Crime at Tattenham Corner (30 page)

There was a faint stir in the court, sounding almost like applause. It was instantly suppressed by the ushers, and Sir Douglas proceeded:

“Did Sir John take a revolver with him that night?”

“I am quite sure that he did not,” Ellerby said with emphasis. “Sir John had only one revolver in the world. It was kept in a case in his dressing-room, and I saw it there the next day. It was not loaded. I doubt whether it had ever been loaded. I feel certain that Sir John had never fired it. It was a present to him from a Mr. Leadfield. Sir John's initials were on the case and also on the pistol itself, J.V.B. I knew that, when Sir John said his brother's death was an accident, due to his own revolver going off, he was speaking the truth.”

“And this made you determined to help him by every means in your power.”

“It assured me of his innocence, but, innocent or guilty, I should have done everything in my power to help Sir John,” Ellerby said steadily.

Hearing this, the prisoner in the dock shot a quick glance of gratitude to the witness.

Sir Douglas Ames went on: 

“And when you disappeared from 15 Porthwick Square, you went to join Sir John?”

The witness bent his head. “Exactly,” he said. “In Spain.”

“Why did you leave Porthwick Square in such secrecy? There was no warrant out then for your arrest?''

“Because I should have been followed, and so Sir John would have been discovered.”

“You and Lady Burslem concealed Sir John's overcoat under the thrall in the second cellar?”

“I concealed it there,” the witness said with emphasis. “Her ladyship came down to me because she was unable to believe the hiding-place I had chosen was really safe.”

That ended Sir Douglas Ames's examination.

The Solicitor-General stated that he did not intend to cross-examine.

A minute later Mrs. Jimmy's confession was put into court and read aloud in breathless silence. It was then handed to the jury, who perused it with absorbed attention.

After another interval, police evidence was given to show that the pistol was found in the place in Mrs. Jimmy's house in which she had directed them to look. Then followed the gunnery experts who proved by their new system of microscopic lenses that the fine markings on the bullet proved that it had been fired from her pistol. 

The medical witness re-entered the box, and repeated that the fatal shot had been fired from a distance, certainly not in the course of a hand-to-hand struggle. One of them had even given twenty yards as his opinion as the nearest distance at which the pistol had been fired, and this practically covered the ground between the tree where the handbag was found and the ditch.

Again the Solicitor-General intimated that he would not cross-examine, and that it was not the intention of the Crown to proceed any further with the case against Sir John Burslem.

Mr. Justice Gower offered no elaborate summing-up. Very briefly he told the jury that if they believed Mrs. James Burslem's confession, corroborated as it was by the medical expert and the expert gunnery evidence, it would be their duty to return a verdict of Not Guilty against Sir John Burslem.

At the conclusion of his speech the jury briefly conferred together in their box, and, as was expected, returned a verdict in accordance with the Judge's direction, and Sir John left the dock a free man. He was immediately surrounded by a crowd of his old friends and new sympathizers.

But the proceedings were not over yet. Indicted as an accessory after the fact, Lady Burslem was placed in the dock. Her father and brothers stood at each side of her and Sir John steadied himself by one hand on the chair that was given her, Mrs. Dolphin and her husband standing behind.

When asked to plead, she said, “Not Guilty” in a clear, low voice.

Sir William Howse said it was not proposed to offer any evidence against her, and the jury returned their formal verdict at once.

With tremendous difficulty the police performed the Herculean task of clearing the way for the Burslems and their party through the court to the corridor, on the other side of which a room had been placed at their disposal. Sir John had his wife on one side, his daughter clinging to his arm. Behind them came Lord Carlford and his son, with Mrs. Dolphin, Sir Charles Stanyard and Ellerby, debonair and happy looking, Aubrey Dolphin bringing up the rear. Even here there penetrated a loud, concentrated cheer from the crowd in the street.

As a racehorse owner, one whose horses invariably ran straight, Sir John had always been popular. Sir John's name, too, had been associated with almost every charitable enterprise in the country, and it had been rumoured that his private charities far exceeded his public ones, and that his purse was always open to any real plea for help. Everything therefore combined to make his acquittal popular with the masses.

