Murder at the Open

by Angus MacVicar

  In its own way it was as effective an approach as ever Aidan could have devised. But it, too, made no outward impression on Debbie.

  She snapped back: “I told you already, Inspector — I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was reared to respect the integrity of the British police. Now I’m not so sure. Threatening a girl with death because she won’t talk is real nasty!”

  Big Sam almost had apoplexy and for a long moment could find no words. Then with an effort that was almost physical, he regained dignity.

  “I am aware that you have been through a trying time, Miss Lingstrom, and that you are an American, unaccustomed to our ways.” The tone he used, he might have been addressing a Red Indian squaw. “On this occasion, therefore, I will excuse you. If you are in danger, the British police will do their utmost to provide protection. But we cannot be held responsible for what happens if you refuse to accept our advice.”

  She showed no reaction other than a quick tightening of her lips; but Big Sam, obviously pleased with his little speech, continued less heavily: “One more question, Miss Lingstrom. About your uncle’s watch. We found it strapped to his right wrist. Miss Garson tells me he invariably wore it on his left. Do you confirm this?”

  “I do.”

  The Inspector waited. But though he waited for a long time, she made no further comment.

  Eventually he released her, with a sourish admonition to be careful in everything she said and did. As she went towards the door her back was very straight.

  On the threshold she turned. “I’ve been talking on the telephone with our lawyer in New York. Mr Joseph Scuddamore. He can’t come at once unfortunately, on account of urgent business there in connection with Uncle Conrad’s death. But he’s flying across Thursday night and should be here early on Friday. From what goes on it looks as if I need him.”

  It was Big Sam’s turn to make no comment.

  The door clicked shut behind her.

  I began to write out in longhand a verbatim report of the interview. It was a simple job which could be completed in less than half-an-hour. Meanwhile Big Sam stood at the window, glowering out at the Bow Butts, where modern golfers instead of medieval archers were discussing the day’s shooting.

  “Well, you heard for yourself, Professor. She thinks you and Mr Ferguson have bees in your bonnets!”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Not necessarily. I think I know what’s on your mind. I’ve instructed my men to keep tabs on her.”

  “Good!” Aidan sounded relieved. “Do you believe her about the writing on the paper?”

  “Damned if I know!” Big Sam shrugged. He turned and sat down with such abandon that the chair-springs twanged. Complainingly, he added: “From the look of her you’d never suspect she could be so stubborn! The way she carries on, I’m beginning to wonder if we’ve made a mistake about it.”

  He looked more like a wrestler than ever — a wrestler, moreover, pinned down in pain by a clever opponent. “This case,” he declared, “is a ruddy stumer! Lingstrom had no violent enemies. Not in this country, at any rate. Nobody except Erica Garson appears to profit by his death. And Erica Garson was in love with him — and she’s corrie-fisted! Therefore — as you have pointed out, Professor — she is almost certainly innocent.”

  Aidan lit a cigarette. “Have you discovered why Gordon Cunningham went to see her in her room this afternoon?”

  “Oh, yes. Nothing important, I gather. Miss Garson’s explanation is that he wanted to know what effect Lingstrom’s death would have on the merger. Personally he thought negotiations should be broken off. But she sidetracked him by saying Miss Lingstrom would decide when the family lawyer arrived from New York.”

  “So you’ve dug up nothing new at all?”

  “Well” — Big Sam hesitated — “there’s this business about the watch. It was broken, as you know, and the hands stopped at ten to two. But some of the glass is missing, and we can’t find a trace of it in or near the Road Bunker. What puzzles me even more is that it should have been on his right wrist, when both Miss Garson and Miss Lingstrom say he always wore it on his left.”

  Aidan nodded. “It makes you think,” he agreed.

  “Also, you may as well know this — we’ve been in touch with the New York police.” The Inspector’s voice was flatter than a pancake. “Nothing at all is known officially against the Lingstroms or Miss Garson. Highly respectable firm, highly respectable people. There’s a record of one charge of vagrancy against O’Donnel, before Lingstrom took him under his wing. But this, of course, ties up with what we already know.”

