The Silk Stocking Murders

by Anthony Berkeley

  Seriously, old lad, I appear to be in a bit of a mess. You may not credit it, but I really think the police are going to nab me on a charge of murder, of all unpleasant things. By a damned unfortunate coincidence I’ve got myself mixed up in this case the papers are all being so suspiciously quiet about (I expect you’ve heard rumours); a girl called Dorothy Fielder, who hanged herself with a stocking in her flat in Gray’s, Inn Road a week ago—the last of a batch to do the same, including Lady Ursula Graeme. But you’re sure to know all about it.

  Anyhow, the long and the short of it is that the police seem to think that she never did anything of the sort, but that I murdered her, if you please. Cheerful, isn’t it? They haven’t told me that in so many words, but it’s obviously what they think. Anyhow, they’ve taken a statement from me, and taken my finger-prints, and interviewed me half a dozen times, and even taken samples of my notepaper! In fact they’ve asked such a lot about my movements since the beginning of February that I’m not at all sure they don’t suspect me of doing in the whole lot of them.

  Well, now, we all know what you did at Wychford, and even I, who know you for what you are, Roger Sheringham, must admit it was a pretty smart bit of work. What I mean is, do you feel inclined to take a hand in my little show and cheat the gallows of its prey? Because between you and me, Roger, I’ve never murdered anyone in my life. It may be old-fashioned of me, but there it is.

  Anyhow, if you feel like it ring me up, to-morrow morning when you’ve read this. I can tell you all the facts when I see you. Telephone number, Hyde 1266. I’ve seen my solicitor, of course, but I ask you, why are solicitors?

  Yours moriturus,

  JERRY NEWSOME.

  “My God!” said Roger, and dived for the telephone.

  “Is that you, Jerry?” he asked, when the connection had been made. “Roger speaking. Are you dressed? You are? Then come round here at once. No, never mind about waiting for lunch. You wrote to me before you got my message last night, I suppose? Yes, our thoughts crossed. At once, by taxi, aeroplane or big gun, but hurry! Right!” He hung up the receiver.

  “So that’s why friend Moresby’s been so reticent lately,” thought Roger, cramming eggs and bacon into his system at top speed. “No wonder, as I’d given away that Jerry used to be a great friend of mine. Didn’t want his bird warned. And it would have put me in a rotten position, certainly. But I’m free to do what I like now. Good Lord, was Jerry really the fellow with the wash-leather gloves? This is going to be a hell of a mess.”

  Disposing of his breakfast in record time, Roger had just lighted the best pipe of the day when Gerald Newsome was shown in. He was a stocky, well-built man of Roger’s own age, which was somewhere in the late thirties, still retaining the air of health and vigour of his athletic youth; his dark hair was getting a little thin on the temples, and his cheerful, alert face was red like a countryman’s. He gripped Roger’s hand in a way that made that gentleman wince.

  “Well, Jerry,” said Roger, when the first greetings that had to bridge a fourteen-year gap had been exchanged. “Well, you’ve gone and got yourself into a nice scrape, haven’t you?”

  Newsome’s face fell. “Roger,” he said frankly, “it appears to me that I’m in a devil of a hole.”

  “You are,” Roger agreed, no less frankly. “There’s only one worse, and that would be if you really had carried out those very interesting murders. You’re quite sure you didn’t, I suppose?”

  “Quite,” Newsome grinned. “I’ve got a rotten memory, I know, but it’s not as bad as all that.”

  “Well, sit down and tell me all about it. By the way, I must explain first that you’ve come to just about the right man, Jerry. As it happens, I’ve been in on the inside of this business from the very beginning.”

  “The devil you have!” commented Mr. Newsome.

  They settled down, and Roger explained briefly the part he had played in the matter and how he was situated at the moment.

  “This explains why they’ve been shutting me out, you see,” he concluded. “And it’s jolly lucky they did, because I can go right ahead now on any lines I like. And the line we’d better take first of all, I should think, is to prove that you’re not the man they want.”

  “You’ll have your work cut out, then,” opined Newsome, with gloom. “I was in the blessed building at the time, you see. That’s the devil of it.”

