“Well, if you want to know,” Dick answered, now with a touch of defiance in his manner, “Mrs Ball looks after the place for me but she has a husband to look after, too. So she never waits after seven. Ball’s on late shift and gets home at nine. Anything warm she has for me she leaves in the oven with the gas turned down or else just simmering. I’m afraid you’ll have to take my word for it or not just as you like. I can’t prove when I got here and I can’t even say exactly. I didn’t notice.”
“Thank you,” said Bobby. “May I just repeat that we don’t necessarily disbelieve what we are told because we like to get it confirmed if we can. I gather Sir Alfred also left the Abbey very soon after I did. I rang up to tell them he had met with an accident. I didn’t think it necessary to give details. I asked if he had dined at home and when he left. I was told only about half an hour after you left—and after me. As soon as you had gone he ordered his car to be brought round. There isn’t a regular chauffeur, apparently. Sir Alfred always drives himself, I understand, but there’s a man to clean the car and generally look after it. He can and does drive when necessary. Sir Alfred’s dinner seems to have been a very hurried affair. I got full details because I asked what he had had to drink and of course they jumped to the conclusion that there had been a road accident and I suspected he might have taken too much. They were quite naturally and loyally and properly indignant. I was told he hadn’t touched the fruit tart that was the sweet course and hadn’t even stopped for his coffee. You see, Mr Rawdon, it does seem just a trifle odd that three of you should have left the Abbey in such apparent hurry so immediately after our talk.”
“I don’t see why,” Dick answered, still with that touch of defiance in his manner. “Hart said he had an appointment and I wanted to get home. We’re all working under pressure at the factory. I’ve no time to hang about. Got to be up early, too. I don’t know about uncle. We had been in conference on business matters. When it was over we all cleared out. I don’t see anything peculiar in that.”
“I mightn’t either in other circumstances,” Bobby agreed. “When so much seems peculiar, perhaps I am inclined to think everything more peculiar than it is. May I ask if any differences of opinion developed during your conference?”
“Plenty. Why not? People don’t always think alike. Nothing serious, if that’s what you mean.”
“Are you generally on good terms with your uncle?”
Dick scowled, hesitated, said angrily:
“You want to know a hell of a lot, don’t you?”
“I do,” Bobby agreed emphatically. “To put it another way. There’s a hell of a lot I want to know. One man has disappeared. His wife comes to us for help. I can’t get in touch with the owner of the hut where the last trace of him was found. The interior of that hut has been wrecked. Another man is found shot in the house of the wife of the missing man during her absence. I think a certain amount of curiosity on my part is natural. After all, I am an officer of police charged with the preservation of the king’s peace. Shooting people is a very definite breach of that peace. Especially just now, we all have reason to know that the preservation of peace is about our most important interest. When peace goes, all goes. Of course, you are not obliged to answer my questions. But just as I am doing my duty as an officer of police, so it is your duty as a citizen to help me. I daresay you know that if a policeman meets with resistance he can call on any passer-by to help him and that a refusal is a criminal offence. Naturally answering questions is on a different footing but you told me so much this evening I had hoped you would be equally ready to talk to-night. I agree you would be within your rights in telling me to shut up and get out. When that happens, as it does sometimes, police have to obey. It’s apt to make them think, though, and they generally try other means. So I’ll ask you again, have you any objection to telling me whether you and Sir Alfred were on good terms?”
“Oh, good enough,” Dick answered. “He’s all right. I suppose I had better explain. You would be sure to hear, anyhow. Uncle and I had a blazing row just before the war broke out.”
“Will you tell me what it was about?”
