Death at the President's Lodging (33 page)

Titlow’s extraordinary narrative was concluded. And Appleby allowed no pause. “Professor Empson,” he said crisply.

III

“I knew,” Empson began, “that Titlow had murdered Umpleby.”

The common-room was passing beyond sensation. Deighton-Clerk looked as if he had shot his bolt of indignation; Ransome had plainly taken refuge behind further calculations on the Euboic talent; Curtis was asleep; Titlow himself was immobile in face of the accusation.

“I knew,” said Empson, “that Titlow had murdered Umpleby and that he had contrived a diabolical plot to incriminate an innocent man. And I knew that I was in some danger myself. The simple knowledge of Titlow’s guilt would not have moved me to act as I did – nor, I believe, would the knowledge of my own peril. But when I saw dastardly advantage taken of another man’s misfortune in order to send that man in his innocence to the gallows, I acted without a qualm. Titlow has always seemed to me unbalanced, and that impression enabled me to get hold of the situation more quickly than I otherwise should have done. For I could not see – and I still cannot see – any rational motive which Titlow could have had for murdering Umpleby and attempting to incriminate Haveland and possibly myself… But that is what I saw him to have planned.

“It is remarkable what, in a familiar and secure environment, one can witness without question or alarm. On Tuesday night I actually saw Titlow dragging Umpleby’s body through Orchard Ground –
and I suspected nothing
. It seems incredible. But it is true – and this is how it happened. About ten-forty I decided to go over to the porter’s lodge in search of a parcel of proofs. They were of my new book and the expectation of them put me in mind of certain passages about which I felt misgiving: the thought of these no doubt served to preoccupy my mind as I went out of Little Fellows’. But I was not so oblivious as not to see Titlow, and not to see what he was doing. He was a little way off in the orchard – not far, because the light behind me was sufficient to illuminate what he was about; he was dragging an inert human body towards Little Fellows’. And, as I say, I thought very little of it. To be exact, my mind distorted the image of what I had seen sufficiently to allow of a facile and quasi-normal explanation. Titlow, I thought, had found somebody almost dead drunk in the orchard and was charitably assisting him to his own rooms. A moment’s reflection shows that that would be surprising in itself and the fact of my inventing and accepting such an interpretation rather than let myself be arrested by something positively disconcerting makes an interesting, but by no means extraordinary scientific observation. I half resolved to look in and see if I could help on my return. And then I simply walked on to the porter’s lodge, my mind wholly given to those sections of my book about which I was dubious.

“What occurred next has, I think, real scientific interest. The porter, who as you know is a most accurate man, happened to imply that I had recently put through a telephone call to the President – which was not the case. Normally, I would simply have assumed that he had made a mistake: I might have taken the trouble to trace the source of the error; more probably, being sufficiently absorbed in a train of thought of my own, I should have let the matter slide. But on this occasion I was instantly
alarmed
– almost wildly alarmed. It was an extraordinary reaction. And a moment’s – I suppose professional – introspection enabled me to connect my alarm
with what I had just seen in Orchard
Ground
. Two slightly disturbing facts had made contact – and produced not disturbance but extreme agitation. And at once that distorted image of what I had seen corrected itself. I saw Titlow as doing what he really had been doing: furtively dragging a dead body through the orchard. And instantly an equal impression of the sinister communicated itself to the odd business of the telephone. A blind instinct of caution prompted me to offer no denial to the porter. I hurried out of the lodge with my head in a whirl. It had come to me overpoweringly that in this quiet college, in which I had spent the greater part of an uneventful life, danger was suddenly lurking. It was a fantastic notion. But its fantasticality was something of which I was merely intellectually aware; its
reality
was immediate and overpowering – something felt like ice in the veins.

