The Case With Nine Solutions (A Clinton Driffield Mystery)

by J. J. Connington

  “Then Mrs. Silverdale and Mr. Hassendean went in to dinner? Did the housemaid wait at dinner?”

  “No, sir. By that time she was feeling very bad, so I sent her to bed and looked after the dinner myself.”

  “She hadn’t touched the dishes, or anything of that sort?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And immediately after dinner, Mrs. Silverdale and Mr. Hassendean went out?”

  The maid hesitated for a moment.

  “Yes, sir. At least——”

  Dr. Ringwood made his face grave.

  “Tell me exactly what happened. One never can tell with these scarlet cases.”

  “Well, sir, I was just going to bring in coffee when Mr. Hassendean said: ‘Let’s have our coffee in the drawing-room, Yvonne. This room’s a bit cold.” Or something like that. I remember he didn’t want the coffee in the dining-room, at any rate. So I went to get it; and when I came back with it they were sitting beside the fire in the drawing-room. I was going to take the tray over to them, when Mr. Hassendean said: ‘Put it down on the table over there.’ So I put it down and went away to clear the dining-room table.”

  “And the housemaid had dusted the drawing-room this morning,” Dr. Ringwood said thoughtfully. “Mr. Hassendean wasn’t long in the drawing-room after dinner, was he?”

  “No, sir. They didn’t take very long over their coffee.”

  Dr. Ringwood looked judicial and seemed to consider some abstruse point before speaking again.

  “Mrs. Silverdale didn’t look ill during the day, did she?”

  “No, sir. But now you mention it, I did think she seemed rather strange just before she went out.”

  “Indeed? I was afraid of something of the sort. What do you mean, exactly?” Dr. Ringwood demanded, concealing his interest as well as he could.

  “Well, sir, it’s hard to say exactly. She came out of the drawing-room and went upstairs to get her cloak; and as she came down again, I passed her in the hall, taking some dishes to the kitchen. She seemed dazed-like, now you mention it.”

  “Dazed?”

  “Funny sort of look in her eyes, sir. I can’t describe it well. Seemed as if she wasn’t taking notice of me as I passed.”

  Dr. Ringwood’s face showed an increase in gravity.

  “I’m afraid Mrs. Silverdale may have got infected too. What about Mr. Hassendean?”

  The maid considered for a moment before answering.

  “I didn’t notice anything strange about Mr. Hassendean, sir. Unless, perhaps, he did seem a bit nervous—high-strung like, I thought. But I’d never have paid attention to it if you hadn’t asked me the question.”

  Dr. Ringwood made a gesture of approval, inwardly thanking his stars for the lay public’s ignorance of diseases.

  “And then they went off together?”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Hassendean took the cloak from Mrs. Silverdale and put it over her shoulders. Then he took her arm and they went out to his car. It was waiting in front of the door.”

  “H’m! I suppose the housemaid hadn’t touched the cloak to-day?”

  “Oh, no, sir. She’d been in Mrs. Silverdale’s room, of course; but she wouldn’t have any reason to go near the cloak.”

  Dr. Ringwood feigned a difficulty in recollection.

  “Hassendean! I surely know him. Isn’t he about my height, fair, with a small moustache?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s him.”

  Dr. Ringwood had confirmed his guess. It was young Hassendean’s body that lay next door.

  “Let’s see,” he said. “I may have to come back here in an hour or so. I’d like to have another look at my patient upstairs. Will Mrs. Silverdale be back by that time, do you think?”

  “That would be about half-past eleven, sir? No, I don’t think she’d be back as soon as that. She’s usually out until after midnight, most nights.”

  “Well, you might sit up and wait for me, please. Go to bed if I’m not here by twelve. But——No, if you can manage it, I think you ought to keep awake till Mrs. Silverdale comes home. That patient shouldn’t be left with no one to look after her. I’m just afraid she may get a little light-headed in the night. It’s hard lines on you; but you must do your best for her.”

  “Very well, sir, if you say so.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Silverdale will turn up. Is he usually late?”

