The room was the antithesis of Charlotte Grame’s. Clothes were flung untidily around. A pipe had been left on the dressing-table and tobacco ash had trailed from the bowl. A pair of shoes rested reproachfully in the middle of the carpet and the door of the wardrobe was half open.
‘If he’s done all this since the room was tidied this morning,’ observed the superintendent, ‘I’d hate to see it if the servants went on strike for a week!’
There was a smell of burning in the air and it was to the fire-grate that Cannock turned. It was of the open type and it was choked with a charred mass that revealed an attempt to burn something bulky that had not been disposed of easily.
Cannock poked the blackened embers thoughtfully.
‘Looks like cloth of some sort. We’ll get what’s left of it analysed and see where that takes us.’
He looked up at Mordecai Tremaine. The brown eyes were shadowed with thought.
‘Is Gerald Beechley likely to be short of money?’ he asked.
Tremaine’s mind went back to the telephone call he had overheard the big man making and to what Denys Arden had told him of Beechley’s dependence upon Benedict Grame. He said:
‘Very likely from all I’ve heard.’ And added: ‘Why?’
‘I saw Mr. Grame half an hour ago,’ said the superintendent. ‘When I raised the possibility of burglary as a motive the first time I saw him and suggested that Mr. Rainer might have been shot more or less accidentally because he’d surprised someone breaking into the house, he was inclined to be sceptical of the theory and told me that nothing had been taken. But it now appears that there was a burglary. A valuable diamond necklace has disappeared from a safe in Mr. Grame’s room.’
‘Miss Arden’s!’ said Mordecai Tremaine involuntarily, and the superintendent nodded.
‘So I understand,’ he observed. ‘Intended as her wedding present, wasn’t it? I gather that most of the people in the house knew about it.’
Tremaine nodded.
‘When does Mr. Grame think it was stolen?’
‘It was there late last night. Apparently he had occasion to go to the safe to give the rector a donation to the church restoration fund when the carol singers were here. He’s positive the necklace was still there at that time. According to his story his mind was so full of the murder that it never occurred to him to look again until early this afternoon. And that was when he discovered the theft.’
‘And yet,’ said Mordecai Tremaine, ‘he told you that he didn’t think anything was missing without even checking up on the necklace.’
‘He says,’ the superintendent remarked, ‘that he didn’t give a thought to the possibility of the necklace having been stolen because he’s a light sleeper and he was assuming that he’d certainly have heard anyone trying to get into his room, let alone trying to open the safe. And then—so he says,’ Cannock added, ‘he remembered that he’d been downstairs putting the presents on the tree after everyone else had gone to bed and that it would have been possible for someone to have entered his room before he went up. He also pointed out that his room was left empty when he was awakened and told about the murder and went downstairs again with the rest of you.’
‘On the surface,’ said Mordecai Tremaine, ‘it means that someone in the house is definitely responsible—unless it was an outsider who either took the risk of breaking in at an early hour when there must still have been plenty of lights showing and was lucky enough to find that the one room that mattered was empty, or who took the even bigger risk of staying in the house after the discovery of the murder and slipped into Grame’s room just after he’d left it and managed to make his escape without being spotted although everybody was up and about by that time.’
‘That’s the way I see it,’ said the superintendent. ‘The odds are on its being an inside job. That’s why I asked you about Mr. Gerald Beechley.’
Mordecai Tremaine saw the big man’s puffy, lined face and his frightened, bloodshot eyes. The question Beechley had put to him had suddenly acquired a damaging significance.
‘Is there anything missing?’
It had been the question of a man who knew something, and who was desperately anxious to find out whether the police also knew.
14
MORDECAI TREMAINE was trying to analyse Benedict Grame’s attitude and was finding it extraordinarily difficult. But for the background of murder and suspicion he would have said that the other was in high good spirits. With the dead man’s shadow lying oppressively over this Christmas night party there was something of the macabre in Grame’s apparent lightheartedness, something that gave him the air of a painted clown frolicking in a graveyard.
