Death Came Softly

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

  “Oh, yes, you do, Carter. You understand quite as clearly as I do, and that is very clearly indeed. You were standing by the wardrobe when Mr. Lockersley came in quietly and found you. You did the first thing that came into your head—a silly thing, too. You knocked him out, and as he fell he hit his head on the wash basin. You were frightened then; you came away and left him.”

  Carter’s face was purple now, and Macdonald watched him, very alert, but the big man slumped down into a chair.

  “You’re wrong, sir, indeed you’re wrong. It’s true I hit him, but it was in self-defense.”

  “Maybe. You knew you were bowled out.”

  “No, sir. I may have done wrong, but I was puzzled in my mind. This business has got me fairly moithered. I was in the hall when Mr. Lockersley came in from the garden before dinner, and I saw him go towards the professor’s rooms. I was a bit surprised, because he hadn’t been speaking to Mr. Keston during the day, and somehow I didn’t think he wanted to speak to him. I hung about a bit, because I was afraid there might be a row if he and Mr. Keston met, and I didn’t want the mistress to have any more bother. Mr. Keston was having his dinner, I knew that, but Mr. Lockersley didn’t go into the dining room. I don’t know where he went, but he was very quiet. He came back after a few minutes, softly like, and went upstairs to his room. I went up after him—I’ve been valeting him, and I hadn’t put his dinner jacket and that out. I opened his door, and he was standing by the wardrobe—it was open—and he was looking at something he was holding in his hand—small stones, or something of that kind. He turned round with a jump when he saw me, and then he suddenly went raging mad and said, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, spying on me?’ I was taken aback, and said right out, ‘What were you doing in the professor’s room just now?’ and before I knew another thing he was going for me with his fists. It was all so quick I didn’t have no time to think. I countered and hit back instinctive like, and he just went down backwards and hit his head against the wash basin, as you said. I think he slipped on the rug as it shifted under him.”

  “I’m interested to hear your version, Carter. So you left him lying on the floor, eh?”

  “Yes, sir. I thought he’d just come to, as a man does after a knockout, and not be much the worse. I was worried to death. I didn’t want to go to Madam and tell her what happened. If I’d told her about Lockersley snooping round in the professor’s rooms, I don’t think she’d have believed me. I thought I’d wait until I could tell you, all straight and shipshape, and then I lost my nerve. I knew I’d no proof of what happened, and I realized it looked bad, my leaving him like that and saying nothing.”

  “Not too good, certainly. It’ll look worse if he dies, Carter. And what happened to the ‘stones’ he was holding in his hand?”

  “I don’t know, sir. They must be on the floor somewhere, up in his room. I didn’t touch them. Fact is, I was so worried I didn’t think anything about them.”

  “Then they’ll be there now. It’s a thin story, Carter. Now you told me the other day you had been a sailor—I want to see your discharge papers.”

  “They’re lost, sir. Me and my missis, we had a room in Camberwell where we kept some of our stuff, boxes, and a bit of furniture or so. They’ve all gone west in the blitz. Bombed flat. Lavender Terrace, Camberwell. Just wiped out it was, in November, 1940.”

  “It would have been. Even blitzes have their uses. Still, I expect someone may remember you. That elephant you’ve got tattooed on your arm is a striking bit of work. Now listen to me, Carter. You may have been telling me the truth, or you may not, but you can go up to your own room and you can stay there, for tonight at any rate. Don’t try to clear out, or any other funny stuff, because it won’t be a success. I’ll see you again in the morning.”

  Macdonald saw to it that Carter went up to his room, and that Reeves was on the alert in the house. Just as he was leaving the kitchen quarters with the rucksack, Macdonald saw Mrs. Carter, her face flushed with crying, and he stopped to speak to her, gently enough.

  “I’m sorry there’s all this trouble for you, Mrs. Carter. I’ve told your man he’s got to stay upstairs in his room. You can go to him, but I advise you both to stay up there together. I shall want to see him again in the morning.”