  “One never can tell with him, sir. Some days he comes home to dinner and works late in his study. Other times he’s out of the house from breakfast-time and doesn’t get back till all hours. He might be here in five minutes now, or he mightn’t come home till two in the morning.”

  Dr. Ringwood felt that he had extracted all the information he could reasonable expect to get. He gave the maid some directions as to what she should do in possible emergencies; then, glancing at his watch, he took his departure.

  As he went down the steps of the house, he found no signs of the fog lifting; and he had to exercise as much care as ever in making his way through it. He was not unsatisfied with the results of his interrogation. Young Hassendean had met Silverdale’s wife by appointment, evidently. They had dined together; and then they had gone away in the fog. Clearly enough, from what the maid said, both of them were in a somewhat abnormal state when they left the house. “Dazed-like,” “a bit nervous—high strung.” He recalled the expressions with a faint annoyance at the vagueness of the descriptions.

  It seemed quite likely that, instead of going to a dance-hall, they had simply driven round to Ivy Lodge, which young Hassendean must have known to be empty at that time. And there, something had happened. The girl had gone away or been taken away, and the youngster had been left to die. But where had Yvonne Silverdale gone?

  Dr. Ringwood opened the door of Ivy Lodge and took the key of the smoke-room from his pocket. The house was silent as when he left it. Evidently no one had come home.

  Chapter Three

  SIR CLINTON AT IVY LODGE

  Dr. Ringwood left the smoke-room door open to ensure that he would hear anyone who entered the house. He made a second cursory inspection of young Hassendean’s body; but as he took care not to alter the position of anything, he discovered no more than he had done when he inspected it originally. There seemed to be nothing further for him to do until the police came upon the scene; so he picked out a comfortable chair and let himself relax whilst he had the chance.

  The patient next door worried him a little. Perhaps he ought to have got the girl off to hospital at once, fog or no fog. It would be awkward if she turned delirious in the night. And from that, his mind drifted to other cases which were giving him anxiety. With this ’flu epidemic, Carew’s practice had been anything but the nice, quiet, jog-trot business he had imagined it to be when he promised to come as locum.

  By some incongruous linking, his thoughts came back to the events through which he had just passed. Death was all in the day’s work for a medical man, but he had hardly bargained for murder. At least, he had hitherto assumed that this was a case of murder, but possibly it was suicide. He recalled that he had not seen any pistol; and he felt a momentary inclination to search the room for the weapon; but his fatigue was greater than his interest, and he abandoned the project. After all, it was an affair for the police, when they came to take charge; it was no business of his.

  Nevertheless, he could not shake off the subject of the tragedy; and, despite himself, he began to speculate on the possibilities of the situation. Suppose that, after dinner, young Hassendean and Mrs. Silverdale had simply driven round to Ivy Lodge. That would account for the empty car at the door. Then they must have come into the house. He had found the door unlocked, so that anyone could enter. That seemed rather a peculiar point. Surely, if they had come here for the only purpose which seemed covered by the case, they would have taken the obvious precaution of closing the front door against intruders. But if they had done that, how could Silverdale have got in? He could hardly have had a latch-key for his neighbours’ house.

  It occ
urred to Dr. Ringwood that possibly Silverdale might have gained admittance through some unlatched window. He might have seen something through the smoke-room window and got into the house like a burglar. But all the curtains were tightly drawn. No one could see in from the outside, even if they had wished to do so. Obviously, then, it could not have been a chance discovery of his wife’s guilt that had roused Silverdale to the pitch of murder. He must have had his suspicions and deliberately tracked down the guilty couple.

  Almost against his will, Dr. Ringwood’s mind persisted in an attempt to reconstruct the happenings of the night. Suppose Silverdale got in—no matter how—then evidently he must have surprised the two; and the end of that business had been the shooting of young Hassendean. But that left Yvonne Silverdale and her husband still unaccounted for. Had she fled into the night before Silverdale could shoot her in her turn. Or had her husband forced her to go with him—whither? And if this were the truth of the matter, why had Silverdale not locked the door? There seemed to be many things needing explanation before one could feel that the case was clear. Well, that was the business of the police.

