‘No,’ said Grame. ‘No. Of course not.’ His voice rose slightly. He said: ‘Why are you asking? Are you suggesting I know anything about it?’
‘Dear me, no,’ said Tremaine placatingly. ‘I was just wondering what caused Mr. Rainer to put on those clothes and go down to the tree.’
‘Well, I can’t tell you,’ said Benedict Grame shortly. There was a trace of resentment in his manner. His voice carried a hint of sulkiness, even, as though he was piqued because some special plan of his had gone awry. And then, after a moment or two, it seemed that he realized the impression he was creating and realized, too, that the situation had thrust responsibilities upon him as the head of the house. He turned to Nicholas Blaise. ‘Hadn’t we better inform the police, Nick?’
‘I’ve told them,’ said Blaise. ‘They’ll be here shortly.’
It seemed that he was going to add to what he had said and then decided against it. The glance he gave Grame was both puzzled and wary. Mordecai Tremaine had the impression that he was anxious not to say too much until he knew more of what the older man was thinking, in case what he said proved to be the wrong thing.
The news that the police had already been informed seemed momentarily disconcerting to Benedict Grame. But he recovered himself quickly.
‘You’d better show me where—where Jeremy is, Nick,’ he said brusquely.
He allowed Blaise to take the lead and followed him down the stairs. The others, who had formed a ragged ring of spectators in motley, moved instinctively after them like a collection of puppets suddenly stirred into action under the impulses of their guiding strings.
Benedict Grame saw the huddled figure on the floor but he hardly glanced at it. It was to the Christmas tree that his eyes were drawn. He uttered an exclamation.
‘What the devil!’ He swung upon Nicholas Blaise. ‘Who’s been playing the fool, Nick? Who’s been meddling with the tree?’
‘Do you mean,’ interposed Mordecai Tremaine, quietly but insistently, before Blaise could reply, ‘that you placed all the presents in position?’
‘Of course that’s what I mean!’ snapped Grame, without looking to see from whom the question had come. ‘I put everything ready before I went to bed! Who took them off? Was it Jeremy? Did he take them?’
‘If he did,’ said Tremaine, ‘where are they?’
There was certainly no sign of the missing presents in the neighbourhood of the body. There was no sack or bag in which Jeremy Rainer could have carried them. It was, of course, a possibility that he had taken them out of the room and had been killed when, for some reason, he had returned later.
‘They aren’t all gone,’ said Nicholas Blaise. ‘There’s one left. It’s Rainer’s own. Perhaps he didn’t have time to take it down.’
‘You mean,’ remarked Mordecai Tremaine gently, ‘that there was one present left. It isn’t there now.’
‘But you know it’s there,’ said Blaise. ‘Up at the top of the tree. We saw it when …’
His voice trailed off. His eyes widened in stupefaction. The hand he had been raising to indicate what he meant to Grame dropped back to his side.
The tree was now completely bare of presents. The bracket that bore Jeremy Rainer’s name was empty.
10
MORDECAI TREMAINE looked as though he was sleeping. He was huddled in his chair and his head drooped limply upon his breast. He gave the impression that lack of sleep had exhausted him and that he was waiting in a kind of stupor for the coming of daylight.
The impression was a deliberately false one. Despite his crumpled appearance his brain was both fresh and active. It was going over the events of the night. It was recollecting, considering, probing. It was searching for the clue that would reveal the murderer.
The police had arrived two hours before. Under the leadership of Superintendent Cannock, burly, scrupulously polite and yet with a certain something in his manner that discouraged opposition and held a warning that only complete frankness would suffice, they had taken charge of the situation. Finger-print men and photographers had already been at work. The police surgeon had made his preliminary examination of the body.
The room in which Jeremy Rainer had died had been barred to the members of the house-party. The police experts had no intention of allowing their investigations to be complicated by the presence of spectators.
But Mordecai Tremaine had made good use of such time as he had had. The many hours he had spent in memory training had proved their value, and he could have drawn a satisfyingly accurate picture of the room. The Christmas tree, the chair in which Charlotte Grame had sat, the steps against the far wall, the trail of moisture across the floor, the body itself—they were all tabulated in his mind.
In the moments of confusion that had followed the discovery that the last present had vanished from the tree he had created the opportunity of making a quick and what he believed to be an unobserved examination of the setting of the crime. He had noted that the dead man had been wearing rubber boots. They had not been visible as he lay, but when Tremaine had lifted the long red cloak that had been concealing them he had seen the dark patch of wet they had left upon the floor. He had followed the trail of moisture that led back to the french windows.
The marks of Roger Wynton’s entrance had been plain, for the other had rushed in too hurriedly to trouble about the snow caking his shoes and it had melted into a series of pools wherever he had stood. Beyond the windows one of the moon’s fitful appearances was revealing the cold whiteness of the lawn, broken by three trails of footprints.
It was difficult to be certain without a closer examination, but Tremaine had thought that two of them led towards the house and one of them led away from it. All three trails came to an end at the terrace just outside.
