‘Alfred!’
‘Don’t you Alfred me! He ruined your daughter, didn’t he? And he’s dead and damned, and nobody to thank for it but himself, and you go snivelling about “poor Mr. Henry”!’
‘Alfred—’ It was just a frightened gasp.
Maggie was frightened too. She wished she was anywhere else. She wished she had never come, but she didn’t seem able to go. She heard Mrs. Robbins break into bitter weeping. She heard the sound of a blow, and a wincing cry. She moved forward a step or two. She couldn’t just stand there and hear a woman treated like that.
And then, short of the scullery door, Robbins’ voice halted her. It wasn’t loud any more, but it was all the worse for that. He said, ‘Shut up! Do you hear—shut up! And you keep shut up—do you hear? I tell you the police think I did it, and the way you’re going on is the way to make them think it. “What’s she carrying on like that for?” they’ll say. “What’s anyone want to carry on like that for if they haven’t got something on their mind? And what’s she got on her mind?” they’ll say. “Why him”—that’s what they’ll say. “And she knows who done it. And who would she know about if it wasn’t her husband? He done it”—that’s what they’re going to say. Do you want to put the rope round my neck? Because that’s what you’re doing. I tell you they think I did your damned Mr. Henry in. I heard them talking in the study, and that’s what they think—they think it was me!’
Mrs. Robbins called out wildly.
‘Was it?’ she said—‘was it?’
Maggie felt the trickle of sweat on her temples. She couldn’t have taken another step forward to save her life.
She heard Gloria’s voice calling her in the passage.
‘Mag—where are you? Maggie!’
She turned round and ran out of the kitchen.
THIRTY-ONE
JUDY ELLIOT TURNED to the right at the head of the stairs and walked along the corridor a little ahead of Frank Abbott and the sergeant to the door of Jerome Pilgrim’s room. She threw it open and stood back for them to go in. As they passed her, she took as much care to avoid looking at them as if they had been some plague come into the house. She stepped back lest they should brush against her.
It is not pleasant for a young man who is in love to be treated like this. Frank Abbott had a normally high opinion of himself. The girls whom from time to time he met, flirted and danced with, had done nothing to reduce it. Judy’s attitude was galling in the extreme. What it amounted to was, ‘It’s a low job searching people’s rooms and you’re a low hound to do it.’
As this idea forced an entrance, an icy anger cauterized his hurt. He walked past her not only as if she wasn’t there, but as if she never had been there as far as he was concerned. Judy Elliot in fact just didn’t exist. He had a job to do, and that was that.
Judy shut the door on them with laudable self-control. She could have banged it with the best heart in the world, but she remembered that she was a housemaid and restrained the impulse. She turned, to meet Lona Day coming out of her room across the passage.
‘What’s going on, Judy?’ Lona’s voice was distressed, her look anxious.
Judy’s cheeks burned and her eyes were bright.
‘They’re searching the house.’
‘Oh—how unpleasant!’
‘Horrid!’
‘But why? What are they looking for? What do they think they’re going to find?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’
A child of three could have seen that she had lost her temper and wasn’t in any hurry to find it. Miss Day gazed at her soulfully and said, ‘I suppose they know best. Where are they now?’
‘In Captain Pilgrim’s room.’
‘Oh dear—but he ought to be resting—’
Judy’s shoulder twitched.
‘He’s downstairs. He told me to take them up.’
Miss Day said, ‘Oh dear—’ in a helpless sort of way, and then, ‘They won’t disturb Miss Janetta?’
‘She’s to go into Miss Columba’s room whilst they do hers.’
Anger boiled up in Judy. Two men going through an old lady’s things—sorting out her drawers! Revolting!
‘Oh dear!’ said Lona Day.
It took Judy a little time to get away. There were times when Lona was very much the nurse, practical, self-reliant and on the spot, and there were times when she wound herself about you and clung. Judy had no natural affection for clingers, but short of brutal rudeness they are very difficult to dislodge, and it wasn’t really in her to be brutal.
Lona had got pretty far with explaining how sensitive she was to anything like crime or the police—this at any rate was how Judy put it afterwards—before she was sufficiently roused to say, ‘Well, you’re not the only one. And we’ve both got jobs. You’d better go and break it to Miss Janetta that her room is going to be searched.’
If she thought to provoke Miss Day she was disappointed. She got a heavy sigh and a look that asked for sympathy.
‘Well, I don’t know what she’ll say. I wouldn’t mind changing jobs with you, my dear.’
Judy went down the back stair and fetched her cleaning things from the bathroom cupboard. The police having finished with Roger Pilgrim’s room, she had swept it before lunch. She thought she might just as well work off some of her emotions on polishing the floor. It would take her away from the proximity of the search, since Roger’s room was in the other wing, and the farther she could remove herself from Frank Abbott, the better she would be pleased. She got down on her hands and knees and began to rub with a will.
A little later than this Alfred Robbins left the kitchen with the intention of going upstairs to his room. He was pale with a sort of burned-in pallor, but his manner was composed. He had his foot on the bottom step, when he heard the garden door open at the end of a short passage running at right angles to the foot of the stairs. Miss Columba came in, walking as if she was carrying a weight which had grown too heavy. She sat down on the bench which ran a short way in from the door under a row of pegs and called to him, as he knew she would.
‘You’ll have to pull my boots off. I can’t manage them.’
From the moment he heard the door he had known how it would be. He had to put the best face on it and come back. But when he got there she wasn’t in a hurry. She just went on sitting there, slumped down anyhow, with her shoulders in amongst the coats and mackintoshes hanging from the pegs above. He stood waiting, controlling the impatience that worked in him like yeast. Presently she said, ‘Lord—I’m tired!’ Then, after a pause, ‘There’s a lot to be said for being a vegetable. Some people are. No more feelings than a cabbage. It’s feelings that get you down. Better not have any.’
Robbins stared at the ground. Everything in him said, ‘That’s right!’ His impatience boiled up.
When he couldn’t bear it any longer he went down on one knee and said,
‘You ought to have those boots off.’
But you couldn’t hurry Miss Collie. He ought to have known that—she took her time. That was Miss Collie—it was her time, not yours, no matter what you felt like.
She sat there looking at him until he could have screamed. In her own time she said, ‘You’ve been here—how long, Alfred?’
It wasn’t often she called him that. He said, ‘Thirty years.’
‘It’s a long time.’
After another pause she said, ‘Pity we can’t go back. But we can’t.’ She thrust out a foot at him. ‘There—get these things off! They weigh a ton.’
When she had put on the house-shoes which stood handy under the bench, he thought he was going to get away, but his luck was out. The catch of one of the windows in the morning-room was stiff. Judy Elliot hadn’t been able to unlatch it. He’d better come along and do it now before it was forgotten.
He did his best to get clear.
‘Mr. Jerome is in there with Miss Lesley.’
‘Well, he ought to be resting. I’ll go and pack him off. You�
�d better come along and see to that catch.’
It would never have occurred to Miss Columba that the two in the morning-room could have anything to say to one another that might not just as well be said when she was there. Lesley and Jerome had known each other for forty years, which is time enough to have said everything. She walked in bluntly, and might have had her mind changed if her tread had been lighter. As it was, even in house-shoes she was sufficiently audible to give Lesley time to withdraw a hand which was being kissed and get as far as the hearth, where she stood looking down into the fire and hoping that its glow would account for her burning cheeks. Such a flood of happiness had invaded her that she felt as if it must be shining through her for all to see. And she wasn’t ready to share it yet. It was for her and Jerome, not for anyone else—not yet, not now, with all this dreadful business going on.
As Robbins went to the window, Miss Columba after giving her a brief friendly nod began telling Jerome that he ought to be up in his room resting.
Lesley had herself in hand.
‘I must go back to the children. I only came in for a minute, and Jerome kept me.’
She didn’t look at him, but she heard him get to his feet.
‘My room’s full of policemen, Aunt Collie. I don’t suppose I shall find it very restful.’
‘Policemen? In your room?’
‘You gave them leave, didn’t you? And so did I.’
She stood there frowning, her corduroy slacks stained with earth, the great fisherman’s jersey emphasizing her bulk. Lesley saw the square hands shake. But next moment they had gone for shelter to pockets which harboured a clasp knife, odd lengths of tarred twine, labels old and new.
The hands had shaken, but the voice did not shake. She said gruffly, ‘What do they want? What do they think they’re going to find?’
‘I don’t know.’
The catch of the window had jammed—Robbins couldn’t move it. He heard Mr. Jerome go limping into the hall to let Miss Lesley out. Went right down the passage with her to the glass door on the street. If his mind hadn’t been so much taken up he would have wondered about that, but all he wanted now was to get through with this fiddling job, to get away upstairs, to get Mr. Jerome alone if he could and have it out with him. He couldn’t go on this way. If Miss Collie would go away, he could catch Mr. Jerome on his way back from the door. But Miss Collie didn’t go. She stood there with the mud on her and her hands in her pockets and waited for him to finish with the catch. Murder in the house, and the Day of Judgment—the secrets of all hearts opened. And Miss Collie stood there and waited for him to finish with the catch of the window! He wrenched at it with desperate hands and it came over, and there was Miss Collie telling him to get a drop of oil and ease it.
As he passed through the hall, the big door stood wide. Mr. Jerome and Miss Lesley were in the glazed passage talking. If he made haste he might be able to catch Mr. Jerome before he went upstairs.
But when he came back with the oil the door was shut. Only Miss Collie stood just where she was, with her hands in her pockets, frowning.
Even then she kept him. While he was about it he could oil the other catches and make sure of them. As it turned out, there was another as stiff as the first. He had to stand and loosen it with her eye on him. Queer sort of way she’d got of looking at you as if there wasn’t anyone there. It didn’t mean anything, it was just Miss Collie’s way. But it put thoughts into your head. The secrets of all hearts—he’d never really liked to hear that read. A man’s thoughts were his own if anything was. What he had in them was his own business. But Miss Collie didn’t mean anything—it was just her way.
It was a quarter to four by the morning-room clock, all pink enamel and gilt amoretti, before he got away and went upstairs. By that time Frank Abbott and the police sergeant were on the top floor, engaged in searching his room. It is on record that he went to the door of Jerome Pilgrim’s room but did not get speech of him. After which he went up into the attic from which Roger Pilgrim had fallen just under forty-eight hours before.
At between ten minutes and five minutes to four he fell from the same window, and to the same death.
THIRTY-TWO
FRANK ABBOTT AND the police sergeant from Ledlington heard a cry, and immediately on that the shock and sound of the fall. They had the drawers out of the chest in Robbins’ room, and they had them stacked one over the other between them and the window. The sergeant barked his shin and brought the top drawer down. They had to shift them before they could get to the window, and then they had to get the two leaves of the casement open.
By the time they had done all this Judy Elliot was looking out of a window on the floor below, staring down at the body of Alfred Robbins, which lay on the flags where Roger Pilgrim’s body had lain. Pell was stooping over it and saying, ‘He’s dead, certain sure.’
Abbott called out, ‘Don’t touch him—don’t touch anything! We’ll be down.’ And with that he drew back and made for the door.
But the door was locked. Frank stared at it, and the sergeant stared at him. There was no key on the inside.
The Ledlington sergeant stooped down and looked through the keyhole.
‘It’s there, on the other side. That’s a queer start. It was this side all right when we came in—I’d swear to that.’
Frank nodded.
‘I thought so too, but I don’t know about swearing. You didn’t hear the door open, did you?’
The sergeant stood up.
‘We shouldn’t—not if it was when we were shifting those papers.’
The contents of the bottom drawer lay out across the floor—piles of old papers, newspaper cuttings yellow with age—the Pioneer, the Civil and Military—Indian papers, dusty with thirty-year-old news of the last war—nothing later than 1918—the whole making an uneasy bed for the dead man’s shirts. And, dropped down across them where it had fallen from Frank Abbott’s hand, a brown leather wallet.
He turned for it as the sergeant stepped back for a kick at the door. The crack of the breaking lock came as he stooped to pick it up, taking it gingerly by the edges of the handkerchief he had let fall beside it. If it was what he thought it was, there wasn’t any mystery about Alfred Robbins’ death. Most men would prefer a drop from a window to a drop at the end of a rope.
He knotted the corners of the handkerchief and followed the sergeant down the crooked stair.
Pell had been perfectly right—Robbins was dead. But the death must be certified, reported, put on record. Police procedure must take its course. At the Pilgrim’s Rest end of the telephone the police sergeant called up its ordered activities. His voice could be heard from the study by anyone standing in the passage or at that end of the hall—a good firm voice with a rasp in it, but matter-of-fact, as if what he had to report was mere routine.
‘Superintendent there? ... Yes, get him on the line ... Smith speaking, sir. There’s been another death ... Yes, the butler, Robbins—suicide ... Yes, the same window as Major Pilgrim ... No, nothing’s been touched. Sergeant Abbott and I were next door when it happened ... You’ll be out? ... Very good, sir.’
In this twentieth century murder holds as exact a state as a medieval monarch. The exits and entrances are all laid down. Surgeon, photographer, fingerprint expert make their bow and play an appointed part.
Randall March played his. Once more he sat at the study table to hear statements and put questions. The two sergeants first with their report, Smith leading off.
‘We’d finished in Captain Pilgrim’s room. Nothing there. Then we went up to this attic bedroom, which is where we should have begun by rights, only Captain Pilgrim asked us to do his room first so that he could get back to it—and being an invalid, that seemed reasonable.’
March said, ‘How long were you up there before the fall?’
The sergeant looked at Frank Abbott and said, Ten minutes?’
Frank nodded.
‘About that.’
Smith went on.
‘We’d got the drawers out of the chest. Bottom drawer full of old newspapers and cuttings, which would account for us not hearing when he locked us in.’
March exclaimed.
‘Locked you in!’
‘That’s right, sir. We’re both quite sure the key was on the inside when we got there. He must have come along, opened the door without making any noise, seen what we were up to, and reached round the edge of the door for the key. Then he pulled it to, locked us in, went through to the next room, and chucked himself out. He knew his number was up all right, but he’d a nerve opening the door and getting the key the way he did.’
Frank Abbott said in his detached voice, ‘It was what he saw when he opened the door, I imagine, which told him his number was up. I don’t think his suicide was premeditated, or he wouldn’t have come near us. He was scared stiff of course—too scared to keep away, so he came to see what was happening, and what he saw showed him the game was up. I don’t think anyone would have planned to lock the door. It was done on the impulse, so as to give him time to take the drop his own way. After what he must have seen he’d know he was for it one way or the other.’
‘What did he see?’ said March short and sharp.
Frank Abbott was unknotting the corners of a handkerchief. When he had them free he leaned over the table and laid the square of linen carefully on the blotting-pad. In the middle of it was a man’s brown leather wallet with the initials H.C. stamped in gold. March repeated them aloud—‘H.C.’
Frank said, ‘Henry Clayton—the missing wallet.’
‘Was there a missing wallet?’
‘Oh, yes. Roger told Miss Silver about it. Old Mr. Pilgrim gave Henry fifty pounds for a wedding present, spot cash over this table, and Henry took out his wallet and put it away—a brown leather wallet with his initials on it. Roger was in the room at the time, and so was Robbins.’
‘Where did you find it?’
Smith took up the tale.
‘Back of the drawers in the chest. You know how it is, in a real good chest the drawer goes all the way to meet the frame, and this had been a good old chest in its time, but the back of the bottom drawer was broken away—worm in the wood. And this wallet had got down inside the frame, wedged between the bottom drawer and the back.’
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