“Oh, money, of course. What do you suppose? I put all I had into Summit Models, Ltd. The place was a bit on the down grade when I took over. I had a dandy idea for a model aeroplane I wanted to develop. Uncle promised to come in, too, if things looked good. Perhaps I overspent a bit, trying to get my model aeroplane on the market. Actual figures weren’t too good because of overhead, but I thought prospects were fine. Uncle wouldn’t see it. He said his promise had been conditional on results, not prospects. Well, I suppose we both got a bit hot. It looked like ruin to me. He said he wasn’t going to risk what he had left to please me. I daresay it’s true enough that the Rawdons all have a bit of a temper. Well, it ended with his heaving a glass inkwell at my head. Luckily it missed. The thing was heavy enough to lay you out if it caught you fair. I sort of saw red. It’s happened to me once or twice before. It doesn’t last. Once at Oxford it did for a bit and I slung a chap into the river and then I had to dive in and fetch him out. Silly as you like. He never forgave me. Said he might have drowned. So he might, I suppose. Only he didn’t because I hauled him out. Luckily this time I got my senses back before I laid hands on uncle. I think he was a bit scared, though. Of course, the servants had heard us rowing at each other, and as the inkwell had gone through the window, they couldn’t help guessing things had been a bit lively. We made it up afterwards. For one thing the money business settled itself. When the war broke out I got contracts enough to satisfy the bank, so they increased the overdraft instead of calling it in. Now it’s mostly paid off and butter won’t melt in their mouths when they see me coming. Besides, I knew I had made a fool of myself. Uncle felt a bit the same way. Anyhow, we shook hands and agreed to forget it. Only you know how people talk. Stories got about. Uncle was supposed to have said I was a young devil and I had tried to kill him, he supposed I wanted to be Sir Richard in a hurry. Tasty bit of gossip for every old woman’s tea party. Silly enough, for who wants to be a blooming baronet without a penny to the title? May be a bit different now, though, if these pictures turn up, or the candelabra, and if we get the entail broken.”
“Is there likely to be any difficulty about that?”
“Oh, there’s a cousin, Andrew Rawdon. Stockbroker johnny. Pile of money. He wants the collection of paintings kept intact. I think he has some deep scheme for getting hold of them himself in block. I don’t know. Anyhow, he is making trouble. He has kids and possibly he thinks they may inherit. So uncle and I are on one side, and Cousin Andrew on the other. I expect that helped us to make friends again after our row though I still think it was a bit mean of him to let the servants think it was I who slung that inkwell at him, instead of the other way round. I know it makes us sound a couple of the damnedest fools going.”
“Oh, yes, it does,” agreed Bobby amiably, “but then I never knew any one who wasn’t sometimes. Thank you for telling me.”
“Shouldn’t have,” admitted Dick grinning, “only I jolly well knew someone else was dead sure to tell you—with trimmings. Police find out everything, don’t they?”
“I wish we did,” sighed Bobby. “You can understand it was a big surprise to me to find your uncle at Mrs Crayfoot’s. Can you suggest why he went?”
“Haven’t the foggiest notion,” Dick answered. He looked really worried. “It might be something about those El Greco paintings. You told us you were going to see Mrs Crayfoot again. Uncle may have thought he would, too. Sort of get in first idea.”
“I had thought of that,” Bobby agreed. “Mrs Crayfoot tells me she is sure she locked up carefully before she left. So there is the question of how Sir Alfred got in. My own idea is that he rang, got no answer’ went round to the back to see if he could make any one hear there and found a window open. The latch has been forced expertly. There was clearly some other person in the house and there was nothing in Sir Alfred’s pocket he could have used for forci
ng the window. He did have a small penknife but I compared it with the marks on the window frame and there was certainly no identity. Presumably, therefore, the other person was there first and was responsible for forcing the window. Burglars always leave two ways of retreat. One in the front, one in the rear. Possibly this burglar, whoever he was, was surprised in the act by your uncle. He may have mistaken him for the householder returning and attacked him in an attempt to escape. That would explain the struggle that evidently took place and the shooting. Did you see Sir Alfred arrive or had you left before that? I imagine you saw nothing of the burglar?”
CHAPTER XXII
FINGERPRINTS
SUDDEN AND DIRECT as had been this assault, this swift and probing question, Dick showed no sign of discomposure. He looked at Bobby calmly and after a very brief pause he said equally quietly:
“Is this the celebrated police method of pretending to know what you don’t know, in the hope of making the victim betray himself?”