He put up a hand to straighten the eternally askew pince-nez and contrived to glance around at his companions. Under the guidance of Fleming, immaculately grave even in pyjamas and dressing-gown and with his impassive manner unshaken even by murder, relays of coffee had been brought in, and there had at first been an occasional remark from one or other of them. But now reaction was at work, and even the spasmodic conversation the coffee had stimulated had died away.
At intervals a uniformed constable would appear and another member of the weary party would depart to face the ordeal of an interview by the superintendent. They were long interviews, conducted without haste. Cannock was in no hurry, despite the lateness of the hour. His attitude, Tremaine thought, was that if people would go in for murdering each other at inconvenient times they would have to take the consequences.
To such a keen student of human nature as was Mordecai Tremaine it was both fascinating and instructive to observe the manner in which each of his companions came and went. In most of them the struggle to appear unconcerned was evident. They made desperate attempts to show that they had nothing to hide and therefore nothing to fear.
Professor Lorring had just come back. As he had appeared in the doorway every eye had been turned upon him, and he had walked to his seat trying to convey that he did not know they were watching him guardedly, and that they were looking for some trace of discomfiture in his expression.
It was not that there was any special suspicion directed against Lorring. The same reception had greeted the others. It occurred to Tremaine that it was odd that all the members of the house-party who had so far been interviewed had chosen to return to an uncomfortable vigil in an overcrowded room rather than seek their beds. It was unlikely that Superintendent Cannock would send for them a second time. Having heard their stories he would undoubtedly have told them that he would not require them again at least until the morning.
There was a universal reluctance to part company. It was as though each of them hesitated to be the first to leave in case something happened in their absence, and as though that was a possibility they dared not contemplate.
But why? Mordecai Tremaine’s eyes flickered once more about the room. They could not all have be
en involved in the murder. At least, it was highly unlikely that they had been. What, then, was the link that bound them?
Lorring was facing him. From his dour countenance it was not possible to tell the results of his interview with Cannock. But Tremaine did not think the superintendent would have discovered anything Lorring did not want him to know.
He had come to the conclusion that Professor Ernest Lorring was a gentleman who would repay study. It was a belief that had germinated when he had found the other surveying the Christmas tree with that peculiarly malignant expression on the previous afternoon, and that had blossomed with tropical rapidity two hours ago. For, unless Mordecai Tremaine’s intuition was seriously at fault, the hand that had removed the last present from the tree had been Lorring’s.
He had recalled to his mind the sequence of events when he had followed Nicholas Blaise up to Benedict Grame’s room. He had subjected to a detailed analysis the mental photograph he possessed of the group that had been about Grame’s door. And he was certain that Lorring had been the last person to join it. That he had, therefore, been the last to leave the room in which the body lay.
Lorring, of course, had denied it. Had denied it so vehemently that it had been obvious that he had been well aware what accusation would follow any admission that he had been the last person in the room.
‘Nonsense!’ he had snapped angrily. ‘I went up the stairs with the rest of you!’
No one had been able to give him the lie. The movement towards the stairs had been too confused for any of the others to be sure of their neighbours. And Lorring had seized his opportunity.
‘Miss Grame was behind me,’ he had gone on. ‘So was Delamere.’
He had glared at them, as if defying them to challenge his statement. Delamere had looked as though he was going to make a protest, and then, realizing that he was on unsure ground, had thought better of it. Charlotte Grame had not seemed to care. She had given no sign either of understanding or of resentment at the inference of what Lorring had said.
Tremaine had not pressed the matter. He had hesitated to undertake anything in the nature of a cross-examination in the face of Lorring’s ugly mood, and in any case the arrival of the police had cut short all other activities.
Benedict Grame had been surprisingly silent. But if it might be considered strange that he had revealed so little emotion at the brutal murder of a man who had been his closest and oldest friend, he had at least done nothing to arouse suspicion. His lack of positive reaction could be explained by the fact that he had not recovered from the initial numbing shock and the fact that his duties as host required him to maintain an impersonal attitude.
The constable appeared in the doorway. Rosalind Marsh heard her name and rose to her feet. Her face was expressionless, but the tip of her cigarette had glowed with sudden brightness at the summons.
Tremaine watched her go out of the room. Here again was no pliant material for Superintendent Cannock. To all his questions she would present an icy calm that would checkmate him—temporarily, at least.
As he waited for Rosalind Marsh to come back Tremaine looked around him again, and he realized that only Lucia Tristam and himself remained to be interrogated. It was then that the idea first came to him that there was reason behind the manner in which the guests had been required and that he himself was deliberately being reserved until the last. Nebulous at first, the thought gained strength in his mind, and when Rosalind Marsh returned and Lucia Tristam’s name was called he felt no surprise but only a pleasant sense of curiosity.
Analysing his own emotions he knew that his sense of well-being had its origin in the fact that he was no more than a spectator. He had nothing to hide from the police and was, therefore, quite ready to be questioned by them. Had there been anything of guilt upon his conscience he would have sat like his companions, strained and anxious, going over and over again in his mind the story he proposed to tell, making himself perfect in all its details and testing it for flaws.
