The Ginger Cat Mystery (24 page)

After a lengthy discussion of the incident of Miss Stella's sudden disappearance, on which Miss Mayo was inclined to be tragic, Mrs. Mayo desultory, and Mrs. Cornell clear-headed, Dr. Redgrave glanced at the clock and addressing his hostess, remarked:

“Look here, Jo, it's getting late and I think the best thing in the circumstances is for me to call at the bungalow and see Cornell himself. He's sure to be terribly upset and I'll try and put him at ease. He'll want someone to talk to and he can get it off his chest on me though I'm not a great favourite with the gentleman. It'll possibly be a suitable occasion for improving our relations with one another, for I'm one of his sincere admirers though he possibly doesn't know it. What d'you think?”

“A good suggestion, Stanley. Tell him we've already got Inspector Heather on the girl's tracks, and as soon as we've found out where she is, I'll immediately go and see her. In the morning we'll either call or ring him up and let him have all the news. The inspector can 'phone up the police of the whole county and that's all that can possibly be done to-night.”

“Good, and perhaps Mr. Vereker would like to accompany me,” suggested the doctor.

“No, Mr. Vereker is going back at once to the inn to see the inspector,” replied Mrs. Cornell, “but you could accompany him to the lodge and talk things over before you call at the bungalow. Will that meet the occasion?”

“Admirably,” said the doctor and after bidding the ladies good night the two men left the Manor together.

They had only gone a few yards down the drive when the doctor broached the subject that was uppermost in his mind.

“I suppose, Mr. Vereker,” he began, “you know all the ins and outs of this wretched business from the exhumation of John Cornell's body to the murder of his son, Frank?”

“I think I can say I've gathered in conversation and otherwise the general hang of the affair, doctor.”

“Then I won't waste your time recapitulating. Carstairs has told you—I couple you with Inspector Heather—all about the unfortunate Tapp and my share in the business of bringing him to Marston. You haven't heard my version of the affair and I'm going to tell you briefly the part I played in it. I introduced Tapp into the Cornell household. He's what is called a germ-carrier. Now the whole question of germ-carriers, important though it is from the point of hygiene, can be over-stressed by the layman. Every doctor knows that about two per cent. of the whole population of the country are germ-carriers. I'm not going into any lengthy discussion of the problem with you because it's quite irrelevant to the present case. Tapp was a milk roundsman in Kingston some years ago when I was in practice there. An epidemic of cerebro-spinal fever was traced to him by certain experts who inquired into the origin of the epidemic. As to the validity of their findings I've nothing to say. What concerns me is that although I remember all the facts of the outbreak of the epidemic, none of my patients caught the disease and I never met the man Tapp in my life before he was brought to my notice by my housekeeper, Mrs. Jordan, who is his widowed sister. She heard that John Cornell was in search of a competent valet and asked me if I would use my influence to get her brother, who was a married man with a family dependent on him, the job. She told me his name was George Tapp but, as the epidemic at Kingston occurred some years ago, the name conveyed nothing to me. She naturally concealed his unfortunate history from me and in all innocence I recommended him to John Cornell. As it happens, John Cornell died of pneumonia—that was my professional opinion—and if it hadn't been for Carstairs' very indiscreet chatter to Frank Cornell about Tapp's history, the matter would have ended there.”

“You're quite sure John Cornell didn't die of cerebro-spinal fever, Doctor?” asked Vereker.

“Perfectly certain—as certain as any human being can be. It's a difficult subject for a doctor to discuss with a layman, but pneumococcal meningitis may very closely resemble cerebro-spinal fever. I was fairly well acquainted with the latter and tested my patient for Kernig's sign which is one of the few reliable tests. I also made a lumbar puncture.”

“What is Kernig's sign, Doctor?” asked Vereker feeling completely out of his depth at this juncture.

