Murder Will Speak

by J. J. Connington

  Ruth Jessop explained this in such a matter-of-fact tone that it was clear she felt fully justified in what she had done.

  “H’m! Well, your conscience is your own affair, of course,” Sir Clinton admitted. “Let’s go on. You sent one of your productions to Mrs. Telford at Glen Terret, didn’t you?”

  Ruth glanced quickly at the Chief Constable’s face to see if she could detect whether he was bluffing or not. But she could read nothing on his features and evidently decided to tell the truth.

  “I . . . did send . . . her something,” she admitted hesitatingly.

  “You mentioned her visit to Lockhurst’s office in it?”

  “I . . . may perhaps . . . have mentioned it.”

  “Say yes or no,” said Sir Clinton, impatiently.

  “Well . . . then . . . yes.”

  “And I suppose you made some nasty comments, in your usual manner?”

  “I suppose . . . I did.”

  “And did you threaten to write to her husband in the same strain?”

  “I . . . I think . . . I did.”

  Evidently Ruth felt the change in the atmosphere as Sir Clinton put his questions. Hitherto the three men had been unsympathetic, now she sensed antagonism.

  “Very nice. Well, Miss Jessop, when your trial comes on and Mr. Telford learns who was at the back of these letters . . .”

  Sir Clinton’s expression made a completion of the sentence unnecessary. Ruth evidently read the worst into that significant pause.

  “You don’t mean he’d . . . hurt me?” she broke out in panic. “I never meant any harm. I didn’t, really, Sir Clinton. It was only a joke. Just a little fun. And, besides, if she didn’t want people to say things, she shouldn’t have misbehaved herself. Why should I suffer for her doings? It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair. You don’t think he’ll do anything really, Sir Clinton? You’re just saying that to frighten me, aren’t you? Oh! . . .”

  “That’ll do,” said the Chief Constable sternly. “I’ve more to ask you. In that letter you wrote to Mrs. Telford, did you mention Hyson’s name, or did you insinuate anything of the sort?”

  But his tactics had played him false. Ruth Jessop was reduced to a mere bundle of nerves, and it was plain that she could not recall what she had actually said in Nancy Telford’s letter.

  “I . . . don’t know. . . . I don’t . . . know,” she stammered between her sobs. “I’ve written so many letters. . . . Ever so many. . . . I can’t remember what I put in each of them. . . . I can’t. . . . It’s no use asking me. I don’t remember. I wish I could . . . but I can’t. I can’t.”

  “That sounds genuine,” said Sir Clinton, critically. “Well, if you can’t, you can’t.” He turned to Craythorn. “Take her away and make a formal charge against her on the basis that Mr. Duncannon gave you. Then let her out on bail. I take the responsibility for that.”

  Craythorn removed the hysterical woman, not without some difficulty.

  “That’s a nasty piece of goods,” said Duncannon, as the door closed behind the inspector and his prey. “I begin to see now why you were so anxious for me to run her down. Pity we couldn’t manage it quicker for you. But these things always take time, worse luck.”

  He paused, glanced at Sir Clinton’s face, and then continued:

  “Think Telford had a hand in Hyson’s death? It looked like it, from some of the questions you asked.”

  “Telford has a complete alibi according to evidence that Craythorn collected. Unless you can suggest a scheme for bringing him here from Glen Terret in twenty minutes or so.”

  “That sounds a bit difficult, I admit,” said Duncannon, with a laugh. “Then have you anyone else in view?”

  “I’m not much given to confidences,” the Chief Constable confessed, “but this is really in your field. Here’s the latest anonymous letter.”

  He took from his pocket the letter incriminating Barsett and spread it out on the table. Duncannon glanced over it.

  “Barsett?” he said, with a whistle. “Well, I’ve heard some rumours that might make it just possible, so far as a motive goes. But where did this production come from? Have you the envelope?”

  “The envelope was typed on Barsett’s own machine,” Sir Clinton explained. “But it’s easy enough to get access to that. His secretary, Miss Errington, uses it constantly; and any of the servants could find an opportunity of using it, no doubt.”

  “Miss Errington?” mused Duncannon. “She’s Mrs. Hyson’s sister, isn’t she?”

  “She is,” Sir Clinton confirmed.

