Murder for Christmas

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Murder for Christmas Page 19

by Francis Duncan


  Mordecai Tremaine was going to press his advantage, but she anticipated him. She said quickly:

  ‘Benedict will be wondering what’s happened to us. I think we should go back to the others.’

  She did not wait for him to answer. She crossed to the door, pulled it open hurriedly and went out without meeting his eyes again.

  Mordecai Tremaine waited discreetly for a moment or two. He did not wish to lend the appearance of flight and pursuit to Charlotte Grame’s sudden exit.

  When, at last, he did open the door he almost collided with Fleming, who was just passing. The other murmured an apology and stepped aside. Tremaine gave him a sharp look. He thought for an instant that the other was going to speak to him and he waited instinctively. But despite the uncertainty in his face Fleming made no comment. His broad figure moved sedately on down the corridor.

  Tremaine heard the music start as he went to rejoin his fellow guests and as he entered the room he saw that Charlotte Grame had already found sanctuary and was dancing with Gerald Beechley. He wondered what she was saying to him. He had a feeling that Beechley was not going to receive her tidings any too happily.

  Benedict Grame had evidently carried out a highly successful cutting-out expedition and was dancing with Denys Arden. As Mordecai Tremaine was moving unobtrusively to a chair he heard Roger Wynton say quietly at his elbow:

  ‘Have you been grilling Charlotte?’

  ‘Grilling her?’

  He put a pained emphasis into the word, but Wynton was unimpressed by his guileless air.

  ‘You went out together. A few moments ago she came in alone looking as though you’d been raising the family ghost and went straight over to Gerald. What’s brewing?’

  ‘As far as I can see,’ said Mordecai Tremaine, ‘it looks like quite a pleasant party. Considering the circumstances.’

  ‘Do you think that it was either Charlotte or Gerald who killed Rainer?’ said Wynton. ‘Or both of them? I’m interested,’ he added, ‘because I’m well aware that our mutual friend the superintendent has his eye on me and as far as I’m concerned the sooner this business comes home to roost the better. Not that I’ve anything against either of them. I’ve always felt rather sorry for Charlotte and Gerald’s simple enough. Take away his whisky and his horses and there’s nothing very complicated left of him.’

  Mordecai Tremaine raised his eyebrows. Wynton said:

  ‘Oh, yes, that’s where Gerald’s pocket money goes. The bottle and the book-makers. Nobody talks about it, of course, but it’s a pretty open secret.’

  The big man and his partner were momentarily under the full brilliance of one of the electric globes and the light was not flattering to him. Beechley’s puffy, blue-veined face was haggard and strained. All firmness seemed to have gone from his features, leaving them without form and with an unhealthy grey colour.

  Tremaine admitted to himself that it might well have been some trick of the harsh light that gave him his unprepossessing appearance and that made the hand resting upon his partner’s shoulder seem to tremble. He admitted also that because Gerald Beechley might be an alcoholic and a man who gambled on horses—and probably usually lost—it did not make him a murderer. Nothing had so far emerged to equip him with a motive for having killed Jeremy Rainer.

  But if the motive was obscure, what of the opportunity? Beechley had gone to bed when the others had gone and he had only come from his room a moment or two before he himself had reached the door. On the face of it, therefore, the big man could not have been the killer, but there was nothing to prove that he had not left his room at some period during the night, committed the murder and returned before Charlotte Grame’s screams had aroused the household. There was, in fact, more than a suggestion that he had left it.

  That red-robed figure on the terrace, for instance … Mordecai Tremaine was certain that it had been neither Jeremy Rainer nor Benedict Grame. For there had been puffs of cotton wool over the cap worn by the Father Christmas he had seen from his window, and both the cap on the dead man and the cap belonging to the outfit Grame had produced had been completely red apart from the white trimming at the edges.

  Whether it had been Beechley remained to be proved, but two facts at least seemed plain enough. Gerald Beechley had brought a Father Christmas outfit back to the house and he had burned a quantity of cloth in the grate in his bedroom. Which certainly brought him well and truly into the list of suspects.