“It would be hard to say what made me do as I then did. I suppose I had recognized
whom
Titlow was dragging, and that the recognition had sunk instantly into the subconscious. Be that as it may, in making my way back mechanically to Little Fellows’ I tapped at the President’s French windows – and looked in. And there my eyes met substantial horror enough. Umpleby was lying on the floor, his head queerly muffled in a gown. I went straight to him and felt his heart: he was dead. And as I straightened up I became aware of the grim scrawls of chalk, and of the bones…

“Such a situation would make a dull man’s brain move fast. I thought it out, I suppose, in something under thirty seconds. Titlow with Umpleby’s body; no alarm; this tableau with what I knew to be Haveland’s bones – the series could mean only one thing. Titlow was attempting to incriminate Haveland. He was turning a weakness of Haveland’s – long all but forgotten – to what was well-nigh the foulest use conceivable by man. But he had acted in psychological ignorance. I knew as a fact of science that Haveland could never murder Umpleby and deliberately give himself away after that fashion. Even had I not detected Titlow in the midst of his crime I could not have been deceived… But facts of science are too often not facts at law.

“And then my mind came back to the false telephone call – as it now obviously was. That too could have only one meaning: I was implicated in some manner myself. And I realized just how urgent the danger was. If a man of Titlow’s ability had contrived such a crazy thing he would have contrived it well. What further hidden strokes he had planned, what other crushing evidence he had contrived, I had no means of knowing. I knew only that discovery might be a matter of minutes. Within those minutes I had to act. And a moment’s reflection showed me that there was only one certain way of escape. The crime must be brought convincingly home to the wretch who had committed it.”

Empson, who was now speaking in his dryest manner, paused for a moment. And Deighton-Clerk managed to exclaim: “Empson, you
too
are going to tell us–?”

“That I did what you would have done yourself,” Empson replied, “if you had managed to think of it. Consider my position. I had stumbled by the merest accident upon a very subtle plot in which Haveland and myself – in whatever relation or proportion – were plainly to be incriminated. I had no reason to suppose that by merely giving an alarm at that point I could foil Titlow. And that the police would get to the bottom of an elaborate piece of ingenuity planned by such a man I had very little hope. Nobody, I think, could have predicted the arrival of an officer of Mr Appleby’s perspicacity.

“Well, I hit on a plan – just the plan which Titlow fathered upon Pownall in the very ingenious story he has just told us.
It must be made immediately obvious that Titlow had killed Umpleby
: that was the postulate with which I began. And if I could not actually show Titlow murdering Umpleby I could, I thought, show him as
avoiding
being so shown. I could show him faking an alibi. I relied on his continuing to act normally and making his usual call on Umpleby at eleven o’clock. If I could fake Umpleby’s murder for the moment at which Titlow would be in the hall with the butler
and arrange matters so that the fake would then certainly reveal itself
I should have achieved my object.

“And then I remembered an incident that had happened just a year ago today. Titlow had been acting as sub-Dean and had had occasion to purloin certain fireworks from an undergraduate. And these fireworks I had reason to believe were still in a drawer in his room… A couple of seconds after I had realized that my plan was formed.

“I slipped out of the study, let myself through the gate and into the deserted common-room here: I took a candle-end from one of the candlesticks on this table. And with that I hurried back to my own rooms and, leaving the door open so that I could hear Titlow’s movements opposite, waited. Presently, as I had hoped, he came out: he was plainly going to make a show of visiting Umpleby as usual. As soon as he had passed the turn of the stairs I entered his room and in a moment had found what I wanted: a firework of a simple explosive kind. Then I hurried after Titlow and was back in the study before he could have got as far as the west gate. That gave me about a minute and a half. I went swiftly to the far end of the study, lit my candle, affixed it to the top of a revolving bookcase in one of the bays and hid it behind a few volumes taken hastily from the shelf. Then I simply waited until I heard the butler open the front door, ignited the touch-paper of the squib at the candle – which was later to suggest, of course, some primitive but practicable fuse – laid the squib too behind the books, and hurried as fast as my legs would let me from the room… I do not know that I made any mistake.”

“Mr Pownall,” said Appleby.

“My action on Tuesday night,” said Pownall, “was dictated solely by my knowledge that Haveland had murdered Umpleby and attempted to lay the crime upon me.”

