Murder at the Manor

by Martin Edwards

  They saw him disappear in a two-seater towards The Towers. In little more than an hour he reappeared again and delighted the company by singing one or two popular revue songs in a fruity baritone. But, as the line of cars went homeward in the dusk, Bletherby Marge said to Blowhard, seated beside him, “I want to see you again in the shrubbery to-morrow at ten-thirty prompt. Don’t begin playing clock-golf.”

  Inspector Blowhard made a note of the time in his pocketbook.

  IV

  “Perhaps you wonder why I went away in the middle of our little outing?” questioned Marge, as they stood together under the fatal sycamore tree.

  “I suspected,” answered Blowhard, without moving a muscle of his face, except the ones he used for speaking, “that it was a ruse.”

  “It was,” replied Marge.

  Without another word he took a small folding broom from his pocket and brushed aside the dead leaves which strewed the ground of the shrubbery.

  The dark mould was covered with foot-prints, large and small.

  “What do you deduce from this?” cried Blowhard, his eyes bulging from his head.

  “When I returned from the picnic,” explained the great detective, “I first swept the ground clear as you see it now. I then hastily collected all the outdoor shoes in the house.”

  “All?”

  “Every one. I brought them to the shrubbery on a wheelbarrow. I locked the servants, as though by accident, in the kitchen and the gardener in the tool-shed. I then compared the shoes with these imprints, and found that every one of them was a fit.”

  “Which means?”

  “That every one of them was here when the murder took place. I have reconstructed the scene exactly. The marks of the shoes stretch in a long line, as you will observe, from a point close to the tree almost to the edge of the tennis-lawn. The heels are very deeply imprinted; the mark of the toes is very light indeed.”

  He paused and looked at Blowhard.

  “I suppose you see now how the murder was done?” he barked loudly.

  “No,” mewed the inspector quietly.

  “Ponderby-Wilkins,” said Marge, “had the comforter twisted once round his neck, and one end was tied to the tree. Then—at a signal, I imagine—the whole house-party, including the servants, pulled together on the other end of the comforter until he expired. You see here the imprints of the butler’s feet. As the heaviest man, he was at the end of the rope. Porlock was in front, with the second housemaid immediately behind him. Porlock, I fancy, gave the word to pull. Afterwards they tied him up to the tree as you found him when you arrived.”

  “But the alibis?”

  “All false. They were all sworn to by members of the household, by servants or by guests. That was what put me on the scent.”

  “But how is it there were no finger-prints?”

  “The whole party,” answered Bletherby, “wore gloves. I collected all the gloves in the house and examined them carefully. Many of them had hairs from the comforter still adhering to them. Having concluded my investigations, I rapidly replaced the boots and gloves, put the leaves back in their original position, unlocked the kitchen and the tool-house, and came back to the picnic again.”

  “And sang comic songs!” said Blowhard.

  “Yes,” replied Marge. “A great load had been taken off my mind by the discovery of the truth. And I felt it necessary to put the murderers off their guard.”

  “Wonderful!” exclaimed Blowhard, examining the foot-prints minutely. “There is now only one difficulty, Mr. Marge, so far as I can see.”

  “And that is?”

  “How am I going to convey all these people to the police-station?”

  “How many pairs of manacles have you about you?”

  “Only two,” confessed Blowhard, feeling in his pocket.

  “You had better telephone,” said Bletherby, “for a motor-omnibus.”

  V

  The simultaneous trial of twelve prisoners on a capital charge, followed by their joint condemnation and execution, thrilled England as no sensation had thrilled it since the death of William II. The Sunday papers were never tired of discussing the psychology of the murderers and publishing details of their early life and school careers. Never before, it seemed, had a secretary, a stepsister, a niece, an eminent K.C., a major, a chaperon, a friend, a cook, a butler, two housemaids, and a gardener gone to the gallows on the same day for the murder of a disagreeable old man.