  “Oh, sir, I know he meant no harm. He just hit out without thinking when the young gentleman went for him. He’s quick-tempered is Carter. Where he did wrong was in leaving him lying there. If he’d only have told me, I’d’ve made him see sense and look after the young gentleman. Carter didn’t realize he was really badly hurt.”

  “It’s no use worrying about that now, Mrs. Carter. You go up to him and persuade him that his wisest course is to tell the plain, unvarnished truth. Inventing stories won’t help him, or you either.”

  Macdonald went out through the hall toward his car and saw Eve Merrion sitting on the porch, just beside the front door. “If anybody wants me, I’m here,” she said. “Somehow life doesn’t seem quite so awful out of doors. The sky helps. Do you ever read detective stories, Chief Inspector?”

  “Quite often. I’m afraid the entertainment I derive from them is not quite what the author intends.”

  “I feel as though I’m in the middle of a rather bad detective novel, the sort of thing one might dream. Perhaps I shall wake up and find it just isn’t true.”

  Macdonald changed his mind about going to his car and went back to the kitchen. He took the electric stove out of the rucksack and tested the two point fixture at the end of the cord for fingerprints. It was wiped clean, and he got no result. He then unscrewed the fitting and examined the ends of the wire. They had been recently cut, and were still bright and shining. The cord measured nearly two yards—an unusually long one. Looking around the kitchen, he found an electric iron with an adapter at one end which fitted the sockets of the electric lights. He removed the adapter and fitted it to the stove cord, and then connected this up to the pendant in place of the bulb. The stove glowed as soon as the switch was put down.

  Replacing the adapter on the iron, and the bulb in the pendant, Macdonald put the stove back in the rucksack and took it out to his car. He reflected that when he had first glanced through the bedrooms at Valehead, there had been no electric stove in Lockersley’s room.

  Mrs. Merrion was still sitting on the porch, and Macdonald said to her:

  “Why not go indoors and go to bed? You won’t be feeling your best tomorrow if you sit up all night.”

  “And you think that I shall be needing to feel my best tomorrow?”

  “I think you will feel better able to cope with ‘the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to’ if you have a night’s sleep. I don’t think there will be any further agitations tonight.”

  “But there may be tomorrow. Won’t you tell me what poor Carter has done?”

  “Poor Carter knocked out Mr. Lockersley. I can’t tell you why, but the fact remains that he did.”

  “Do you think that there’s something about this place that drives people crazy?”

  “No. I don’t think so. It’s not fair to blame the place.”

  Eve laughed quite suddenly in the half-dark. “I’m glad to hear you say that, because I love the place so much.”

  “It’s not fair to blame the place for the behavior of humanity. Blame the times we live in, if you will. Abnormality has become the norm, and the caveman is nearer the surface than in peace time, perhaps. My present advice to you is, go to bed and sleep as well as you can.”

  Eve got up from her seat and preceded him into the shadowy hall. Macdonald went on:

  “I’m going to black out here, in case we need to light the hall and stairway. I’ll see to it, so you needn’t bother. I should go and see if the nurse needs anything before you go to bed.”

  “Oh, she wants a pot of tea at midnight and a meal in the small hours. I’ve arranged about all that. What about you? The tea-making apparatus is a
ll to hand in the kitchen, and there’s food in the larder, unless you’d like to share nurse’s tray and enlighten her unnatural dinner time with stories of stratagems and spoils. Sorry if I sound intolerably foolish. It’s a defense mechanism against weeping like Niobe.”

  “You don’t sound foolish, at all,” replied Macdonald. “I won’t share nurse’s tray, though. She looked a healthy young woman with a good appetite. If I’m overcome by hunger during the night I will raid the larder, as you suggest. More probably I shall go to sleep, as I advise you to do.”

  “Thank you. Good night. For heaven’s sake let there be no more accidents before the morn’s morn.”

  12

  When Eve Merrion had gone upstairs, Macdonald turned in the direction of Keston’s rooms. The passages beyond the dividing door had been blacked out, and he used his flashlight to light the way. Just as he reached the door of the professor’s study, he heard Keston’s voice on the stairs above him.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Macdonald. I want to talk to you. Shall I come upstairs, or would you prefer to come into the study?”

