Black Welcome

by Nigel Fitzgerald

  “You’re very knowledgeable. Actually it’s Peregrine’s will that chiefly interests me. I suppose you’ll have to inquire about that?”

  “I won’t, except to check on details. I told you that my niece is confidential clerk in the family solicitor’s office; well, I took her out to lunch to-day,” said the chief superintendent innocently. “Peregrine Walton’s will leaves a legacy of a thousand pounds to his secretary, five hundred and anything she wants from the house to his sister, and the rest, lock, stock and barrel to his niece, Mary O’Brien Moore, in the hope–let me try and recall die exact phrase now–in the hope that she will have the best education the world can afford for whatever career she chooses to follow.”

  “For all her cleverness that one will make a career of marrying some poor divil and ruling the roost like her grandmother,” said Sergeant O’Callaghan unexpectedly. He seemed merely to have been speaking his thoughts aloud; his ruddy face blushed to a deeper hue as his two superior officers stared at him in surprise. Nevertheless he added without any sign of repentance–“’Tis the right career, too, for a woman.”

  “It is surely,” the chief superintendent agreed, a faint grin breaking the stolid impassivity of his face. “Are you off, Duffy? Well, good luck to you.” He put his head out of the car’s window to ask–“Who are you going to see first?”

  “Mrs. O’Brien Moore. We’ll keep in touch with your office.”

  “Right. The old lady?”

  “No. I’ll leave her till later. Mrs. Dominick.” As Duffy walked back to his own car he was aware that tire chief superintendent was staring after him unhappily.

  The Weldons’ house near Moycarrick, where Ivy O’Brien Moore had been staying for the previous couple of weeks, enjoyed a sheltered situation in the lee of the bare hills. The ubiquitous rhododendrons of the West bloomed high on the rocky walls of the valley and, interspersed with clumps of japonica, covered the lower slopes. The darkness and austerity of the old house were relieved by the waxen beauty of magnolia blossoms. There was neither sign nor sound of current human activity; it took three assaults on die knocker to bring a startled-looking maid to the hall door.

  No one was at home, the girl informed Duffy. Mrs. Weldon had gone to a meeting of the Irish Countrywomen’s Association in the town, and there had been neither tale nor tidings of Mrs. O’Brien Moore since one o’clock when she had rushed off in the car without taking even a pick of her lunch. It was to be hoped that she had eaten something in the meantime; murder or no murder, there was little use in starving oneself. Duffy had agreed with this sentiment and had parried one or two tentative questions when the sound of a car’s engine became audible from the direction of the road. The maid listened for a moment.

  “I’m sure that’ll be Mrs. O’Brien Moore now,” she said.

  The girl proved to be right. The black Hillman Minx that came bowling down the avenue was stopped before the door with a jerk that was characteristic of Ivy O’Brien Moore’s driving, and no second glance was needed to identify the young woman who got out from behind the steering-wheel. She was dressed as she had been when Duffy interviewed her earlier in the day at Moore Court, which was only to be expected, but the afternoon had been unkind to her appearance; her clothes were creased and rumpled and her hair had a dry unhealthy look that was very different from its pristine well-cared sheen. The car, too, seemed different, though it had fared better than its driver.

  “You again,” she said to Duffy. “I suppose you want to see me.” It was unlikely that she could derive any pleasure from his unexpected presence, nevertheless the expression of her eyes was hard to interpret in any other way. “What do you want to know this time?”

  Perhaps it was the maid’s open-mouthed interest that reminded Duffy of food. “I hope you’ve eaten,” he said. “If not, my questions can wait till you’ve finished.’

  She laughed. “As a matter of fact I have. They weren’t expecting me for dinner this evening, and I missed lunch, so I had a sort of high tea in Moycarrick. Well, come along. We had better get it over with.”

  She led the way into a faded drawing-room and stood looking out from a bow window on to the lengthening shadows of the garden; it was obvious that when she turned round such light as there was would be behind her. Duffy wondered if she had been reading old-fashioned thrillers; he located by the door a switch of almost prehistoric design and found that it worked.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I have to be able to read my notes.”

