by Alan Hunter
‘Do you doubt it, man, when I have been in the ring with Tommy Farr himself, down there in Tonypandy?’
‘Boxing man, are you, Johnson?’
‘Good gracious yes — I have my cups to prove it. Five years I was the Area Middleweight Champion, and not far past it now. I have fought the best, I tell you. There are many good men with the mark of Hugh Johnson’s glove on their jaw.’
‘Wonder you didn’t clip this Yank one.’
‘I have wondered myself too, before today. But you could never get him fighting, man, that was the whole trouble. You could say what you liked to him, it would never get him mad. Some men are made that way. They haven’t got the wickedness to play on. I tell you, it would have been like meat and drink to me sometimes to see that young man with my blood in his eye!’
Sir Daynes angled a bit further, but there were no fish to be caught, so he handed the questioning back to Dyson.
Johnson, at all events, hadn’t received the news of Earle’s Christmas visit with enthusiasm. Had he known in time, he would have arranged to spend his Christmas in his home town, along with a married sister. But the uncertainty had prevented that. Christmas leave had been cancelled at Sculton, and was only restored at the last moment. Sullenly, the Welshman had brooded over the prospect of what he considered to be a spoiled Christmas.
‘You will say I was no true Christian to take against the man that way, and after what has happened, now, I may be sorry that I did. But God help us, man, there are some people who just get in our bowels and blood — Christian it may not be, but by St David, it is human!’
Earle had arrived, and Johnson’s worst fears were realized. The young American was in his most bumptious and obnoxious mood. Moreover, he had been granted a sort of general licence by the rest of the household. They were all in a tale to worship Earle, and, as a natural consequence, to condemn the surly Welshman. Johnson had retired into his shell. He had always felt a little alien in this Saesneg establishment, and now circumstances had taken a turn that seemed to cut him off entirely. Dourly he accepted the part forced upon him. He was an outsider — very well. He would play an outsider’s role. Without looking for trouble — was it not the season of goodwill? — he would make them feel the injustice of their attitude towards him, and the folly of abasing themselves to this American clown. Merely Place had deserved its Diogenes, and it should have one.
The Welshman broke off, his dark eyes darting fiercely from one to the other of them.
‘And now I have it in mind to tell you the whole truth about what I saw after the party last night. At first I was not certain. A big thing it is, deciding if it is best to tell the police something which may cause trouble. But a crime has been done, a wicked, evil crime, and the guilt must lie where it lies though the devil himself cries Silence. So now I will tell you.’
Sir Daynes made sounds as though to applaud these upright sentiments, and Johnson, drawing his chair closer to the table, continued:
‘The bile is a bad thing for a man’s stomach, look you, and strong wine is no good fellow for it. When I got to my room after the party last night I could not sleep no more than fly, so, after pacing my room for some time, I had a mind to go to the library and fetch myself a book.’
‘Eh?’ ejaculated Sir Daynes, sitting up very straight. ‘What library, man? What time was this?’
‘As to the time, I do not know precisely, but the library is the one in the state drawing room, which is handy for our wing.’
‘The state drawing room!’ Sir Daynes was making noble efforts to establish a mental picture of the layout of the state apartments. ‘But wait a minute, man — state drawing room. Hasn’t that got a door to the gallery in the great hall?’
‘It has indeed. It gives straight on to it.’
‘And you — you’re admitting you went there, some time after the party last night?’
‘A good hour after — past one o’clock, I’d say.’
Sir Daynes stared at the ex-miner, a curious glint in his eye. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘go on, Johnson.’
‘Well, as I stood there, looking through the bookcase, I thought I heard some voices in the hall. Not loud, you understand, but not soft either. It sounded like two people in an argument, and now and then they’d let their voices rise a little.’
‘Whose voices were they, man?’
‘I could not say. One of them was a woman.’
‘A woman!’ Sir Daynes jerked his head back. ‘Well… go on.’
