Death for Madame

by Peter Main

  “Oh,” the Professor was vague, “it’s just that I’ve had Miss Aspinall’s account o’ the way she heard nothin’ durin’ the night, an’ I’d like to see how his account ties up wi’ hers. Ye see, this hotel must ha’ bin a pretty odd place.”

  “It was,” said Mr. Carr, with considerable feeling. The old man glared at the interruption.

  “It must ha’ bin kinda odd,” he began again, “wi’ no one goin’ to bed. Did yer aunt never get to bed?”

  “That,” said Mr. Carr, “is a question which I have sometimes asked myself. So far as I can make out from Annie, what she used to do was to sleep during the mornings, when there was nothing much happening, but the rest of the time she spent in that rocking-chair, dreaming of people who were long dead, talking with visitors, or playing an occasional game of cards with the Bakers, or with anyone else who would play with her. She used to cheat like hell, but she did it so badly that everyone knew what she was doing and so they took steps to deal with her cheating. As for Annie and Arthur, God alone knows when they managed to sleep. I’ve looked in her at three-thirty in the morning and Aunt Lottie has pressed the bell and there was Arthur, looking just the same as he always did. As for Annie, all Aunt Lottie used to do was yell for her and she’d come out, properly dressed. My private opinion was that they must all have taken a holiday once a year and slept for a whole fortnight so that they didn’t need to sleep again.”

  “Umhum,” said the old man, who had been following his own line of thought, “well then, I’d just kinda like to know if Arthur heard anythin’ out o’ the ordinary.”

  “The police,” said Mr. Carr, “have already asked him about that, and I gathered that they got nothing that was of the least use to them.”

  “That,” the old man grumbled, “was to be expected. They were just collectin’ information for the sake o’ collectin’ it. I want to ask him one or two questions an’ I hope the answers will tie up wi’ the ideas I got in me mind.”

  There were ideas floating about in my mind, too. It had suddenly come to me that the one person who had had the best opportunity to murder Lottie Rattigan was Miss Annie Aspinall. I thought of her statement that she had heard nothing out of the ordinary during the night, and it occurred to me that might have been telling the truth, for, having heard nothing out of the ordinary would not need to include the noises she herself had made in strangling the old girl.

  “Now,” said the Professor, tacking from subject to subject like a small boat, “what d’ye think o’ the Bakers, son?”

  “Mr. Baker is a smart, smooth, slippery customer,” Mr. Carr was prompt with the reply, “and he is, I think, capable of anything. You know he has been in gaol? Yes. Well, I don’t think he has any ambition to go there again, so he’d be careful to avoid anything that might lead him there. He would, I think, be quite capable of murdering someone, but he’d do it so damned carefully that there would be nothing which might lead to him.”

  “Exactly as things are in this case,” said the old man with immense satisfaction. “Ye ha’ realised, o’ course, that as murders go this one is pretty nigh perfect. It’s almost up to the standard o’ the man walkin’ up to a stranger an’ cuttin’ his throat an’ then goin’ away. There is no connection between him an’ the stranger an’ he never thinks o’ the murder again, an’ so no one can ever tie him up wi’ it. Here, o’ course, ye ha’ the Bakers comin’ into a bit o’ cash as a result o’ the old girl’s death, but then everyone else we bin suspectin’ also comes in for a bit o’ cash an’ they were all livin’ in the hotel. But the connection between anyone an’ Lottie Rattigan is no closer, really, than the connection between people livin’ in the same town. It’s just a microcosm, that’s all. Well, son, ye said somethin’ about Baker—what about his wife?”

  “His wife?” said Mr. Carr, “his wife? Oh, she is completely under his thumb you know. As dumb as a stuffed owl but rather better looking. He finds her very useful, for she goes out and sits in expensive bars until she is picked up by expensive men, who are then taken along to the gambling rooms. I must say, though, that I believe that the gambling is absolutely straight. There is no need for it to be crooked. The house may have a bad run now and again, but on the whole it is bound to win. The higher the play goes the more money the house stands to make. Mrs. Baker, besides being useful as a decoy, is also pretty ornamental to have around the place.”

