Her air of extreme surprise seemed genuine enough. But the colonel knew that all women are born actresses. His manner was still severe and gloomy as he continued:
“I felt it was necessary to make sure you recognised the handbag as yours.”
“Of course it’s mine,” Ena said, looking less surprised now, and instead puzzled and even annoyed, as the solemnity of the colonel’s voice and manner began to impress her. “Can I have it, please?” she said, holding out her hand again.
“I am afraid it will have to be produced at the inquest,” the colonel told her. “It will be necessary, too, to call you as a witness. You will be asked to explain how it came to be where it was found.”
“But I don’t know. I haven’t an idea. How can I?” Ena protested. She was beginning to look frightened now. “I haven’t an idea,” she repeated.
“You will also be asked,” the colonel continued, “whether you are quite sure you are correct in saying you have never seen Bennett before. You will, of course, be on oath.”
“Oh,” gasped Ena. “Oh.”
There was no doubt now but that she was thoroughly frightened. The colonel got to his feet.
“I am not going to ask you any questions,” he said. “I think it advisable for you to consult Mr. Moffatt. I should suggest legal assistance, too. Of course, that is for you and Mr. Moffatt to decide. All I wish to do to-night is to be sure that you recognise the handbag as yours, and to inform you that your presence at the inquest will be necessary. You will probably be questioned about it, and also about certain letters in it that may be thought to have some bearing on the case. It is very largely on account of those letters that I think you would be wise to secure legal assistance.”
Ena looked not only thoroughly frightened, but also even more bewildered.
“I... I...” she stammered. “I don’t know what you mean,” she burst out. “Please, can’t I have my handbag now? It’s mine, isn’t it? Why can’t I have it? It’s the letters. I must have them before anyone sees them.”
“You will be questioned about them,” the colonel repeated.
“Oh, but I can’t be,” said Ena, with much decision.
“It will depend on the coroner,” the colonel told her. “As in my opinion the handbag and its contents provide important and relevant evidence, it will be my duty to place them in his hands.”
“Oh, you mustn’t,” Ena cried. “I mean, not the letters, not for anything. You see,” she explained, “they are just simply, most awfully horrid.”
The colonel made no comment. He knew that already. He was edging towards the door. Ena made a run and got between him and it. She wasn’t so much frightened now as angry – though anger is a poor word to use. No fury like Ena in a paddy, her brother had once said, and she was at the moment fully living up to that fraternal judgment. She and the colonel faced each other. A slightly awe-struck Bobby looked on and thanked all the gods that be that he wasn’t in the colonel’s shoes. The absolute silence in the room was broken only by the purring of the kitten, now reconciled by the warmth of the fire to the loss of even so comforting a lap as Ena’s. Ena herself was dead white with rage. The colonel was nearly as pale, though with him it showed more, he having no make-up to disguise his pallor. Ena said in a penetrating whisper:
“You haven’t – read them?”
The colonel said nothing.
Ena understood his silence. She said very loudly and distinctly:
“You cad!”
“Miss Moffatt,” said the colonel, “no purpose is served by continuing this extremely distressing and painful scene.”
“Painful yourself!” said Ena.
Then she boxed his ears. Good and hard. Bobby gave a little gasp. Never, never in his wildest dreams had he ever thought to witness such a thing. Chief constable of a county, too, and how clearly Bobby perceived what advantage sometimes appertains to the mere sergeant’s humbler rank. The colonel was superb. He could not prevent himself from staggering slightly under the impetus of what may be fairly described as a good in-swinger from the right, beautifully timed, most accurately aimed. Nor was it his fault that a kind of crimson splash, so to say, appeared promptly where ear and Ena had made such resounding contact. But that was all. The incident passed without further comment, as the newspapers would have said. He made her a little bow.
“We must be going now,” he said. “Ready, sergeant?”
Ena collapsed into a chair and wept aloud.
The colonel passed through the door into the hall. His gait was stately and unmoved. Bobby followed. As he went he cast one awe-struck glance at Ena. She wailed: “They aren’t mine, and I promised no one should see them – oh, oh, oh.”
