by Richard Hull
‘You didn’t ask me, you know,’ Fenby answered quietly.
‘What?’ Gregory turned lazily over in bed and then opened his eyes a bit wider. ‘Well, I’m damned,’ he said, ‘I thought that it was Uncle James. Instead of which it’s our dear friend, the inspector, and funny little Fenby. What are you supposed to be doing here now? Your last impersonation wasn’t too successful, was it?’
‘Investigating your uncle’s death.’
‘Oh, has he died? How?’
‘A dagger has been run into his heart.’
‘Really? How very revolting. A scuffle with Henry? Or did Rushton find the jewels at last?’
‘We don’t quite know yet how it occurred.’
‘Well then, why wake me up in the middle of the night? I can’t do anything about it, and, as I never believe in being a hypocrite, I shall not burst into tears. As a matter of fact, it’s rather a nuisance. I was fairly comfortable here, and if this house belongs to Henry, he’ll probably turn me out.’
‘Like your uncle.’
‘Yes, but Henry will mean it. Uncle James didn’t really. Anyhow I wasn’t going. Oh, but I forgot — if Henry killed him, he can’t have the house. Anyhow it’s much too complicated to discuss now. Goodnight.’
‘I’m afraid you will have to. There are quite a lot of things that we want to know. Where have you been all night, for instance?’
‘Trying to get to sleep when unmentionable fools don’t wake me up. By the way, are you suggesting that I wielded the gory dagger?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Good. Then you can’t ask me anything except in the presence of my solicitor. I don’t know who he is, but I insist on having his presence, and I am sure that I can rely on his office not being open now. Goodnight.’
During most of this conversation, Fenby’s eyes had been taking in the details of the room, so that it came as a surprise to Perceval when he turned to go away without making a detailed examination. ‘Aren’t you going to—?’
‘No, it can wait till tomorrow morning.’
Just as they were going, Gregory’s voice came once more. ‘By the way, where did Uncle James meet his singularly sticky end — on the tower? I thought so. All the best people do.’ As he turned the key in the door, Fenby thought he heard a faint snore. He listened for a few minutes more, but it was not repeated.
‘And what do you think of that?’ Perceval asked.
‘On the whole, I think that he is right. As soon as possible, I am going to snatch a little sleep myself and so are you. Your ordinary constables will have arrived by now and they can keep watch, one on the windows looking on to the lawn, and one on the tower door and Gregory’s window. I shall put a chair at the foot of the stairs, and if anyone comes down he will be bound to fall over me. Tomorrow we can emulate Rushton and start looking, but possibly from the top downwards will be easier. At least I shall go there. A few odds and ends to do first though. Here’s one of them.’
The first ‘odd and end’ proved to be the police doctor. ‘I’ve got him in,’ he said, ‘and made a preliminary examination. We can do it in more detail later on. Death almost instantaneous. The dagger avoided the ribs and went into the heart. Bleeding internal because it was not taken out. Depth of wound, barely two inches, which is just possible for a self-inflicted wound though it’s pretty deep. Weapon held rather awkwardly, but the position consistent with suicide but not with trying to ward off a blow.’
‘You remembered my question about grease?’
‘Yes. There was a little on the inside of the hands, which must have made the dagger hard to hold. Some substance like lard, not car grease by the way.’
‘Then you may take it from me that it wasn’t suicide.’
‘Not? I can’t see why he should have tried to clutch it instead of knocking it aside.’
‘I think I can, but it’s only a guess, and as it’s late now, let’s put off further discussion till later.’
‘Right. Goodnight.’
Down in the library Fenby found Christopher. ‘I’ve sent Hamar to bed,’ he said, ‘but of course you can get him again at once if you want him. Meanwhile I made him make us some tea. Better than whisky, I thought, which anyhow is locked up. There are some sandwiches, too, if you want them. Hamar cuts them in a rather agricultural style, but they’re not bad.’
To Fenby’s surprise, he found that he was quite hungry, but as he began to eat, he noticed a gleam of excitement in Christopher’s eye. ‘Well, what is it?’ he asked.
‘Two things. I’ve got the information you asked me to telephone for, but first just look here.’
He walked over to the corner of the library nearest to the tower and put his hand against a knob rather high upon the bookcase. ‘I don’t know why I came to touch this; I think, like Emily, I saw a book upside down. The shelves are rather smaller here and generally behind the curtain by day and out of the light by night, so I suppose she missed it. But you see, if you push this piece of ornamentation aside a fraction of an inch, then this shelf swings round on a hinge which looks to me centuries old but still perfectly sound, if a bit stiff. In the opening behind is a space. There’s a box in there.’
‘Anything in it?’
‘I thought that I had better leave that for you to see.’
Fenby laughed. ‘All right. I believe you.’ Getting up on to a chair, he brought down an old-fashioned looking leather box, and blew aside a cloud of dust which had accumulated even in that confined space.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but I should think this might interest our friends in the Victoria and Albert Museum. They deserve something for their help, too. But it feels empty. Let’s look.’
