Dead Mrs Stratton (Jumping Jenny) rs-9

by Anthony Berkeley

  He tried to look on the bright side. At any rate the discussion had not been totally useless. Chalmers as well as David Stratton was now eliminated. But at this rate it looked like being a long job.

  Colin was lighting a fresh cigarette. "Well, Roger," he said, "you've got to show me."

  "Show you what?"

  "That it wasn't you who strung up Mrs. Stratton," Colin said calmly.

  CHAPTER X

  THE CASE AGAINST DAVID STRATTON

  IN SPITE of Roger's prophecy, he and Colin did get to bed that night, some time after five o'clock. When Roger got down the same morning, Colin had already breakfasted. The women and Williamson had not yet appeared. Roger was rather annoyed that he had got up so early.

  Ronald Stratton found him in the dining room, toying in a somewhat disaffected way with a tired - looking egg and some bacon.

  "Look here, Roger, I don't know if you were thinking you ought to hurry away this morning, but I don't want anyone to go unless they really prefer. I don't think there's the least need, and though the police haven't definitely said so, I think they'd rather that the party remained here intact till tomorrow."

  "I'll stay, with pleasure," Roger agreed. "But isn't it a little awkward, with ..."

  "The body was taken away this morning, to my brother's house," Ronald explained. "The inspector gave permission."

  "Oh, I see. That was very quick, wasn't it, for a Sunday morning?"

  "Very. David made the arrangements himself. I offered to let her stay here till the funeral, considering the boy and everything, but David thought better not."

  "And the inquest?"

  "Eleven o'clock tomorrow morning, here. I rather think the police will want you to give evidence."

  "Yes. The inquest's to be here, is it? Then wouldn't it have been more convenient in that case for . . ."

  "For Ena to stop here? Yes, I should have thought so, but David imagined it might upset my arrangements for you people."

  "I sec. That was very thoughtful of him. Is he . . ." Roger appeared to himself to be putting most of his questions in the form of dots.

  "Is he all right? Oh, yes, perfectly. It's an open secret between ourselves that Ena's death is just nothing but a huge relief - to him more than to anyone else. But of course we don't want to advertise the fact at the inquest."

  "No, of course not. The police hadn't gone, by the way, when I went to bed this morning. I suppose they're perfectly satisfied?" said Roger in a casual voice, helping himself to another cup of coffee.

  "Oh, quite. Here, let me do that. After all, why shouldn't they be?"

  "Why, indeed? But you seemed a little worried last night about the nature of the party."

  Ronald smiled. "Yes, I'm afraid I kept quiet about that. I just said that some of the guests were in fancy dress. I don't think it's likely to come out before the inquest; but if it does, I really can't help it. After all, we're not children. One can't be expected to take precautions against the word 'murderer' or the sight of a gallows suggesting someone into suicide, can one?"

  "Not really, but you must anticipate a possible howl from the sensational press if it does come. It sounds like jam for them. 'Morbid Amusements at House Party.' 'Ghoulish Jests Lead to Tragedy.'"

  Ronald made a grimace. "Yes, I know. It all rather depends on the coroner. Luckily I know him pretty well, and he's quite a decent fellow."

  "Then you ought to be fairly safe. But you'll have to explain away the gallows in any case. How are you going to do that?"

  "The gallows," said Ronald with a grin, "were a subtle compliment to the presence among us of the Great Detective."

  "In dam' bad taste, I've no doubt. Were the police shocked?"

  "Not so much as I expected. In fact the inspector was really rather amused, I think, if anything, though of course he had to hide it. He's a good chap."

  "Well, well."

  "Hullo," said Ronald. "Wasn't that the telephone? Excuse me a minute." He was away for some minutes. "Margot," he explained briefly, "wanted to know how we all were this morning, so I broke the news."

  "I shouldn't imagine she was very distressed to hear it?"

  "No," Ronald smiled. "She seemed a little more agitated than I'd have expected, but I suppose that was the surprise."

  "And your sister?" asked Roger. "How's she this morning?"

