“This is a serious experiment, sir,” said Mr. Rycroft warmly. “Nobody would do such a thing.”
“I don’t know,” said Ronnie dubiously. “I wouldn’t put it past them. I don’t mean myself. I swear I wouldn’t, but suppose everyone turns on me and says I have. Jolly awkward, you know.”
“Mrs. Willett, I am in earnest,” the little old gentleman disregarded Ronnie. “I beg of you, let us make the experiment.”
She wavered.
“I don’t like it. I really don’t. I—” She looked round her uneasily, as though for a way of escape. “Major Burnaby, you were Captain Trevelyan’s friend. What do you say?”
The Major’s eyes met those of Mr. Rycroft. This, he understood, was the contingency which the latter had foreshadowed.
“Why not?” he said gruffly.
It had all the decision of a casting vote.
Ronnie went into the adjoining room and brought the small table which had been used before. He set it in the middle of the floor and chairs were drawn up round it. No one spoke. The experiment was clearly not popular.
“That is correct, I think,” said Mr. Rycroft. “We are about to repeat the experiment of last Friday under precisely similar conditions.”
“Not precisely similar,” objected Mrs. Willett. “Mr. Duke is missing.”
“True,” said Mr. Rycroft. “A pity he is not here. A great pity. Well—er—we must consider him as replaced by Mr. Pearson.”
“Don’t take part in it, Brian. I beg of you. Please don’t,” cried Violet.
“What does it matter? It’s all nonsense anyway.”
“That is quite the wrong spirit,” said Mr. Rycroft severely.
Brian Pearson did not reply, but took his place beside Violet.
“Mr. Enderby,” began Mr. Rycroft, but Charles interrupted him.
“I was not in on this. I’m a journalist and you mistrust me. I’ll take notes in shorthand of any phenomena—that’s the word, isn’t it?—that occur.”
Matters were settled like that. The other six took their places round the table. Charles turned off the lights and sat down on the fender.
“One minute,” he said. “What’s the time?” He peered at his wristwatch in the firelight.
“That’s odd,” he said.
“What’s odd?”
“It’s just twenty-five minutes past five.”
Violet uttered a little cry.
Mr. Rycroft said severely:
“Silence.”
The minutes passed. A very different atmosphere this to the one a week ago. There was no muffled laughter, no whispered comments—only silence, broken at last by a slight crack from the table.
Mr. Rycroft’s voice rose.
“Is there anyone there?”
Another faint crack—somehow an eerie sound in that darkened room.
“Is there anyone there?”
Not a crack this time but a deafening tremendous rap.
Violet screamed and Mrs. Willett gave a cry.
Brian Pearson’s voice rose reassuringly.
“It’s all right. That’s a knock at the front door. I’ll go and open it.”
He strode from the room.
Still nobody spoke.
Suddenly the door flew open, the lights were switched on.
In the doorway stood Inspector Narracott. Behind him were Emily Trefusis and Mr. Duke.
Narracott took a step into the room and spoke.
“John Burnaby I charge you with the murder of Joseph Trevelyan on Friday the 14th instant, and I hereby warn you that anything you may say will be taken down and may be used in evidence.”
Thirty
EMILY EXPLAINS
It was a crowd of people almost too surprised for words that crowded round Emily Trefusis.
Inspector Narracott had led his prisoner from the room.
Charles Enderby found his voice first.
“For heaven’s sake, cough it up, Emily,” he said. “I want to get to the telegraph office. Every moment’s vital.”
“It was Major Burnaby who killed Captain Trevelyan.”
“Well, I saw Narracott arrest him. And I suppose Narracott’s sane—hasn’t gone off his nut suddenly. But how can Burnaby have killed Trevelyan? I mean how is it humanly possible? If Trevelyan was killed at five and twenty past five—”
“He wasn’t. He was killed at about a quarter to six.”
“Well, but even then—”
“I know. You’d never guess unless you just happened to think of it. Skis—that’s the explanation—skis.”
“Skis?” repeated everyone.