‘The voices stopped. I slipped out to the gallery. They have a light there in the hall, a single bulb, and I could just make out the gallery stretching back there, like a great horseshoe. At first there was nothing to see, but then I heard a step over by the stairs, and out of the big marble doorway came the figure of a woman — in a hurry she was — and disappeared towards the other side of the house. After that it was all quiet, and I went back to my room. And that is the whole truth, God help me, of what I saw after last night’s party.’
The expressions that passed over Sir Daynes’s face during the latter part of this recital were worth the study of an actor. First his eyes opened wide and his jaw imperceptibly sank. Then a flush spread over his features, and the jaw squared up. Finally his eyes narrowed to two steely points, and his lips, pressed together, pouted aggressively outwards.
‘And the woman?’ he barked.
‘I could not swear to her at all.’
‘Yet you saw her, you say?’
‘Oh yes, make no doubt of that.’
‘But you don’t know who she was?’
‘No, I could not tell her from Eve. How could I, man, in that light, and from the far end of the gallery?’
‘You could see she was a woman.’
‘That is another thing altogether.’
‘I put it to you that you’re lying, Johnson.’
‘And I tell you, man, that I am not a liar!’
There was a forward movement on the part of one constable as the fiery Welshman smashed his fist down on the table, while Sir Daynes, for his part, looked no less likely to keep the peace. For a moment they glared at each other like two enraged terriers.
‘You admit you were in the gallery?’ snarled Sir Daynes.
‘Have I not said I was?’
‘And at the crucial time?’
‘At the time I have given in my statement.’
‘And that was the time when the crime was committed.’
‘Oh no it was not, for I can bear testimony.’
‘And your damned testimony may put you in the dock, my man, that’s all the value it’s likely to have! Why didn’t you see the body?’
‘Because there was no body to see.’
‘And you didn’t hear it, eh, tumbling down those stairs?’
‘No more than you did, tucked up in your precious Manor House.’
‘Don’t answer the chief constable back,’ yapped Dyson, feeling it was time he got a word in.
‘Man,’ retorted Johnson, thrusting his face towards the inspector, ‘take that police-badge out of your lapel for a moment, and I’ll give you some free bloody dental treatment!’
It was a deplorable state of affairs. The official atmosphere had deteriorated to a point approaching zero. It was perhaps as well that at this juncture a bulky figure rose from a seat by the window and quietly joined itself to the end of the conference table.
‘About that person you saw…’ murmured Gently, spreading out his guide.
Three people, for three different reasons, restrained a cri de coeur that sprang automatically to the tips of their tongues…
***
‘I suppose you’re happy, Gently,’ observed Sir Daynes sourly, what time the room was again free of belligerent Welshmen. ‘You wanted to drag Janice into this, and you’ve confounded well succeeded. On the face of it, we’ll have to ask her what she’s got to say about the business.’
Gently’s shoulders heaved expressionlessly. ‘It might have been anyone…’
‘M
ight have been — but wasn’t, eh? That’s what you were going to say. And if we’re to pay any attention to that damned concussed miner with his grudges and violence!’ Sir Daynes gave one of his financecommittee snorts. ‘But have it your own way. Drag out all the dirty linen. We’ll have Janice and Henry through the mill a dozen times if necessary — before we send that Johnson feller up with an indictment.’
‘He’s my first choice, sir,’ assented Dyson with a touch of animosity in his tone. ‘I couldn’t begin to see my way into this case before we questioned him.’
‘Hah, smelt him from the first!’ Sir Daynes turned to his inspector fondly. ‘Always look for the grudge-bearer, Dyson, and you’ll never go far wrong. Who would want to bash the feller? Answer, Johnson. Who was the type to do it? Answer, Johnson. Who had the opportunity? Answer, Johnson. And between you and me, Dyson, we’ve got our man, only there are a few loose ends about which the best detectives don’t leave showing!’
Gently fished around in the pockets of his waistcoat and, after several failures, brought up a solitary, shop-soiled peppermint cream. ‘We still don’t know why Earle was out there in the hall,’ he said. ‘Until we do know we can’t be certain of anything. The reason may be quite incidental, in which case Johnson may very well have taken an opportunity to level some scores… though, at the same time…’
‘Well, man?’ demanded Sir Daynes impatiently.