  Mordecai Tremaine watched the dancing couples. Rosalind Marsh swirled by him in the arms of Nicholas Blaise. He caught a breath of her perfume and inhaled it appreciatively. He thought they made a handsome couple. He wondered whether Nick realized it and whether he realized how beautiful she was.

  But this was no time to allow one’s mind to be clouded by thoughts of sentiment. Murder was the subject at issue, and so far Rosalind Marsh was as much under suspicion as any of the others. Had she left her room? No one had claimed to have seen her but that did not mean that she had not done so.

  He studied the others thoughtfully, his eyes resting briefly upon each dancing couple as they passed him. Lucia Tristam glanced at him as she went by with Austin Delamere. He met her gaze for an instant and she looked quickly away.

  He followed her superb figure as Delamere led her down the room, recalled her as he had seen her, breathless and shaken, looking at Jeremy Rainer’s body. She had been one of the last to reach the room. It was true that her bedroom was situated in one of the furthest parts of the house, but had she made her appearance as quickly as might reasonably have been expected? And had there been something of the actress in the manner in which she had reacted to the sight of the body?

  Mordecai Tremaine reached out a figurative hand after his thoughts and set them upon a less imaginative track. Upon such a basis it would be possible to build up a case against everyone in the house. From Austin Delamere, who seemed to have been first on the scene, to Benedict Grame, who had made such a suspiciously belated appearance.

  Analysing his own thoughts he found that despite the trails of footprints leading across the lawns, his mind was centred upon the people in the house rather than upon the possibility of an intruder from outside. The murderer was somewhere within the walls. That was the belief that was slowly growing within him, illuminated by the first faint glimmerings of an incredible truth.

  As yet it was too vague even to attempt to define it. He found himself wishing that he could have Superintendent Cannock’s access to the life histories of the actors in the drama. Given that and he might find the essential clue. Without it he could only grope in a frustrating darkness, hoping that luck might send him stumbling along the right path.

  He looked at Nicholas Blaise. Nick knew a great deal about Benedict Grame’s guests and about Grame himself. He would have to talk to Nick. He would have to find out all about the connection between Grame and Jeremy Rainer. He would have to find out just what their association had been in the days when they had played active parts in business life.

  Nick would talk. That was why he had asked him down. He wanted him to know those things.

  It was growing rather warm in the room. Mordecai Tremaine got up slowly and went towards the door. Just outside he met Fleming again. This time the butler quite evidently wished to speak. His eyes held an appeal. He was a man who had something to say and wished to be encouraged to say it.

  Mordecai Tremaine administered the necessary stimulus.

  ‘It’s been a difficult day,’ he remarked. ‘You’ve dealt with a trying situation remarkably well.’

  Fleming’s impassivity melted into a smile of gratification. The human gossip showed for a moment in his round face.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve endeavoured to do my duty. I think I may speak for the rest of the staff as well, sir.’

  ‘I’m sure you can,’ said Mordecai Tremaine. He observed the signs, and added: ‘I suppose you knew Mr. Rainer well? It must have been a great shock to you this morning.’

&n
bsp; ‘Yes, indeed, sir,’ said Fleming. ‘Although I did have what you might call a premonition.’

  ‘A premonition?’

  ‘It was last night, sir. When the carol singers were here. I don’t know what made me do it, but I counted them as they were leaving.’

  He paused. He had the air of a man about to deliver himself of a fact of frightening significance. He said:

  ‘There were thirteen!’

  Mordecai Tremaine tried not to smile. Fleming, the grave, the imperturbable, was superstitious! Here indeed was the heel of Achilles!

  And then memory stirred and there was no laughter in his mind. He pushed back the pince-nez. He said sharply:

  ‘Thirteen? Are you sure?’

  ‘Perfectly certain, sir,’ said Fleming. His voice was suddenly a trifle chilly. He displayed the dignity of a man who is hurt that his word has been doubted but who preserves his self-control. He said, reprovingly, ‘I was so disturbed that I counted them twice.’