  On a morning not long after the excitement had died away, Bletherby Marge and a house-agent went together to The Towers, which for some reason or other was still “To Let.” As they looked at the library, Bletherby Marge tapped a panel in the mantelpiece.

  “It sounds hollow,” he said.

  Finding the spring, he pressed it. The wood shot back and revealed a small cavity. From this he drew a dusty bundle of papers, tied together with a small dog-collar.

  It was Ponderby-Wilkins’s will. On the first page was written:

  I am the most unpopular man in England, and I am about to commit suicide by hanging myself in the shrubbery. If Bletherby Marge can make it a murder I bequeath him all my possessions in honour of his fiftieth success.

  “Extraordinary!” ejaculated the house-agent.

  Mr. Bletherby Marge smiled.

  An Unlocked Window

  Ethel Lina White

  Ethel Lina White (1876–1944) had, like Ernest Bramah and Anthony Berkeley Cox, a horror of personal publicity, and relatively little is known about her, although she did have a lifelong love of writing. Born in Abergavenny, she worked in the Ministry of Pensions before the success of her fiction enabled her to write full-time. Her most famous novel is The Wheel Spins, which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock as The Lady Vanishes, and has also been adapted for television and the stage.

  White specialised in domestic suspense; typically, her novels and short stories feature “women in jeopardy”. Stories of this kind are often suited to screen adaptation, and “An Unlocked Window” featured in the long-running TV series The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1965, starring Dana Wynter, and directed by the Master of Suspense himself. The teleplay won an Edgar, and to this day, it receives plaudits as one of “TV’s scariest episodes”.

  ***

  “Have you locked up, Nurse Cherry?”

  “Yes, Nurse Silver.”

  “Every door? Every window?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  Yet even as she shot home the last bolt of the front door, at the back of Nurse Cherry’s mind was a vague misgiving.

  She had forgotten—something.

  She was young and pretty, but her expression was anxious. While she had most of the qualities to ensure professional success, she was always on guard against a serious handicap.

  She had a bad memory.

  Hitherto, it had betrayed her only in burnt Benger and an occasional overflow in the bathroom. But yesterday’s lapse was little short of a calamity.

  Late that afternoon she had discovered the oxygen-cylinder, which she had been last to use, empty—its cap carelessly unscrewed.

  The disaster called for immediate remedy, for the patient, Professor Glendower Baker, was suffering from the effects of gas-poisoning. Although dark was falling, the man, Iles, had to harness the pony for the long drive over the mountains, in order to get a fresh supply.

  Nurse Cherry had sped his parting with a feeling of loss. Iles was a cheery soul and a tower of strength.

  It was dirty weather with a spitting rain blanketing the elephant-grey mounds of the surrounding hills. The valley road wound like a muddy coil between soaked bracken and dwarf oaks.

  Iles shook his head as he regarded the savage isolation of the landscape.

  “I don’t half like leaving you—a pack of women—with him about. Put up the shutters on every door and window, Nurse,
and don’t let no one come in till I get back.”

  He drove off—his lamps glow-worms in the gloom.

  Darkness and rain. And the sodden undergrowth seemed to quiver and blur, so that stunted trees took on the shapes of crouching men advancing towards the house.

  Nurse Cherry hurried through her round of fastening the windows. As she carried her candle from room to room of the upper floors, she had the uneasy feeling that she was visible to any watcher.

  Her mind kept wandering back to the bad business of the forgotten cylinder. It had plunged her in depths of self-distrust and shame. She was overtired, having nursed the patient single-handed, until the arrival, three days ago, of the second nurse. But that fact did not absolve her from blame.

  “I’m not fit to be a nurse,” she told herself in bitter self-reproach.

  She was still in a dream when she locked the front door. Nurse Silver’s questions brought her back to earth with a furtive sense of guilt.