  “Um,” the old man scratched his head, “I got dam’ little time to get ahead on, an’ I only got a few glimmerin’s o’ sense in me head to go on. I suppose, Ben, that ye didn’t be any chance strangle the old girl?”

  If the Professor had put that question to me in that way I would have been really angry, but Mr. Carr took it without offence. He seemed to turn it over in his mind, trying to decide whether, after all, he had killed Lottie Rattigan. Finally he spoke.

  “No,” he shook his head solemnly, “I’m sorry, old cock, I can’t help you there. I didn’t kill Aunt Lottie. Apart from anything else, I don’t need money the way some people need it and I liked the old girl. She was a real old sport. I thought you knew that I hadn’t killed her, if it comes to that?”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” the old man beamed at him, “I was just kinda thinkin’ out loud. It sort of came to me that if I could kinda fix up a good case against ye, it might take the coppers a little time to pull it down, an’ so I’d have a little longer to find out the real truth. I ain’t got much time, an’ I’m sure that Reggie is barkin’ up the wrong lamp-post.”

  “If,” said Mr. Carr carefully, “you think you can make out a good case against me, I don’t really mind being killed off temporarily to make your case better. On the other hand, Maggie might object, and you know, cock, she can be just hell when she’s roused. She sometimes even frightens me.”

  Even the old man shuddered at the thought of having to deal with a really angry woman. He was, I could see, hastily discarding his bright idea that he could use Ben Carr as a kind of stalking horse.

  Lunch, as it was called, though the word was a distinct understatement, came to an end and we adjourned to the hall, where the fire was flickering brightly. The Professor seemed to have taken over the rocking-chair as his right, for Mr. Carr took another chair and gestured me to yet another, while the old man seated himself.

  Mr. Carr, as the old man always says, has sensible ideas about the quantity of liquid a man needs. Maggie brought in coffee in vast breakfast cups and left an enormous pot on the table for replenishments. The old man scraped out his pipe and relit it. He seemed to be sunk in thought, running his blunt fingers over the elaborate and absurd carving on the table. Sometimes I can tell what he is thinking about, but this time I was at a loss. So far as anything showed on his face, his brown study was concerned with the higher mathematics, or problems in the genetics of some plant or other.

  He stayed this way for some time. Mr. Carr and I sat and smoked and watched him. Finally he drained the dregs of his third cup of coffee and hoisted himself out of the chair.

  “All right,” he said slowly, “d’ye think I could see Arthur now?”

  “I suppose so,” said Mr. Carr, getting up too. I rose, but the old man gestured to me to sit down.

  “I think,” he said heavily, “that it ’ud be as well if I was to see him by meself, for if he’s really ill there’s no point in the whole gatherin’ o’ us gettin’ into his room an’ excitin’ him. Ye just take me along to his room, Carr, an’ leave me to ask him a few questions. I think I’m beginnin’ to tumble to the whole thin’.”

  I gave it up. So far as I could see the old man had about as much prospect of finding the murderer of Lottie Rattigan as I had, and that meant that he had no chance. I gave a sort of mental tremble at the thought of the case remaining unsolved. Days and black days loomed ahead of me. I knew the Professor and I knew that the thought of an unsolved case, or one which he thought had been solved incorrectly, would be a continual nagging thorn in his mind.

  My hopes of g
etting back to work pretty soon were receding fast. The notes for the History of Botany would remain closeted in the steel filing-cabinet and my plans for the superb bibliography would be shelved indefinitely. I always did loathe murder cases; they are a distraction about which I can do nothing and the old man is a very much stronger character than I am, so, when he goes on the hunt, I trail along, like the bird that goes with the rhinoceros to live on its ticks.

  Mr. Carr came back. He was carrying the brandy bottle which we had not quite demolished the previous night. He looked at it questioningly.

