Murder in the Queen's Armes

by Aaron Elkins

  "I’m sure of it. He killed Randy, all right." He smiled. "And he’s left-handed, by the way—sometimes, anyway."

  "Well now. And am I to be told how you came to these conclusions?"

  "You sure are, but later. Right now, why don’t we go in and talk to him?"

  "You mean he’s in there? All wrapped up for me, so to speak? By all means, let’s go in then. Wouldn’t want him scarpering at this point."

  As Gideon opened the door, the light from the entrance hall fell on him. Bagshawe’s mildly chaffing manner vanished.

  "Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "What’s happened to you? You look like bloody hell!"

  But Gideon was staring at the reception desk at the far end of the ancient corridor. There, Andy Hinshore stood, livid and popeyed, dialing the desk telephone and shaking so hard the two parts of the instrument rattled against each other in his hands. He stared at Bagshawe, somehow recognizing him for a policeman.

  "Police?" he said. He stared stupidly at the telephone.

  "But how …I was just calling…. Someone’s been— there’s been a killing!" He blinked twice, and his Adam’s apple went ratcheting up and down his throat.

  Trembling, his hand rose to point to the age-blackened door of the Tudor Room. "In there."

  THEY flung the door open and burst into the room only to stop short on the threshold, stumbling over each other in a Three Stooges–like scramble that would in other circumstances have been comical.

  Behind them, in an awed voice, Hinshore said unnecessarily: "By the fireplace."

  The room, lit only by the dying fire, wavered between darkness and fluttering, warm orange. Objects on the walls—plates, pictures, old copper utensils—danced in and out of focus. Only the hearth itself was clearly lit, and there, on the stone flooring before which people had sat these five hundred years in comradeship and warmth, a man’s body lay sprawled, his chin tilted rigidly upward, the golden beard glinting like copper wire in the firelight.

  "Leon Hillyer," Bagshawe said with interest, and turned on the light.

  TWENTY

  "NOW, you just calm yourself, Professor Frawley, and drink some tea," Bagshawe said supportively.

  Frawley nodded, brought the steaming cup to his mouth cradled in both hands, and bent his head over it, as a man who had been lost in the snow for two days might lift a mug of brandy.

  As soon as Bagshawe had had a quick look at the body, he had called police headquarters, having pretty much to wrest the telephone from the benumbed Hinshore. Sergeant Fryer, lean and dour, quickly arrived with a uniformed constable, and soon after that Dr. Merrill had come. Merrill and the sergeant had at once busied themselves in the Tudor Room with Leon’s body, while the constable stood just outside the open door to the sitting room, keeping watch on the dwindling personnel of Stonebarrow Fell.

  Bagshawe had taken over the dining room. First he had conferred hurriedly with Gideon, who brought him as up-to-date as he could in ten minutes. Then he called in Jack Frawley. The pot of tea had been politely requested by the inspector—partly, Gideon thought, to calm Frawley, who looked hideous, and partly to give the agitated Hinshore something to do.

  Frawley finally put down his cup. "Thank you. I think I’m all right now," he said without conviction.

  "Fine, fine," Bagshawe said. "Now, if you’d just go over it again…?" A small pad was before him on the table, and the tip of his tongue emerged to lick the point of a stubby pencil. He was all friendly patience.

  "I came in early," Frawley said dully. "Nobody was in the sitting room yet except Nate and Dr. Goldstein, and Nate was…well, not entirely sober, to be perfectly candid. It was a little uncomfortable, so I went into the Tudor Room—just seeing the place, you know." He was speaking in a very low voice, breathing in and out between the sentences. Now he closed his eyes for a moment. "Leon was lying there all…well, you saw him. I think I just stood there, sort of in a trance. Then I heard the front door open and some people come in. I guess I shouted and everybody came running in. That’s all."

  "And who," Bagshawe said pleasantly, "is everybody?"

  "Everybody: Dr. Goldstein, Dr. Arbuckle, Sandra… Barry, I think."

  "You think?"

  "Well, I wasn’t really…I was pretty upset. I think Barry was there. The man who owns the place too. They all came."

  "Professor Marcus?"

