The Piccadilly Murder

by Anthony Berkeley

  Definitely she had reminded him of somebody. Quite definitely. But of whom? Mr. Chitterwick could not imagine. Somebody, he was inclined to think, seen fairly recently. At any rate within the last six months; but he could get no nearer than that.

  And there was another thing, too. She had seemed confused. Surprisingly confused. She had blushed far more than the accident warranted. She could not have blushed more had it been a more vital portion of her attire than her spectacles that she had sneezed off. And with his impression of the lady Mr. Chitterwick was convinced that in the ordinary way a mere sneeze would not suffice to confuse her. No, there must be something behind it. But then, what? And then again, her complete ignoring of him at first. Might not that be significant?

  “I have it!” cried Mr. Chitterwick in sudden triumph. “They’re a disguise!”

  “What did you say, Mr. Chitterwick?” asked his startled companion.

  “We must return at once,” said Mr. Chitterwick, in high excitement.

  “Return? To Earlshaze?”

  “Yes, at once.”

  Judith leant over and thumped the driver on the shoulder. “Mouse, Mr. Chitterwick says we must go back to Earlshaze at once?”

  “What’s that? Go back? Good. Got an idea, Chitterwick?”

  “Yes. I feel certain ... I want to make sure whether . . . Please leave everything to me. If Mrs. Sinclair can just think of some excuse to explain our return . . .”

  Judith and Mouse were model detective’s companions. They asked nothing further. Mouse turned the car with flattering promptitude, while Judith gazed at Mr. Chitterwick with still more flattering respect. Mr. Chitterwick beamed vaguely back.

  The truth was that he was beginning to wonder what on earth he was going to do. The request to be taken back to Earlshaze had been made on the impulse of the moment, in the excitement of his new idea. But how he was going to test that idea he had not an inkling. He had twelve miles in which to find one; and Mouse was driving disturbingly fast.

  By the end of the twelve miles no plan had presented itself.

  To Judith, however, the making of plans presented apparently no difficulty. “Oh, Miss Goole,” she said smoothly, “I’m so sorry to bring you down again, but I left my gloves behind. No, don’t bother. I’m sure they must be where I was lying down. I’ll run up myself. Besides, I think Mr. Chitterwick has remembered something else he wanted to ask you.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Chitterwick. “Er—yes.”

  Judith disappeared. Mouse asked delicately with his eyebrows whether Mr. Chitterwick wanted him to disappear too. Mr. Chitterwick returned a desperate signal with his whole face that he did not.

  “Yes, Mr. Chitterwick?” prompted Miss Goole, who had been watching Mr. Chitterwick’s face with efficiently concealed surprise.

  “Er—yes,” agreed Mr. Chitterwick. “That is,” he blurted out, unable to uproot his mind from the main point, “it was about glasses.”

  Mr. Chitterwick was not so agitated that he was unable to watch Miss Goole for the effect of this observation. Had she started slightly? Had a faint blush stained her sallow cheek? It had not. She remained as imperturbable as before.

  “Glasses?” repeated Miss Goole calmly. “Oh, yes? And what can I tell you about glasses, Mr. Chitterwick? Tumblers, do you mean?”

  Mr. Chitterwick had a better grip on himself by now. “It’s just a small point that occurred to me. Nothing of real importance. But I remember that Miss Sinclair in the Piccadilly Palace seemed to be peering rather at the Ma—the man who was with her—and it struck me at the time that she must be shortsighted. Can you tell me if that really was the case?”

  “It was,” assented Miss Goole, without very much interest. “She usually wore glasses, but the pair she took to London had got broken that morning, and unfortunately she had left the others behind.”

  “I see. That is just what I thought,” said Mr. Chitterwick, and gave the impression that he was artlessly pleased with himself. “Now, what sort of strength were Miss Sinclair’s glasses? About the same as yours?”

  “About the same,” said Miss Goole indifferently. “Perhaps a little stronger.”

  “Ah, yes. Now I rather wanted to get an idea of the extent of Miss Sinclair’s shortness of sight. Perhaps if you would be good enough to let me look through your glasses for the moment,” said the cunning Mr. Chitterwick, “that would give a fair impression.”

