“And what then?”
Santon shot Wharton a look. I thought myself that the calmly official voice wasn’t too helpful.
“Then I had to think, and think quick. I said I’d do it, but the battery of the car was out of order, and it’d take me a few minutes to put it right. Also I’d have to ring Major Travers about the trip being off. Instead of that I rang Chevalle and told him to come here at the double. I couldn’t tell him any more, in case she should overhear, except that his wife was at Little Foxes and threatening to shoot herself. Then I went back to her—she was in the lounge—and said if she’d go home I’d call for her there in about ten minutes. She wouldn’t budge. I think she knew I was trying to double-cross her.”
He gave Chevalle another look.
“That really suited my book better, because Chevalle would find her here when he got here himself. So I got on with the car battery, and then she came out to watch. I pretended to be furious. I said what would anybody think who happened to call. She said she couldn’t stand being in the house alone. So I said, ‘Why don’t you sit in the summer-house?’ Then she said perhaps she would. And that was the last I saw of her. I heard Chevalle’s car, and as soon as he came through the gate I called to him. I had to take a risk about that, but I hoped she was in here.”
“Give me the exact words, if you don’t mind,” Wharton said.
“Well, I was on my back, making a show in case she suddenly turned up again. I didn’t actually know at first that it was Chevalle. I said, ‘That you, Chevalle?’ and he said, ‘Yes, it’s me,’ or something like that. I said, ‘Hang on just a second and I’ll be there.’ Then practically at the same moment I heard the shot. ‘My God!’ I said, ‘what’s that!’ By the time I was out from under the car he was gone. He thought the shot came from just behind the house, so he went through the front door. I sprinted after him, and then I remembered the summer-house.”
“You got here first?”
“I think we both got here together,” he said, and gave Chevalle another look.
“Here’s the doctor,” Chevalle said quietly.
The doctor—the same elderly man who’d been at Five Oaks—was looking inquiringly through the hedge arch.
“Who told you to come here, Doctor?” Wharton asked him, and it was a question I should have thought of myself.
“Commander Santon rang me,” he said, and looked surprised.
“I had to go to the house to warn those people who were waiting for me at Upford, so Chevalle asked me to ring the doctor and then you,” Santon explained.
“And what is it this time?” the doctor asked breezily.
But there was nothing of the flippant on his face when he saw what lay on the floor.
“No need to worry about time of death,” Chevalle told him quietly. “She died just as I got here.”
“My God, Chevalle, I’m sorry.”
Chevalle shook his head and turned away.
“Got the ambulance?” Wharton said. “Then you’d better get her away. I’ll lend you a hand. Through this door here.”
He slipped on a glove and picked up the gun by the barrel and laid it on the table by the hand-bag. A quick chalk mark round the body and he was ready. I caught a look which told me to stay.
I watched from the window. In the drive I could just see the rear of the ambulance where the doctor had parked it by the house. Then Santon was clearing his throat close by me, and I turned.
“Mind if I put that car of mine in and shut the garage?” he asked. “Too many gipsies about here for my liking.”
“Do,” I said, and then looked round for Chevalle. He was standing with his back to me at the far end of the court, but as Santon moved off, he turned and came slowly back.
“Saying it’s inadequate enough, God knows,” I said, “but I’m sorry about all this, Chevalle. If only I could have done something—”
“Neither you nor I nor anyone could have done anything,” he told me quietly. “But it was kind of you to say so, Travers. I know you meant it.”
We heard the ambulance move off and in a couple of minutes Wharton was back.
“Where’s the Commander?” he was asking at once. “That’s all right,” he said, when I explained. “All the better without him for a minute or two. Now what about you, Chevalle? Like to tell me your side of things?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Chevalle began, and his voice was quiet but perfectly calm. “Everything Santon said was correct. He rang me and said my wife was at his place and threatening to shoot herself, and would I come at once, and I did. When I got inside the gate he told me to wait a minute—”
“You saw him?”
