Murder in the Basement

by Anthony Berkeley

  Mr. Harrison, he was glad to hear, was engaged in his study. He excused himself, on the plea that Amy must be busy, and said he would stroll round to the masters’ sitting-room and see if anyone were about. He was careful not to ask for Wargrave.

  The masters’ sitting-room was tenanted by Mr. Parker only, ensconced as usual behind The Times. He blew through his moustache a welcome, and plunged without hesitation into the topic of the moment.

  During the next fifteen minutes Mr. Parker rendered himself liable for a singularly long term of imprisonment for criminal libel. His opinion about the case was distressingly clear, and he voiced it no less firmly. If it was to be taken as representing the opinion of Roland House in toto, the wonder was that Wargrave had the effrontery to stay on in the place. Mr. Parker said as much, with manly directness. He also added, with no less clarity, what he himself would have done had he sat in Mr. Harrison’s chair. It was mainly connected with the toe of his boot and a certain portion of Mr. Wargrave’s anatomy.

  “And Rice?” said Roger, not without maliciousness. “He disagrees with you?”

  Mr. Parker filtered the suggestion indignantly through his moustache. “Disagrees with me? Why the devil should he? Good fellow, Rice. Very sound fellow indeed. Young perhaps, but very sound. Great pity he’s leaving us at the end of this term. Going to Cheltenham, you know; yes. Done the place a lot of good. ’Member those cricket teams of his, don’t you? Excellent idea. Makes the boys keen. Yes, very sound fellow, Rice.”

  Roger marvelled gently.

  Released from Mr. Parker’s presence, he wandered out into the garden. The wall which had been in the making last summer term was completed. Roger looked at it thoughtfully.

  Wargrave was not in the garden, and he was not on the playing-field, where Mr. Rice interrupted his refereeing of a game of rugger (hockey during the Easter term had been abandoned since Mr. Rice’s arrival) to come to the touch-line and offer Roger a hearty if muddy hand. He stayed for a few minutes, punctuating his repetition of Mr. Parker’s words with bellowed objurgations of this player or that.

  “You want to see Patterson, I expect?” he added. “Merriman, you ghastly idiot, why didn’t you pass? Don’t be so infernally selfish! —Well, it’s not your lucky day. He’s run up to town for the—Feet, stripes, use your feet ! — What was I saying?—Here, forward, forward! Scrum down.” His whistle blew vigorously.

  Roger left him.

  Wargrave was discovered at last, in the laboratory.

  “Hullo,” said Roger casually. “How are you, Wargrave? I’ve just run down to have a look round. I say, this is new, isn’t it?”

  Wargrave looked at him suspiciously from under his heavy brows. “Hullo, Sheringham,” he answered, with neither hostility nor friendliness. “Yes, this is new.”

  “Very nice. Going in for science here seriously?”

  “Harrison agrees with me that it will be just as well to offer a grounding in simple chemistry.”

  “That’s something new for a prep school.”

  “Yes.”

  The conversation looked like dying of inanition.

  “By the way, congratulations on your engagement.”

  “Thanks.”

  Roger fiddled with a test-tube. “Doing anything important? Am I interrupting you?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “I’ve just been down to the field. Rice seems to be going as strong as ever.”

  “Yes.”

  “I saw Parker in the masters’ sitting-room. Haven’t seen Duff yet.”

  “No?”

  Damn the man, thought Roger; one might as well try to make pleasant conversation to a slop-pail.

  He took the bull by the horns. “Well, and what do you think about Mary Waterhouse?”

  “You’ve heard what Rice and Parker think?” Wargrave asked, quite without rancour.

  “I have.”

  “Then you’d better not ask me. By the way, aren’t you connected with the police or something?”

  “Not connected with them, no. But I’m in touch with Scotland Yard, quite unofficially.”

  “Come down here to pump me?” Wargrave asked, with a dry smile.

  “Yes,” said Roger.

  Wargrave’s smile broadened a couple of millimetres. “Well, that’s frank, at any rate.”

