Death at the President's Lodging (26 page)

Appleby was chuckling. “What do you think he meant by the product of our collaboration, Gott?”

“I suspect him of meaning that we are likely to do best spinning novels together. But why did he come?”

Appleby chuckled again, thoughtfully this time. “He came for information. And he got it, I think – or all the whiff of it he wanted. And you see what we’ve got to do now?”

“Oh, yes,” responded the undefeatable Gott. “We’ve got to carry out a little practical experimental work with a hearse. And the beer will keep.”

“The miscreant,” reported Horace on returning to David’s room after a prolonged reconnaissance, “has been released.”

“Released!” exclaimed his friends blankly.

“I’m glad to say,” replied Horace, who had apparently been thinking it out, “released. Which means, I suppose, that he didn’t do it. Which means, in turn, that we haven’t caught a murderer. We never decided, you know, on the morality of dealing with him if we did. We were carried away – or Mike was – by the funny joke of delivering him neatly parcelled and addressed.”

“They’ve really let him go?”

“He’s gone to his old rooms, had a bath and an enormous meal and Mrs Tunk has been summoned by telephone to make and grace his downy couch. Pork Evans has seen it all from his window.”

“They may only be giving him rope,” suggested Mike.

“They may only be giving
us
rope,” retorted Horace. “Don’t you think it very probable that we shall all be sent down?”

“Not a chance of it. Can you see Ransome going to Deighton-Clerk and complaining of what has befallen him while skulking round the old
mouseion
in a false nose?”

“Well,” said Horace doubtfully, “if that’s so we’re well out of it.”

“Out of it?” It was David who spoke. “Surely, Horace, you are not content to let our investigation
rest
? Didn’t I tell you both that in addition to a
notion
I had some
information
? No, no, Horace; thy duty duly is performed, but there’s more work.”

Horace turned to Mike. “He
is
a bore, you know. I’ve long suspected it – and there it is.”

Mike nodded gloomily. “Yes, one sees it coming. Sir David Pennyfeather Edwards, the celebrated Treasury bore. Pattering round suggesting a committee here and an inquiry there. Poor old David.” And Mike applied himself with ostentatious concentration to
Selected Sermons of the
Seventeenth Century
. Horace slid to the floor and was enfolded in the mysteries of Miss Milligan in a moment. In Two-six Dr Umpleby’s death had ceased to compel.

But David knew his men. Gently, he talked to the air. And in a couple of minutes his companions were absorbed.

The beer had been abandoned. Gott was brewing strong coffee. Appleby had his watch out on the arm of his chair and was regarding it thoughtfully.

“An inconclusive experiment,” said Gott. “He might just have managed it, but it would be a tight squeeze.”

“Yes; and at either time. The two periods Haveland had are just equal: ten-thirty to ten-forty and then ten-fifty to eleven. Even if you put forward his arrival on the Dean to ten-forty-three or even forty-five you must allow something at the other end for Umpleby’s leaving his study and getting up the orchard after Slotwiner had brought in the drinks at ten-thirty. A
very
tight squeeze.”

“Ah, well, my picture of Haveland trolleying his own bones plus corpse up the garden path was no doubt, as you suggested, a bit steep. But why did Haveland visit the Dean anyway, and what has the Dean to say about the times?”

“Just a minute,” replied Appleby. “We’ll go over the other people’s movements now and begin with the Dean. Here we are.” And he produced the relevant note.

‘Deighton-Clerk…
Nine-thirty
: Left the common-room with Dr Barocho and went to the latter’s rooms in Bishop’s.
Ten-thirty-five
: Walked across to his own rooms, accompanied part of the way by Barocho. Visited a few minutes after he got back by Mr Haveland.
Ten-fifty
: Haveland left to return to his rooms. A few minutes later Deighton-Clerk rang up the porter’s lodge on college affairs and then settled down to read.
Eleven-ten
: President’s butler, Slotwiner, came across with news of fatality…”

“It corroborates Haveland,” commented Gott. “And if that telephone call to the porter took any time at all it looks like clearing Deighton-Clerk himself.”

