Silent Nights (27 page)

This remark, made in a normal voice, caused what is called a pregnant silence.

***

Before the end of Christmas Eve, I had come to know Merton Watlow's relatives quite well. Although I was not without sentiments of sympathy for them and realized how they were being tormented by Watlow's fabulous and deliberate extravagance in everything he did, yet I must own that there was not one of them who did not seem to me capable of murder.

They were not amiable people and if we had all come down for a jolly Christmas party the occasion would have been a failure. Beef at any rate had other things in mind and I as his chronicler watched and waited for something which would shew which way his suspicions were going.

The grinding voice of Dr Siddley condemning the National Health Scheme, the noisy movements and halloos of Mollie Watlow, the stern silences and perpetual newspaper reading of her father, the pained whine of Prudence Watlow, the mooning presence of Egbert and the ferocious resentfulness of Mrs Siddley were none of them charming qualities but in the curious circumstances I was interested in them all.

Beef, however, with a sense of fitness rare in him, seemed to leave the study of these people to me and concentrate on the servants. He would disappear with Rumbold and return wiping his moustache and telling me that it had been interesting.

Early on the morning of Christmas Eve the only member of the party whom I found in the least
sympathique
left us, for Freda Meece was to spend Christmas Day with her parents. I felt some disappointment at this, but was consoled by the confidence that the evening would almost certainly bring surprises and perhaps some incident would be revealing to a criminologist like myself. I was not disappointed in this. But how very much more lurid than I supposed the incident turned out to be.

It was on Christmas Eve that Merton Watlow was accustomed to giving his relatives what he called “a little surprise”. There would be some entertainment or extravaganza which, ostensibly designed for their amusement, in fact demonstrated Watlow's gift for squandering money. One year, Mrs Siddley hissed in my ear, he had taken them to the largest conservatory where he had collected all the items of the old Christmas ballad including six turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. Another time he had engaged the entire caste of a musical comedy only a few days before it opened in London.

***

“This year,” she added, “I believe he has got Raymond Gidley.”

“Impossible!” I cried, for she had named television's most popular figure, the fabulous artist who not only played Mendelsohn in a highly individualistic manner but sang his own ballads in a falsetto voice and gave advice on family problems after dramatic re-enactments of them.

“Not to Merton. You heard what he said to your friend last night? There is nothing you can't buy with enough money. Merton has enough—still. How much longer he will have is another matter.”

Dinner that night was scarcely less exhausting than that of the night before. Beef became embarrassingly jovial and I watched him with growing anxiety swallow glass after glass.

Philip Meece, I noticed, was absent.

“Philip's a bit under the weather,” said Watlow equably. “I think he has turned in.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Dr Siddley. “Would you like me to have a look at him?”

“Very good of you, Stanley. He's probably asleep now. But if you'd like to look in before you go to bed I'm sure he'd be grateful. It's the first bedroom at the top of the stairs—over the drawing-room. I daresay it's over-eating.”

“I'm not surprised,” moaned Mrs Watlow. “I wonder the servants are able to do their work. Or perhaps they have a more sensible diet?” she added hopefully.

“No, I like them to have the same as I do. Now, shall we meet in the drawing room in a few minutes' time? I have a little surprise for you.”

***

The drawing-room at Natchett Grange was sixty feet long and down one side of it ran a row of great Georgian windows with magnificent old damask curtains. Tonight we saw that from the farthest window to the wall opposite to it had been hung a curtain like that of a stage. Before this our chairs had been arranged so that we should sit as it were in a theatre waiting for the curtain to rise.

It took some time for us to gather, and in view of the events that followed it was a good thing that I noted with scrupulous care in what order the guests arrived. Beef and I were the first with Mrs Watlow, while Mrs Siddley followed shortly. Then Mollie clumped in speaking loudly across the room to her mother—something about a breath of fresh air. There was a long wait after that before Egbert came to the door and looked round as though in bewilderment. The Major came in alone and then the doctor.

Suddenly a loudspeaker near the curtain began to play popular music—much too loudly, I thought. This was surprising to me for among other things which Mrs Siddley had told me about her uncle was the fact that he detested music and that one of the ways of spending he did not indulge was the collection of gramophone records. Still, I thought, it might be necessary to introduce the entertainment, whatever it was, which was about to follow.

Merton Watlow himself had not appeared and when I saw Beef looking anxiously towards the door I thought this was at least ominous. I made a sign of inquiry to Beef but he ignored this. He looked rather flushed from the food and drink he had consumed.

We must have sat waiting for at least ten minutes before anything was done to relieve the tension. Then Beef spoke.

“I think I'd better go and have a look.”

***

A voice replied from the doorway, the strong harsh voice of Merton Watlow himself.

“That won't be necessary,” he said. “I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. As you know the staff have their Christmas dinner this evening and I have just been to drink a health with them.”

I had noticed that since we left the dining-room none of the servants had been in evidence.

“Now, if you take your places, I have, as I say, a little surprise for you.”

The suspense was not the pleasurable one felt by the audience in a theatre before the curtain rises, indeed I should describe it as apprehension rather than suspense. I myself felt like that for I was certain that whatever we should see would not be designed genuinely for our pleasure.

We watched as Merton Watlow crossed to the corner in front of us where the stage curtain reached the window. He began very slowly to draw down a cord and as he did so the lights in the drawing-room were lowered and the curtains began slowly to part. Only when they were several feet apart did the music cease.

Behind the curtains the end of the room had been turned into a miniature stage, with illumination sufficient but not too much for whatever person was to occupy it. Then we saw enter with his accustomed smile and friendly manner the ineffable Mr Raymond Gidley.

***

I need not describe his entertainment—there can be few who are unfamiliar with his famous charm and air of sincerity. It lasted half an hour at least and the curious little audience applauded it fitfully.