  "No, not Nate. He’s really not in very good shape." Neither was Frawley, from the look of him. His face was the color of parboiled chicken.

  "And then?" Bagshawe asked. "Did you touch anything?"

  "Me, you mean? Oh, no. I could see he was dead; there wasn’t anything to do." He turned moist and pleading eyes on Bagshawe. "Inspector, I don’t feel very well. If I could lie down…"

  "Just a few moments more, sir, if you please. What happened next?"

  "I really don’t remember too well. Dr. Arbuckle ran in and felt his heart. Then he gave him CPR—" A violent shudder jerked Frawley’s shoulders.

  Gideon understood his reaction. Leon had been an awful sight. A torn, bloody dent had grooved his forehead and crushed the bridge of his nose, and the very shape of his head was awry. Blood was in abundance, and the poker that had only too clearly done it all lay a few feet away. Julie had fled from the room at once and Gideon had very nearly followed her, but he had made himself remain with the pacific, unperturbed Bagshawe, using his old device of looking without quite looking.

  "…and then," Frawley was saying, "Mr. Hinshore said nobody better touch anything, and he was going to call the police. We all went into the sitting room, and then you came."

  "I see," Bagshawe said. "I’ll just get that down, if you please."

  While he did so, Frawley said, "If I could go now—"

  "Very shortly, sir. I believe Professor Oliver has something to ask you, about the Poundbury skull."

  "The Poundbury skull?" Frawley repeated dimly, as if he’d never heard of it.

  "And your conversation with Randy," Gideon said.

  Frawley had the teacup near his face. He clapped it shakily down. "Inspector," he said in a feeble show of spirit, "I really think we could go into this another time."

  "No, sir, I think now would be the right time. We could do it at headquarters if you prefer."

  "No," Frawley said hurriedly, "we can do it here." He looked mournfully at Gideon. Et tu, Brute? said the look in his expressive eyes.

  The best approach seemed to be to wade in, and Gideon did. "Jack, this morning you said Randy told you that Nate was behind the fraud."

  "That’s right, he did. I already told you—"

  "Today Leon told me that he’d pulled off the Poundbury hoax—with Randy’s help. If that’s true, why would Randy tell you that Nate did it?"

  "How would I know? Who knows what he was thinking? I told you what he said, and that’s the truth."

  "You’ve told two different stories," Bagshawe put in. "First you told me that the young man hadn’t talked to you at all. And then you said—as Professor Oliver here has pointed out—that he’d accused Professor Marcus—"

  "I believe I already explained that. I, ah, may have been in error in withholding information at first, but I meant no harm. I stand firmly on what I said."

  "Which time, Jack?" Gideon asked.

  "Inspector, do I have to stand for that? I’ll swear to what I’ve said, if necessary."

  Bagshawe looked searchingly at him. "Professor Frawley," he said slowly, "I think I must tell you that anything you say may be used—"

  Frawley’s complexion went from blue-white to dull red. "Is that what’s called the usual warning?"

  "The Usual Caution, yes, sir."

  "All right, then," Frawley said with sulky aggressiveness, "at least I know where I stand."

  "I’m not sure you do, Jack," Gideon said. "The Usual Caution is about the same thing as telling you you’re about to be arrested for murder."

  On that rather large liberty, he looked surreptitiously at Bagshawe and saw the massive
eyebrows lift, but the policeman said nothing. Gideon went ahead: "You’re in a lot of trouble, Jack, believe me. If you haven’t told the truth, you’d better do it now."

  Frawley inclined his head. Gideon looked down on bent shoulders and a crown of thinning hair. "Come on, Jack," he said more gently.

  Frawley sat up with his eyes still closed. He spoke in a monotone. "When Randy talked to me that morning, he told me… what you said."

  "That he and Leon had stolen Pummy and put it there for Nate to find?"

  Frawley nodded, his eyes still closed. "I guess he had a change of heart, and he wanted me to intercede for him with Nate. I refused; I told him he’d made his own bed and he had to tell Nate himself."

  "But he didn’t?"

  "I guess not."

  "And you didn’t feel you should tell Nate?"

  "No." His eyes popped open and Gideon saw a sullen glimmer in them. "Why should I? Nate made it clear to me enough times my advice wasn’t needed. And if he was so obsessed with his theories that he couldn’t see through a sophomoric trick like that, he deserved to take the consequences."