  Mordecai Tremaine did not make any further comment. His thoughts were whirling chaotically. Thirteen carollers had left the house. But he himself had counted them earlier as they had been singing. And he had made their number fourteen.

  Which meant, if both he and Fleming were right, that one of them had remained behind.

  15

  AT FIRST Nicholas Blaise had been reluctant to accompany him, but Mordecai Tremaine would not accept a refusal.

  ‘I need your help, Nick,’ he had said. ‘You know the people in the village. You’ll be able to pick out any strangers. And it’s the strangers I’m anxious to look over.’

  Blaise had stood hesitantly, a look of doubt in his dark face, and Tremaine had gone on:

  ‘I’m sure Benedict can spare you for an hour or two, Nick. Besides,’ he added shrewdly, ‘you may be doing him a service. We may discover something that will enable the police to turn their attention in a different direction.’

  The last remark had carried the day. Blaise had seemed relieved. He had said:

  ‘All right, Mordecai. I’ll just have a word with Benedict, though, before we leave.’

  And now, twenty minutes later, as they walked briskly over the hard-packed snow towards the village, Nicholas Blaise seemed considerably more interested in the expedition.

  ‘You look as though you’re on the track of something, Mordecai.’

  Mordecai Tremaine smiled.

  ‘Did you know you have a superstitious butler?’

  Nicholas Blaise was taken aback.

  ‘You don’t mean Fleming?’ he said.

  ‘I mean Fleming,’ agreed Tremaine.

  It amused him to see the bewilderment struggling in his companion’s face with the desire to display no more than a natural interest. He said:

  ‘When the carollers left last night he counted thirteen of them. He told me that he thought it was a bad omen.’

  ‘Oh.’ Blaise’s tone was flat with disappointment. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘No,’ said Mordecai Tremaine. ‘Because I counted them, too. When they were in the house. And I counted fourteen.’

  This time Nicholas Blaise was quite evidently interested. He stopped abruptly in the roadway. He said:

  ‘You mean—one of them stayed behind?’

  Mordecai Tremaine nodded.

  ‘Yes, Nick. One of them stayed behind. What I’m anxious to find out is which one and why.’

  ‘So there was someone there all the time,’ said Blaise slowly. He seemed to be speaking more to himself than to his companion. There was a high, strained note in his voice. He caught at Tremaine’s arm. ‘Mordecai, you see what that means! It wasn’t anyone in the house. So it couldn’t have been——’

  He broke off hastily, but Mordecai Tremaine finished the sentence for him.

  ‘Benedict,’ he said. And shook his head. ‘Maybe it isn’t quite as simple as that, Nick.’

  ‘But it must be,’ said Blaise. ‘It’s the only explanation that fits. Don’t you see what must have happened? Rainer knew someone in the village. That someone managed to get into the house when the carol singers came. He stayed behind when the others left and waited in hiding until the time he met Rainer. Probably they’d met earlier and fixed up a rendezvous. There was a quarrel and in the course of it Rainer was killed. The murderer was scared at what he’d done and dashed out of the house and across the lawn.’ Excitement crept into his face. ‘Yes—that’s it! That explains the footprints! There were three trails—Wynton’s, Rainer’s and the killer’s. Two of them leading towards the house and the third—the murderer’s—away from it!’

  ‘It sounds as though you think our old friend the stranger from the past is involved,’ said Mordecai Tremaine. ‘And I thought,’ he added, with a shrewd glance at his companion, ‘that you didn’t believe in that theory.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ admitted Blaise. ‘But that was before the murder. Besides, what you’ve just told me puts a different complexion on the whole thing. Find whoever it was who didn’t leave the house when the rector and the others went and you’ve found your murderer. You think so, too, Mordecai. That’s why you’re so anxious to get down to the village. Isn’t that the truth?’

  ‘It will be interesting,’ said Mordecai Tremaine evasively, ‘to find out whether the person who stayed behind did know Rainer. If we can get as far as that we’ll have a good jumping off place for further investigations. We can’t assume too much all at once, Nick.’

  His companion gave a wry smile.

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ he remarked. ‘I’m too anxious to find a solution that won’t involve anybody in the house.’

