‘Of course,’ Sir Joseph continued soothingly, ‘Miss Bing, as a good housekeeper, would supervise the arrangement of the furnishings, and would see that anything soiled or marked was immediately cleaned. But we need not go into that at present. There are just one or two little points I want cleared up. The first one is to ascertain which persons in the house (including the servants) definitely can be acquitted of suspicion. I’m afraid I must trouble you to have them up one by one for this purpose, Bing. The servants first.’
The examination of the domestic staff and the testing of their several alibis did not take very long. The Chief Constable, firm but tactful, encouraging the timid and keeping the loquacious within the bounds of the inquiry, established without a doubt the fact that between the most extreme points of time in which the crime could have been committed all were engaged in their several duties, and could produce two or more witnesses to prove it. Even the man Parsons was able to find a first ally in Dorothy Clark, who had seen him waiting about for Mountjoy on the threshold of the bedroom, a second one in Mrs Bradley’s maid, who had been sent down on to the next floor to see if her mistress had dropped a lace handkerchief on the stairs, and, in addition, the valet’s story of his going to the butler to tell him about the flowers received ample confirmation from that functionary, and also from the knife and boot boy, who had (he now confessed with tears) jeered at Parsons as he passed by the pantry on his way to the kitchen.
‘So that’s that,’ said the Chief Constable, slapping his note-book down on the table with an air of finality. ‘And now, Bing, for the more delicate operation of interviewing your guests and family.’
Alastair rang the bell, and moodily resumed his seat.
‘I’ll step outside, shall I?’ said Carstairs obligingly.
‘If you will be so kind.’
When he had gone, the Chief Constable turned in a businesslike manner to Bing.
‘Well, now, Bing,’ he said encouragingly. ‘Where were you between the hours of six-fifty and seven-twenty-five on the evening of August the thirteenth? I have to ask you as a matter of form, you know.’
Alastair Bing pursed his lips and frowned.
‘I suppose I was in my room, dressing for dinner,’ he said.
‘Do you know anybody who will bear witness to that?’
‘Why, no. Of course not,’ replied Alastair testily. ‘I don’t have the whole household in my bedroom to watch me dress for dinner.’
‘By heavens, Brenner,’ said the Chief Constable, slapping his knee, ‘some intelligence has been used here!’
‘You’re right, Sir Joseph,’ replied the doctor, with faint enthusiasm. ‘A clever job.’
‘You see the point, don’t you, Bing?’ the Chief Constable went on, turning again to Alastair.
‘What?’ said Alastair shortly.
‘Well,’ Sir Joseph good-humouredly explained, ‘I expect nearly everybody will be in the same boat as yourself.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Everybody was dressing for dinner. Nobody, probably, will be able to produce what I should call a water-tight alibi. See?’
‘That’s very interesting,’ said Alastair Bing heavily.
‘And now, can I trouble you to send in Mr Carstairs?’ Sir Joseph went on.
Alastair walked out, and Carstairs took his place.
‘Of course I haven’t an alibi,’ he laughed, before the Chief Constable could frame the question. ‘Incidentally, we were all a bit late for dinner—all the men, I mean. The ladies managed as usual, of course.’
‘You mean?’
‘I mean Mountjoy was occupying that bathroom all the time. The rest of us had to make shift as best we could.’
‘Ah, yes. Of course. Did none of you knock on the door, or do anything to attract her attention?’
‘I couldn’t say. I made a dive for the top-floor bathroom when I found the other was still occupied, and was lucky enough to grab it. Oh, Bertie Philipson met me coming out of it, but heaven knows what the time was. I just fell into my clothes and made a dash for it. Philipson was even later down than I was.’
‘You mean, you might have had time to commit the murder and then go upstairs to the other bathroom?’
‘Oh, yes, easily, I should imagine,’ replied Carstairs cheerfully. ‘But then, so would Philipson,’ he added, laughingly.
‘I know,’ said Sir Joseph gloomily. ‘That’s just the difficulty. Nobody will have a complete alibi, unless one of the ladies happens to have had her maid with her all the time.’
This proved to be so in the case of Mrs Bradley, who was the very last person to be interviewed.