  “Miss Sinclair’s second pair is still upstairs,” returned Miss Goole with equanimity. “If you really want to know what lenses she used I’ll get them for you.”

  Mr. Chitterwick appeared much distressed at the thought of putting Miss Goole to all that trouble. “Oh, no Dear me, no. I wouldn’t think of it. There is no need at all. It will serve my purpose quite well enough if you just let me look through yours.” Which, as Mr. Chitterwick knew, was no less than the truth; but the best liars, as Mr. Chitterwick knew also, always make as much use of the truth as possible.

  “I’m afraid it would hardly be the same thing,” said Miss Goole kindly, but evidently determined to stand no nonsense with her glasses. “Mine are quite appreciably weaker than Miss Sinclair’s. I remember now that we were unable to exchange them. I offered to lend her mine when she went out that afternoon, but she said they were useless to her.”

  “Oh!” Mr. Chitterwick looked disappointed.

  “But I’ll get hers for you with pleasure.”

  “Oh, no,” said Mr. Chitterwick. “It’s of no consequence, really. None at all. Ah, here comes Mrs. Sinclair.” He hurried courteously to meet her across the big hall. “Did you find your gloves?”

  “Yes, thank you. Where I thought I’d left them.”

  “Please get me some pepper,” said Mr. Chitterwick surprisingly; but he said it in such a hurried undertone that the two at the other end of the hall could not have heard it.

  Judith looked momentarily astonished, then nodded slightly. They strolled over toward the other two. “Oh, by the way, Miss Goole,” she said easily, “I was nearly forgetting. I want some pepper. Have you any to spare? They’ve run right out at Riversmead, and it’s early-closing day in the neighbourhood.”

  “Pepper?” repeated Miss Goole calmly. “Yes, I’m sure there’s plenty. If you’ll wait I’ll get you some.” She bustled efficiently away.

  This time the situation was too much for Judith. “Mr. Chitterwick, what do you want with pepper?”

  “Hush!” said Mr. Chitterwick, with the uneasiness of a guilty conscience. “She may be listening. I want you to give it me to hold,” he added in a conspiratorial whisper. “And if I drop it, or—or anything like that, upbraid me severely.”

  “Very well,” Judith smiled. “But it’s all very mysterious.”

  “Shall I upbraid you too, Chitterwick?” Mouse wanted to know.

  “Indeed, yes. Er—you see what I want to do, of course?”

  “You want to get those glasses off her.”

  Mr. Chitterwick beamed nervously. “Yes; I can’t help feeling that . . . You noticed she wouldn’t fall in with my suggestion? Dear me, this is very difficult.” Mr. Chitterwick felt himself to be appearing like anything rather than a detective; he was grateful to the other two for apparently continuing to look on him as one.

  Miss Goole returned, bearing the pepper in a small tin. Judith thanked her graciously, and extended it toward Mr. Chitterwick.

  “Will you take charge of it for me, Mr. Chitterwick? Mouse will be driving.” Anyone, implied Mrs. Sinclair with dignity, can see that it is impossible to drive a car and have possession of pepper at one and the same time.

  “Certainly,” said Mr. Chitterwick, and held the tin gingerly. “I—I remember,” he went on nervously, “when I was at school attending a lecture on—er—pepper. It was—er—most interesting. There are, if I remember rightly, quite several different kinds of pepper. Quite several
.”

  “Indeed?” said Miss Goole, in a must-you-be going kind of tone. A doorstep discourse on pepper was evidently, in Miss Goole’s opinion, out of place. The other two members of Mr. Chitterwick’s audience, however, wore on their faces expressions indicating that all their lives had they wanted to hear an authoritative pronouncement on pepper and never had this simple wish been gratified.

  “There are, of course,” continued Mr. Chitterwick, as if encouraged by these expressions, “different colours in pepper, and these indicate to some extent the—the various places of origin. Red pepper, for instance, as its name shows, comes from Cayenne, grey pepper from—from somewhere else, and—er—black pepper from—h’m!—from somewhere else still. Red pepper,” went on Mr. Chitterwick, rather red himself, “is, of course, the strongest. Now it would be interesting to see what sort of pepper this is.” He plucked off the lid of the tin and peered wisely inside. “This is grey pepper,” he announced, catching his glasses in the nick of time from falling into the tin with the pepper.

