Dead Mrs Stratton (Jumping Jenny) rs-9

by Anthony Berkeley

  "That's me," Roger said cheerfully. "And you, of course, are Superintendent . . .?"

  "Jamieson is the name, sir. Pleased to meet you," said the large man, without, however, very much enthusiasm. "I was asking Mr. Stratton about the quarrel which preceded Mrs. Stratton's departure from this room. We have already learned from Miss Stratton," said the superintendent sternly, with a glance at the obviously distressed Celia, "that such a quarrel took place. I should be glad to have your version of it."

  "Celia exaggerated it," Ronald said quickly to Roger. "I've told the superintendent . . ."

  "Mr. Stratton!" boomed the superintendent, so ferociously that Inspector Crane looked even more deprecatory than before. "Yes, Mr. Sheringham?"

  "But there was no quarrel," Roger said blandly.

  The superintendent bent his formidable brows. "Then how do you account for the fact that Miss Stratton admits that there was a quarrel, Mr. Sheringham?"

  "I didn't 'admit,'" Celia said with spirit. "You speak as if I were in the witness box. I told you perfectly willingly that . . ."

  "Please, miss!" The superintendent held up a hand like a bread - trencher. "Mr. Sheringham?"

  "I can't quite see what the confusion is about," Roger said pleasantly. "What happened was perfectly simple. There was no quarrel, and nothing approaching a quarrel. Mr. Stratton and Mr. David Stratton and Mrs. Stratton were indulging in a little horseplay, when Mrs. Stratton without the slightest warning lost her temper and banged out of the room in a fury. There was no time for a quarrel or anything like that."

  "Umph!" grunted the superintendent, in a disappointed kind of way. Obviously this information exactly coincided with what he had heard from another source, and his disappointment was due to his failure to make more importance of it. "Then why," he asked, suddenly rounding on Ronald, "did you deny that any unpleasantness had taken place at all?"

  "Damn it, Superintendent," Ronald said hotly, "don't be so beastly offensive. If you want me to answer your questions, kindly put them with ordinary politeness."

  "Shut up, Ronald," barked Roger, noticing with alarm the growing tinge of puce which was overspreading the superintendent's already inflamed countenance.

  "I've a good mind to ring up Major Birkett and ask him to come along," Ronald grumbled. Roger deduced that Major Birkett might be the chief constable.

  "Major Birkett has already been communicated with," said the superintendent, with something of an ominous ring in his voice.

  "Yes, well, that's really all that happened, Superintendent," Roger said smoothly. "Mrs. Stratton flew into a raging fury over simply nothing at all and almost threw herself out of the room. You can get confirmation of that from anyone who was in here. And of course, as you've seen, it's a matter of considerable importance."

  "What is a matter of considerable importance, Mr. Sheringham?"

  "Why, I mean the state of her mind when she went up on the roof. That's very suggestive, isn't it? But that's not really my province," added Roger cunningly, remembering his hints on this matter to Dr. Mitchell. "You must ask one of the doctors whether that would have been likely to influence her immediate actions."

  "Thank you, sir," returned the superintendent shortly, as one to say that he knew what he must ask the doctors and what he need not. Not a pleasant person, Superintendent Jamieson, thought Roger, realizing now who it was that had caused all the trouble.

  Roger considered it time to lead the conversation to his objective. He strolled over to the inspector. "By the way, Inspector," he said, in a casual voice, "you were interested this morning in the position of that chair right under the gallows. I've been amusing myself by tracing its history, if you'd still like to hear how that happened."

  Roger had purposely addressed the inspector and not the superintendent, as if the matter of the chair and everything connected with it were far too insignificant to interest that august person; but behind him he could almost hear the superintendent creak as his large body stiffened into attention.

  "Indeed, sir?" said the inspector eagerly. "Yes, I should like to hear that."

  "Well, Mrs. Lefroy's skirt caught it when she got up from it, and knocked it over. You remember she was wearing one of those old - fashioned balloon skirts."

  "Mrs. Lefroy sat in that chair?" uttered a slightly stifled voice behind Roger. "She sat in it?"

  Roger turned round. "What? Oh, I see what you mean. The smuts, and her white dress. But of course she didn't sit down till after the chair had been wiped."

  "The - chair - had - been - wiped?" repeated the superintendent, spacing his words with pregnant blanks.

  Roger looked surprised. "You knew that, surely?" he said, in tones just scornful enough to stimulate without scourging. "Surely you knew that Mr. Williamson wiped the chair for Mrs. Lefroy?"

  The superintendent flung himself round so suddenly that Mr. Williamson leapt back in alarm. "You wiped that chair?" he roared.

  "Y - yes. I mean - well, why the devil not?" retorted Mr. Williamson, regaining courage as he found himself still alive. "Eh? Why shouldn't I? You wouldn't want her dress spoilt, would you?"

  "What did she want to sit down at all for?"

