Serpents in Paradise

by Martin Edwards

  ‘When we got to the ’ouse I wanted to take the gun and fire it off, or draw the charges. But ’e told me to go to …, and carried it up loaded as it was to his study, where no one goes unless they’re sent for special. It was better than an hour afterwards I heard the report of the “Manton”; I’d know it in a thousand. I ran for the study as fast as …’

  Eric Neville broke suddenly into the room, flushed and excited.

  ‘Mr Beck,’ he cried, ‘a monstrous thing has happened. Wardle, the local constable, you know, has arrested my cousin on a charge of wilful murder of my uncle.’

  Mr Beck, with his eyes intent on the excited face, waved a big hand soothingly.

  ‘Easy,’ he said, ‘take it easy, Mr Neville. It’s hurtful to your feelings, no doubt; but it cannot be helped. The constable has done no more than his duty. The evidence is very strong, as you know, and in such cases it’s best for all parties to proceed regularly.’

  ‘You can go,’ he went on, speaking to Lennox, who stood dumbfounded at the news of John Neville’s arrest, staring with eyes and mouth wide open.

  Then turning again very quietly to Eric: ‘Now, Mr Neville, I would like to see the room where the corpse is.’

  The perfect flaccidity of his manner had its effect upon the boy, for he was little more than a boy, calming his excitement as oil smooths troubled water.

  ‘My cousin has the key,’ he said, ‘I will get it.’

  ‘There is no need,’ Mr Beck called after him, for he was half-way out of the room on his errand: ‘I’ve got the key if you will be good enough to show me the room.’

  Mastering his surprise, Eric showed him upstairs, and along the corridor to the locked door. Half unconsciously, as it seemed, he was following the detective into the room, when Mr Beck stopped him.

  ‘I know you will kindly humour me, Mr Neville,’ he said, ‘but I find that I can look closer and think clearer when I’m by myself. I’m not exactly shy you know, but it’s a habit I’ve got.’

  He closed the door softly as he spoke, and locked it on the inside, leaving the key in the lock.

  The mask of placidity fell from him the moment he found himself alone. His lips tightened, and his eyes sparkled, and his muscles seemed to grow rigid with excitement, like a sporting dog’s when he is close upon the game.

  One glance at the corpse showed him that it was not suicide. In this, at least, John Neville had spoken the truth.

  The back of the head had literally been blown in by the charge of heavy shot at close quarters. The grey hair was clammy and matted, with little white angles of bone protruding. The dropping of the blood had made a black pool on the carpet, and the close air of the room was foetid with the smell of it.

  The detective walked to the table where the gun, a handsome, old-fashioned muzzle loader, lay, the muzzle still pointed at the corpse. But his attention was diverted by a water-bottle, a great globe of clear glass quite full, and perched on a book a little distance from the gun, and between it and the window. He took it from the table and tested the water with the tip of his tongue. It had a curious insipid, parboiled taste, but he detected no foreign flavour in it. Though the room was full of dust there was almost none on the cover of the book where the water-bottle stood, and Mr Beck noticed a gap in the third row of the bookcase where the book had been taken.

  After a quick glance round the room Mr Beck walked to the window. On a small table there he found a clear circle in the thick dust. He fitted the round bottom of the water-bottle to this circle and it covered it exactly. While he stood by the window he caught sight of some small scraps of paper crumbled up and thrown into a corner. Picking them up and smoothing them out he found they were curiously drilled with little burnt holes. Having examined the holes minutely with his magnifying glass, he slipped these scraps folded on each other into his waistcoat pocket.

  From the window he went back to the gun. This time he examined it with the minutest care. The right barrel he found had been recently discharged, the left was still loaded. Then he made a startling discovery. Both barrels were on half cock. The little bright copper cap twinkled on the nipple of the left barrel, from the right nipple the cap was gone.

  How had the murderer fired the right barrel without a cap? How and why did he find time in the midst of his deadly work to put the cock back to safety?

  Had Mr Beck solved this problem? The grim smile deepened on his lips as he looked, and there was an ugly light in his eyes that boded ill for the unknown assassin. Finally he carried the gun to the window and examined it carefully through a magnifying glass. There was a thin dark line, as if traced with the point of a red-hot needle, running a little way along the wood of the stock and ending in the right nipple.

  Mr Beck put the gun back quietly on the table. The whole investigation had not taken ten minutes. He gave one look at the still figure on the couch, unlocked the door, locking it after him, and walked out through the corridor, the same cheerful imperturbable Mr Beck that had walked into it ten minutes before.

  He found Eric waiting for him at the head of the stairs. ‘Well?’ he said when he saw the detective.

  ‘Well,’ replied Mr Beck, ignoring the interrogation in his voice, ‘when is the inquest to be? That’s the next thing to be thought of; the sooner the better.’

  ‘To-morrow, if you wish. My cousin John sent a messenger to Mr Morgan, the coroner. He lives only five miles off, and he has promised to be here at twelve o’clock to-morrow. There will be no difficulty in getting a jury in the village.’

  ‘That’s right, that’s all right,’ said Mr Beck, rubbing his hands, ‘the sooner and the quieter we get those preliminaries over the better.’