But as Sir John entered the room he waved every one back, and handed Pamela gently to Stanyard. 

Then when he had closed the door he took his wife in his arms and laid his face on hers.

“How can I thank you, truest of women, most loyal of comrades!”

“Thank me? Thank me?” Sophie echoed, clinging to him. “How silly you are, John! You are my husband! Helping you is just my job!”

THE END

Annie Haynes was born in 1865, the daughter of an ironmonger.

By the first decade of the twentieth century she lived in London and moved in literary and early feminist circles. Her first crime novel,
The Bungalow Mystery
, appeared in 1923, and another nine mysteries were published before her untimely death in 1929.

Who Killed Charmian Karslake?
appeared posthumously, and a further partially-finished work,
The Crystal Beads Murder
, was completed with the assistance of an unknown fellow writer, and published in 1930.

The Bungalow Mystery

The Abbey Court Murder

The Secret of Greylands

The Blue Diamond

The Witness on the Roof

The House in Charlton Crescent

The Crow's Inn Tragedy

The Master of the Priory

The Man with the Dark Beard

Who Killed Charmian Karslake?

The Crystal Beads Murder

“Owing to the sudden death of Miss Charmian Karslake this theatre is closed until further notice. Money for tickets already booked will be refunded.”

Who killed Charmian Karslake, the famous American actress, on the night of the ball at Hepton Abbey? Who was the mysterious Peter Hailsham who had been present at the ball and had since vanished into thin air? What was his connection, if any, with the respectable County family of Penn-Moreton at whose house the murder had taken place?

How Inspector Stoddart and his assistant Harbord solve these questions, and the surprising discoveries they make in the course of their Investigations, form the basis for one of their most devilish mysteries.

Who Killed Charmian Karslake?
is the third of Annie Haynes' Inspector Stoddart Mysteries. First published in 1929, it was out of print for over 80 years until this new edition, which also features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“A model detective story... a good mental exercise for the distracted reader who has just received his Super-Tax Demand. (The publishers) have again produced a good book.”
London Mercury

“Beastly mess the place seems to be in,” grumbled Sir Arthur Penn-Moreton, looking round the room with a disgusted air.

“Well, if you will give balls you have to put up with the aftermath,” said Dicky, his younger brother, screwing his monocle in his left eye as he spoke.

Dicky was already seated at the table devouring kidneys and bacon with apparent relish.

Sir Arthur glanced at him as he sat down opposite. “You don't look up to much this morning, Dicky!”

“How can a chap look up to much when he has sat up to the small hours of the night before, dancing round with a lot of screaming young women, and eating all sorts of indigestible food?” Dicky questioned, taking another helping of kidney. “You don't look any great shakes yourself for that matter. We are neither of us in our first youth, Arthur, you must remember. Years will tell, you know.”

“Don't be a fool, Dicky!” Sir Arthur said sharply. “Your wife was a great success. She roused us all up.”

Dicky looked pleased. “Good-looking kid, isn't she? And lively – she has got the goods, you bet.”

“Who are you two gassing about?” a third man inquired, lounging into the room. “Charmian Karslake, I dare swear. She made your country bumpkins look up, Moreton, I thought. Even the parson said he found her extraordinarily interesting. And if she put it over him, by Jove, it is one up to her.”

“Pooh! Old Bowles doesn't count,” Sir Arthur said, brushing the very notion away with a wave of his hand. “And you don't remember much of Hepton, or I should say Meadshire society, Larpent, or you would realize that no actress, however wonderful, would excite the people overmuch. Mummers they call them, and look upon them as creatures of a different calibre to themselves.”

“And so they are!” exclaimed Mr. Larpent, sitting down and pulling a dish of mushrooms towards him. “Charmian Karslake, if you mean her! She is all alive from the crown of her lovely head to the toes of her pretty little feet. Now, last night your Meadshire beauties were about as cheerful as so many cows or sheep. Different calibre to Charmian Karslake, by Jove, I should think they are!”