  But this was apparently one of Mr. Chitterwick’s unlucky days. In the effort of catching his glasses the tin slid through his hands. He made a desperate effort to seize it, but only succeeded in batting it up in the air. The tin shot straight in the direction of Miss Goole, upside down, distributing the pepper on the atmosphere like a miniature turbillion, and finally came to rest, still upside down, on the top of Miss Goole’s head. If Mr. Chitterwick’s dastardly object had been to introduce pepper to Miss Goole, nothing could have been more successful.

  The three then stood round and, in the intervals of sneezing themselves, watched Miss Goole do so. They watched in vain. This time Miss Goole, though sneezing no less explosively, maintained with one hand a firm grasp of her spectacles.

  It was Mouse who came to his chief’s rescue. While Mr. Chitterwick was twittering anxious apologies, Mouse went up to the lady, bodily removed her hand from its grip, and began to dust the pepper from her hair and features. The prize dropped into Mr. Chitterwick’s outstretched hands.

  The experiment so far had been turned firmly into a success, if success meant the divesting of Miss Goole of her spectacles; but at that point success stopped short. In the distorted, ravaged, reddened vision which the unfortunate young woman presented to the world it was impossible to trace resemblance to anyone on earth.

  Mr. Chitterwick’s anxious apologies redoubled themselves. It was evident that Mr. Chitterwick knew himself for a bungler. A real detective, intent upon introducing pepper into a young woman’s nostrils, would have measured out the requisite dose beforehand and injected just so much; he would not have dusted a good half-pound over the victim. Mr. Chitterwick clearly felt this very strongly. His embarrassment turned into agitation, and that into downright panic. He lost track of his actions, even. In his confusion, setting Miss Goole’s spectacles on his own nose, he tried to press his pince-nez upon her. He even went so far as to endeavour to fix them in position for her as, still half blinded, she fumbled awkwardly with them herself, guiding her hands and pressing her shaking fingers with his to a firmer clasp of the lenses. His shameful confusion when the mistake was discovered was plain to all.

  By degrees Miss Goole recovered. It cannot be said that when her eyes ceased to stream and she could see clearly out of them again she looked with any love upon Mr. Chitterwick, but she forgave him in words, at any rate. She even, such was her devotion to duty, retired to the kitchen for more pepper, thus unconsciously heaping coals of fire on her torturer’s head.

  During her absence Mr. Chitterwick retired to an open window and stared out over the garden. One gathered that after such a fiasco he was ashamed to face his assistants.

  Nor did he speak again, with the exception of further stammering apologies to the outraged victim of his experiment, until the car was right down the drive and out of sight of the house. Then, very carefully, he took off his glasses, drew a clean silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, swaddled them tenderly in it and laid the result on his knee. “Most successful,” he beamed at Judith.

  “Successful?” Judith repeated, with perhaps more of a query in her tone than was altogether polite.

  “Quite,” Mr. Chitterwick assured her. “Perhaps I was a little drastic, but that was better than the reverse. I was not only able to try her glasses on, but to pretend to help her on with mine.”

  “But—but what result did you get from that?” Judith asked in bewilderment.

  Mr. Chitterwick’s beam deepened in radiance. “Her spectacles are a fake. Plain glass! Do you know, I suspected it. She is disguised. I cannot tell you for what purpose; that we must find out. But her pretences are false, and that stamps her as a suspicious person at once.” So there, added Mr. Chitterwick’s expression, is one suspicious person for us to play with, at any rate.

  “Good gracious! But the other thing, Mr. Chitterwick. Helping her on with your glasses. What did you get by that?”

  Mr. Chitterwick’s beam almost overspread the confines of his face. “Perfect impressions on the lenses of the prints of both her fore and middle fingers,” he replied very happily; for that, if you like, was real detecting, and no mistake about it.

  Judith looked at him with respectful awe.

  Mr. Chitterwick did not go on to explain why he had wanted Miss Goole’s fingerprints, or what he expected from them. Perhaps he did not quite know.