“Eh?” said Bobby. “What’s that?”
Ena sprang to her feet, the tears streaming down her face till, in comparison, Niobe would have seemed a mere spot of Sahara.
“Jane’s father’s a dean, and awfully, awfully strict,” she lamented. “Oh, whatever shall I do?”
Bobby dashed after the colonel, who, absorbed in his own thoughts and quite unaware that Bobby was not with him, had entered the waiting car and had just signalled to the driver to start.
“Beg pardon, sir,” Bobby panted, for he had come at a run. “I think there’s a mistake, sir. It’s someone called Jane. Her father’s a dean.”
“Mr. Moffatt,” said the colonel, coldly and decisively, “is not a dean.”
“No, sir, that’s Jane, sir – I mean, Jane’s father,” Bobby explained. “They aren’t Miss Moffatt’s at all; they are Jane’s.”
He explained further. They returned to the drawing room, where Ena still wept, huddled in a chair.
“Go away,” said Ena, seeing them appear again. “The dean will kill Jane, and Jane will kill me, and it’s all you. Beasts!”
“Yes, yes, quite so,” said the colonel soothingly. “Do you mean those letters were not written to you?”
“Of course they weren’t,” said Ena, sitting up. “I wouldn’t let any boy write to me like that. I think it’s simply disgusting of you if you think I would.”
“They were in your handbag,” the colonel pointed out as meekly as ever yet did colonel speak since colonels were.
“Jane gave them me to read,” Ena explained. “Her dad’s dean of St. Ermines. Most likely he’ll be a bishop someday, unless Jane can stop it. He’s most frightfully strict, so, of course, Jane’s a bit the other way. It’s reaction or something, she says; and then she likes it – she really enjoys cocktails,” said Ena, slightly bewildered at the idea, “and she said those letters were awful fun. It’s some man she met at Brighton. She stays with an aunt there, and so she always goes for a long walk on the Downs in the afternoon when there’s thé dansants at the hotels. That’s where she met this boy, and she gave me his letters because they would make me laugh my head off, she said, but they don’t a bit; they’re just silly and rather beastly. I was just writing when you came in to tell Jane I had lost them somehow and they weren’t funny a bit, only silly. You can read it if you like.”
She indicated the half-written letter she had been busy with when they entered. The colonel gave it a glance where it lay open on Ena’s blotting-pad. The colonel beamed. His ear was still sore, but what did he care?
“My dear child – my dear young lady – my dear Miss Moffatt,” he babbled, “relieved... enormously... great relief... very much... comfort...”
“It won’t be a comfort to Jane, if you go and tell on her,” Ena said.
“I don’t think it will be in the least necessary for anything to be said now,” the colonel declared. “So long as the letters have no connection with the murder, there will be no need to.”
Ena was beginning to see light now.
“My sacred gollywogs !” she exclaimed, using the strongest expression she knew. “Did you think it was me?”
The colonel said nothing, but the red patch in the neighbourhood of his ear became merged in one universal spreading crimson that bathed hi
s countenance from cheek to chin.
Ena said:
“Well!”
But how she said it!
It made the colonel feel about a foot high. Bobby felt a little less than that. Ena surveyed them both.
“Well!!” she said again.
Once again the only sound in that silent room was the purring of the contented kitten by the fire.
“I think,” said the colonel, trying to sound brisk and cheerful, “now everything is satisfactorily cleared up, we had better be going. Ready, sergeant?”
“Yes, sir,” said Bobby with alacrity, and never were two of the masculine sex more ready, and indeed anxious, to depart from the company of a pretty girl.
“Good night,” said Ena coldly. “I’m not a bit sorry I slapped you.”
“I am,” said the colonel simply.
Ena was looking at herself in the glass.
“Me – murder,” she murmured. “Murder – me.” Unconsciously she put on a slight swagger. It was as if she felt she was quite as capable as anyone else of an odd assassination or two. “Oh, well,” she said tolerantly, “I suppose you didn’t really mean anything, and if you really want to know who killed that poor man, I can tell you. It was Mr. Larson.”
