I Could Murder Her

by E. C. R. Lorac

  Anne suddenly broke off as the door was flung violently open and Paula stood in front of them, white-faced, blackeyed, shaking with rage.

  “You’re a liar, Anne! You’re a filthy liar! It’s none of it true. I’ve been listening at the door. Peter didn’t come downstairs at all, and neither did Madge. It was you who came downstairs! I was in the hall when you came down.”

  “Paula! You must be crazy!” cried Anne. “You know that’s not true.”

  “It is true! I wouldn’t have told anybody if you hadn’t started telling lies about Peter and me, but now I will tell! You hated Mother. You were always saying you hated her and you’d like to murder her. You said she made a hell of the house. It’s you who did it, you!”

  Her voice rose to a scream, and suddenly Madge appeared in the doorway. She went straight to Paula and smacked her face hard with a resounding smack.

  “Be quiet and leave off talking nonsense,” she snapped. “If you behave like a hysterical schoolgirl you’ll be treated as one. Be quiet, I say!” And with that she slapped her face again.

  Paula seemed to crumple up: tears streamed down her face and she gave a whimper of pain as Madge’s hard hand caught her face. “Now come and lie on your bed and don’t let’s hear any more of this nonsense,” snapped Madge. “Come along and don’t be such a silly little idiot, throwing hysterics like a half-wit.”

  She dragged the weeping girl out of the room, and Tony Strange mopped his face with a large white handkerchief.

  “My God!” he said helplessly. “My God! Are they all mad?”

  NINE

  “BUT WHAT WERE THEY AFTER?” demanded Reeves when Macdonald had given him a brief outline of the statements made by Tony and Anne Strange and of Paula’s hysterical outburst “The old lady must have been in a coma by that time, or about as near dead as makes no difference,” Reeves went on. “Scott reckoned she’d been dead nearly two hours when he examined her, so it’s no use Mr. Strange saying that Madge did the job about two in the morning. Insulin’s a delayed-action killer.”

  “The only person in the household who has enough information to realise that fact is Madge herself,” said Macdonald. “If she did this job, she would have known the time death was likely to occur, and she might well have gone downstairs to get Mrs. Farrington’s private notebook. I’m pretty certain we shall find no trace of that notebook.”

  Reeves stood and cogitated. The two detectives were talking in Peter’s bedroom—a bedroom now reduced to stark order by the competent Reeves.

  “The only evidence you’ve got for the existence of the book is Strange’s own statement, isn’t it?” said Reeves. “He hadn't told anybody else about it?”

  “No. He said it was a confidential matter between his mother and himself. Colonel Farrington knew nothing about it, and Dr. Baring isn’t alive to give evidence.”

  “Do you reckon Strange is telling the truth, or just trying to put it on Madge, as the old char suggested?” asked Reeves.

  “Somehow I do think that Strange was telling the truth about the book,” said Macdonald. “He’s not the type of chap who would risk an improvisation on the spur of the moment. I’m pretty sure of that. If he were going to fabricate some sort of story, he'd have planned it out in advance, and to make it more convincing he’d have told his wife in confidence about the notebook, so that there would have been some corroboration.”

  “Yes. I reckon you’re right there.” said Reeves. “One thing, this kid Paula seems to have blown the united-family story sky-high. It’s rum how people can get to hate one another when they’re all packed together in one house. If all these folks had had separate houses they’d never have boiled up this hate business. Old Mrs. Farrington ought to have sold this house and gone to live in Eastbourne or Cheltenham with her old man. Nice classy flats in South Ken for the young-married couples, a studio off King’s Road for the twins, and a reformatory matron’s job for Madge, and they’d all have been as right as rain. What d’you make of Madge, Chief? Old Pinks swears she’s good right through, and chars are generally fair judges of the women who boss them.”