  "I haven't had her disturbed. The poor girl was quite whacked. She practically collapsed while the inspector was interviewing her, and I had to call down Agatha to help me get her to bed. She hadn't anything of the least importance to tell the police, of course, so it didn't really matter. I shall keep her in bed till lunch."

  "Yes, I should," said Roger mechanically and took another piece of toast.

  Roger found Colin smoking his morning pipe in the rose garden. "Ah, Roger," Colin greeted him; and added, a little pointedly: "How did you sleep?"

  "My guilty slumbers were perfectly sound, thank you," Roger replied coldly. "I hope your position as accessory after the fact didn't interfere with yours?"

  "Nothing could have interfered with them last night" Colin said simply. "I wonder why Ronald built his rose garden just like a ruined Roman temple."

  Roger looked round. The sunken oval of lawn in the centre, surrounded by a wide raised bed within little walls of red brick and enclosed by tall brick columns beyond to carry the ramblers, did look like a ruined Roman temple. At the moment, however, Roger was not interested in Roman temples.

  "I couldn't tell you, Colin." He seated himself in the sun on the brick parapet. "Look here, when I left you and David last night by the bar, to go up on the roof (a thing I wish most sincerely now that I'd never done), what happened to the two of you? When I came down you weren't there. In fact that room was empty. Had you gone back to the ballroom?"

  Colin made the face of one trying to chase an elusive memory. "I'm not sure. Why? Are you still on the trail, Roger?"

  "I am," Roger said grimly. "And that's your fault. So kindly rack those things of yours you call brains, and answer my question."

  Colin thoughtfully scratched the top of his slightly bald head. "Deuce take it, I don't know. Does it matter?"

  "Of course it matters. I want to trace the movements of every single person with a motive for Mrs. Stratton's death, from the time the woman left the ballroom till the time David came back to say she hadn't gone home."

  "The devil you do. That's not an easy job. Well, I'll do my best for you. Wait now, and let me think again." Roger waited, fiddling with a wireworm which had been illegally investigating the roots of one of the rose bushes. "If you kept still," said Colin, "I might have a chance to think." Roger kept still. "I believe I've got it! I went back to the ballroom - yes, that's how it was, because I remember Lilian asking me how wee David was, and I said I thought the drink had done him good. Yes, I went back to the ballroom, and David didn't."

  "Where did David go?"

  "How on earth should I know?"

  "But we must know. Can't you see how important it is?" Roger said excitedly. "Did he go up on the roof?"

  "Why should he do that?"

  "Look here, Colin," Roger said patiently, "is it lack of sleep that's made you this way this morning, or are you deliberately trying to be obstructive? Can't you see that after I came down, someone went up on the roof, and that someone killed Ena Stratton?"

  "After you came down. Yes. Well? Who was it?"

  "That's what I'm asking you. Because can't you see too, that of all the people who had motives for cutting Mrs. Stratton out of the way, her husband had the biggest? So far as motive goes, David Stratton is it."

  "No, no, no. You'll not persuade me. It's no good, Roger. No good at all. You'll never persuade me that wee David strung his wife up on that gallows."

  "Colin, will you talk sense!" said Roger, exasperated. "I'm not trying to 'persuade' you. I'm only asking you to consider the possibility, and then see if there's any evidence to support it. We must keep open minds if we're to get anywhere in th
is job at all. You're just one lump of prejudices."

  "David wouldn't have the heart to squash a slug."

  "I can quite believe that several people who hadn't the heart to squash slugs have found they had the heart to commit murder."

  "Ach, come now, Roger. Do you mean to tell me you consider that wee David a potential murderer?"

  "Most certainly I do, and all criminological history supports me - as you ought very well to know. David Stratton's just exactly the type that does commit murder."

  "I thought you were saying last night that Chalmers was? They're as different as - as . . ."