  “And who was this man that the poison-pen dame saw in Hyson’s house that night? Barsett?”

  “You’re asking more questions than I can answer,” said Sir Clinton with a smile. “Hunts of this sort take time. No one knows that better than yourself.”

  “Meaning you won’t tell. Well, good hunting! Do you want me to take on this new recruit to the poison-pen brigade?”

  “I think this last thing has served its turn,” Sir Clinton assured him. “There won’t be any more from that source.”

  Duncannon took his leave. A few minutes later, Craythorn reappeared.

  “By the way, Inspector,” said the Chief Constable, “you might give the press some information about our arresting Miss Jessop — just a note of the arrest and no comments, of course.”

  Craythorn scratched his chin doubtfully when he heard this.

  “It’s not usual, sir,” he pointed out.

  “Thinking of sparing the poor thing’s feelings?” asked Sir Clinton. “I’m thinking of something quite different. Just do as I suggest, please.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Sir Clinton was busy jotting down some notes.

  “Phew! Telephoning is no joy of mine, but perhaps I may acquire the habit. Let’s see. The Post Office — not Duncannon’s branch. The city Electricity Department. Heston aerodrome might be the best place to get another tip. And a tobacconist, if I could find out his name. Four calls at least and two of them trunks. It’s a weary world, Inspector.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Key of the Fields

  “NANCY TELFORD’S death?” said Sir Clinton in answer to a question from Wendover. “Yes, it’s cleared up now. I’m not given to sentimentality, Squire, as you know; but that was a horrible affair. It’s sickening to see a girl like that made the sport of circumstance.”

  “I’ve heard no details,” Wendover pointed out soberly. “I went abroad after Mollie Keston’s wedding and my only news of the affair was a casual reference to it in a letter from someone. He said she’s committed suicide. I could hardly believe it; it seemed out of character, from what I knew of her, poor thing. Since it happened up in Glen Terret, I suppose you heard all about it from Forrest.”

  “The other way about, Squire. It was we who told Forrest all about it.”

  “I don’t see how,” Wendover declared. “You’ve nothing to do with affairs in Scotland. Tell me about it, will you?”

  Sir Clinton made a gesture of agreement and paused for a moment or two while he put his narrative in order.

  “Let’s start with Mollie Keston’s wedding, since you’ve mentioned it,” he began. “We met Nancy Telford there, you may remember. Can you recall what she talked about?”

  “Let’s think,” Wendover answered, racking his memory. “Oh, yes, kleptomania or something of that sort, wasn’t it?”

  “Irresistible cravings were what was in her mind,” said the Chief Constable, “and the struggle that their victim could put up against them. And when she left us, you remarked on the alteration in her looks; and we agreed that she had all the air of a young Jezebel.”

  “Yes,” admitted Wendover reluctantly. “She’d changed very much for the worse. It stared me in the face.”

  “No fault of hers, poor girl. Then you remember Malwood giving us a lecture on his pet glands and their secretions? How by the over-production of one particular hormone a woman might lose all control over herself and become lik
e Swinburne’s Faustine — ‘a love-machine.’ Now, as I learned later, Nancy Telford was one of Malwood’s patients. After that, it didn’t take much acuteness to put two and two together about the change in her bearing.”

  “I suppose there’s something in it,” said Wendover reluctantly, “but it’s not the kind of thing one cares to think much about. She was such a fascinating type before that, you know. I hate the idea. But didn’t Malwood tell us something about X rays?”

  “We’ll come to that later,” Sir Clinton said. “Stick to what we saw at the wedding. You may remember that soon after Nancy Telford left us, we saw her talking to a man who Malwood told me was Hyson. As you know, Squire, I’ve had to go into Hyson’s affairs lately. A rank bad lot, that fellow. He’d made his wife miserable, so far as he could. He had one of his office-typists — a girl Olive Lyndoch — as a mistress. And just about that time, he was getting tired of this Lyndoch girl and looking about for someone else for a change. It was Nancy Telford’s ill-luck that she ran up against him at a time when she was completely off her balance. He didn’t help her to regain it.”

  “You needn’t underscore that,” interrupted Wendover. “I see what you’re driving at. But Nancy Telford was head-over-ears in love with her husband. How could she do a thing like that?”