  “You said nothing is known ‘officially’,” said Aidan. “What about unofficially?”

  “Unofficial matters are outwith the scope of transatlantic police reports. This is what we’re up against. Three of our suspects are American, and we know scarcely anything about their backgrounds, except what they choose to tell us themselves.”

  “How right you are, Inspector! It’s like working in a vacuum. Shows you how much we depend on gossiping neighbours as a rule. However, human reactions are much the same in any part of the world — especially reaction to danger. I have a feeling it’s a reaction of this kind that will solve our problem in the end.”

  “You could be right,” said Big Sam. “Ay, you could be right at that.”

  3. Tuesday

  That night I couldn’t sleep. Fresh air is the sleep-inducer I need the most, and I’d been cooped up inside for too long on that bright day.

  I was worried about the failure of Aidan and Big Sam to make a quick identification of the murderer. I was worried about my own lack of perception in a case which, on a surface estimate, ought to have been solved swiftly and with ease.

  I suspected I was seeing things in a mirror, the wrong way round. I flogged my brain for a method of refocussing the facts, but it refused to fasten on anything helpful. The same thing often goes on when I’m planning a story. A fungoid growth of irrelevant detail blurs the sharp outline. Frustration causes my brain to overheat, like an engine with a clogged cooling system. Sleep becomes impossible.

  If I could have discussed the problem with Aidan it might have been different. But I was determined not to provide him with the opportunity of delivering yet another lecture on criminology spiced with witty comments on my ignorance and naivete. As a golfing companion Aidan is fine. As an exponent of ‘deductive logic’ and the ironic aside he sends me up the wall — probably because he makes me feel so mentally inadequate.

  In the bed in the opposite corner he was at peace and snoring. If the rhythm of his snoring had been regular, maybe I could have got used to it. But the sounds occurred at unexpected intervals, sometimes quickly on top of one another, sometimes only after lengthy silences which made me frantic before they were suddenly broken. Here was injustice. The case was his responsibility — his and Big Sam’s. He was the one who ought to have been wakefully anxious — not I, who had no responsibility whatever. Brooding on the subject made me even less inclined to sleep.

  I tossed about and at last got rid of the coverlet. Lying on my back, I was aware of a glimmer of light and a cool current of air coming from the open window, which faced the back of the hotel. I tried a few deep-breathing exercises, but even this failed to soothe me. Questions tumbled in my head, like the numbered balls in a bingo machine. If Aidan and Big Sam were becoming aware of a coherent pattern in the confusion of evidence they were lucky. All I could be certain about was that somewhere in St Andrews there lurked a killer — a vicious killer who might strike again.

  At about two in the morning, Aidan’s north wind snores had become gentle zephyrs from the south, and the heat in my imagination began to die down. A warm comfort took the place of tension in my body.

  Then, unexpectedly, I heard a sound, as if a loose twig of ivy were scraping against the wall outside. But I knew there was no ivy, no climbing plant of any kind.

  I got up quietly and went to the window. At first, as I peered out
into the cloud-dimmed moonlight, I could see nothing except the vague surfaces of the hotel walls. Then, in an angle of the building — some twenty feet away and close to where a rone-pipe ran down from the flat roof — I spotted a shadow moving on a ledge.

  High above the ground the shadow paused, like a bat at rest. Presently I heard the soft squeak of wood against wood.

  My brain was dull. Five seconds must have passed before it identified the squeak as that of a window-sash being gently raised.

  I tried to work out the geography of the hotel. Our corridor, I remembered, ran towards the front. It met another at right angles — the soft carpeted corridor in which Debbie Lingstrom and Erica Garson had their rooms. Debbie’s was two down from the intersection.

  The shadow moved again. As I watched, it melted into the wall and disappeared.

  I threw off dullness. I sprang across the room and shook Aidan’s shoulder.

