Murder in the Basement

by Anthony Berkeley

  “But you’ve nothing corroborative? The maids were no use?”

  After he had let Mrs. Harrison go, Moresby had proceeded with his interviewing of the rest of the staff, of the parlourmaid, Lily, and of the housemaid who looked after the rooms of the resident staff; but from none of them had he been able to obtain either corroboration of Mrs. Harrison’s testimony or any fresh information. Privately he did not consider that this mattered, but he knew that the superintendent would not see eye to eye with him on that point. Superintendent Green held the theory that no piece of evidence was really worth anything unless there was definite corroboration of it, a theory which, Moresby considered, had given its holder a good deal of unnecessary bother in working up his cases.

  “No, sir,” he said now. “I’ve no corroboration.” He did not add that in his opinion no corroboration was needed. “But there’s all the gossip about the two of them. That’s almost as good.”

  “Um,” observed Superintendent Green, implying that it wasn’t. “Well, what do you propose to do next?”

  “I thought of getting this Wargrave up here, and asking if he’d like to say anything about it.”

  “Make a statement, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “And account for his movements after the end of term?”

  “Well, I should like to hear what you think about that, Mr. Green. It’s my opinion that if I ask him that now he’ll go mum and refuse to say a word without a solicitor. He strikes me as that sort. And then it would only give away the fact that he’s under suspicion, and we’d get nothing out of it.”

  “Whereas...?”

  “Why, if I only have a friendly chat with him about the girl, as you might say, there’s no call for him to think anything else, is there? And if he did let drop something, well, we could follow it up a bit before we asked him about his movements.”

  His superior officer eyed Moresby with some distaste. A blunt man himself, Superintendent Green preferred blunt methods. “Trying to be a bit tricky, aren’t you?”

  “He’s a tricky one himself, sir,” deprecated Moresby.

  “Then he’ll see through you. No, you can do which you like, Moresby, but in your place I’d go straight for his movements. After all, it’s going to take us some time to check up on them after all these months, and it’s my opinion that the sooner you get on to that the better.”

  “Very well, Mr. Green,” Moresby agreed, with concealed resignation. “In that case I’d better go through everything with him. What he knows about building, I mean, and all that.”

  “I should say so. Take a full statement from him. And if he wants a solicitor, of course he must have one.”

  “Of course.” It was obvious that Moresby considered solicitors in the light of an obstacle in the paths of justice. Perhaps Moresby was not very wrong.

  Superintendent Green began to stuff an ancient briar pipe. “Well, what do you propose to do about the other end? Assuming you get nothing out of this Wargrave, where are you then? You know as well as I do that you’ll never get a conviction unless you can prove a connection between him and that house in Lewisham. How are you going to do that?”

  “I got hold of a snapshot of the girl at the school. It’s not a very good one, but there was no portrait. I’ve sent it up to the photographer to have an enlargement made, and as soon as I’ve got that Fox can take it down to Lewisham and find out if the neighbours recognise it.”

  “That’s all right. And what about him?”

  “There’ll be a photo of him going down to Lewisham with Fox too,” said Moresby, with as near an approach to a wink as a chief inspector may well bestow on a superintendent.

  “How did you get that?”

  “I met Blair, of the Evening Star, just outside when I was leaving. I told him that if he could get photographs for me of the staff, I might have something for him when the time’s ripe.”

  “Um.” Superintendent Green expressed neither approval nor the reverse of this Machiavellian maneuver. He lit his pipe, and puffed at it for a moment in silence.

  “Of course,” he said, after the pause, “as I said three or four months ago, the case would be clear enough as soon as the girl was identified. But it’s going to be a dickens of a case to prove. I know that, as well as you do. In fact, if the man used just ordinary precautions in getting her into the house (and I’ll bet he did that), and if nothing crops up to connect him with the house or Miss Staples in any other way—well, it’s going to be about as difficult a job as you’ve tackled yet, young Moresby.”

