Portrait of a Murderer

by Martin Edwards

  His remark deflected the trend of Brand’s thought. Instantly self-forgetful, his imagination presented him with a picture of the silent, intent man, separated from themselves only by a partition of plaster and wood, invoking the aid of inanimate objects to solve the problem that had been deliberately tangled and twisted by men, who regarded him as an interloper, an intruder on their privacies—an enemy, in short. Where would he start? On what would he base his conclusions? How differentiate between the significant and the trivial? What, for instance, would he make of the open window, of the forged document, of the ashes in the grate? Might he conceivably set them together in a pattern that was neither the truth nor the lie that Brand had offered him, but some version of the crime totally dissimilar to anything that had passed through his (the murderer’s) mind? For the first time, Brand saw himself pitted against this man alone. It was to be a battle of wits between them, and if he could fabricate and distort evidence, this other also could keep his own counsel. They would presently face one another, each ignorant of the other’s moves and counterplots, of the line upon which he worked, to that extent moving in the dark. The pitfalls on his own road now appeared to him with astonishing clarity, as he reflected, with some dismay, that his was not the only intelligence capable of setting snares and laying false clues.

  Brooding thus, he paid no heed to his companions until Richard’s voice, saying, at first with insistence and then with impatience, “Brand, the police want to see you,” roused him from his thoughts.

  5

  As he entered the library, Brand directed a keen glance towards the man who was about to examine him. He discerned no outstanding characteristics, none of that gimlet-eyed alertness for which he had been prepared, no sign of any intention to fasten on to his lightest word and turn it to ill account. The man facing him was cool and non-committal. He asked the simple questions regarding his interview with his father that Brand had anticipated.

  Brand matched his coolness with an appearance of unconcern. His answers slipped from him as easily and with as little effort as though he were conducting a normal conversation at his club (supposing him to have been a member of such an institution). Presently Ross said, “About that window, Mr. Gray? I suppose your father didn’t open it while you were in the room?”

  “No,” said Brand, who was prepared upon this point also. “It was shut when I left him.”

  “You can’t think of any reason why he should have opened it?”

  “None. Is there a suggestion that he did open it?”

  “Who else?” asked Ross blandly.

  “There seemed some feeling in my brother’s mind this morning that an entry might have been forced from outside.”

  “When?”

  “After I left the room, I suppose.”

  “But you met Mr. Moore coming downstairs.”

  “Then after he also had left the library.”

  Ross shook his head. “I think you can dismiss that notion from your mind. Are you aware at what hour it began to snow?”

  “I don’t remember.” He suspected a trap here, and an admission might involve him in explanations that would begin the weaving of that mesh of suspicion, crystallising into an accusation against himself, that he must at all costs avoid.

  “It happens that I do. The snow began at 11.15. If, as you say, you did not leave the library until nearly a quarter to twelve, and Mr. Moore succeeded you here, an interloper must have put in an appearance after midnight. By that time the roads were heavy with snow. I can vouch for that, because, as a Catholic, I went over to Nunhead for the Midnight Mass. It meant starting at eleven o’clock, as, of course, it was necessary to walk, and at a quarter past, quite unexpectedly, the snow began. When I came out of church at one o’clock, it was thick enough to make unpleasant walking. Anyone entering the room by the window, as you suggest—although opening a casement from the outside, without leaving marks on the frame, is a difficult thing to do—must have left marks of snow on the carpet. And, as you probably have realised, there were none. No, I doubt if the window played any considerable part in the affair. One more thing. When Mr. Gray made out his cheque on your behalf, did he take it—the book, I mean—from the safe?”

  Here Brand, had he realised it, was on more dangerous ground. Behind that casual enquiry was a whole wealth of vigilance. But Brand only said, “No. I didn’t even know he had a safe. At least, I did wonder sometimes, but I never located it.”

  “Among the books,” Murray told him. “Very neatly concealed.”

  “That’s typical of him, isn’t it? Why on earth hide it? Did he think he’d have all the family at it if he let ’em know where it was?”

  “He was apparently a cautious man,” was Ross’s equally cautious response.

  Brand nodded. “Whereabouts was it?”

  “Behind the Hakluyt’s Voyages. You know where they were?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve never taken much interest in my father’s books. Where were they?”

  “There were two sets; that’s what attracted my attention. One in the recess near the fireplace and the other in the shelves by the door. Fake, of course, the second lot.”

  Brand frowned. “It seems more reasonable that the fake ones should be in the recess. Then he could indulge his secrecy to his heart’s content.”

  “Oh, they were,” agreed Ross, looking a little surprised.

  “I suppose one of the family told you about them?”

  “I don’t know how many of them knew.”

  “I expect my brother would, and Mr. Moore. I don’t know about the others. Mr. Amery, perhaps, but I’m not sure. I don’t fancy he and my father were on the best of terms.”

  “No?” Ross’s voice was non-committal. Brand amended himself sharply.