‘Can you honestly see Johnson bludgeoning Earle from behind?’
Sir Daynes rumbled and grumbled, but he was obliged to admit that he couldn’t. On all other points the ex-miner added up to the required specifications; on this one he was a miserable failure.
‘No.’ Gently revolved the peppermint cream on his thumb. ‘Johnson simply isn’t the type to strike a cowardly blow in the dark. He’s a boxer, a fighting man. His method of settling scores is to pick a quarrel and throw some punches. But setting that aside… he might have been tempted… If the reason for Earle’s being in the hall was not incidental, it may have been contrived by someone other than Johnson and until we know why or by whom it came about we shall be groping in the dark.’
‘You mean we should disprove his statement about seeing a woman?’ enquired Sir Daynes, with a little more favour.
‘Possibly… it would have a negative value.’
‘Show the feller is a liar, eh?’
‘It wouldn’t be less useful to show that he was not.’
Sir Daynes frowned at the peppermint cream, the revolutions of which seemed to fascinate him. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said at last. ‘Tell you straight, I think it’ll stir up a stink to no purpose. We’ve got the feller’s statement — he was in the hall at the time of the murder. What the devil does it matter why Earle came there, when the blasted fact is that he did?’
Gently raised the peppermint cream like a beacon between them. ‘It could just be that Johnson is telling the truth…’ he said.
For a moment longer Sir Daynes stared at the erected sweetmeat, then he swore under his breath and rapped an order to the apprehensive constable. Dyson began to say something, but the baronet shut him up with a look. The peppermint cream, flipped expertly, went to join its multitudinous predecessors.
‘Hah, m’dear,’ whinnied Sir Daynes, as Mrs Page made her reappearance. ‘Little point has come up — nothing important, answer it in a minute. Chief inspector here wants to know something — think I’ll let him pop the question. Know what you’ll say already, but we have to show chapter and verse.’
Mrs Page flickered a smile at him, but it came and went with pitiful rapidity. She was trembling as she sat down; her beautiful fingers moved restlessly over the sleeve of her woollen cardigan. Finally she glanced at Gently, who gave a little shrug and the ghost of a smile.
‘You have a maid who sleeps in your wing with you, Mrs Page?’
‘Yes… I have.’ She looked surprised.
‘Her bedroom is close to yours?’
‘Yes, it’s on the same floor.’
‘Last night after the party… did she help you undress?’
‘No.’ A rush of colour flooded the waxen cheeks. ‘You must understand… she is indisposed. She had a heavy cold, and went to bed directly after tea. She is in bed now. She has been feverish for two nights.’
‘I am sorry to hear that.’
‘In fact, last night I looked in on her after I went up.’
‘She would be asleep, would she?’
The colour deepened. ‘You did not expect me to waken her, surely?’
‘I only wished to have your word for it. At that time she was asleep, and nursing a feverish cold?’
‘Yes. You have my word.’
‘You would not have expected her to get up?’
‘No.’
‘And you would certainly not have expected her, Mrs Page, to get up shortly after you looked in, to have dressed herself, to have gone out into the somewhat inclement state apartments?’
Mrs Page gazed at him as though she had been thunder-struck. The colour in her cheeks ebbed and flowed and she clasped her hands tightly together in a vain effort to prevent them shaking.
‘I… No… no… I would not.’
‘And yet, apart from yourself, she is the only inhabitant of that wing, and the only other woman on that side of the house?’
‘Yes… that is true… the only woman.’
Gently nodded mercifully and looked away into the fire.
‘You must know, Mrs Page, that we have a statement to the effect that a woman’s voice was heard in argument in the great hall shortly after one o’clock last night, and that a moment or so later the figure of a woman was seen to emerge from the portal opposite the head of the stairs — it would be from the saloon, wouldn’t it? — and go quickly through the door at the north-west corner of the gallery. Now that particular door would be the obvious choice of a person wishing to return to the north-west wing by the shortest possible route, and the north-west wing is, of course, your own, Mrs Page. We are wondering if you would like to make a comment on this statement?’
