Murder for Christmas

by Francis Duncan

  ‘What you did was appreciated, anyway,’ said Tremaine. He added: ‘Did you know that Jeremy Rainer had used your typewriter?’

  ‘No,’ said Blaise quickly, ‘I didn’t know that. Did he use it?’

  And then he said, with a return to his casual air:

  ‘I don’t suppose it means very much. The typewriter is always easy to find if anyone happens to want it. Benedict often types his own letters and I believe Denys has used it once or twice. There’s nothing significant about Rainer having used it as far as I can see.’

  ‘It’s a standard model, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. There must be thousands of them in the country.’ Blaise seemed to be devoting only half his mind to the conversation. He said: ‘I don’t suppose I’ve any business asking this, but have the police any definite clues yet? Do they—do they suspect any particular person?’

  ‘Meaning,’ said Tremaine, ‘do they suspect Benedict Grame? I can answer that quite easily, Nick. I haven’t the faintest idea.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it,’ said Blaise slowly. ‘It seems so horribly disloyal even to think about it. Has Benedict offered any explanation of why it took so long to arouse him?’

  ‘He may have spoken to the superintendent. Have you raised the question with him?’

  ‘I daren’t,’ said Blaise frankly. ‘I tried to mention it tactfully, but somehow I couldn’t get round to it. It was as though I was telling him I thought he was guilty. I believe he suspected what I was driving at as it was. He didn’t make any comment, but the look in his face made me feel like a worm and I just had to evade the issue.’

  Tremaine nodded. He said:

  ‘Do you know anything about Denys Arden’s parents?’

  Blaise looked a little startled at the abrupt change of subject.

  ‘Only at second-hand. Her mother died when she was a baby and her father when she was still quite young. Rainer was his partner and he more or less appointed himself as her guardian.’

  ‘What about money?’

  ‘As far as I understand,’ said Blaise, ‘there wasn’t any money. Arden was caught in a financial crash. He was penniless when he died. Indirectly it was the cause of his death. He contracted pneumonia and just flickered out as though there was no stamina left in him.’ He eyed his companion curiously. ‘What are you after? Do you think there’s any connection between Rainer’s death and what happened to Arden?’

  ‘Thinking,’ said Tremaine with a smile, ‘is one of the curses of civilization!’

  He left his companion staring after him with a puzzled stare. It was obvious that there were times when Nicholas Blaise was not at all certain how to take him.

  Gerald Beechley had not been seen very much during the day. Tremaine had looked for him on several occasions, for he had come to the conclusion that Beechley would repay a closer study, but the big man was apparently keeping himself out of the public gaze. It was unexpected, therefore, when he came face to face with him in the hall. It was even more unexpected when, instead of brushing hastily past him, Beechley hesitated and showed every sign of wanting to talk to him.

  The big man’s red face was streaked with blue veins. His cheeks were puffy and he had lost all resemblance to the jovial countryman. His eyes were bloodshot and although he still possessed his high colouring it was due to an unhealthy flush that contrasted grotesquely with the yellow pullover he still wore. Hogarth, thought Mordecai Tremaine, would have regarded him as a natural subject for his brush. The other was swaying slightly and as he drew nearer he brought with him the odour of spirits.

  ‘I suppose all those policemen of yours are still going around measuring things, eh?’

  There was something repellent in Beechley’s attitude, in his over-obvious anxiety to appear lightheartedly at ease when it was so clear that he was not.

  ‘They’re still busy,’ agreed Mordecai Tremaine.

  Gerald Beechley looked down at him. As plainly as he could without using words he betrayed a man consumed by the desire to ask questions and yet desperately afraid of being caught asking them.

  Tremaine waited. Beechley shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. At last he could keep silent no longer. He said:

  ‘Have they—have they found out?’

  ‘Found out?’ echoed Mordecai Tremaine.

  ‘Do they know who did it?’ explained Beechley carefully. ‘Are they going to arrest anybody?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tremaine. ‘After all, how should I?’

