The doctor? Her husband is a doctor, is he?”
    “Well, in a manner o’ speaking he is. He’s always called Dr Vane, though he don’t do no doctoring. Plenty o’ money he’s got now and always ‘as’ ad since he settled ‘ere twenty or more years ago, but a doctor he was once, they do say, an’ Dr Vane he’s always called.”
    “I see. And where does he live? Near here?”
    “A matter of a mile or so out Sandsea way; big ‘ouse standin’ in its own grounds back from the cliffs. You couldn’t miss it. Very lonely, like. You might take a stroll out there and see it if you’ve got nothing to do.”
    “By Jove, yes, we might, mightn’t we, Anthony?”
    “I should think so,” said Anthony cautiously.
    “But first of all about these rooms. How many have you got vacant, landlord?”
    “Well, besides Mr Moresby’s, there’s four others altogether. If you’d like to step up in a minute or two and see ‘em, you could choose which ones you’d like.”
    “We won’t bother. We’ll take them all.”
    “What, all four of ‘em?”
    “Yes; then we can have bedroom and a sitting-room apiece, you see.”
    “But there’s a sitting-room downstairs I could let you‘ave. A proper sitting-room.”
    “Is there? Good! Then we’ll take that too. I love proper sitting-rooms. That’ll be five rooms altogether, won’t it? I should think that ought to be enough for us. What would you say, Anthony?”
    “I think that might be enough,” Anthony assented.
    “You see, landlord? My friend agrees with me. Then that’s settled.”
    “It’ll cost you more sir,” the landlord demurred in some bewilderment.
    “Of course it will!” Roger agreed heartily. “Ever so much more. But that can’t be helped. My friend is a very faddy man – a very faddy man indeed; and if he thinks we ought to have five rooms, then five rooms we shall have to have. I’m very sorry, landlord, but you see how it is. And now I expect you’d like us to pay you a deposit, wouldn’t you? Of course. And after that, there are our bags and things to be got from the station, if you’ve got a spare man about the place; and you might tell him from me that if the red-faced man who hands them over begins to make curious noises all of a sudden, he needn’t take offence; it only means that he’s just seen a joke that someone told him the year Queen Victoria was born. Let’s see now; a deposit, you said, didn’t you? Here’s ten pounds. You might make me out a receipt for it, and be careful to mention all five rooms on the receipt or I shall be getting into trouble with my friend. Thanks very much.”
    The landlord’s expression, which had been growing blanker and blanker as this harangue proceeded, brightened at the sight of the two five-pound notes which Roger laid on the counter; words may be words, but money is always money. He had not the faintest idea what it was all about and it was his private opinion that Roger was suffering from rather more than a touch of the sun, but he proceeded quite readily to make out the required receipt.
    Roger tucked it away in his pocketbook and, professing a morbid interest in the late Mrs Vane, began to