He drew back from the assumption that he could read more than a natural tension in the faces around him and fell to wondering what Superintendent Cannock would make of the magnificent Lucia. Although the past two hours had left their dark traces under her eyes and her expression carried an elusive something that seemed a brother to fear, she was still a woman to awaken admiration. Somehow, despite the other’s air of official stolidity, he did not think Cannock was the type to remain unstirred by her generous beauty.
When she reappeared in the doorway she gave him no clue. Perhaps her colour had heightened a little, perhaps her eyes were a shade brighter, but he could not be sure either that it was so or of the reason for it. She gave him a glance as she went back to her seat. Quite clearly she was wondering what might be his thoughts of her. He felt oddly relieved that she could not know how empty of any real conclusions he was.
As he rose to his feet and followed the constable from the room he knew that every eye was upon him. And not this time with the sharp curiosity and the eagerness to find some sign of betrayal that had marked the manner in which the others had gone, but with a kind of painful intensity.
It gave him the feeling that he was the unknown quantity; that there was something quite different about him, something that momentarily bound them together against him as if against a common enemy.
It was a disconcerting sensation. He was glad when he was in the corridor and was no longer conscious of the staring eyes behind him.
Superintendent Cannock had established himself in the library. He was seated at a table facing the doorway, his head bowed over the notes he had evidently been taking. He looked up.
‘Sit down, Mr. Tremaine,’ he said quietly.
His voice was reassuring. He showed no sign of weariness or exhaustion. His big frame, overflowing the chair in which he sat, radiated a disarming friendliness. Only confide in me, he seemed to say, and all will be well.
It was, no doubt, part of his stock-in-trade. It was calculated to induce a feeling of reassurance. And when, passing from relief to over-confidence, the victim made the first careless mistake, the velvet would be abruptly removed from the claws.
Tremaine realized that he was being subjected to a careful scrutiny and he returned the superintendent’s gaze to find himself confronting a pair of shrewdly brown eyes set in a face that was round, fresh-coloured and jovial. It did not look like the face of a policeman. It looked as though, wrinkled and weather-wise as it was, it should have belonged to a farmer.
The body, however, betrayed the policeman. It was big, solid, somehow official. It was easy to imagine it clothed in a blue uniform proceeding majestically along a beat. Superintendent Cannock had, in fact, climbed the hard way, taking each rung of the ladder in his ascent.
It seemed that he found Mordecai Tremaine’s attitude refreshing. A brief smile lifted the wrinkles around his eyes. He said:
‘I’m afraid you’ve been kept waiting rather a long time. But I’m sure you appreciate that in such a serious matter even the most apparently insignificant details have to be carefully examined. That’s why I like to talk to people while events are still fresh in their minds. Memory is apt to play queer tricks, especially the morning after.’
‘I quite understand,’ said Tremaine. ‘You have to do your duty, Superintendent. In any case it wouldn’t have been any use my trying to sleep.’ He added, ‘None of the others have gone to their rooms.’
Cannock did not appear to have noticed the remark. He was once more consulting the papers in front of him.
‘I believe this is your first visit here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know Mr. Grame well?’
‘Not really well. We’ve met before, of course.’
‘But you’re sufficiently acquainted with him for him to have invited you to spend Christmas with him,’ murmured the superintendent, as though to himself. He went on: ‘What about the other guests? Have you met any of them before?’
Tremaine shook his h
ead.
‘Only Mr. Blaise—Mr. Grame’s secretary. The others are strangers. At least, they were when I arrived.’
‘I see.’ The superintendent consulted his notes again, and Tremaine became aware that it was a routine action designed both to convey the impression that he already knew so much that it would be unwise to attempt to fool him, and to give him time to frame his next question. ‘Will you give me your account of what took place when the murder was discovered, Mr. Tremaine? I mean, of course, as far as your own part in it was concerned.’
‘I heard screams. At first I thought I was dreaming, but when I realized that they were real I got out of bed and went into the corridor to see what was the matter.’
‘Did you see any of the other guests?’
‘Mr. Beechley came out of his room as I was passing. I’d decided by then that the screams had come from the ground floor and we went down the stairs together. The light was on in the room where Mr. Grame had placed the Christmas tree, and as I went in I saw the body lying on the floor.’
‘Was there anyone else in the room?’
‘Yes. Mr. Delamere and Miss Charlotte Grame. It was obvious that it was Miss Grame who had screamed. She was very upset and Mr. Delamere was trying to comfort her.’
With an occasional interjected question from the superintendent Tremaine told his story. He omitted nothing save his own brief investigations, and when he had finished Cannock nodded approvingly.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’ He waited a moment or two, his eyes seemingly far away. Mordecai Tremaine experienced a prickle of anticipation along his spine. Cannock said, idly: ‘Jonathan Boyce and I are very good friends. We walked the same beat together in our younger days.’
‘Indeed?’ said Mordecai Tremaine, careful not to betray his excitement. ‘That’s interesting. Do you see anything of him now?’
‘We haven’t met for some time,’ said Cannock. ‘Duties won’t permit. But we keep in touch. He sends me all the news.’
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