  “You were the man with the wash-leather gloves, then?”

  “Yes, curse it; I was. And they seem to have got a finger-print of mine somewhere too.”

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” said Roger.

  Gerald Newsome began his account.

  He had not very much to tell. He had known the dead girl, but only very slightly. Met her at a supper-party once, and exchanged a word or two in the street with her afterwards on two occasions. He was therefore surprised when she rang him up, on the morning of the murder, at about twelve-thirty, and hinted, not too delicately, that she would like to be taken out to lunch, to discuss ‘this exciting idea.’

  “What exciting idea?” asked Roger.

  “God knows! I’m telling you just what she said. I didn’t know anything about an exciting idea in connection with Dorothy Fielder, but she seemed to take it for granted that I did; so I thought it up to me to be tactful and pretend. I said:‘Oh, yes; rather.’ Or words to that effect.”

  “Yes,” said Roger. “Go on.”

  “Well, she asked me to call for her punctually at one, so I said I would. And I did. I rang the bell three or four times, but couldn’t get an answer. I hung about on the landing for ten minutes or so, but she didn’t appear, so I thought she must have altered her arrangements in the haphazard way these stage-people do and no longer wanted to be taken out to-lunch punctually at one. So I came away. And that’s all.”

  “You came away? At what time?”

  “Oh, soon after one. About ten or a quarter past, I suppose.”

  “Leaving your finger-print neatly planted on the bell-push.”

  “Oh, is that where it was?”

  “Yes, and I found it, deuce take the thing. I wish I hadn’t been so devilish clever. That’s a nasty bit of evidence. You can’t possibly deny being in the building that morning.”

  “I don’t want to. I told the police I was there when they asked me. Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Why, indeed?” said Roger. “And did you pick up a taxi outside the building?”

  “No, I walked along to Holborn and had some lunch in a restaurant there.”

  “Well, that ought to be an alibi for you.”

  “So I thought. But the police don’t seem to agree. They don’t say so, of course, but when I told them I got to the restaurant by about twenty past one, at any rate not later than half-past, they said,‘Yes, yes,’in a soothing sort of way, which is only another way of remarking,‘You’re a liar.’At least, that’s how it struck me.”

  “I’ll look into that,” said Roger, and made a note.

  “I didn’t get served at once, it’s true, and there was a big crowd there. It’s one of these places that cater for the business-men in Kingsway. I suppose the waiter wouldn’t swear to the time I came in. After all, I don’t suppose he could. But the real trouble was that he couldn’t pick me out in the identification parade.”

  “Oh, Lord, have you had one of them?”

  “I should say so. At the Gray’s Inn Road police station. They lined me up with about seven other fellows, and the porter of the Mansions spotted me at once. So, though not so quickly, did the taxi-driver who drove me there. The waiter, of course, didn’t.”

  “Humph! I wonder why they haven’t arrested you already. I suppose their case isn’t complete yet. It’s going to make a sensation when the facts do come out, and no doubt they’re taking no chances. And they know you won’t bolt.”

  “It wouldn’t be much good if I wanted to. I’m as good as arrested already; under a sort of open arrest. I’m followed wherever I go, and there’s alwa
ys a man outside my place. There’ll be one outside here at this minute.”

  “Well, good luck to him. Now, you made a statement, did you?”

  “Yes, they had me up at Scotland Yard two or three times asking questions. I answered everything, of course; I thought the only thing to do was to tell the absolute truth immediately, always.”

  “Quite the best,” Roger agreed.

  “Well, after the last time they asked me if I’d have any objection to signing a statement embodying the various things I’d told them. I said not in the least. They presented me with a document, which I looked through and it seemed all right, so I signed it.”

  “Um! And the document referred only to the Dorothy Fielder case?”

  “No, that it didn’t. It referred to the whole jolly lot. I’m sure they think I did them all, Roger.”

  “Well, the fellow who killed Dorothy Fielder killed the others too; that’s all right. But I don’t see what they can have you on as regards the others. In fact, that’s what must be holding them up. Oh, by the way, the notepaper: what happened about that?”