Superficially the explanation was simple enough. Grame was trying to act up to his responsibilities as host. He was struggling to relieve the atmosphere of depression, and perhaps struggling a little too hard so that his efforts were bringing unreality in their train.
And yet …
Tremaine found himself trying to define something that was eluding him. There was more in Benedict Grame’s manner than the desire to put his guests at their ease. His assurance was too spontaneous in origin to be merely a cloak he was painstakingly assuming. At times, indeed, he seemed almost exultant.
And why should Benedict Grame be exultant when his best friend had been murdered under his roof? Unless … the thought followed naturally … unless he was exultant because Jeremy Rainer was dead.
For the moment there was no conversation. Charlotte Grame was playing Chopin. She was an accomplished pianist and the others were listening with more than the usual casual attention. Benedict Grame was sitting in a straight-backed chair at the top end of the room. It gave him the appearance of being on a different level to his guests. He seemed, thought Tremaine, to be looking down upon them, somehow as though he felt himself to be the master of their destinies.
When Charlotte Grame finished playing Tremaine took advantage of the buzz of congratulatory talk to cross to his host’s side. Grame saw him coming and a look of expectancy came into the blue eyes.
‘How are the investigations going?’ he asked. ‘I’m afraid that so far I’ve had very little opportunity of talking to you.’
‘I believe Superintendent Cannock feels that he’s making progress,’ returned Mordecai Tremaine carefully.
‘I don’t mean his,’ said Grame. ‘I mean yours.’ He did not wait for a reply. He made a gesture that embraced the other occupants of the room. ‘They seem to be enjoying themselves reasonably well in view of what’s happened.’
‘You’ve been having rather a difficult time,’ said Mordecai Tremaine, ‘trying to keep things together.’
Benedict Grame looked at him from beneath his bushy eyebrows. The blue eyes were amused. He said:
‘It might have been worse.’ Before Tremaine could frame a suitably probing question, he added: ‘The man I envy is yourself.’
‘Why me?’ said Mordecai Tremaine, surprised.
Benedict Grame gave a quick glance about him to make sure that there was no one within earshot. He lowered his voice.
‘Someone here killed Jeremy,’ he said, and despite his whispered tones the vibrant note of intensity was plainly audible. ‘That someone knows you’re after him. What he doesn’t know is just how much you’ve found out. Maybe you haven’t got very far yet, but even so, what a sense of power it must give you! Another person’s life is in your hands. Steadily, strand by strand, you’re preparing the rope that one day may hang him. Perhaps you even know the name of the killer already and you’ve only to gather the last shreds of proof.’
For an instant Mordecai Tremaine had the impression that Grame had forgotten that he was there. He was staring straight in front of him. His face had the intent expression of a man utterly engrossed in his own thoughts.
‘The greatest power there is,’ he breathed, in a kind of taut whisper. ‘The power of life and death. It must be fascinating—fascinating. You can look at a man and say: “You only go free bec
ause I permit it. I need only lift my finger and the law will reach out to you and hold you until they take you out of your cell on that last morning and the hangman sets your feet against the chalk mark on the trap.” It’s like keeping a puppet dancing on the end of a string. Whenever you choose you can take away the thing that makes it play at being alive.’
‘And you think,’ said Mordecai Tremaine quietly, ‘that it’s an enviable power to possess?’
‘Of course,’ said Benedict Grame. ‘Of course! Without power what purpose is there in life? Fame? Money? Of what real value are they except for the power they bring with them? It’s the sense of mastery that lifts a man and makes him forget that he came from dust!’
Excitement was glittering now in the blue eyes staring into Tremaine’s own. They had acquired a hard quality. They were not quite normal in their stony brilliance.
