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    Walk with Care
    Walk with Care
    Walk with Care
    Ebook350 pages5 hours

    Walk with Care

    By Patricia Wentworth

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    About this ebook

    Benbow Smith investigates the suspicious death of a prominent political figure and a mysterious letter in this thriller from the author of the Miss Silver Mysteries
     
    Rosalind Denny, the American-born widow of the under secretary for Foreign Affairs, is still grieving for her husband. Eighteen months ago, Gilbert Denny threw away a happy marriage and a promising political career by ending his life. But Rosalind doesn’t believe that Gilbert’s drowning was a suicide.
     
    In London, Foreign Office agent Benbow Smith is visited by Bernard Mannister, a distinguished member of parliament and president of the British Disarmament League. A confidential letter that could destroy lives and disrupt the precarious balance of Western power is missing. Mannister, like Denny and others before him, is being driven from public service—but why?
     
    With an intriguing cast of characters, including a talking parrot, a sleepwalker, and a psychic, Walk with Care is both a top-notch historical thriller and a revelatory glimpse into the inner workings of British intelligence.
     
    Walk with Care is the 3rd book in the Benbow Smith Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
     
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateApr 5, 2016
    ISBN9781504033169
    Walk with Care
    Author

    Patricia Wentworth

    Patricia Wentworth (1878–1961) was one of the masters of classic English mystery writing. Born in India as Dora Amy Elles, she began writing after the death of her first husband, publishing her first novel in 1910. In the 1920s, she introduced the character who would make her famous: Miss Maud Silver, the former governess whose stout figure, fondness for Tennyson, and passion for knitting served to disguise a keen intellect. Along with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Miss Silver is the definitive embodiment of the English style of cozy mysteries.

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      Walk with Care - Patricia Wentworth

      CHAPTER I

      ROSALIND DENNY CAME BACK to London on a clear January day. There was a pale blue sky overhead. The air was sweet. A faint haze softened everything. The sun shone upon it and made it golden.

      Rosalind was grateful for the beauty of the day. She was coming back as a stranger to the place that had been her home. Eighteen months ago she had been Gilbert Denny’s wife, and Gilbert was Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, with a career before him. Now she came back alone. She was Gilbert’s widow and a stranger. It was eighteen months since Gilbert had thrown away his career and his life, and during those months she had been in the depths of the country nursing a tiresome old woman whose claim upon her was simply that she was Gilbert’s Aunt Agatha, who had known Gilbert as a boy. She would talk of him sometimes, and she was old and poor, and by reason of a bitter tongue friendless. At first it had not mattered to Rosalind where she was. Since Gilbert was gone, nothing really mattered. She too felt friendless. Except for one distant cousin, she had not a relation on this side of the Atlantic. Her mother’s second marriage had brought her to England, but her first fifteen years had been spent in a dearly loved Virginian home. She stayed in England now because that home had passed to strangers and because at first she was too crushed to make plans. Later, it was a relief to be busy, to have tasks in a sick room, to be grumbled at, to be awake for so many hours in every night that weariness numbed her. Now the old lady was gone and she was going to take up her life again. Janet Fortescue offered her flat until Easter. That would give her time to look round.

      She stood at the window and watched the trees in the little square with their naked boughs reaching up out of the haze. At the sound of the telephone she turned. It might be Jeremy Ware—he would have had her letter.

      Jeremy’s voice came to her along the wire.

      Mrs Denny—is that you?

      The receiver shook in Rosalind’s hand. Jeremy’s voice brought everything back so vividly. He had been more like a young brother than a secretary in their house. She had not been so near breaking down for months. She said,

      Yes, Jeremy. How are you?

      Oh, going strong. I got your letter this morning. I couldn’t ring up before because the nose has been on the grindstone. As a matter of fact there’s practically nothing left of it.

      The grindstone?

      She heard Jeremy’s half embarrassed chuckle.

      No—the nose.

      Oh, Jeremy dear—and it was such a beautiful nose! Her voice laughed. There was a horrible pain at her heart. She couldn’t call up Jeremy’s square, blunt features without seeing Gilbert’s eyes and Gilbert’s smile. She had the oddest jealous pang at the thought of Jeremy as Bernard Mannister’s secretary. He belonged to Gilbert and to the life on the other side of that eighteen months’ gap. She said quickly,

      Are you alone?