The bracket-clock, which might have been a Tompion, impressed its leisurely ticking on the painful silence. From a great distance in the freezing dark outside came the eerie barking of a dog. Each of the five men could hear Mrs Page’s quick-taken breathing.
‘Naturally, you are not obliged to comment…’
‘Exactly,’ weighed in Sir Daynes. ‘Don’t have to say a word, m’dear — think nothing of it.’
‘Though if you do not, certain inferences-’
‘Pooh, pooh!’ bumbled Sir Daynes. ‘No inferences — nothing of that sort. If you’ve nothing to say, take my advice, and don’t say it — just a shot in the dark, m’dear… don’t expect it to help us.’
The effect of this rapid little fire and counter-fire was only to make more emphatic the silence it interrupted. Mrs Page continued to sit in statuesque wordlessness, the clock to tick, the dog, after an interval, to bark. It almost seemed as though she had lost the power of speech. But then, just as Sir Daynes was gathering his forces for another attempt, she suddenly forestalled him.
‘I really don’t know what comment you expect me to make.’ Her voice was surprisingly steady and normal. ‘If a woman was seen as you describe, then it must have been one of the servants or the weaving staff. It could not have been my maid, and I assure you that nobody came to the north-west wing after I retired last night. Your informant was either mistaken, or else he was spying on two of the servants.’
‘Just so, just so!’ exclaimed Sir Daynes in relief. ‘Nobody came to your wing… that’s what we wanted to know. Lot of poppycock I don’t doubt — couple of servants necking and getting up to mischief.’
Gently shook a relentless head. ‘Isn’t it an odd place for servants to neck? Presumably they have cosier quarters in their wing than are to be found in the saloon at one a.m.’
‘I don’t think it’s odd at all.’ Now she was facing him, the Feverell eyes stiffened with de
termination. ‘Servants are not so predictable as you seem to suppose. They are capable of all sorts of odd freaks, especially in such a large and comparatively unoccupied house as is this.’
‘Then you think it likely that two of them would be pursuing their odd freaks in that place, at that hour, after what would have been a tiring day for them, and a few minutes before a murder was committed, Mrs Page?’
‘I think it is improbable but far from impossible, Inspector.’
‘I must beg to differ, Mrs Page.’
‘Then you are left with my alternative hypothesis that your informant was mistaken, Inspector. And now, if you have really nothing else to ask me, I should be pleased to go to tea.’
Gently made a gesture of neutrality and Mrs Page, now quite in command of herself, rose and departed, the gallant baronet ushering her to the door with a volley of deprecations, excuses and assurances. He returned very silently, however, to pace the room with an expression of mighty deliberation on his leonine face. After the third excursion he came to an abrupt standstill where Gently was leaning on the corner of the mantelpiece.
‘All right!’ he barked. ‘All right, Chief Inspector Gently! There are two damned good theories — yours and mine. Yours says that Janice is lying; mine says that Johnson is. And out of the two of them, I’d pick mine every day of the blasted week!’
Gently shook his head sadly. ‘I haven’t got a theory,’ he replied. ‘I’m just following the ball… remember? I’m not responsible for the way it goes.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tea was sent in for the policemen — after Sir Daynes had brusquely turned down an invitation to the Place table both for himself and Gently. It was no makeshift affair. Three maids with two dumbwaiters were necessary for its expedition, and the table, that important adjunct of interrogation, had to be arranged in the centre of the room and accept the dignity of a damask cloth for the occasion.
Sir Daynes was patently impatient of such a wholesale interruption. Hestood by the hearth, hands clasped behind his back, pishing and pshawing as silver was laid out, the cake and the trifle installed, crackers dispensed, and a dozen seductively laden dishes set at points of vantage. Then came two bowls of peerless fruit, a dish of mixed nuts, some boxes of dates, Chinese figs, Turkish delight, creme de menthe, chocolate liqueurs and a large case of preserved fruits. Finally, with the baronet at breaking point, a tray on which were several bottles and a box of Coronaswas brought in and placed handily on a side-table.