  IX

  RECONSTRUCTING THE CRIME

  It became increasingly obvious to Mr. Chitterwick during the next day or two that his stay at Riversmead was on increasingly false pretences. There was simply nothing more for him to detect. He held interminable conversations with Mouse, and less frequently with Judith, but nothing fresh seemed to emerge from them by way of either fact or theory.

  He had posted his precious pince-nez to Moresby at Scotland Yard, but with only a very cautious letter to accompany them. Without giving the name of the owner of the fingerprints, he apologized in vague terms for the trouble he was causing in asking the records to be searched for comparison, and hinted clearly that he hardly expected any result; but if it would not be asking too much for them to be photographed and an enlargement sent him . . . ? Why Mr. Chitterwick withheld the name of the owner even he was not quite sure. Probably the fact was that he was too diffident about his discovery that Miss Goole was wearing a disguise (a) to be quite certain that she really was, (b) to give her away to the police on such slender suspicion before making perfectly sure that her disguise was directed toward some criminal end. In any case, he did withhold it.

  As to why he wanted an enlargement of the fingerprints there was no doubt at all. This was the first piece of real detecting Mr. Chitterwick had ever done (whether it led to anything or, much more probably, not), and he wanted a souvenir of it.

  Two days later he received a jocular letter from Moresby, enclosing two sets of the photographs and regretting that there was no counterpart of the prints in the police records. Not knowing what to do with the second set, Mr. Chitterwick finally sent it off to the police bureau in America, with a similarly worded letter to that which he had written to Moresby. After all, Miss Goole had spent some time in America, and one never knew.

  In the end it was Mouse who suggested to Mr. Chitterwick an idea for further researches. “Well, we talk and talk,” he remarked ruefully, at the end of one of their confabulations, “and we’re sure of this and we’re sure of that; but we don’t really seem to advance very much, do we?”

  “No,” Mr. Chitterwick had to agree. “I’m afraid that is so. You see, the trouble is that there is so little to work on. Some professors of criminology, I understand, can theorize correctly at a distance from the scene of the crime, but unfortunately, so far as I am concerned——”

  “The scene of the crime,” Mouse mused. “Well, after all, we haven’t explored that yet, have we?”

  Mr. Chitterwick clutched at the chance of action, how
ever apparently unprofitable. “We should leave no stone unturned,” he said, with unwonted energy. “I must confess I cannot at the moment see what we could hope to gain by it, but the French have a method of reconstructing the crime on the scene of its occurrence, which they invariably pursue; and presumably they must often obtain results from it or they would not do it.”

  Mouse too seemed pleased with the idea of action. “You mean, we might have a cut at it too? By Jove, Chitterwick, that really is a scheme. I agree that one doesn’t see at the moment what one could get out of it, but there’s no harm in trying, is there?”

  “None at all,” said Chitterwick, growing every moment more enthusiastic. “By no means.”

  “Just the two of us, I take it? One impersonating the old lady and the other the unknown man?” Never did Mouse so much as hint at even the possibility of Major Sinclair being guilty. In all their conversations he took the Major’s innocence as the one fact in the case which was definitely certain.

  Mr. Chitterwick could improve on that suggestion. “I think there should really be three of us. It would be a waste of time for either of us to enact Miss Sinclair, whereas one of us certainly ought to reconstruct my own part in the affair. Indeed it would be better that we should do so in turns, as what one might miss the other might realize.”

  “We’d better take one of the girls with us, then.”

  “Your sister,” said Mr. Chitterwick promptly.

  But Mouse shook his head with decision. “No. If Agatha were more like her name, perhaps. As it is, I don’t really think she’d do. She’s a dear, but she simply can’t help turning everything into fun. We shouldn’t get the right atmosphere at all. It must be Judy.”

  “Wouldn’t it be much too painful for Mrs. Sinclair?” suggested Mr. Chitterwick dubiously.

  “She’d never forgive us if we left her out,” replied Mouse, without any doubt at all.

  They arranged it between themselves. Making an early start, they would go up in Mouse’s car so as to arrive in town for lunch and go on to the Piccadilly Palace at about two. The little tragi-comedy could then be staged at exactly the time when the real drama had begun to display itself to Mr. Chitterwick’s notice.