  “It is that, Mr. Green,” assented young Moresby gloomily, as he rose to go. “But we’ll get him yet, somehow.” His words expressed a good deal more optimism than he felt. It is an irritating position, but one in which Scotland Yard not infrequently finds itself, to know perfectly well who committed a particular crime and yet be unable to make the arrest for lack of proof sufficient to convince a jury. And in this case there was as yet hardly any proof at all.

  Moresby went back to his small bachelor flat to spend an evening in racking his brains; and the process did neither him nor the case any good at all.

  The first job next morning was to send Inspector Fox off to Lewisham, with the enlarged snapshot of Miss Waterhouse and the photograph of Wargrave from among those sent along by the reporter of the Evening Star. Moresby had little hope of any results from the visitation.

  In the meantime Sergeant Afford had gone off to Allingford in a police car to ask Mr. Wargrave, very politely, whether he would be good enough to accompany him back to Scotland Yard, as Chief Inspector Moresby wished to ask him a few further questions arising out of their interview yesterday. Mr. Wargrave was not informed that an unobtrusive person who had travelled down with the sergeant to Allingford had slipped out of the car at the entrance to the drive, taken cover behind some bushes until the car had passed him on its return journey with Mr. Wargrave unmistakably in the back seat, and then gone up to Roland House to present a search-warrant with the request that he might be turned loose in the room lately occupied by Miss Waterhouse. And even if he had been so informed, he might not have understood that the unobtrusive one’s real object, as soon as he was left alone upstairs in Roland House, was not the room lately occupied by Miss Waterhouse, but the room occupied at present by Mr. Wargrave.

  As a matter of principle Moresby kept Wargrave waiting for twenty minutes or so before sending for him. He had found that the atmosphere of Scotland Yard, allowed thus to sink slowly into anyone with a guilty conscience, tends to produce considerable pain and confusion in the mind of the suspect.

  No signs of pain or confusion were present, however, in Mr. Wargrave’s completely impassive face as he took the chair into which Moresby pressed him. He did not look even annoyed, as Moresby noticed with interest, in spite of his twenty minutes’ wait. In such cases, while the guilty are hard put to it to conceal a certain trepidation, the innocent are often angry and show it.

  At a table in a corner of the room sat a detective-constable with a knowledge of shorthand, and a paper-pad in front of him. Wargrave had not so much as glanced at him.

  A cool customer, thought Moresby, not without admiration, as he sat down and faced the other across his desk.

  “Now, sir,” he began, briskly enough, “I’m sorry I had to bring you here, but there are a few things I want to discuss with you that I thought we could go into better here than at Roland House.”

  Wargrave nodded shortly. So far he had not spoken a word beyond “Good morning.”

  “They’re mostly concerned with your relations with Miss Waterhouse. I thought perhaps you might like to make a statement concerning them.”

  Wargrave raised his heavy black eyebrows. “A statement?” he repeated, almost indifferently. “What on earth is there to make a statement about?”

  “As I said, Mr. Wargrave, your relations with Miss Waterhouse. You need
not of course make a statement if you don’t wish to do so. I have no power to compel you, not even to answer my questions; and it is my duty to warn you that anything you do say is entirely at your own risk.”

  “Very kind of you, indeed,” said Wargrave drily. “But I’m afraid I don’t understand. I had no ‘relations’ with Miss Waterhouse.”

  Moresby changed his tone to a less official one. “Now see here, sir, I don’t want you to think that I’m bluffing you, or trying to make you incriminate yourself by a trick, or anything like that. We don’t do that sort of thing here. So I’ll lay my cards on the table, and you can play to them or not just as you like. You know Miss Waterhouse was going to have a baby. I have certain evidence that you might have been its father. And, frankly, I should like to hear what you have to say on the matter.”

  “Then I’ll tell you at once,” returned Wargrave, not in the least perturbed. “Nothing!—Evidence, indeed. A lot of silly feminine gossip.”