“Unless,” Appleby responded, “he telephoned with one hand, so to speak, and shot Umpleby with the other.”

“Any shot would be heard in Bishop’s.”

“He might have followed Haveland immediately into Orchard Ground, met Umpleby and shot him, telephoned from an empty room in Little Fellows’, run out again, chaired corpse and bones, dumped them in the study, fired – for some reason – a second shot at eleven and then beat it for his own rooms.”

“Good Lord, Appleby, that’s a tighter squeeze still! Can you really imagine Deighton-Clerk skipping about like that? And anyway, was there an empty room in Little Fellows’ to telephone from? Haveland was back in his. What of the other three?”

“Just a moment. It
is
another tight squeeze, I admit – probably too tight. And if there was no telephone available of course it breaks down. But before we look at the other three let’s take Barocho. His movements link up with the Dean’s and perhaps we can get rid of him.”

“But Barocho hadn’t a key.”

“Never mind. Let’s look at him. I seem to remember he’s out anyway. Yes, he is. ‘Walked with Deighton-Clerk to the door of latter’s rooms at ten-thirty-five and then went straight to the library, reading there until called out after eleven…’ There were a number of undergraduates in the library. Barocho’s quite out.”

“If you’re taking people without keys – what about old Curtis? Has he an alibi?”

Appleby shook his head. “Curtis went to his rooms at nine-thirty. He says he didn’t stir out again that night. The Dean had him out of bed a bit before midnight to tell him what had happened. And that’s all we know.”

“What of Curtis as the dark horse?” Gott asked – and added soberly, “Let’s try to sum up to date. The people really in the running are Haveland, Titlow, Empson, Pownall, Ransome, Deighton-Clerk and myself. All these had keys. For the purposes of this discussion, I’m out. Ransome’s movements at the material time we have as yet no information on. Haveland would seem to have a tight squeeze. Deighton-Clerk’s outness or inness depends on the movements of the remaining three. If he couldn’t telephone from one of their rooms he just hadn’t time to shoot Umpleby and the rest of it between ten-fifty and eleven. And he couldn’t have used Haveland’s telephone. So let’s have Titlow, Empson and Pownall – whose movements, incidentally, are vital in themselves.”

Appleby turned to another paper. “Here’s Pownall,” he said, “according to the story he gave me this morning. He got back to his rooms in Little Fellows’ a little before nine-thirty. He read for twenty minutes. Then he went to bed and was asleep by ten-fifteen. He was disturbed by somebody in his room at ten-forty-two.”

“The dickens he was! But that’s too early to have been Deighton-Clerk at the telephone… And he didn’t leave his room after that?”

“No. He prowled about discovering blood and deciding Umpleby had been murdered. But he sat tight in his rooms all the same.” And Appleby gave Gott the gist of Pownall’s narrative. Then he turned to Titlow.

“
Nine-twenty
: Returned from common-room and worked until ten-fifty-five, when he set off to visit Umpleby as usual. Passed through the west gate into Bishop’s and rang front-door bell of President’s Lodging just on eleven.”

Appleby paused. “You can help there,” he said. “Why should he go round to the front door? Why not knock at the French windows?”

“Point of ceremony, I think,” Gott replied. “He always did on those occasions. It was a sort of weekly official visit – and the two men didn’t love each other.”

Appleby nodded. “Well, that’s the story. No corroboration – nor anything against it. But for what it’s worth it deprives Deighton-Clerk of the possibility of another telephone. And now, here’s Empson. He got back to his rooms at nine-thirty and settled down to work. At ten-forty he went over to the porter’s lodge by way of the west gate in order to inquire about a parcel of proofs. He was back within eight or ten minutes and remained undisturbed until the arrival of the police… That’s the lot.” And Appleby tossed aside his notes.

Gott sighed. “What a scope there seems to be for lying about it all! Do you see how no one of these Little Fellows’ people makes contact with any other? But if Empson’s story is true it cuts out Deighton-Clerk. Empson was back at ten-fifty – before Deighton-Clerk could use his telephone and avoid being discovered. What do you think?”