  “I believe in frankness, That’s why I’m here this afternoon. Entirely on my own account, by the way, as an infernal busybody; nothing to do with Scotland Yard or anything like that.”

  “You find yourself interested?”

  “Naturally; having known her—and you.”

  Wargrave raised his black eyebrows a fraction of an inch, but did not speak. He seemed to be waiting.

  “Care to talk it over?” Roger asked, as casually as if the matter were what they should eat for dinner.

  “I’ve nothing to say.”

  “On the contrary, you’ve got a great deal: if you like to say it.”

  “Are you asking me to incriminate myself?”

  “No, exculpate.”

  “What exactly are you driving at, Sheringham?”

  Roger thought rapidly for a moment. The great thing was to induce Wargrave to talk, no matter what line he took; whatever line he did take was bound to be interesting. By all spiritual laws he must be bursting to talk, however he might conceal it. Since the business began he could not have had any kind of a confidant. Even to Amy he could not have divulged the reason for the police and the general suspicions of him. And however self-contained and self-sufficient a man may be, in a time of great mental stress a confidant is the natural safety-valve. Surely Wargrave’s mind must be nearing its explosion point.

  The difficulty was to choose just the right lever with which to persuade it to open.

  Roger made up his mind. “What am I driving at?” he said in his frankest tones. “I’ll tell you, quite candidly. The police believe you shot Mary Waterhouse: I don’t. I want to help you.” It was a speech which even Moresby would have shrunk from uttering.

  “Very kind of you,” said Wargrave indifferently, leaning back against the benching. “But I really don’t understand why you should wish to help me. Not that I need it, in any case.”

  “Well, put it that just for my own satisfaction I should like to show Scotland Yard that I’m right.”

  “To do that involves proving a case against somebody else. Is that what you mean?”

  “Not necessarily,” Roger said, making a note of the fact that Wargrave evidently had the decency not to wish this to be done, even to save himself. “You might have an alibi.”

  “Extending over several days? Well, I haven’t. How could I have, if I was in London and at large?”

  “Something of that nature, I mean, to show you couldn’t have committed the crime.”

  “There’s nothing to show that I didn’t commit the crime,” Wargrave replied drily. “On the other hand, there’s nothing to show that I did. So why worry? “

  “Damn it though, man,” Roger exclaimed, irritated by this cold-blooded cynicism, “don’t you even deny having committed it?”

  “Of course I do. Do you expect me to admit it?”

  “You seem to be tacitly almost admitting it.”

  “Then you misunderstand me,” said Wargrave, with something approaching a yawn. “I admit nothing. I deny everything. Nothing will ever be proved, one way or the other. The police know that as well as you and I do. I suppose they asked you to come down and see if you could soft-soap me. Well, you can’t.”

  Roger fought down an impulse to break one of his own retorts over the man’s head, and smiled. “I told you I’d come on my own account. I know it’s difficult for you to believe, but it’s true. What’s more, I’m not going to lose my temper with you. If you don’t want to talk to me about things of course you won’t. I don’t
want to force your confidences in any way.”

  “You won’t do that, don’t worry,” Wargrave said grimly.

  “On the other hand I’m quite prepared to give you mine. You didn’t seem to believe me just now when I told you that I didn’t think that you shot Mary Waterhouse, but that someone else did. I’ll amplify that and tell you just what I do think. It’s my belief,” said Roger, with complete and shameless untruth, “that it was Duff who shot her.”

  If his object had been to startle Wargrave, it had certainly succeeded.

  “Duff! Duff couldn’t shoot a rabbit.”

  “Oh, couldn’t he!” Roger retorted, with a knowing air.

  “What do you mean? How can you possibly think it was Duff?”