“Saw him? Of course I saw him. He was just getting out from under his car. Then I heard the shot, and him calling again. I didn’t know if it was in the house, or where, so I ran to the front door. There was nothing in either of the rooms so I went out at the back. Then I sort of half remembered where the sound had come from.” Wharton nodded. “That’s clear enough. But may I ask a question or two?”
“Why not?”
“Well, it may be like rubbing salt in an open wound,” Wharton told him with a shake of the head. “But did I gather that you actually saw her die?”
Chevalle stood rigid for a moment or two. “Yes,” he said. “I might say I heard her very last breath.”
“Well, the doctor thought she might have lived a minute or two after the shot,” Wharton said. “But one more question. Why should she have shot herself after all? I took all that threatening to Santon as very much of a bluff.”
“You’d driven her pretty hard, Wharton,” Chevalle told him curtly. “I’m not blaming you, mind you. I’m stating a fact. As to why she did actually shoot herself, I think it was because she saw me coming in that front gate. She knew Santon had double-crossed her, as he put it.”
“She knew this summer-house well?”
Chevalle gave a little grunt. “We’ve played tennis here often enough. She probably knew this garden as well as her own.”
“Well, so far I’m satisfied,” Wharton said. “But there’s the Commander looking for us.”
He hollered to Santon that we’d be at the garage in a couple of shakes, and then he was picking up that little gun by the barrel. It was the kind that could be hidden in a good-sized hand, and as he pointed a finger below the barrel I could only just read the incision marks of name and maker. It was Italian and looked beautifully made.
He broke the barrel and we could see that the six chambers had been full, and one shot fired. He squinted along the barrel and then had a look at the tiny empty case that had been lying beneath the table. Then from his wallet he produced something wrapped in tissue paper. It was a bullet and he showed it to Chevalle.
“The one that killed Maddon?” Chevalle said.
“Yes,” Wharton told him and slipped it into the empty chamber. He took it out and slipped it in again and each time it went in smooth and fitted snug.
“What you’re trying to tell me is that my wife killed Maddon.”
His eyes had narrowed, and it was the first time that morning he had shown any sign of feeling, at least in Wharton’s presence. Wharton shrugged his shoulders and began wrapping up that bullet again.
“You’re wrong, Wharton,” Chevalle told him, and his voice had a cold anger. “It may be the bullet and the gun, but she didn’t use it. How could she? Tell me that.”
“Now, now, now,” Wharton told him, as if to a child. “Surely you can trust me to do what’s right? There’s going to be no scandal. I give you my word on that.” Then he was shaking his head. “But one thing you can’t shut your eyes to. Her hand was the last to hold this gun.”
“There’s still the paraffin test,” Chevalle told him dourly.
“I know it,” Wharton said evenly. “That’s the first thing the doctor’s going to do. Inside half an hour we ought to know.”
We adjourned to the front of the house for a reconstruction of the brief happenin
gs after Chevalle’s first arrival. Chevalle was looking grim and taciturn and I knew that in his heart of hearts he was blaming Wharton for that suicide. The taciturnity seemed to upset Santon. When we joined him he remarked with something of his old cheeriness that perhaps we’d like to look at the garage, and when there was no reply, he gave a quick look at us.
“All in good time,” Wharton told him.
It was Chevalle he was placing first, and at the front gate. When Wharton called from the garage he was to enter. Then Santon would call and Chevalle was to halt just where Santon’s voice had halted him.
Then the three of us went to the garage. Santon pushed the car out to where it was before and got his legs under the running board.
“I know it doesn’t look to you as if I’m doing anything to a battery,” he said, “but she wasn’t to know that. What I wanted was a position where I could watch for Chevalle and be pretending to do something if she happened to come here again.”
“I’ve got you,” Wharton said, and called to Chevalle to come through the gate. Santon was calling then.
“That you, Chevalle?”
“It’s me,” Chevalle called back, and then halted.
“I didn’t think he’d have heard it,” Wharton told me. “Did you hear it clear enough, Chevalle?”