  ‘I have just sent to engage the local solicitor on behalf of my cousin. He’s not particularly bright, I’m afraid, but he’s the best to be had on a short notice.’

  ‘Very proper and thoughtful on your part—very thoughtful indeed. But solicitors cannot do much in such cases. It’s the evidence we have to go by, and the evidence is only too plain, I’m afraid. Now, if you please,’ he went on more briskly, dismissing the disagreeable subject, as it were, with a wave of his hand, ‘I’d be very glad of that supper you spoke about.’

  Mr Beck supped very heartily on a brace of grouse—the last of the dead man’s shooting—and a bottle of ripe Burgundy. He was in high good-humour, and across ‘the walnuts and the wine’ he told Eric some startling episodes in his career, which seemed to divert the young fellow a little from his manifest grief for his uncle and anxiety for his cousin.

  Meanwhile John Neville remained shut close in his own room, with the constable at the door.

  The inquest was held at half-past twelve next day in the library.

  The Coroner, a large, red-faced man, with a very affable manner, had got to his work promptly.

  The jury ‘viewed the body’ steadily, stolidly, with a kind of morose delectation in the grim spectacle.

  In some unaccountable way Mr Beck constituted himself a master of the ceremonies, a kind of assessor to the court.

  ‘You had best take the gun down,’ he said to the Coroner as they were leaving the room.

  ‘Certainly, certainly,’ replied the Coroner.

  ‘And the water-bottle,’ added Mr Beck.

  ‘There is no suspicion of poison, is there?’

  ‘It’s best not to take anything for granted,’ replied Mr Beck sententiously.

  ‘By all means if you think so,’ replied the obsequious Coroner. ‘Constable, take the water-bottle down with you.’

  The large room was filled with the people of the neighbourhood, mostly farmers from the Berkly estate and small shopkeepers from the neighbouring village.

  A table had been wheeled to the top of the room for the Coroner, with a seat at it for the ubiquitous local newspaper correspondent. A double row of chairs were set at the right hand of the table fo
r the jury.

  The jury had just returned from viewing the body when the crunch of wheels and hoofs was heard on the gravel of the drive, and a two-horse phaeton pulled up sharp at the entrance.

  A moment later there came into the room a handsome, soldier-like man, with a girl clinging to his arm, whom he supported with tender, protecting fondness that was very touching. The girl’s face was pale, but wonderfully sweet and winsome; cheeks with the faint, pure flush of the wild rose, and eyes like a wild fawn’s.

  No need to tell Mr Beck that here were Colonel Peyton and his daughter. He saw the look—shy, piteous, loving—that the girl gave John Neville as she passed close to the table where he sat with his head buried in his hands; and the detective’s face darkened for a moment with a stern purpose, but the next moment it resumed its customary look of good-nature and good-humour.

  The gardener, the gamekeeper, and the butler were briefly examined by the Coroner, and rather clumsily cross-examined by Mr Waggles, the solicitor whom Eric had thoughtfully secured for his cousin’s defence.

  As the case against John Neville gradually darkened into grim certainty, the girl in the far corner of the room grew white as a lily, and would have fallen but for her father’s support.

  ‘Does Mr John Neville offer himself for examination?’ said the Coroner, as he finished writing the last word of the butler’s deposition describing the quarrel of the night before.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Mr Waggles. ‘I appear for Mr John Neville, the accused, and we reserve our defence.’

  ‘I really have nothing to say that hasn’t been already said,’ added John Neville quietly.

  ‘Mr Neville,’ said Mr Waggles pompously, ‘I must ask you to leave yourself entirely in my hands.’

  ‘Eric Neville!’ called out the Coroner. ‘This is the last witness, I think.’

  Eric stepped in front of the table and took the Bible in his hand. He was pale, but quiet and composed, and there was an unaffected grief in the look of his dark eyes and in the tone of his soft voice that touched every heart—except one.

  He told his story shortly and clearly. It was quite plain that he was most anxious to shield his cousin. But in spite of this, perhaps because of this, the evidence went horribly against John Neville.

  The answers to questions criminating his cousin had to be literally dragged from him by the Coroner.

  With manifest reluctance he described the quarrel at dinner the night before.

  ‘Was your cousin very angry?’ the Coroner asked.

  ‘He would not be human if he were not angry at the language used.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘I cannot remember all he said.’

  ‘Did he say to your uncle: “Well, you will not live for ever”?’

  No answer.

  ‘Come, Mr Neville, remember you are sworn to tell the truth.’

  In an almost inaudible whisper came the words: ‘He did.’

  ‘I’m sorry to pain you, but I must do my duty. When you heard the shot you ran straight to your uncle’s room, about fifty yards, I believe?’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘Whom did you find there bending over the dead man?’

  ‘My cousin. I am bound to say he appeared in the deepest grief.’

  ‘But you saw no one else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your cousin is, I believe, the heir to Squire Neville’s property; the owner I should say now?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘That will do; you can stand down.’

  This interchange of question and answer, each one of which seemed to fit the rope tighter and tighter round John Neville’s neck, was listened to with hushed eagerness by the room full of people.