      What’s left of me. Old Mannister’s gone out, and Dean—he’s the other secretary—has been on the sick list and doesn’t come back till tomorrow. That’s why I’ve been having such a doing.

      Have you? What about?

      Some blighted letter that’s gone missing. Oh, I say—perhaps I oughtn’t to have said anything! Forget it, will you?

      It’s forgotten. When am I going to see you?

      It was going to hurt, so get it over—do everything, go everywhere, meet everyone—get the worst of it over—no good shirking—

      Jeremy’s voice, quick and eager,

      I thought perhaps you’d dine with me and do a show. What about tomorrow?

      There was a pause. Then she said,

      Will you dine with me here, Jeremy? I’ll go out with you afterwards if you want me to.

      Jeremy always understood. He said at once,

      I’d like that awfully.

      Rosalind hung up the receiver.

      She hung up the receiver, but for a moment she did not move. A clear, bitter voice in her mind said, Why—why—why?

      Why had Gilbert flung away his career?

      Why had he flung away his life?

      Why had he left her?

      Was perfect happiness so common that, having it, you should throw it away? The compulsion must have been very great. What was it? The tragic lines which Gilbert had written to her on the morning of the day which for him had had no end came before her eyes. She saw them with a deep, inward gaze, and saw nothing else.

      I’m going out because it’s better for you. It’s better for you to be free. Rosalind, don’t let me spoil your life. You’ve been everything in mine. I’m in a trap and I can’t get out any other way—they’ve been too damned clever for me. Burn this, or they’ll make you show it at the inquest.

      The scalding tears rushed into Rosalind Denny’s eyes. Gilbert was dead. Gilbert had been murdered. What was it but murder to trap a man so that he could never get free alive? Gilbert had been murdered. Who had murdered him?

      CHAPTER II

      MR BENBOW COLLINGWOOD HORATIO SMITH stopped scratching his parrot behind the ear and glanced over his shoulder. The heavy-gust which had just shaken the uncurtained windows had left them streaming with that cold January rain which may at any moment turn to snow. It wanted an hour to sunset, but the strip of sky between the tall London houses had a darkling look, and over the way windows showed drawn curtains edged with light.

      Not a nice afternoon, Ananias.

      Ananias swore in Spanish. He articulated clearly and with zest.

      Quite so, said Mr Smith.

      He drew the brown curtains across the wide bay and turned to survey a long room, pleasant in the firelight.

      Ananias clapped his grey and rose-coloured wings and uttered a loud and raucous Awk! He detested the dark, and had no affection for even the warmest dusk. He loved bright lights, violent colours, and loud noises. He had his own way of making these preferences felt. When his master put on the light in the ceiling, he rose on his toes, bobbed up and down, and declaimed at the top of his voice:

      Three jolly admirals all of a row, Collingwood, Nelson, and bold Benbow!

      Ssh, Ananias! said Mr Smith in the perfunctory manner of long habit. Ananias repeated the rhyme in a whisper as far as the middle of the second line, when he suddenly unfurled a wing and devoted himself to his toilet.

      Mr Smith came forward to the long table with claw feet which held neatly arranged rows of papers and periodicals. He picked up one of the latter and stood there turning the leaves—a tall, thin man with a forward stoop and an absent, peering gaze. A pair of large horn-rimmed spectacles were pushed well up on to his brow. His finely cut features, his ivory pallor, and the thick mass of his iron-grey hair combined to give an impression of extreme distinction. When his parents had bestowed upon him the names of three famous admirals they had doubtless intended him for the Navy—there was naval interest on both sides of the family—but by the time that Benbow Collingwood Horatio had entered his sixth year it was already apparent that whatever else he might become he would never make a sailor. To this day he detests the sea, spends his holidays out of sight and sound of it, and if forced to a Channel crossing, endures it in a recumbent position. He is best known as the author of The European Problem. This book, published some fifteen years before the war and translated into ten languages, displayed the accurate observation of the scientist combined with the daring of the prophet. It was discussed, abused, and criticized by some of the ablest pens in France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. In it Mr Benbow Smith forecast not only the war itself, but the post-war problems. He has ample means, a taste for desultory rambling, and in other than political circles is respected as a connoisseur of such matters as Russian ikons, early German woodcuts, and French colour-prints. For the rest, he is believed to have some undefined connection with the Foreign Office. He is a bachelor. He spoils Ananias, and at least two young women, his niece by marriage Susan Warrington Smith and her sister-in-law Loveday Ross have described him as a lamb. They are both good judges.