  “I beg your pardon. I was thinking aloud. I don’t mean to imply that there were any serious disagreements between them. I don’t believe they often met. But I know their standards were different, and my father was displeased at what he considered Mr. Amery’s lack of ambition. That was all I intended to convey when I said I doubted whether he’d be in my father’s confidence.”

  “I see,” said Murray in the same tone. “To go back to the matter of the cheque. Your father wrote it out while you were in the room?”

  “Yes. He hadn’t anticipated giving me one. He’d hardly have it prepared.”

  “Quite. He didn’t say anything about a cheque for Mr. Moore?”

  “No. But he did give me the impression that he would not be altogether surprised at seeing him again before morning. It was obvious to us all that there was something serious on my brother-in-law’s mind.”

  “And you necessarily associated that with Mr. Gray?”

  “The only basis on which my father and Mr. Moore ever met was a financial one. They’d nothing else in common. Besides, even I have heard how rocky some of the companies are in which my father and Mr. Moore have investments. And this wouldn’t be the first time he has come down here to ask for funds.”

  “He said nothing of this to you—Mr. Moore, I mean?”

  “Mr. Moore regards me as a congenital idiot, on whom words and ordinary common sense are wasted.”

  “I see. Thank you. There’s one more point. This document you signed. Was that awaiting your signature or did your father draw it up in your presence?”

  Here Brand paused an instant, suspecting a further trap. “He drew it up while I was in the room,” he replied, after that moment of hesitation. “He didn’t know he was going to give me money; he’d hardly have had the document in readiness, would he?”

  “Quite. I wonder if you’d oblige me by letting me take an impression of your finger-prints.”

  Brand was startled; yet an instant’s reflection assured him that he had nothing to fear from this procedure. He had acknowledged his presence in the room, and in the circumstances it would be reasonable to
expect to find traces.

  But he did ask, as he complied with the detective’s request, reflecting gloomily that he would have to wash his hands before his return to the morning-room, “What’s the idea? Or is it just a formality?”

  “Oh, no,” Ross told him, in placid tones. “There are some finger-prints on the safe that we want to identify. Of course, if you didn’t know it was there, they can’t be yours, but as a matter of routine I must test every member of the household.”

  “They may be my father’s.”

  “Oh, very probably. But it isn’t safe to act on that assumption. Thank you, Mr. Gray. I wonder if you’d let Mr. Moore know I should like to see him.” Brand mounted the stairs two at a time, lithe and silent as a cat. He thought rapidly, “Must be on my guard, without appearing to notice anything unusual. I mustn’t seem anxious and I mustn’t go to the other extreme and look too casual. After all, I am involved, some people would say heavily involved. It may seem odd that there are none of Eustace’s finger-prints in the room. A fellow like that one will be sure to comment on that. How does a man behave who knows he may be arrested for murder, that everyone believes him guilty of murder, but who is actually innocent? That’s the attitude I’ve got to adopt.”

  He put his head into the morning-room and gave Moore the detective’s message.

  “Where are you going now, Brand?” asked Amy hungrily.

  “To wash my hands. This stuff in which they take your finger-prints—oh, yes, it’s all very official, like something on the pictures. Good luck, Eustace.”

  He lingered in the bathroom, trying to determine the best line to follow. If he appeared too greatly alarmed at the prospect he would arouse suspicion; and if he were devil-may-care and defiant he would probably confirm a suspicion, not in the minds of his relations, who did not, actually, matter, but in the mind of that silent, astute, and vigilant man who was as resolved to come to the bottom of the mystery as he, the murderer in their midst, intended to escape the consequences of his deed.

  Drying his hands on the blue-and-white checked towel—“What cheap towels Sophy buys,” he thought; “it’s a pleasure to feel this thick, soft material under one’s hands”—he went on in his mind, “How much does that fellow know? What has he discovered? He gave nothing away. Whom does he suspect? Has he examined the fireplace? Suppose that doesn’t occur to him? What”—and this was the crucial question—“what does he know that I don’t know he knows?” Therein lay his true danger, and once again he was impressed and appalled to think that he had stood face to face with a man, not more than two feet distant, had been free to observe his expressions, gestures, and the movements of his body, and yet had no key whatsoever as to what was passing in that calm and reasoning brain. He put the towel down untidily, and went back to the group in the morning-room. Eustace was still, presumably, undergoing examination. Perhaps he, too, was having a gruelling time.

  Brand spoke suddenly. “How much authority have these police fellows got? How many questions can they ask, and is there anything sacred to them? Can you refuse to answer anything?”

  “Honest people with nothing to fear don’t mind answering questions,” Amy ripped out viciously.

  “Quite. But are any of us that?”

  They turned their faces towards him. “What on earth do you mean?”

  “In these circumstances, is there one of us who hasn’t got something he’d like to hide? You, Amy, if you were asked what were your relations with our father, were you always on the best of terms, wouldn’t you like to refuse to answer that, knowing that he is at liberty to examine the whole household staff, who may or may not corroborate your story? And Richard, do you really want to tell an outsider what happened between you and our father when you came down yesterday? I should imagine Eustace is in the same boat.”

  “What did he ask you?” his sister demanded.

