Wicked Uncle (20 page)

The telephone had been busy. Martin Oakley had repeated his story to Chief Inspector Lamb, haled from the borderland of slumber to preside over another investigation and a new murder. Flashlight photographs were being taken of the moss-grown courtyard, and of Leonard Carroll lying there—positively his last appearance on any stage.

Lamb sat beneath the overhead light, his coarse, curly black hair a little rumpled. It was still thick and abundant except just on the crown, and showed only a few grey threads at the temples. Under this strong dark thatch his ruddy, weather-tanned face had no more expression than a piece of wood. The brown eyes with their slight tendency to bulge remained fixed upon Mr. Oakley’s face, a habit very disconcerting to even the most innocent witness. Martin Oakley could by no means flatter himself that there was any disposition to regard him in this light. His mind, at first possessed by a frantic sense of incredulity, had now to struggle against the feeling that he was being rushed towards a precipice at a speed which precluded intelligent thought. He had expressed his willingness to make a statement, and was now regretting it. He had been cautioned, but could not resist the temptation to explain his actions.

Lamb’s voice struck robustly on his ear.

“Pearson’s account of your telephone conversation with Mr. Carroll is substantially correct?”

“I think so.”

“Would you like to look at it again?”

“No—it’s all right—that’s what he said.”

“Well now, how long was it before you made up your mind to come and see him?”

“Oh, almost at once.”

“Who rang off—you or Carroll?”

“He did. He banged down the receiver. I only hung up my end for long enough to get the exchange again.”

This was something new. Frank Abbott looked up from his notes, Miss Silver from her knitting, which had for the moment required a somewhat closer attention than she usually gave it

Lamb’s “What did you want the exchange for?” rang sharply.

“I wanted to get on to Carroll to tell him I was coming over.”

“Did you get him?”

“Yes.”

“He knew you were coming over?”

“Yes.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I said, ‘Look here, you can’t leave it like that. If you think you saw anything you’ll have to tell me what it was. I’m coming over.’ ”

“What did he say?”

“He laughed, and I hung up.” The urge to explain drove him. “That’s why I went round to the side of the house—I thought he was calling me—I thought I heard my name. I came up to the front door. He was expecting me—I thought perhaps he’d be there to let me in. But when I heard my name—”

Miss Silver gave the slight cough with which she was wont to demand attention.

“Mr. Oakley, are you sure you heard your name?”

He turned a ravaged face on her.

“I’m not sure about anything. I thought I heard it. That’s what took me round to the side of the house. Don’t you see I must have had some reason for going there?”

The Chief Inspector said without any expression at all,

“We don’t know what reason Mr. Carroll had for going there. But he did go there. The person who murdered him would have that motive for following or accompanying him.”

There was a pause during which, and not for the first time, Mr. Oakley became convinced that he would have done better to hold his tongue. He was dismissed to the company of the other guests assembled in the drawing-room under the solemn gaze of a large local constable. If this young man had had any thoughts to spare from his job he might have reflected that the company presented some strange contrasts, but beyond concluding that it was a rum start he was conscious of little else than that this was a murder case, and that one of these people was probably a murderer. That being so, it did not matter to him that Mr. Tote was wearing blue serge trousers and a tweed overcoat; that Mrs. Tote had got back into the tight black cloth dress which she had worn for dinner, a garment rather ostentatiously smart in the hand but reduced by her to a sort of limp dowdiness; or that the other elderly lady had come down in a thick, old-fashioned grey dressing-gown, in spite of which she sat there shivering and looking as if she would never be warm again. Of the two young ladies, Miss Brown was in a tweed skirt and jumper, and Miss Lane in a very fancy dressing-gown, poppy-red and as flimsy as they come. Mr. Masterman was in a dressing-gown too, a very handsome garment and quite new.

Well, there they all were, and there they sat, not one of them with a word to throw to anyone else. And time went on.