  He saw exasperation creep into the other’s manner. Beechley was not drunk, but the alcohol had dulled his wits to the dangerous stage where he imagined that he was superior in cunning to the rest of the world. His eyes narrowed. He said, with a transparently artificial casualness:

  ‘Is there anything missing?’

  Mordecai Tremaine gave him an intent look. There was something positive behind that question. Gerald Beechley was asking it for a reason.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ he said.

  He was doubtful whether Beechley’s state of befuddlement had reached the point where he would give himself away, but in any case the matter was not put to the test. The sound of voices came from just beyond the hall and the big man looked round quickly, a startled expression on his face. His fingers went nervously to the collar of his pullover.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said thickly. ‘It was nothing.’

  He did not wait to learn the identity of the newcomers. He left Mordecai Tremaine in a thoughtful mood. Benedict Grame’s not over-subtle hint and Gerald Beechley’s own behaviour seemed to be adding up to a highly interesting result.

  He turned slowly to find himself facing the Napiers.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Were you thinking of going for a stroll in the grounds?’

  Harold Napier shook his head.

  ‘We’ve just been wandering through the house.’

  ‘It’s a fascinating old place,’ said Tremaine. He added: ‘I hardly think the superintendent will want us to stay caged much longer. But under the circumstances I suppose we must make the best of it.’

  ‘It was a terrible thing to have happened,’ said Evelyn Napier. ‘Poor Mr. Rainer …’

  The hall was growing dark. Mordecai Tremaine found it difficult to see them clearly, but he thought that they were both revealing traces of anxiety. Harold Napier’s slightly embarrassed air had become more noticeable. His wife’s timidity seemed to have become emphasized by a nervous fear that showed itself in a voice not quite under control.

  ‘It’s a dreadful situation for Miss Arden,’ said Tremaine. ‘And it’s placed Mr. Grame in a very difficult position. He can hardly go on with his plans for entertaining us.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Harold Napier quickly. He seemed anxious to vindicate Grame, as though he felt that he had accused their host of inattention to their welfare by his manner when he had come into the hall. ‘I’m sure he’s doing everything he can, though, to make things easier for us. Of course, his hands are tied by the police being here.’

  A thought probed itself into Mordecai Tremaine’s mind. He said:

  ‘Did you know Mr. Grame before you came to this part of the country, Mrs. Napier?’

  He heard the little sound of her gasp as he put the question to her. She looked towards her husband, enquiringly, pleadingly. Tremaine saw the other give a slight, worried nod in reply.

  ‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘We did know him.’

  They had come into the hall in the aimless manner of people who were in no hurry and who had no definite purpose in mind. But now they were clearly anxious to be gone. And Mordecai Tremaine felt certain that it was his question that had been responsible.

  He watched them go with a frown. There was nothing obviously incriminating in a confession that they had known Benedict Grame before they had come to Sherbroome. Why, then, betray so much anxiety? Was it because that in admitting that fact they realized that they had also admitted something else? That they
had, for instance, known Jeremy Rainer, too?

  He had mentally written off the Napiers. He had labelled them as a couple of middle-aged lovers of the country life who were unlikely to provide either complications or sensations. Could it be that he had been wrong? Had he been deceived by an appearance of harmlessness deliberately assumed for just such a purpose?

  He recalled his first conversation with Evelyn Napier and it came back to him that there had been the same hesitancy, the same reluctance to answer questions that had seemed innocent enough. It occurred to him then that they had been the same sort of questions. Questions about how long they had been in Sherbroome and whether they had known Benedict Grame before they had come to the village.

  What did Harold and Evelyn Napier have to hide? Were they the vague, innocuous pair they seemed, or was that merely cunning camouflage to conceal a deep-rooted villainy?

  Tremaine thoughtfully pushed open the door of an adjoining lounge and found himself confronting two suspicious faces. One of them was the plump, somewhat pallid countenance of Austin Delamere; the other possessed the gauntly forbidding features of Ernest Lorring.