Emily nodded.
“Yes. He deliberately engineered that table-turning. It wasn’t an accident and done unconsciously as we thought, Charles. It was the second alternative that we rejected—done on purpose. He saw it was going to snow before very long. That would make it perfectly safe and wipe out all tracks. He created the impression that Captain Trevelyan was dead—got everyone all worked up. Then he pretended to be very upset and insisted on starting off for Exhampton.
“He went home, buckled on his skis (they were kept in a shed in the garden with a lot of other tackle) and started. He was an expert on skis. It’s all down hill to Exhampton—a wonderful run. It would only take about ten minutes.
“He arrived at the window and rapped. Captain Trevelyan let him in, all unsuspecting. Then, when Captain Trevelyan’s back was turned he seized his opportunity, picked up that sandbag thing and—and killed him. Ugh! It makes me sick to think of it.”
She shuddered.
“It was all quite easy. He had plenty of time. He must have wiped and cleaned the skis and then put them into the cupboard in the dining room, pushed in among all the other things. Then, I suppose he forced the window and pulled out all the drawers and things—to make it look as though someone had broken in.
“Then just before eight o’clock, all he had to do was to go out, make a detour on to the road higher up and come puffing and panting into Exhampton as though he’d walked all the way from Sittaford. So long as no one suspected about the skis, he’d be perfectly safe. The doctor couldn’t fail to say that Captain Trevelyan had been dead at least two hours. And, as I say, so long as no one thought of skis, Major Burnaby would have a perfect alibi.”
“But they were friends—Burnaby and Trevelyan,” said Mr. Rycroft. “Old friends—they’ve always been friends. It’s incredible.”
“I know,” said Emily. “That’s what I thought. I couldn’t see why. I puzzled and I puzzled and at last I had to come to Inspector Narracott and Mr. Duke.”
She paused and looked at the impassive Mr. Duke.
“May I tell them?” she said.
Mr. Duke smiled.
“If you like, Miss Trefusis.”
“Anyway—no, perhaps you’d rather I didn’t. I went to them, and we got the thing clear. Do you remember telling me, Charles, that Evans mentioned that Captain Trevelyan used to send in solutions of competitions in his name? He thought Sittaford House was too grand an address. Well—that’s what he did in the Football Competition that you gave Major Burnaby five thousand pounds for. It was Captain Trevelyan’s solution really, and he sent it in in Burnaby’s name. No. 1, The Cottages, Sittaford, sounded much better, he thought. Well, you see what happened? On Friday morning Major Burnaby got the letter saying he’d won five thousand pounds (and by the way, that ought to have made us suspicious. He told you he never got the letter—that nothing had come through on Friday owing to the weather. That was a lie. Friday morning was the last day things did come through). Where was I? Oh!—Major Burnaby getting the letter. He wanted that five thousand—wanted it badly. He’d been investing in some rotten shares or other and had lost a terrible lot of money.
“The idea must have come into his head quite suddenly, I should think. Perhaps when he realized it was going to snow that evening. If Trevelyan were dead—he could keep that money and no one would ever know.”
“Amazing,” mu
rmured Mr. Rycroft. “Quite amazing. I never dreamed—But my dear young lady, how did you learn all this? What put you on the right track?”
For answer, Emily explained Mrs. Belling’s letter, and told how she had discovered the boots in the chimney.
“It was looking at them that put it into my mind. They were ski boots, you see, and they made me think of skis. And suddenly I wondered if perhaps—I rushed downstairs to the cupboard, and sure enough there were two pairs of skis there. One pair was longer than the other. And the boots fitted the long pair—but they didn’t fit the other. The toe clip things were adjusted for a much smaller pair of boots. The shorter pair of skis belonged to a different person.”
“He ought to have hidden the skis somewhere else,” said Mr. Rycroft with artistic disapproval.
“No—no,” said Emily. “Where else could he hide them? It was a very good place really. In a day or two the whole collection would have been stored, and in the meantime it wasn’t likely that the police would bother whether Captain Trevelyan had had one or two pairs of skis.”