‘Well, I suppose I can cross you off my list of suspects,’ said the Chief Constable, smiling at her.
‘Oh, don’t do that, Sir Joseph!’ cried Mrs Bradley kittenishly. ‘I shall feel so lonely if you do. Besides, Mr Carstairs picked me out as the murderer.’
The Chief Constable laughed, closed his notebook, and rose.
‘Well, I’ve seen everybody now, I take it,’ he said.
Having all been interviewed, the entire house-party and family were by this time gathered together in the study, and they all laughed and told him there were no more victims.
‘Then,’ he said, ‘I must go, for all sorts of formalities have to be complied with. But don’t imagine you’ve got rid of me altogether. I shall come again.’
He turned to Alastair Bing.
‘We shall, of course, apply for an adjournment of the inquest after the formal evidence of identification and so on has been taken,’ he said. ‘Good-bye, Bing, I am terribly sorry this has happened. I’ll make it my business to see that nobody is harassed more than is absolutely necessary, of course, but we must get to the bottom of the beastly business, whatever happens. Good-bye, and cheer up as much as you can.’
With which last friendly injunction, he drove away.
Carstairs joined Mrs Bradley in the garden.
‘You haven’t forgotten the cliff walk you promised to show me, have you?’ she asked him.
Carstairs looked at her quizzically, and she laughed.
‘Yes, that’s it. You have guessed the guilty secret. I want to talk to you. And we daren’t talk here.’
‘No. Here comes young Philipson already,’ said Carstairs, smiling at the young man as he came towards them over the beautiful, springy turf.
‘I say, I feel all of a dither,’ said Bertie, joining them. ‘These little diversions may be all right for those of strong moral fibre, but my delicate constitution won’t stand much more of it.’
‘Of what?’ asked Mrs Bradley. ‘You don’t mean that a young healthy male animal is upset because he’s had to tell a policeman at what time during the evening of August the thirteenth he put his clean shirt on, and who saw him do it?’
‘It’s all very well to rot me, Mrs Bradley,’ said Bertie, in an affectedly injured tone, ‘but it is upsetting and unnerving to a sensitive nature like mine.’
‘Well, you didn’t give yourself away,’ said Carstairs, laughing. ‘Nobody thinks you did it.’
‘I say, though——’ Bertie’s voice dropped, and he gave a cautious glance towards the verandah, where, sprawled in attitudes of ease, sat Garde and Dorothy. Their attention, however, was entirely engaged, so Bertie withdrew his gaze from the charming picture of their utter absorption in one another’s conversation, and continued:
‘I’d like to tell you people something, and then perhaps you’ll advise me whether to tell that policeman Johnnie, or whether it is unimportant.’
Mrs Bradley and Carstairs looked as interested as they felt.
‘Yes?’ breathed Mrs Bradley.
‘Well, it’s only this——’ Bertie gave another stealthy glance around him. ‘You know what a devil of a time Mountjoy was in that bathroom?’
‘Yes,’ said Carstairs.
‘Well, I waited and waited, you know, thinking every minute that he—she I mean—would emerge, until at last I got so fed up that I w
ent and twisted at the handle of the door to hurry him up a bit.’
‘Her,’ said Mrs Bradley, under her breath.
‘Yes, her. Well, do you know, I swear the door was locked then. The handle turned, but nothing else happened. I only shoved cautiously, of course, in case the place was still occupied, and then somebody inside squeaked out, “Don’t come in!” Just like that. High-pitched, you know, and nervous. Well, of course I yelled, “Sorry!” and came away, and it was after that I met you, Mr Carstairs, on the floor above, coming out of the other bathroom.’
‘Yes, I remember,’ said Carstairs. ‘But I don’t quite see why you’ve told us your little yarn. Naturally, if Mountjoy was in the bath, she would shout to you not to enter the room, wouldn’t she?’
‘It wasn’t Mountjoy’s voice,’ said Bertie quietly.
‘What?’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t. Mountjoy’s voice was low-pitched and rather harsh. But this voice was high and rather shrill. An absolute woman’s voice, if you understand me. Scared, you know. I’ve heard women in an air-raid during the war speak like it. Quite unlike a man in a funk.’