  They presented the appearance of a pair of strange bedfellows. Tremaine did not think he had intruded upon any confidential discussion; they had the air of men who were prepared to tolerate each other’s presence but who had no desire to achieve a deeper intimacy.

  Each of them looked from the newcomer back to his companion. Tremaine found himself wondering what either of them would have said had he been alone. For it was clear enough that each was carefully choosing his words, trying to gauge what the effect would be before he spoke.

  ‘Is there—any news?’ said Delamere at last.

  He tried to keep the note of excitement out of his voice and almost succeeded.

  ‘Not,’ said Mordecai Tremaine, ‘as far as I know.’

  ‘And if anybody does get to know,’ said Lorring, ‘it will certainly be you.’

  His antagonism was unashamed. Tremaine was a little surprised that he was revealing his feelings so openly, but his attitude was not unexpected. Lorring had not forgotten that incident when he had been accused—by inference if not in actual words—of having taken the last present from the Christmas tree.

  Delamere did not appear to notice the scientist’s manner. He was too much concerned with his own thoughts.

  ‘Why don’t the police do something?’ he said petulantly. ‘They’ve turned the house upside down. Why haven’t they arrested someone?’

  ‘They’ll have to find their man first,’ remarked Lorring sardonically. ‘You can’t expect these country policemen to solve a crime in five minutes.’

  Tremaine observed mildly:

  ‘Superintendent Cannock strikes me as being a very capable man. I don’t think anything is likely to escape him. Or anyone.’

  He looked at Lorring as he accented the last word and he had the satisfaction of seeing an angry glare come into the other’s eyes. He added:

  ‘I wonder why those presents were stolen from the tree? Particularly the last one. I’ve a feeling that if we knew that we’d know a great deal about why Jeremy Rainer died.’

  There was a mixture of rage and fear in Lorring’s craggy face. He looked, thought Tremaine, willing to wound and yet afraid to strike. He said, thickly:

  ‘If I were you I’d leave the police to ask their own questions.’

  His glance went to Delamere, as if daring him to make a comment, and then, heaving himself from his chair he went abruptly from the room, brushing ostentatiously past Mordecai Tremaine in his passage.

  The strain in Austin Delamere’s plump cheeks softened into relief.

  ‘I’m glad that fellow’s gone. I never could stand him. I didn’t know Benedict had asked him down.’

  ‘You’ve met Professor Lorring before?’ probed Mordecai Tremaine gently.

  ‘Yes, I’ve met him. Heard about him, too.’

  ‘Heard about him?’

  ‘There’ve been rumours. Ugly ones. He was lucky to escape finding himself in the dock. There was talk of his having sold Government secrets.’

  ‘There often is that kind of talk about people engaged on special work,’ said Tremaine. ‘Usually there’s nothing behind it.’

  ‘This wasn’t just talk,’ persisted Delamere. He seemed unduly anxious to make his point. ‘It was only because there wasn’t sufficient evidence that Lorring got away with it. I’ve been …’ He hesitated, and glanced at Tremaine in a furtive fashion, as though trying to find out what the reaction would be before committing himself. ‘I’ve been wondering whether he knew Rainer. Whether there was anything between them.’

  Behind the pince-nez Mordecai Tremaine’s eyes were bright. The witches’ cauldron was beginning to bubble. Delamere was anxious to throw suspicion upon Lorring. And when people tried to incriminate other people it usually meant that they were both frightened and were trying to distract attention from themselves.

  The pot, he told himself, was trying to blacken the kettle. It was a measure of Delamere’s state of nerves that he was making such an open attack upon Lorring.

  He did not betray it, but secretly he was grimly amused at the irony of Delamere’s attitude. The politician’s own past was hardly blameless. There had been whispers enough concerning him. If Ernest Lorring had been lucky not to find himself facing an awkward situation, then so, undoubtedly, had Austin Delamere—and on more than one occasion.

  But no one could have told the way Mordecai Tremaine’s thoughts were running. He observed:

  ‘I dare say the police are making enquiries to find out whether Mr. Rainer had associations with anyone in the house. I expect,’ he added, ‘they’re ferreting out all there is to know about all of us.’

