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Death Came Softly

Page 16

by E. C. R. Lorac

“That be damned,” said Watlington cheerfully. “As for your meditations, they were not concerned with either the molecule of the chromosome or the P.H.-ness of meristemmatic tissues. You were meditating on the subject of murder, James.”

  Dr. James Abingdon opened his mild blue eyes and leaned forward.

  “What did he say, Ernest?” he inquired eagerly, and Watlington chuckled.

  “Ah! Panting for inside information, James. Not that this C.I.D. bloke told me anything very much. Now I come to think of it he made me do most of the talking.”

  “I think it probable that no great compulsion was needed, Ernest,” replied Dr. Abingdon. “You are growing steadily more garrulous with every year that passes. But come, the chief inspector must have said something.”

  “I have been studying his method, James. In detection, all you have to do is to ask questions, holding out an implied hope that a reward will follow in the shape of information. I propose to follow this method. When Crewdon dined with Evans on Tuesday evening, you sat at the next table, James.”

  “Yes, but I was reading,” replied the other.

  “So you may have been, but I have never yet met a man more capable of absorbing what goes on around him in spite of a book,” replied Watlington. “Think it out, James. . . . Either you overheard a few words of Crewdon’s conversation, or else I’m going straight to Aberystwyth to find Morgan Flloyd. He sat at the table on the other side of Crewdon.”

  “No, no, don’t do that,” protested Dr. Abingdon earnestly. “Morgan Flloyd is a very unreliable witness, a hundred per cent Celt. They embroider, Ernest, they embroider.”

  “Maybe they do, but I would rather have embroidery than nothing. I’ll just get a Bradshaw. The chief inspector thinks that that conversation between Crewdon and Evans may have been of the first importance.”

  “He is mistaken,” snapped Dr. Abingdon, his blue eyes positively fierce. “I tell you that modern poetry is of no importance whatever. It is a decadent and bastard offspring of impotence and perversity.”

  “Apply that to a modern poet in person and it is either slanderous or a reductio ad absurdum, or both,” responded Watlington. “Besides, it is you who are mistaken, James. Have you forgotten that a modern poet was one of those who was staying at Valehead when Crewdon was murdered?”

  “I have forgotten nothing, Ernest, but I tell you this. If Crewdon had murdered the poet in question, the case would have been comprehensible. I understand that one poem deals solely with the topic of lice, and that it contains no verb, no punctuation and no capital letter.”

  “Excellent. I must read it. If those poems are not in this library I’ll have a word with the committee. When did the poetry motif occur, James? With the soup?”

  “Certainly not. With the tripe,” replied Dr. Abingdon.

  “Tripe . . . a very valuable form of nutriment—followed by stewed figs and custard, and/or government cheese,” replied Watlington sadly. “Do you remember those Strasbourg steaks, James?”

  “Figs . . . figs,” murmured Dr. Abingdon. “Figs and college groups. . . . Now what college was it? Evans took his Ph.D. at Heidelberg, and Crewdon was at Emmanuel.”

  “About forty years ago,” said Watlington. “Do you mean to tell me that Evans and Crewdon were exchanging college photographs?”

  “Something of the kind. I missed part of their conversation. Those figs—”

  “Yes, yes. The very devil,” agreed Watlington, “but don’t tell me you left the table without acquiring any further information.”

  “I heard Crewdon say, ‘This must be elucidated immediately,’ ” replied Dr. Abingdon. “I thought that he referred to the figs.”

  “You disappoint me, James. I shall go to Aberystwyth immediately.”

  “Why not telephone?” inquired Dr. Abingdon. “It might save you a fruitless journey.”

  “A good idea,” replied Watlington. “What’s his number?”

  “Ha! That I do know,” replied Dr. Abingdon, “and I do not propose to divulge it until you have given me a succinct account of the chief inspector’s conversation—verbatim, Ernest, verbatim.”

  “May I remind you that there is a rule demanding silence in this room?” put in an acid voice from the door.

  Dr. Watlington got to his feet.

