Death Came Softly

by E. C. R. Lorac

“Unless some circumstance, unknown to us, made it necessary for the murderer to act on that night,” replied Macdonald meditatively. “In other words, if the professor’s death was caused by fear that he would discover some malpractice or crime which had occurred here, haste might have been a necessity to the murderer.”

  Macdonald watched Keston’s anxious face, seeking to learn what was going on in his troubled mind. The man’s distress was evident; his brow was furrowed, his forehead beaded with sweat. To Roland Keston the professor’s death was far from being a merely academic problem.

  “I can’t imagine any circumstance which would implement such a theory,” he said slowly. “Brady and his wife have been with the professor for years. The Carters are devoted to Mrs. Merrion. I can’t believe that they are involved, the supposition seems ridiculous to me. Moreover, the method used indicates a subtlety and skill in no way consistent with their attainments.”

  “In other words, although you agree that the criminal is probably to be found in this house, on examination you find each individual to be incapable of the crime,” said Macdonald.

  Keston flushed. “I find it hard to formulate suspicion of people I have known and trusted for years,” he said, “and I hesitate to go further. . . . It might well be said that I myself am in the position of a suspect. I know that you must consider that contingency, ludicrous though I know it to be. I was out that night.”

  “So was Mr. Lockersley,” said Macdonald, “and so far as can be judged, his absence from the house was caused by the accident of the mist arising, a circumstance which he could not have foreseen.”

  Keston mopped his forehead. “Inevitably, I have considered the possibilities of Lockersley’s absence,” he said slowly. “Lockersley knew—in common with the rest of the household—that the professor was returning here on Wednesday night. Assuming that Lockersley be involved, there is a lot to consider. He said that he went to sleep up by Maldon Tor, and when he awoke the mist was thick around him, a statement impossible to prove or to disprove. One thing seems clear to me: if Lockersley were indeed involved, he certainly would not have gone to sleep. If he were not asleep, he would have seen the mist rolling in, and would have descended from the moor. The mist would have served as a useful cover for his actions, and for his absence, but why, in heaven’s name, should he have planned such a crime? What possible motive could have lain behind it? As you justly say, I have known Professor Crewdon for many years. I know of no one who could have held any enmity against him; he was the most lovable of men, the kindest of friends, generous to a fault, kindly to all. He was kind and friendly to Lockersley, as he was to all young men. He was even indulgent towards his execrable verse, and admired his skill—”

  Again Keston broke off, and Macdonald observed:

  “You dislike Lockersley yourself?”

  Keston frowned. “Since you ask me, yes I dislike his attitude to life, his moral code, his manners, his speech, his ingrained habit of mockery. Yes. I admit that I dislike him, but I try to be fair to him even in my dislike. I regard him as the one person in this house who could be regarded as a potential criminal. Seek out his record among those who know him. You will find much that is vicious to his account. I tell you I hated to see him in this place.”

  Something in Keston’s last phrase gave Macdonald a key to the feeling seething in that troubled mind. It was jealousy which sounded through the pedantic accent, and jealousy is a very potent force.

  “Thanks for being so straightforward with me,” rejoined Macdonald. “It makes matters easier for me if people are willing to admit their own attitude to those about them in a case like this. Tell me, when you went out to seek for Lockersley that night, was your action dictated by the instinct to go out and seek for a fellow-being who may be in danger?”

  Again Keston’s thin face flushed. “No. I am afraid that I was not actuated by pure humanitarianism,” he replied. “It was all the same to me if Lockersley had fallen into a bog in the mist. I knew that Mrs. Merrion was distressed about his absence, and I thought it might relieve her mind if a search was made.”

  “I see—but you saw no signs of him that night?”

  “None at all. I have been up to the tor since, to see if I could find any token of his having been there, but without result. I do not know; again I do not know.”

  * * *

  When Macdonald left Keston he strolled back toward the house, and saw Mrs. Stamford sitting in a deck chair on the lawns which bordered the terrace, and decided to take the opportunity of talking to her while she was alone.