“But why did he hide the boots?”
“I suppose,” said Emily, “that he was afraid the police might do exactly what I did—The sight of ski boots might have suggested skis to them. So he stuffed them up the chimney. And that’s really, of course, where he made his mistake, because Evans noticed that they’d gone and I got to know of it.”
“Did he deliberately mean to fasten the crime on Jim?” demanded Brian Pearson angrily.
“Oh! no. That was just Jim’s usual idiotic luck. He was an idiot, poor lamb.”
“He’s all right now,” said Charles. “You needn’t worry about him. Have you told me everything, Emily, because if so, I want to rush to the telegraph office. You’ll excuse me, everybody.”
He dashed out of the room.
“The live wire,” said Emily.
Mr. Duke spoke in his deep voice.
“You’ve been rather a live wire yourself, Miss Trefusis.”
“You have,” said Ronnie admiringly.
“Oh! dear,” said Emily suddenly and dropped limply on a chair.
“What you need is a pick-me-up,” said Ronnie. “A cocktail, eh?”
Emily shook her head.
“A little brandy,” suggested Mr. Rycroft solicitously.
“A cup of tea,” suggested Violet.
“I’d like a spot of face powder,” said Emily wistfully. “I’ve left my powder puff in the car. And I know I’m simply shining with excitement.”
Violet led her upstairs in search of this sedative to the nerves.
“That’s better,” said Emily dabbing her nose firmly. “What a nice kind. I feel much better now. Have you got any lipstick? I feel almost human.”
“You’ve been wonderful,” said Violet. “So brave.”
“Not really,” said Emily. “Underneath this camouflage I’ve been as wobbly as a jelly, with a sort of sick feeling in my middle.”
“I know,” said Violet. “I’ve felt much the same myself. I have been so terrified this last few days—about Brian, you know. They couldn’t hang him for murdering Captain Trevelyan, of course, but if once he had said where he was during that time, they would soon have ferreted out that it was he who engineered Father’s escape.”
“What’s that?” said Emily pausing in her facial repairs.
“Father was the convict who escaped. That’s why we came here. Mother and I. Poor Father, he’s always—been queer at times. Then he does these dreadful things. We met Brian on the way over from Australia, and he and I—well—he and I—”
“I see,” said Emily helpfully. “Of course you did.”
“I told him everything and between us we concocted a plan. Brian was wonderful. We had got plenty of money fortunately, and Brian made all the plans. It’s awfully hard to get away from Princetown, you know, but Brian engineered it. Really it was a kind of miracle. The arrangement was that after Father got away he was to go straight across country here and hide in the Pixie’s Cave and then later he and Brian were to be our two menservants. You see with our arriving so long beforehand we imagined we would be quite free from suspicion. It was Brian who told us about this place, and suggested us offering a big rent to Captain Trevelyan.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Emily—“I mean that it all went wrong.”
“It’s broken Mother up completely,” said Violet. “I think Brian’s wonderful. It isn’t everybody who would want to marry a convict’s daughter. But I don’t think it’s really Father’s fault, he had an awful kick on the head from a horse about fifteen years ago, and since then he has been a bit queer. Brian says if he had a good counsel he would have got off. But don’t let’s talk about me any more.”
“Can’t anything be done?”
Violet shook her head.
“He’s very ill—the exposure, you know. That awful cold. It’s pneumonia. I can’t help feeling that if he dies—well—it may be best for him really. It sounds dreadful to say so, but you know what I mean.”
“Poor Violet,” said Emily. “It is a rotten shame.”
The girl shook her head.
“I’ve got Brian,” she said. “And you’ve got—”
She stopped embarrassed.
“Ye-es,” said Emily thoughtfully, “That’s just it.”
Thirty-one
THE LUCKY MAN
Ten minutes later Emily was hurrying down the lane. Captain Wyatt, leaning over his gate, tried to arrest her progress.
“Hi,” he said, “Miss Trefusis. What’s all this I hear?”