CHAPTER 21
PASSED TO MR. MOFFATT
“What’s that?” said the colonel sharply.
Ena had turned to the mirror, endeavouring to repair the ravages recent events had caused to her complexion. She paused in the complicated and careful technique she was employing and repeated over her shoulder:
“It was Mr. Larson. Didn’t you know?”
The colonel sat down heavily on the nearest chair and stared blankly at her. Bobby was reduced to the expedient of rubbing his nose and looking almost as helpless as he felt. Ena bestowed on them each a bright smile and resumed her task, giving it all the grave care and attention it required. The colonel looked at Bobby, and Bobby looked nowhere in particular. The colonel said:
“Miss Moffatt, do you realise what you are saying?” Ena turned and stared at him.
“Of course,” she said. She finished with her nose – and whether one prefers the feminine nose a violent red, or more white than nature ever meant a nose to be, must remain a matter of personal taste. She sat down, picked up the kitten, and said reflectively, “I look awful, don’t I? It’s the way you bullied me.”
“Eh? What?” exclaimed the colonel. “We? You?”
“I suppose,” said Ena complacently, “you always treat suspects like that. It’s the third degree, isn’t it? I expect you thought you would get me to confess, didn’t you?”
It was a view of recent events the colonel found slightly bewildering. Reflectively he put up a hand to his still tingling ear. Third degree indeed! But he felt argument and remonstrance would be alike ineffective. He said:
“Miss Moffatt, you have made a very serious accusation.”
“Oh, I haven’t,” she interrupted indignantly. “I only told you who did it.”
“I should like to know your reasons, if I may,” suggested the colonel.
“It isn’t reasons,” Ena retorted with a certain contempt; “it’s because I know. Anyone would if they had seen the way he looked at Gwendolene.”
“Gwendolene?” repeated the colonel, and Bobby produced his notebook, ready to take down full particulars of this fresh personality now appearing on the scene.
“Yes. Mr. Larson had been with dad talking about investments and things, and he came out of the room, and Gwendolene was there, and the way he looked at her, it was awful!” Ena sat upright. She squeezed the kitten so hard it emitted a protesting mew. “If it hadn’t been for me, he would have killed her – that’s how he looked; just too murderous. It saved her life, I’m sure, me being there.”
But the colonel was growing suspicious, and Bobby had already sighed gently and put away his notebook again.
“Who is Gwendolene?” asked the colonel.
Surprised, Ena held up the kitten.
“This is Gwendolene,” she said. “Isn’t oo, precious?” she asked the kitten. “She got under his feet – Mr. Larson’s, I mean – and it was just as much his fault as hers, because he wasn’t looking, and if anyone ever looked like murder, he did. If I hadn’t screamed he would have kicked her ever so hard – he had his foot up, and when I screamed he looked as if he wanted to kill me instead, and I expect he did, too, only he didn’t dare. I picked Gwendolene up and we ran, didn’t we, sweet ’ums? I locked my door to feel safe, and I didn’t come out till after I had seen him drive away.”
“Miss Moffatt,” said the colonel sternly, “are you accusing Mr. Larson of murder because he was annoyed with your kitten?”
“Oh, no,” she answered, “it was the horrible way he looked. Besides, you remember dad’s pistol he’s lost and no one knows where it is? Well, that’s because Mr. Larson pinched it.”
At this the colonel and Bobby exchanged glances. Here at last seemed evidence that might be of real importance.
“How do you know?” the colonel asked. “Miss Moffatt, please be very careful what you say. A man’s life –”
“I suppose he’ll be hanged, won’t he?” observed Ena meditatively. “They always do murderers, don’t they?”
“Why do you say Mr. Larson took your father’s pistol?” the colonel repeated.
“I saw him,” said Ena simply. “It was a month ago – the 10th. I know, because I was writing to Uncle Alexander for his birthday and I told him.
“You told him you had seen Mr. Larson taking Mr. Moffatt’s pistol?”