  “I don’t know, Reeves,” said Macdonald. “I should think Madge was all right to start with, but she’s had a tough time. Any psychologist could tell you that the conditions she’s lived under were enough to drive any woman off the rails.”

  “These psychologists!” said Reeves. “Strikes me they get their livings by inventing difficult words to describe the things a plain bloke tumbles to by sheer common sense.”

  “That’s what they’re paid for,” said Macdonald. “If you and I were to talk common sense in the witness box, nobody would listen to us, so we get the psychologists to do their patter. But I’m a bit worried about Madge, all the same. She’s being too self-controlled and sensible and competent altogether. Paula blew off steam by having hysterics, Anne Strange flew into a tearing rage, Tony swore at the lot of them, and Madge coped with them all with a sort of hard, cold competence. It would seem more natural if she had hysterics for a change.”

  2

  Anne, in Macdonald’s presence, had repeated to Madge the evidence she had already given to Macdonald. Madge, white of face but perfectly self-controlled, had cross-examined Anne.

  “You say that you knew it was I who came downstairs. Could you see me?”

  “No. It was too dark.”

  “Then why didn’t you turn the light on? The switch was close by your hand—if you were standing by your bedroom door.”

  “I didn’t want to wake anybody up.”

  “How could it have woken anybody up? We don’t sleep with our bedroom doors open in this house. You say you heard somebody creeping down the stairs when you knew the twins were down in the hall and you didn’t even turn the light on or call Tony. If you’d really believed somebody was on the stairs you’d have done something about it.”

  “I thought it was you, Madge. I know the sound you make. I heard you come downstairs last week. It was about twelve o’clock. I had just opened my door to go to the bathroom.”

  Madge had turned to Macdonald. “Anne seems to think I play at being Lady Macbeth. After I’ve finished my day’s work in this house I’m quite tired enough without trapesing up and down stairs for exercise. I did not come down at twelve o’clock a week ago. I did not come downstairs last night, and if Anne had thought I did she would have told Tony about it straight away. And if she thought the twins were fooling about in the hall she would have turned the light on to see what they were up to, just as I should have done.”

  “Why didn’t you turn the light on, Anne?” demanded Tony, and then Anne had wept. It was, as Reeves said, “a jolly old mix-up.” Three different stories. Anne’s, Paula’s, and Madge’s.

  When Macdonald opened the locked door of Mrs. Farrington’s bedroom he stood and considered the room. It was perfectly tidy. The bedclothes had been taken away, and the handsome old-fashioned double bed with its box-spring mattress was bare and immaculate. There was a fine rosewood suite—dressing table, tallboy, wardrobe, and cheval glass. A small Chippendale table stood beside the bed, fitted with a plate-glass top. Here lay a Bible and prayer book and a suede-covered booklet of devotional verse; there was a shaded hand lamp and a small wooden box inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Inside the box were some keys, a gold chain with a pencil on it, a box of matches, a locket with a miniature portrait of an elderly woman, and some rings.

  Macdonald stood still while Reeves powdered the box for fingerprints.

  “No go. Only smears. It’s been rubbed, or else handled with gloves on,” said Reeves.

  Macdonald looked at the keys and then glanced round the room.

  “The safe’s in the corner there, under that chintz curtain,” said Reeves. “Here you are. Burglar’s delight. Funny the way these old dames dote on them.”

  Macdonald took one of the keys and unlocked the small safe. In it were some jewel cases, some silver cups, and various papers.

  “The notebook’s not there. I wonder
where she kept it,” said Reeves. “Must have been in this room. She’d never have risked leaving it in the drawing room. There’s a drawer in that bedside table; might be in that. The drawer’s locked.”

  “It might have been kept there, but I’m quite sure it’s not there now,” said Macdonald. He was taking the papers out of the safe, using a pair of forceps, while Reeves opened the locked drawer with a skeleton key.

