The Mystery of the Blue Train

‘About Mr Kettering.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Mr Goby rose to his feet.

‘When will you have it ready for me?’

‘Are you in a hurry, sir?’

‘I’m always in a hurry,’ said the millionaire.

Mr Goby smiled understandingly at the fender.

‘Shall we say two o’clock this afternoon, sir?’ he asked.

‘Excellent,’ approved the other. ‘Good morning, Goby.’

‘Good morning, Mr Van Aldin.’

‘That’s a very useful man,’ said the millionaire as Goby went out and his secretary came in. ‘In his own line he’s a specialist.’

‘What is his line?’

‘Information. Give him twenty-four hours and he would lay the private life of the Archbishop of Canterbury bare for you.’

‘A useful sort of chap,’ said Knighton, with a smile.

‘He has been useful to me once or twice,’ said Van Aldin. ‘Now then, Knighton, I’m ready for work.’

The next few hours saw a vast quantity of business rapidly transacted. It was half-past twelve when the telephone bell rang, and Mr Van Aldin was informed that Mr Kettering had called. Knighton looked at Van Aldin, and interpreted his brief nod.

‘Ask Mr Kettering to come up, please.’

The secretary gathered up his papers and departed. He and the visitor passed each other in the doorway, and Derek Kettering stood aside to let the other go out. Then he came in, shutting the door behind him.

‘Good morning, sir. You are very anxious to see me, I hear.’

The lazy voice with its slightly ironic inflection roused memories in Van Aldin. There was charm in it—there had always been charm in it. He looked piercingly at his son-in-law. Derek Kettering was thirty-four, lean of build, with a dark, narrow face, which had even now something indescribably boyish in it.

‘Come in,’ said Van Aldin curtly. ‘Sit down.’

Kettering flung himself lightly into an arm-chair. He looked at his father-in-law with a kind of tolerant amusement.

‘Not seen you for a long time, sir,’ he remarked pleasantly. ‘About two years, I should say. Seen Ruth yet?’

‘I saw her last night,’ said Van Aldin.

‘Looking very fit, isn’t she?’ said the other lightly.

‘I didn’t know you had had much opportunity of judging,’ said Van Aldin drily.

Derek Kettering raised his eyebrows.

‘Oh, we sometimes meet at the same night club, you know,’ he said airily.

‘I am not going to beat about the bush,’ Van Aldin said curtly. ‘I have advised Ruth to file a petition for divorce.’

Derek Kettering seemed unmoved.

‘How drastic!’ he murmured. ‘Do you mind if I smoke, sir?’

He lit a cigarette, and puffed out a cloud of smoke as he added nonchalantly:

‘And what did Ruth say?’

‘Ruth proposes to take my advice,’ said her father.

‘Does she really?’

‘Is that all you have got to say?’ demanded Van Aldin sharply.

Kettering flicked his ash into the grate.

‘I think, you know,’ he said, with a detached air, ‘that she’s making a great mistake.’

‘From your point of view she doubtless is,’ said Van Aldin grimly.

‘Oh, come now,’ said the other; ‘don’t let’s be personal. I really wasn’t thinking of myself at the moment. I was thinking of Ruth. You know my poor old Governor really can’t last much longer; all the doctors say so. Ruth had better give it a couple more years, then I shall be Lord Leconbury, and she can be châtelaine of Leconbury, which is what she married me for.’

‘I won’t have any of your darned impudence,’ roared Van Aldin.

Derek Kettering smiled at him unmoved.

‘I agree with you. It’s an obsolete idea,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing in a title nowadays. Still, Leconbury is a very fine old place, and, after all, we are one of the oldest families in England. It will be very annoying for Ruth if she divorces me to find me marrying again, and some other woman queening it at Leconbury instead of her.’

‘I am serious, young man,’ said Van Aldin.

‘Oh, so am I,’ said Kettering. ‘I am in very low water financially; it will put me in a nasty hole if Ruth divorces me, and, after all, if she has stood it for ten years, why not stand it a little longer? I give you my word of honour that the old man can’t possibly last out another eighteen months, and, as I said before, it’s a pity Ruth shouldn’t get what she married me for.’

‘You suggest that my daughter married you for your title and position?’

Derek Kettering laughed a laugh that was not all amusement.

‘You don’t think it was a question of a love match?’ he asked.

‘I know,’ said Van Aldin slowly, ‘that you spoke very differently in Paris ten years ago.’

‘Did I? Perhaps I did. Ruth was very beautiful, you know—rather like an angel or a saint, or something that had stepped down from a niche in a church. I had fine ideas, I remember, of turning over a new leaf, of settling down and living up to the highest traditions of English home-life with a beautiful wife who loved me.’