      His room is the room of a scholar and a man of taste. Books cover the walls. The chairs are deep and comfortable There are Persian rugs. There is a capacious hearth on which a fire of logs burns for ten months in the year. Ananias has his perch in the window because he likes "to watch the traffic. Loveday Ross says that the road is too quiet for him, and that some day he will manoeuvre Mr Smith into a flat overlooking Piccadilly Circus. That day has not yet come. Some of Mr Smith’s friends prefer to visit him without being seen. He was expecting one of them now.

      He turned the pages of The English Review and listened to Ananias murmuring to himself: Mumbo-Jumbo—Mumbo-Jumbo—

      Awk! said Ananias on a loud scream.

      Mr Smith looked over his shoulder and prompted him: "Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo—"

      The parrot listened with his head cocked. A beady eye glistened. One foot lifted from the perch. The claws were slowly expanded and retracted again. A very slight hissing sound came from a half open beak.

      And then in a minute the front door slammed, and there came in Colonel Garrett, a little sandy man with bottle-brush hair and small grey eyes like points of polished steel. As he entered, he flung hat and coat into Miller’s hands and advanced, wiping his face with a red bandanna. Lindsay Trevor, who had served under him in the Secret Service during the war, and once again,* used to say, When Garrett wants to disguise himself he has only to leave his bandanna at home and buy a neat gent’s suiting. He had a faculty for acquiring awful clothes, and on this January afternoon wore a suit of mustard-coloured tweed and a green tie decorated with crimson horse-shoes. He made Mr Smith look almost incredibly distinguished.

      Ah! he said briskly—a fire! You always have good fires. He planted himself before it and thrust the bandanna back into an already bulging pocket. All his pockets bulged.

      Mr Smith put down The English Review, drifted over to him, and leaned upon the mantelpiece.

      Beastly afternoon, said Garrett, rubbing his hands together. Foul climate—disgusting weather.

      Mr Smith gazed mildly at Ananias, who was moving stealthily along his perch with a wary eye on the visitor.

      Did you come here to talk to me about the weather?

      Garrett made a forcible movement.

      No, I didn’t.

      I thought you said you were bringing someone to see me.

      Not bringing. Meeting here. Wanted to see you first.

      Yes? said Mr Smith gently.

      In an almost inaudible whisper Ananias repeated:

      "Mumbo-Jumbo, Mumbo-Jumbo—

      Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo—"

      I don’t know how you can stand that bird, said Garrett. Can’t stick birds myself.

      Mr Smith looked past him coldly.

      Who did you say was meeting you here?

      Garrett jerked round and warmed his hands.

      I didn’t say—didn’t want to say on the telephone. It’s Mannister.

      Mannister? said Mr Smith in a vague voice.

      Garrett slapped his knee and gave his short barking

      Oh Lord! I’d like him to hear you! Mannister?—he attempted Mr Smith’s cultured drawl with a conspicuous lack of success—"Mannister? The Mannister. The Bernard Mannister. Our champion peacemaker."

      I have—er—heard of him, said Mr Smith. More to the point if you’d heard him! But there—you can’t laugh at a fellow who can fill the Albert Hall. Or can you?

      I don’t know, said Mr. Smith—I have never tried. His tone though gentle was dry.

      He had never met Bernard Mannister, but in common with the rest of the world he had from time to time read about him in the daily press—an orator with a record as a pacifist during the war; an enthusiast for the improvement of international relations; delegate to half a dozen conferences; Member of Parliament for South Wilston; and president of the British Disarmament League.

      With these various activities present to his mind, Mr Smith inquired,

      What does he want?