  His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the sound of feet at the front door, and he pulled himself together with a start and rose from his chair. He was just moving towards the door when it opened and Sir Clinton Driffield, accompanied by another man, entered the room.

  “Good evening, Dr. Ringwood,” the Chief Constable greeted him. “I think we’ve managed to get here at the time I promised, though it was a difficult business with all this fog about.”

  He turned to introduce his companion.

  “This is Inspector Flamborough, doctor. He’s in charge of the case. I’m merely here as an onlooker. I’ve given him the facts, so far as I know them from you; but I expect that he may wish further information if you have any.”

  At Sir Clinton’s words, the mouth under Inspector Flamborough’s tooth-brush moustache curved in a smile, half-friendly and half-inscrutable. Simultaneously, he seemed to be establishing good relations with the doctor and appreciating some obscure joke in the Chief Constable’s remarks.

  “It’s very lucky you’re a medical man, sir. Death’s all in the day’s work with you and me; neither of us is likely to be put off our balance by it. Most witnesses in cases of this sort get so confused by the shock that it’s difficult to squeeze any clear story out of them. A doctor’s different.”

  Dr. Ringwood was not particularly susceptible to flattery, but he recognised that the Inspector probably was voicing his real sentiments. All three of them were experts in death, and among them there was no need to waste time in polite lamentations. None of them had ever set eyes on the victim before that night, and there was no object in becoming sentimental over him.

  “Sit down, doctor,” Sir Clinton broke in, after a glance at the medical man’s face. “You look as if you were about tired out. This ’flu epidemic must be taking it out of you.”

  Dr. Ringwood did not wait to be asked twice. Sir Clinton followed his example, but the Inspector, pulling a notebook from his pocket, prepared to open his investigation.

  “Let’s see, now, doctor,” he began pleasantly. “I’d like to start from the beginning. You might tell us just how you happened to come into the business; and if you can give us some definite times, it’ll be a great help.”

  Dr. Ringwood nodded, but seemed to hesitate for a moment before replying:

  “I think I could give you it clearest if I were sure of one thing first. I believe that’s the body of young Hassendean who lived in this house, but I haven’t examined it closely—didn’t wish to disturb it in any way before you turned up. If it is young Hassendean’s body, then I can fit some other things into my evidence. Perhaps you’ll have a look for yourselves and see if you can identify him.”

  The Inspector exchanged a glance with his superior

  “Just as you please, sir,” he answered.

  He crossed the room, knelt beside the chesterfield, and began to search the pockets in the body’s clothes. The first two yielded nothing in the way of identification, but from one of the pockets of the evening waistcoat the Inspector fished out a small card.

  “Season ticket for the Alhambra,” he reported, after glancing over it. “You’re right, doctor. The signature’s here: Ronald Hassendean.”

  “I was pretty sure of it,” Dr. Ringwood answered. “But I like to be certain.”

  The Inspector rose to his feet and came back to the hearthrug.

  “Now, perhaps, sir, you’ll tell us the story in your own way. Only let’s have it clear. I mean, tell us what you saw yourself and let’s know when you’re bringing anything else in.”

  Dr. Ringwood had a clear mind and could put his facts together in proper order. In spite of his physical weariness, he was able to take each incident of the evening in its proper turn and make it fit neatly into its place in his narrative. When he had finished, he had brought the story up to the point when the police arrived. As he closed his tale, the Inspector shut his notebook with a nod of approval.

  “There’s a lot of useful information there, doctor. We’re lucky in having your help. Some of what you’ve told us would have cost a lot of bother to fish out of different people.”

  Sir Clinton rose to his feet with a gesture which invited the doctor to remain in his chair.

  “Of course, doctor,” he pointed out, “a good deal of your story is like What the Soldier Said—it isn’t first-hand evidence. We’ll have to get it for ourselves, again, from the people who gave it to you: Dr. Markfield and this maid next door. That’s only routine; and doesn’t imply that we disbelieve it in the slightest, naturally.”