  There was a long, deep drawing-in of breath when it ended. The suspense seemed over, but not the excitement.

  Mr Beck rose as Eric turned from the table, quite as a matter of course, to question him.

  ‘You say you believe your cousin was your uncle’s heir—don’t you know it?’

  Then Mr Waggles found his voice.

  ‘Really, sir,’ he broke out, addressing the Coroner, ‘I must protest. This is grossly irregular. This person is not a professional gentleman. He represents no one. He has no locus standi in court at all.’

  No one knew better than Mr Beck that technically he had no title to open his lips; but his look of quiet assurance, his calm assumption of unmistakable right, carried the day with the Coroner.

  ‘Mr Beck,’ he said, ‘has, I understand, been brought down specially from London to take charge of this case, and I shall certainly not stop him in any question he may desire to ask.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Mr Beck, in the tone of a man whose clear right has been allowed. Then again to the witness: ‘Didn’t you know John Neville was next heir to Berkly Manor?’

  ‘I know it, of course.’

  ‘And if John Neville is hanged you will be the owner?’

  Every one was startled at the frank brutality of the question so blandly asked. Mr Waggles bobbed up and down excitedly; but Eric answered, calmly as ever:

  ‘That’s very coarsely and cruelly put.’

  ‘But it’s true?’

  ‘Yes, it’s true.’

  ‘We will pass from that. When you came into the room after the murder, did you examine the gun?’

  ‘I stretched out my hand to take it, but my cousin stopped me. I must be allowed to add that I believe he was actuated, as he said, by a desire to keep everything in the room untouched. He locked the door and carried off the key. I was not in the room afterwards.’

  ‘Did you look closely at the gun?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Did you notice that both barrels were at half cock?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you notice that there was no cap on the nipple of the right barrel that had just been fired?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘That is to say you did not notice it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you notice a little burnt line traced a short distance on the wood of the stock towards the right nipple?’

  ‘No.’

  Mr Beck put the gun into his hand.

  ‘Look close. Do you notice it now?’

  ‘I can see it now for the first time.’

  ‘You cannot account for it, I suppose?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  All present followed this strange, and apparently purposeless cross-examination with breathless interest, groping vainly for its meaning.

  The answers were given calmly and clearly, but those that looked closely saw that Eric’s nether lip quivered, and it was only by a strong effort of will that he held his calmness.

  Through the blandness of Mr Beck’s voice and manner a subtle suggestion of hostility made itself felt, very trying to the nerves of the witness.

  ‘We will pass from that,’ said Mr Beck again. ‘When you went into your uncle’s room before the shot why did you take a book from the shelf and put it on the table?’

  ‘I really cannot remember anything about it.’

  ‘Why did you take the water-bottle from the window and stand it on the book?’

  ‘I wanted a drink.’

  ‘But there was none of the water drunk.’

  ‘Then I suppose it was to take it out of the strong sun.’

  ‘But you set it in the strong sun on the table?’

  ‘Really I cannot remember those trivialities.’ His self-control was breaking down at last.

  ‘Then we will pass from that,’ said Mr Beck a third time.

  He took the little scraps of paper with the burnt holes through them from his waistcoat pocket, and handed them to the witness.

&
nbsp; ‘Do you know anything about these?’

  There was a pause of a second. Eric’s lips tightened as if with a sudden spasm of pain. But the answer came clearly enough:

  ‘Nothing whatever.’

  ‘Do you ever amuse yourself with a burning glass?’

  This seemingly simple question was snapped suddenly at the witness like a pistol-shot.

  ‘Really, really,’ Mr Waggles broke out, ‘this is mere trifling with the Court.’

  ‘That question does certainly seem a little irrelevant, Mr Beck,” mildly remonstrated the Coroner.

  ‘Look at the witness, sir,’ retorted Mr Beck sternly. ‘He does not think it irrelevant.’

  Every eye in court was turned on Eric’s face and fixed there.

  All colour had fled from his cheeks and lips; his mouth had fallen open, and he stared at Mr Beck with eyes of abject terror.

  Mr Beck went on remorselessly: ‘Did you ever amuse yourself with a burning glass?’

  No answer.

  ‘Do you know that a water-bottle like this makes a capital burning glass?’

  Still no answer.

  ‘Do you know that a burning glass has been used before now to touch off a cannon or fire a gun?’

  Then a voice broke from Eric at last, as it seemed in defiance of his will; a voice unlike his own—loud, harsh, hardly articulate; such a voice might have been heard in the torture chamber in the old days when the strain on the rack grew unbearable.

  ‘You devilish bloodhound!’ he shouted. ‘Curse you, curse you, you’ve caught me! I confess it—I was the murderer!’ He fell on the ground in a fit.

  ‘And you made the sun your accomplice!’ remarked Mr Beck, placid as ever.

  The Fad of the Fisherman

  G.K. Chesterton

  Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) was, among other accomplishments, a theologian, critic, and journalist, but today he is most widely remembered as a writer of detective stories. He was also the first President of the Detection Club. Above all, his name is associated with Father Brown, the modest priest and amateur sleuth who has in recent years been played on television by Mark Williams in stories adapted very freely indeed from the originals.