      Awk! said Ananias very loudly and suddenly. Then in a rapid recitatif, Walk with care—walk with care! Mumbo-Jumbo will hoodoo you. He emitted a sharp hiss and repeated, whispering, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoodoo you.

      Colonel Garrett flung an impatient look over his shoulder.

      Creepy brute! What’s he saying? Don’t know how you can stand him.

      Mr Smith smiled his gentle, distant smile.

      "We have been studying the works of Mr Vachel Lindsay. Ananias admires them very much, especially The Congo. That is an excerpt from The Congo. It is displacing some of his favourite objurgations. But let us return to Mannister. Why does he wish to see me?"

      Garrett’s little eyes sparkled.

      I didn’t say he wished to see you—I said he was meeting me here. He’s meeting me here because I want you to see him.

      And—er—why?

      Garrett frowned and thrust at the fire with his foot. A blaze of sparks went up, red and gold. Ananias had fallen upon a low mutter.

      It’s this way. The man’s a public character. It’s not so long since he was a public nuisance. He fills the public eye—he fills the Albert Hall. He gets columns in the Press. He’s news with a capital N. In fact he’s the sort of bloke that you’ve got to take notice of when he comes and bleats.

      And has he been—er—bleating?

      Garrett slapped his knee.

      My good man, he’s been bellowing!

      There is no one else on earth who would dream of addressing Mr Smith as my good man. But there is no respect of persons in Garrett; he says what he likes, and you may take it or leave it. He doesn’t care a damn either way. Mr Smith has an affection for him which is reciprocated. They are old allies.

      Mr Smith nodded and pushed his glasses up a little higher.

      And what does he—er—bellow?

      Says there’s a plot to drive him out of public life. Says his papers are being tampered with. An important confidential letter gone missing. Says if it’s published, it’ll rot the Disarmament Conference.

      What sort of—er—letter? said Mr Smith.

      Garrett jerked an elbow.

      That’s where he stays vague. Reading between the lines, I should say a good deal of indiscreet correspondence goes to his address. He’s a strong persevering letter-writer. Now suppose Signor A. writes him some sweet nothings about the way Monsieur B. has been talking in the Chamber, or Herr X. pours out what he really thinks about the line Mr Y. is taking over reparations—well it would be a bit awkward for Mannister if the remarks came out in full in anybody’s gutter press—wouldn’t it? He laughed that short barking laugh. Mannister thinks it would. Mannister thinks it’d be damn awkward. Mannister says it would rot the Conference. He runs his hands through his hair and bellows.

      Yes, said Mr Smith, I see.

      I wish I did, said Garrett. The whole thing may be a publicity stunt, or nervous fiddle-faddle, or plain ordinary persecution mania. Man’s a spell-binder. Spell-binders run to nerves. He may be offering us a mare’s-nest or trying to sell us a pup. On the other hand he may not. That’s why I’m here.

      Mr Smith removed his glasses and began to polish them with a fine silk handkerchief. He said,

      Yes? There was the very faintest possible shade of interrogation in his voice.

      Garrett dived into a crowded pocket and brought up a mixed handful which included a calendar, a book of stamps, a bunch of keys, a battered pencil end, several crumpled bits of paper, one of those penknives fitted with corkscrews gimlets wirecutters tweezers and hoofpicks, a frightfully old matchbox, and a couple of odd lengths of tarred twine. He selected the least crumpled piece of paper, crammed the rest of the things back, and unfolded what appeared to be a list. He thrust it upon Mr Smith, who took it delicately, turned it over, held it at arm’s length, and inquired,

      What is this?

      My good man—don’t you see?

      Mr Smith put on his spectacles and frowned vaguely at a list of names.

      Ellinger, he read in a tentative voice—er—Reddington—Lemare—Denny—Masterson— He looked over the rim of his glasses and caught Garrett’s hard stare. There was something in it—something—

      He said, Well?

      Garrett snatched the paper, jabbed at the first name with a stubby forefinger, and said,

      Ellinger.

      Yes? Once again there was that faint inquiring note.

      Ellinger resigned three years ago.

      Mr Smith nodded.