“Well, I didn’t know what it was at the time,” Ena said. “I went into the library to get some stamps – only don’t tell dad, because he’s always so stuffy about his stamps if there aren’t any when he wants them – and Mr. Larson was there, and he was taking something out of one of the drawers and he saw me and he glared. I didn’t see plainly what he had, but it was something bright and hard-looking. I thought it was a flashlight, and I thought it was funny, and I told uncle when I was finishing my letter.”
“Didn’t you tell Mr. Moffatt?”
“No-o. Dad was fussing about his old stamps and I knew he suspected me. Besides, I saw the flashlight on the hall table afterwards, so I thought Mr. Larson had put it there and it was all right. But now I just know it was the pistol, and that’s why he looked at me the way he did. At the time I thought he was only being horrid because I had caught him at dad’s desk, but now I know he was afraid.”
The colonel listened gloomily. If all this meant that the weapon with which the murder had undoubtedly been committed was now identified with Mr. Larson, the fact was certainly of the utmost significance. But could Ena’s story be relied on? How would such a tale stand up under cross-examination?
“Why should Mr. Larson want to kill Bennett?” he asked.
“Oh, he hates share-pushers,” Ena explained. “Didn’t you know? Mr. Bennett was one, wasn’t he? And Mr. Larson’s something to do with shares and things, too. Mr. Larson was always saying share-pushers ought to be shot, and so he did, I suppose. I expect they’ve skinned him some time and he wanted revenge.”
The colonel looked more and more worried. The pistol traced to Larson. Larson uttering threats. The possibility that Larson had suffered financial losses through Bennett!
“Would your uncle be likely to have your letter still?” he asked.
“Oh, rather,” Ena assured him. “Uncle Alexander has every letter anyone has ever written him from the year one. He has them all filed and indexed and all that – stacks of them.”
“I should like to see it,” the colonel remarked. “Could you give me his address?”
Ena provided the address, and, in answer to a casual question Bobby dropped, explained that the kitten incident had only happened two days ago. It was the awful look in Mr. Larson’s eyes, Ena explained, that made her understand quite suddenly. She shivered and was a little pale as she described the look he had sent after them as she and the
kitten made their escape. After a few more questions the colonel and Bobby took their departure, and in the car the colonel said:
“Well, what do you make of all that?”
“Well, sir,” Bobby answered slowly, “it needs thinking over. Mr. Larson is, of course, one of the possibilities in the case. If we accept Miss Moffatt’s story –”
“Yes, but can we?” asked the colonel. “Can we put her in the witness-box to tell a story of that sort? She admits herself she thought at the time it was a flashlight. I dare say Larson did look as if he wanted to kick the kitten across the hall – cats do make some people feel like that. But a look’s not evidence. We couldn’t even mention it. There’s the letter she says she wrote. We’ll have to see what she actually said in it. That is, if it’s not been destroyed. Larson has an alibi, too, but how strong is it? What’s there to prove that cigarette-case hadn’t been lying there for days?”
“Reeves says he saw it in Mr. Larson’s possession earlier that afternoon.”
“Can we trust Reeves’s evidence? As a witness he would be discredited the moment he was asked about his record. Very difficult case. Better sleep on it. Come and see me to-morrow. Ten o’clock. No. I’ve an appointment; no time to attend to anything just now. Eleven; make it eleven. We shall have to follow it up somehow, but blessed if I know how. Have to talk to Larson again, I suppose.”
Neither did Bobby see his way very clearly. Little good questioning Larson, he thought. Even if Ena’s story were true, Larson would simply deny it. Nor was there any proof that Ena’s suggestion of previous transactions between Larson and the dead man had any foundation in fact. He was still as undecided as ever when next morning, on his way to keep the appointment the colonel had given him, he saw a tall man waving to him from across the street and recognised Larson himself. A light rain was falling at the time. Bobby was wearing a raincoat and a hat with a brim pulled down to protect his face, but Larson, he noticed, was bare-headed as usual, and had not even an umbrella. When Larson came across to him, Bobby said something about the risk of catching cold, and Larson laughed and said that he had never had a cold since he gave up wearing a hat.
The Dusky Hour Page 17