  “Of course not.” She turned from the window and took a chair in the centre of the room. If she had meant to keep her face in shadow, she was now going to the other extreme. “What do you want to know? Not that I can tell you any more than I have already.”

  “There have been further developments,” Duffy explained. “Please tell me how you spent the afternoon. You’re not bound to do anything of the sort, of course, but in view of what’s happened I think it would be wiser. I don’t want to waste my time suspecting you unnecessarily.”

  “Suspecting me of what?” she asked without any change of expression. She met the detective’s eye squarely.

  “We’ll come to that later. How did you spend the afternoon?”

  “Just driving about–I couldn’t really tell you where. I wanted to think. Then I sat for ages over my meal in a hotel in Moycarrick.”

  “I see.” Duffy glanced out of the window and across flowerbeds to where the Hillman was discernible merely as a colourless shadow in the fading light. “I presume that was when you had your car washed and polished.”

  “It’s not my car,” she snapped. “It belongs to Mrs. Weldon. I think that to return it in decent condition was the least I could do. Lots of the by-roads round here are untarred–you must have noticed.”

  “I have. It’s quite surprising how much our scientific people can learn nowadays from an unwashed car by analysis of dust and mud and what the occupants have brought in on their feet; sometimes we can trace an entire journey pretty accurately. A thorough wash makes the job harder, of course, though not necessarily impossible. Juries, however, prefer the evidence of a good eye-witness.” Duffy smiled apologetically and opened his notebook. “I’m wasting time–I’m sorry. Now, when you left Moore Court this afternoon did you drive round to Miss Walton’s place?”

  She looked at him steadily for a moment before answering–“Yes.”

  “Did you go there to see Miss Walton?”

  “Yes, of course. I wanted to see her alone, and I couldn’t have done that at Moore Court without making it too obvious. Anyhow, I didn’t think of it till I had left. So I went round to wait for her.”

  “You changed your mind before she got back–why?”

  “I told you I wanted to see her alone. You don’t seem to realise that I’ve got family problems on my mind that are much more important to me than the death of a comparative stranger. That may seem heartless, but my mind can only cope with so much worry at a time, and my children come first. When I saw that the boat was crammed with people, you and Hector and the children, I realised there was no hope of seeing Cynthia by herself, so I went. Anyhow I didn’t want to have to go through the business of saying good-bye to Michael and Mary twice in one day.”

  “Did you go into tire cottage at all?”

  “Yes, I did. I got field-glasses to see who was in the boat.”

  “Miss Walton told me that the place had been ransacked.”

  “Well, I didn’t do that. I only got the glasses–out of the box-room–I knew she wouldn’t mind.” For the first time tire young woman looked really ill at ease, as if she had something on her mind which disturbed her even more than trifling with the truth. “Actually I still have the glasses. I was in such a tizzy I forgot to put them back.”

  “I don’t think you need worry about that.” Duffy saw her searching in her handbag and correctly assumed that she was looking for a cigarette; he held out his case and lighted for her the Afton that she took from it. “Miss Walton di
dn’t even notice that the glasses weren’t there,” he pursued. “The only thing she missed was a gun.”

  The statement had been made so casually that at first she failed completely to take in its meaning, or so it appeared. When at last her reaction came it was most marked; she stared open-mouthed at Duffy for a few seconds and then tonelessly, as if the words conveyed sound to her rather than sense, she repeated–“A gun.”

  “An old service revolver, to be exact, and still in working order, I believe. It was kept hidden in the box-room on a high shelf.”

  “The box-room.” The phrase sounded meaningless, as if there were still a lack of co-ordination between her brain and ear and tongue; then suddenly with a shake of the head she recovered her poise and her voice its old crisp quality. “I don’t know anything about a gun,” she said.

  “Did you even know that Miss Walton owned one?”

  “No. I’ve just said I didn’t.”

  “I understand that your children knew about it.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Superintendent, don’t expect parents to know as much as their children. No married man would make that mistake.”