In the study Lamb said,

“He was struck on the head with something that broke his skull. There’s no sign of the weapon. It’s got to be somewhere. There’s no sign of it in the house. I don’t say it couldn’t have been cleaned and put back wherever it came from, because it could. There’s fire-irons, flat irons, golf-clubs, and all manner of things, but getting things clean and putting them back takes time, and there was precious little time. The man could have been no more than just dead when Frank got here. Take it any way you like, that telephone conversation was over by a quarter past ten, because that’s when Pearson finished locking up and saw Carroll go upstairs. At five-and-twenty past Miss Silver is ringing the Ram. Frank gets going by the half hour, and bumps into Oakley six or seven minutes later. Now if Oakley left the Mill House after his second telephone call he wouldn’t get here before half past—not walking in the dark—I don’t see how he could. If he killed Carroll he had about six minutes to do it in and get back down the drive to where Frank met him. I don’t say it couldn’t be done, because of course it could, but he’d got to meet Carroll who was quite probably looking out for him, induce him to go round to the side of the house—why?—quarrel with him to the point of murder, hit him over the head, and make off down the drive. If it was Mr. Oakley, he may have brought the weapon with him, or he may have picked up something on his way. A big stone would have done it, or a brickbat, in which case he must have thrown it away as he ran, and we shall find it when we can make a thorough search by daylight. He won’t, of course, have been able to do anything about cleaning it up, so unless there’s something very heavy in the way of rain we shall be able to identify it all right. What puzzles me is why either Carroll or the murderer should have been where the body was found.”

Miss Silver coughed in a tentative manner.

“Mr. Carroll’s bedroom windows look out that way.”

Lamb grunted.

“Yes, but they were shut and the curtains drawn.”

Her needles clicked above the pale pink vest.

“If someone had desired to attract Mr. Carroll’s attention, a handful of gravel might have been thrown up at one of the closed windows. Mr. Carroll would then have looked out. That he was persuaded to a meeting with his murderer is certain. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that he may have closed the window again and drawn the curtains.”

Frank Abbott broke in with “How did Oakley know which was Carroll’s window? He’d never been to the house until he dined here on Saturday night, and he hadn’t been here since. That is to say, he’d never been here by daylight. Yet we’re asked to believe that he made a bee line for Carroll’s window and got it with the first shot. I can’t swallow it myself.”

His Chief had a frown for this.

“A bit free with your opinions, aren’t you, my lad? I’ll ask for them when I want them. I don’t say there isn’t a point there, but I’m quite able to see it myself. And here’s an answer. Who says Oakley didn’t know the house? Who says he’d only been here once? Who says he didn’t fix it up with Carroll on the telephone to come round under his window?” He hit his knee with the flat of his hand. “Oakley—Oakley—Oakley every time!”

Frank Abbott had an impenitent frown.

“I just can’t see why, sir.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t see why Oakley should have chosen such a place for a private conversation. At that hour everyone would be upstairs. Five of the upstair windows look down on to that court, two in each of the small wings, and one in the middle of the side wall of the house, all double casements. The two on the left belong to Carroll’s room, the two on the right to the bedroom shared by Mr. and Mrs. Tote. The one in the end wall lights the passage. Now, would Oakley, who had every reason to desire privacy, choose a place like this for the sort of conversation he was going to have with Carroll? To my thinking it’s all wrong. How could he know that the Totes wouldn’t have their windows open? If they had, they could have listened to everything that was said. Oakley was obviously in a fever about his wife—he’d have wanted to talk privately between four walls—”

This time Lamb hit the table.

“What makes you think he wanted to talk? If he’d got his mind made up for the murder he wouldn’t come into the house —he’d get Carroll to come out!”

“And take him round under the Totes’ windows? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Look here,” said Lamb—“suppose it was this way. He throws his gravel up at the window—I’ll have that looked for—or makes some other signal, and Carroll comes down. Well, suppose he gets out of one of those ground-floor windows—no, that won’t do, because they were all fastened on the inside, and Oakley couldn’t have fastened them.”

“Suppose it wasn’t Oakley, Chief.”

“Well?”

“Suppose it was someone in the house. He could have got back by the open window and shut it after him, couldn’t he?”

Lamb’s colour had deepened.

“And what would he be doing, meeting Carroll out there? And why should Carroll go outside to meet anyone who was living in the house? They could pick any room they liked to talk in, couldn’t they? Everyone had gone to bed. Now you look here—facts are what we’ve got to stick to. Carroll left the house and went to that court. It’s no good asking why he did it, or saying it’s not the sort of thing he would have done—he did it. The same applies to Oakley. It’s no good saying, ‘Why should he choose a place like that to meet Carroll?’ He went there, and he left Carroll lying dead. There’s no evidence to show whether he found him alive. He says no. That’ll be for a jury to decide— unless any of these people we’ve got boxed up in the drawing-room has got something useful to say. I’m going to start with Mrs. Tote.”