  His speech had brought color to his cheeks, and he looked belligerently about him. "I don’t see that I’ve done anything so terrible."

  "That remains to be seen," Bagshawe said sharply. "Did it never occur to you, while you so judiciously withheld your information, that Mr. Alexander’s murder and his part in the hoax might be related?"

  "No! I didn’t even know there’d been a murder until you told us a couple of days ago. I just thought he’d gotten cold feet and run out." He shrugged. "It didn’t surprise me."

  "And since you’ve learned there’s been a murder?"

  "I…how could I come forward? After not saying anything before? How would I look?"

  Bagshawe’s beefy but expressive face told him. "And so you were content to leave us with a fabricated and misleading story that cast suspicion on Professor Marcus. I take an extremely dim view of this, sir."

  In response, Frawley pouted and muttered under his breath like a chastened child who has capitulated—but not quite. Gideon heard, "…don’t think…done anything so wrong…"

  "Be that as it may," Bagshawe said, and consulted his notes. "This meeting, I understand, was to be in the sitting room. What were you doing in the Tudor Room?"

  "I already told you. I was just seeing what the place looked like."

  "So you just happened to wander into the Tudor Room and just happened to find Leon Hillyer’s body."

  "Yes!"

  "I think we’ve finished here, Professor Frawley."

  "You mean I can go back to my place now?"

  "I’d rather you stay here in the Queen’s Armes. If you still need to lie down, tell P. C. Piggott. I’m sure a bed can be found."

  "I don’t know about you," Gideon said when Frawley had left, "but I’m a lot more confused than I was an hour ago. I would have bet anything on Leon’s being the murderer."

  "And so may he be," Bagshawe replied. "Getting killed oneself is hardly proof of innocence, now is it? No, I rather like your little theory of an hour ago, left-handed mallet-wielder and all."

  "But then who killed Leon?"

  "Tea?" Bagshawe asked. He leaned comfortably forward, lifted the cozy from the pot, and poured two cups. "Who killed Leon," he mused. "That’s the question, all right. Well, it might have been the gentleman who just left, mightn’t it? He didn’t know, after all, that Leon had already spilled the beans to you, and he might have killed him to keep him from doing so. Do you remember what he said?" He flipped a page to look at his notes. " ‘How could I come forward after not saying anything before? How would I look?’ He could have killed Leon to protect his reputation, such as it is." Bagshawe sucked some tea from his cup and rolled it around his mouth.

  Gideon was doubtful. "Maybe. I don’t doubt Frawley’s base motives, you understand, but I have a hard time visualizing him strangling someone or crushing a head with a poker. Now, poison would be something else."

  As the inspector grimly smiled his agreement, Constable Piggott ambled by the dining-room entrance. Bagshawe called to him. "Would you give my compliments to Dr. Arbuckle and ask him if he’d be kind enough to step in for a few moments?"

  "Sir!" said P. C. Piggott, and in a few seconds Arbuckle came hesitantly in, looking shaken. In him this showed itself as a constrained stiffness of manner, a quiet stolidity slightly more pronounced than usual.

  "Now, Dr. Arbuckle," Bagshawe said, after he had ceremoniously poured the tea and Arbuckle had taken an apathetic sip, "if you would tell us what you saw, I’d be obliged."

  "I was in my room upstairs," Arbuckle said, looking at the table, "and I heard somebody shout; Dr. Frawley, I think. It took me a few moment to—to collect my wits, and then I ran downstairs to the Tudor Room. Everyone was standing in a huddle near the door, not moving." He groped for his cup and drank some more. "In a state of shock, I suppose. It was horrible. He was lying there, all…all…"

  "Yes, of course. By ‘everyone’ you refer to…?"

  "All of them. Everybody that’s in the sitting room now. Well, except Dr. Marcus, of course." There was a prim little twitch of his lips, and he pushed his glasses up on his nose. "He wasn’t in any condition to come."

  "I see," Bagshawe said, writing. "And what happened when you got there?"

  "I thought maybe I could do something for the boy. I went to him—I’m afraid I had to push some people out of the way—and did my best. I tried to start his heart, tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but …I don’t think there was anything anybody could do."