“To put it as plainly as I can, when a patient is propped up in bed in a sitting posture he is unable to straighten his legs. But these medical details are unnecessary. The presence of George Tapp, however, was unfortunate. My friendship with Mrs. Cornell which had ripened into love was the factor which made the whole affair doubly unfortunate. Whether Carstairs actually thought I'd devised a damned cunning method of getting rid of John Cornell so that I could marry his widow, I don't quite know. The suspicion probably entered his mind and he confided his knowledge of Tapp's history to Frank Cornell. Now Frank, lovable fellow though he was, could at times be an infernal idiot. He promptly suspected me of the crime of removing his father for my own ends, or rather, in a drunken mood, hinted at something of the sort to Miss Stella Cornell. You know the rest of the story.”

“You and Carstairs didn't hit it off very well together, I believe?” asked Vereker.

“No; but that was not my fault. In the first place, when he discovered that Tapp, a germ-carrier, had been recommended by me to John Cornell as his valet, in fairness to me he ought to have come to me and had an open discussion about the matter. If my explanation had been at all unsatisfactory, he'd have been completely justified in carrying the matter farther. Instead of that he indiscreetly talks about it to an irresponsible fellow like Frank Cornell. Put yourself in my place and consider how you'd have felt in the circumstances. Even if there wasn't a fragment of basis for his suspicions, and there wasn't, the very discussion of it endangered my whole life and career. I was nearly driven mad with rage and anxiety. I tried hard to be fair but I found it devilish hard to be civil to Carstairs afterwards. Doubtless he's a good enough fellow but he's opinionated, lacks humour, and though a man of his type is capable of even heroic actions, he's equally capable of the blindest folly in acting on rigorous and unquestioned principles. Instead of losing my temper with him over the affair, I pretended to ignore it. I avoided discussing it with him; to have done so at this juncture would, I felt, have been professionally undignified and I hoped that an attitude of jocularity might meet the occasion. I was wrong. He resented my facetiousness and lost his temper altogether. We quarrelled openly and he left Marston this afternoon. It's the best thing he could have done: otherwise, I'd have been obliged to punch his head good and hearty.”

After this outburst the doctor walked along in silence for some moments.

“There's another matter I'd like to thrash out with you now, Mr. Vereker,” he continued at length. “There was some nonsense about missing keys to the music room and a missing automatic pistol of Mrs. Cornell's. I presume the importance attached to the keys arose from the fact that Frank Cornell was shot on the landing adjoining that room or in the room itself. If the point had been raised in my presence, I could at once have informed the inspector where the duplicate keys were. I knew that John Cornell had locked them up in a drawer in his bedroom. When I heard that they were in request, I promptly told Mrs. Cornell where they were. She asked me to get them. On going through the contents of the drawer, I also found the missing automatic pistol.”

“We have an idea that the pistol which Mrs. Cornell kept in the music room might be the weapon the murderer used.”

“Quite a legitimate supposition but it won't hold water now. In any case the type of weapon's a fairly common one though I don't think a man would use one.”

“Which suggests that the murderer was a woman,” remarked Vereker.

“It suggests nothing of the sort,” quickly rejoined the doctor. “Such a pistol may have been the first weapon to hand in this case. A large-calibre automatic isn't a comfortable thing to carry and cannot be easily concealed on one's person or hidden after it has been used.”

“Quite so,” agreed Vereker, pleased with the doctor's shrewd reasoning.

“To revert to the music room. On the night of the tragedy I left the Manor by the music room door leading into the garden,” continued the doctor calmly. “I was perhaps the last person to use the door prior to the murderer, if by chance he entered the house that way. This might throw suspicion on me. The question naturally presents itself, why should I leave the Manor by the music room door at that time of night? The front door was obviously my nearest way home and the conventional method of departure for a guest. I left the house by the music room door because I had to pay a professional call at the bungalow. Miss Stella Cornell wished to see me on an important matter concerning her health.”

“I suppose it's quite out of bounds for me to ask the nature of her complaint?” asked Vereker frankly.