  “Wake up, man! Wake up!”

  He snored convulsively, gulped and opened his eyes. “What on earth —”

  “Someone has gone into Debbie Lingstrom’s room — through the window! Come on!”

  He grabbed his glasses from the table and shot out of bed like a hurdler. Neither of us waited to put on dressing-gowns or slippers. In our pyjamas and bare feet we got the door open and raced along the corridor. As we swerved left and reached Debbie’s door, a young policeman appeared at the far end of the corridor.

  I tried the handle, but the door was locked.

  I put my shoulder to it. The policeman came running.

  “Miss Lingstrom, who’s in there?” shouted Aidan.

  There was no answer.

  “What’s all this about?” demanded the policeman, puzzled and aggrieved.

  “From our window I saw a figure on the wall,” I told him. “It entered Miss Lingstrom’s room. We must get inside — quick!”

  He caught on. We made a concerted charge, like a trio of Rugby League forwards. There was a splintering sound, but the door remained fast.

  We tried again. This time the lock burst away from the wood and we staggered in against the swinging door.

  The light was poor, but I could see that the lower sash of the window was fully open and that the white muslin curtains were moving in the draught. I ran across and looked out. There was no movement, no shadow. Obviously the intruder had heard us at the door and made a silent, swift escape by way of the rone-pipe.

  The policeman switched on a light. Debbie was sitting up in bed, hands pressed tight against her mouth. Her gold-spun hair was tumbled, her blue eyes wide with alarm. “Are you all right?” said Aidan.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve had a visitor. Did you see who it was?”

  “I was asleep. Until — until you woke me up.”

  “When you went to bed, did you leave your window open — as it is now?”

  “I — er — no. No, I didn’t.” She relaxed a little and gathered the sheet about her bare shoulders.

  Aidan gangled quickly past the dressing-table and looked out, as I had done. He eyed the rone-pipe, his head lifting as he studied its connection with the roof.

  He rejoined us. “All right, constable, leave this to us. Carry on looking after Miss Lingstrom, but from now on don’t forget to keep an eye on the outside of the hotel.” The policeman was crestfallen. “Sorry about that, sir. I never thought … ”

  “Neither did I, my boy. It was just one of those things.”

  “The Inspector’s going to tell me off, good and proper. I can see it coming!”

  “He won’t. I’ll speak to him.” The assumption of omnipotence had a good effect on the policeman. “Meanwhile, if anyone asks what all the commotion was about, tell them Miss Lingstrom thought there was a burglar, but it turned out to be a false alarm.”

  “Right, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  The door closed.

  Aidan stood at the foot of the bed, a pantomime figure in rumpled pyjamas and horn-rims. But he retained poise and authority.

  “Miss Lingstrom, this has proved conclusively that you are in danger. Will you tell us now what you seem so determined to keep to yourself?”

  Her colour was coming back. Small and frail and beautiful, she still had an imperious quality which confirmed my affection for her.

  “Nothing has been proved,” she answered, in a clear voice. “I reckon you staged the whole thing to try and frighten me into some kind of an admission!”

  “My dear girl! How preposterously mistaken you are!” He was losing not only his academic calm but also his temper: I saw it in the bunching of his fingers as he gripped the end of the bed. “If you go on like this, obstructing the ends of justice, flouting the police”

  “How can you accuse me of obstructing the ends of justice! Have you any proof?”

  He swallowed annoyance. “No,” he said, trying to sound judicial. “But I have a distinct impression”

  “An impression is not proof. A University Professor ought to know that!”

  “My academic qualifications are irrelevant!” he snapped.

  “Now, before we go any further, Miss Lingstrom — ”

  “We are not going any further. I shan’t listen. You have no right to question me like this. Please go. At once!”

  “I’m sorry. We do not intend to go. Not until you decide to be sensible and co-operate with us.”

  But though he argued for a full five minutes — and when Aidan argues it’s like a session with a Chinese brainwasher — she gave not an inch of ground. The ‘little girl lost’ look was misleading. She had a strength of will that caused me both surprise and admiration.