Deighton-Clerk almost groaned; Barocho gave an approving nod; Curtis woke up and took snuff. And slowly and curiously gently, his head dropped characteristically sideways and his hands lightly clasped, Pownall told his story.

“Empson, in his appalling mixed-up version of the affair, has mentioned how one can come across something odd without – if one is unsuspecting – thinking much of it. That was how my own adventures on Tuesday night began. As everybody here knows, I have the habit of going to bed exceptionally early – often at about half-past nine. I was a little later than usual on Tuesday: it must have been just on ten o’clock that I stepped out of my room to fetch some hot water from the pantry. As I did so I heard somebody making a telephone call from Haveland’s room opposite. All I heard was a voice saying ‘Is that you, President?’ and then I passed on. But the voice had been Empson’s and I was vaguely surprised that he should be telephoning from Haveland’s room. I suppose I was thirty seconds in the pantry, and I had a view of the lobby all the time. I heard no more on my return, for the door of Haveland’s room had been pushed to. But I saw something that I immediately thought puzzling – that I ought to have realized as very curious indeed. Glancing upstairs as I passed into my room I saw Empson himself. He was making his way to the little landing half-way down – apparently to get a lump of coal from the locker there. I wondered how he could have got back upstairs without my noticing – but I failed to wonder long or vigorously enough to see that his having done so was a physical impossibility.

“I went straight to bed and, as my habit is, fell asleep at once. But the curious incident was still on my mind and I believe it entered my dreams. I dreamt of somebody speaking in an odd, unnatural voice, and into the same dream was woven what I now believe to have been the sound of the shot that killed Umpleby. And I dreamt yet further of somebody or something clinging to my wrists. And with that I woke up, knowing, as I have explained to Mr Appleby, that somebody had been in my room.

“The story we have heard from Titlow I cannot attempt to explain, but the things he has mentioned – the bloodstains and the diary pages – I presently found in my room. And then, hurrying outside, I found the body of the President… You know with what vividness one can sometimes recall a voice? In that moment there came back to me exactly what I had heard earlier that night and I recognized it with complete certainty as being not Empson’s voice but Haveland’s voice imitating Empson’s. Under cover of that disguise, it was clear, Haveland had lured Umpleby over from his study to Orchard Ground. And having lured him there he had shot him and was plotting, by what variety of means I could not tell, to incriminate me.

“Haveland was a murderer. Upon that, there came to me an illuminating thing that had been told me by Empson. We all heard it the other night. It was the crazy sentiment Haveland had uttered to Umpleby about wishing to see him immured in one of his own grisly sepulchres. That gave me my idea: I saw how I might escape and at the same time see justice done.

“I ran to Haveland’s rooms. He was out. I secured the bones, ran with them into the storeroom and stowed them at the bottom of the bath chair. Then I pushed the chair into the orchard, hoisted in the body, wrapped Barocho’s gown round the head and retreated with the whole thing into my own sitting-room. I was just in time. A few seconds later I heard Haveland returning. As soon as he had closed his door I was out again and hurrying, chair and all, to the President’s study. The rest you can guess. Within six minutes of finding Umpleby’s body and the plot against myself I had arranged in his study a very tolerable version of what had been his real murderer’s expressed wish when he had talked of grisly sepulchres. I thought it would be conclusive.”

Again there was silence in the common-room; it was broken by the Dean. “Mr Appleby, what light have you to throw on this mass of contradiction? And where is Haveland? He is not at our meeting.” Automatically, everybody looked towards the foot of the table where Haveland had sat facing Appleby two evenings before. But his place was now occupied by Ransome – who gave an alarmed “Oh, I say!” at the sudden concerted scrutiny… Quietly Appleby took up Deighton-Clerk’s questions.

“There is no contradiction, Mr Dean. We have heard – as far as each man’s actions are concerned – nothing but the truth. It so happened that on Tuesday night a certain member of the college who chanced to be present in Orchard Ground was witness of a series of transactions which tally exactly with what has been said. It was the information given me by that gentleman which put me in a position to elicit the narratives you have just heard.