Death at the President's Lodging (28 page)

It was after eleven o’clock and he had turned automatically towards his rooms for the night, the second night of his sojourn in the college. But the thought of his rooms suggested Gott and with the thought of Gott came Gott’s whimsical recommendation to lose no time in eliminating the servants. The head porter he had just disposed of… Once more Appleby let himself through the west gate into Orchard Ground.

The violated windows of the President’s study had been secured by a padlock to which he had a key; he let himself in, drew the curtains and turned on the light. The gloomy room, the litter of bones, the dead ashes in the hearth and, above, the grotesquely chalked emblems of mortality: it was all ugly, dreary rather than eerie now, flat, stale, absurd – but mysterious still. Appleby wasted no time. He turned out the main lights, turned on the single standard lamp, settled himself in Umpleby’s armchair and rang the bell. Within half a minute Slotwiner had appeared, as normally, as imperturbably as if his master were still alive to summon him. But this time he made Appleby a bow as to one whose status within the college had been recognized. He was, Appleby reflected, a cool card – certainly not one to be rattled by hearing a bell ring in a dead man’s room. And Appleby decided to try a disconcerting opening. “Slotwiner,” he said, “we have had to consider you as a suspect.”

“You must explore every avenue, sir.”

“It has become obvious that the shot heard by Mr Titlow and yourself was a fake.”

“Yes, sir. I have always had that possibility in mind.”

“Indeed! In that case you must understand the reason for which the fake might have been arranged?”

“I can imagine more than one, sir. But one would be to provide an alibi for Mr Titlow or myself – presuming one of us guilty. I trust the whole matter will be gone into with minute exactness.”

Slotwiner, his colloquial style apart, came well out of these exchanges. Appleby proceeded to a frank statement. “If the President was not killed by the shot which you and Mr Titlow heard he must have been killed not in this study but some way up Orchard Ground, where the noise of traffic might drown the report. I have to calculate times on that basis. Now, can you tell me anything helpful about yourself?”

Slotwiner considered thoughtfully. “I see what you mean, sir. And I think I have at least a partial alibi. I think I may take it that to follow the President through the study and up the orchard and later to return with – with the body and the bones would take seven or eight minutes?”

Appleby agreed. Actually, he knew, a longer time would be involved – time to cover a journey back to Little Fellows’ with the bath chair.

“Well, sir, I was not, I think, alone for so long a period after ten-thirty. Mrs Hugg, the cook, was engaged as it happened upon the elucidation of a puzzle in the kitchen. And she several times ventured upstairs to the pantry to ask my advice. Beasts of seven letters beginning with ‘P’ and that sort of thing, sir. I suggest that you question her closely. But for the period before ten-thirty – supposing, that is, that the President was no longer alive when I affected to take in his refreshment – I fear I am quite uncovered.”

“Don’t worry,” said Appleby quietly. He was coming to have a good deal of confidence in Slotwiner. “Don’t worry. I know that the President was alive just before ten-thirty: he made a telephone call. You heard nothing of that?”

Slotwiner unstiffened a little. “I am, if I may say so, sir, distinctly relieved. But I heard nothing of the telephone call: the President’s extension was operating and he could make a call without my being aware of it. He always spoke very quietly into the instrument and in my pantry at the end of the passage the sound would be quite inaudible. Indeed, when working there I am often unconscious of any conversation from this room. But I have to tell you of something which I did hear. It has come back to me since our previous interview. I believe I heard the bones.”

“Heard the bones?”

“Yes, sir. Some time before Mr Titlow’s arrival I happened to emerge from my pantry into the hall. And I remember becoming aware of a curious noise from the study. It was not like the President moving books or chairs, and I could not quite place it. May I venture, sir–?” And at Appleby’s nod the dignified Slotwiner bounded into activity. In a moment he had glided over the floor and collected the major portion of the scattered bones. Bundling them into a newspaper, he handed the bundle to Appleby. “Now, sir, if you would be so good–?” And Slotwiner vanished out of the room, shutting the door after him. Appleby was interested and amused. He waited until he heard a distant shout and then, tilting the newspaper, he let the bones tumble to the floor. They made a surprising clatter. And in a moment Slotwiner was back in the study – positively animated. “That, sir,” he said, “was precisely it!”