  The C.I.D. man had made certain inquiries about the tenant of Valehead House before he left London. Axel Merrion had been a very well known man in the City of London, and it had been easy to find an acquaintance of his who could give the sort of outline information which Macdonald wanted. Mrs. Merrion was held in respect and affection by her husband’s friends, and one of these latter had also commented on her wealth. “She ought to get married again. . . . It’s difficult for any woman—and most of all for a young and attractive one—to be as wealthy as that. She’s likely to be pestered by fortune-hunters, and how the deuce can she manage her affairs properly without a man to help her? Of course, her sister will be wanting to have a look-in; that’s probably why she came back to England. Not that I’m casting any aspersions. Mrs. Stamford is straight enough.” Macdonald had persisted with further inquiries about Mrs. Stamford, and had learned that the latter had been trying to raise money by the sale of some shares she had bought in a Chinese trading concern some years ago—shares which might conceivably recover their value in the course of time, but which were, to put it mildly, “highly speculative” in the present state of world chaos. “They’re in debt,” was the verdict on the Stamfords. “You can’t play polo and bridge and poker, and entertain on a large scale, and educate children at expensive boarding schools on the pay of an Indian Army major, and if they invested most of their money in the East, well, God help them.”

  “Wouldn’t Mrs. Merrion help them?” Macdonald had asked dryly, and his stockbroking informant had chuckled.

  “Of course she would, but there’s such a quality as family pride. Silly, but there it is.”

  These thoughts were fresh in Macdonald’s mind when he walked over the grass toward Mrs. Stamford. She looked up at him with a start, her face contracting so that it showed the lines the merciless tropics had wrought on her carefully tended skin.

  “I’m so sorry to bother you—I know that you and your sister are weary of answering questions,” said Macdonald, “but since some further questions have to be asked, will you answer them now?”

  “If it’s really necessary,” she replied. “As there is nothing I can tell you which throws the least light on the matter, it’s only waste of your time. However . . . shall we go indoors?”

  “No, not unless you wish to. It’s very much pleasanter out here.”

  Macdonald sat down on the grass, facing toward the river and not directly toward Mrs. Stamford. He was aware of her tenseness, and that she sat with every muscle braced.

  “When you first came here, on the Tuesday evening, were you conscious that there was any attitude of constraint or unease between those in the house?” he asked, and was aware that Mrs. Stamford was staring at him.

  “What a strange question,” she commented. “No. If there were any constraint or tension, I was quite unaware of it. My sister was very happy with her guests, and delighted with this beautiful place. Of course, there was my father’s secretary. You have met him, I take it?”

  “Mr. Keston? Yes. I was talking to him a moment ago.”

  “Then perhaps your question is more intelligible. He is a very tiresome, difficult creature, gauche and abrupt and argumentative. To some extent his presence spoiled the pleasantness of the party, but that is just a triviality. Social solecisms cannot be of any interest to you. Apart from him, everything was delightful.”

  “Do you remember who suggested that the three men, Mr. Rhodia
n, Mr. Lockersley and Mr. Keston, should go to see the cave?”

  “I’m afraid that I don’t remember. You should ask my sister. She has a much more accurate memory than I have.”

  Macdonald smiled. “It’s rather a relief to meet someone who does not claim to have an accurate memory,” he observed. “Many people claim it as against few who own it.”

  “That’s so true,” replied Emmeline. Her voice was more normal now, Macdonald noticed. He had often observed that if witnesses can be led a little way along the path of general conversation, their guard was often relaxed a little. Emmeline Stamford obviously had a social sense. If she could only forget that she was talking to a policeman she might become reasonably intelligent, was Macdonald’s unspoken thought. He went on:

  “I expect you have noticed that if several people, all present at the same event, are asked to describe that event, their descriptions will vary according to their own mentalities and training. The artist will comment on color contrast and form, the financier on money values, the psychologist on behavior and so forth.”