  “The Linneas room, Ernest. That will be best,” he said. “Let us sing of lice, with a pinch of spice, in accents nice, with a voice of vice. . . .”

  The last comer shook his head as two learned men left the reading room.

  “This club is going down,” he said.

  11

  Macdonald put in some concentrated work before he left London again. He interviewed the club employees in the office, endeavoring to find out if any letter or telephone call had arrived for the professor on the Tuesday before he left. It emerged that Crewdon had been out nearly all Tuesday, and had not returned to the club until six o’clock in the evening. He had then had a few words with the secretary, but no one could recollect any letter or phone message coming for him. Professor Evans had come in at seven-thirty and the two men had dined together. At nine o’clock Crewdon had come to the office and asked for two trunk calls to be put through for him, one to Valehead, one to Cambridge. He had also left a message for the accounts department, saying that he would be leaving the club next day and asking for his bill to be made out ready for him first thing in the morning. He had left the club at nine-thirty on the Wednesday morning, taking his small suitcase with him. As to what he had done on the Wednesday morning, no one knew—he had not left London until the one-thirty train from Paddington.

  Macdonald felt more than disposed to stay in London to continue his researches, but something urged him to get back to Valehead. It was one of those not quite rational “hunches” which a detective sometimes gives way to—a feeling that he must be at a certain place at a certain time.

  The chief inspector had plenty of time to ponder over his case in the train. It was nominally five-thirty when the train left Paddington, actually three-thirty G.M.T. and the hottest part of the afternoon. Macdonald had only just caught the train, and it was a very full train. He wedged himself in the corridor, close by an open window, and promptly forgot all about his own whereabouts and the heat of the train as he pondered over his problem.

  Again, Mrs. Merrion’s statement, “Everything was quite ordinary until Tuesday evening,” recurred to him. That seemed to hold good of Professor Crewdon, too. He had come into the club and chatted to the secretary at six o’clock without mentioning that he proposed to leave the next morning, or asking for his bill, or mentioning that he wanted trunk calls put through. It seemed as though between six o’clock and nine o’clock something had happened which had caused him to make a decision to return to Valehead, and yet when he had arrived there he had given no reason for a change of plan which must have been dictated by some definite happening. Macdonald pondered over the oddness of the whole thing. The professor must have been making his decision to return to Valehead about the same time that Lockersley and Rhodian and Keston were in the cave, not very long after Emmeline Stamford had arrived at Valehead. A great deal seemed to depend on the factor which had caused the professor to leave London and return to Valehead—and concerning that factor Macdonald could only guess. True, he could hazard an answer—more than one answer, that was the difficulty. The existence of what Macdonald called “those infernal diamonds” complicated matters considerably.

  * * *

  It was after nine o’clock when the chief inspector arrived at Enster, and the evening was cooling to a glory of gold and lengthening shadows. Macdonald found his car, and turned onto the Valehead road wondering if all the instructions he had given were being satisfactorily carried out. He had not waited in town to write out all the cables he wanted sent off; had he done so he could not have caught his train to Devonshire, and he knew that he could get a priority call and telephone through his instructions from the Valehead police headquarters. He drove through the radiant e
vening still thinking hard.

  Inspector Turner was waiting for him at the constabulary, looking somewhat sardonic.

  “Good evening. Glad to see you back. They’ve been having a dust-up at Valehead. Perhaps you’d like to go and cope with it. I was going myself, but since you’re back. . . .”

  “Yes, I’ll go. What’s the trouble?”

  “Dr. Dark rang up. Luckily he’s got a bit of sense. Lockersley’s been knocked out. Concussion—but Dark says he was laid up with a neat one on the point, and hit his head when he fell.”

  “I see. I’ll go straight up there. When did this happen?”

  “About nine this evening,” Turner explained.

  Macdonald got back into his car and drove along the narrow lanes through the fragrant evening. His car seemed to enter a tunnel of gloom as he entered the Valehead drive and the beech trees closed over him, but when he crossed the little bridge he saw the white house on the plateau above him reflecting back the lucid evening light, serene and beautiful.

