Thrones, Dominations

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  ‘Give us a guided tour, Charles. Starting here. Was the door locked?’

  ‘Not when we got here.’

  ‘Fingerprints on the doorknob?’

  ‘Multiple. All yet to be identified. And a broken pane in the French windows on the other side of the house. Intruder probably got in that way, and cut himself doing it. Blood all over the place. I’ll show you that in a minute.’

  They stepped inside. A corridor led past the kitchen to the back of the house, where a large, L-shaped room with windows to the balcony was arranged as a sitting-room one end, and dining-room the other. At the dining-room end of the room the table was laid with a white cloth, and set for dinner: napkins, silver cutlery, glasses, flowers and candles in crystal candlesticks – new candles, unlit.

  ‘She was expecting someone,’ said Peter.

  ‘Who didn’t come,’ said Charles. ‘It looks like it, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What were they going to eat?’ asked Peter. ‘I’d be surprised if she could boil an egg, in person.’

  ‘Hamper in the kitchen.’

  ‘Can I look?’

  ‘Of course.’

  They stepped into the kitchen. The usual kitchen range, dresser and deal table was supplemented by a new Easywork cabinet. Little gingham curtains hung at the windows. On the table a large wicker basket with Fortnum and Mason’s labels on it stood open and partly unpacked.

  ‘What were they having?’ asked Peter.

  ‘No expense spared: caviar, venison pie, salads, apricots in brandy, coffee, fine chocolates, champagne sent down in ice, melted now, of course.’

  ‘Any of it touched?’

  ‘No. But there’s a bottle of sherry in the drinks cupboard in the sitting-room that’s had about two glasses poured from it.’

  ‘And the glasses?’

  ‘None left out. Of course, the sherry might have been opened last time the bungalow was used.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Peter moved to inspect the broken pane in the French window.

  ‘Classic outside-in breakage pattern,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Only one or two fragments of the glass have fallen outside,’ said Charles.

  Peter took the silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, shook it out, and draped it over the door handle of the French doors. Gingerly, he tried the door.

  ‘This is locked, Charles – had you noticed? Breaking the pane would not have allowed the door to open. Where’s the blood you mentioned?’

  ‘Over there.’ Charles indicated the corner of the room containing a bookcase.

  The two men stared at the thick pool of coagulating blood on the carpet. The bookcase had been joggled: three books and the vases that had stood on top of it had fallen into the pool of blood.

  ‘This is the intruder’s blood, you reckon?’ asked Peter.

  ‘It must be. There are no surface wounds on the body,’ said Charles. ‘We’ll be getting it typed.’

  ‘So he cut himself over there – and he bled profusely here?’ Peter mused. ‘Are there some blood spots between the window and here?’

  ‘We haven’t found any.’

  ‘Odd. And what was he doing here? I mean, if I had happened to cut myself badly I would make for the kitchen taps, not for the bookcase.’

  ‘Dark room; unknown premises?’ said Charles.

  ‘Curtains all open, and nearly full moon,’ countered Wimsey. ‘And if he didn’t get in by the French window, how did he get in?’

  A police officer approached Charles and said, ‘We’re ready to move the body, sir.’

  ‘Hold it just a minute,’ said Charles. ‘Do you want to see this, Peter?’

  He indicated a corridor that led from the sitting end of the room to the bedrooms.

  ‘Hello,’ said Peter. ‘Door lock broken here.’

  ‘Yes; she had locked herself in when she went to bed, it seems.’ Charles pushed the door wide, and was surprised by Peter’s intake of breath.

  Rosamund Harwell lay on her back, her knees slightly flexed, her right hand dangling to the floor, among piles of silk pillows and sheets. Her spectacular red-gold hair was spread in a tousled halo round her darkened and swollen face. Her tongue was protruding slightly between blackened lips. She was wearing a white dress and a white pleated collar.

  ‘My God, Charles!’ said Peter faintly.

  ‘Sorry, old man, am I being inconsiderate? I thought you’d be used to a body or two, by now.’

  ‘Harriet wears a collar exactly like that,’ said Peter.