  “I’ll tell you. This crime has struck me from the very beginning,” Roger explained glibly and with what he hoped was sincerity, “as the crime of a weak man. There’s evidence of that all through, apart from the fundamental fact of murder being a sign of weakness in itself—as I remember actually pointing out to the chief inspector of the C.I.D. in charge of the case. ‘Moresby,’ I said, “murder is evidence of a weak character even when it’s a case of blackmailer and victim,’ ” Roger quoted, with extreme inaccuracy; “ ‘Wargrave is not a weak man; therefore he wouldn’t have had recourse to murder.’ ”

  “Oh! You said that, Sheringham, did you?” Wargrave had not the air of a man convinced.

  “I did,” Roger lied without a blush. “That’s what I thought then, and that’s what I still think.”

  “Good,” said Wargrave. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Roger looked at him hopefully, but even this striking tribute to his character did not seem to have moved him. A rock-like man, Wargrave.

  He tried a fresh cast.

  “That girl certainly took me in last summer. I thought butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth. The last person I should have suspected of being a professional crook. I wonder you had anything to do with her, Wargrave.”

  For the first time Wargrave showed some emotion. “Good heavens, you don’t imagine I knew any more than you did, do you? Of course I didn’t. I wouldn’t have looked at her if I had.”

  “Not even when she began blackmailing you?”

  Wargrave looked at him woodenly, but Roger made a gesture of impatience. “Oh, you needn’t be afraid of admitting that. That’s been perfectly obvious since the case began. Besides, anything you say to me here isn’t evidence. There’s no witness.”

  “Very well, then,” said Wargrave, rather sulkily. “Not even when she began—blackmailing me. She did it very cleverly. Played the little innocent right up to the end. —Right up to the last time I saw her,” he corrected himself hurriedly.

  “When did you find out that she was a gaol-bird, then?”

  “Not till your friend the chief inspector told me in his office, yesterday morning.”

  “It was a shock to you?”

  “Well, I was annoyed. With myself, in a way. I felt I’d allowed myself to be had.” It was an interesting and, Roger felt, a typical reaction.

  “She was a dangerous woman,” he said slowly, “and no loss to the world, whoever—removed her.”

  “Duff, for instance,” Wargrave sneered.

  “Duff, for instance,” Roger agreed gravely.

  They looked at each other.

  “Look here,” said Wargrave, “sorry, but I’ve got some work to do.”

  Roger nodded. “All right. I want a word with Duff, in any case.”

  Wargrave looked at him again, hard. “Don’t go and make a fool of yourself,” he said harshly. “You know perfectly well it wasn’t—Duff.”

  Roger did know perfectly well it wasn’t Duff.

  Even if he had wanted to talk to Duff, which he didn’t, there was no opportunity at the moment. It was nearly half-past four, and Amy had reminded him that there would be tea at half-past four in the drawing-room. Not even Roger dared to be late for Amy’s tea.

  Phyllis Harrison was already in the drawing-room, and greeted him with her usual mischievous smile. Roger liked her, and the two were able to keep the conversation going naturally enough for the next half-hour in spite of the stilted amiabilities of Amy, the heavy silence of Wargrave, and the rather absent and mechanical courtesies of Mr. Harrison. None of the other masters, nor Leila Jevons, was present; their teas were served separately.

  Before he went Roger had a short talk with Mr. Harrison, in the latter’s study. After all, he felt, when one wants information one may as well go to the fountain-head.

  “A shocking business, this of Miss Waterhouse,” he opened bluntly. The subject had been obviously taboo at tea.

  “Yes, yes,” mumbled Mr. Harrison, plainly a little taken aback. “Dreadful, dreadful.”

  “I’ve been in touch with Scotland Yard on the matter.”

  Mr. Harrison opened his watery blue eyes wide. “You, Sheringham? Ah, yes, of course; I remember. You occasionally do work for them, don’t you? And is that why . . . ?”

  “Partly. But I’m not exactly working for them at present. In fact, I’m here quite on my own.”

  “Indeed? Yes. Tell me,” said Mr. Harrison anxiously. “What do the police really think? Not, I hope, I sincerely hope, that . . . ?”

  “Well, I’m really not at liberty to say what they think.”