  Nurse Silver’s appearance inspired confidence, for she was of solid build, with strong features and a black shingle. Yet, for all her stout looks, her nature seemed that of Job.

  “Has he gone?” she asked in her harsh voice.

  “Iles? Yes.”

  Nurse Cherry repeated his caution.

  “He’ll get back as soon as he can,” she added, “but it probably won’t be until dawn.”

  “Then,” said Nurse Silver gloomily, “we are alone.”

  Nurse Cherry laughed.

  “Alone? Three hefty women, all of us able to give a good account of ourselves.”

  “I’m not afraid.” Nurse Silver gave her rather a peculiar look. “I’m safe enough.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of you. He won’t touch me with you here.”

  Nurse Cherry tried to belittle her own attractive appearance with a laugh.

  “For that matter,” she said, “we are all safe.”

  “Do you think so? A lonely house. No man. And two of us.”

  Nurse Cherry glanced at her starched nurse’s apron. Nurse Silver’s words made her feel like special bait—a goat tethered in a jungle, to attract a tiger.

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” she said sharply.

  The countryside, of late, had been chilled by a series of murders. In each case, the victim had been a trained nurse. The police were searching for a medical student—Sylvester Leek. It was supposed that his mind had become unhinged, consequent on being jilted by a pretty probationer. He had disappeared from the hospital after a violent breakdown during an operation.

  Next morning, a night-nurse had been discovered in the laundry—strangled. Four days later, a second nurse had been horribly done to death in the garden of a villa on the outskirts of the small agricultural town. After the lapse of a fortnight, one of the nurses in attendance on Sir Thomas Jones had been discovered in her bedroom—throttled.

  The last murder had taken place in a large mansion in the very heart of the country. Every isolated cottage and farm became infected with panic. Women barred their doors and no girl lingered late in the lane, without her lover.

  Nurse Cherry wished she could forget the details she had read in the newspapers. The ingenuity with which the poor victims had been lured to their doom and the ferocity of the attacks all proved a diseased brain driven by malignant motive.

  It was a disquieting thought that she and Nurse Silver were localized. Professor Baker had succumbed to gas-poisoning while engaged in work of national importance and his illness had been reported in the Press.

  “In any case,” she argued, “how could—he—know that we’re left tonight?”

  Nurse Silver shook her head.

  “They always know.”

  “Rubbish! And he’s probably committed suicide by now. There hasn’t been a murder for over a month.”

  “Exactly. There’s bound to be another, soon.”

  Nurse Cherry thought of the undergrowth creeping nearer to the house. Her nerve snapped.

  “Are you trying to make me afraid?”

  “Yes,” said Nurse Silver, “I am. I don’t trust you. You forget.”

  Nurse Cherry coloured angrily.

  “You might let me forget that wretched cylinder.”

  “But you might forget again.”

  “Not likely.”

  As she uttered the words—like oil spreading over water—her mind was smeared with doubt.

  Something forgotten.

  She shivered as she looked up the well of the circular staircase, which was dimly lit by an oil-lamp suspended to a cross-bar. Shadows rode the walls and wiped out the ceiling like a flock of sooty bats.

  An eerie place. Hiding-holes on every landing.

  The house was tall and narrow, with two or three rooms on every floor. It was rather like a tower or a pepper-pot. The semi-basement was occupied by the kitchen and domestic offices. On the ground-floor were a sitting-room, the dining-room and the Professor’s study. The first floor was devoted to the patient. On the second floor were the bedrooms of the nurses and of the Iles couple. The upper floors were given up to the Professor’s laboratorial work.

  Nurse Cherry remembered the stout shutters and the secure hasps. There had been satisfaction in turning the house into a fortress. But now, instead of a sense of security, she had a feeling of being caged.

  She moved to the staircase.

  “While we’re bickering,” she said, “we’re neglecting the patient.”

  Nurse Silver called her back.

  “I’m on duty now.”