  “Yes. Of course. My husband always sums people up in terms of riding. If they can’t ride, they’re nowhere.”

  “Quite. Now I think that you would notice people’s behavior, including their speech, accent, manners, considerateness and so forth.”

  “Yes. I think I do. Hence my dislike of Mr. Keston. Do you know, I think I’m right in saying that it was he who raised the subject of that ghastly cave. I know that Mr. Rhodian asked me to go to see it, but I loathe caves. Nothing would induce me to go near it.”

  “You have not seen it, then?”

  “Indeed I have not. I will never go near it, especially after what has happened. The mere thought of it gives me the horrors. When I heard that my father made a habit of sleeping there, I thought that he must be quite mad. It’s inconceivable to me that anyone could choose to spend a night in such a place. I’m not a very courageous person by nature, and I should hate to have to spend a night in the open, but I’d rather do that than take shelter in a cave.”

  “That particular cave seems to have the quality of either attracting or repelling people very strongly,” said Macdonald. “Did any of the men make any comment on the place when they came in that evening?”

  Mrs. Stamford wrinkled up her nose as she pondered. Her suspicious and rather haughty manner had changed to something much more natural as they talked. “I don’t think they mentioned it,” she said. “My father telephoned just before Mr. Rhodian and Mr. Lockersley came in, and then a call came through for Mr. Rhodian, and I went to bed quite early. The next morning, though, I remember that my sister asked Mr. Rhodian what he thought of the cave—it was at breakfast, and I wasn’t actually there because I had breakfast in my room—but Mrs. Merrion told me that Mr. Rhodian had said that he thought the cave was a most repellent place.”

  Macdonald asked if he might smoke, and Mrs. Stamford replied quite easily:

  “Oh, of course, please do,” and accepted a cigarette from the proffered case. Macdonald noticed her hands as he lighted the cigarette for her—thin, nervous hands, finely shaped and beautifully kept, but tense as though the muscles of them could not relax. He went on:

  “When your father came back here in the evening, can you remember his saying anything which indicated that he was troubled in mind in any way, or which explained his change of plan in returning a day earlier than he had intended?”

  “No. Nothing. Nothing at all,” she responded quickly, and then went on: “Of course, we were talking about that rather tiresome creature, Mr. Lockersley, who was out on the moor. My sister was worried about him, and then at dinner Mr. Keston was with us. His presence is quite enough to vitiate any intelligent conversation, in my use of the word. I went to bed early, feeling that the evening had been rather a trying one.”

  “Yes. I expect that there was a rather uncomfortable feeling, with Mrs. Merrion bothering about her missing guest,” said Macdonald evenly, and she retorted irritably:

  “It seemed to me quite absurd; if David Lockersley could not look after himself, he had no business to go for long walks alone across these moors. My sister was in no sense responsible for him.”

  “Quite. Are you a good sleeper, Mrs. Stamford?”

  She gave a start at the unexpected question and replied by a query, her voice sharp again:

  “Why should you ask? I don’t follow the relevance of the question.”

  “I will put it in another way. Did you sleep soundly on the Wednesday night?”

  “Yes. . . . I mean I slept soundly when I did get to sleep. Actually, I took some bromide . . . I was still awake at midnight, and I always feel so wretched if I don’t sleep.”

  “Yes. It must be very wearying,” replied Macdonald. “I expect that it is very quiet here at night. Did you hear any sounds outside at all?”

  She was breathing quickly now, but she hesitated a little before she answered.

  “I heard Mr. Keston go out . . . about eleven o’clock. He was talking to Carter on the terrace—just the sort of inconsiderate thing he would do. I didn’t hear anything else, except some wretched bird which kept on chirruping.”

  “You didn’t hear Mrs. Merrion come upstairs, or the professor go out?”

  “No. My sister is always very quiet, and Father was in the other side of the house.”

  “Yes. Of course—but he would have passed under your window if he kept to the drive.”