“It’s all true,” said Emily hurrying on.
“Yes, but look here. Come in—have a glass of wine or a cup of tea. There’s plenty of time. No need to hurry. That’s the worst of you civilized people.”
“We’re awful, I know,” said Emily and sped on.
She burst in on Miss Percehouse with the explosive force of a bomb.
“I’ve come to tell you all about it,” said Emily.
And straightaway she poured forth the complete story. It was punctuated by various ejaculations of “Bless us,” “You don’t say so?” “Well, I declare,” from Miss Percehouse.
When Emily had finished her narrative, Miss Percehouse raised herself on her elbow and wagged a finger portentously.
“What did I say?” she demanded. “I told you Burnaby was a jealous man. Friends indeed! For more than twenty years Trevelyan has done everything a bit better than Burnaby. He skied better, and he climbed better, and he shot better, and he did crossword puzzles better. Burnaby wasn’t a big enough man to stand it. Trevelyan was rich and he was poor.
“It’s been going on a long time. I can tell you it’s a difficult thing to go on really liking a man who can do everything just a little bit better than you can. Burnaby was a narrow-minded, small-natured man. He let it get on his nerves.”
“I expect you’re right,” said Emily. “Well, I had to come and tell you. It seemed so unfair you should be out of everything. By the way, did you know that your nephew knew my Aunt Jennifer? They were having tea together at Deller’s on Wednesday.”
“She’s his godmother,” said Miss Percehouse. “So that’s the ‘fellow’ he wanted to see in Exeter. Borrowing money, if I know Ronnie. I’ll speak to him.”
“I forbid you to bite anyone on a joyful day like this,” said Emily. “Good-bye. I must fly. I’ve got a lot to do.”
“What have you got to do, young woman? I should say you’d done your bit.”
“Not quite. I must go up to London and see Jim’s Insurance Company people and persuade them not to prosecute him over that little matter of the borrowed money.”
“H’m,” said Miss Percehouse.
“It’s all right,” said Emily. “Jim will keep straight enough in future. He’s had his lesson.”
“Perhaps. And you think you’ll be able to persuade them?”
“Yes,” said Emily firmly.
“Well,” said Miss Percehouse. “Per
haps you will. And after that?”
“After that,” said Emily. “I’ve finished. I’ll have done all I can for Jim.”
“Then suppose we say—what next?” said Miss Percehouse.
“You mean?”
“What next? Or if you want it put clearer: Which of them?”
“Oh!” said Emily.
“Exactly. That’s what I want to know. Which of them is to be the unfortunate man?”
Emily laughed. Bending over she kissed the old lady.
“Don’t pretend to be an idiot,” she said. “You know perfectly well which it is.”
Miss Percehouse chuckled.
Emily ran lightly out of the house and down to the gate just as Charles came racing up the lane.
He caught her by both hands.
“Emily darling!”
“Charles! Isn’t everything marvellous?”
“I shall kiss you,” said Mr. Enderby, and did.
“I’m a made man, Emily,” he said. “Now, look here, darling, what about it?”
“What about what?”
“Well—I mean—well, of course, it wouldn’t have been playing the game with poor old Pearson in prison and all the rest of it. But he’s cleared now and—well, he has got to take his medicine just like anybody else.”
“What are you talking about?” said Emily.
“You know well enough I am crazy about you,” said Mr. Enderby, “and you like me. Pearson was just a mistake. What I mean is—well—you and I, we are made for each other. All this time, we have known it, both of us, haven’t we? Do you like a Registry Office or a Church, or what?”
“If you are referring to marriage,” said Emily, “there’s nothing doing.”
“What—but I say—”
“No,” said Emily.
“But—Emily—”
“If you will have it,” said Emily. “I love Jim. Passionately!”
Charles stared at her in speechless bewilderment.
“You can’t!”
“I can! And I do! And I always have! And I always shall!”
“You—you made me think—”
“I said,” said Emily demurely, “that it was wonderful to have someone one could rely on.”
The Sittaford Mystery Page 21