Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (28 page)

“Tell us what happened at the ball, in your own words, please.”

Dicky coughed. “Well, when I recognized her and saw what a darned hole I'd got myself into – two wives at once, you know – I was a bit upset; any chap would be.”

A disposition to titter on the part of the spectators was instantly suppressed by the chairman and Dicky proceeded:

“Well, as I say, I'd pretty well got the hump as far as dancing was concerned. I walked up and down outside trying to think things out, and it only seemed plainer and plainer what a pickle I was in. Coming in, I met Larpent looking for ices for his young woman. He'd seen Charmian Karslake and knew what it meant. ‘You go into the little smoking-room, old chap, and I'll come to you in a minute, and we'll have a smoke and think things out,' he said.

“I went into the room and I hadn't been there a minute when the door opened, and in she came – Sylvia – Charmian – deuced if I know what to call her. ‘So I have found you at last, Mr. Peter Hailsham,' she said. I had married her as Hailsham, you know.”

“Why had you done that?” the chairman asked sternly.

Dicky fidgeted about on one leg, took out his monocle and screwed it in again.

“Because I was a damned fool, I suppose,” he said at last. “The marriage was legal of course, I knew that. But if I had married her as Penn-Moreton, she would have gone down to Hepton, and – and I thought I would wait until I'd distinguished myself in the war or somewhere, you know. She wouldn't have waited, she had got the very devil of a temper. I hadn't been married a week when I found that out. We did nothing but quarrel and at last she turned me out of the house. I swore I'd have nothing to do with her any more, but I didn't know about the kiddy, or I shouldn't have kept my word. I paid an allowance for her into the bank but she never claimed it. You can call me a blinking blackguard as much as you like,” he added to the Bench.

“Kindly go on, and be as brief as you can.” The chairman vouchsafed no other answer.

“Well, when she saw me in the smoking-room she called me all the names she could think of. She'd found out who I was, and that I was married, and she was furious. I don't say she hadn't cause, mind you,” Dicky interspersed candidly, “but I couldn't help it.

“I told her it wasn't any good blackguarding me, and if we didn't stop we should have the whole crowd on us. At last, she said, ‘You'll come up to my room tonight and I'll give you my last word.' Well, it was the only way I could keep her quiet, so I promised. I didn't see any more of her till then. I let the house get quiet, and the fellows all settled in the smoking-room, then I went up and knocked. She didn't take any notice. I couldn't stand there knocking, so I pushed the door open, and there she was lying on the floor, dead. I picked her up and put her on the bed, but there was nothing to be done. I had seen enough chaps dead in the war to know that. At last I got nervy. I couldn't do her any good, and I thought if I called people they would say I had killed her, so I went away and did nothing.”

“Do you think that was either a wise or a brave proceeding on your part?” the chairman questioned severely.

“Good Lord! No, I don't!” Dicky answered candidly. “I think I behaved like a blithering idiot, if you ask me, and a cowardly one at that. But that's where it is.”

“Did you see anything of the butler, Brook?”

“I saw him downstairs in the hall when I was going up, and I told him I thought he needn't wait any longer.”

“How did he look?”

“Much the same as usual,” Dicky answered. “I didn't see any difference in him. I can't believe that old Brook would go and murder anybody.”

The chairman held up his hand.

Dicky stood down and passed through the crowd to his former seat. Mrs. Richard leaned forward and smiled at him. Mr. Juggs shook hands with him vigorously.

Celeste Dubois was the next witness called. The Frenchwoman picked her way through the crowd carefully, holding her extremely skimpy skirt together as though she feared contamination.

She was dressed entirely in black and took the oath with her eyes cast down and a general air of contrition that was not without its effect on the magistrates.

The chairman looked at her. “You are the late Miss Karslake's maid?”

“
Oui
, monsieur – yes, sare, I would say I was.”

“You gave evidence at the inquest, I believe,” the chairman pursued, “and stated that on the night of the murder, when you left Miss Karslake's room, you saw a man come along the corridor and go into Miss Karslake's room.”

Celeste touched her eyes very delicately with her handkerchief. “I did say I tink he went into my Mademoiselle's room,” she corrected, “I was not sure.”