  Austin Delamere’s plump face went a shade greener. He said unhappily:

  ‘I suppose they are.’

  He no longer seemed disposed to continue his discourse on Lorring’s character. Mordecai Tremaine left him with the knowledge that he was leaving a badly frightened man.

  A few moments later, as he was staring pensively out of the library windows, he saw Charlotte Grame. She was making her way down the drive, moving furtively in the shelter of the laurels. He watched her until a bend in the drive concealed her from his sight. It was obvious from her manner that she intended to go further than the grounds of the house and he wondered what desperate emotion was driving her.

  Momentarily he considered going after her and then, realizing that she had too long a start, he went instead in search of Superintendent Cannock.

  ‘Gone out, has she?’ the superintendent murmured, as Tremaine told him what he had seen. ‘Miss Grame, who seldom leaves the house even when the weather’s fine. Now I wonder what can be taking her out at this uninviting time.’

  ‘Breaking your instructions,’ remarked Mordecai Tremaine.

  The superintendent shook his head.

  ‘Mr. Blaise probably hasn’t had time to get around to everybody yet. I told him a little while back that there wasn’t any objection to people going out now. Of course, I was a little high-handed in trying to confine them to the house for so long. I thought one or two of them might be anxious to get out by this time.’

  His tone was significant. Tremaine said:

  ‘You mean …’

  The superintendent nodded.

  ‘Two of the birds have flown. Miss Grame and Mr. Beechley. But I dare say we shall manage to find out where they’re gone. And after that we’ll try and find out why they went.’

  Tremaine was very glad he had disregarded that first impulse to go in pursuit of Charlotte Grame. If the superintendent’s men were already engaged upon the task of shadowing her he had been saved what would have proved to be both an uncomfortable and a fruitless journey.

  Cannock was looking at him curiously.

  ‘You’re not—busy?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Tremaine hastily, and the superintendent smiled.

  ‘Then perhaps you’d like to com
e along,’ he said.

  He led the way up the stairs. He had evidently made himself thoroughly familiar with the house. He went without hesitation to Charlotte Grame’s room. The door was not locked and he pushed it open and went inside.

  ‘We’ve been here once,’ he said, ‘but you never know.’

  In a few moments the superintendent had subjected the room to a systematic and thorough search. Tremaine admired the quick certainty of his movements, the manner in which he examined every article and yet, when he had finished, left no trace of his presence.

  ‘What do you expect to find?’ he asked.

  ‘I make it a rule,’ said the superintendent, ‘not to expect to find anything. I’m merely taking routine precautions.’

  It was a neat room. It was, thought Tremaine, an unpretentious, colourless room that was rather like Charlotte Grame herself. He watched Cannock as the other opened the wardrobe and looked inside. It was not a very extensive wardrobe and the coats and dresses it contained were not the newest of fashions. Standing at the side of it was a medium-sized suitcase. The superintendent snapped back the catch and rummaged expertly through the clothing and items of toilet that were inside.

  He replaced the lid of the case and rose to his feet. He gave a last glance about the room.

  ‘Seems innocent enough,’ he remarked. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘Appearances,’ said Mordecai Tremaine, ‘are often deceptive.’

  The superintendent’s lifted eyebrow invited elaboration. Tremaine said:

  ‘I’d like to know what took Charlotte Grame downstairs in the middle of the night. And I’d like to know what took her out of the house this afternoon.’

  ‘She doesn’t look capable of killing anybody,’ said Cannock.

  Mordecai Tremaine pretended to be shocked.

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting,’ he said, ‘that she killed Mr. Rainer. After all, there’s no real evidence against her.’

  ‘There’s no real evidence against anybody,’ said the superintendent drily.

  He led the way out of the room and along the corridor. He stopped outside a door Tremaine knew to be Gerald Beechley’s. It was locked. Cannock produced a bunch of keys from his pocket, selected and tried one and pushed open the door with a murmur of satisfaction.