  Professional etiquette forbade any protest. But Nurse Cherry looked after her colleague with sharp envy.

  She thought of the Professor’s fine brow, his wasted clear-cut features and visionary slate-grey eyes, with yearning. For after three years of nursing children, with an occasional mother or aunt, romance had entered her life.

  From the first, she had been interested in her patient. She had scarcely eaten or slept until the crisis had passed. She noticed too, how his eyes followed her around the room and how he could hardly bear her out of his sight.

  Yesterday he had held her hand in his thin fingers.

  “Marry me, Stella,” he whispered.

  “Not unless you get well,” she answered foolishly.

  Since then, he had called her “Stella.” Her name was music in her ears until her rapture was dashed by the fatal episode of the cylinder. She had to face the knowledge that, in case of another relapse, Glendower’s life hung upon a thread.

  She was too wise to think further, so she began to speculate on Nurse Silver’s character. Hitherto, they had met only at meals, when she had been taciturn and moody.

  To-night she had revealed a personal animus against herself, and Nurse Cherry believed she guessed its cause.

  The situation was a hot-bed for jealousy. Two women were thrown into close contact with a patient and a doctor, both of whom were bachelors. Although Nurse Silver was the ill-favoured one, it was plain that she possessed her share of personal vanity. Nurse Cherry noticed, from her painful walk, that she wore shoes which were too small. More than that, she had caught her in the act of scrutinizing her face in the mirror.

  These rather pitiful glimpses into the dark heart of the warped woman made Nurse Cherry uneasy.

  The house was very still; she missed Nature’s sounds of rain or wind against the window-pane and the cheerful voices of the Iles couple. The silence might be a background for sounds she did not wish to hear.

  She spoke aloud, for the sake of hearing her own voice.

  “Cheery if Silver plays up to-night. Well, well! I’ll hurry up Mrs. Iles with the supper.”

  Her spirits rose as she opened the door leading to the basement. The warm spicy odour of the kitchen floated up the short staircase and she could see a bar of yellow light from
the half-opened door.

  When she entered, she saw no sign of supper. Mrs. Iles—a strapping blonde with strawberry cheeks—sat at the kitchen-table, her head buried in her huge arms.

  As Nurse Cherry shook her gently, she raised her head.

  “Eh?” she said stupidly.

  “Gracious, Mrs. Iles. Are you ill?”

  “Eh? Feel as if I’d one over the eight.”

  “What on earth d’you mean?”

  “What you call ‘tight.’ Love-a-duck, my head’s that swimmy—”

  Nurse Cherry looked suspiciously at an empty glass upon the dresser, as Mrs. Iles’s head dropped like a bleached sunflower.

  Nurse Silver heard her hurrying footsteps on the stairs. She met her upon the landing.

  “Anything wrong?”

  “Mrs. Iles. I think she’s drunk. Do come and see.”

  When Nurse Silver reached the kitchen, she hoisted Mrs. Iles under the armpits and set her on unsteady feet.

  “Obvious,” she said. “Help get her upstairs.”

  It was no easy task to drag twelve stone of protesting Mrs. Iles up three flights of stairs.

  “She feels like a centipede, with every pair of feet going in a different direction,” Nurse Cherry panted, as they reached the door of the Ileses’ bedroom. “I can manage her now, thank you.”

  She wished Nurse Silver would go back to the patient, instead of looking at her with that fixed expression.

  “What are you staring at?” she asked sharply.

  “Has nothing struck you as strange?”

  “What?”

  In the dim light, Nurse Silver’s eyes looked like empty black pits.

  “To-day,” she said, “there were four of us. First, Iles goes. Now, Mrs. Iles. That leaves only two. If anything happens to you or me, there’ll only be one.”

  ***

  As Nurse Cherry put Mrs. Iles to bed, she reflected that Nurse Silver was decidedly not a cheerful companion. She made a natural sequence of events appear in the light of a sinister conspiracy.