Momentarily Mordecai Tremaine experienced the sensation that he was on the verge of making a discovery of tremendous significance. And then, regretfully, he became aware that someone was standing at his side. It was Lucia Tristam. She said:
‘You two seem to be acting like a couple of conspirators!’
She was smiling, but there was no smile to illumine the green depths in the wide eyes and bring out those vital tints. They were dark with anxiety. She searched Mordecai Tremaine’s face as though she was trying to draw the thoughts out of him.
Benedict Grame suddenly realized that she was there. The glitter went from his eyes. He seemed disconcerted, as though he felt that she had caught him off his guard.
Mordecai Tremaine studied them both. It was odd, he ruminated, how Lucia Tristam always seemed to appear when he was talking to Grame. Almost as if she feared what the other might say if he allowed his tongue to operate too freely.
‘We’ve been discussing crime and punishment,’ he said. ‘At least, one aspect of it.’
She shivered. He did not know whether it was assumed or whether he really had laid a chill finger across her soul.
‘Have you—have you discovered who did it?’
She caught her breath on the last word. Tremaine guessed that she had been driven to ask the question in spite of herself. Her desire to find out what he knew had been stronger than her anxiety not to appear too interested in the progress of the police investigations in case it brought suspicion upon her.
‘You mean have the police found out who killed Mr. Rainer? They probably have their theories, of course, but we’re not likely to hear of them until they decide they’ve enough evidence to justify an arrest.’
Did she flash a quick glance at Benedict Grame? Was there a trace of fear in her face? She turned away from him so that he could not see her eyes. It was a natural enough movement, but it might have been intended to prevent betraying herself to him.
‘It’s much too morbid a topic for conversation, anyway,’ she said. ‘Can’t we dance, Benedict?’
‘Of course, my dear,’ he told her, rising. ‘It’s an excellent plan!’
It gave Mordecai Tremaine an excuse for doing what he had been wanting to do—speak to Charlotte Grame. She saw him coming and looked desperately about her, but this time there was no way out. Lucia Tristam was on the point of dancing with Benedict Grame and Gerald Beechley was in conversation with the Napiers.
As he put his arm about her he felt her tremble. It was like holding a frightened, fluttering bird. He said:
‘I admired your playing, Miss Grame. You have a beautiful touch.’
‘Thank you,’ she said breathlessly.
For a few moments they danced without speaking. And then:
‘There’s no need for you to be frightened of me, you know,’ said Mordecai Tremaine gently. ‘After all, I might be able to help you.’
She stiffened. Her lips had difficulty in framing the words.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I think you do,’ he corrected her. ‘You also know that I did see you in Calnford the other day.’
She lost the rhythm of her movements, stumbled into him. He waited for her to recover. He said:
‘Shall we go outside? We can talk more easily.’
She offered no resistance as he guided her towards the door. Their exit was unobserved except by Ernest Lorring. He gave them a curious, suspicious glance but made no comment.
No one saw them go into the library. Tremaine shut the door and turned towards her.
‘Now, Miss Grame, suppose you tell me all the things you haven’t told the police?’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I’ve told them everything.’
‘Including,’ he said, ‘why you screamed?’
The colour had flown from her face. Her eyes, frightened and desperate, would not meet his own.
‘It was horrible. I—I couldn’t control myself.’
She waited for him to make some comment but he was silent. His very silence fretted at her self-control. Her voice went up raggedly.
‘You don’t think—you don’t think I killed Jeremy?’
‘Can you,’ he countered, ‘think of a reason why anyone else should have killed him? Mr. Wynton, for instance? After all, he was in the neighbourhood of the house at the time of the murder—rather unexpectedly to say the least—and he and Mr. Rainer were known to be on bad terms.’
Relief that he had apparently abandoned his direct attack upon her struggled with reluctance to incriminate Roger Wynton. Her voice was troubled.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No. He didn’t do it. I’m sure he didn’t.’