  In the end, trying to appear moderately civilised, we went.

  *

  We were up early. So was Big Sam.

  When he heard what had happened during the night, he blew his top on the subject of stupidly careless subordinates. Aidan calmed him down, pointing out that the intruder had chosen an entirely unexpected method of getting into Debbie’s room and that we ought to blame ourselves for not warning her to keep the window fastened.

  I did my bit by promising to insulate him from the cock-crow importunities of the crime reporters by dealing with their queries myself. This seemed to relieve his irritation, as if I’d sucked some poison from a wound.

  At eight o’clock the three of us had breakfast together in the hotel. Big Sam admitted that he’d let the policeman off with only a formal rocket for the sake of discipline.

  Then he told us that he’d questioned Debbie, with no more success than Aidan had achieved. “She reckons we’re making a fuss about nothing. That girl has a nerve! The way she treats us, you’d think Scots policemen were a lot of irresponsible Boy Scouts!”

  “I sympathise with you,” returned Aidan, with feeling. “But to adapt Lafontaine’s dictum, ‘to understand all might be to forgive all’. The death of her uncle could have — and probably did — hit her hard. But there’s something else — something she’s trying to deal with on her own which is tearing at her heart. We’re making it worse by badgering her.”

  “I know what you mean,” said the Inspector. “It would be a lot easier on herself if she’d confess. And on us,” he added, regretfully.

  Aidan rubbed his chin. “Of course, there’s always the possibility that her stubborn grief is an act — a cover for guilt, she’s lovely, she appears fragile, and men jostle each other to aid and protect her. But we know of murderers who were beautiful and appealing and plentifully endowed with sex. Madeleine Smith, for example.”

  Big Sam nodded grimly; but almost without thinking I rapped out: “Ridiculous! Debbie is no murderer. You said yourself you were sure her grief was genuine.”

  “You see, Inspector!” Aidan smiled his infuriating smile. “Even at his age”

  “My age has nothing to do with it! I pride myself on knowing something about human nature.”

  “So do we all,” put in Big Sam, heavily. “But it’s a very little rock to build a big case
on.”

  In face of such devastating logic I shrivelled into silence. But I wished I could have read the truth in Debbie’s mind. On her own admission, she and Bill Ferguson had been happy together. Why, then, had she broken off the relationship so abruptly, so cruelly, at a time when she badly needed his solid support?

  We were finishing our coffee when she and Erica Garson came into the dining-room. She was pale but apparently mistress of herself. The secretary looked about her with suspicion, as if intent upon guarding her companion against any outside interference whatsoever. She glanced towards our table but gave no other sign of recognition.

  As they sat down to grapefruit, toast and coffee, Big Sam said, quietly: “This is my chance. I want to make a thorough examination of Miss Lingstrom’s room before the chambermaid gets busy on it. The stranger may have left something behind. He — or she — left in a great hurry.”

  “What about finger-prints?” I said, in my innocence.

  He stood up, offering me a sour look. “We’re not morons, Mr MacVicar. We’ve already examined the rone-pipe and the window-sash. Nothing but vague smudges. Obviously the intruder wore gloves.”

  “I see,” I murmured, contritely resuming my humble station.

  He went off upstairs, accompanied by a sergeant who had been waiting in the hall.

  Aidan said: “I’d like a word with O’Donnel. Coming?”

  “All right.”

  Sanders and Lema were due on the first tee in about an hour. This would be their last practice round before the Old Course was closed in the afternoon. I would fain have gone to watch them; but to let Aidan down at this point was unthinkable.

  O’Donnel lived in the hotel, which had rooms on the top floor for members of the staff and for any servants the guests might bring along.

  We spoke to a passing waitress. “Ay,” she said, “he was just finishing his ham and eggs last time I was in the kitchen. He was saying he would have to wash the car this morning. A queer bird yon,” she added, suspicious of our interest in him.