  “Children are often less reticent about what they know than their elders,” said Duffy amiably. “And of course they have better memories for what interests them. What did you do after leaving the cottage?”

  “Nothing that you don’t know.” She stifled the beginnings of a yawn. “Drove round for a bit and then had a meal in Moycarrick. I’ve already told you.”

  “I’m sorry but we’ll have to be a bit more exact than that. I want time as well as place. You left the cottage about 3.45? Is that right?”

  “Near enough. I didn’t look at my watch–no reason to, and I had other things on my mind. You should know. You were in the boat at the time.”

  “Quite. Let’s find another point where we can get a time-check. Did you go directly as far as Newtown Moore, for instance?”

  “Oh yes, I can be sure about that. I skirted Newtown Moore and drove up into the hills; that’s when I stopped and walked about for a bit to think. I hadn’t a clue about the time till I suddenly found I was ravenous; it was twenty to six then. I went straight to a garage for petrol. The man in charge of the pumps offered to do a wash and polish for me while I had something to eat, and I came back here when I had finished. That’s all.”

  “So we can say that you were well clear of the bay before four o’clock?” Duffy insisted patiently.

  She had been examining the glowing tip of her cigarette–a symptom of boredom perhaps–now she looked up at the detective from under lowered lids. “Obviously,” she said.

  “The point is of importance,” Duffy pursued, “because someone left a booby-trap in the cottage that might have caused Miss Walton’s death. The only car seen at that side of the bay at any material time was a black Hillman similar to the one you have been driving.”

  “A booby-trap?” Ivy O’Brien Moore’s slightly martyred air vanished without leaving a trace. “Cynthia’s hurt? She’s not–not?”

  “She’s alive but very seriously burnt. I’m afraid I can’t say that she is as yet out of danger.”

  “Oh God! How awful.” The young woman’s face mirrored incredulity and horror but there was also a hint of calculation in her expression. “Has she–has she been able to speak?”

  “Not yet–but, since we must assume that the trap was set without her knowledge, it’s unlikely that she’ll have much to tell us.”

  “Yes, of course.” She stared at Duffy, as if trying to penetrate the polite impassivity that masked his feelings. “Do you think that it was the murderer who did it?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I do.” Briefly he described the nature of the booby-trap and the extent of Miss Walton’s injuries; he reiterated that only one type of car had been seen in the neighborhood. “Hence my interest in black Hillmans.”

  “Oh! That reminds me.” Her cigarette had burned down to her fingers; she stubbed it out vigorously in an ash-tray. “Just before I left the road round the bay I met another black Hill-man going towards Cynthia’s. We jolly nearly collided; one doesn’t expect any traffic on that road. The driver was a man–that’s all I can tell you.”

  “Could it have been Flynn, the estate agent?”

  “It could.” She smacked a small hand on her knee. “Of course!”

  “Flynn admits to nearly running into a car similar to his own at a corner near Dr. Walton’s boat-house under circumstances such as you describe.” Duffy looked at the young woman for confirmation as he mentioned the particular corner, but she was biting her lip as if she felt that she had already said too much. “But according to his story–and there’s some corroboration for it–that was after five o’clock,” the detective pursued. “You told me that you were clear of the area over an hour before that.”

  “Then it certainly can’t have been me,” she said positively. “You must have noticed there are dozens of Hillmans round here.”

  “I understand that there are five black saloons in the New-town Moore district, to be exact. For various reasons we can rule out the cars owned by the canon, the dispensary doctor and the chief superintendent of the Civic Guard; that leaves yours and Mr. Flynn’s. It seems unlikely, I think, that an outsider would know that Miss Walton was in the habit of using her pressure-stove every Thursday evening and that only on Thursdays could one depend on finding the cottage unoccupied for a great part of the day. That seems to rule out strangers.”

  “Look here! Are you accusing me of trying to kill Cynthia?” Ivy O’Brien Moore demanded.

  “I’m not accusing you of anything–at tire moment. I’m merely trying to get a full and truthful account of your movements.”

  “So you think I’ve been telling lies?”