  “I thought this might be a good idea, Max, old cock,” he said, “for the Prof seems to me to be going quite dotty with his desire to put a fast one over on the police. It seems to me that, as it can’t do him any further harm, it would be just as well to let the police think that Roland did murder Aunt Lottie. Once they think that they’ll leave us all alone once more. I thought I was going to enjoy running a hotel, but now I’m not so certain about it. There are all sorts of laws which I have to obey, and I’m not so hot on obeying laws.”

  “Nor is the old man,” I said helpfully, and Mr. Carr grinned at me.

  “Thing that beats me,” he said, “is how they allow him to go on driving that car of his. I like being driven by him, mind, for he always gets ahead faster than anyone else on the road, but he does drive badly.”

  Mr. Carr, as I have said, holds at least one world’s record. He is the only man who has ever confessed to liking being driven by Professor Stubbs. He now established a second record in my mind, for I had thought he had not realised the horror of the old man at the wheel.

  “Oh,” I said, “he does get pulled up every now and again, but he has always got a good excuse and somehow he wangles out of everything.”

  “I wonder,” Mr. Carr was thoughtful, “whether he’ll manage to wangle out of this case. He seems determined to find a reasonable answer, or at least one that he can think reasonable.”

  I heard a familiar heavy movement. It was the old man stumping up the corridor.

  “Talk of the devil,” I said, “and you’ll hear the flap of his black leather wings.”

  Mr. Carr turned to look at the old man. His face was very serious. He came up to the table and with masterly absent-mindedness poured himself a glass of brandy which he engulfed quickly.

  “I say, Carr,” his voice was as serious as his face, “I wish ye’d come along an’ see old Arthur wi’ me.”

  Mr. Carr rose to his feet and the two of them prepared to depart. I thought there was no reason why I should not be in on the party so I got up as well. The old man turned to me.

  “Max, son,” he said kindly, “d’ye think ye’d like to get back to Hampstead an’ lay out the notes in readiness for some work. I know where I’m goin’ now, an’ I don’t think there’s any need for ye to waste more time hangin’ around.”

  The old So-and-So, I thought, he has managed to find something out. I wondered what it was but I could see from the look on the old man’s face that I might just as well ask questions from a moss-covered stone in the garden. I had been nagging at him to drop the case and get back to work, and now, when he showed a willingness to do as I had requested, I did not wish to be left out of the case.

  “Look here,” I said, “you know that I promised the Bishop that I’d look after you and see that you didn’t get up to mischief. I can’t leave you here and go off like this. God knows what you’ll do with yourself.”

  He grinned like an African fetish mask. “Look at him,” he said to Mr. Carr, “you wouldn’t believe that he don’t like murder cases, ’ud ye? He’s been beggin’ me to let him get started on the notes, an’ now I tell him to get started he’s not willin’ to go. He’s afraid he’ll be missin’ somethin’. I tell ye this, Max, that I only got what ye got to work on, an’ I know where I am. Ye don’t, eh? Well, ye should, is all I can say: An’ I’ll promise ye further that I won’t do anythin’ really excitin’ wi’out haulin’ you in on it.”

  “I don’t mind what you do,” I said huffily, “just so long as you keep me out of it and don’t leave a mess for me to clear up.”

  He grinned at me even more fiendishly, and I departed.

  Chapter 19

  Clouds Lifting

  OF COURSE I had no one but myself to blame, I kept saying, for if I had not been so cagey about my idea that Janet Morgan, was Lottie Rattigan’s grandchild, then the old man might have pulled me in on his wild-goose chase. I might have wished that his chase would prove as futile as mine had done, but I was aware that to wish that would only be to wish trouble upon myself. A bear with a sore head would be a nice companion compared with the old man if he failed.

  I set out all the papers on his table and then went to work on my own part of the job, that of identifying all John Ray’s plants, and giving them their modern names. I complain about the old man’s untidiness sometimes, but I must say that I bogged myself pretty thoroughly that afternoon, pulling down book after book, in the effort to solve some little detail.

  The old man came back to tea. This surprised me, for I had quite expected that I would be left to my own devices until well after the clocks had proclaimed that it was midnight.