  Mrs. Merrion was at the front door to meet him as soon as he had alighted from his car.

  “You must think us one vast nuisance,” she said sadly. “Poor Valehead! It seems like a lunatic asylum—and look at it, of all places the most serene.”

  She had strolled across the drive to meet him, and again Macdonald was struck with her air of gracious calm. Though her eyes were troubled, Eve Merrion yet retained a measure of calm dignity which seemed to accord with the house. Beautiful she was not, smart she was not, but she had some quality which was as lovable as the still evening light which irradiated the quiet air.

  “What happened?” Macdonald asked quite simply.

  “We were having dinner late—supper, more accurately,” she said. “I wanted to be out in the garden as long as I could, and now my sister is not here and Mr. Rhodian has gone, I thought it would be rather a relief not to have a formal meal this evening. I said we would have a cold supper about half past eight, and David Lockersley said he would like that, too. I went in at eight o’clock and washed the mud off, and came down to the dining room about half past. Mr. Lockersley wasn’t there; I didn’t bother, he’s never a punctual person. I waited until nearly nine, and then I suddenly got worried. I suppose it was the result of all these distresses and uncertainties, for I never worry about people being late as a rule. I called Carter, and we went up to Lockersley’s room. He was there, lying on the floor. I thought he was dead. . . . He wasn’t dead. He had fallen, and must have knocked his head on the corner of the wash basin as he fell. I rang up Dr. Dark, and he came straight up here and bandaged Lockersley. It’s concussion. He’s still unconscious. Dr. Dark told me he would ring up the police, as it seemed difficult to see how such an accident happened. He is also sending a nurse. Mrs. Carter is with Mr. Lockersley until the nurse comes.”

  As she talked they strolled slowly along the level space in front of the house, Macdonald with his hands thrust in his pockets, his head bent a little as he listened. When she ceased speaking he said:

  “Will you tell me when you last saw Mr. Lockersley, and where the other occupants of the house were, so far as you know?”

  “I spoke to him last at tea time. We had tea out here, on the terrace, about five o’clock. We didn’t talk very much; it had been a peaceful day. I have been in the garden nearly all day. I told the Carters they could go out, or do as they liked, from lunch time onwards. Mrs. Carter left the tea things ready, and a cold supper, and Brady was to do anything else necessary. I think the Carters were both out until nearly nine o’clock—Carter had just come in when I went to look for David Lockersley. Mr. Keston was in his own room. Brady took him supper on a tray at eight o’clock. As I said, I was in the garden until after eight o’clock.”

  “You say that you spoke to Mr. Lockersley last at tea time. Did you see him after that?”

  “Yes. He sat and read on the lawns there for about an hour, and then he strolled off in the direction of the drive. That would have been about half past six. I didn’t see him again.”

  “Did you hear any sound in the house after you came in? A man of Lockersley’s size makes a considerable noise as he falls.”

  “No, I didn’t hear anything at all. The house was absolutely quiet. I had a bath when I came in, and I shouldn’t have heard anything while the bath water was running. One never does.”

  “No. That’s true. Did you ask Mr. Keston if he heard anything?”

  “He didn’t, but then his part of the house is right away from the part where Mr. Lockersley’s room is. The Bradys heard nothing, either.”

  “I think I had better go up and see Mr. Lockersley’s room. He is in bed there?”

  “Yes. Carter got him to bed.”

  “I shan’t want to ask questions while I am in the room, because quiet is essential for a man with a head injury, so will you tell me how he was lying when you found him?”

  “He was lying on his back just near the wash basin. It is a fixed one, with running water, and it has rather projecting corners. The door of his wardrobe was open, as though he had just gone to it. His feet were near the wardrobe, his head near the wash basin. It looked to me as though he had slipped on the rug in front of the wardrobe, it was all rucked up. There is a polished parquet floor in that room; it is rather slippy.”

  “I’ll go up and look at it. The room is the one on the extreme right of the landing, at the end, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’ll show you,” Eve Merrion volunteered.

  “I can find it. Just one other thing. I’m not sure how long I shall be here this evening, but I think it would be better if I left a man stationed in the house. I don’t like you to be alone just now.”