  “Oh, they seemed most interested in that. Why, God knows. I use a sort of bluish-grey stuff, with my address in Clarges Street——”

  “Not Princess Bond Superfine, is it?”

  “Yes, I believe that is the name, or something like it. Why?”

  Roger groaned. “Merely another nasty coincidence for you. All right, go on. What else did they ask you about?”

  Newsome flushed, and shifted uneasily in his chair. “They asked me a hell of a lot of impertinent questions about Ursula Graeme,” he said gruffly.

  “They would, yes, of course. And you knew nothing about the lady?”

  “On the contrary,” said Newsome reluctantly. “I knew her uncommonly well.”

  Roger nearly jumped out of his chair. “You did? Oh, Lord, Jerry, this gets worse and worse.”

  “But why? I can’t understand. Why on earth shouldn’t I know Ursula well? That doesn’t mean I killed her, does it?”

  “No, of course not. But—well, it’s very awkward, that’s all. Tell me how well you did know her and all about it.”

  “All right, I suppose I may as well, by this stage. The police seem to know all about it anyhow. Well, to put it shortly, Ursula and I were rather close at one time. I believe there was the usual amount of chit-chat about us. Old hags spreading the glad news that we were going to get married, and all that sort of thing. Till Pleydell came along, of course.”

  “Oh, my hat! And Pleydell cut you out?”

  “Good Lord, no. That was all poppycock. We’d never thought of getting married for a moment. We went about a lot together, but that was all. Weren’t in love with each other, or any rot like that. Nobody was more pleased than I was when Ursula got hooked up with a really decent fellow like Pleydell, for all he’s got a bit of the Jew in him. For a man who doesn’t know how much he can sign his name for, Pleydell’s the nicest chap I know; though he is a bit cold for a high-spirited girl like Ursula was. No, that’s just the whole point; I’d been telling her for months that she’d better hurry up and get engaged, or she’d lose her chances.”

  “Very tactful of you,” Roger commented. “Still, if you were on those terms with her I quite see there was nothing in the rumours. However, the police have undoubtedly got hold of those rumours, and they’re going a long way to make things look uncommonly nasty for you, my son.”

  “Oh, I shall come out of it all right,” said Newsome, but he spoke without too much conviction.

  “Oh, yes,” Roger rejoined with great heartiness. “We’ll get you out of it all right. I was only thinking that we’ve got to get busy pretty quickly. Well, that’s all about the last two cases. The one before that, Elsie Ben-ham,‘described as an actress,’ anyone might have done. Now what about the first one in this country? Haven’t you got an alibi for the afternoon Unity Ransome was killed?”

  “I don’t know what I was doing that afternoon. How can I possibly remember? I’d just got back to London, about a week previously; that’s all I know. Of course I can’t get hold of an alibi.”

  They went on talking. Roger put what other questions occurred to him, but the main ground had now been explored, and nothing further of importance cropped up. Newsome, in spite of his efforts to carry it off, evidently felt his position strongly, and Roger pressed him to stay to lunch and hear the result of a visit he proposed to pay at once to Scotland Yard; a change of scene, and companionship, he felt, was the best tonic he could prescribe.

  Newsome accepted at once, and Roger retired to don garments more suitable to visiting Scotland Yard than the ones he was wearing at the moment.

  Half an hour later he was demanding audience with Moresby.

  The Chief Inspector received him with a somewhat shamefaced grin. “I’ve been waiting in for you, Mr. Sheringham,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you any time during the last hour.”

  “Yes. I suppose your sleuth telephoned through that he was now stationed at the Albany. Well, Chief Inspector Moresby, what have you got to say for yourself, eh?”

  “I knew you’d find out sooner or later, Mr. Sheringham,” said Moresby, with an effect of penitent impenitence, “but we had to keep you in the dark as long as we could. We didn’t want your friend warned, you see, and you could have got in our way a lot if you’d wanted to.”

  “You’re forgiven,” Roger said magnanimously. “I suppose it’s no good telling you that you’ve got the wrong man, is it?”