  “Will you come up, please? The study door is locked. Mr. Layton locked it after he had been working in there.”

  Macdonald went up the stairway—it was a small flight which had connection with the one-time nurseries of Valehead House. Keston, fully dressed, was standing by the door of his bedroom, silhouetted against the light. He held the door open for Macdonald to come in and then closed it behind him.

  “What does this last development mean?” he inquired.

  Macdonald glanced at the strained face and tired eyes of the man who spoke. Keston, always somewhat frail and nervous looking, had the appearance of an utterly exhausted man.

  “Sit down. You look tired out,” said Macdonald. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his pipe and began to fill it. “I wish you’d tell me one thing,” he said, speaking quite placidly. “What was in your mind when you asked me to search Lockersley last night? What did you expect me to find on him?”

  Keston’s thin face flushed a dull, painful red, and he fiddled nervously with his glasses.

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell you,” he almost stuttered in his uncertainty. “I have been very much upset over this ghastly tragedy, and I have had a conviction—a deep conviction—that Lockersley is at the bottom of it. I can’t tell you exactly why. It is irrational, perhaps—strong convictions often are—but it is very real to me. I followed Lockersley down the drive last night; when he set out for the cave I believed that I was on the track of something, that I should discover something essential. I saw him go into the cave, and when I followed him I was strung up—excited, I suppose. Then, when you appeared, or rather when you turned your torchlight on, it was a shock, a sort of anticlimax. I had made a considerable effort to brace myself to go into that foul cave. . . . I don’t know if you will understand me; the place has tragic recollections for me, and I have a sort of horror of it. Nevertheless, I followed Lockersley in, and when you turned your light on, I saw him lying on that slab. I think I lost control of myself, or became momentarily unreasonable. I remember saying to you, ‘Search him,’ because it seemed to me, then, that he must have some incriminating evidence on him. ‘Why had he come there?’—that was the question I kept on asking myself. I know now that I spoke unreasonably. I have no other explanation to offer.”

  “It may interest you to know that Lockersley himself repeated your suggestion that I should search him,” said Macdonald. “He wanted to know what you expected me to find, or so he said. Anyway, I took the suggestion; I did search him, in the cave, a few minutes after you had gone.”

  Keston sat limply, a study of dejection.

  “And you found nothing?”

  “I found an uncut diamond in one of the pockets of his dinner jacket. I have had evidence today that it was one of the diamonds which Professor Crewdon purchased in Hatton Garden.”

  Keston’s limpness left him, and he sat up excitedly.

  “Then it was he who took the diamonds! I was right after all! I was always convinced that the man was a scoundrel. This proves it!”

  “Does it?” asked Macdonald. “Assuming that yours is the case for the prosecution, I think that counsel for the defense would have a good deal to say. Would Lockersley have invited me to search him had he known that a stolen diamond, belonging to this murdered man, was in his pocket? Would he have come to the cave, knowing that I was to meet him there, with such evidence upon him? Even at the last moment he could have disposed of that evidence. A small stone can easily be thrown away in the dark.”

  “Then what explanation do you give?” demanded Keston excitedly. “Are you assuming that he did not know the stone was in his pocket?”

  “It is not for me to assume anything at the moment. My occupation is to inquire, but I can tell you the assumption which counsel for the defense would put forward. He would make the most of the fact that you repeatedly asked me to search Lockersley, as though you were certain that incriminating evidence would be found on him.”

  Keston stiffened in his chair, his chin coming up with a jerk.

  “You are accusing me of this thing?” he demanded furiously.

  “No. As I told you just now, my business is to inquire, but I might remind you that a man quick to accuse another is not in a strong position to resent suspicion of himself. Your trouble is, or so it seems to me, that you are unable to bring your reason to bear on this case. Your mind is so fogged by prejudice and assumption that your reasoning powers are blacked out. Now say if you apply your mind to the matter for a change, and leave your opinions and feelings out of it. First, have you any substantial evidence in support of your belief that Lockersley is a murderer?”