While Mr. Larpent delivered himself of this exordium the room was gradually filling with other members of the house-party at Hepton Abbey, all looking more or less jaded. The one exception was Dicky Penn-Moreton's young American wife. Mrs. Richard looked as bright as though dancing until three o'clock in the morning was an everyday experience with her, as indeed it was. Following her came Lady Penn-Moreton, the mistress of the house, as cheerful as ever, though rather tired-looking.

Hepton Abbey was something of a show place, one of the wealthiest religious houses in the kingdom at the time of the Dissolution, and it and the fat revenues appertaining to it had been bestowed by King Henry upon his reigning favourite, the head of the Penn-Moreton family. Probably Penn-Moreton had saved his head and his fortune by retiring immediately to his new estate and devoting himself to its improvement and development, and though he entertained King Henry regally at Hepton he was little seen at Court for the rest of his life. And since that time down to the present day, though the younger sons of the Penn-Moretons had gone into the Army or the Navy, or sometimes, though more rarely, into the Church, the heads of the family had always occupied themselves in the development of their lands.

The Abbey itself had been restored as little as possible, tradition said that the rooms in the bachelors' wing had been the old monks' cells. But in the other parts of the house two or three had been put together, and beyond the small diamond-paned windows showed little trace of their origin. The hall and the big diningroom had been made out of the old chapel. Visitors to the Abbey could see the remains of the high altar opposite the door by which they were admitted. Only bathrooms and the big conservatory – which from the outside looked like unsightly excrescences – had been added since the Penn-Moretons' ownership.

The present head of the family was Sir Arthur Penn-Moreton, who had married, a couple of years before, the pretty, lively daughter of a penniless Irish peer. Their little son was now a year old. The previous Sir Arthur Penn-Moreton had been married twice, and had one son by each marriage. The present Sir Arthurs mother had died soon after her son's birth, and the widower had replaced her within the year, so that there was no great difference in age between the two boys.

Dicky Penn-Moreton was a general favourite in society, but his portion as a younger son had been small, and Dicky was not fond of work. Just eighteen, he had joined the Army in the first months of the Great War, and he and his brother had passed through it unscathed. After the Armistice he had spent some time with the Army of Occupation; later he had announced that he loathed soldiering in peace time, that he found it impossible to live on his pay, supplemented, as it was, by his own small income and his brother's liberal allowance, and had resigned his commission. Since then he had been unable to find a job to his liking, and had remained at Hepton looking round the estate and, as he put it, learning his business from the agent. A couple of months before he had astonished society by marrying the vivacious daughter of Silas P. Juggs, the Chicago multi-millionaire.

Sir Arthur and Lady Penn-Moreton had given a ball the night before this story opens to welcome the young couple on their return to England after their honeymoon.

The marriage had been so hurriedly arranged that there had been literally no time to get a house, and the Richard Penn-Moretons were at present living in one of London's palatial hotels, seeing life and, incidentally, making long motor journeys to look at desirable residences to let.

Mrs. Richard had made a great impression at the ball. Her wonderful Parisian frock, the vivacity for which her countrywomen are famous, and a certain
joie de vivre
, peculiarly her own, had fascinated the somewhat humdrum society near Hepton.

Another attraction from over the water had been present in the person of the great American actress, who had taken all London by storm – Charmian Karslake.

Lady Moreton had regarded the acceptance of her invitation as a compliment, as the ball at Hepton Abbey was the only festivity at which the actress had been present since her coming to England. .

Her loveliness was undeniable; tall and slim, with an exquisite complexion that owed nothing to art, with a mass of auburn hair that alone would have made her remarkable in these days of shingling. Her small
mignon
face, with its beautifully formed features, was lighted up by a pair of eyes so deeply blue that they seemed almost to match the big sapphire ball that she always wore suspended by a long platinum chain. Her mascot, Miss Karslake called it, and it was always so described in every interview or account of her that appeared in any paper. At the ball she had worn a wonderful gown woven of gold tissue. Like a flame she had flashed to and fro among the sober Meadshire folk.