  Eve Merrion’s eyes darkened with distress.

  “But I’m not alone. The Carters are here, and the Bradys, and Mr. Keston.”

  “You needn’t bother about my man. He’s very quiet, and you may not even see him, but I want him to be here.”

  She gave the least shrug of her shoulders, a little weary movement.

  “Then it is useless for me to protest, Chief Inspector.”

  They turned toward the house, and Macdonald left her standing in the hall, while he himself ran quietly up the wide stairway.

  In Lockersley’s room the light was dim, for the curtains were half drawn across the long windows, shutting out the pale, still radiant sky. Mrs. Carter was sitting by the bed, and Macdonald could tell that she had been crying. Lockersley, with pallid face and bandaged head, lay like one dead, save for his slow, heavy breathing. As Macdonald came into the room Mrs. Carter raised a finger to her lips in a gesture asking for silence, and he nodded, and came and stood at the foot of the bed and looked down at the unconscious man. Macdonald could see the swelling and discoloration of the upturned chin, just where a shrewd and expert hitter would strike for a knockout.

  Still standing by the bed, he looked around the room, noting the position of the wardrobe and washing basin, and the rug on the polished floor, just as Mrs. Merrion had described them. He moved softly across the room and tested the rug with his feet. It gave a little as he shuffled, but the rug was fairly heavy and did not slip as a thinner mat would have done. There was an electric stove standing in the fireplace, a small portable thing; Macdonald had noticed that there were similar stoves in most of the bedrooms at Valehead, though when he had been around the house before he had not seen a stove in Lockersley’s room.

  As he stood, considering the distances between door, wardrobe and wash basin, the door opened and Mrs. Merrion came in, followed by a young woman in nurse’s uniform. Mrs. Merrion whispered to Mrs. Carter, and the latter got up and nodded to the nurse before she left the room with Mrs. Merrion. The nurse ignored Macdonald, opened the attache case she carried and arranged some small properties on the bedside table—a thermometer, a flat traveling clock and an electric torch. She then stood beside Lockersley for a moment, her fingers on his wrist.

  Macdonald picked up the little electric stove an
d said quietly, “I’ll have another one sent in. I think this may be faulty.”

  She nodded and sat down in the chair by the bed, ignoring him completely—a very well trained young nurse, Macdonald considered, not given to showing any curiosity about matters outside her province. Lockersley’s rucksack lay in a corner of the room, and Macdonald picked it up. As soon as he was outside the bedroom door he put the little stove in the rucksack and carried it downstairs with him. Mrs. Merrion was talking to Mrs. Carter in the hall, and Macdonald passed through toward the kitchen quarters. Keston appeared from the direction of his own rooms as Macdonald opened the door leading to the kitchens.

  “Can I speak to you a moment?” Keston asked, his voice nervous and tense.

  “A little later on. I will come to your rooms,” said Macdonald, and Keston gave a shrug and threw up his hands like a man in despair.

  Macdonald went on into the kitchen, where he found Carter, a teapot in his hand, standing by the stove, where a kettle was beginning to hum.

  Macdonald put down the rucksack and closed the door behind him, advancing across the big, stone-floored room. The windows had been already blacked out, and a glaring electric light hung above Carter’s head.

  “Good evening, sir. They say trouble brews trouble, and a cup of tea never comes amiss.”

  “Quite true. Put down that teapot, Carter, and switch the kettle off.”

  The man stared as Macdonald spoke in his quiet, resolute voice, but did exactly as he was bid, as though hypnotized by the authority of that deliberate voice.

  “Now hold out your hand, your right hand, knuckles up.”

  A red flush came over Carter’s face, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Macdonald said crisply, “No use arguing, Carter. Do as you’re told.”

  The man held out his right hand as Macdonald had bidden him, a big, beefy fist. Under the strong light the bruised knuckles showed up plainly.

  “Not in such good condition as you once were, Carter. Going soft. Still, you’re the only person in this house who could have knocked Mr. Lockersley out in one.”

 

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