“You also said that the man was a stranger to you,” Sir John proceeded. “What do you say now?”

“I say dat I tink it was ze butler. I had seen him more than the gentlemen, so I know 'im.”

“Why did you not say so at the inquest?”

Standing with downcast eyes Celeste murmured:

“I did not vant to do him harm – to do harm to anybody. And – and I was not sure.”

The chairman waited a minute. “Are you sure it was the butler now?” he questioned sharply.

Celeste twisted her hands together. “Yes, I am sure now.”

“How is it you are sure now?”

“Well I tell him –
non
– I write him zat I see him and he do not say he was not.”

“You wrote to him, we have been informed,” Sir John said severely, “and demanded money, threatening to expose him if he did not pay you a large sum of money.”

Celeste wiped away a tear before she answered.

“I – I was very poor, sare, and in a strange country, and my Mademoiselle was dead. I sought the man who kill her should give me money to live.”

“And what about Mr. Richard Penn-Moreton who was arrested?” Sir John asked in a milder tone.

“Oh, but I was very sorry for Mr. Richard,” Celeste went on with an effective tremor in her voice. “I was just sinking zat I would tell zat it was not Mr. Richard. I did write and tell ze head of ze police here. And – and he find out who write it, and come and find me and bring me down here.”

At the conclusion of Celeste's evidence the magistrates conferred together and then the chairman announced that they had decided to dismiss the charge against Richard Penn-Moreton. And after a little exordium from Sir John on the extreme folly of his behaviour Dicky left the court with his wife, as she immediately became by special licence, Mr. Juggs, Sir Arthur and Lady Penn-Moreton and Dicky's other friends following.

The trial of William Brook for the murder of Charmian Karslake occupied a great deal of space in the morning papers; but it came rather as an anti-climax to the general public after the rumours that had connected one or other of the Penn-Moretons with the crime. Brook was convicted and executed in Medchester Gaol.

He left a full confession of his guilt, describing how he went to Charmian Karslake's room, not knowing of her marriage with Dicky and determined to make her his by fair means or foul. Spurned by her with contempt he flew into a rage and attacked her furiously. She caught up her toy pistol to defend herself. He seized it from her in the struggle that ensued, and shot her. When he saw her lying dead before him he felt she had met the fate she deserved. He had no idea what made him take the sapphire ball and only realized that he had it in his hand when he was downstairs. Then it was too late to put it back and he did not at first see what a source of danger its possession would be to him.

When he heard that a rigorous search for it was being instituted in the Abbey, the idea of throwing it and the pistol into the Monks' Pool occurred to him. To his horror the pistol sank but the sapphire ball caught in a split in the rocks at the side. He had put it into a little tin box to conceal it. Every day he hoped the water would rise; but the drought lasted, and the pool got lower. Not so agile as Mrs. Richard, the idea of getting down to it did not occur to him.

Drawn by the instinct that so often takes the guilty back to the scene of their crimes he had got into the habit of haunting the pool to watch over the sapphire ball. He was going down there when Mrs. Richard came out of the path with the box in her hand. He sprang after her and, knocking her senseless, he left her for dead, and took the sapphire ball away. From that time he had worn it himself until taken by Inspector Stoddart.

It was corroborated by the finding of the pistol in the Monks' Pool, which turned out not to be bottomless after all. It was not a very detailed confession, but it entirely cleared Dicky, and any lingering doubts as to the justice of Brook's own sentence were dissipated.

Dicky and his wife spend most of their time with Mr. Juggs now, either on board his yacht or at his palatial residence in Baltimore. The millionaire is more attached to his son-in-law than ever.

The engagement between John Larpent and Paula Galbraith has not been renewed as yet. Larpent has not forgiven her lack of faith; but perhaps some day he will only remember that even when she thought him guilty she would not give him away.

THE END

Annie Haynes was born in 1865, the daughter of an ironmonger.

By the first decade of the twentieth century she lived in London and moved in literary and early feminist circles. Her first crime novel,
The Bungalow Mystery
, appeared in 1923, and another nine mysteries were published before her untimely death in 1929.