  "Very commendable, sir," Bagshawe said. "It must have been extremely unpleasant."

  "I felt I had to do it," Arbuckle said simply.

  "Considering the state of the body," Bagshawe said, "your clothing is remarkably clean."

  "It is now, yes. I ran up to my room to wash and change. I got blood all over my shirt, my hands, my…mouth. And it wasn’t only blood….You know, I’ve never seen a violent death before…." For the first time his rigid posture crumbled slightly. He lifted his eyes from the table, and in his darting glance around the room there was horror.

  "And the clothes you were wearing at the time?" Bagshawe asked. "Where are they now? I don’t mean to press you."

  "It’s all right," Arbuckle said, regaining his tenuous self-control. "I just threw them on the floor, I think."

  "I see. It might be necessary for us to take those away. Would you have any objection?"

  Arbuckle seemed surprised. "No, but why?"

  "Well, it’s always possible that in brushing against the body something important might have adhered to your clothing. One never knows."

  "You’re welcome to them." Arbuckle shivered. "God knows I’m never going to wear them again."

  There was a light tap at the door and Dr. Merrill looked in, his florid, friendly face arranged into an unnaturally serious mien to fit the occasion.

  "Terribly sorry to interrupt, Inspector, but would you have any objection to my sending Miss Mazur along home? She’s on the near edge of hysteria. I’d like to give her a sedative and see that she’s put to bed."

  "Damn," Bagshawe said, "I want to talk to them all. You haven’t given her anything yet?"

  "No."

  "Is she capable of answering a few questions, then?"

  "Oh, yes. It’s just that she’s working herself up into a bit of a state. It appears that she and the young man were—"

  "Yes, I know. Damn. Well, let me talk to her for five minutes, and then you can have her, all right?"

  "Yes, I think so. Only I wouldn’t put too much pressure on her right now."

  Merrill left and Bagshawe said, "Dr. Arbuckle, would you mind if we continued this later?"

  "Again, you mean? Yes, sure," Arbuckle said unenthusiastically. "Certainly."

  GIDEON was not long in following Arbuckle from the room. He had already noticed on his own that Sandra was uncomfortably close to some sort of emotional histrioni
cs— all bony, exaggerated motions, stiff-fingered smoking, and quavery grimaces—and he had no wish to sit in on her interview. Anyway, he doubted if he’d be much help; he certainly hadn’t contributed to Arbuckle’s interrogation, and had, in fact, felt both extraneous and intrusive. No, he’d be happy to leave the murder investigation to Bagshawe at this point. Besides, he wanted to have a look at the photographs from Randy’s camera and see if that human femur, left, partial was to be found.

  Bagshawe accepted his withdrawal with his usual equanimity, and Gideon went into the sitting room with the manila envelope of photographs. This rectangular room had been tacked onto the original structure a few centuries earlier, first to serve as a Methodist school, then as an antique shop, and finally as a second lounge for hotel guests. It was a pleasant, intimate place, much like the living room of a private home, with couches and armchairs, a television set, and cases of books.

  The atmosphere was anything but intimate when he entered. Frawley was sitting in one of the armchairs, chewing his lip and looking wretched. Barry sat in the chair next to him, with an open magazine on his lap, staring nervously into space, no doubt anticipating his turn in the dining room. Arbuckle was in a third chair, near the silent television set, occasionally and inattentively turning a page of a large picture book in his lap: A History of Dorset. Near him Nate sprawled, propped upright against the back of a couch like a board, his skinny legs out straight before him and his hands thrust into his pockets. He looked less intoxicated but more ill than when Gideon had seen him last, and Gideon suspected he’d been happier before the administration of the guggle-muggle.

  On the other couch, Abe and Julie sat together, talking quietly. On the fringes of the room, Andy Hinshore was bustling nervously about, straightening things, brushing off spotless tabletops, and generally fussing. A tray of tea things and several bottles of beer were on one of the tables, untouched. Gideon pulled a chair up to Julie and Abe, sat down, and opened the manila envelope.

  "These are Randy’s photographs," he explained.

  They both looked uncomprehendingly at him.