Death at the President's Lodging (25 page)

Gott shook his head. “In
any
murder a two-man show is less likely than a one-man show. And here surely a conspiracy-theory strains psychological probability very far indeed. A two-man murder is a very different thing, after all, from a three-man burglary.”

Appleby nodded. “Yes,” he said, “again I really agree. It will be sound methodology not to cast about for a two-man effort until we are baffled on the one-man level.”

“Which leaves
five
suspects – Deighton-Clerk, Haveland, Empson, Pownall, Ransome. We’re getting on.”

“On the face of it, five; actually, it may still mean seven.”

There was a minute’s silence while Gott, again presented with this theme, thought it out. And then he went straight to it. “Umpleby wasn’t killed when we thought he was?”

“Exactly. Umpleby was killed some time between half-past ten and eleven, in Orchard Ground or perhaps actually inside Little Fellows’.”

“You can prove that?”

“No – far from it. But there’s a fresh blade of grass sticking to a bath chair.”

Again Gott was on it instantly. “Empson’s old bath chair – a good quiet hearse!” There was a moment’s silence and then he added his complete comprehension. “Titlow’s hearse too, maybe.”

“Or Slotwiner’s – if you weren’t so sure about his devotion. Imagine it. Slotwiner takes those drinks into Umpleby’s study at half-past ten as usual. He gives a faked message: Haveland’s or Pownall’s compliments and would the President step over to Little Fellows’ to see or do this or that? Out goes Umpleby with Slotwiner presently after him, and the shot is fired somewhere outside Little Fellows’ at a moment when something really noisy is roaring down Schools Street. Slotwiner collects the bones, collects the bath chair, collects Barocho’s stray gown – you don’t know about that – and pushes back to the study with the lot. He returns the bath chair – but forgets about the gown: he will be in a hurry by this time, with eleven o’clock and Titlow’s usual visit drawing near. He fixes the pistol with some gadget of wire or string in the study and gives a tug just as he is talking with Titlow at the door. And he has a chance to pocket his pistol and string in the confusion after the finding of the body. Or one can, of course, produce a very similar reconstruction for Titlow.”

“I should favour Titlow,” said Gott instantly.

“You think Titlow a likely murderer?”

Appleby had dropped the question casually but deliberately; the really unfair thing was to shirk being a policeman. And Gott’s charity seemed to recognize this even while he stepped back from the trap. “I shouldn’t have talked at large about Slotwiner’s sentiments – because I’m not going to talk about anybody else’s. We can consider the facts, but we can hardly start tipping each other for the gallows. All I meant was that if Slotwiner had given such a message to Umpleby he could hardly have come up
in front
of him in the orchard and shot him, as he was apparently shot, through the forehead. But Titlow – or almost anyone else – could.”

For a few minutes the two men smoked in thoughtful silence. And then Appleby continued. “Do you think, then, simply considering the facts, that we have a special line on Titlow?”

“Far from it. Titlow and Slotwiner merely come in again – that is all. We have nothing more than the suggestion that someone wanted to make Umpleby’s death appear to have occurred at a different time and place from that at which it actually did occur. And any of the remaining suspects might have had reason for wishing that: there is no justification for confining the motive of such a thing to Slotwiner or Titlow. Why, for instance, suppose the manoeuvre necessarily intended to establish the murderer’s own alibi? Why should it not be intended to destroy somebody else’s?”

“Yes,” said Appleby, “I’ve got as far as that, though it took me longer than it has taken you. I got to somebody saying
‘He could prove he didn’t do it here and now; but he couldn’t prove he didn’t do it there and in twenty minutes’ time – were some indication left that he was guilty.’
”

“Good,” responded Gott, “that takes us to an exact review of times and movements.”

“And brings us right up against the psychological probabilities.”

“Which – as between this person and that – I don’t think I should debate with you. But there are still plenty of facts – the bones, for instance. The bones are your focus at the moment. Within the field demarcated by the gates and keys they are the nearest thing at present to a pointer. What sort of a pointer are they on Haveland, their owner, for example?”

