House in Charlton Crescent (12 page)

“Well, I don't know, sir. I couldn't. But then I am not a Cat Burglar.”

In spite of the gravity of the case a ripple of laughter ran through the crowd at the idea of the portly and superior butler posing as a cat burglar. When it had been suppressed by the usher, the coroner said:

“One more question, please, Mr. Soames. You speak of the last gasping cry her ladyship gave. Did it sound to you as if your lady were trying to call out, to say some words?”

“Well, no, sir, can't say that it did!” the witness said doubtfully. “But then you see there was such a commotion and was that upset by seeing the face at the window that didn't realize what was happening, or how important it was that should be able to remember all that passed.”

“I see.” The coroner wrote a few lines on his paper. “You can go, now, witness, but you must hold yourself in readiness, for you may be wanted later.”

Soames's place in the witness-box was taken by John Daventry, who looked the model of a healthy young Englishman as he stood up to face the crowded court, though his usually good-tempered expression had been replaced by an air of morose defiance. He took the oath and kissed the book and answered the first few formal questions in a surly fashion that turned the sympathies of most men against him. Asked to give his account of the events of that tragic afternoon he responded curtly that it would be just the same as the last witness's, except that he did not see the face at the window till after Soames cried out.

“Nevertheless, put it in your own words, please,” the coroner said with an air of calm authority that even John Daventry dared not disregard. 

“Well, my aunt had been telling us all about her pearls and showing us her other bits of jewellery and—and—the dagger. And we had been turning them all over and then it was getting dusk and we had tea up. We had so much to talk about that we didn't ring for lights. At last Soames brought us some more hot cakes and dropped them and yelled like mad, and stood pointing at the window. Then I saw some joker looking in—a fellow with an ugly white face. We all ran to the window, but the chap seemed to have got away somehow. And while we were all looking for him there was that cry from Lady Anne and we turned to find her dead or dying with that dagger sticking in her.” During this bald recital Daventry's ruddy cheeks had faded almost to the sickly green colour of the evening of the murder. After that first glance at the lookers-on in the well of the court, however, he did not turn that way again, but faced the coroner with shoulders thrown back and squared, and defiant eyes. He seemed in some way to sense the hostile feeling of the waiting crowd.

The coroner held out a plan of the sitting-room to him.

“Will you mark the chair in which you sat, if you please, Mr. Daventry?”

The witness took the plan, scowled at it and finally scored one of the seats with a big black cross.

The coroner scrutinized it. “You were the nearest to the escritoire, to Lady Anne, I see.”

“Yes, I was, on that side,” John Daventry said gloomily. “But—” a sudden passion springing into his tone—“that doesn't say that I jumped up and stuck a dagger into the poor old lady. Oh, I know what you are driving at, Mr. Coroner! I can see as far through a stone wall as anyone.”

“That is a most improper observation to make, Mr. Daventry,” the coroner said severely. “Please to confine yourself to the matter in hand. You speak of Lady Anne's last cry—did it sound to you as if she were trying to say something, or only like a cry for help?”

“Well, a bit of both!” John Daventry said sullenly, still smarting under his rebuke. “It was like a gasping choke—and then she tried to say: ‘It was—it was—' twice like that, and then she was gone.”

“Had you any knowledge of the fact that Lady Anne had some reason to fear that an attempt was likely to be made on her life—had been made unsuccessfully several times in fact?”

John Daventry opened his eyes. “No, I hadn't. And I don't believe it now. The old lady would have been sure to have told me, and I should have taken care to safeguard her.”

The coroner coughed. “Not quite so easy as it sounds, perhaps, Mr. Daventry. Now, did this face at the window bear any resemblance to that of anyone you know?”

“Good Lord, no! I should think not!” John Daventry burst out energetically. “A chap with a face like chalk, like a clown's or a mask or something of that sort and a mass of black hair.”

There was a pause. The coroner was consulting his notes. At last John Daventry moved as if to leave the box. The coroner stopped him.