  ‘Damn silly fashions, women all wearing them like sheep,’ said Charles. ‘Thank God Mary’s got more sense. But you see the problem, Peter?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Peter, ‘I see it all right. More than one, in fact. Let them take her, Charles, I’ve seen enough.’

  A police constable with huge, beefy hands stepped forward, and drew a sheet delicately over Rosamund’s disfigured face. The stretcher party were waiting in the corridor as Peter and Charles beat a retreat.

  ‘I asked Bunter to take some photographs, Charles. Would you mind? Before you seal up the place. Of course, I know your people will have done it, but . . .’

  ‘By all means. I’ve been impressed by Bunter’s photographs, and he knows better than to disturb the scene of the crime. Are you feeling better for a spot of lunch?’

  ‘Top hole, thank you. Sorry to have made a blinking ass of myself.’

  ‘Not at all. I should have realised that murder is very different when one knew the victim.’

  They were sitting ensconced in the snug of the local pub, over beer and sandwiches beside a bright fire. Through the windows they could see a pleasant prospect of the river, stooped over by drooping willow branches in festoons, and enlivened by the occasional rowing boat or skiff passing by.

  ‘So, problem one, who was she expecting, and did he show up, or not show up, and if not why not? Doesn’t her husband know, poor fellow?’

  ‘He’s in no state to ask, at the moment. He discovered the body himself, early this morning. We can question him when he’s had time to collect himself. I wanted your reaction.’

  ‘Why, particularly?’

  ‘Because I wanted to know if it looked like a lovers’ assignation to someone in your elevated circle, or if that thought was just my policeman’s dirty mind.’

  ‘The table was set for two. So unless she was expecting her husband . . . How far have you got, Charles?’

  ‘Not very far at all. My men are doing a house-to-house, to see if anyone saw or heard anything. Harwell says Mrs Harwell was spending a few days in the country to rest her nerves, or something, and he got worried about her being alone, and drove down here first thing this morning. He found his wife dead in bed. He seems to have been in a traumatised state, and there’s no telephone in the bungalow, but by and by he pulled himself together and drove off to the police station to raise the alarm.’

  ‘Locking the doors behind him, I take it? Did he say why he was worried enough to come down? Presumably he knew when she set out that she would be alone.’

  ‘He saw a report in The Times this morning of an outrage quite nearby, in Sunbury.’

  ‘Did he now?’ said Peter. ‘I suppose you’ve checked that?’

  ‘It’s there all right. Nasty case: man broke into a house and assaulted an elderly woman living alone. Took some money and some jewellery.’

  ‘But until Mr Harwell recovers himself you can’t ask if any jewellery was missing here.’

  ‘No. I shouldn’t think there’s any connection. But all the same it might be why Mr Harwell came down here.’

  ‘Of course it might. But what do you make of the other problems?’

  ‘What other problems in particular?’ said Charles cautiously.

  ‘To start with, a pane broken in the French window that could not have allowed entry to the place. Whoever broke it would have been able to reach the door handle, admittedly, but would not have been able to open the door.’

  ‘Well,
whoever it was wouldn’t have known that the door had a lock and key, and not just a handle, until the pane was smashed and he could reach in and try it. Not every criminal manoeuvre is successful.’

  ‘No indeed. But how, in that case, did the intruder gain entry?’

  ‘Mrs Harwell might have let him in.’

  ‘After he broke the window, or before? Then there’s the bedroom door. Why was that locked?’

  ‘Well, a woman alone in a house surely might lock the bedroom door when she goes to bed.’

  ‘She might. But she hadn’t gone to bed – or only just. She was fully dressed, even her shoes still on, and that ridiculous collar.’

  ‘So the murderer got in by means unknown at the moment, when she had only just locked the door, I suppose.’

  ‘Which would give us quite a tight time scheme if we could establish when she went to bed.’

  ‘The pathologist will give us a time of death more precisely as soon as he can. His rough guess is shortly after midnight.’

  ‘And the cause of death?’

  ‘Asphyxia. Smothering, I should think, with all those pillows around.’

  ‘Don’t think so, Charles. Something more violent, I’m afraid. That amount of occlusion and facial darkening; smothering leaves less trace, I think. And there was a marked depression in the pillow beside the head.’