During the first part of this conversation Miss Silver had appeared very much abstracted. Those rapid needles of hers slowed down and came to a standstill, her hands resting upon the pale pink wool. Towards the end she was giving her attention to what was being said, but with the air of one who has something to say and is waiting for the first opportunity of saying it. She now coughed in a very definite manner and said,

“Just a moment, Chief Inspector—”

It was almost as if he had forgotten she was there. Or perhaps the surprise in his look was intended to remind her that her presence was so very far from being official that the less said about it the better. He would not have used the word sufferance, but it may have been in his mind. It is certain that there was a graceful feminine deference in voice and manner as she said,

“I wonder if you would be so very good as to allow me to put a question to Mr. Pearson in your presence. It may prove to be of no importance at all, in which case I shall have to apologize for taking up your time. Or it may prove to be very important indeed.”

She had all his attention now. It had a quality of frowning displeasure.

“I’m seeing Mrs. Tote next—if you don’t mind.”

Frank Abbott pressed his lips together. The Chief being sarcastic was not the Chief at his best. The simile of the hippopotamus presented itself to an irreverent mind. Miss Silver, on the contrary, evoked admiration. She appeared to have withdrawn to so considerable a distance that one might almost imagine her to have retreated into the Victorian age. From this distance she smiled and addressed the Chief Inspector.

“Then you will perhaps permit me to be your messenger. I will inform Mrs. Tote that you are ready to see her.”

When the door had closed behind her Lamb rustled the papers on the blotting-pad. Frank’s eyes travelled to the fluff of pale pink wool poised amongst its needles upon the arm of a just vacated chair. He had an idea that Maudie had turned the tables, and that it was his respected Chief who was feeling snubbed. He looked at the infant’s vest, the ball of pink wool, and the knitting-needles, and was comfortably assured that Maudie meant to come back. He allowed himself a very faint smile, and had his head bitten off for an idle, insubordinate young pup.

“And I tell you what, my lad, if you don’t watch your step you’ll be getting into trouble one of these days—sniggering and sneering when you think I don’t see you! Answering back too, and in French as likely as not! And perhaps just as well!”

Frank bowed to the storm in his most respectful manner. It would blow itself out.

Miss Silver did her errand. The hall was empty as she came through. If there had been anyone there, she might have been observed to go over to the hearth and, standing there, give some moments of close attention to what remained of the fire. The logs of which it had been composed were sunk together upon a deep bed of ash. They were not wholly consumed, but so charred and eaten away as to be mere frail shells, almost as light and insubstantial as the ash upon which they lay. They still looked like logs, but at a touch they would crumble and fall apart—with one exception. Tossed in upon the back of the burned-out fire was just such a log as might have served for the sign of one of those old inns which take their name from the Crooked Billet—a roughly L-shaped faggot, heavy and gnarled. It lay tilted against a pile of banked-up ash.

Miss Silver bent forward and looked at it closely. The heat had died out of the fire, but there was still a glow from the ash. She put out a hand and drew it back again, after which she shook her head slightly, pursed her lips, and proceeded to the drawing-room to summon Mrs. Tote.

They came back to the study together, and found the Chief Inspector restored. He addressed Mrs. Tote in as genial a manner as he thought proper.

“Come in and sit down. I’m sorry to keep you up so late, but I am sure you see the necessity. I suppose you have no objection to Miss Silver being present while I ask you a few questions? She is representing Miss Brown.”

Mrs. Tote said, “Oh, no.”

She folded her hands in her lap, fixed her red-rimmed eyes upon him, and thought with anguished longing of the days when a policeman used to be a pleasant sight. If only anything didn’t come out about Albert—if only she could be sure that there wasn’t anything to come out. Getting rich quick in ways you oughtn’t to was bad enough, but there might be worse than that. Murder would be worse. When the word came into her mind it made her feel as if she was shrinking up smaller and smaller and smaller, until presently she wouldn’t be there at all —and then she wouldn’t see Allie again—

Lamb’s voice sounded like a great gong.

