Dead Mrs Stratton (Jumping Jenny) rs-9

by Anthony Berkeley

  "The grand piano?"

  "Yes. in the ballroom. Good lord, what an idiot I am. Of course her knees couldn't have been bruised on the roof, because the asphalt would have torn her stockings. But what will break the skin underneath thin silk, and yet not injure the silk? Moderate friction against a polished wood surface. In other words, we both saw Mrs. Stratton bruising her knees, and all the rest of her - if we happened to be watching. Now have you got me?"

  "That Apache dance she did with Ronald!"

  "Of course." Roger beamed at his pupil. It is so much better for the pupil himself to voice the obvious conclusion. That means that he will take it for granted afterwards that he thought of it for himself, without any prompting; and consequently he will stick to it like glue.

  "By Jove," Roger followed this up, "and I remember now seeing her get up off the floor once by the piano, rubbing her head. Did you see that?"

  "No, I can't say I did."

  "Oh, yes," said Roger with enthusiasm, who had not seen it either, but was determined that Mrs. Lefroy should have, and Ronald himself, and Colin. "She rubbed her head and said, 'Oo - er, that was a nasty bump; do it again, Ronald,' or something like that, you know."

  "Well, that's the explanation, undoubtedly," agreed Dr. Mitchell, equally relieved.

  "Yes. And I suppose," added Roger, with a passing qualm of anxiety, "that all the bruises are accounted for in the same way?"

  "Oh, certainly. She came down once or twice very heavily. I thought at the time that she must be getting hurt, but she seemed to like it."

  "Precisely. And that's another point for the coroner's jury. They'll be quite ready to believe that a person who liked getting hurt would enjoy the idea of suicide. And so, for that matter, she did. Well, that's most satisfactory. Did you say something just now, by the way, about a cup of tea?"

  Dr. Mitchell rose with alacrity.

  Roger almost danced in again through the front door of the Stratton house. Everything was going splendidly. Only one snag now remained, and that depended not on the police but Colin. But before even breaking the good news to Ronald, Roger hurried straight upstairs to the empty ballroom. And there he did a very regrettable thing.

  Closing the door carefully behind him, he chose a nice nubbly piece of moulding on the lower edge of the grand piano and, going down on his hands and knees, rubbed his head carefully against it. There is a certain amount of grease on every head of hair, and Roger contemplated with pleasure the faintly dull patch he had caused on the brilliant shine of the varnish; he would have liked a nice black hair to add to it, but unfortunately such a thing was not available.

  It would have been unkind, Roger felt, seeing that the police would probably look for it, not to gratify them with a nice bit of evidence.

  Then he went down to look for Ronald and Mrs. Lefroy and tell them what they remembered seeing. The questionable ethics of all this simply did not occur to him - any more than did the notion that Ena Stratton might really and truly have banged her head on that grand piano.

  CHAPTER XIII

  WIPING THE SLATE

  AT TWENTY minutes to six Roger, no longer losing grip, was closeted with Colin Nicolson in Ronald's study, with what looked like an uphill job in front of him.

  "Every other point is cleared up," he pleaded. "Every single one. There's only that chair left. If we can clear that up, too, there's not only no case left, there isn't even any more room for suspicion."

  "And you want me to go to the police and admit I wiped the prints off the chair, Roger?"

  "Yes."

  "Nothing doing," said Colin firmly.

  "But you must, man!"

  "Must nothing. I wiped your prints off that chair to save you from getting into a nasty jam, Roger, through your own silly carelessness. I'm not going to put myself in a jam over it instead."

  "But don't you see . . ."

  "What I see is that you ought to have wiped the prints off yourself. So go and tell the police you did, you old rascal."

  "But I can't!" wailed Roger. "I'm too well - trained to destroy evidence. They'd smell a rat at once if I told them I'd done such a thing."

  "Ach, rubbish!" said Colin rudely. "You're afraid to take the blame, that's all. You think it would put you in bad with the police for the future."

  "And so it would."

  "Well, I can't help that. You should have thought of that before you interfered. No, no; this is your pigeon, Roger. Nothing to do with me at all. Nothing at all."

  "Look here, Colin," Roger said desperately, "if you won't own up like a man, I'll tell the police myself that you did wipe that chair."

  "Right you are. And I'll tell them that you moved it."