  ‘Downward pressure from the smothering?’

  ‘Beside the head. Not under it. I wondered about that. And anyway—’

  ‘If it was smothering, where is the pillow used as the upper one?’

  ‘Exactly. Well, Bunter will take pictures for us. And there will be marks when they strip the body.’

  ‘Yes. Well . . .’

  ‘Charles, old fruit, why don’t you come right out with whatever it is you have on your mind, instead of eyeing me like a frightened horse?’

  ‘I wondered if you would sit in on the interview with Harwell,’ said Charles.

  ‘Now why would you want me to do that?’ said Wimsey. ‘Frightfully irregular, isn’t it? Do you think the sight of my vacant features will lull the suspect into a full confession?’

  ‘He isn’t a suspect at the moment.’

  ‘The husband is always a suspect in the case of a murdered wife,’ said Wimsey lightly, ‘although from what I know of the fellow he is a rather unlikely one in this case.’

  ‘He was absolutely distraught this morning,’ said Charles. ‘The presence of a friend might help.’

  ‘Amazing discovery!’ said Peter. ‘Sensitive policeman found in Hampton pub . . . What is it, Bunter?’

  Bunter had appeared and was standing at the end of the pew.

  ‘Beg pardon, my lord, but I am unable to develop the plates immediately, as you requested, because the sink in the scullery at Rose Cottage is blocked. I have obtained permission to avail myself of the sink in the pantry in the next-door bungalow, my lord, where the owners are absent, and not expected today, and the housekeeper is a sensible woman by the name of Mrs Chanter. Should you require me during the next hour, my lord, I will be at Mon Repos.’

  ‘Splendid. Very fly of you, Bunter. And while you are availing yourself of the freely flowing sink at Mon Repos, you can also avail yourself of anything that the excellent Mrs Chanter saw or heard, or knows about her neighbours.’

  ‘That thought had occurred to me, my lord.’

  ‘Bunter, have you had some lunch?’

  ‘Thank you, my lord. Mrs Chanter mentioned a freshly baked cottage pie, and an apple charlotte.’

  ‘Excellent. Run away then. The Chief Inspector and I are off to interview Mr Harwell.’

  ‘Indeed, my lord,’ said Bunter gravely.

  ‘The Chief Inspector has intimated,’ said Wimsey, ‘that the presence of an acquaintance might induce calm and coherence in the man; but I can’t help wondering if what he has in mind is that Harwell has friends in high places, and it might be wise to have a witness to the fact that velvet gloves and the entire rule book were used in dealing with him. Good God, Charles, don’t blush like that; Bunter will think I have caught you out in some peccadillo.’

  Harwell was in a room in a local hotel: a room with a policeman outside the door. When the Chief Inspector entered, with Wimsey close behind him, Harwell was sitting on the end of the bed, hands clasped between his knees, staring out of the window at the view. It was of bleak, leafless trees, and a brown flood, overspilled from the river across the fields, and empty of action except for the silent gliding across it of a pair of swans.

  Harwell jumped up, and turned towards the door an expression of eager desperation, as though, perhaps, hope against hope, there could be some good news. This expression was succeeded at once by one of misery.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Harwell,’ said Charles. ‘I am going to have to ask you some questions. I am afraid they may be distressing to you, but . . .’

  ‘I will tell you anything you need,’ said Harwell, bleakly.

  ‘I have brought Lord Peter Wimsey with me,’ said Charles. ‘In case he is able to assist. If you have any objection . . .’

  ‘No, why should I have?’

  ‘This is a terrible thing, Harwell,’ said Wimsey, quietly. ‘You have all my sympathy.’

  Tears sprang to Harwell’s eyes. He turned to Wimsey, and said, ‘I loved her.’

  ‘The immediate need, sir,’ said Charles, ‘is to find and apprehend her assailant. He is clearly a very dangerous man. We need him under lock and key.’

  ‘What? Of course, of course. What do you need to know?’

  ‘Well, firstly, sir, could you give us an account of your wife’s movements on the day of her death?’

  ‘No,’ said Harwell, thoughtfully. ‘Not really. She went down to the bungalow on the previous day.’