“Another question, Mr. Daventry. Is it not a fact that every one in the room benefited by Lady Anne's death?”

“I suppose so,” Daventry assented sulkily. “Every one that is to say but the secretary—Cardyn. She didn't leave him anything. He hadn't been there long enough.”

“You and Miss Balmaine, I understand, come into a large sum of money between you?”

Daventry nodded. “Yes. Under my uncle's will. He left his large private fortune to his wife for her life, and then to his sons who were killed in the war. Then it was to be divided between me and the heirs of his daughter if any of them were ever discovered. Lady Anne's money went back to her own family, naturally.”

It was a long speech for John Daventry, usually one of the most inarticulate of men. At its conclusion he wiped the little beads of perspiration from his brow.

“Now, Mr. Daventry, I understand that you have on several occasions tried to anticipate this reversion,” the coroner said, watching him closely.

Daventry stared back at him. “How do you know that? I am not here to answer questions about my private affairs.”

“You are here to answer any questions that may throw any light on the death of Lady Anne Daventry,” the coroner rejoined severely. “This sort of thing will do you no good, Mr. Daventry. Answer the question, please.”

“Well, then, I have,” John Daventry said sullenly. “Expenses have gone up and—and the estate doesn't bring in any more. Every fellow flies a few kites nowadays.”

“And did this particular kite of yours succeed?” the coroner asked blandly. “Were you able to borrow the money you wanted?”

“No, I wasn't. The blighter wouldn't advance me anything.”

The beads of perspiration were plainly visible on Daventry's brow now. Every now and then he dashed his handkerchief across them. “You see, if I died before Lady Anne, they would not have got a penny, it would have gone to Miss Balmaine or failing her to my cousin, Alan Daventry. And Lady Anne was a game old lady—might have lived to be a hundred if it had not been for this scandalous affair. One of the fellows had the cheek to tell me her life was better than mine.”

“Quite so!” the coroner said politely. “I think that is all, Mr. Daventry.”

John Daventry opened his mouth as if to make some rejoinder, then changed his mind, and, with an awkward bow to the coroner, stepped down from the box and made his way back to his seat next Margaret Balmaine. People looked askance at him as he passed. One or two drew themselves out of his way. There could be no doubt that upon the general public John Daventry had made a most unfavourable impression. He was, as Inspector Furnival had once remarked, the obvious suspect, but the obvious was not always the right.

The inspector's face was inscrutable as ever as he stood up and asked that the inquest might be further adjourned for a fortnight, as the police were making certain inquiries which he hoped by that time might have some definite result.

The coroner shuffled about his papers and consulted the foreman of the jury for a moment. Then, just as he turned to the inspector, one of the jurymen rose.

“Might I put a question to Inspector Furnival on behalf of myself and my colleagues, sir?”

“Oh, certainly,” the coroner said at once. “There can be no objection, can there, inspector?”

“Decidedly not, sir.” But though the inspector's face was as imperturbable as ever as he turned to face the jury, in his heart he was cursing his interlocutor. None knew better than he how very awkward and inapt these questions of the jurymen often were, of how frequently a criminal had taken fright just at the most critical moment.

“What we want to know is this, sir,” the inquisitive juryman persisted. “We have heard a good deal about finger-prints, all of us, one way and another, and we should like to know why Inspector Furnival has not had the handle of the dagger examined for finger-prints, if he has not. And, if he has, why he has not communicated the results of the examination to us.”

The suspicion of a smile flitted across the inspector's face. Nothing that was done in all the wonderful artistic and scientific methods of detecting crime employed by the Criminal Investigation Department had so captured the public imagination as this one of finger-prints, he was well aware. Also no one was aware how fallacious such a test might be.

“The usual steps to secure the finger-prints on the dagger handle were taken at once naturally.”

“And the result?” the juror questioned breathlessly.

“We found the finger-prints more or less distinct of all the people in the room, and of Lady Anne Daventry herself.”

“No one else? No sixth man?” Another juror burst out.

