And Death Came Too

by Hull, Richard

  “No. To be honest, I took an intense dislike to her on sight, and I strongly disapproved of her leaving false clues about. A very improper thing to do, don’t you think?”

  “Naturally, I think that any confusing of the issue—”

  “One up to you,” Salter chuckled. “I admit the soft impeachment. Moreover, there I was with the bloodstained putty-knife at my feet and, as I said, it didn’t seem right to me. If that revolting looking woman with a petunia face, or whatever you called it, could put false clues about, I saw no reason why I shouldn’t take them away. So I picked it up pretty carefully, but not so carefully as I should, because I got some blood on my shirt, and I hid it.”

  “Where? Remember we searched pretty carefully.”

  “In the bureau where the cards were. When Yeldham had shown me that piece of furniture, it wasn’t to tell me I could find a pack of cards in it: it was to show me the secret drawer that was the pride of his life. Just the sort of thing that would please a silly old man like that. Lansley’s phrase, ‘A very wet sense of humour,’ was exactly right. But to go back to the point. I put this blood—”

  “This knife,” Scoresby cut in firmly.

  “As you please.” Salter’s tone was perfectly amiable. “This knife in the secret drawer—I’ll show it you if you like; and by way of accounting for my fingerprints being all over the bureau, I took a pack of cards as a pure blind and went back to the dining-room. On my way I cautiously had a look into the study. As I expected, Yeldham was quite dead, but I was puzzled to see the fire on. I suppose that purple woman knew all about it, too. Anyhow, we had a very odd conversation—I believe I told it to you—in which neither of us mentioned the trifling fact that there was a corpse in the next room, and then Hands and his friends arrived. You know the rest.”

  “That’s all very well, but—there are some very big ‘buts’, aren’t there?”

  “Such as?” Salter asked blandly.

  “First, the smallest one. Do you really expect me to believe that, having taken a dislike to her, you didn’t tax her with the crime at once? And then, when other people arrived, that you still said nothing and actually allowed her to escape? And finally—biggest ‘but’ of all—that you kept completely silent about this, although you knew we were looking for her, until she was dead?”

  “If you were looking for her, why should I worry? You could hang her without my help. But haven’t you left out the biggest ‘but’ of all: why should I tell you now?”

  “I understood you to imply that it was because Hands was arrested.”

  “Precisely. I imagine that the false clue has begun to point. Which reminds me that I haven’t finished telling you everything. I took the—the knife away with me—I’ll explain why in a minute or two—and then I thought that that was a bit naughty. So I put it back. At least I couldn’t put it where it had been, but I found it for you, having dropped it there a few seconds before, of course.”

  “And it didn’t occur to you that that was ‘naughty’, to use your phrase?”

  “Oh, no. That was just acting, like the game of whisky poker I played in the dining-room. I thought I was being rather helpful, only apparently it was all too potent a false clue, because I suppose it’s that—or partly that—which has made you arrest Hands. That’s why I’ve told you.”

  “Very well. Now answer my other questions.”

  “Let me think what they were. Oh, yes. I never tax other people with crimes in private life—only in a professional capacity, and I have quite enough of it at Finchingfield. The things boys can do—However, in ordinary life I mind my own business.”

  “So it would appear,” Scoresby commented dryly. “Why did you allow her to escape?”

  Salter shuffled his feet uneasily.

  “I’m not quite sure of the answer to that one. To some extent, I didn’t allow her. She just did it, after the police had taken charge. Perhaps the answer’s mixed up with the really important point—namely, why I haven’t spoken until now. It’s quite simple: I got cold feet.”

  Scoresby sat looking at him without saying anything, so that Salter went on:

  “Well, wouldn’t you have done? After all, I had hidden a clue, even if it was a false clue.”

  “Mightn’t there be another explanation?”

  “Namely?”