“Are you a victim?” Bobby asked.
“Is that what is called a leading question?”
“No,” Bobby answered. “For one thing, ‘leading question’ doesn’t mean an important or significant question, as most people seem to think, any more than ‘cross examination’ means any closely pressed questioning. I asked what I did because there is evidence to suggest you were in Mrs Crayfoot’s drawing-room shortly before your uncle arrived. I know you weren’t there afterwards because the house was thoroughly searched. So it seems you must have left either after he got there or shortly before.”
“Does all this mean I am suspected of having shot uncle?” Dick asked, more uneasily than ever. “Why should anyone think I would do a thing like that?”
“Well, there is a story of an inkwell, isn’t there?” Bobby retorted. “I am afraid you must expect more gossip at more tea tables. I don’t mind telling you frankly that if you had shown any signs of having been knocked about recently, I should have arrested you at once. It was chiefly in order to make sure of that that I made this, I am afraid, very late call. You see, Sir Alfred put up quite a good fight. The other fellow didn’t get away unmarked. Probably your uncle was getting a bit the best of it. That’s why the other man started pistol play. We found two bullets in the drawing-room wall, one had gone through a picture. Both had travelled in an upwards direction. As I see it, the man who fired them had been knocked down and was on the floor or getting to his feet again when he fired.”
“Uncle is pretty hefty, unusually so for his age,” Dick agreed. “I dare-say it was like that. But if you know I wasn’t there before or after—”
“No,” Bobby interrupted. “What I said was during or after. There’s evidence to show you were there before your uncle arrived.”
“I’ve played poker,” Dick said quietly. “I’m a fair hand at it. Good enough to spot a bluff. I think you’re lying.”
“Not a very polite remark,” commented Bobby, equally quietly. “Sometimes people try to make police lose their tempers. By using insulting language, for instance. But not people with nothing to hide. Have you anything to hide, I wonder?”
“I wasn’t trying to be insulting,” Dick answered, looking now a trifle abashed. “I was only telling you what I think. What evidence have you? That’s a plain question.”
“Will you let me take your fingerprints?”
“My fingerprints,” repeated Dick, surprised. “Why? What’s the idea? I don’t think so. No. Why should I? I suppose you mean you’ve found them in Mrs Crayfoot’s drawing-room? Well, why not? I was there the other day. You know that.”
“Oh, yes,” Bobby agreed. “But there’s a portrait there, the one I mentioned to you, the one that has a sort of resemblance to Miss Floyd. When I saw it first, it was hanging straight. Now it’s crooked. Someone has been so interested in it as to take it down to look at it nearer the light. There are fingerprints on it. I think they are yours. And I don’t think it’s likely they have remained there since your visit the other day. I imagine Mrs Crayfoot has her drawing-room dusted more often than that.”
“Didn’t give me the idea of a room much used,” retorted Dick. “I expect the household routine isn’t too awfully regular just now either. If you have found any fingerprints on the thing, why should you say they are mine?”
“They correspond,” Bobby explained. “When we were talking in the hut in the forest, I showed you some old rather torn and dirty books I found lying on the floor. You handled them, if you remember, and you left very clear dabs. The pages were dirty and rather damp and in first-class condition to take impressions.”
Dick looked as furious as he felt and that was in a high degree.
“A dirty trick,” he fumed. “You had no right, laying traps. I’ll . . . I’ll—”
But as he had no idea what he could do he stopped there, subsiding into a somewhat ineffective but still exceedingly angry glare.
“It wasn’t a trap,” Bobby assured him earnestly.
“What do you call it, then?” Dick demanded, still very angry. Then a new idea struck him. “How can you tell which are mine?” he demanded. “There were thumb marks all over, I noticed that myself.”
“Oh, yes,” Bobby agreed, “but there were fresh ones on a page where you quoted from the verses when Horace gives up the hope of having any more luck in love. You read a line or two aloud and remarked it couldn’t be put into English. You remember?”