Appleby replied with another question. “Last night in the common-room Haveland, you remember, virtually put forward alternative propositions about the murder: do you think they hold?”

Gott nodded his comprehension. “Haveland in effect said, ‘Either I myself murdered Umpleby in circumstances only compatible with my being quite insane, or somebody else has committed the murder and has attempted to father it on me.’ Well, I don’t see that the proposition really holds. Haveland might have committed the crime and yet be sane enough. That is to say, he might have been laborious enough to frame a frame-up against himself.”

“You mean that he might have left his collection of bones beside his victim not crazily and in order to give himself away but to fake the notion that someone was framing him? It seems a bit roundabout, and unnecessarily laborious and risky.”

“Risky, yes. Unnecessarily roundabout and laborious, perhaps – but perhaps not. It may have seemed his best way to plant the murder on somebody else.”

“Plant the murder on somebody else by means of faking a plant against himself! My dear Gott, isn’t that rather too subtle?” But Appleby was obviously weighing the suggestion rather than scoffing.

“Subtle, yes,” Gott replied, “but, after all, you know, you’ve come – back, is it not? – to one of the more subtle parts of England. Of course the theory holds – implications.”

“Such as?”

“Well, such as that you’ve
missed
things. Or not been let run up against them so far.”

Appleby smiled. “No doubt I’ve been missing things. But what exactly are you thinking of?”

“Of the subsequent clues on the false trail – the further indications that Haveland would leave about that he had been framed
by this particular person or that
.”

“For that matter he seemed rather venomously inclined towards Empson. Though I haven’t discovered any clues against Empson so far – planted by Haveland or otherwise. As you suggest, I may have missed them. On the other hand it is just possible that I haven’t missed them because they’re not there – that your theory’s wrong, in fact.”

Gott protested. “It’s not my theory. It’s simply one suggestion. But ‘missed,’ I think, was a mistake. There would be no point in Haveland’s leaving clues so tenuous that they
could
reasonably be missed. But they may be yet to come.”

Appleby chuckled. He enjoyed Gott. “The second murder, perhaps, that throws some light on the first? And then the third and fourth murders, that eliminate two of the possible perpetrators of the second? Let’s try the exact review of times and movements. And we can begin with Haveland.” And – much like Inspector Dodd – Appleby produced a sheaf of papers. But at this moment there came the second interruption of the evening. Somebody could be heard negotiating the laundry basket in the lobby and then there came a knock at the door. It was Haveland himself.

The visitor halted when he saw Gott and addressed himself to Appleby. “I beg your pardon – I thought I might find you free. Perhaps I might come again…?”

“Mr Gott and I have been discussing – my business here,” Appleby replied, and at the same moment Gott rose to go.

But Haveland meantime had shut the door and his next remark embraced them both. “Can I usefully place myself at the disposal of so formidable a conference?”

Haveland’s should have been an easy and open nature. His physical contours were bland and the effect was enhanced by the pleasing, if somewhat consciously aesthetic negligence of his clothes – the clothes he refused to shed for the sober black and white required by the ritual of the St Anthony’s high-table. But, actually, the personality he presented to the world was stiff, uncoloured and – surely – utterly unspontaneous. He was, apart from the hint of irony which always lurked in the fall of his phrases, impassive, deliberately unmoved, deliberately remote. Appleby suddenly resolved to essay the rousing of him now.

“You come at a useful moment,” he said. “We were just beginning an examination of your movements at the time of the murder. Do sit down.”

That Haveland might display some indignation, if not against the policeman at least against his colleague, it was reasonable to suppose. But there was no flicker. The visitor obeyed the injunction to be seated and said nothing at all. Any business of his own on which he had come he was indicating as put aside at Appleby’s pleasure. It had the effect, somehow, of being a distinct score; Appleby had to plunge ahead at once. And he had to do so without being very certain of his ground. The statements collected by Dodd he had not yet had time to review in the light of the slightly altered hour of the murder. Nevertheless he turned coolly to his relevant scrap of memoranda.