  "But you can't! That would give David away, and we've got him absolutely covered."

  "Then you tell them you wiped off the prints yourself."

  Roger groaned. Colin was being excessively Scottish. But Roger could not but admit to himself that Colin had reason. He had performed an action which Roger ought to have performed for himself, and he did not see why he, and not Roger, should have the blame.

  Nevertheless, Colin must not be allowed to have reason. It looked like finishing Roger with the police for ever if he were. "Look here, Colin, if I can think up some excellent reason for you to have done it, won't you . . ,

  "No, I won't, Roger, and that's flat."

  "Oh, blast," said Roger.

  There was a knock at the door. "Come in," called Roger morosely.

  Mrs. Lefroy's head appeared round the lintel. "Oh, Mr. Sheringham, Ronald asked me to let you know that the police are here again. He's upstairs with them, in the ballroom."

  "Thank you. No, don't run away, Mrs. Lefroy. Come in and see if you can persuade Colin to be noble. I can't."

  "Oh, Colin, you will be noble, surely."

  "Don't you try your wiles on me, Agatha. I'm proof against all that sort of thing."

  "I'm afraid he is, Mr. Sheringham. What is it you want him to do?"

  "Only tell the truth."

  "Well, that would be a nice change, for some of us," said Mrs. Lefroy pleasantly. "I don't think I've ever undertaken to tell so many lies in my life."

  Roger looked at her eagerly. "You wouldn't tell one more, would you?"

  "What would one more be among so many? I mean, what one in particular?"

  Roger hesitated. Mrs. Lefroy really knew nothing, whatever she might think. Was it wise to let her see how very serious things actually were?

  "Shut up, Roger, you ass." Roger took his decision. He would have trusted very few women to this extent, but Mrs. Lefroy really was different.

  "Would you say that you'd wiped the back of a chair on the roof last night, and incidentally the fingerprints off it, Mrs. Lefroy, when you know perfectly well that you never did anything of the kind?"

  "Ach, Roger, come now. You can't ask her to do that. Do it yourself, man."

  "Is it important, Mr. Sheringham?"

  "One might almost say that it's vital."

  "And Colin won't?"

  "No."

  "But I tell you there's no need, Agatha. Roger can say it himself. There's no necessity at all for me or you to put ourselves in hot water on his account."

  "It isn't on my account," Roger snapped. "You know that perfectly well."

  "Mr. Sheringham must have some good reason for not saying he did it, Colin."

  "Of course I have, but Colin won't see it. The police would be more suspicious than they are already. They'd know I would never destroy evidence like that without knowing what I was doing; and that would make them do just what I want to prevent them from doing, and that is, ask themselves just what I was playing at. What I want is for someone to come forward and say he did it, who might never have realized what an important action it was. You understand that, surely? Because Colin doesn't."

  "Ach, yes, I do; but they wouldn't believe that I didn't know what I was doing, either. I did know, jolly well."

  "Now you're shifting your ground."


  "Well, it's true enough."

  "Anyhow, don't quarrel any more, you two," said Mrs. Lefroy soothingly, "because I'll say it. I can, quite conveniently, because I actually was on the roof last night soon after Ena had been found."

  "You were?" Roger said in surprise. "I didn't know."

  "Yes, I was. I'm afraid I didn't tell the inspector so last night, because it didn't seem of the least importance; but as it happened, I wasn't in the ballroom when Colin came down to keep us penned in. I was . . . Anyhow," said Mrs. Lefroy, "I heard a lot of commotion on the stairs, so I went straight up to the roof. Osbert was there, and he told me what had happened."

  "Osbert's never mentioned that."

  "I don't expect," said Mrs. Lefroy, "that he remembers very much about it. But he probably would if I reminded him."

  "That's excellent."

  "Yes. So what exactly is it that I'm to confess to? Something about a chair, did you say?"

  "It's like this, Mrs. Lefroy," Roger explained rapidly. "You know there was a chair lying under the gallows, which Mrs. Stratton must have used. For a certain reason which I needn't go into, Colin gave that chair a polishing with his handkerchief - thereby, incidentally, rubbing off any fingerprints that might have been on it, including Mrs. Stratton's own. The police have discovered that the chair has been wiped, and are choosing to put a sinister interpretation on the fact. It's essential that someone should own up to the wiping, laughing heartily and without the faintest notion that the act might be considered a serious one. That's what I want you to do."