  “That Miss Westbury did nothing more than you originally led us to understand, but that your conscience, after a good deal of uncertainty, has finally prevented you from letting your false clue lead to Hands, especially as you saw a chance of putting the blame on someone who was dead.”

  “That’s silly. I tell you this Westbury woman did it.”

  “And did she kill herself last night?”

  “I thought that was exactly what she had done.”

  “Oh, no. That’s what—someone—wanted us to think. But she didn’t. Someone did it for her.”

  “Are you suggesting I killed her too?”

  “I made no such suggestion. Did you kill her?”

  “Don’t try to be naïve. And may I ask you how I stole Hands’ knife—if it is his—when I had never seen him, or been to where he lives?”

  “That’s a point, certainly.” Scoresby considered it carefully and then went on when he had made up his mind. “I make no charge, except that by your own story you are an accessory after the fact, and on that I shall detain you.”

  Salter looked round coolly.

  “Yes, I brought my luggage. But isn’t there going to be some overcrowding? There’s Hands and me, and I think I heard that the maid—Marie, is it?—had been a naughty girl too.”

  “That will be my business.”

  “Yes, quite. And high time you minded it. And even more high time that you made up your mind, if any.”

  To detain Salter became more difficult.

  23

  The Dominant Man

  “Salter’s quite right as to that, anyhow, sir. It’s high time I made up my mind.” Scoresby allowed himself to settle down fairly comfortably in the chief constable’s study.

  “And you have?”

  “Yes. As to both murders. And I hope to get a confession tonight.”

  Flaxman grunted. It was all very well for him to go on supporting his subordinate loyally; but it had been very uphill work. Even allowing for the fact that it was Scoresby’s first case, he had been very slow and not always very sure.

  “Are you certain you will get it?” he asked. “A failure now—”

  “Would be a disaster. I know that well enough, sir, but I do hope for the best. For one thing, the weight of evidence is quite considerable, and I’m relying, too, on his character. Somewhere I shall say something that isn’t quite right—and there will be no need to do that on purpose—and then his own conceit will do the rest. He will insist on having the story fully told, so that, as he would put it, his cleverness and my stupidity may be shown up in their proper contrast.”

  “It does take some people that way; but he would have to be convinced that the game was up first. Suspicion won’t be enough.”

  “No, sir. Really, there are eight—perhaps nine—things which point to him, and though some of them might equally well point to other people, all of them don’t.”

  “And they are?”

  Scoresby, ever methodical and over-deliberate, produced a piece of paper from his pocket and handed the list to the chief constable. One by one he explained them. At the end it was clear that Flaxman, though nearly convinced, still had his doubts.

  “You say they’ve all consented to come tonight?”

  “They couldn’t very well do anything else.”

  “Supposing I do not consent to the plan at all?”

  “We can put them off—though it will be a little awkward in the case of Salter, who has come specially. But, then, he isn’t in a position to argue. Alternatively we can carry out any other plan you have in mind.”

  Once more Flaxman grunted and relapsed into thought. He didn’t like it. It was too risky,
and it savoured of melodrama. Looking back on it, he wished that he hadn’t been so anxious to prove the efficiency of his local police. He had come dangerously near to proving their inefficiency, and he felt more responsibility than he liked to admit for Maud Westbury’s death. Still, it had been done, and it was no good thinking about it now. The question was whether to go ahead or try some totally different way. Once more he looked at the list of Scoresby’s points and gladly noted that there was a good deal in them. It carried a good deal of conviction to him, at any rate, and, besides, he had to admit in all honesty that he had no alternative in his mind.

  “I don’t like the way you present me with this almost fait accompli,” he said at last; “but since you have—well, go on with it.”

  The scene in the dining-room of Y Bryn that night was almost as uncomfortable as it had been on the night that Yeldham had died, and it was not made any better by Salter’s sarcastic comments.

  “Ah!” he said. “Let me congratulate you, sergeant, on the regularity of your clichés! First we have the bloodstained putty-knife, and now we have the grand confrontation scene, ending with the unmasking of the villain.”