  "Chalk from cheese. Yes, of course they are. Don't be so dense, Colin!" Roger thumped the brick parapet beside him and hurt his hand. "Can't you see the difference in what I'm suggesting for them? Chalmers could never possibly commit a murder on his own behalf; David Stratton couldn't conceivably commit one for somebody else. But Philip Chalmers can be imagined as doing for his David what he wouldn't do for himself; and David, as I said, is own brother to hundreds of excellent, long - suffering husbands married to domestic pests, who just couldn't stand it any longer and reached for the meat chopper."

  "Well, I'll be fair with you," Colin conceded. "I'll grant you that. Crippen."

  "Crippen, precisely. A charming little man, driven completely off his balance by that terrible wife of his. Though in his case of course there was the extra motive in ... Colin!" Roger stared at the other with sparkling eyes.

  "What's the matter now?"

  "I happen to know that David's in love with another woman. He had motive enough without that."

  "How do you know?"

  "I was told, last night. As a matter of fact someone let it out - I needn't say who. But I'd stake my income on its truth."

  "Now see here, Roger," Colin said, not without heat. "I'm not going on with this if you're going to try to fasten it on that poor chap, I'm not going on with it, and that's flat."

  "You didn't in the least mind it being fastened on me, though," Roger said bitterly.

  "You fastened it on yourself. But if you're going to prove that David did it, then let's not do anything of the kind. I don't want to know if he did or he didn't; but if he did, in heaven's name let's leave him in peace. He must have been goaded pretty far."

  "Ah, so you're beginning to admit the possibility?"

  "I just don't want to have anything more to do with it."

  "And be at liberty to drop hints for the rest of your life, I suppose, that I did it? No, Colin, I'm afraid that's not good enough for me. And in any case I can't quite see what your trouble is. Are you afraid of knowing that a friend of yours has committed murder, just like the ostrich husband who'd much rather not know that his wife has kicked over the traces? Where ignorance is bliss - is that your idea? And yet it didn't seem to shatter you when you jumped to the conclusion that I had."

  "That was different," Colin growled. "You can look after yourself. David can't."

  "Oh, stop being an old hen," Roger said impatiently, "and discuss it reasonably. I didn't say we were bound to act on anything we discovered. In any case, I doubt very much whether we could prove it, as the police consider proof, since I moved that chair. You needn't be so frightened on behalf of your poor wee David. I'm quite prepared to shield him, if it does turn out that he made away with her. I'll even shake his hand and congratulate him, if you like. But I must know."

  "Why must you know?" Colin asked plaintively.

  "Because, dash it," Roger shouted, "you've accused me, and I didn't do it. You've nibbled at the roots of my self - respect, you - you wireworm, and I've got to restore them."

  "Oh, well," Colin grumbled. "All right then. Get on with it."

  Roger moved himself along to another patch of sun - warmed brickwork and, thus comforted, took up his rede. "It's quite plain, Colin, that you're going to disagree with every single thing I say this morning, so you'd better take up the position of counsel for the defence at once, and I'll prosecute. First of all, then, I'd like to hear from you why you thought David behaved in that very strange manner last night, after we'd found the body. Or didn't you consider his manner strange?"

  "It was a terrible shock to the man, naturally. What do you expect?"

  "Not quite what I saw, I think," Roger said meditatively. "It would have been a shock, of course. On the other hand David must have detested his wife; and it can't be such a shock to lose a wife you detest as to lose a wife you love. Though I'll grant you that the first reaction, for an innocent man of course, would probably be horror. After all a wife is a wife, even if you do detest her; and there must be times and moments to which one instinctively looks back with emotion. Even with Ena Stratton there must have been such times, or David would never have married her. And why the deuce he ever wanted to do so, is more than I can say. Nevertheless, he evidently did.

  "But David's manner last night didn't strike me quite as a result of that natural and innocent feeling. There was shock, but somehow I shouldn't have said that it was the shock of loss. Am I unconsciously influencing myself now if I think that it was much more like the shock of fear?" demanded Roger oratorically. "Quite possibly. But there was no doubt about Ronald. He was clucking round David just like an old hen. What, I wonder, is there about David that causes perfectly strong men to cluck like hens? I don't know. Ronald, anyhow, was much concerned about David. Why, Colin?"