“Now, Mrs. Tote—about tonight. What time did you go upstairs?”

“Ten minutes to ten.”

“Rather early?”

“We’d all had enough of it.”

Something about the way she said this gave him quite a good idea of what the evening had been like. He took her through it, getting her angle on what had already been very accurately described by Miss Maud Silver. She agreed that Mr. Carroll had had a good deal to drink— “Not drunk, of course, but he’d had more than was good for him. He’d never have said the things he said, nor behaved the way he did if he hadn’t—trying to make everyone think he knew something—well, it isn’t the way anyone would behave if they’d any sense in them. Downright foolish, I thought it was, and likely to lead to trouble.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She was frightened. She oughtn’t to have said it. It was only what she thought. You can’t just say what you think in a murder case—it isn’t safe. She spoke quickly.

“No one likes to be hinted at. That’s what he was doing—hinting. I was afraid one of the gentlemen would take it up and there would be words.”

Perhaps she oughtn’t to have said that either. She threw a nervous glance at Miss Silver. There was something reassuring about the pink wool and the steady click of the needles.

Lamb recalled her attention.

“Well, you went upstairs at ten minutes to ten. Did you go to bed at once?”

“No.”

“What did you do?”

“We talked a bit.”

“About Mr. Carroll—about the scene downstairs?”

“Well, there was something said.”

Lamb laughed.

“Well, I suppose there would be! And I suppose your husband wasn’t best pleased?”

“Nobody would be,” said Mrs. Tote.

“I don’t suppose they would. I’m not blaming him. And I suppose you were trying to soothe him down?”

“Well, I was.”

“And then?”

“He went off to his dressing-room.”

“What time was that?”

“Twenty past ten.”

“Look at your watch?”

“Yes. I wanted to see if I’d write a line to my daughter. My husband takes his time undressing.”

“Did you write to your daughter?”

“No—I thought I wouldn’t. I was feeling upset—I didn’t want to upset her. I thought I would undress.”

Lamb leaned forward.

“Now, Mrs. Tote—your room has two windows looking on to the courtyard where Mr. Carroll’s body was found. Were those windows shut or open?”

She said, “Shut,” looked round at Miss Silver, looked back, opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, and then closed it again.

“Yes, Mrs. Tote?”

She sat there, twisting her hands in her lap, pressing her lips together.

“Come, Mrs. Tote—something about those windows, isn’t there? Did you open one of them—did you look out?”

Her fingers went on twisting. You couldn’t exactly say she nodded, but there was some small reluctant movement of the head. Lamb looked at her with a gravity which was impressive in its way.

“Mrs. Tote, if you heard anything or saw anything tonight, you know as well as I do that you’ve got a duty. It isn’t pleasant giving evidence which may lead to a man being hanged, but murder’s murder, and if you know anything, it’s your duty to speak.”

Her red-rimmed eyes were sad but acquiescent.

“I opened the window.”

“Yes. Why?”

“I heard something.”

“What?”

“Something rattling—as if there was someone throwing stones up against a window.”

“Your window?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, no—not mine. So I thought I’d look out.”

“Yes?”

“I put out my light and opened the window. I couldn’t see anything at first, but I could hear someone moving down there in the court. And then all at once Mr. Carroll opened his window just over the way and stood there looking out with the lighted room behind him.”

“See him?”

“Oh, yes—quite plainly. He leaned out and said, ‘Who’s there?’ and someone moved below and said, ‘Come along down —I want to speak to you.’ ”

“Yes—go on.”

“Mr. Carroll said, ‘Is that you, Oakley?’ and the man in the court said, ‘It might be worth your while to keep a still tongue. Suppose you come down and talk it over.’ ”

“What did Carroll say to that?”

“He laughed. It was all very quiet, you know. I’ve got very quick hearing. It was just so I could hear it and no more. He laughed, and he said, ‘I’ll come down and let you in by one of those groundfloor windows,’ and he shut his window and pulled the curtains over it.”

“What did you do?”

“I shut my window and went back into the room and put the light on. I didn’t think it was any of my business, and I didn’t want them to know I’d been listening.”

“Did you hear anything after that?”

“No—”

“Nothing that might have been a blow, or a fall?”