  "Well, that seems quite easy," Mrs. Lefroy said.

  "I do like a woman who doesn't ask a lot of unnecessary questions," said Roger with enthusiasm.

  "Yes, but there seems one rather necessary one. Why did I do such a thing?"

  "Why, indeed?" Roger said thoughtfully. "Yes, it's essential to have a really good reason."

  "And one that will bring in the seat, as well as the back," added Colin.

  "Yes, the seat. I do wish ... By Jove, I've just remembered something. That's a bit of luck."

  "What?"

  "Why, I was rather worried about that seat, wasn't I? But it's all right. I stood on it myself. So even if you did polish it a bit, that's bound to show. And now I come to think of it, the polishing's all to the good. It will have left the traces of slightly gritty feet; but it will have destroyed any awkward contrasts between flat heels and high ones. Yes, that is a bit of luck."

  "I'm glad there was some use in what I did," Colin said drily.

  "Do you know that I'm absolutely dying to ask a thousand unnecessary questions, Mr. Sheringham?" said Mrs. Lefroy. "I should like you to know that, because I'm not going to ask a single one of them."

  "I'll tell Ronald what a magnificent woman you are," Roger promised. "He may have some idea, but he can't realize fully."

  "Agatha's a grand woman," Colin agreed. "But why did she wipe that chair?"

  They looked at one another. It was very difficult to imagine why Mrs. Lefroy should have wiped the chair.

  "It couldn't have had jam on it, or anything like that?" asked Mrs. Lefroy, not very hopefully.

  "A wee dicky - bird?" suggested Colin.

  Roger groaned. "You wiped it so thoroughly," he said. "Why should anyone want to wipe a chair thoroughly on a roof?"

  "Because of smuts," Mrs. Lefroy said promptly. "After all, my dress was white."

  Roger looked at her with admiration. Then his face fell.

  "But you weren't going to sit on it For one thing it was on its side. For another, you wouldn't have been going to sit on that particular chair."

  "Yes. I came over queer, and had to sit on the nearest chair."

  "If you came over queer, you wouldn't have bothered to wipe it. Besides, what did you wipe it with? The skirt of your white dress? Not very convincing, I'm afraid."

  "Ach, Agatha never wiped it at all. Osbert wiped it for her, with his handkerchief. The man was as tight as a lord. He won't know whether he wiped fifty chairs last night or not."

  "Colin," said Roger, "I believe you've hit it. But wait a minute. Did Osbert wipe it on its side? Hadn't he the common politeness to pick it up?"

  "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Lefroy. "But I knocked it over again when I got up."

  "Then why hasn't it got Osbert's prints on it?"

  "Oh! Well, I picked it up myself, before he wiped it. And it hasn't got my prints on it, because I was wearing my velvet gloves."

  "So you were," Roger said happily. "And you asked Osbert to wipe it because it made a smutty mark on your white velvet glove when you picked it up."

  "Naturally I did. And I was just able to stand up, queer though I'd come over, till he'd done it. And all that fits beautifully, because there I was, actually on the roof with Osbert, while you and Ronald were with Ena downstairs. I'm afraid it was rather morbid of me to go and examine the gallows so soon, but there, I'm not ashamed of that."

  "This," said Roger, "looks to me like a very pretty piece of work. We'll rehearse it once, just to make sure that the details are perfect, and then we'll tell Osbert. Now, Mrs. Lefroy, you're you, I'm Osbert, and Colin isn't there. Here are the gallows, and this is the chair. We three have just gone down, and you've come up, to find Osbert in possession. He's told you what has happened, and you've walked over to the gallows. Yes, here's the rope, you see."

  "How dreadful," murmured Mrs. Lefroy. "Was she really . . . oh, Osbert, I feel horribly faint. I must sit down." She picked up the chair. "Oh, look at my glove. Have you got a handkerchief, Osbert? Just wipe the chair for me, will you?"

  Roger wiped the chair. "There you are."

  "Thank you." Mrs. Lefroy sat down. "Oh, dear. No, I'm all right, thanks. It will pass off in a minute. Yes, I'm better now. But I think I'll go down. Who's going to tell the others? Oh, dear, I can't think how they managed these skirts. I've knocked the chair over. Well, it doesn't matter. We'd better go down, Osbert. I must see if I can do anything."