Appleby asked the vital question. “Can you time it?”

“With fair confidence, sir – to within five minutes. It would be between a quarter and ten to eleven.”

Appleby allowed himself a moment to place the implications of this as exactly as was momentarily possible, and then he turned to a further interrogation of Slotwiner. But the man had heard nothing further, had no further light to throw on the events of the fatal night. And questioned in more general terms as to the relations of Umpleby with the various Fellows of the college, he became reserved. It was an uncomfortable line of inquiry but in a matter of the sort Appleby never allowed the luxury of nice feelings to interfere. And presently his persistence was rewarded. Slotwiner, admitting to a pretty accurate awareness of the disquiets that had troubled St Anthony’s of recent years, came at length to recount one particular scene of which he had been a witness not long before. Umpleby had been holding some sort of meeting in his study with Titlow and Pownall. Whether it had been a protractedly acrimonious meeting Slotwiner could not say. But he had been summoned in the course of it by the President –who was always apparently a punctilious host – to bring in afternoon tea. He had considered the atmosphere strained – although (or perhaps partly because) almost nothing had been said while he was in the room. But opening the door a little later with the intention of replenishing the supply of buttered toast he had heard Pownall speaking with an emphasis which had made him pause. And in the pause he had heard Pownall make a remarkable declaration: “Mr President, you may rejoice that it takes two to make a murder – for you are a most capital murderee!” After which Slotwiner had retired to his pantry – with the buttered toast.

Appleby wondered if he had eaten it.

On the second and last morning of his sojourn in St Anthony’s Appleby was greeted, as on the previous day, by an early visit from Dodd. The burglars were safely under lock and key, having been caught in a masterly ambush in the small hours of the morning. As a consequence, Dodd was in strange and boisterous mood. He affected solicitude for Appleby’s personal safety during the night, searched round the room to see if any of his belongings had been stolen and then, switching to another topic, inquired after the progress of his studies – what the lectures were like, and when he would be taking his degree? And finally he asked, after a great deal of chuckling over all this – who had killed Dr Umpleby?

Appleby was cautious. “Well,” he said, “it might have been Ransome.”

“Ransome!”

“Oh, yes. Ransome has been hovering round us in false whiskers these many days. In fact it was he who downed me t’other night.”

“There!” said Dodd emphatically, “what did I say about their saying he was in Asia? They’re a deep lot!”

“On the other hand it might have been Titlow; it might very well have been Titlow, you know.”

Dodd had heard enough on the previous evening to have his understanding of this. “The pistol-shot being engineered?”

“Exactly.”

Dodd stood in front of Appleby’s fire. He seemed to expand. “It’s just possible,” he said, “that we can give a little help.”

Appleby smiled. “You’ve been doing some more of the rough work, as you put it?”

“Kellett has. A conscientious fellow, Kellett. He’s been having another hunt round this morning.”

“Ah! Again while I was still heavily asleep. And what has Kellett found this time?”

“Kellett,” Dodd replied very seriously, “thought he would have a look at the drains. It’s wonderful how often, one way or another, the drains come in. Well, he was having a poke down some sort of ventilator or such-like in Orchard Ground when he found this.” And Dodd produced from his pocket a twisted length of stiff wire.

“Kellett found it twisted up like this?”

Dodd nodded affirmatively and Appleby after a moment took up the unspoken train of thought. “It hardly seems long enough to be useful. I don’t really see–”

“One can imagine some sort of gadget – weights and so forth–?” Dodd tentatively prompted.

“One can imagine,” Appleby sceptically responded, “a plumber clearing a pipe or drain.”

“
Leaving
it down the drain?”