“I was moving about, you see—pouring out water and having a wash. You don’t hear things when you’re washing—” There was something hesitating about her manner.

“But Carroll said, ‘Is that you, Oakley?’ You’re sure about that?”

She had a shrinking look, but she said quite firmly,

“Yes, I’m sure about that. He said the name quite loud.”

“And you heard nothing more—nothing more at all after you shut your window?”

She seemed distressed.

“I don’t know—it isn’t fair to say if you’re not sure.”

“Then you did hear something?”

Her fingers twisted.

“Not to say hear. I was washing. I thought there was something—like someone calling.”

“What did you think when you heard it?”

“I thought it was Mr. Carroll calling out to Mr. Oakley. Just the name—that’s what I thought it was—the way he said it before, only louder. It must have been louder, or I wouldn’t have thought I heard it—but the water was running—I couldn’t swear to anything.”

He let her go.

When the door had closed behind her he threw himself back in his chair.

“Well, that puts a noose round Oakley’s neck all right!”

Miss Silver coughed delicately.

“Mrs. Tote will not swear that the person she saw in the court was Mr. Oakley.”

She sustained the full impact of a formidable frown.

“She heard Carroll address him as Oakley—she’ll swear to that.”

“That is not quite the same thing. Mr. Carroll may have been mistaken. In fact the final point you so skilfully elicited from Mrs. Tote confirms Mr. Oakley’s story. He explains his presence in the court by saying that he thought someone was calling him and hastened in the direction from which he believed the sound to come.”

Lamb gave a short annoyed laugh.

“And isn’t that just what he had to say? Carroll has shouted his name—anyone may have heard him. He’s got to put some kind of a gloss on it, so he uses it to account for his going round to that side of the house.”

With his frowning gaze upon Miss Silver, he was struck by the birdlike quality of her regard, the head a little on one side, the eyes very bright. He had seen her look like that before, and it meant something. In fact, the bird with its eye on a highly promising worm.

“If I might just put that question to Mr. Pearson, Chief Inspector—”

“It won’t keep?”

“I believe not.”

He jerked round in his chair.

“Ring, Frank!”

Pearson came in all agog. His nerves had received a severe shock, but he was being a good deal buoyed up by the fact that it was entirely due to his zeal that the police had arrived in time to arrest the murderer upon the very scene of his crime. That the circumstances of this case would provide him with the most interesting reminiscences, he was already aware. But this solace could not entirely prevent a nostalgic yearning for a future in which two murders would have become merely the subject of a tale. As he was subsequently to put it to his wife, “It’s all very well when it’s a has-been as you might say, but very upsetting to the nerves when it’s going on and you don’t know who’s going to be the next corpse.” Since murders do not commonly take place in the presence of two police officers, to say nothing of one of them being a Chief Inspector, he found the study a very comfortable place, and would have been quite willing to stay there all night.

Miss Silver’s words were therefore rather a disappointment.

“I only want to ask you one question, Mr. Pearson.”

He assumed the butler.

“Yes, madam?”

“When you came through the hall after locking up, did you put any wood on the fire?”

If anyone had been watching Frank Abbott he would have been observed to start.

“Oh, no, madam—I shouldn’t do that.”

“So I supposed. Did you notice the condition of the fire?”

“It is part of my duty to do so, as you might say. I wouldn’t go upstairs and leave a big fire, or anything that might fall out.”

“And the fire was low?”

“Three or four bits lying flat and quite charred through.”

“And you have put no wood on since?”

“Oh, no, madam.”

“Or anyone else?”

“No one has had the opportunity—not since the alarm was given.”

Miss Silver turned a look of extreme gravity upon the Chief Inspector.

“When I came downstairs after the murder I noticed a heavy crooked log at the back of the fire. It was not there when we all retired just before ten o’clock. When you began to speak about the weapon used in tonight’s murder, the fire as I had seen it when I went upstairs and as I saw it when I came down again came very strongly to my thought. At first it only seemed that there was some incongruity, but whilst you were talking to Sergeant Abbott I became aware that this extra piece of wood might very well be the missing weapon. I can only hope that the smouldering ash has not been hot enough to destroy possible evidences.”

Before she had finished speaking Frank Abbott was at the door.