“I think that unless Deighton-Clerk telephoned from his own rooms
immediately
Haveland left him, and not as the statement says ‘a few minutes later’ that he
is
cut out. Indeed, I think he’s out in any case. The squeeze is too tight quite apart from the telephone.”

“In which case,” said Gott, “it’s down to the Little Fellows’ contingent and to Ransome and myself.”

“Exactly. But somehow I suspect the St Anthony’s burglars less and less. The key to the mystery lies–”

“In Little Fellows’?”

“In Thomas De Quincey,” said Appleby.

As Appleby crossed Bishop’s a few minutes after Gott’s departure he had a sense of making his way to the last important interview in the St Anthony’s case. In Gott he had just left a theoretically-possible suspect; in Ransome there was an unknown quantity yet to be dealt with. But the belief was really growing on him that the mystery of Umpleby’s death was somehow hidden in Little Fellows’: at least it was on Little Fellows’ that his mind was going to concentrate before it wandered further afield. And of the four men lodging there he already had more than a little knowledge of three. Haveland he had just been scrutinizing; Pownall he had interrogated; Titlow had deliberately provided him with a sort of set exhibition of himself. But of Empson he had had no more than a caustic word in hall and common-room – and a revealing glimpse asleep. Perhaps he was already asleep again now. But it was still a feasible hour for a call… Once more Appleby slipped through the west gates into Orchard Ground.

Empson’s dry voice answered the knock. Perhaps it was some sense of an unexpected contrast to this dryness that gave a peculiarly vivid quality to the moment at which Appleby entered the room. Empson was sitting by the light of the fire and of a single shaded lamp. The severe library, concentrated so uncompromisingly on the man’s own subject of psychology and mental science, had receded into shadow. Its owner, who had discarded his ordinary dinner jacket for the faded silk of some wine-club of a past generation, was sitting reading in a high-backed, old-fashioned chair. His stick was between his knees, pale ivory matching the pale ivory of the fingers clasping it. And the ivory complexion, set off by the dead white shirt, was softened by the faded rose and gold of the old silk… Empson had risen punctiliously to his feet and put aside his book – it was Henry James’
The
Golden Bowl
, and to Appleby it seemed pleasantly to complete a picture of mellow scientific relaxation.

“I wondered if I might trouble you–?” As Appleby spoke, Empson set a chair; the action was markedly courteous – but it had not the air of being an extra politeness shown to an anomalous policeman. Interviews in St Anthony’s, Appleby felt once more, could be very difficult. And casting round for a suitable opening he decided to take the only matter in which Empson had a demonstrable concern. “I believe that some years ago you were in the habit of using an invalid chair?”

“That is so. The trouble from which, as you see, I suffer” – and Empson lightly tapped the handle of his stick – “was temporarily aggravated and I was obliged to change rooms for a while with Pownall below. For some months I had to be wheeled to lectures, into hall and so forth.”

“You know that the chair is kept in a storeroom in this building?”

Empson shook his head. “I know only that it is somewhere in college. May I ask if it has assumed some significance for your investigations?”

“It was used on the night of the President’s murder. I believe it was used for the conveyance of the body.”

For a moment Empson deliberated – the universal academic deliberation of St Anthony’s. Then he spoke. “The conveyance of the
dead
body? You have concluded, then, that the President was shot elsewhere than in his study?”

“Yes.”

Again Empson deliberated; but he might merely have been pausing to take in this new view of things. There was something guarded in his next question. “You have proof of that?”

Appleby was prompted to admit the truth. “Only the fact of the chair’s having been used. But I think it almost conclusive.” And suddenly Appleby found himself being
searched
: it was as if Empson’s every atom of professional expertness were turned upon the endeavour to assess the reliability of what he had heard. But when the psychologist spoke it was without emphasis. “I see,” he said. And the eyes that had a moment before been essaying to pierce Appleby’s mind turned away to stare thoughtfully into the fire.