  "Because she came over queer," replied Mr. Williamson with dignity. "I mean, she felt faint. Eh? Why shouldn't she? What? It was pretty unnerving, wasn't it? Why the dickens shouldn't she feel faint? Eh?" said Mr. Williamson aggressively.

  The superintendent turned to his inspector. "Crane, go down and bring Mrs. Lefroy up."

  "Inspector!" said Ronald Stratton gently.

  "Yes, Mr. Stratton?"

  "Give Mrs. Lefroy Superintendent Jamieson's compliments, and ask her if she would oblige him by coming up here for a moment."

  Roger shook his head. It does not pay to irritate the police. "And now, Mr. Williamson," said the superintendent grimly, having taken no apparent notice of this exchange, "I'd be obliged if you would be kind enough to tell me what the blazes you did with that chair that's given us so much trouble."

  "Trouble?" said Mr. Williamson, with innocent astonishment. "Why trouble? What's it got . . ."

  "What did you do?" barked the superintendent rudely.

  Mr. Williamson told his story. He told it well. Roger, listening to his pupil with admiration, awarded him full marks. There is nothing like implicit belief in one's fact to present a convincing result. Mr. Williamson had not the faintest doubt of any of his facts. His air of mild indignation that anything so ordinary as to wipe a chair for a lady should have given offence to the police could not possibly have been assumed.

  Mrs. Lefroy seconded him with the true art that conceals art. "What's all the fuss?" she appealed to Celia. "Oughtn't I to have felt faint, or what?"

  "Don't ask me," said Celia. "I'm simply lost."

  "Fingerprints?" repeated Mrs. Lefroy wonderingly a moment later, after another glimpse of the superintendent's heart. "I'm afraid I never thought of them. Why should I? Or footprints."

  "Oh, yes, talking of footprints," Roger put in glibly, "were you able to verify the presence of grit on the chair seat, Superintendent, or had Mr. Williamson in his zeal for Mrs. Lefroy's frock polished all that off, too?"

  "Oh, he managed to leave a trace or two," replied the superintendent grumpily.

  Mr. Williamson summed it all up in a thoroughly dignified manner. "If I really did anything I shouldn't have done, I apologize; but I still can't really see what the hell all the trouble's about. Eh?"

  It was for Roger, however, to administer the final jab. It was a nasty little underhand jab, for not only did it wound, but it managed to transform what must have been considered by its perpetrator as the keenest efficiency into a miserable piece of bungling.

  "I noticed," said Roger, airily, "that you'd had the chair removed, and I couldn't imagine why. It wasn't until I made inquiries myself, and heard how the chair had been wiped, that I wondered whether the absence of fingerprints might possibly be worrying you; but even then I could hardly believe that it was so, or you'
d have made the same elementary inquiries as I did and found out what had happened. I must tell Moresby about that, at Scotland Yard. He'll be amused. Why, Superintendent," Roger added with a light laugh, "you'll be telling me next that you don't know where all the bruising on the body came from!"

  The superintendent appeared to have been stricken dumb, but Inspector Crane was able to ask: "Did you anticipate bruising on the body, Mr. Sheringham?"

  "Anticipate it? What happens when you bang the back of your head against the lower edge of a grand piano?" Roger patted affectionately the piano in question. "What happens when someone picks you up and throws you violently on the floor? Do you bruise or don't you - especially if you happen to be a woman, Inspector?"

  A last ray of hope lit for an instant the superintendent's darkening face.

  "What's this? There was a struggle of some kind, then?"

  "A struggle?" said Roger, with fine disgust. "No, man! An Apache dance!"

  The police had gone, finally, and Roger was shaking his head at Ronald Stratton in the study. As it was Sunday evening, the party was not changing; and the rest were having their cocktails in the drawing room. Roger, however, had taken his host down to the study to tell him what he thought of him.

  "Really, Ronald, you shouldn't have lost your temper with the superintendent, you know," he chided, rather unhappily. "You've made an enemy of the man now, and it simply doesn't do to put the police at enmity - especially in such a delicate case as this," Roger added with meaning.

  "I suppose so," Ronald admitted. "But I simply couldn't help it. I can't stand people trying to bully me."

  "Tchah!" said Roger.

  "You surely don't think it can have done any harm?" Ronald asked.

  "I hope not, sincerely. But the trouble was, you see, that I had to back you up to a certain extent, with the result that I treated the man as an opponent, instead of as a possible ally."

  "But does that matter?"

  "I suppose not, really. Yes, I suppose everything is all right now."

  "You don't sound very certain, Roger," said Ronald Stratton, not without anxiety.

  "One never can be quite certain with the police," Roger replied, rubbing it in. "Still, I think they haven't many doubts left about suicide now. At least, I don't see how they can have. But for all that," added Roger thoughtfully, "it wouldn't be a bad idea to strengthen the case for it a little more still, if we can."

  "As how?"

  "Well, just an idea that occurred to me. We've got plenty of evidence that Mrs. Stratton was chatting about suicide most of the evening, but if the police still are suspicious they may be pleased to consider all our evidence tainted. Can't you produce something that can't be questioned, on that point? A letter, for instance. The record of the written word is so much more convincing, you see than the mere report of the spoken one."