‘Well,’ interpolated Mrs Bradley, ‘that is quite comprehensible, I think. You startled Mountjoy badly, I expect, and so, in her terror lest you should enter and discover the secret that she had successfully kept for so many years, she shrieked at you in her normal instead of in her disguised voice.’
‘By Jove!’ cried Bertie, ‘I never thought of that! That would explain it, of course. Yes, that must be it. Jolly brainy of you to have thought that out, Mrs Bradley.’
‘Opinions differ,’ said Mrs Bradley dryly.
Some instinct prompted Carstairs to ask a question.
‘Philipson,’ he said; and then he hesitated, as if uncertain whether to continue or not.
‘Yes?’ said Bertie.
Thus prompted, Carstairs went on.
‘When you heard that voice from the bathroom—a woman’s voice, when you were expecting to hear the voice of Mountjoy—did it sound to you like the voice of anyone you know?’
Bertie frowned thoughtfully.
‘Under the circumstances, Mr Carstairs, I don’t know whether I am justified in answering that question,’ he said slowly.
‘Then you have answered it,’ Carstairs pointed out.
‘Oh, damn! Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs Bradley!’ the young man exclaimed. ‘But so I have. Well, then, having gone so far——’
‘Just one moment, Mr Philipson,’ interrupted Mrs Bradley. ‘Would you mind keeping the rest of that sentence until after tea?’
Carstairs and Bertie Philipson looked at her in mild surprise.
‘I have my reasons,’ she smiled. ‘Do you mind, Mr Philipson?’
‘Why, no, of course not. Not a bit,’ Bertie hastened to assure her. ‘Do you think I ought to tell the police after all, then?’
‘Well, if you will be advised by me,’ said Mrs Bradley, carefully choosing her words, ‘I should say—not yet. It cannot help them, and might possibly even hinder them in the present state of the inquiry.’
‘You know best, of course,’ said Bertie, with his charming smile. ‘I’ll keep mum, then.’
‘Do,’ said Mrs Bradley approvingly. ‘Don’t mention it to anybody at all at present. You haven’t done so, have you?’
‘Rather not,’ replied Bertie truthfully. ‘Righto. Thanks very much.’
Then he left them, and walked towards the house.
‘And now for our walk,’ said Mrs Bradley, with such peculiar satisfaction in her tones that Carstairs felt compelled to ask:
‘Has that young man’s information any special bearing on the case?’
Mrs Bradley smiled horribly, and they passed out of the garden into the road.
For a quarter of an hour or so neither spoke. Then Carstairs said: ‘Over this stile.’
They surmounted it, walked on over short grass for a hundred yards or so, and then found themselves on the top of cliffs facing the sea.
‘Very charming,’ said Mrs Bradley, with gracious appreciation of the view. ‘Let us descend to the shore.’
A fairly precipitous but perfectly safe path brought them to sea-level, and, the tide being well out, although it had turned, they walked along the level sands.
‘Delightful,’ said Mrs Bradley, inhaling the fresh sea breezes as she walked by Carstairs’ side.
‘Very delightful,’ he answered. ‘But you didn’t bring me all this way just to enjoy the sea air, did you? Come, talk to me, for my mind is enveloped in a thick fog. I do wish Alastair had said nothing to Sir Joseph about the wretched business. I am afraid now of what will be discovered.’
‘So am I,’ said Mrs Bradley, pausing in her stride.
‘Queer about that voice young Philipson heard,’ said Carstairs thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if there is anything in it. Personally, I incline to the opinion that it must have been Mountjoy’s own voice, as you first suggested.’
‘Impossible,’ said Mrs Bradley seriously, as she dived into her capacious skirt-pocket and produced a tiny loose-leaf note-book. A tug at a silver chain which she wore around her neck brought into view a little silver pencil. ‘Impossible,’ she repeated, turning away from Carstairs and writing very rapidly on one of the dainty pages. ‘He did not hear poor Mountjoy’s voice, for the simple reason that she must have been dead by that time.’
‘But your own perfectly plausible explanation of the matter!’ cried Carstairs, surprised and bewildered.