  ‘That would be Wednesday, would it? The 26th?’

  ‘Yes. And I stayed in London. I don’t know how she spent the next day. She telephoned the flat some time that afternoon, and left a message that she was feeling better and would return to town on Friday. That is the last I heard of her before . . .’

  ‘There is no telephone at the bungalow?’

  ‘No. We thought of having one put in, but the purpose of the place was as a quiet retreat, out of reach of constant demands. In London the phone rings all day and half the night. Theatre people get very obsessive. There is a perfectly convenient telephone box on the odd occasions when we need to make a call, a little way down the lane, opposite the farm cottages. She phoned from there while she was walking the dog.’

  ‘But you did not take the call yourself?’

  ‘No; I was at my club. The service porter took the message.’

  ‘Good. We can check the time with him. The message said she was feeling better; had she been unwell?’

  ‘Not exactly. She was a little tense. She was very moody, Inspector. Very highly strung. Well, you know, Lord Peter, she had not had an easy life.’

  ‘Did she often go down to Hampton by herself?’ asked Charles.

  ‘No. It was the first time. The first days we had spent apart since our marriage. I was very uneasy about it, but I could hardly have forbidden her to go, could I?’

  ‘Harwell, we had better ask you bluntly if there was any special reason why she went?’ said Wimsey. ‘Had you, for example, quarrelled about anything?’

  ‘No,’ said Harwell. ‘We had not quarrelled. We never quarrelled, why should we? I always give her – oh, God! – gave her anything she asked for.’

  ‘But nevertheless, she was spending three days apart from you, for the first time?’ pursued Charles.

  ‘Yes. She thought a little fresh air, a change of scene would lift her spirits. I think she found the Park Lane flat dull when I was out at work. And I have been unusually busy recently.’

  ‘And was she going to meet anyone while she was down there, do you know?’

  ‘There was some talk of getting a decorator to look at the place. Oh, and she thought Mr Amery might visit her there.’


  ‘The poet,’ Wimsey told Charles.

  ‘A friend of the family,’ said Harwell.

  ‘But you don’t know whether or not he did go?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Harwell. ‘He could more easily see her when she was in town.’

  ‘And would there be anyone else you know of who might have wished to see your wife, perhaps specially when she was out of town?’

  ‘Did she have a lover, you mean? That’s what you are suggesting, isn’t it?’ Rage and distress made his voice rise.

  ‘Try to keep calm, old man,’ said Wimsey, gently. ‘The Chief Inspector has to ask these things.’

  ‘She could have had dozens of lovers,’ said Harwell, sullenly. ‘People are drawn to anyone as beautiful as that.’

  ‘But can you think of anyone in particular?’

  ‘There’s that odious painter fellow Chapparelle,’ said Harwell at length. ‘He has a pretty awful reputation, and he certainly ogled her. He was painting her portrait. But she wouldn’t have had anything to do with him apart from the sittings, I’m certain.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ said Charles. ‘Now, sir, your own movements, please. In the afternoon, when the call from Mrs Harwell came through you were at your club . . .’

  ‘Yes. I spent the afternoon discussing a project with some business associates there. I dined there, and then played several rounds of bridge with Colonel Marcher. The flat was not very tempting to return to, with my wife absent.’

  ‘We can confirm all that,’ said Charles. ‘When did you leave?’

  ‘I can’t remember exactly,’ said Harwell. ‘Fairly late.’

  ‘Did you go straight home?’

  ‘No. I had things on my mind; professional concerns. I wandered about a bit.’

  Charles caught Peter’s eye. Wimsey’s face was frozen.

  ‘About how long did you wander for, sir?’ asked Charles.

  ‘I don’t know!’ cried Harwell, exasperated. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘So you don’t know when you got in that night?’ said Wimsey. His tone was neutral. He did not catch Charles’s eye.

  ‘No!’ said Harwell. ‘No, I don’t. But the night porter does. I found I had left my doorkey on the hall table in the flat, and I had to knock him up to let me in. I had to make a hell of a racket before I could attract his attention; he was sleeping on the job, I think, so I gave him a bit of a dressing-down for it. He’s certainly going to remember that.’