  Moresby looked at him. “Oh, no, Mr. Wargrave. Something much more serious than that. When I say evidence, I mean evidence. I’ve no objection to telling you what it is. Miss Waterhouse was seen one night, nearly a year ago, going into your room.”

  The shot had got home. There was no doubt about that. For just a fraction of a second a flicker passed across the man’s face. The next instant he had recovered.

  “Nonsense. Who says so?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

  “I thought not,” Wargrave sneered.

  “Oh, I’m not inventing it, sir, if that’s what you mean. Am I to understand then that you deny anything of the kind?”

  “Certainly I do. If anyone did tell you such a preposterous thing, it’s a blank lie. That’s all.”

  “But relations of that kind did exist between you and Miss Waterhouse.”

  “You’ll pardon me, they did not. Nothing of the sort.”

  “You deny them completely?”

  “Completely.”

  Moresby sighed. He had known Wargrave was going to be difficult, and he was being difficult.

  “Very well, Mr. Wargrave. But if I were to suggest to you that Miss Waterhouse herself had confided to a friend . . . ?”

  “I should call you an infernal liar,” retorted Wargrave promptly.

  Moresby, who knew only too well that that is exactly what he would be did he make any such suggestion, sighed again. He tried a fresh cast. “You were in the war, sir?”

  “I was.”

  “You don’t mind telling me which regiment?”

  “Not in the least. The Northamptons.”

  “You saw active service with them?”

  “I did. The Seventh Service Battalion.”

  “You had a revolver, of course?”

  “Of course.”

  “A service revolver, or an automatic?”

  “An ordinary service revolver.”

  “Have you got it still?”

  This time Moresby was not so certain, but he fancied that the little flicker had again passed across Wargrave’s face. There was, however, no perceptible hesitation before he answered:

  “No.”

  “How is that?”

  “Do you mean, what has happened to it? I never brought it back to England at all. I was wounded in 1918, July, and my revolver was lost, with most of my kit.”

  “I see. Then you haven’t had it in your possession at all since the war?”

  “That was what I was trying to convey.”

  “Have you had any other revolver in your possession at any time since the war?”

  “No.”

  A blank end again. But at any rate Wargrave had not demanded the presence of a solicitor before he answered any questions. In a way Moresby rather wished that he had. The demand for a solicitor means the fear of incriminating oneself; and that usually means guilt. Wargrave seemed to be contemptuously dismissing the possibility of incriminating himself. The man’s self-confidence was enormous. And so far, Moresby had to admit, quite justified.

  He dropped his eyes from the ceiling, where they had been resting since Wargrave’s final denial of the possession of any shape, kind or semblance of a revolver, and fastened them once more on the other’s face.

  “Mr. Wargrave, have you any objection to making a statement as to your movements immediately after the end of your last summer term?”

  “Not the least,” Wargrave replied calmly, “if I can remember them. But I really would like to get this straight first. Have you or have you not got me under suspicion of having murdered Miss Waterhouse?” And he gave the chief inspector a short, humourless smile.

  For perhaps the first time in his official life Moresby found himself somewhat taken aback. It was the use of the word “murder” that had effected this phenomenon. Murderers never “murder.” Whoever else may murder, they do not. They may “slay”: they sometimes even “kill”: but they never, never “murder.” Moresby knew that the use of the word was bluff, but it was a kind of bluff to which he was unaccustomed. His opinion that Wargrave was a cool customer was confirmed.

  He did not answer the question directly. “It’s part of our routine here, sir, that everyone who was in contact with a murdered person shortly before the crime, should give an account of his or her movements at the time. There’s no question of suspicion in my asking you to do so. I shall take a dozen similar statements in connection with the death of Miss Waterhouse.”

  “I quite understand,” said Wargrave, and smiled again. Moresby had no difficulty in interpreting the smile. It said to him, quite plainly: Yes, you know I did it, and I know I did it, but you’ll never, never prove it, my good man.