  They walked on down the road, Mordecai Tremaine swinging his arms vigorously and revelling in the frost-laden air.

  ‘What do you know about Professor Lorring, Nick?’

  Blaise shrugged.

  ‘Not a great deal. It’s the first time I’ve met him. I believe Benedict ran across him somewhere and asked him down. It’s the sort of thing he does.’

  ‘He seems a queer choice for Mr. Grame to have made. He doesn’t fit into the picture somehow. For instance, even before the murder upset the whole atmosphere he didn’t make much effort to acquire the Christmas spirit.’

  ‘If,’ said Nicholas Blaise, ‘you mean you think he was behaving like a miserable old curmudgeon without a drop of warm blood in him, I’m ready to agree with you. Maybe Benedict asked him here in the hope that he’d soften him up before Christmas was over. You know what a great schoolboy he can be.’

  ‘Do you think he and Jeremy Rainer knew each other?’

  ‘If they did they didn’t give themselves away.’ Blaise looked curiously at his companion. ‘Have you anything against Lorring? I’ll confess I don’t like the fellow, but at the same time I must admit that I haven’t noticed anything to make me suspect him.’

  ‘I’m only guessing,’ said Tremaine, ‘but I think it was Lorring who took the last present from the tree. I’d like to know why.’

  ‘If he took it,’ said Blaise, ‘he might have done so on the spur of the moment. These scientific fellows do some queer things and there’s just a chance that he was doing a bit of investigating on his own account. He may have intended to put it back later, but there were so many people about that the thing became too dangerous and he couldn’t manage it.’

  ‘So you don’t think there’s any special significance attached to it?’

  ‘I can’t honestly say I do,’ returned Blaise.

  ‘But what about the other presents? Why should they have disappeared?’

  Blaise pursed his lips.

  ‘The true explanation may be the simplest one, after all. Just plain robbery.’

  ‘Do you think that’s feasible?’

  ‘Why not? If this fellow was really up against it he’d have been inclined to take whatever he could lay hands on. He may have thought that in such a big house the presents on the tree were sure to be valuable enough to make it worth while stealing them.’

  ‘It’s
possible, Nick. But it doesn’t cover two points. It doesn’t explain what Rainer was doing dressed as Father Christmas, and it doesn’t explain how his gun came to be in his room.’

  ‘That’s because we don’t know the identity of X, the unknown intruder,’ said Blaise. ‘Once we’ve discovered that the rest may follow.’

  ‘Including the explanation of what happened to the necklace?’ said Mordecai Tremaine, and Nicholas Blaise was sobered.

  ‘That’s a part of the story I don’t like,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m afraid, Mordecai, that it looks as though someone in the house was responsible for that. I’ve been trying not to think so ever since Benedict told me that the necklace was missing, but it’s obvious that the person who stole it knew exactly where to find it and was able to get into Benedict’s room at a time when he wasn’t here.’

  ‘You suspect someone, Nick,’ said Mordecai Tremaine. ‘Who is it?’

  But Nicholas Blaise shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mordecai. I can’t mention names.’

  He was clearly ill-at-ease and Tremaine did not press him. He thought that he had, in any case, a shrewd idea of what was in his companion’s mind.

  They turned a corner of the winding road and came within sight of the village. It lay tranquilly before their eyes, only the thin wreaths of smoke from the cottage chimneys revealing that it was inhabited. With the snow banked up against the hills behind it and lying thick upon the surrounding fields and along the outstretched limbs of the leafless trees fringing the hedgerows, it provided a study in black and white that recalled to Mordecai Tremaine that first impression, gained when he had driven through the straggling main street in the gloom of a failing day, that it was not a place where mortals dwelt. It belonged to the regions of elves, and gnomes, and fantasy.

  And fantasy …

  The thought crept across his mind like a whisper of warning. If fantasy lay before him what greater fantasy had he not left behind! What more incredible scene was he likely to find than that which had confronted him when he had found that red-robed Father Christmas sprawled in dreadful irony beneath a decorated Christmas tree that had been despoiled of its gifts!

 

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