  Moresby shook his head. “I was afraid you’d say that, Mr. Sheringham. And I only wish it was true, for he doesn’t seem to fit the part a bit, as you’ve no doubt come to tell me.”

  “Something like that,” Roger admitted.

  “And you must allow that we’re giving him every chance. We could have arrested him days ago on the evidence we’ve got, but we’re straining all the rules to make dead certain before we do. I don’t want him to be the guilty party, Mr. Sheringham; don’t think that. He’s a nice fellow and a proper gentleman, and I must say it doesn’t seem hardly possible. But look at the evidence! How can we help believing it on that?”

  “Yes, I know. Well, you’re showing better feeling than I gave you credit for, Moresby; and I’ll reciprocate by admitting that the evidence is a facer. In fact, it’s hell!” Roger perched himself on a corner of the Chief Inspector’s table and swung a moody foot.

  “I don’t know how much you’ve gathered, Mr. Sheringham,” went on the Chief Inspector, dropping into his chair, “but I’ve no objections now the cat is out of the bag to telling you all we know. And if you can show us that your friend isn’t guilty and another man is, why, nobody will be more pleased than we shall.”

  “Moresby,” said Roger, “this is highly unprofessional conduct. You don’t seem to have read the story-books at all. No detective from Scotland Yard ever wants his selected victim to escape, you should know. Well, just run over the evidence, will you?”

  Moresby complied, and his recital followed precisely the same lines as Roger had anticipated. In the absence of any other strange man in the building at the time Dorothy Fielder died, except the artisan whose alibi was complete, Newsome must be the murderer, both by a process of elimination and by the direct evidence of his connection with the flat in question given by the porter and the taxi-driver; the alibi he had attempted to set up had fallen completely to the ground; the waiter was not prepared to swear that he came in any earlier than a quarter to two, and the doctor had said that death might have taken place as early as one-fifteen. So far as the Fielder case was concerned, Newsome hadn’t a leg to stand on.

  The Graeme case was almost as conclusive, and here as well there was the important addition of a powerful motive. Lady Ursula had thrown Newsome over for another man; how many murders had been committed on account of that very thing? “If I can’t have her, then no man shall,” explained the Chief Inspector. “That’s the sort of idea.” Then the notepaper had been traced to Newsome, a
lone of all the three original suspects; and the police were in a position to prove that the very note supposed to be left by Lady Ursula had actually been written to Newsome himself the day before her death.

  “Oh?” said Roger. “I didn’t know that. That’s very interesting. How do you prove it?”

  Well, admitted the Chief Inspector, the proof wasn’t absolute, but it was as near as made no odds. Newsome’s valet had stated that Lady Ursula had at one time often dropped in to tea and that sort of thing, but after her engagement her visits had been a good deal rarer. On the afternoon of the day before her death, however, she rang the bell and told the valet that her dog, a little white sealyham, had jumped out of her arms almost outside the door and run out into the road, where, besides being nearly killed half a dozen times, it had got smothered in mud, and she wanted to know if she could clean it up in the bathroom.

  “I gathered,” said the Chief Inspector, “that with Lady Ursula asking for permission to do something and saying she was jolly well going to do it, was about the same thing. Anyhow, she made short work of the valet’s objections, if he raised any, and marched straight into the bathroom and gave the dog a bath. The valet did protest a bit when he saw what a mess she was making of the place, but she only laughed at him and said she’d leave a note for Newsome to explain that he hadn’t been bathing a dog in his master’s wash-basin himself.”

  “Ah!” said Roger, who had been listening with deep interest.

  “Well,” Moresby went on, “she did leave the note. She left it in Newsome’s sitting-room, and the valet saw it there himself. In fact he positively identifies the one we’ve got with the one she left. But Newsome swears he’s never seen it before in his life. If it was left for him, he says, he never got it. Now, what do you make of that, Mr Sheringham?”

  “I’m going to take it as an axiom that what Newsome says is true, Moresby,” Roger said seriously, “and if the facts don’t square with what he does say, then it’s the facts that are at fault, not him. Which simply means that we don’t know them all yet.”