  “Well, then, Mr. Wargrave,” he said, and added to the constable: “Gravestock, take this down, please.”

  Wargrave assumed an expression of deep thought. “Last summer term, now. Let me see. So far as I remember I left Allingford by the 11.17, to Euston, as usual. From there I took a taxi with my luggage to Charing Cross, and left my bags in the cloak-room. I forget how I spent the afternoon; doing odd jobs and so on; I think I turned into a cinema for a time. Anyhow, I caught a train at about six o’clock from Charing Cross to Grove Park, in Kent, where I was going to stay a week with a friend of mine. Wait a minute— was it those holidays? Yes, that’s right; I’m sure it was.”

  “The name of your friend, sir?”

  “Duffield. John Duffield. Wife’s name, Margaret Duffield. He’s employed at the British Museum. I was staying there just over a week. I can’t give you the exact dates. They may be able to.”

  “Had you any particular reason for staying there?”

  “I don’t understand you. Does one have to have a particular reason for staying with a friend? As a matter of fact I did invite myself, now you remind me. And yes, I had a particular reason. I had been giving some lectures at Roland House the previous term on elementary science, a subject in which I am interested, and I’d found that my knowledge on certain points had got very rusty. I wanted to put in a few days at the Science Museum, in South Kensington. I couldn’t afford to stay at an hotel in London, and I therefore asked Mr. Duffield if he could put me up. I had a standing invitation to go there whenever I wished; Mr. Duffield is a very old friend of mine.”

  Moresby nodded. Wargrave had an explanation for everything, of course.

  “Yes, and then?”

  “Then I went home. Twenty-seven Alma Road, Clitheroe, Lancashire, is my parents’ address. I stayed there for the rest of the holidays.”

  “And the date on which you went to Clitheroe?”

  “I can’t possibly tell you.”

  “And you visited the Science Museum while you were staying at Grove Park?”

  “Certainly. I spent a lot of time there.”

  “Every day?”

  “No. Most days.”

 
; “Can you tell me which days you spent there, and approximately how much time on each day?”

  “I can’t. I don’t keep a diary.”

  “You can’t give me any idea at all?”

  “None, I’m afraid.”

  “I see. Now, Mr. Wargrave, I’m going to ask you a question which there’s no need for you to answer if you don’t care to do so. Did you on any of those days on which you came up to London from Grove Park, or at any other time during your stay at Grove Park, see Miss Waterhouse?”

  “I’ve no objection at all to answering. I did not.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “That all I can do for you?” Wargrave asked ironically.

  “That’s all, Mr. Wargrave. If you’ll just go back to the waiting-room while your statement is being typed out, I’ll ask you to read it through and, if you approve of it, sign it; and after that, of course, you’ll be quite free to go.”

  Wargrave smiled without speaking.

  Moresby summoned a constable to conduct him back to the waiting-room.

  As soon as he had gone the chief inspector lifted the telephone receiver and put through a call to Clitheroe police station. In the interval of waiting he called up the station at Grove Park, and gave certain instructions.

  Then, having arranged for Wargrave to be shadowed when he left the building, Chief Inspector Moresby leaned back in his chair and frowned heavily at his desk.

  As he had expected, the interview had left him almost exactly where he had been before.

  “Well, he is a cool one all right,” said Chief Inspector Moresby handsomely.

  CHAPTER XII

  “Afford, my lad,” said Moresby after lunch. “I’ve got a rotten job for you. Take this photograph of Wargrave to Euston”—the excellent Blair had provided duplicates of all his photographs—“see if you can get hold of the porter who handled his luggage on the 2nd April last year, and find out if one of his cases was exceptionally heavy. Then go on to Charing Cross and do the same there. He put his luggage in the cloak-room at Charing Cross, so there’ll be two porters and a cloak-room man who handled it there. And if you can find any of ’em I’ll stand you a glass of beer this evening with my own hands.”