  "I don't know."

  "Nor do I. But would you jump down my throat if I suggested that it was because Ronald knew what David had done, and was frightened out of his wits that David might give himself away to the police? Would you be extremely angry if I put that forward as the reason why Ronald should have nipped in and answered the questions addressed by the inspector to David almost before his brother could open his own mouth? Would you, Colin?"

  "Oh, so we've got a brand - new accessory after the fact, as well as a new murderer, have we?" Colin asked sarcastically.

  "It looks as if we might have," Roger admitted. "I hope so, for David's sake. Well, there's the question of David's reactions, as expressed in his manner. As a matter of fact David might be said to have had two manners, an early and a late. In his early manner he appeared to be dazed, no doubt by shock; possibly by the shock of loss, possibly not. His later manner was exactly the opposite. When he was allowed by Ronald to answer the inspector's questions, he almost barked out his replies. They were curt to the point of rudeness.

  "Now I actually did have during that interview two rather interesting thoughts. It seemed to me that David had been rehearsed in what he was to say to the inspector, and perhaps hurriedly and sketchily rehearsed at that; and it seemed, too, that he was concealing an emotion of some kind. Both these suppositions fit in very well with David's guilt."

  "But great snakes, man, it's all so vague. It's only possibly this, and perhaps that. Not a fact in the lot of it," complained Colin vigorously.

  "Yes, I know. We haven't got on to the facts yet. I'm dealing first with the tiny straws. We'll come to the trusses in a minute.

  "So far, then, we've established that David had an overwhelming motive beforehand and an uneasy manner afterwards. And now, if you want facts, here's a very big fact indeed, and I'd like to hear you explain it away if you can: Why did David ring up the police about his wife before it was ever known that anything had happened to her at all?"

  "Ach, come now, Roger. You know why he did that."

  "I know what he gives as his reason for doing it."

  "To warn them that an irresponsible woman was loose in the countryside."

  "Yes, that's what he said at the time: in case of suicide. And yet David Stratton, as an intelligent man, must have known that the chances of his wife committing suicide were extremely remote. He must know as well as I do that the people who chat impressively about committing suicide aren't the people who do it. That was the very first thing that made me really suspicious about the death. But doesn't it strike you as a very cunning move, Mrs. Stratton were (as
indeed she was) actually dead and the stage set for suicide, to suggest to the police the fear of suicide in advance?"

  "I'm not sure that it does. Wouldn't it be just as likely to make the police more suspicious?"

  "I don't think so, with all the evidence for suicide that was waiting for them to collect. The police, you see, don't bother about psychological probabilities. Like you, it's facts they want. And the fact is that Mrs. Stratton had been braying her intention of committing suicide all the evening. Very nice."

  "It seems to me," said Colin, "that for David to go and do a thing like that, when all the time he'd really murdered her, would be just like those detective stories where the murderer himself goes rushing off for the Great Detective and begs him to take up the case, which only proves that he was daft as well as a murderer."

  "That's a point," Roger said thoughtfully. "But not, I think, in this instance a sound one. The police are bound to investigate in any case, you see; the Great Detective isn't. Though you're right to the extent that the inspector himself did appear a little curious as to why David should have rung up the police station on this particular occasion and never before. Ronald jumped in and explained it all away, by the way. Another confirmation of collusion between those two." Roger had spoken a little mechanically. He was thinking of someone else who had voiced to him a fear that the police might suspect "something absolutely preposterous." And that was before he himself had proved murder at all. But he had suspected it, and probably he had shown that he suspected it. Had this remark been by way of a feeler? Was there by any chance a second accessory after the fact? Roger would have to secure a few tactful words with Mrs. Lefroy some time during the day.

  "What? Say that again, Colin. Sorry, I was thinking."

  "I don't believe a word of it," Colin repeated robustly. "There was no reason why David shouldn't have rung up the police as an innocent man, with a daft woman about the place like that. No reason at all. And every reason why he should."

  "Well, I disagree, that's all. I think, with the inspector, that it was to say the least curious. Now what else have we got against David?"