  “That’s where tragedy comes in,” retorted Sir Clinton gravely. “She was in love with Jim Telford, ardently in love with him. I’ve every reason to know it. And she was a perfectly straight girl, too. But that gland had gone wrong and the result threw her into Hyson’s hands. That was the irresistible craving she had in her mind when she spoke to us at the wedding. She did her level best to hold it in check, but the disease was too much for her. Imagine the thoughts and feelings of a straight girl landed in that position, Squire.”

  “Hardly bears thinking about,” Wendover commented gruffly. “Go on with the story.”

  “I got the next part confirmed by Malwood; but actually I’d pieced it together myself beforehand, so there’s no breach of confidence in telling you this. You remember what he told us at the wedding about some new X-ray gadget he’d set up? He tried it on Nancy Telford and made a complete cure, brought her wholly back to normal again, so far as the gland trouble went. But that didn’t efface the past for her, unfortunately. You know an epileptic can commit a murder during one of his lapses and wake up without knowing what he’s done. But suppose he does remember? What’s his state of mind likely to be, if he happens to be a decent, conscientious man? Nancy Telford was in much the same position. She could remember what she’d done; and, looking back on it from her new normal state of mind it must have been like waking up and remembering a nightmare. Only in her case the nightmare was real and not only a dream.”

  “Ghastly!” interjected Wendover, who had enough imagination to picture the thing himself.

  “Malwood noticed that although he had cured her gland trouble, she was very worried and depressed when she left his Institute. He hadn’t the key to the business, of course, so he didn’t quite know what to make of it. She might have got over it if she’d been left alone; but she’d no luck, poor girl. Someone else took a hand in the game. Go back to that wedding again, Squire. Can you remember what you and I and Malwood talked about after he’d finished telling us about glands? I asked you something about Neil Cream the poisoner. That may jog your memory.”

  “A local poison-pen pest, was that it?” asked Wendover after thinking for a moment or two.

  “Correct. And that was the next character in the tragedy. By ill-luck, that poison-pen creature saw Nancy going to one of her rendezvous with Hyson at the office. That was an opportunity not to be missed. So, by and by, when Nancy had gone back to Glen Terret, this creature sat down and wrote her a letter. I’ve seen it, Squire. Telford got it after his wife’s death. It was a diabolical production. It let Nancy know, in the crudest of language, that someone else knew her secret. That was bad enough, when the girl was doing her best to blot the whole thing out of her mind. But there was worse; for the poison-pen expert said quite plainly that the next move would be an anonymous letter to Jim Telford, giving the whole show away. It doesn’t need much imagination to guess what the effect of such a thing would be on a girl who already was in Nancy’s state of mind. She simply wasn’t fit to cope with the situation, and she took the key of the fields, as Montaigne puts it. She sat down and wrote a letter to Jim Telford. I’ve seen that too, a terrible letter. And then she went off up the glen and drowned herself in Hart Lynn. Young Telford found her body in the water.”

  “It wasn’t just an accident?” demanded Wendover. “She might have been careless, in that worked-up state, and slipped on the edge of the Lynn. It’s a dangerous place, at the best.”

  “No good, Squire. She’d strapped her ankles and wrists before jumping in, to make a sure thing of it. No, it was suicide, with every justification for a verdict of unsound mind, if they had coroner’s juries in Scotland.”

  “And what happened then?” asked Wendover.

  “Put yourself in young Telford’s place, Squire. What would you have done?”

  “Hushed it all up, of course,” Wendover declared unhesitatingly.

  “That’s what young Telford did. He suppressed the poison-pen letter and the one that Nancy had written to him. Told some yarn about Nancy having left a note asking him to follow her, and how he’d thrown that note into the stream on the way up, as it seemed of no importance. He stuck to his lies, fighting to save Nancy’s reputation, as any decent man would do in the circumstances. And he managed to satisfy the Procurator-Fiscal that there had been no foul play. Everyone was sorry for them, naturally. And that was the end of the business, so far as the public knew. He made just one slip.”

  “Forgot to take the straps from her wrists and ankles?” queried Wendover.