  “I didn’t hear him,” she said quickly, “but then I shut my window because that bird irritated me so, and I loathe the sound of owls calling. I didn’t like the idea of Father sleeping in the cave. He was an old man, after all, and anything might have happened.”

  “Did you try to dissuade him from going there last night?”

  “No. I wish I had. . . . I can’t tell you how much I wish I had . . . but he would not have taken any notice of me. He always laughed at me a little and told me that I was as full of fears as an egg is full of meat.”

  “When he told you that he was going to sleep in the cave on Wednesday night, was anyone else present?”

  “Oh, but he didn’t tell me. He didn’t say a word about it.” Her voice was sharp with insistence now. “I had no idea he was sleeping there on Wednesday. Eve had said that she believed he was coming back because he liked sleeping in the cave better than sleeping in London. Perhaps she did give me the impression that he was sure to sleep in the cave when he came back here, or that may be only my own imagination. I’ve been thinking and worrying so much that I tend to get confused between what is real and what I have imagined . . . but I’m quite certain that Father didn’t say anything about sleeping there that night.”

  She spoke quickly, her words uttered in staccato emphasis, and there was only a slight pause before she went on: “I’m sorry. I told you that I couldn’t tell you anything which would help. I only wish I could. All I seem able to do is to worry myself into a fever over it. Before you came I was quite certain Father’s death was due to an accident. It seemed so natural that he should have lighted a fire to warm himself, and the idea of charcoal seemed obvious, too, because it doesn’t make any smoke. I know that, because some of the Indian peasants use it in braziers. By no means everybody realizes that it can be dangerous. I still believe that it was an accident. Anything else is unthinkable.”

  “I fully realize your feelings, and your sister’s, in that respect,” said Macdonald, and his voice was kindly. He paused a moment and then continued, “Nevertheless, it is my job to investigate every possibility. This question must arise: was there anybody who, for any reason at all, could have wished Professor Crewdon’s death, or was there any circumstance which might provide a motive—enmity, fear, or desire to profit?”

  Emmeline Stamford was holding herself rigidly now, her face was harsh and set. “I can imagine no such circumstance,” she said, “none whatever. I am convinced that any theory of the kind is utterly erroneous.”

  Macdonald had the feeling th
at she had suddenly shut up, as a shellfish might. As though regretting her own willingness to talk, Emmeline closed her lips in a hard, thin line and fell obstinately silent.

  6

  During the remainder of the day Macdonald interrogated everyone else in the Valehead household. Carter gave a straightforward description of his visit to the cave when he and Eve Merrion saw the professor’s body lying there. Carter said bluntly that it was owing to his own insistence that the body had been removed so promptly. He would have considered it neither right nor proper to leave the body lying “in that there heathenish place.” Whether the brazier had been standing upright or knocked over he could not say, he had noticed nothing but the professor’s body.

  “A shocking thing, I thought it,” he said to Macdonald. “Many’s the time I’ve said to Brady, ‘He’s asking for trouble, spending the nights in that there hole,’ but I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw him lying dead there, so peaceful like, just as though he was sleeping.”

  Macdonald next asked what Carter himself did during the Wednesday night.

  “Madam was all in a fidget along of Mr. Lockersley being out,” replied Carter. “I told her I’d sit up, and keep the doors unbolted, so that when he came in I could get him a bite of somewhat. Brady sat up with me until after twelve and then I dozed off a bit in me chair. I was asleep when Mr. Lockersley came in, after two o’clock it was. He was feeling as happy as a game cock, and hungry at that, and tucked into a good slab of pasty my missis had left for him. I made a pot of tea, and we were having a yarn when Brady came down, him being anxious a bit. Mr. Lockersley, he was mad with Keston for having gone out looking for him. ‘What did he want to do that for?’ he asks, as though the answer wasn’t plain enough.”

  “And what was the answer?” asked Macdonald.

  “Why, Mr. Keston wanted to cheer up Mrs. Merrion, she being in a bother about young Lockersley,” replied Carter. “Mr. Keston, he worships the ground Mrs. Merrion treads on.”