  He seemed to be quite pleased with himself, but I could get nothing out of him that had any bearing on the murder of Lottie Rattigan. Instead, he sat himself down at his desk and started putting pieces together, like a man working on a most elaborate jigsaw puzzle. I left off my own work and put away the books that had gathered all round me. I uncovered the typewriter and started transcribing some of the work. This sometimes seems to me to be a waste of work, as the old man’s handwriting is at least as legible as my typing. But, on the other hand, as I type very fast and rather erratically with two fingers of my right hand, I have to read the notes carefully as I transcribe them, and this is certainly to the good of my education. I learn a lot I didn’t know by this method and, in addition, it helps me find a note when the old man roars for it. There is then at least some hope that I’ll have some idea of the contents of every note, for, cross-index as I may, I am still bound to fall down somewhere. I suppose I should have been grateful to the old man for laying off the subject of murder, but, such is the perversity of human nature, that I was not the least grateful. He had aroused my curiosity and I would not rest until it was satisfied, but he was as mute as the mummy of an Egyptian Pharaoh.

  We got through quite a lot of work. When it was getting on for seven the old man looked at his immense turnip watch, the size of an old-fashioned travelling clock.

  “I forgot to tell ye, Max,” he said, “that we got company for dinner again. The Bishop is comin’ along to chew a bit o meat an’ then we’ll try chewin’ his rag for him. I got one or two things I want to say to him.”

  “Are you going to announce the name of the murderer?” I wanted to know.

  He grinned at me. “Maybe,” he said, “it all depends on a lot o’ things which may happen between now an’ dinner-time or even later.”

  I went up to my room and washed. The poltergeist seemed to have been at work up there. I was practically positive that I had not taken Nehemiah Grew’s Museum of the Royal Society up to my room, and I knew for certain that I had not left it lying on my bed. However, though things like that used to disturb me when I was new to the old man’s household, I have become hardened and can now take them in my stride.

  I did not think that the Chief Inspector looked any too happy. He accepted a glass of sherry and examined it dubiously. This seemed to me to be unnecessary, as anything the Professor has in the way of drink is always above suspicion and usually above praise.

  “You’re not planning to make me tight, are you, John?” he asked. The glass of sherry certainly was on the large side. “For if you are, I may tell you that I have no secrets to give away. If it comes to that, why was my presence so urgently needed at your table to-night?”

  “Just ye wait an’ see,” said the old man, “I may ha’ somethin’ up me slee
ve an’ on the other hand I may not.”

  He was playing mysterious, and when he does that he is apt to get under my skin. So far as I could see there was nothing that the old waiter could have told him that had put him on the right track, for he had assured me that I knew as much as he did and I could not make head nor tail out of the facts at my command.

  The subject of murder was not mentioned during dinner. Instead, the Professor, who had suddenly become very cheerful, entertained the Chief Inspector and me with accounts of the vagaries of various eminent scientists. I feel quite sure that he invented some of these, and, in fact, that the greater part of them were apocryphal. They were certainly scurrilous and slanderous.

  After we had finished eating we retired to the fireside of the large room. I had a vague feeling that the old man was waiting for something to happen. It was rather as if he had seen the flash of lightning in the sky and was counting the seconds between it and the sudden deafening crash of thunder. This feeling did not make me any more comfortable.

  “Well, John,” the Chief Inspector stretched out his legs and examined the tip of his cigar with satisfaction, “what is the reason for this plethora of hospitality? Are you about to claim that you have won your bet? I shudder to think that that might be so, for my work is difficult enough without being burdened with you in the course of an investigation.”

  The old man glowered at him. “Ye’ll hear how I won me bet in me good time,” he growled, “an’ don’t ye’ try backin’ out now, Reggie. I got a witness in young Max, who’ll swear that ye took me on.”

  “Oh, yes,” the Chief Inspector did not seem to be very worried, “I accepted your bet all right, and I’ll have to pay up if I lose. But what makes you so certain that I am about to lose?”

  “I know who murdered Lottie Rattigan,” the old man sounded very positive.

  “The devil you do!” exclaimed the Bishop. “Then who was it?”