While we were recovering from it, Merton Watlow approached Dr Siddley.

“I think now if you'd care to look at Philip,” he suggested. “I'm sure it's nothing but since you've been so good as to suggest it we may as well take advantage of your offer.”

“Certainly,” said Siddley and left the room.

Looking back now I know that the few moments that followed were the last we had of what one might call everyday life at Natchett. We talked normally, or as normally as those somewhat strained people were able to talk, and although I at least felt no particular anxiety about Philip Meece it seemed to me that we were waiting for something. At all events as Dr Siddley entered all turned to him.

“Merton,” he said, and even in those two syllables one heard an undertone of shock and distress.

Watlow crossed to him and Siddley whispered something to him. I thought that Philip Meece must have died or be suddenly gravely ill. When the two men turned to leave the room we all prepared to follow.

I will tell you at once what we saw as we peered into Philip Meece's room. He was hanging, head lolling, from a rope slung from the high eaves of the room and beside him two chairs lay, one on its side, the other on its back, evidently kicked over by him. The window of the room was open.

I heard Beef's heavy breathing beside me and saw him staring at the figure, his eyes going up with the rope and down to the chairs.

Siddley stepped forward. A knife was produced and the rope was cut, Siddley catching the limp figure and carrying it to the bed. The rope was so tight round Meece's throat and so securely knotted that it had to be cut.

“Quite dead,” Siddley said.

“How long?” Beef's voice sounded authoritative.

“Can't say exactly. I have no experience of this sort of thing. About half an hour, I should judge.”

Beef asked Siddley only one other question.

“Did you open the window when you came up first?”

“No,” replied the doctor decisively. “I touched nothing.”

I looked aside at Merton Watlow. I had the feeling that the big man was deeply moved but controlling himself admirably. He turned to his nephew, the Major.

“Alec, will you please telephone the police at once?”

“Certainly.”

“Stanley, you are quite sure that nothing whatever can be done? Artificial respiration or anything?”

“Oh no. His neck's broken.”

“Then we will go downstairs.”

***

The company moved away but as I saw Beef hanging about in the passage outside I did not follow the rest but pretended to go to my room.

“I suppose it was Meece who was writing the anonymous letters?” I said when we were alone.

“I don't see what makes you think so.”

“His suicide, of course.”

“Or murder,” replied Beef and made for Meece's room.

In a moment like this Beef was at his best. He went about his business swiftly and confidently.

“Not much time before Wiggs arrives,” he said.

Wiggs was the C.I.D. inspector at Braxham under whom Beef had worked. I knew that Beef disliked his one-time superior officer.

I watched as Beef pulled out a tape measure and began to take a number of measurements—the length of rope left hanging, the length from where the rope was cut to where the know began, the exact height of Meece, the height of the chairs.

He then paused for a few moments, apparently thinking deeply. I could almost hear his brain ticking over. When he moved again it was fast. He dived for the chairs and made a minute examination of their legs and cross-bars. He then went to the window-sill and remained there for a few moments.

“All right,” he said. “Let's go downstairs. I've seen all I want to see.”

***

Merton Watlow had taken his guests to the library, tactfully avoiding the room in which we had received our first shock. But when Beef saw this he excused himself for a moment and made for the drawing-room. He came back and remained with us.

After that all went smoothly. The police made a formal inspection, another doctor was called, and we were told that we should be wanted at the inquest but until then there was nothing to detain us. I felt all an Englishman's satisfaction with his national institutions and a great admiration for the police and medical professions when I saw how admirably and calmly all this was done. I could see nothing in Detective Inspector Wiggs to arouse Beef's hostility but I knew this was an old wound.

It did not seem very long in fact before we retired to bed.

***

It was not until we had reached Beef's house next day and were alone in what he called his “front room” that he expounded his view of the matter.

“Of course it was murder,” he said. “You ought to have seen that at once.”

“Why?”

“You ask yourself a few whys. Why was the window open? Why didn't Meece leave any sort of letter if he wanted to do for himself? Why was the rope so tight around his neck? Why was his wife away at Christmas for the first time in ten years? You may well ask why.”

“Come on, then. Let's hear what you think.”

“Murder made to look like suicide. Between dinner and that lark with the conjurer in the drawing room. . .”

“Beef! Raymond Gidley is not a conjurer.”

“Well, whatever he is. Before we sat down to watch him someone had gone up to Meece's room, overpowered or more likely drugged him for a few moments, knotted that rope so tight round his neck that he couldn't yell, tied him up with the two chairs in position so that he could just keep alive by standing on tiptoe, but no more. He couldn't release the rope, he couldn't haul himself up, he couldn't escape. He wasn't a big or a strong man as you know and there was really nothing he could do.”

“If that's really what happened,” I said, “it won't be hard to find the murderer. We have a nice collection of suspects though we were treating them as suspects in something else. You say it was done while we were waiting in the drawing-room. I know exactly how long each of them took to get there.”

***

Beef looked at me as though he were sorry for me.

“Won't be necessary,” he said. “I know who did it. I told you he slung up Philip Meece so that when he dropped it would look like suicide.”

“Then, I suppose, the murderer pulled the chairs away and watched him die?”

“Oh no, he was too clever for that. He wanted an alibi. He had to be somewhere else when Meece died, and he was. He's got all of us to prove it.”

“Then how….”

“You should know. You were watching while he did it. You saw Philip Meece murdered.”

“Don't be absurd, Beef.”

“So was I for that matter. The murderer passed a double rope round the leg of the lower chair, then dropped it out of the window. You can see where the chair's rubbed and the window-sill, too. He only had to give this double rope a jerk, then pull one line down and all trace of anything but suicide, he supposed, would disappear.”