“Know Latin, too, do you?” demanded Dick sulkily.
“Oh, I learnt ‘mensa, a table,’ isn’t it? when I was a kid,” Bobby answered. “Forgotten it all now. Wonder if they still teach ‘mensa’—and how they pronounce it. As a matter of fact I was once given that poem to write out fifty times for an imposition. Day I ought to have played first time for our house eleven, too. So it’s no wonder I recognized it. Sort of branded in. I hadn’t any idea of getting dabs at the moment. But afterwards—well, I wasn’t satisfied. I began to get a feeling there was something wrong somewhere. Also I had a faint suspicion you weren’t—well, being as helpful as you might have been.”
“Do you suppose I murdered the old man and then uncle to-night?” demanded Dick, still furious.
“There is no evidence the old man has been murdered,” Bobby answered, “and I hope your uncle hasn’t been, either. It seems most likely he will get better. But I do think there’s the evidence of these dabs to suggest that you were in the Crayfoots’ drawing-room sometime to-night.”
“Oh, very well, so I was,” Dick admitted, more sulky now than angry and a little scared as well. “It’s that portrait. I wanted to have another look at it. I know it sounds damn silly and I don’t suppose you’ll believe it.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Bobby answered. “I take it you didn’t get any answer when you knocked, so you went round to the back to see if you could make anyone hear. You couldn’t, but you saw the drawing-room window was open and you climbed in. While you were looking at the portrait you heard a knock at the front door. That scared you, so you put the portrait back in a hurry—crooked—and cleared out.”
“You seem to know all about it,” Dick grumbled.
“Putting two and two together, that’s all,” Bobby answered. “Did you guess it was your uncle knocking? Did you tell him you meant to have another look at the portrait?”
“I think I said something,” Dick admitted. “I don’t remember exactly. I never thought it was him knocking. I thought it was Mrs Crayfoot returning. Or someone who might come round to the back. I didn’t want to have to explain, so I did a bunk.”
“Do you think it possible,” Bobby asked, “that your uncle suspected that you didn’t so much want to have another look at the portrait as to find out if the El Grecos were there in the Crayfoot house? And do you think that in that case he may have thought it as well to come along himself, if only to see what was happening? As I understand it, with the El Grecos, it will be very much a case of possession being nine-tenths of the law—or even more.”
/> Dick made no answer but looked sulkier than ever. It was plain he found the suggestion plausible, unpleasant, and disturbing. He mumbled something about having no idea what his uncle had been up to and Bobby had better find out for himself what he wanted to know. Nothing he, Dick, could say. For his own part, he repeated, he had merely gone to have another look at the portrait. He knew it sounded damn silly and he didn’t expect to be believed. Only it was the strangest coincidence that such a likeness should exist and he supposed it was why when he saw Miss Floyd he felt as if he had seen her before, as if he had always known her.
“History repeating itself?” Bobby suggested.
Dick flushed.
“That’s what uncle was trying to be funny about, isn’t it?” he said resentfully. “Uncle was just rotting. Good lord, you don’t suppose I’ve fallen in love with a girl I’ve only seen once? It was just the likeness that worried me. That’s all. If it hadn’t been for that, I should never have noticed her. Good lord, why should I? A little thin slip of a girl. A country cottage girl, a smut on her nose, too. I remember that. She was cooking or something when I got there. That’s all. Uncle’s a jolly sight too fond of trying to be funny.”
Bobby made no comment. These were waters he had no need to try to navigate. Dick was showing himself flushed and indignant. He stared at Bobby as if daring him to contradiction. Bobby had a feeling that probably so Dick looked when one of his fits of ‘seeing red’ was approaching.
“The likeness is plain enough,” Dick grumbled. “Anyone would spot it at once. Nothing out of the way in that, is there?”
“Oh, no, I noticed it myself,” Bobby agreed; and won for himself a fresh and even more angry glare, as much as to say that if he had done so, it was like his impudence.
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