  “No notebook, only the old lady’s handbag, bungfull of letters and what nots. It’s amazing the way these dames carry their bags round chock-full of what-have-yous. I always tell my missis she puts everything in her bag bar the kitchen range. What have you got amongst your lot, Chief?”

  “The documents you would expect a businesslike woman to keep. ‘Copy of my Will. Original with lawyers.’ Copies of deeds, list of personal jewellery. That’s the one that’s going to interest us, I fancy.”

  He spread out the typed sheet on the top of the chest of drawers, and Reeves came over to look at it.

  “You reckon somebody’s pinched something?” he inquired.

  Macdonald nodded. “That’s my guess. It’s likely that several people in this house have uneasy consciences, but the twins, being young and inexperienced, are less able to conceal their uneasiness, or even to clamp it down with a pretence that nobody will be able to prove anything. I think the sequence followed this pattern. Paula came in to see her mother about six on Monday evening, ostensibly to ask for the key of the glass cabinet. Being quick-witted and nimblefingered, she managed to get the key of the safe at the same time. If her mother had missed it during the course of the evening, Paula could easily have come down and pretended to find it on the floor. At two o’clock, when the party left, Paula came in here, crept across to the safe with her torch, and helped herself to something of value. At least that’s my guess.”

  Reeves nodded. “Could be, Chief. The old man told several people he’d given his wife a sleeping tablet, and Paula seems to know all about listening at keyholes.”

  “We’d better check up and see if anything’s missing before we get any farther ahead of ourselves,” said Macdonald. “I’ll shift the cases with forceps, and you can test them for dabs as we go.”

  “Right, but she’d’ve worn gloves,” said Reeves. “That’s one of the things these youngsters would be certain to remember.”

  3

  “Well, that conforms to expectations,” said Macdonald after they had checked the jewellery in the cases against the list. “There’s one diamond ring missing, valued at £250, and one diamond brooch, valued at £200. They are the most valuable items, and the easiest to raise money on. There’s always a market for diamonds. Those pearls cost a lot of money, but there’s no sale for pearls today according to the jewellers.”

  “I wonder where she sold them,” pondered Reeves, and Macdonald replied:

  “I doubt if she’s tried to sell them. Scott’s demand for a p.m. would have been a red light. She wouldn’t have risked it. Also, if Mrs. Pinks is telling the truth, Peter still needs the money to get him out of whatever jam it is he’s in. I’ve put Jenkins on to that. I think it’s probable that Paula took the rings, while Peter kept cave outside the door. So Peter knows all about it, and when he heard that the C.I.D. had turned up this morning he panicked and tried to finish himself off with morphia. At least that makes as reasonable an explanation as anything else.”

  “O.K.,” said Reeves; “but let’s see if we can straighten out this story about half the family being on the stairs at two o’clock in the morning. Can we make sense of it?”

  Macdonald sat down on the edge of the well-sprung bed, and Reeves took Mrs. Farrington’s comfortable dressing stool.

  “One thing’s perfectly plain. The twins had to conduct their party out of the house,” said Macdonald. “Paula and Anne both told the same story about that. Paula carried a torch, and they all crept downstairs without their shoes on. I think this extreme caution was used to avoid waking up any other member of the household. Anne said she saw a light shine across the hall when the front door was opened, and Paula says she went outside with her guests. That’s also quite probable, to ensure that they didn’t make any noise on the steps. Then I should guess that Paula slipped inside again and came into this room and crept across to the safe with her torch, unlocked it, took the two cases she wanted, locked the safe again, put back the key in the box, and crept out. How long would that have taken her. Reeves? Try it out. Remember she’s a dancer and therefore neat on her feet. She had no shoes on, and I think she’d have walked across the room, not crawled.”