“Not at this examination. The handle is at present being put under other tests by Sir William Forrester Sanders, the expert. But I may say at once that I do not anticipate any different result.”

“Then—the murder must have been committed by one of the five people in the room?”

A shiver of horror passed through his hearers. The witnesses sitting near together in the front of the court drew a little apart and glanced at one another sideways as they waited for the answer.

The inspector bent his head. “So it would seem.”

The coroner passed out. The crowd waited, their eyes fixed upon that little group of people in the front. They wanted to see them get up—these five very ordinary-looking men and women, one of whom must be a murderer. Moreover, a murderer of the most cruel and brutal kind, one who had killed a defenceless old woman bound to every one of them by ties of gratitude and duty.

But the ushers began to clear the court. The curious would not be allowed to stare any longer. As they were turning unwillingly to the door, the Five got up. The rector of North Coton with his wife preceded them to the door the courtesy of the coroner had allowed them to use, the two girls came next looking white and frightened in their new mourning. John Daventry and Bruce Cardyn followed, most unwilling companions in adversity. Inspector Furnival brought up the rear, chatting amiably with Soames.

“So it wasn't so very formidable after all, was it?”

“No. Not—not really, of course. They didn't ask me anything about the footsteps under the window at the back of the Hall. I mean those I showed you myself. That puzzled me a bit.”

The inspector looked at him with something as like a wink as so dignified a functionary ever permitted himself.

“It doesn't do to tell them everything we know. I may tell you I am following up that clue myself.”

Some of the tension died out of the butler's face.

“Then may take it you don't feel sure that it was one of the five in the room that was guilty?”

The inspector gave him a knowing glance.

“I never feel sure of anything in this world. I may tell you in confidence that when I have made those footmarks out I shall have found out who murdered Lady Anne.”

“I—I am glad to hear you say that,” the man said almost gratefully. “It seemed so dreadful that one of us, one of us who loved her”—he gulped down something in his throat—“should have killed my lady.”

When they reached Charlton Crescent again Bruce Cardyn touched the inspector.

“Did you see a tall youngish man, fair, with rather noticeable white teeth, and a monocle fixed in one eye, who sat a little way behind us and apparently took great interest in the case? He was making notes in a book on his knee.”

The inspector nodded. “Mr. David Branksome, your predecessor.”

“Was he?” For once Cardyn was taken utterly by surprise. “Did you see him apparently pushed close to our party by the jostling of the crowd? In reality he was cleverly edging himself up to Miss Balmaine. I saw him pass something—a note apparently to her.”

The inspector laughed a little, and feeling in his waistcoat pocket held out his hand to the younger man. Bruce looked at the grubby piece of paper lying in his palm.

“Mosswolds'—4 o'clock to-morrow.”

“An appointment?”

“Looks like it,” said the inspector. “We shall have to put in an appearance there, Mr. Cardyn.” Bruce glanced at it doubtfully. “But will Miss Balmaine keep the appointment when she finds that she has lost her note?”

“She will not know,” the inspector said confidently. “Miss Balmaine like one or two of the others concerned in this remarkable case is just a little too clever, Mr. Cardyn. She managed to read that note, holding it low down in her hand while the people were all round the court. When she had finished she tore it into several pieces and let it fall to the floor, thinking, no doubt, that she was unobserved and that she had done with it for ever. But there was a little ragged boy, who had managed somehow to push himself into the court—a little ragged boy who was close behind her when she dropped it. He picked it up—I am sure it will not surprise you to learn that he is one of my keenest sleuths—he put the pieces together with some bits of stamp paper, took a taxi and was here as soon as we were.”

“A smart piece of work altogether!” commented Bruce Cardyn. “‘Mosswolds'—a restaurant off Piccadilly, isn't it?”

“Mostyn Street, left off Bond Street,” corrected the inspector. “I hear the car is ordered directly after luncheon to-morrow to take the young ladies to the dressmaker's. I expect our young lady will manage to slip away from there. At any rate we shall be ready for her.”