“In the ordinary course of things I should simply refuse to answer you, but I think present circumstances warrant my waiving strict professional etiquette. Miss Stella's sudden disappearance to-night made up my mind for me in the matter. Her action will certainly be construed by the police as very suspicious and they'll take steps to find out where she is and why she vanished. They'll most certainly discover her and I'm only anticipating events by telling you the reason for her departure. She asked me to call on her that night for a very grave reason. She believed she was pregnant and I merely confirmed her in her opinion. I presume, though I don't know, that Frank Cornell was the father of the child. That makes the incident of her leaving the bungalow perfectly intelligible. She has gone away to give birth to her child.”

“Does her father know of her condition?” asked Vereker.

“That I can't say.”

“Do you think she's a woman who might commit suicide in such a crisis, doctor?”

“My personal opinion is that she wouldn't, but in pregnancy, as you know, women are sometimes quite abnormal and one can't be dogmatic on such a point.”

“I ask because Mrs. Cornell wants me to put the inspector on to making inquiries. She evidently fears that Miss Cornell may do something rash. Otherwise it might be the kindest thing to let the girl get over her trouble without harassing her.”

“A sympathetic way of looking at the matter, but I think Mrs. Cornell knows what she's about. She and Miss Cornell are very intimate friends and you must use your own discretion after telling Inspector Heather of the real reason for her disappearance,” replied the doctor.

“Very good,” agreed Vereker and having reached the Manor lodge gate bade Dr. Redgrave good night.

He then made his way slowly to the “Dog and Partridge.” His mind was reviewing with feverish activity all the happenings of a thoroughly eventful afternoon; his talk with Mary Lister which had confirmed Heather's information about her relations with the dead man and revealed the whereabouts of the only ginger tabby in Marston; his interview with Mrs. Cornell and her amazing production of the missing automatic pistol; the sudden disappearance of Miss Cornell and its ostensible cause as revealed by Dr. Redgrave. Carefully as he weighed up these factors in their relation to his investigation, they absolutely refused to surrender any definite light on his problem. At one moment the clue of the ginger tabby seemed fraught with the gravest importance, and on further analysis seemed to fade away into inconclusive insignificance. During his interview with Mrs. Cornell and subsequently with Doctor Redgrave, he had been very favourably impressed by their unequivocal directness and apparent truthfulness. Both had spoken about the tragedy and their own positions in relation to it as people quite above suspicion; they had given satisfactory explanations of those actions of theirs which might appear to an investigator as open to question and requiring elucidation. Again on reconsideration, they might be in a subtle conspiracy to prevent the discovery of their guilty participation in a crime. They both had sufficient motive for the removal of the unfortunate Frank Cornell, and they were both people of more than ordinary intelligence, capable of using a disarming frankness to mislead an investigator. Lastly, the disappearance of Stella Cornell which had momentarily seemed to inculpate her and declare her a fugitive from justice had been occasioned by a tragedy sufficiently serious to drive her from the narrow and censorious world of Marston-le-Willows. In a state of bewilderment and mild exasperation he arrived at the “Dog and Partridge” and at once sought out Inspector Heather. The latter was sitting smoking after his supper with an expression of complete satisfaction on his rotund, good-natured face. Looking up on Vereker's entry, he blew a cloud of smoke with quiet deliberation into the air and asked: “Well, Mr. Vereker, did you see the Madonna of the Manor?”

“I've seen everybody and heard everything, Heather; Mary Lister, Mrs. Cornell, Miss Mayo, Doctor Redgrave…”

“Sounds like Widdicombe Fair with Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Nice lady, Mrs. Cornell, don't you think?”

“Charming,” replied Vereker flatly and thrusting his hand into his pocket he produced her miniature automatic pistol and flung it on the table. “That's her gun, if it interests you.”

“Dear me, this is quite exciting,” said the inspector as he picked up the pistol and extracted the magazine from the grip to see if it was loaded. Pulling back the ejector mechanism, he inserted a small piece of paper torn from the margin of
The East Anglian Times
into the breech and peered down the barrel. “Quite clean, but that doesn't tell us who first brewed beer. Who found the gun?”

“Doctor Redgrave. It was in the same drawer in which the duplicate keys to the music room were found.”

“This doctor man's becoming more helpful to us every day. I don't know what we'd do without him.”