  “Yes, if he’d only done that, it might have passed for an accident, which would have been better still. But if he had thought of that, it would have been a bit too callous, in the circumstances, I think.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  With Most Miraculous Organ

  “NOW we come to Hyson’s death,” Sir Clinton continued.

  “But that’s never been cleared up,” interjected Wendover. “At least nothing’s come out in the newspapers to account for it.”

  “Something will have to come out at the adjourned inquest; but not more than I can help,” Sir Clinton explained. “I don’t mind telling you about it, though, Squire. I know you won’t bruit it abroad.”

  “Go on,” said Wendover, tacitly agreeing to this condition.

  “Turn back to Mollie Keston’s wedding again,” Sir Clinton began. “You remember, Squire, that you pointed out Mrs. Hyson to me there and told me a thing or two about her personal affairs. That came in useful when we were called on to investigate Hyson’s death. He was found dead in the kitchen, with his head in the gas-oven, and his body was discovered by the maid who came home about 10.15 P.M. after her afternoon and evening out. Inspector Craythorn was called in; and he noted a few things immediately. The first was that Hyson had got into a hopeless financial state; and, as we found later, he’d been stealing bonds and forging clients’ signatures right and left. So it looked like suicide. Apparently he’d gassed himself round about 8.30 P.M.”

  “That’s only a rough guess, I take it?” queried Wendover.

  “Merely approximate, of course. You know one can’t fix these things to a minute. Mrs. Hyson wasn’t on the premises. She came back again about twenty past eleven, with a curious tale. At ten to eight that evening someone had rung her up to say that there had been a burglary at the house of her sister, Miss Errington. Would she go over there? She took her car across and found there had been no burglary. She tried to ring up Hyson, but the line was dead; and next morning it turned out that the wires had been cut outside Hyson’s house.”

  “Did she recognise the voice on the phone?” asked Wendover.

  “No, it wasn’t clear. It reminded her of young
Telford’s voice, she said, but as young Telford was up in Glen Terret, she didn’t see how it could have been him. She stayed with her sister, according to her story, till 9.45 P.M. and then on the way home she picked up a friend at about ten o’clock, took her home, stayed there till after eleven, and then came home. Her sister and her friend confirmed this tale. They concluded that it was a practical joke. But actually there was a burglary in that district on the same evening; the house of a man Scarsdale was broken into.

  “Now our friend with the poison pen comes on the scene. She was run down eventually by the Post Office Investigation Branch expert, one Duncannon, and turned out to be a woman Ruth Jessop, a hanger-on of the Hyson circle; so I may as well use her name now to save circumlocution. One of her letters was found by Craythorn in the Hyson letter-box after Hyson’s death; and without going into details I may as well say that although it purported to have been posted it had actually been dropped into the box by hand. So there was someone who had been at the house at a critical time. But of course we did not know who she was at that stage.

  “This poison-pen letter was addressed to Hyson and accused him of ‘hugging girls’ at his office after hours and it also accused Mrs. Hyson of being Barsett’s mistress. Mrs. Hyson denied that at once to Craythorn as soon as the letter was opened. Still, Craythorn had his suspicions. Mrs. Hyson’s alibi depended on her sister; her sister was Barsett’s secretary; and Barsett was fond of Mrs. Hyson and could marry her only if Hyson was eliminated. These three were closely associated, and two of them had every reason to wish Hyson out of this world. So it might not have been suicide after all; murder was a possibility, with all three of them mixed up in it. And, besides, that cut telephone wire needed some explanation which didn’t suggest itself easily if it were mere suicide.

  “Next morning we went over the place. The electric clock in the drawing-room, where Hyson had been busy with his accounts, had stopped at 9.20 P.M., though none of the fuses in the circuit had ever been blown. There was some pipe tobacco and ash in the hearth which a tobacconist identified for us as Wainwright Trafalgar brand. Hyson smoked cigarettes only. Some flowers in a bowl on an occasional table were withered; there was no water in the bowl; and there was a wet patch on the carpet. Ergo, someone had upset the table and then stuffed the flowers back into the bowl. This suggested a struggle. Now the police surgeon had noticed a bruise on Hyson’s chin which was put down to his head falling and hitting the floor of the gas-oven when he went under. But assume a struggle, and that bruise might have got there by other means.”