  “Don’t,” put in Patricia. “You aren’t funny.”

  “Or villainess,” Salter concluded imperturbably.

  Neither Scoresby nor Flaxman made any attempt to stop him. The more nervous and irritable everyone was, the more likely was it that something would be said. In fact, so slow was Scoresby in starting that Lansley broke out with an angry request that he would “get a jerk on with his reconstruction”.

  “Hardly a reconstruction in every way, sir,” Scoresby began. “You see, I can’t keep you up for three nights to make you all as tired as you were then. Nor do I propose to begin at the beginning, though we may perhaps go backwards later on.”

  “Have we ever done anything else?” Salter asked the ceiling.

  Imperturbably Scoresby went on: “We will not, for instance, go into the study on the other side of the hall and callously use the head of a dead man to turn on the switch of the electric fire in order that the room may be too hot.”

  “Do we know that?” Patricia asked, her eyes showing incredulous horror.

  “Yes.” Scoresby untruthfully exaggerated Dr Vesey’s practical certainty. “And the first question is, ‘Why?’ Obviously the answer is, ‘So that rigor will not set in, and consequently it will be almost impossible to say when Yeldham died.’ That might be important to anyone who slipped away from a dance for a short while in order to commit a crime before joining his or her next partner.”

  “It might also help someone who had been in the house all the evening, but had an alibi for the last hour.” Hands glared pointedly at Salter.

  “Quite, sir. If he was certain of the alibi—that anyone was coming.”

  “It was practically certain someone would. The invitations—”

  “Might not be accepted. Besides, the speedometer of your car showed us that someone did use the car that night during the dance. Perhaps to come here.”

  “Or perhaps not,” Lansley commented dryly.

  “Perhaps someone did, and found Mr Yeldham already dead,” Barbara suggested.

  A slight frown appeared on Scoresby’s face. It was exactly like Miss Carmichael to confuse the issue by such a suggestion. Moreover, she spoke as one who was frequently finding corpses, and he decided to ignore her.

  “And then,” he went on, “the murderer and five other people—six when Reeves arrived—were all present in this room, and from all the accounts that I have had, the atmosphere was not normal. You were all jumpy. All, that is, except one person, for the murderer was, I am sure, convinced that he at least must appear normal. And he was. He was almost entirely cool, for instance, so far as coming here was concerned. Again, he wasn’t fussed by Reeves. All through he kept up a consistent attitude. The only thing was that he was too calm—in fact, that he overacted, and so called my attention to him. He was especially calm where Miss Westbury was concerned. He took almost too careful a lack of interest in her.” Deliberately Scoresby ticked off the second of the points on his list.

  “And why should he be interested in her?” Patricia asked. “By the way, I notice you’re saying ‘he’ all the time. That’s intentional?”

  “Yes. He was interested in her because he was married to her—having assumed, oddly enough, the name of Arthur Yeldham. It must have been no ordinary shock to him when he met her in this house. I am inclined to think that he hadn’t seen her since he deserted her in the south of France. At least, let me be accurate, there was some little doubt in his mind about the validity of his marriage and still more as to what her beliefs were in the matter, so her maid tells me. But there were none in the mind of Yeldham. He had just proved it to his own satisfaction, and when he did it to the satisfaction also of Miss Westbury’s husband, if you will excuse the phrase, he was killed.”

  “To keep him quiet?” Lansley put in, in the most trite of conversational voices.

  “Exactly. The marriage and the passport”—Scoresby marked off two more points on his paper—“are the two most convincing proofs. Of course, too, that accounts for the text-book on law that was on the table of Mr Yeldham’s study. You see, the law makes very generous financial provisions for a lady in Miss Westbury’s position, and they came as something of a shock to the self-styled Yeldham. He had got hold of some of her money and, from inquiries I have made, I am pretty certain that he had spent it, for he was certainly living consistently more on capital than on income, and even so he was pressed for money.”