The box opened readily enough. Inside was one small pearl. ‘Poor one, I should say. I think it’s got a flaw in it, but I don’t know much about it,’ Christopher added hurriedly.
Fenby mused. ‘So, Rushton’s story was not quite such an old wives’ tale, after all, but he missed this. I wonder why whoever took the rest left the box.’
‘Do you think they did it recently?’ Christopher asked.
‘Any time within the last four hundred years. No, I suppose these shelves can’t have been put up all that time. But the hiding-place might be earlier and the shelf adapted to fit some previous device. On the other hand, this box hasn’t been disturbed for ages. I don’t mind telling you that the man who used to live here found something which worked on a very old hinge — at least, so Rushton says. But I don’t think that it can have been this. There’s too much dust. Perhaps I’d better give as an answer to your question “Any time between fifty and three hundred years ago or more.” But I don’t really know.’
‘I must say I should like to know,’ Christopher said.
‘So should I. But I doubt if I ever shall. Meanwhile as to your telephone message.’ Fenby whispered in Christopher’s ear.
‘Quite right,’ Christopher looked excited. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘Wait till I get the proof a little more complete, and anyhow I shall do nothing until after breakfast. I don’t think that it is decent to ask people to go round to a police station to be charged with murder at this time of night.’ Then, noticing the expression on Perceval’s face, he added, ‘Sorry. I don’t often come over all mysterious, but I’m not sure yet, and I want to think first. I shall tell you everything soon, but just now I’m dead beat. Mr Vaughan, you have done a great deal to help us already, but will you do something more? Somebody, on second thoughts, has got to stay awake inside the house for the rest of the night. Will you take turns with Inspector Perceval and myself?’
‘I wasn’t a very good sentry earlier on.’
‘I’m not so sure. I’m quite happy to let you take on the job again.’
It was rather like Fenby that by the unusual arrangement not only did he and Perceval get more rest, but Christopher’s self-confidence was completely restored.
24
The Red Herring
‘As
a normal rule,’ Inspector Fenby ventured on a generality, ‘a man who uses a knife is a coward. But on this occasion, I think it would be wrong to call him that.’
He and Perceval were spending the evening together in the latter’s house some weeks later. On Thursday at the assizes at Periton, the murderer of James Warrenton had been convicted, but, although it was strongly suspected that the guilty man was also responsible for the death of Arthur Vaughan, such an accusation had not actually even been made, and the public were at liberty to accept the verdict of the coroner’s jury or take whatever other attitude they liked, while Fenby still continued to think that the occurrence was due partially to an accident.
But it was on the subject of James Warrenton’s death that he continued talking to Perceval. ‘He kept his head so very well that night and one cannot say that a man who can do that is lacking in courage. Especially when everything that he had planned had gone wrong. It really was bad luck for him that that girl should have selected that particular moment to try to recall what she had seen previously on the tower. He might reasonably have expected that, with a storm raging outside, she would not do anything of the kind. And if she had not seen the dagger moving about, it would have looked extremely like suicide. Remember two people made that suggestion involuntarily and independently.’
‘There was the lard of course.’
‘Yes. But that might have been overlooked, as it had almost been during the inquest on Vaughan. Even if it had been noticed, it would not have proved anything until we found the pole.’
‘There must have been a risk that that pole would be seen.’
‘Who was there to see it, except Warrenton himself, and he would not have been in a position to give evidence if Miss Warrenton had not happened to act as she did? And she never saw it. He had taken precautions about that, of course, because he did not want even Warrenton to see the hook on which the bait was before he came up to take it. So, the pole on the end of which the dagger was placed had irregular patches of paint on it so as not to make too hard an outline, and the metal contrivance by which it was held was dulled. An ingenious contrivance that, by the way, so that after Warrenton’s hands had slipped from the pole on to the hilt, he was able to push it home and then release the dagger. Really only the faintest scratches were left on it.’
‘To this day, I am not quite sure that I know how it worked,’ Perceval admitted.
‘Well, if you chose to pay yet another visit to Amberhurst Place, you can see on the wall the original from which he took the idea. That is if it hasn’t been taken away. It used to be in the corner behind the armour on the left as you went in.’
‘Perhaps one day my curiosity will insist — though I don’t think that I shall be very popular there. If Miss Warrenton, for instance, stays, she might prefer not to be reminded of what has happened. But at least I understand one thing now. Until you explained that to me, I never could see how our friend, who is essentially a lazy man, made the effort to invent that device.’
‘It was only copying. But rather clever copying, I must admit. He was clever, too, in not pushing it home too far. Any farther, and suicide would have been out of the question. Of course, it was a temporary contrivance, and, as we know now, it fell partly to pieces, but he managed to get away the piece of metal on which Warrenton inadvertently knelt. Pushing him over was a mistake, but he was in a hurry, and it would have taken very little to upset the balance of that body. We might have put it down to the wind, though I do not think we should have been so simple.’
‘It must have been nervous work going up there when you or I might have arrived in his room and found him out of it.’