  Duffy smiled disarmingly. “It’s quite obvious that you’ve been evasive,” he said. “Perhaps we’d do better with questions that can only be answered with a yes or a no. Sometime after five this evening Dr. Walton disappeared while swimming near his own boat-house. The obvious inference is that he met with an accident; however, there are signs that at the same time, approximately, someone climbed out of the water about a hundred yards above the boat-house and was driven away in a waiting car. Did you see Dr. Walton on your way back from the cottage?”

  “How could I have when I left before four?” she demanded somewhat illogically. It was noticeable that she asked no questions about what had happened to Peregrine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” said Duffy. “When I first saw you this afternoon, Mrs. O’Brien Moore, I couldn’t help admiring your hair. Something’s happened to it since then; it looks as if sea-water had got at it. Have you been swimming to-day?”

  She stared at him speculatively for a moment before answering–“Yes. I have.” Unblushingly she continued to meet his eye. “I was on edge while waiting for Cynthia, and it was something to do.”

  There could be little doubt that she was lying. The detective had not made an exact time-record of his own movements during the day but he was satisfied that he had landed at Cynthia Walton’s pier by four o’clock, barely thirty minutes after Ivy O’Brien Moore had left Moore Court. It was scarcely possible that tire drive of eight miles over narrow, twisting roads round the inner reach of the bay could be accomplished in less than a quarter of an hour; yet the young woman, by her own admission, had driven away from the cottage as soon as she was able, with the help of field-glasses, to make out the composition of the boat-load that was approaching the pier. Simply, there had not been enough time, then and there, for a casual swim. It was the first direct and undisguised lie that Duffy had been told during the course of the interview; he had not quite made up his mind how to deal with it when the door opened and the little maid thrust her head into the room.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” she said to Mrs. O’Brien Moore. “The man”–she indicated Duffy with a nod–“is wanted on the telephone. ’Tis the Guards, and �
�tis urgent.”

  The girl proved to be right on all three counts; die matter was indeed one of urgency. It was with a grave face that die superintendent returned to the drawing-room and shut the door carefully behind him.

  “I have just been informed that Dr. Peregrine Walton’s body has been recovered from the bay,” he said. “My time is now more than ever limited. I must ask you either to answer my questions without further prevarication or to accompany me to the Guard Station at Newtown Moore.”

  The ultimatum was not immediately successful. The young woman had repeatedly to be told that Peregrine was dead; she had to be allowed to remark over and over again on the horror of it all and the frequency with which tragedies followed on one another’s heels. She had to blow her nose and to soothe her nerves with one of Duffy’s cigarettes. She had above all to be assured that her children were in no danger, but at last she came to the point.

  “I have been lying to you,” she admitted, “but only about one thing, seeing Perry. I must have watched him drown–in fact, I did, but I thought–Oh! It’s awfully hard to explain. You must remember that it was only at midday to-day that I heard about Joan Allison’s murder. I was shocked and horrified, of course, but I didn’t really know the girl and––” She hesitated momentarily–“and I hadn’t any particular reason to feel friendly towards her. Really I was more upset because the thing happened at Moore Court than at the fact of murder. That was an immediate and selfish reaction, but my children are involved–no, that’s not quite it–I mean that I see everything in the light of its possible effect on my children. One thinks more about them when one isn’t actually living with them, you know. When you started to question me this afternoon I began for the first time seriously to think about who could have killed the girl. It was a stranger obviously, but I gathered from what I’d been told that it was practically impossible for anyone to have got into or out of Moore Court about the time of the murder without being seen. Then it dawned on me that I had been very near there at just about the time that the girl was stabbed; it was probably even her car that I had followed out along the road. The rest of the family had been miles away with perfect alibis–the servants too–and I had been on the spot. I knew I hadn’t had anything to do with the murder, obviously, but I didn’t like the idea of even being suspected, and it didn’t seem that there was anyone else to suspect–except me and Perry Walton.” She looked apologetically at Duffy through the smoke of yet another of his cigarettes. “I didn’t tell you about seeing Perry on the hill near Moore Court that day.”