  Dr. Ringwood agreed with a faint smile.

  “I prefer getting a patient’s symptoms at first-hand myself,” he said. “Things do get distorted a bit in the re-telling. And some of what I gave you is quite possibly just gossip. I thought you ought to hear it; but most certainly I don’t guarantee its accuracy.”

  The Inspector beamed his approval of the doctor’s views.

  “And now, sir,” he said, glancing at Sir Clinton, “I think I’d better go over the ground here and see if there’s anything worth picking up.”

  He suited the action to the word, and began a systematic search of the room, commenting aloud from time to time for his companions’ benefit.

  “There’s no pistol here, unless it’s hidden away somewhere,” he reported after a while. “The murderer must have taken it away with him.”

  Sir Clinton’s face took on a quizzical expression.

  “Just one suggestion, Inspector. Let’s keep the facts and the inferences in separate boxes, if you please. What we really do know is that you haven’t found any pistol up to the present.”

  Flamborough’s grin showed that the Chief Constable’s shot had gone home without wounding his feelings.

  “Very good, sir. ‘Pistol or pistols, not found.’ I’ll note that down.”

  He went down on hands and knees to examine the carpet.

  “Here’s something fresh, sir,” he announced. “The carpet’s so dark that I didn’t notice it before. The pattern concealed it, too. But here it is, all right.”

  He drew his fore-finger over the fabric at a spot near the door, and then held it for their inspection, stained with an ominous red.

  “A blood-spot, and a fair-sized one, too! There may be more of them about.”

  “Yes,” said Sir Clinton mildly. “I noticed some on the hall-carpet as I came in. There’s a trail of them from the front door into this room. Perhaps you didn’t see them; they’re not conspicuous.”

  The Inspector looked a trifle crestfallen.

  “I know you’ve a sharp eye, sir. I didn’t spot them myself.”

  “Suppose we finish up this room before going elsewhere. All the windows are fast, are they?” the Chief Constable asked.

  Flamborough examined them and reported that all the catches were on. Then he gazed up and down the room inquisitively
.

  “Looking for bullet-holes?” Sir Clinton questioned. “Quite right. But you won’t find any.”

  “I like to be certain about things, sir.”

  “So do I, Inspector. So does Dr. Ringwood, if you remember. Well, you can be certain of one thing. If two shots had been fired in here this evening, and if all the windows had been left closed as they are now, then I’d have smelt the tang of the powder in the air when we came in. I didn’t. Ergo, no shots were fired in this room. Whence it follows that it’s no use hunting for bullet-holes. Does that chain of reasoning satisfy you, Inspector?”

  Flamborough made a gesture of vexation.

  “That’s true enough,” he confessed. “I ought to have thought of it.”

  “I think we’ve got the main points, now, so far as this room itself goes,” Sir Clinton observed, without paying any heed to the Inspector’s annoyance. “Would you mind examining the body, doctor, just to confirm your view that he was shot in the lung?”

  Dr. Ringwood assented and, crossing over, he subjected young Hassendean’s body to a careful scrutiny. A few minutes sufficed to prove that the only wounds were those in the chest; and when the doctor had satisfied himself that his earlier diagnosis was correct, he turned to the Chief Constable.

  “There’s no certainty without a P.M., of course, but from the way the bullets have gone in, it’s pretty obvious that the shots took effect on the left lung. There’s very little external bleeding, apparently; and that rather looks as if one of the intercostal arteries may be involved. He must have bled a lot internally, I suspect. Probably the P.M. will confirm that.”

  Sir Clinton accepted the verdict without demur.

  “And what do you make out of things, Inspector?” he demanded, turning to Flamborough.

  “Well, sir, with these small-calibre pistols, it’s difficult to give more than a guess. So far as I can see, it looks as if the pistol had been quite close-up when it was fired. I think I can see something that looks like scorching or discoloration on his dress shirt round about the wound, though the blood makes it hard to be sure. That’s really as far as I’d like to go until I’ve had a better chance of examining the thing.”