  Keston’s face worked painfully. “He was out on the night of the murder,” he said slowly. “That gives opportunity. He knew that Professor Crewdon was returning home, and knew of his habit of sleeping in the cave. In addition Mrs. Merrion had said that her father was sure to sleep there on his first night at home. As to motive—he was—is—devoted to Mrs. Merrion, and he knew that the professor . . . would not countenance his—er—attachment.”

  “The motive is meaningless, as Mrs. Merrion was independent of her father, and had no reason to take his advice against her own inclinations. Let us leave that point for the moment, and return to the business of the diamonds. You said that you did not know where the professor kept them.”

  “That is true,” said Keston earnestly. “I had not, and have not, any idea. The subject did not interest me. I never gave it a thought. Indeed, I had not thought of the matter since the day the professor discussed it with me until you asked me about his financial affairs.”

  “Then think of it now. Did you ever tidy the professor’s desk? Had you any idea what he kept in the various drawers? Had you ever been to the desk for any reason at all?”

  “Certainly I had, to fetch or to put away papers, to renew stationery and ink and so forth, but I do not believe the diamonds were there. If they were, I never saw them, and knowing his habit of orderliness, I do not think that he would have put such objects in a desk kept for writing materials. I think it far more likely that he would have kept them in his bedroom, among cuff links and a few coins which he valued.”

  “Presumably the Bradys cleaned his room and valeted him, and so forth. Do you think it likely that they knew of the existence of the diamonds?”

  “I don’t know—but the professor, like myself, was convinced of the Bradys’ honesty.”

  “Since you have been here at Valehead, has Carter ever had reason to go into the professor’s rooms?”

  “He has been in and out fixing electric lights, hand lamps and so forth, and doing jobs such as mending window sashes.”

  “Have you ever seen Mr. Lockersley in this part of the house?”

  “He was over the entire house, including this part, shortly after he arrived. I have never seen him here since.”

  “Carter told
me this evening that when Mr. Lockersley came indoors after supper he came to this part of the house, while you were having dinner. Did you hear or see him?”

  “No. I had no idea he was here. Carter did not tell me about it.”

  “When did you last see Mr. Lockersley today?”

  “I saw him soon after six o’clock. He was going down the drive toward the cave. Later I think he used the telephone. We have only one line in this house, and there is an extension in this part. We can tell when the main is in use by a small white panel which drops when the main receiver is off and, of course, there can be no listening in. Mrs. Merrion was in the garden, and the Carters were in their own quarters. It must have been Lockersley phoning.”

  “I see. Well, I have kept you a long time, Mr. Keston. You had better get to bed now, which is another way of suggesting that you don’t wander about the house or out in the grounds tonight. Besides, you look tired, as though you hadn’t slept for a week.”

  Macdonald’s voice was kindly enough, and Keston flushed, as though embarrassed by the very kindliness in the C.I.D. man’s words.

  “It’s quite true,” he said simply. “I haven’t slept. I can’t sleep. I go on worrying and worrying about this terrible business. I know you think I have behaved and spoken foolishly. Probably you are right. I have a modicum of sense in my own subject, but somehow I’ve always made a mess of human contacts. I have been told I am a fool so often, in that respect, that I am accustomed to the verdict.”

  * * *

  When Macdonald left Keston, he went into the professor’s bedroom. It was a vast room with white paneled walls; the minimum of furniture in it made it look almost stark. A narrow iron bedstead, a compactum cupboard, two chairs and a plain wooden table for toilet articles comprised all the furniture. There was a print on one wall, a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s rather gruesome drawing of a dissector at work. Macdonald had previously been through the compactum and the table drawer. The only thing which interested him in the room now was that upon the shelf above the fixed wash basin there was a packet of Meta fuel, which had not been there last time he was in the room. He lifted this carefully, using his handkerchief to cover it, and carried it downstairs. As he reached the ground floor he heard a movement on the landing upstairs. He locked the packet he was carrying into the briefcase he had left in the hall, and then went upstairs. The light was burning in the passage and he saw the nurse outside Lockersley’s room. She looked at him quite imperturbably, and he asked: