“And you did make a mistake, Millward?” asked Harrison.
“I didn’t think so, sir, but I must have done,” answered Millward. “That’s what worried me so much during the inquest. I couldn’t understand it at all. That’s why I thought of speaking to you about it, too, sir—you’re good at these problems—and I thought you might have helped me, but then I thought it wasn’t my place to interfere. You see, when the actors came out of the wood just before the accident to Sir Jeremiah—you remember, sir—I could have sworn it wasn’t Mr. William in the cook’s costume. The man was about the same height and build but he didn’t move like Mr. William does. At least that’s what I thought, but I must have been wrong.”
“You would swear to that even now, Millward?”
“I don’t know what to think now, sir,” was the reply.
“But you were certain, at the time, that the man dressed as a cook was not Mr. Marston?” asked Harrison.
“Quite,” was the definite reply.
“That was what I expected to hear from you, Millward,” answered Harrison. “Thank you very much. Now I want to have a talk with Mr. Marston.”
Chapter XII
The Truth From Marston
William Marston sat looking stonily at the floor while Harrison did nothing to break the silence.
“You said you wanted to talk to me,” snapped Marston, irritably. “Why don’t you get on with it?”
“You may not believe it, Mr. Marston,” replied Harrison, “but I find it very difficult to start.”
“Very surprising,” commented Marston.
“Not so surprising, after all,” said Harrison. “I have a great respect for your name, an old and highly respected one in the county. I also have a great respect for Mrs. Marston—”
“There is no need to drag my wife in,” said Marston.
“I’m afraid we shall have to disagree on that point,” Harrison replied. “I repeat that I have a great respect for Mrs. Marston and for her peace of mind. She asked me to come down here—”
“Only once, I think, Mr. Harrison?” said Marston. “This second visit seems to be quite voluntary and, may I add, quite unwarranted.”
“You may add what you like, Mr. Marston,” said Harrison, “but I have been more concerned over Mrs. Marston’s peace of mind during this visit than during my last. Then she was only worrying about the suitability of a possible son-in-law; now she is worried about her husband.”
“What the devil has that to do with you?” asked Marston, heatedly.
“So worried about that husband that my heart goes out to her,” continued Harrison.
“Delightfully sentimental, but who cares, Mr. Harrison, about the condition of your heart regarding my wife? I resent your remark as impertinent.”
“I should like to spare her as much as I can,” Harrison continued impassively.
Marston jumped to his feet as if to leave the sitting-room immediately but quickly sat down again.
“I apologise Mr. Harrison, for anything I may have said,” he remarked quietly. “My nerves are all on edge. Nobody appreciates more than I do your thought for my wife, but what good are you doing by it? Why not let things alone and let us fight our own battles?”
“I sincerely wish I could, Mr. Marston, but it isn’t entirely your own battle, that’s the trouble. It’s Philip Bamberger’s battle, too. I’m sorry for that young man as well.”
“I can understand that,” said Marston. “Philip has had a very rough time, but raking over the whole business can’t help matters much. That’s my feeling, at any rate.”
“But suppose Philip Bamberger isn’t satisfied about his father’s death?”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Mr. Harrison,” Marston, looking apprehensively at him.
“You would like me to speak more frankly?”
“Please.”
“Very well,” said Harrison, looking into Marston’s eyes. “Suppose Philip Bamberger thought his father had been murdered?”
Marston, obviously with a great effort, looked squarely at Harrison. “A surprising suggestion,” he said.
“But one which has to be pursued once it has been made,” said Harrison.
“And the whole of the inquest?” asked Marston. “I suppose Philip thinks it valueless? Surely you don’t take this seriously, Mr. Harrison.”
“I’m afraid I do, Mr. Marston.”
“Do you think Bamberger was murdered?” asked Marston.
“I do,” replied Harrison.
“Then you’d better arrest me and have done with it,” said Marston almost with a sigh of relief.
“Why should I?” ask Harrison.
“You’re a very dense person for a man of your reputation as a detective, Mr. Harrison,” said Marston, who seemed to be gaining complete control of himself again.
“Am I?” asked Harrison.
“But it’s so obvious,” said Marston quickly. “I hit Bamberger and you think he was murdered. A child could put those facts together.”
“So could a coroner,” answered Harrison.
“But I can’t see what you are driving at, Mr. Harrison?”
“I think you can, Mr. Marston,” said Harrison, quietly. “I am remembering what Millward said.”
“But that’s perfect nonsense, Mr. Harrison, I assure you. Millward is a good servant and I think he’s perfectly honest. He seems to have made a perfectly honest mistake and, like the genuine soul he is, must have been very upset about it. I admire him for thinking he ought to try and shield me, as he did—”
“So do I,” said Harrison.
“But how on earth could anyone but myself have played that part?”
“That’s the very question I am asking you, Mr. Marston,” said Harrison.
“How can I satisfy you?” asked Marston, in mock despair. “You want me to do the impossible.”
“Far from it,” replied Harrison. “I want you to tell me exactly what happened.”
“I can’t tell you anything more,” said Marston weakly.
“The spoon you hit Sir Jeremiah with,” said Harrison, “you remember it?”
“Of course.”
“Did you see the wound it made?”
“I’m afraid I was too dazed by what had happened to notice much.”
“I can understand that,” said Harrison. “Let me put it another way. Do you carry a life preserver?”
“You mean one of those things burglars are supposed to use?”
“Yes, that sort of thing.”
“Of course not.”
“Would it surprise you to hear, then,” said Harrison, solemnly, “that the wound on Sir Jeremiah’s head was made with some instrument like a life preserver. It certainly wasn’t done with an iron spoon—I doubt myself whether it could have been done with it at all.”
“That’s quite impossible,” said Marston.
“I’m afraid not,” replied Harrison,
“But it wasn’t mentioned at the inquest,” said Marston.
“Because the doctor wasn’t looking for it,” said Harrison. “Besides, you will recall that a number of things weren’t mentioned at the inquest.”
“You seem to have discovered a great deal, Mr. Harrison,” commented Marston. “Why not let things stay as they are? The inquest is over, a conclusion has been reached. What earthly good can it do to rake it all over again? I appeal to you, leave it alone. You’re not doing any good by it.”
“Believe me, Mr. Marston,” answered Harrison, gravely, “I’m doing this to help you.”
“I should not have thought it was helping me,” said Marston. “It seems to be making things more difficult.”
“We have been beating about the bush quite long enough, Mr. Marston,” said Harrison, decisively. “I appreciate your motives and all that and I respect your effort to behave like a gentleman, but this is murder, downright murder. Mr. Marston, you’re shielding somebody.”
Marston did not reply.
“What is mor
e,” said Harrison, “you’re shielding a woman.”
Marston went white but still said nothing.
“Do you want her name?” asked Harrison.
“For heaven’s sake,” said Marston, “leave it alone. I pray you, leave it alone.”
“I can’t,” said Harrison. “Will you tell me what you know?”
“It’s impossible,” said Marston.
“You’re shielding Miss Helen Williams,” said Harrison.
Marston went limp; this time he was too overcome to speak.
“You must tell me what happened,” Harrison continued, persuasively. “I assure you it will help you enormously, Mr. Marston. Your nerves have gone to ruin in the last few days. You will get worse and worse if you don’t talk.”
“Yes, but—” said Marston.
“I know,” answered Harrison, “chivalry. Letting down a woman and all that. You can’t let down Miss Helen Williams, I assure you. She’s beyond it. She came to your house to fix up this murder—”
“You don’t mean that?”
“I could almost swear to it,” answered Harrison. “She is clever and unscrupulous and a great judge of character. She understood ours—”
“Too well,” groaned Marston.
“And she knew she could trade on your chivalry,” said Harrison, “so there’s no need to worry about that. If you can help me to lay her by the heels you’d be doing society a great service.”
Marston sat up and looked Harrison squarely in the face. “You’re right, Mr. Harrison,” he said. “I must tell you. But it’s a rotten story. I think it would almost break my wife’s heart if she knew.”
“That may not be necessary,” said Harrison, “but take your time because I want to get the whole of this straight. First of all, it might be useful for me to ask a question or two. How did you come to know Miss Williams?”
“Well, she’s not really my friend,” said Marston, “she’s my wife’s.”
“Do you know how Mrs. Marston met her?”
“I don’t think I do.”
“Has she known her very long?”
“Certainly the last year or so,” said Marston, “or even less. She seems just to have drifted into our lives. My wife was most attracted to her when she met her somewhere in London and asked her to come and see us here.”
“How often has she been to visit you?”
“Only once before.”
“That was when the idea of your daughter’s play was first discussed?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Marston, “but why should you mention that?”
“Just a train of thought,” said Harrison. “What impression did Miss Williams make on you?”
“Of course she is a very attractive woman,” said Marston. “She seemed so charming that I was rather pleased my wife had made a friend of her. I was the more pleased because, despite her attractions, she seemed to have little interest in men. She really seemed genuinely to prefer women’s company and, of course, they were enthusiastic about her. My daughter Livia was quite as attracted as my wife.”
“Very clever of Miss Williams,” said Harrison.
“It was,” answered Marston. “Of course I talked to her and I admit I liked talking to her, but she never seemed interested in me and that was why the whole business came as such a shock.”
“What happened?” asked Harrison.
“I’m so ashamed I don’t know how to go on,” said William Marston. “It’s incredible to me now that it happened at all. Sometimes I can hardly believe it myself.”
“I really understand your difficulty, Mr. Marston,” said Harrison sympathetically, “but I’m afraid nothing I can do can make it easier.”
“True enough,” said Marston. “As I said, this woman hardly seemed to take any notice of me. She was always with other women when she wasn’t careering round the country in her car. So you can imagine that I was greatly surprised when, just as I was getting into my costume to take my part in the king’s scullion scene, she appeared in my bedroom. She was somewhat scantily dressed and seemed very confused. She said she thought it was Mrs. Marston’s room. She had wanted a safety pin and couldn’t find one anywhere. I told her Mrs. Marston must be at the play and that if she looked in her room she would be sure to find one. Then she came right into my room and asked me if I hadn’t one myself. It all seems so simple, doesn’t it.”