  “He has all my sympathies.”

  Scoresby acknowledged Salter’s remark with no more than a glance.

  “Of course, once his wife found out that she was entitled to have it back, as she did from this solicitor in London—Twistleton—he was in trouble. She was in a position to put the screw on him, and I think that she would have done it.”

  “I wish, inspector, you wouldn’t go on talking in riddles. Am I supposed to have married that revolting woman, and if so, when and where?” Salter leant forward aggressively in his chair and added that he must be given a chance to produce a decent alibi.

  “The marriage took place in the south of France with the aid of a false passport. I thought I had explained that.”

  “But why on earth? Why a false passport? Why ‘Arthur Yeldham’? Why not buy one in Soho? And, anyhow, why worry actually to marry her?”

  “I’ve already told you there was some doubt about that. But to begin at the beginning. Yeldham—the real Mr Yeldham—was a careless man, and just the sort of person who would leave his passport lying about. Some years ago it was stolen by somebody with a criminal mind—somebody, too, who had been at Finchingfield. Not, I believe, for any particular purpose at the time, but just in case it should be useful. It is rather significant that in the account that person gave to me of his life, the months just before and after Miss Westbury was married were filled in by details which were not true as to time. So far they are vacant and unaccounted for, because he was in the south of France posing as Arthur Yeldham and using that name as a means of getting introduced to Miss Westbury, whom he fancied to be a great heiress and to whom the name was familiar. I think it only served as an introduction, because he would not have dared to have claimed any relationship in case she wrote to Mr Yeldham, as she was almost bound to do.”

  “But this is still preposterous,” Salter broke in again. “Are you aware, inspector, that passports have photographs on them, and that none of us bear the faintest resemblance to the dear departed?”

  “I am, sir, but a photograph can be taken off and another substituted.”

  “Leaving half an official rubber stamp behind, accompanied by a totally inaccurately written description.”

  “Which can be altered by anyone who knows anything about the chemistry of ink.”

  “Chemistry?” Lansley looked up languidly. “Am I to understand that you are accusing me?”

  “Yes
.”

  “Well, have a good time. I mean, don’t let me spoil your fun.”

  Seated rather in the background and intentionally keeping himself out of it, Flaxman stirred uneasily. This was rather what he feared; but Scoresby—outwardly, at any rate—seemed quite confident.

  “I don’t know that it’s a duty that I entirely would describe as ‘having a good time’, although in some ways—But first of all let me administer the usual warning that anything you say will be taken down and used in evidence.”

  “Thank you so much. And let me repeat my wishes as to the good time. I’m sure you will enjoy placing the finishing touches upon your monumental stupidity. Let me see, what are your pretexts? That I was calm and should have had a reason, if anything had happened as you think, to want to mess about with the evidence about time. Rather flimsy so far, isn’t it?”

  “Why didn’t you tell us you were married to the lady we have known as Miss Westbury?”

  “In the first place, I was of the opinion that I was not. And in the second, would it be a thing that you would be proud of?”

  “I must ask you not to be flippant.”

  “I shall behave exactly as I please in the face of a farcical suggestion, but if you want a serious reason, was I likely to mention a possible previous marriage in the presence of my fiancée?”

  “For the moment,” Patricia put in viciously.

  “My fiancée for the moment,” Lansley agreed politely. “One might almost say,” he went on, with a glance at Barbara, “fiancées.”

  “That might be a reason for keeping quiet in the presence of Miss Hands, but there were times when she was not present. You could easily have told me then.”

  “I gossip like you! My dear sergeant!”

  “Nevertheless, you were married to her abroad with a forged passport. It takes a little explaining away.”

  “I see no reason why it should cause me to kill a man I hardly knew; and as for Maud’s own death, that was clearly an accident.”

  “Was it?” There was a pause, and then Scoresby repeated: “Was it?”