      Health, said Garrett. "Nervous breakdown. Calamity for him. Calamity for the nation. Blow to the cause of international peace. Leader in The Times. Exit Ellinger. I believe he grows roses."

      Mr Smith nodded—the slightest of movements.

      Garrett jabbed at the second name on his list.

      Reddington. Another nervous breakdown. Voyage round the world. Long visit to married daughter in Australia. Another crape bow for international peace.

      He hit the paper again.

      Lemare.

      Has he had a nervous—er—breakdown? said Mr Smith.

      Garrett grinned.

      "Not to notice. Blatant bounding beast! But, whereas he used to bound and bray on the side of peace, and the League of Nations, and a joyous general internationalism, he now bounds and brays amongst the prophets of evil. … And that brings us to Denny. He flung out an angry accusing hand. Can you tell me why Denny drowned himself? You can’t and nor can anyone else. He had everything at his feet. Happily married and all that. And then— He snapped his thumb and forefinger. Why? Nobody has the slightest idea. Temporary insanity. Why? To this day his wife believes he was murdered. I’m not so sure she’s not right. I don’t mean technically. Scotland Yard went into all that, and there wasn’t the slightest son to suspect anyone on board. He just went over the side. Lord—what a tragedy!"

      Yes, said Mr Smith.

      The low murmur into which Ananias had subsided became louder and more distinct. Words and a rhythm emerged:

      "Beware—walk with care,

      Or Mumbo-Jumbo will hoodoo you"

      He repeated the last line in a dry whisper. And then, on a malignant scream and to the accompaniment of clapping wings, he vociferated: Mumbo-Jumbo! Mumbo-Jumbo! Mumbo-Jumbo! Mumbo! Jumbo!

      Mr Smith said Ananias! in a warning voice.

      The wing-clapping went on, but the screams died down. In a whisper Ananias continued to call upon Mumbo-Jumbo.

      Garrett made a schoolboy grimace and turned his shoulder.

      Damn creepy devil, he said, and jabbed at the last name on the list.

      Masterson.

      Mr Smith started very slightly. The Masterson scandal was only a few months old. Beginning with a whisper, it had suddenly assumed a force which had sent Masterson crashing into disgrace.

      Garrett tore his list across, flung it on the fire, and stamped it down.

      Mannister says there’s a plot to drive him out of public life, he said.

      There was a pause, a silence. The paper with the five scrawled names flared in thin yellow flame an fell away to a quivering grey ash.

      * See Danger Calling.

      CHAPTER III

      A BELL RANG IN house, a long faint peal just heard in the book-lined room. Ananias stopped muttering and clapped his wings.

      Oh Lord! said Garrett—that’s him! He flung round a wrist and looked at his watch. Quarter of an hour before his time. What did I tell you? Man’s in a blue funk. His usual form is ten minutes late and think yourself damn lucky it’s not twenty.

      The door was opening as he spoke, but it was not in Garrett to drop his voice. Miller announced, Mr Mannister, and Bernard Mannister advanced a few steps and then paused.

      Anyone who had ever heard him speak in public would have found the gesture a familiar one. Just so did he come upon a platform, his tall figure finely held, his leonine head thrown back, his deep-set eyes scanning the audience, one hand thrust in a pocket, the other a little advanced as if in welcome. But whereas upon the platform his well formed features bore a look of smiling complacency, they now expressed something that approached uneasiness. Had it not been Mannister, one would have said that he was nervous.

      Garrett’s jerky introduction was like a stone pitched into water; it set up ripples in the quiet room. As Mr Smith, vaguely courteous, shook hands and indicated a chair, the ripples spread. One of them must have reached Ananias, for his contented murmur changed to an angry sibilant whisper. It crossed Mr Smith’s mind to hope that Mannister had no Spanish. In a far away past Ananias had been the property of a Spanish sailor. The vocabulary lingered.

      Mannister took the chair on the left of the fire. Mr Smith let himself down into one on the opposite side. Garrett remained standing, his back to the fire, his strong square hands plunged deep amongst the odds and ends in his shapeless pockets.

      Mannister, now completely the guest, leaned a little forward and addressed his host with as much ease as if he had been a public meeting.