“Very cleverly simple, I should say,” commented Harrison.
“She came up to the mirror where was standing and started to admire my costume,” said Marston. “I shouldn’t have thought there was much to admire in it but somehow she managed to convey a great deal and I must say I was quite flattered. Then she started putting my costume straight—you know, touches here and there. It all sounds absurd telling it in this cold-blooded way, but her touch somehow made a difference.”
“She meant it to,” said Harrison, viciously.
“Of course,” answered Marston, wearily, “but how was I to know that? My watch was on the dressing-table some distance away but I knew I had a good five minutes and a pretty woman dressed like that—well, I’m human, Harrison, terribly human.”
“And then?” asked Harrison.
“Well, then,” continued Marston, “the only way I can describe it is that she made love to me. I am not flattering myself. Don’t think that. She told me how wonderful she thought I was. How she had never been attracted by men, but there was something different about me. That she hadn’t realised before how men could affect women, and there she was, standing up against me, looking into my face. Extraordinarily appealing, attractive.”
“And you forgot the play and everything?”
“Everything,” answered Marston. “I admit it. Everything—my wife, my good name, the whole bag of tricks. A terribly desirable woman practically in my arms and then she put her arms around my neck and I gave way. What a fool I was.”
“Helen Williams is irresistible,” said Harrison, with a slightly cynical tone in his voice.
“You agree,” said Marston, thankfully. “Then she said, ‘You’ll be late for your part,’ and was as charmingly distressed about it as possible.”
“I hate to ask you,” said Harrison, “but how long afterwards was that?”
“I can hardly say,” said Marston. “Time was forgotten. It must have been about ten minutes. She slipped away from me, as if frightfully ashamed of what she had done and ran out of the room. I collected my scattered wits and dashed down to the grounds. Even then I thought to myself that not much harm had been done. My scene would be a bit later but that was all. It couldn’t be done without me so they would have to wait. As I went into the corridor I saw that she had not gone farther than one of the windows looking into the grounds. As I passed she turned round and her eyes looked so hard and steely that one would not have thought a pretty woman could have looked like that. Of course, they changed quickly enough when she saw me, but I could not help noticing them and they worried me. It sounds a small thing and I may have been quite wrong but I felt then that something was going wrong—that her look meant something evil was happening.”
“And when you got to the scene of the play you realised what had happened?”
“Very quickly,” said Marston. “I was running towards the summer-house when I met them carrying poor Bamberger. I knew something was wrong and didn’t dare ask. Somebody brought along the spoon I should have been carrying, and by their talk I soon pieced together what had happened. I went into the summer-house, half dazed. Manning was very decent and sympathetic but everything he said made me want to shout. And that was how you found me.”
“And so you decided to take the blame at the inquest?” said Harrison.
“What else was there to do,” asked Marston. “Put yourself in my place and what would you have done?”
“It is difficult to say,” said Harrison.
“It isn’t,” said Marston, “for I’m sure you would have done exactly the same. To begin with, everybody thought
I had done it and had assumed it was an accident. So the blame wouldn’t hurt me much, and at first I thought that someone, finding that I was late, had very generously taken my place. After the accident, of course, no one was likely to admit that. So I felt there was nothing else to be done.”
“When did you think differently?” asked Harrison.
“As you can understand, I kept on turning the thing over and over in my mind,” answered Marston. “The more I thought about it the more unreal the whole business seemed, and then suddenly I remembered the look on that woman’s face—the one I have described—and that convinced me that I had been tricked. And then—”
“Then you decided to commit suicide,” said Harrison.
“You seem to know everything,” answered Marston. “That’s true. I was so utterly ashamed of myself that I thought that was the only way out.”
“Just what Miss Williams might have wanted?”
“I suppose so,” said Marston. “I didn’t think of that. Indeed sometimes I thought she might have been as badly deceived as I was.”
“You don’t think that now?”
“Of course not,” said Marston. “When she called this morning I could see by the way she looked at me, somehow, that she had used me. It’s a hateful thought, and then Livia—she decided to go away with the woman.”
“I wanted her to do that,” said Harrison.
“You wanted her to?” echoed Marston with astonishment.
“Yes,” said Harrison. “Your daughter, Mr. Marston, has one or two lessons to learn in life. She is a charming girl but much too impulsive. You objected to her going with Miss Williams and that straightway decided her to go. It won’t do, you know.”
“It’s all very well to say it won’t do, Mr. Harrison. You don’t know Livia.”
“I know something of her,” answered Harrison, “and I like her, but I think it would be better if she got to know something more of Miss Williams. I don’t think she’ll come to any harm—it will be her own foolish fault if she does, and she’s no fool—and also I feel certain that having Miss Livia about will be a slight embarrassment to Miss Williams. At the present stage of the game, that’s not a bad thing.”
The Man Without A Face Page 16