“John Haveland,” he read quietly, “fifty-nine. Fellow of the college since 1908. Unmarried. Occupies rooms in Orchard Ground. Can throw no light on the murder or on any of the circumstances attending it.

“
Nine-fifteen
: Left common-room and went to own rooms. Read.
Ten-forty
: Quitted Orchard Ground by east gate and called on Dean in Bishop’s.
Ten-fifty
: Returned by east gate, going straight to own rooms.
Eleven-twenty-five
: Discovered there by Inspector Dodd and informed of President’s death. Appeared scarcely interested.”

Appleby pushed the paper aside. Dodd’s final observation made good ground on which to pause. But Haveland challenged it at once. “I heard of the President’s death,” he said, “most certainly without emotion and without regret.”

“And without surprise, Mr Haveland?”

“I must confess to surprise.”

“And curiosity?”

“Curiosity?”

“My colleague’s note has something more to add on the further interview he had with you in the morning. You had no information to give – about the bones, for instance. But you yourself asked three questions. You asked if the President had been shot, if the weapon had been found, and if the time of death was determined.”

“My dear Haveland,” Gott murmured at this point, “such friendly interest in the world is unlike your usual self. You must have been quite upset.”

Haveland showed what might have been the shadow of impatience. “With my collection of bones on the man’s carpet the time of death was obviously material to me. For that matter, it was obviously material to Deighton-Clerk. Umpleby was apparently shot at exactly eleven o’clock. Either of us therefore could just have done it. But if he had been shot at, say, a quarter of eleven both of us would have been nicely out of it – or up to the neck in a conspiracy together. Why shouldn’t I ask questions? I don’t want to be hanged, you know.”

Appleby gave his information guilelessly. “Umpleby was shot a long time before eleven o’clock. Inspector Dodd hadn’t got the facts straight when you interrogated him. And we
have
found the weapon.”

Without eagerness Haveland took up the first point. “How long before eleven?”

“Anything up to half an hour.”

Haveland was impassive still – but not utterly without betrayal. Coming somewhere from the man was an impression that Appleby was now familiar with in the St Anthony’s case – an impression of rapid calculation. Titlow, Pownall, Haveland – these men thought intensively before they spoke. In all of them it was perhaps merely the intellectual habit that gave the impression. And yet with Haveland, certainly, the impression was that of a man intensely calculating – calculating whether to suggest something, to reveal something, to venture some further question… At length he said flatly, “Then Deighton-Clerk or I might still have done it.”

“Deighton-Clerk might have shot Umpleby and left your bones in his study?”

“Yes, or I might.”

“When do you think the bones were purloined from your room?”

“Between ten-forty and ten-fifty, I suppose – while I was visiting Deighton-Clerk.”

“In that case they couldn’t have been taken
by
DeightonClerk?”

“No. Not that I really know when they were taken. I only know they were in their cupboard – an unlocked cupboard – in the afternoon.”

“Was Deighton-Clerk an enemy of Umpleby’s?”

“He hadn’t picturesquely wished him rotting in a sepulchre, as I so unfortunately had. But they were not on good terms. Deighton-Clerk had taxed Umpleby publicly with improper conduct towards Ransome, the man now abroad.”

“Ransome isn’t abroad,” interposed Gott easily.

“Indeed?”

“He’s probably in bed by now – in this college. Not long ago he was in the laundry basket you must have encountered coming in.”

“Indeed?”

Certainly it was a mask that Haveland presented to the world. Hearing of a colleague being kept in a laundry basket he showed no flicker of surprise, no flicker of interest. And now he had got to his feet. “I can only interfere with your activities. I look forward to anything your collaboration may produce. Good night.” And Haveland withdrew.