‘Merely given to put young Philipson off the scent,’ smiled Mrs Bradley, as she removed the page from her note-book, carefully folded it, and handed it to Carstairs. ‘When you began asking that question, I thought the fat was in the fire. You see, whatever happens, the guilty person must never know that anybody suspects anything. It would be fatal. And when I say fatal, I mean it. If my deductions are correct—and, as they are based on pure psychology, I do not suppose they will turn out to be at fault—we have to deal with a person who values life so little that she will stick at nothing——’
‘She?’ cried Carstairs in amazement. ‘But surely this was not a woman’s crime?’
‘I think so. No, I will not deceive you, my friend. I am sure of it.’
‘But the climb from balcony to window——’
‘Not at all difficult. Young Philipson has done it; I could do it if I were an inch longer in the leg. You could do it; so could the two girls, who are both a couple to three inches taller than I am; the maids, with the exception of cook, who suffers with rheumatism, and Mary Peters, who is a trifle shorter than I am, could all have managed it.’
‘Yes, but the amount of nerve required,’ Carstairs began.
‘We are thinking about a murderer, remember,’ Mrs Bradley reminded him. ‘I imagine that a person with nerve enough to commit a murder has nerve enough to climb from a balcony in order to do it.’
‘Not always, I fancy,’ Carstairs demurred. ‘But allowing that your assumption is correct, how do you think the actual murder was committed? I have my own theory, of course,’ he added, ‘but I can’t quite see the murderer as a woman, now that I am convinced you yourself are not——’ He laughed and left the sentence unfinished. ‘I’m certain now that it was a man’s crime,’ he concluded lamely.
‘Well, I may be mistaken,’ Mrs Bradley admitted. ‘But I don’t think I am. Look here. Who knew that Mountjoy was a woman?’
‘Before her death?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why—no one.’
‘Are you sure no one knew?’
Carstairs shrugged his shoulders.
‘I don’t want to think it out,’ he confessed, smiling wryly at Mrs Bradley’s triumphantly grinning face. ‘But now, supposing it was a woman, how exactly did she commit the murder?’
‘Quite simply. To begin with, I’ll say this: I don’t believe she intended to murder Mountjoy when she climbed in at the bathroom window, although I do believe she regarded him—her with deadly hatred.’
‘Hated Mountjoy? But Mountjoy was the most inoffensive person I have ever met,’ cried Carstairs. ‘I am sure you are following a false trail.’
‘Am I?’ Mrs Bradley smiled her saurian smile. ‘I don’t think I am. Surely you can put your finger on the person in the house who hated Mountjoy with the intense, bitter and never-ending hatred of one whose finest feelings, whose noblest emotions had been played with, mocked at, scorned, derided, lacerated?’
Mrs Bradley’s voice rose high with excitement until it reached the last word. Then she drew a deep breath, and gazed expectantly at Carstairs. She chuckled ghoulishly as a great light suddenly dawned in his expression.
‘Good God!’ he almost whispered, in his intense interest and excitement. ‘Of course! I see the point, now, of all that you hinted before. Do you know, that had never occurred to me for one single instant until you hinted at it before. And I don’t believe it ever would,’ he added honestly, ‘if it had not been for you.’
‘Let us go back to the house,’ said Mrs Bradley abruptly.
They turned and retraced their steps in silence until they came within sight of the tall chimneys of Chayning Place.
Carstairs pointed to the beautiful old house. ‘And you have been able to live under that roof, knowing what you have known all this time, and have spoken naturally and unaffectedly with everybody, and have sat at the same table with the murderer——’
He paused, and then shook his head. ‘I couldn’t have done it. I don’t know what I shall do or say, as it is, when we encounter them all again in there.’
‘You won’t have to bear the burden of our knowledge for long,’ Mrs Bradley said calmly. ‘I think that what we know will soon be perfectly obvious to every member of that household. Poor, poor girl,’ she added, with genuine sorrow and pity in her tones.
‘Do you really mean that?’ asked Carstairs, interested. ‘I don’t think I could ever sincerely pity a murderer.’
‘We are all murderers, my friend,’ said Mrs Bradley lugubriously. ‘Some in deed and some in thought. That’s the only difference, though.’
Speedy Death Page 8