      In one sense, Colonel Garrett has introduced me, but in another and a wider sense— He made a rhetorical pause, and upon the pause there fell the shadow of a question.

      Mr Smith was silent, courteously and attentively silent. Colonel Garrett jingled whatever there was to jingle in those crowded pockets of his. Ananias offered an observation, still in Spanish, which was doubtless as untrue as it was impolite.

      Bernard Mannister did not allow the pause to become oppressive.

      I feel, he said, that unless Colonel Garrett has given you an explanation of my visit— And there he paused again.

      Garrett stopped jingling. He said briskly,

      I have told Mr Smith that you came to us, and that I suggested your meeting me here. On what you have told us so far, there’s nothing which we can take any official notice of. There are some odd points of course, and, as I told you, it struck me that you might care to have an outside opinion. Departments get into grooves—think in them, move in them, work in them. Mr Smith’s outside all that. If you care to put your case to him, you’ll get away from the official mind.

      This was another and a more civilized Garrett. Mr Smith wondered whether he had learnt the speech by heart; he thought it possible. He gazed at Mannister very much as he would have gazed at a mountain or any other fine natural object. He saw a change of expression. Doubt? Embarrassment? One could not associate embarrassment with Bernard Mannister. Whatever it was, it passed in a flash and he was

      My case? I hardly have a case. I have certainly been troubled, but I do not quite know why I should trouble Mr Smith. You must pardon me, but I do not perfectly apprehend the position—

      No? said Mr Smith. He was leaning back, his fine head relieved against the rough brown leather of the chair. His hands lay upon the arms—long, delicate-fingered hands. His gaze went mournfully past Bernard Mannister.

      Garrett’s stubby eyebrows twitched. He thrust directly into these generalities.

      Position? Whose? Mine? Yours? Mr Smith’s? Your secretaries’? We’ve all got positions. We’d better come down to brass tacks.

      Mannister had kept his upright pose. He might have been awaiting the half turn and courteous formula with which a chairman introduces a distinguished speaker. It was not an attitude which really suited the comfortable, sprawling chair. He said in a dignified voice,

      By all means, Colonel Garrett. My position is very easily defined. I suspect that my correspondence is being tampered with. You, I believe, take the view that there is not sufficient evidence to induce your department to give the matter their attention. There remains Mr Smith’s position. He made a slight inclination of the head and proceeded. Am I to understand that Mr Smith has an official status?

      One of Mr Smith’s hands lifted and fell again.

      No—no—oh no.

      Certainly not, said Garrett. He drove a heel back against the log and sent the sparks flying.

      Mannister’s voice became a trifle louder.

      What then? he inquired.

      Ananias said Awk! very suddenly and loudly. Mr Smith rebuked him in a perfunctory manner, then observed,

      It appears, Mr Mannister, that you have been brought here on false pretences. I am merely the—er—man in the street. Colonel Garrett’s idea seems to have been that the—er—man in the street can sometimes apprehend a point which eludes the departmental mind. You are naturally under no sort of constraint in what may be a personal and confidential matter.

      Mannister leaned forward.

      It was as a matter of public policy and public duty that I approached the Foreign Office. I must confess to having been disquieted. I number amongst my correspondents prominent public men in every country. They write to me in the way of friendship. They permit themselves the freedom which friends accord to one another. They treat informally of subjects which in public require, and of necessity receive, the most careful handling. It does not, I think, need a great deal of perspicacity to appreciate the harm which might be done if some of these confidential discussions were to be made public.

      No, said Mr Smith—no.

      The world, pursued Mr Mannister on a rising note—the world—world consciousness, world politics, world aspirations—is in a condition so delicate, so highly sensitized, that it is impossible to predicate the effect of a single jarring touch. I submit that at this moment the publication of such a correspondence might deal a disastrous blow at the very foundations of our civilization. It is, to my mind, a question of ‘Shall Chaos come again?’

      He certainly had a very fine voice, and at least one appreciative auditor. Ananias drank in the rich rolling sounds, head cocked and one foot slightly raised,

      Garrett came into the pause with an abrupt,

      "Well, there you are! You say someone’s been tampering with your correspondence—and

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