Who Killed Charmian Karslake?
appeared posthumously, and a further partially-finished work,
The Crystal Beads Murder
, was completed with the assistance of an unknown fellow writer, and published in 1930.

The Bungalow Mystery

The Abbey Court Murder

The Secret of Greylands

The Blue Diamond

The Witness on the Roof

The House in Charlton Crescent

The Crow's Inn Tragedy

The Master of the Priory

The Man with the Dark Beard

The Crime at Tattenham Corner

The Crystal Beads Murder

“Early this morning a gruesome discovery was made by a gardener employed at Holford Hall in Loamshire...”

Robert Saunderson's murdered body is found in the summer house at Lord Medchester's country mansion. Some crystal beads, broken off a neckace and found on the scene, form the primary clue. But where is the necklace, and whose could it be?

Detective inspector Stoddart and his assistant Harbord have to unravel a mystery that cost two men their lives and destroyed the reputation of others.

The Crystal Beads Murder
, first published in 1930, was the last of the Inspector Stoddart mysteries, and Annie Haynes' final book overall. She died, after a long illness, before completing it and it was finished by an unknown friend and fellow writer. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“An uncommonly well-constructed tale... throughout the reader is kept continually on the ‘qui vive'”
Western Australian

“My hat! Nan, I tell you it is the chance of a lifetime. Battledore is a dead cert. Old Tim Ranger says he is the best colt he ever had in his stable. Masterman gave a thousand guineas for him as a yearling. He'd have won the Derby in a canter if he had been entered.”

“It is easy to say that when he wasn't, isn't it?” Anne Courtenay smiled. “Don't put too much on, Harold. You can't afford to lose, you know.”

“Lose! I tell you I can't lose,” her brother returned hotly. His face was flushed, the hand that held his card was trembling. “Battledore must win. My bottom dollar's on him. Minnie Medchester has mortgaged her dress allowance for a year to back him. Oh, Battledore's a wonder colt.”

“What is a wonder colt – Battledore, I suppose?” a suave voice interposed at this juncture. “Mind what you are doing, Harold. Best hedge a bit. I hear Goldfoot is expected. Anyway, the stable is on him for all it's worth.”

“So is Ranger's on Battledore. Old Tim Ranger says it is all over bar the shouting. Oh, Battledore's a cert. I have been telling Anne to put every penny she can scrape together on him.”

“I hope Miss Courtenay has not obeyed you,” Robert Saunderson said, his eyes, a little bloodshot though the day was still young, fixed on Anne Courtenay's fair face. “It's all very well, young man, but I have known so many of these hotpots come unstuck to put much faith in even Tim Ranger's prophecies. I'd rather take a good outsider. Backing a long shot generally pays in the long run.”

“It won't when Battledore is favourite,” Harold Courtenay returned obstinately. “He ran away with the Gold Cup. It will be the same.”

“H'm! Well, you are too young to remember Lawgiver. He was just such a Derby cert that he was guarded night and day and brought to the tapes with detectives before and behind, but he sauntered in a bad fifteenth.”

“Battledore won't,” young Courtenay said confidently. “Wait a minute, Nan. There's young Ranger. I must have a word with him.” He darted off.

Robert Saunderson looked after him with a curious smile. Saunderson was well known in racing circles and was usually present at all the big meetings. He was sometimes spoken of as a mystery man. Nobody knew exactly who he was or where he came from. But as a rich bachelor he had made his way into a certain section of London society. At the present moment he, as well as the Courtenays, was staying at Holford Hall with the Courtenays' cousin, Lord Medchester.

Rumour had of late credited Lady Medchester with a very kindly feeling for Saunderson. Holford was within an easy driving distance of Doncaster, and the house-party to a man had come over on Lord Medchester's coach and a supplementary car to see the St. Leger run. The Courtenays were the grandchildren of old General Courtenay, who had held a high command in India and had been known on the Afghan frontier as “Dare-devil Courtenay”. His only son, Harold and Anne's father, had been killed in the Great War. The Victoria Cross had been awarded to him after his death, and was his father's proudest possession. The young widow had not long survived her husband, and the two orphan children had been brought up by their grandfather.