“Quite clear enough.”
“Right, then,” Wharton said. “Carry on, Commander.”
“Hang on and I’ll be with you in a second,” Santon called.
Chevalle strolled on towards the front door, and then Wharton slapped a piece of wood against the garage door to make a bang.
“My God! what’s that!” Santon called.
Chevalle was already at the front door and out of sight. Wharton and I moved round to the back of the house to watch him emerge.
“Carry on!” Wharton called to him. “Do just what you did then!”
Chevalle made as if to go towards the orchard, then changed his mind and made for the hedge arch.
“Right!” called Wharton. “That’s all I want.”
Next came Santon again. He wriggled out from under the car and made for the front door. A moment’s halt and he was making for the back of the house.
“Stand fast!” called Wharton. “I think that’s about all.” We went to the lounge for a brief final talk. Wharton gave a quick sniff as he entered and I knew what he’d caught —that perfume of Thora Chevalle’s. But it was very faint, and so was that quick sniff of his, for Chevalle gave no sign that he had heard it.
“About the inquest,” Wharton began. “I’ll take it off your hands, Chevalle, if you’ll tell me the ropes. Tomorrow morning suit you?”
“The sooner the better,” Chevalle said, and looked away. “Well, we’re all men of good will,” Wharton announced. “We don’t want scandal and we’re not going to ask for it. What do you say, Commander?”
“I don’t know anything about Maddon, and I don’t want to,” Santon said. “I don’t think his name need be mentioned.”
“That’s just my idea,” Wharton told him. “We’ll cook no evidence, but all the same there’s no need to bring in what’s unnecessary. What do you say, Chevalle?”
“What can I say?—I’m grateful. And I’m sorry for some of the things I said this morning.”
Wharton’s hand went to his shoulder. “You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with. Still, there we are. You can see me at the Wheatsheaf this afternoon, Commander? Say, three o’clock.”
Santon said he’d be there.
“You’re going to Porthaven?” Wharton asked Chevalle. “No,” Chevalle said. “If Santon doesn’t mind my using his telephone, I’ll ring the office up. Then I shall go home. I think I ought to be there when Mary gets back.”
“Try and get a message through to the doctor,” Wharton told him. “If he’s made that test, ask him to send the result to Bassetts.”
Santon asked rather diffidently if we’d have a drink, but none of us felt like it. Then we caught a glimpse of Tom Dewball coming past the window with a huge bundle of stakes across his shoulder. Wharton was asking questions about him when Chevalle came back.
“If you’re going straight home, I’ll go with you,” Wharton said. “There’s just a thing or two I’d like to check up on. See you at three o’clock this afternoon, Commander.”
He shook hands with Santon and then we moved off in our respective cars. Mary was still out, but Chevalle’s key let us in. Thora Chevalle’s bedroom door was locked, but Chevalle said he’d find a key. When he’d gone, Wharton looked in the hand-bag and there a key was. It fitted, but he didn’t use it after all.
Inside the room were a very large trunk, locked and ready to be moved, and a large case that needed only to be fastened. Each was labelled Charing Cross.
“Well, that seems to settle everything,” Wharton said, and his sigh was definitely one of relief. “And I can only say I’m sorry. All the same, I don’t think I could have acted differently from what I did.”
“I was wrong,” Chevalle said, and held out his hand. “Don’t think me callous, Wharton, but these last few days I’ve had about as much as I could stand.”
“Forget it. Forget everything, as I shall. See you this afternoon, at the Wheatsheaf.”
“I’ll be there,” Chevalle told him gravely.
Then the telephone bell went. It was the doctor ringing from Porthaven to say the test had been positive. Merely a quick try-out, of course, but definitely positive.
“That’s that then,” said Wharton, and gave another sigh. Then he held out his hand again and with a quick nod was making for the door. As we got into his car and he began to reverse, the bus from Porthaven slowed down behind us and as we headed for the village I saw Mary and Clarice go through the gate.