  “He might have been understudying yourself. And I gave him precisely the same replies. Oh, and I did tell him I hadn’t been tampering with the safe. Unfortunately, I didn’t know where it was.”

  Richard said apprehensively, “Who is talking about the safe?”

  “Authority on the floor below. There are finger-prints on it. Very damaging, perhaps. I don’t know. I’ve suggested they belong to the safe’s owner.

  “I think that sounded normal enough,” he reflected, concealing an inward anxiety, that was rapidly increasing, under an aspect of derisive calm. “The type of thing they expect from me, anyway.”

  The door opened, but it was not Eustace but a servant who appeared. Would Mrs. Moore go down to the little room behind the library? Olivia asked quickly for her husband. The servant murmured, in discreet and formal tones, “I couldn’t say, madam,” and stood holding the door.

  Eustace came in a moment later, pale and guarded. He answered one or two questions with brevity, and looked with malevolence at Brand, who had resumed his stance by the window. Richard said something in a low voice, and he replied, “God only knows where this will end. Gaol for half of us, probably. The fellow’s a scorpion. Our distress is simply his chance of promotion.”

  Richard stood back, and began to talk in low tones to Amery. Eustace strategically worked his way round the room until he could speak to Brand without attracting attention. Brand, who had watched him secretly, was thinking, as he was bound to think with the return of each member of the clan from that cool but deadly examination downstairs, “What did he get out of him? How much does Eustace know? What passed between him and my father yesterday?”

  He had turned his back on the rest of the room, with these thoughts in mind, and it came as a small shock when he felt a hand close on his wrist. Eustace’s voice said, “What did you tell the police, Brand?”

  “Just what I’ve told all of you. I’ve answered that question once at least.”

  “I’ve only this to ask you. Where’s that cheque?”

  “In my pocket.”

  “My cheque?”

  “Your cheque?”

  “Yes. They’ve examined his cheque-book, and they find that he drew a cheque for me immediately after drawing yours—a cheque for ten thousand pounds.”

  “And to hear him talk, you wouldn’t have believed he even had so much money.”

  “That’s not the point. I’ve got to have that cheque, Brand.”

  “Why come to me? I haven’t got it. I wasn’t even in the room when it was drawn. I didn’t stay long after getting the money. After all, that was what I came down for.”

  “That cock won’t fight. No one saw Gray after you did…”

  “That’s rather a bold accusation, isn’t it? Tantamount to saying I killed him. But I suppose you think I did.”

  Eustace sketched an impatient gesture. “That’s beside the point. The matter’s out of our hands now. But I want to know about that cheque…”

  “My dear fellow, be reasonable. I know less about it than you do. I know precisely what you’ve told me, which is merely that it exists. I haven’t even any proof of that. By the way, if you haven’t seen it, what proof have you?”

  “The police have seen the entry on the counterfoil.”

  “Ah! True. I’d forgotten that piece of evidence. Well, it doesn’t seem likely that my father would have made such an entry without drawing the cheque.”

  “The cheque itself is missing.”

  “What about the safe?”

  “Oh, they’ve examined that.” Eustace’s voice was very bitter. “It’s a combination lock, and I’ve never been allowed to know what the combination was. But they got it open all right. I’d not realised before what opportunities the police have.”

  “Did you tell them that?” Brand looked interested.

  “I congratulated them. That fellow—confound his impertinence!—said coolly that if all safes were impregnable the police wouldn’t have nearly so much to do.”

&nbs
p; “Well, if it wasn’t in the safe, where could it be? Are there any other hiding-holes in the room?”

  “None I know of.”

  “Then I suppose we may take it there are none. By the way, you knew about the safe?”

  “Well?”

  “What was my father’s idea in concealing it so elaborately?”

  “Your father, Brand, was a very strange man. If you think it was advantageous to work for him, and in his interest, you’re greatly mistaken. If any of his shares dropped a couple of points there would be letters and telegrams and accusations, until the time came when I deliberately kept him in the dark, knowing that it was a matter of days before the shares rose again.”

  “Did they often fall?”

  “Of course, they weren’t stationary. In a situation like the present, with the whole world’s standards changing from day to day, with uncertainty on every hand and the most reliable companies passing their dividends, with unemployment and idle shipyards and trouble all over the East, with no money in people’s pockets, and strikes and disorders in industry, with falling Governments and all the rest of it, do you suppose his wretched little investments were going to be immune? No one but an egotist would have expected it.”

  Brand, smiling drily, observed, “You haven’t a great admiration for my father, it seems.”

  “I wasn’t sufficiently disaffected to murder him, all the same, though it might suit your book to say so. Just as you’ve made the position as awkward for me as possible with your lying story of seeing me on the stairs at midnight.”

  “If you’re anxious to deny that, my dear fellow, I should imagine you’d have no great difficulty. Surely Olivia can vouch for you at that hour?”

  “Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Had it been yourself involved, no doubt your wife could meet the situation. But Amy is kind enough to arrange for us to have a dressing-room if we require it, and on a night when I was perturbed about our affairs, as I was then, I prefer solitude.”