‘Very. But remember he could hear what was going on inside and see a good deal outside through that peephole. By the way, we have to thank Christopher Vaughan for finding the one downstairs. It put me on to looking for a similar thing upstairs, and, as you know, there it was — a shelf swinging back on a hinge and a brick full of holes that were not visible from the outside unless you looked very carefully. Through them he was able to see if the library curtains were drawn or whether the lawn was lighted up and able also to see, though not very clearly, the roof of the tower.’
‘Yes. If the tower had been a bit broader—’
‘Quite. It would have been impossible then.’
‘When do you think he made up his mind to do it?’
‘Well, he must have had it in mind for a long while because of preparing the pole and getting the paint, but he only had it in reserve. There was no real animosity — it was only to be used if he could not achieve his object in any other way.’
‘Yes, I think that is probably right. But before you go on, did it never come out how he got hold of the paint?’
‘No, we never really found out. He must have slipped up to London and bought it at one of the big stores, where a cash transaction goes unnoticed. At the same time, he must have bought the cloak and a feather, but I think that erroneous hat was probably simply made of cardboard. It would be quite easy — in fact so easy that he would not have had to have gone to a theatrical costumier at all. I expect that if you dragged the Great Water in the front of the house, you would find that cloak and feather. But the cardboard would ultimately dissolve.’
‘The whole thing was very simple really.’
‘Which was the only chance he had. That and quick acting. You see, he had no motive to kill his uncle until he saw the will burnt before his eyes and heard Warrenton use the word “irrevocable”. Not for a moment did he make the mistake of under-estimating his uncle’s character or the meaning of that word. He knew quite well that the will would be made, probably the next day if the solicitors could do it, and that it would be actually irrevocable. Warrenton might have repented, but he would not be able then to alter it.’
‘Are you sure that that is right in law?’
‘No, I’m not. I know just enough law to be sure of nothing. But the man who killed James Warrenton thought that it was. So, his only chance was an intestate uncle.’
‘He must have been pretty desperate. It really seems hardly a good enough motive.’
‘That was the weak point that stuck in my mind for a long while. I wondered at first if Warrenton knew more about Vaughan’s death than he admitted, but, if he did, he kept the fact to himself. So, it had to be someone who had no morals and who badly wanted money. Of course, long before that, it had narrowed down to either Spring-Benson or Malcolm, and of course there had to be some way of getting up to the tower from one or other of their rooms. The trouble was that both of them had the same motive, but if Malcolm had got brickdust on his shoes, he had an explanation for it, and, besides, the way to the tower had produced no such traces before, or at least no one had mentioned them.’
‘Why didn’t he get his shoes wet when he was actually on the tower?’
‘Went up without any on, I imagine. It would save noise anyhow. But to go back to the question of character. Malcolm was a red-headed man — fiery and capable of flying into a temper, but not really the kind of man who would plan a thing like that carefully and carry it out so deliberately and in such cold blood. Do you remember that I said to him that if he was not guilty, he was incredibly stupid and tactless?’
‘I remember you said something of the sort.’
‘Well, he was and is both. Then Christopher Vaughan helped us again, and I behaved abominably badly to you by not telling you what it was all about at once. He told me that his brother had had the first paragraph about Amberhurst Place put into The New Light, and he got on to his brother’s friend there who put him on to a man called Linnell. It appeared that Spring-Benson had scraped an acquaintance with Linnell with the object of becoming a journalist — he was as hard up as that — and that he had gone down to Amberhurst with some vague idea of showing that he would be capable in that line, which incidentally he failed to prove, because, I suspect, he had begun very soon after he arrived there to aim at something bigger, namely a large slice of James Wa
rrenton’s money. Also, it began to dawn on him that he had misconceived the qualifications of a journalist. You know he was all bluff, without any real capabilities.’
‘Do you think that when he said the very first time he met his uncle that he was going to swindle him out of some of it, that he had in mind what he ultimately did?’
‘I doubt it. The idea probably grew up gradually and the journalism faded away. All the same, the man who murdered Arthur Vaughan wore the wrong hat, and the only place where that wrong information came from was the columns of The New Light. Of course, I know that that particular error was made by Arthur Vaughan. Still, Spring-Benson had some connection with it, and he was much more likely to take it seriously and copy it than Malcolm. I thought all this out, you know, while I was supposed to be sleeping at the foot of the stairs on the night that Warrenton was killed, and I am afraid that I made up my mind before I had any real proof. After a bit, I began to wish that we had left all the doors unlocked, as we had Rushton’s, so as to give them all a chance to make a mistake. Only then that blundering fellow Malcolm would have done something foolish and tangled things a bit more. Combining the colour of his hair and his general behaviour, I nicknamed him mentally the Red Herring, and wrote him off.’
Perceval laughed, and agreed that it was not a bad name for him.
‘Finally, I decided that the only proof would be to find the way on to the tower, and, as you know, when we found that, we found everything. The chimney from his room was very broad, though narrowing at the top, and the slight slope had made it easy for someone centuries ago to put hand and foot holes in the side. The chimney had been swept as all the others in the house had been before Warrenton came into occupation, and the few fires there had been in the room since had not made it really dirty again.