  Reeves went promptly to the door. “She’d have stood still and listened to the old lady’s breathing to make sure she was asleep. Say two seconds,” he said. “Across the room to the safe . . . twelve steps . . . I make it ten seconds. She could have risked putting on her torch to make sure the way was clear. Unlock the safe . . . pick up the two cases . . . they were all laid out easy to see. Lock the safe . . . I could do all that in twenty seconds. Back across the room, another ten seconds, plus five for putting the key of that safe in the box. That’s forty-seven seconds. Even if you double the time I took, that’s only about a minute and a half. All that’s plain sailing, but what about the other dame who came downstairs? Or is that just one of those stories?”

  “I don’t know,” said Macdonald. “Our theory at present is that Peter kept watch in the hall. There’s a possibility that Paula risked coming in here while Peter was seeing the party off on the doorstep. If that’s correct, the second woman could have come downstairs and gone into the drawing room or else down to the kitchen without realising that the twins were still downstairs, and then the twins went upstairs again, as Anne suggested.”

  “It all depends on who you’re going to believe, if anybody,” said Reeves. “They all sound a bit phony. Why didn’t Mrs. Strange tell her husband that Madge had been creeping around at night? Why didn’t Paula ask Anne next morning what she’d been doing in Mrs. Farrington’s room?”

  “I think you’ve got to bear this in mind,” said Macdonald. “They were all frightened next morning. It’s probable that if Paula came into this room at two o’clock on the Monday night, she realised her mother was in a bad way. That would account for why she listened on the landing when Scott came next morning. When Scott demanded a p.m., Madge was frightened, too. Whether she’s guilty or not, she’d have realised that she was in for trouble. I’m willing to believe that Anne didn’t turn the light up or speak to her husband at two o’clock in the morning because he’s probably very bad-tempered if he’s woken up unnecessarily, and when morning came and she heard what had happened she w'as frightened, too, and determined to keep quiet and hope for the best. You know and I know that people who are frightened often tell lies, Reeves.”

  Reeves chuckled. “You’re telling me. Sometime in this case a psychologist wallah’s going to explain to you and me how fear develops a defence mechanism and the subject will overcompensate by inventing symbols. I pass the fear business all right, but I always like to know just what they’re afraid of. Paula probably pinched the doings, so she’s very good reason to be in a blue funk. Madge may have pinched the qualified notebook, and anyway, she threatened the old lady, and she knows that we know that she knows all about insulin; it’s plain enough-she’s got enough to rattle her. But why has Anne Strange got the jitters, too?”

  “Because she not only hated Mrs. Farrington, she’d let other people know she’d hated her, and she was about on the stairs during the night, to say nothing of being left in charge of deceased earlier in the evening. Anne Strange was on this floor, by herself as far as we know, for a whole hour on Monday evening.”

  “And come to think of it, that’s probably when the job was done, during that hour,” mused Reeves.

  “And during that hour Madge says she was walking round the Inner Circle and Paula says she was busy with her party upstairs,” said Macdonald. “Well, having chewed it over a bit, we’d better get on.”

>   “Read the will next,” said Reeves cheerfully. “I’m a great believer in wills. Hate’s a motive and fear’s a motive, but greed’s stronger than either. The bloke who chalked up greed among the seven deadly sins knew his stuff.”

  4

  Mrs. Farrington’s will was a very straightforward affair. Windermere House and its contents was left to Tony Strange; the income from the invested capital, which was assessed by Macdonald at £2,000 a year, was left to Colonel Farrington for his lifetime, thereafter to be divided among Tony, Joyce, Paula, and Peter. The jewellery was divided between Paula and Joyce. Madge’s name was not mentioned.

  “Ungrateful old devil,” said Reeves, commenting on this omission. “Madge has worked like a slavey in this house and doesn’t even get a thank-you. I hope her pa lives long enough to save her a nice little bit.”

  “The missing diamonds are left to Joyce,” observed Macdonald.

  “She’s the one who hasn’t showed up yet,” said Reeves. “Perhaps she had the bright idea of pinching them first and claiming the insurance afterwards. Double value from dear departed. Now what about this notebook? I’d better go through all the doings.”