  “No, no. Of course not. I quite understand. But . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean, whatever the police may think, it is impossible not to realise what is thought here.”

  Roger was feeling his way over rather delicate ground. “Your daughter’s engagement,” he said carefully, “has not been broken off.”

  “No, no,” Mr. Harrison agreed in relief at this tactful way of introducing the Wargrave motif without the Wargrave name. “No, she wouldn’t hear of it. I felt it my duty . . . But no. She dismisses the rumours with contempt.”

  “And you?”

  “So do I,” averred Mr. Harrison stoutly. “So do I. Certainly. It’s unthinkable.”

  “Murder always is unthinkable.”

  Mr. Harrison winced slightly. “I suppose,” he said feebly, “it could not possibly have been suicide? I—I know very little about the details.”

  “Quite impossible.”

  “No,” said Mr. Harrison. “No.”

  “Why did you think it might be? I mean, why do you think she might have killed herself?”

  “Her condition . . .”

  “Girls don’t kill themselves for that nowadays.”

  “No,” Mr. Harrison agreed at once. “No.”

  “You had no other reason for thinking she might have committed suicide?”

  “I?” said Mr. Harrison, not without signs of confusion. “Indeed no. How should I?”

  “Why not be frank with me, Mr. Harrison? It can certainly do Wargrave no harm; it may do him quite a lot of good.”

  “I—I don’t understand what you mean, at all.”

  “I think you do,” Roger pressed him gently. “Shall I hazard a guess? Information reached you somehow or other, during that summer term, that Mary Waterhouse was a bad lot, an ex-gaolbird and all the rest of it. You privately gave her notice, but allowed it to be understood that she had resigned and let her put about the myth of the Australian fiancé. That is what is in your mind, isn’t it?”

  Mr. Harrison was staring at him with open mouth. “She did tell him then?” he managed to ejaculate.

  “I was right?” Roger crowed. It had been a sheer inspiration of the moment. “Information to that effect did reach you?”

  “I—I had an anonymous letter,” faltered Mr. Harrison, almost as if detected in some crime himself. “I taxed her with the contents. At first she denied it. Then she—she broke down and admitted that it was true. I—I told her that she would have to leave. You don’
t think, Sheringham, that . . . ?”

  “No, no,” Roger soothed. “That had no bearing on her death. It most certainly wasn’t suicide.”

  “Ah!”

  “And you told Wargrave about the contents of the letter?”

  “Certainly not,” Mr. Harrison repudiated with energy. “No, certainly I didn’t.”

  “Whom did you tell?”

  “No one. No one at all.”

  “Humph!” Roger stroked his chin. “An anonymous letter. Did you destroy it?”

  “Not immediately. I thought . . .”

  “Where did you keep it?”

  “In my desk here.”

  “Locked up?”

  “I—I don’t think so. I don’t really remember. Sheringham, I don’t understand what you . . .”

  “Never mind,” Roger soothed him again. “I was only wondering who had access to your desk.”

  “If you mean that anyone would have come prying among my private papers, I must say at once that such a thing would be quite out of the question here. Quite.”

  “Yes, yes. Well, never mind. It’s interesting, that’s all. You’re sure you haven’t got the letter still? ”

  “No, no. I threw it away after Miss Waterhouse had left.”

  “I see. That’s a pity. But you couldn’t know, of course, could you? Still, I wish you could remember whether you had it locked up or not.” Roger looked at the desk. “You do keep some of those drawers locked, I take it?”

  “I keep one locked.” Mr. Harrison hesitated. “I may have slipped the letter into it. I really can’t say. Is it so important? ”

  “No, no; it doesn’t matter. Well, I must be getting along. It’s been good of you to let me have this talk with you, Mr. Harrison, but I mustn’t take up any more of your time. I know how busy you are at the end of term. Oh, there is just one thing. You remember the school group that was taken while I was here last year? Somehow I never got a copy. I suppose you haven’t got a spare one you could let me buy, have you? ”