‘The police,’ said Mordecai Tremaine, ‘can’t be so sure. Not in view of Mr. Rainer’s attitude towards his wanting to marry Miss Arden.’
Charlotte Grame looked up at him suddenly. She spoke hurriedly, like a person who had hesitated a long time before deciding to speak and who felt even now that she must say what she had to say quickly before she lost her resolution.
‘I don’t believe he did mind Roger marrying Denys,’ she said. ‘I think he wanted it to happen.’
Mordecai Tremaine stared at her. Over the pince-nez the grey eyes were sharp with enquiry.
‘You mean,’ he said, ‘that what everybody thought was his dislike of Mr. Wynton was merely a pretence?’
‘Yes, that’s it,’ she told him. ‘A pretence. He made out that he wouldn’t allow Denys to marry Roger, but underneath I’m sure he liked him.’
‘But why?’ he pressed her. ‘Why should he act like that?’
Charlotte Grame shook her head helplessly. She looked frightened and uncertain.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. But it’s true. I—I could feel it. And he told me one day that he was making plans that would surprise us. He said that things would be—different. He used to talk to me like that sometimes. He used to tell me things he wouldn’t speak about to anyone else.’
‘Not even to Miss Arden?’
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Not Denys. He couldn’t tell Denys.’
‘Do you know what he meant by saying that things would be different?’
‘No,’ she breathed, almost inaubibly, and this time he knew that she was lying.
But it would gain him nothing if he tried to force her. That much was evident from the manner in which her hands were tightly clenched against her sides and in the stiffness of her body. She had reached her last defences and would give way no further.
Mordecai Tremaine weighed up the situation shrewdly and tried another line of approach.
‘You’d like to help the police, wouldn’t you? You’d like to help them find out who killed Mr. Rainer?’
She nodded—reluctantly, he thought.
‘Of course. But how can I? What is there I can do?’
‘You may possess items of knowledge that seem unimportant to you but that would become highly significant if the police knew them.’ His eyes searched her face, compelling her to look at him. ‘Did you see Mr. Beechley when you came downstairs and found Mr. Rainer’s body?’
�
��Gerald?’ She was genuinely puzzled. ‘I don’t understand. There was no one there.’
‘He bought a Father Christmas outfit in Calnford yesterday,’ said Mordecai Tremaine deliberately. ‘He was wearing it last night. I happened to see him from my window.’
‘I didn’t know,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see him——’
‘I was wondering,’ said Tremaine, ‘whether it was anything to do with one of Mr. Beechley’s practical jokes. I believe he has a reputation for doing rather—unusual—things. I thought perhaps his love of a joke was leading him to play some trick or other on the rest of us. Although,’ he added, ‘it was rather a cold night for wandering about on the terrace.’
Momentarily Charlotte Grame’s eyes were blank. He had the impression that she was trying to assess the significance of what he had told her in relation to knowledge she had already possessed. She said:
‘Are you sure it was Gerald?’
‘I didn’t see his face clearly,’ he admitted, ‘but I thought that it must be Mr. Beechley. From what I’d heard about him it seemed to be the kind of thing he might do.’
She did not, as he had half expected, make the obvious reply that the most likely reaction on seeing the figure in red would have been to assume—as he had in fact done at the time—that it was Benedict Grame. It revealed, thought Tremaine, that she had reason to believe that it might have been Beechley.
‘A lot of people have the wrong idea about Gerald,’ she told him. ‘He isn’t as—as irresponsible as he sometimes appears.’
Mordecai Tremaine expressed concern.
‘Dear me,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been rather flippant on occasion. I quite thought he had a very strongly developed sense of humour and often indulged in the—er—schoolboy type of prank. Do you mean he doesn’t like these jokes, after all?’
‘I’m quite certain he doesn’t. He only does it because——’
She stopped suddenly and her hand went to her mouth as though to prevent any more words being uttered. She had the frightened look of someone who had said more than she had intended.
Murder for Christmas Page 18