  "Excellent," Roger applauded. "Yes, that seems perfectly natural. Colin, do you think you could find Williamson and lure him here?" Colin nodded and went off to do so.

  "Dear me," said Mrs. Lefroy, "I suppose this is all quite unprincipled, isn't it, Mr. Sheringham?"

  "Quite," said Roger cheerfully.

  Mr. Williamson looked bewildered. "What's that? I'm upsetting the police? What do you mean? I haven't upset any police. Eh? Have I?"

  "I may be wrong," said Roger unctuously, "but I have an idea that you've worried them a little. By wiping that chair for Mrs. Lefroy last night, you know. I think you ought to tell them about it, in any case."

  "Wiping a chair? What? I never wiped any chair for Agatha last night."

  "Osbert!" exclaimed Mrs. Lefroy, much pained.

  "Well, when did I wipe a chair for you?"

  "Really, Osbert. When I joined you on the roof, after they'd taken Ena down. You must remember."

  "Remember wiping a chair for you? I'm blest if I do. What's it all about, eh? What do you mean?"

  "Well, you remember my coming up on the roof, don't you?"

  "Did you? Yes, I believe you did. Yes, I remember."

  "And you told me what had happened."

  "Yes. Well?"

  "And I came over rather queer."

  "Did you? Did you?"

  Mrs. Lefroy turned to Roger. "Well, it isn't much good if Osbert doesn't even remember what he did," she said, with proper indignation.

  Roger looked serious. "Don't you really remember, Williamson?"

  "I remember Agatha coming up on the roof, yes. At least, vaguely. But I don't remember what I did. I mean . . . Anyhow, what's it matter?"

  Roger's gravity deepened. "I'm afraid it may matter quite a lot. You see, you destroyed some rather important evidence."

  "I did? How the dickens did I do that?" Mr. Williamson looked decidedly alarmed.

  Roger set about deepening the alarm. "Look here, this is rather awkward. You'd had one over the eight last night
, you know."

  "Two over the dozen, I should say," suggested Mrs. Lefroy offensively.

  "I wasn't drunk, if that's what you mean," Mr. Williamson demurred with indignation.

  "No," Roger said with great emphasis. "You weren't drunk. Whatever happens, the police mustn't get the idea you were drunk. If they once get that notion into their heads, they'll think we were all drunk. Then they'll begin talking about drunken orgies, in the course of which a death occurs, and for all we know the whole lot of us may end up in the dock for manslaughter."

  "The devil we might!" squeaked Mr. Williamson. "Sheringham, I say, you don't really think that, do you?"

  "I certainly do. So the best thing is for you to remember quite clearly what you did last night and then own up to the police like a man. After all it's quite a simple thing, and I don't suppose they'll do more than give you a formal wigging. Perhaps not even that."

  "But look here, what did I do?" asked Mr. Williamson desperately. Roger told him.

  "Now do you remember, Osbert?" asked Mrs. Lefroy.

  "Well, not altogether," said Mr. Williamson unhappily. "Vaguely, you know. Tell me again, Agatha. You asked me if I'd got a handkerchief . . ." Mrs. Lefroy told him again. Then she told him a third time, to make sure. Then Roger told him, all over again. In the end, Mr. Williamson remembered it perfectly, for himself.

  Roger paused for a few moments outside the ballroom door and frankly eavesdropped. From inside came the sounds of a gruff voice, followed by Ronald's lighter tones. Evidently an inquisition of some kind was in progress, but it was impossible to make out the words of question and answer.

  Roger opened the door and went into the room. After him sidled a sheepish Mr. Williamson. Besides Ronald and his interlocutor there stood, a little apart, Celia Stratton, looking distinctly worried, and Inspector Crane, looking apologetic.

  "Ah, here is Mr. Sheringham," said Ronald, in tones of unmistakable relief. "He'll bear me out. Roger . . ."

  "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Stratton," interrupted the owner of the gruff voice, a larger person running somewhat to girth, whom Roger instantly and correctly put down as the local superintendent of police, "if you'll excuse me, I'll ask the gentleman myself. Mr. Roger Sheringham?"