“Plumbers are always leaving things,” Appleby replied with rather feeble humour – his thoughts seemed to be far away. But presently he added: “I rather agree that a plumber wouldn’t leave it down a drain – twisted up like this.”

“What about sending it to Scotland Yard to be photographed?”

Appleby started, and then chuckled. “I wonder if your sad sergeant will bring us any news? Meantime you and I will go and have a heavy talk with young False Whiskers,”

“Asia, indeed!” said Inspector Dodd.

Mr Ransome was found in his regular rooms in Surrey, in the middle of a perplexed telephone conversation with the proprietor of the Three Doves. That he was the guest who had left in such unseemly circumstances the night before; that he was really Mr Ransome of St Anthony’s College; that it was quite all right; that nothing serious had occurred; that it was all a matter of a bet; that he wanted his luggage sent on – this was Ransome’s side of the exchange. But the mention of the momentarily notorious St Anthony’s in conjunction with such a thin story obviously caused alarm at the other end of the line. Ransome was pink and snorting by the time he turned to receive his official visitors. But he calmed himself at once and spoke up with what seemed an oddly guileless cordiality.

“Oh, I say, you know, do sit down! I’m most frightfully sorry about the other night – should really have apologized yesterday evening. But honestly that basket-thing was so dashed uncomfortable that I was quite
furious
– and just before dinner, too! Did I hurt you too terribly? Dreadful thing to have done, I’m afraid. I suppose you will have to prosecute me? Really dreadful – I’m so sorry. But then one has to go all lengths for one’s work, don’t you think? Well, not all lengths – not murdering and things – but when it’s just a matter of knocking a man out – well, don’t you think, really? If you would put yourself in my place, I mean?”

This ingenuous, haphazard appeal seemed to come genuinely from Ransome. He was a sandy, egg-headed, prematurely-bald young man, given to gestures as vague and rambling as his speech. That such an absent person had hit Appleby on the head with just the right amount of force must have been the merest luck, and he was certainly not one to engineer an efficient burglary on his own. A very pretty specimen of the remote and temperamental scholar in the making, consciously capitalizing, perhaps, the advantages of being a “character” – such was Ransome. Or such, Appleby cautiously put it to himself, was the appearance which Ransome presented to the world. And now, feeling that Dodd was about to offer some minatory speech in this matter of an assault upon a colleague, he quickly interposed.

“We needn’t discuss the minor incident now, Mr Ransome. Our concern is with the death of Dr Umpleby. I am sure you realize that your position is unfortunate. You were confessedly in the vicinity of the college secretly and in disguise, at the time of the murder. And you were on anything but friendly terms with the murdered man.”

Ransome looked his dismay. “But hasn’t Gott told you all about it – our burglary, and the alibis and the rest of it? And isn’t it all square and above board – or above the board you say
you’re
concerned with, so to speak – what?”

“The situation is quite simple, Mr Ransome. You have to account for your movements between half-past ten and eleven o’clock on Tuesday night if you are to be absolved from the possibility of suspicion. And so has Mr Gott – and everybody else.”

“Bless me!” exclaimed Ransome with what seemed all but impossible ingenuousness, “I thought it was clear it was going to be poor old Haveland, scattering bones and what-not–?”

“You must endeavour to satisfy us about your movements – or, at least, it will be prudent and reasonable for you to do so. Inspector Dodd here will take down any statement you may think proper to offer. And I have to tell you that any statement you may make can legally be used as evidence against you.”

“Oh, I say! I must have time to recollect, mustn’t I?” Ransome looked round the room in a distracted but still easily vague manner. “Don’t you think you or your colleague might just ask questions? Way of sticking to the point, you know?”

“Very well. You came in from the Three Doves, I take it, on Tuesday night?”

“Oh, yes, rather. After dinner. Bus from the lane-end – got in just on half-past ten.”

“And what did you do in the succeeding hour, before you attempted to reconnoitre the college at eleven-thirty?”