“A hell of a morning,” George said to me. “Whoever’d have thought it!”
I formally agreed with both remarks.
“Looks as if my time down here is pretty nearly over,” he went on.
“Unless anything else comes out at the inquest,” I said.
He didn’t glare, which was what I expected. His tone was positively mild.
“What should come out? I don’t reckon there was much we didn’t run our rule over this morning.”
“You certainly made a good job of it,” I told him. “But I would like to know one thing, if only for my own peace of mind. I’d like to prove that Mrs. Chevalle did kill Maddon.”
“I’ll rush that gun to Town,” he said, “as soon as I get the bullet out of her head. Then we’ll know.”
I shrugged my shoulders. It was a gesture that would often infuriate him, but now he merely changed the subject.
“You going to be in all day?”
“I may go for a stroll,” I said.
He was drawing up the car before Ringlands. “If I don’t see you before, I’ll see you at the inquest,” he said. “I’ll try and fix it for eleven.”
I waved a good-bye from the gate and made my way down the path. Helen came out to meet me.
“Had a nice ride?” she said.
I motioned her across to the summer-house and told her in confidence what had happened. She was shocked but there was nothing remotely resembling tears. In fact, by the time we were in the house she was showing a mild excitement, and I knew she was visualising the wedding of Chevalle and Mary Carter. What Wharton was thinking at that moment I could probably guess too—how to make a first-class show of doing his duty and at the same time keep Chevalle’s name clear.
I was feeling something of the same sort too. But I was not like George, I could tell myself. I was a free-lance, and the owner of a damnably suspicious mind. Things that morning had fallen out too pat for all concerned. Thora Chevalle had committed suicide, and, very conveniently on someone else’s property. Chevalle had got rid of a woman who had been an incubus for years, and whose final exploit had been complicity at least in the murder of Maddon. Now everything would be nicely hushed up, and everything in the garden lovely.
/> And why not? Since I had liked Chevalle from the start and Mary Carter even more, and had detested Thora Chevalle as heartily, the morning’s happenings ought to have pleased me enormously. But somehow they didn’t. If you wonder why, I can only refer you to that strain of cussedness in my make-up. Things, I told myself, just didn’t happen like that in real life, and my personal likes and dislikes were nothing whatever to do with the facts.
Not that I intended to try and put a spoke in anybody’s wheel. If Wharton was going to be satisfied, then I should be so too—at least on the surface of things. After all, I was a free-lance and without a vestige of authority. Even if to satisfy my insatiable curiosity I did discover something—and I suspected a good deal already—then I could keep it to myself. There were certainly things I did want to discover, for they were bound up with that fine new theory of mine, and what had happened that morning had gone far towards making it not theory, but incontrovertible fact. Of all the jigsaw, two or three pieces only refused to fit in place, and of them the one that nagged at me most was Orlando’s photograph.
CHAPTER XIII
THEORY AND PROOF
The time has come, it seems to me, to lay some of my cards on the table. I want to play fair with you, and at the same time be fair to myself. You will have noticed that I said “some of the cards.” That is where the fairness to myself comes in, for you can’t expect me to tell the contents of a hand till the last card has been dealt.
As for playing fair with you, that’s much easier. I have been mentioning a mysterious theory. Maybe you have guessed what it is, but if you haven’t, then here is an inkling. Who was the one to gain most by the death of Thora Chevalle?
That’s easy, you may say. Chevalle himself stood to gain most. He was rid of a wife he had come to loathe and despise, and if the killing of Maddon could be glossed over, he had no fear of a scandal that might possibly force him to resign. Moreover, he was now free to marry Mary Carter. Now that motive might seem to any person of intelligence to be so overwhelmingly strong that Chevalle simply must have had a hand in the death of his wife. But if it were so, then how could I prove it? Not to Wharton, I repeat, but for my own satisfaction. How would that fit into the general theory of which the death of Thora Chevalle was only a part?
The Case of the Platinum Blonde: A Ludovic Travers Mystery Page 16