  "I see the idea," Ronald nodded. "But I'm afraid she's never written to me on those lines. But she might have to Celia."

  "Run and ask your sister," Roger suggested. Ronald ran.

  "No," he reported. "Celia hasn't got any letters like that. But what about David?"

  "Ring him up and ask him," said Roger.

  Ronald rang up his brother. David, it transpired, could produce nothing, but thought that if any such letters existed they might have been written to a certain Janet Aldersley.

  "Lives in Westerford," Ronald explained. "Ena's particular friend and confidante about the brutality and general iniquities of her unworthy husband."

  "Get out the car," Roger said briskly. "There's half an hour yet before dinner. We'll go and see her."

  "Right you are," agreed Ronald, impressed. Miss Aldersley lived in a large house on the farther side of Westerford. Ronald was able to arrange an interview with her without disturbing the Aldersley parents. She was tearful, and much impressed by the idea that she might be of help. Roger explained the object of the visit. "If you had any such letters," he said smoothly, "it would help to shorten the proceedings at the inquest, I fancy, and any way in which we can do that will of course help, too, to lessen the scandal, Miss Aldersley."

  "It's too dreadful," sobbed Miss Aldersley, who was fair and fluffy and of a type to be impressed by her late friend's histrionics. "Poor, poor Ena! How could she ever have done such a thing?"

  "Yes, but has she ever written to you of it in her letters?" Roger asked patiently.

  "Oh, yes. Often, poor darling. But I never thought she would really ever do such a thing. Oh, I shall never forgive myself, never. Do you think I could possibly have prevented it? You don't, Mr. Sheringham, do you?" Roger was tactful and set about obtaining possession of the letters.

  Miss Aldersley, convinced at last that she would only be serving her dead friend's best interests by handing them over, agreed without much difficulty and went off to find them.

  Roger carried them away with him in triumph.

  "Don't take them to the police," he said, as he gave them to Ronald in the car a minute later. "I don't trust them. Take them round to the coroner yourself, directly after dinner. He'll probably be quite glad of the chance of a private word with you, too, as he knows you personally." On such small details, Roger told himself with some satisfaction, is the unassailable case built.

  But calling in on Colin that night for a last word before going to bed, Roger found that a certain uneasiness still remained with him.

  "We've got our stories all pat," he said, sitting on the bed and watching Colin brush his hair, "but we must allow for the unexpected. I don't think the police are likely now to ask for an adjournment tomorrow; but after Ronald's attitude, if they have by any remote chance got something up their sleeves for us, they'll have been keeping it darker than ever."

  Colin looked round from his dressing table. "But what could they have up their sleeves, man?"

  "Goodness knows. But I wish now I'd played that superintendent a little more tactfully. Ah, well, we must just sit tight and know nothing, that's all. If only that David doesn't let us all down . . ."

  CHAPTER XIV

  INQUEST ON A VILE BODY

  THE coroner shuffled his papers. "Well, gentlemen, that being so, we'll proceed to hear the evidence. Mr. Stratton, will you . . . Mr. David Stratton I should have said. Yes. Now, Mr. Stratton, I quite realize that this is a very painful occasion for you. Very painful indeed. You may be sure that we won't trouble you more than necessary, but it is my duty to ask you a few questions. Now let me see. Yes. Perhaps the best thing would be for you to tell us exactly what led up to this distressing event, yes."

  Roger held his breath. He need not have been alarmed. David gave his evidence clearly and without faltering. He spoke in much the same abrupt, almost jerky tones as those with which he had first answered the questions of Inspector Crane, but now they appeared nothing but a cloak for nervousness.

  The coroner was as kind to him as possible and led him in a way which, Roger considered, might have given a suspicious superintendent of police some pain. (Ronald's call on the coroner the previous evening had been an excellent move.) After telling his story, David was asked a few questions about his own movements, but only, it seemed, with the object of finding out why he had not followed his wife out of the ballroom and whether, had he done so shortly afterwards, it would not have been possible to avert the tragedy; to which David frankly replied that his wife very often behaved in an odd way, and he had no anticipation at all that this performance in particular might have serious consequences. As for ringing up the police station later, he had learned a long time ago from Dr. Chalmers that his wife could not be held to be always strictly accountable for her actions, and being worried over her disappearance had thought it best to take this precaution; he had never done so before, because the occasion had never arisen. Altogether, Roger thought admiringly, David could not have carried greater conviction had he been innocent.

  "Yes," clucked the elderly little coroner. "Quite so. This is very distressing for you, Mr. Stratton, I know, but I am bound to
ask you. With regard to what you say about your wife's behaviour at times ..."

  David gave instances, shortly and with obvious reluctance. Mrs. Stratton had been subject to profound fits of depression; she was accustomed occasionally, in company, to drink for effect, though it was impossible to call her a drunkard; she often lost her temper over trifles and would then rave and storm in a quite unbalanced way; she would worry for days over the most insignificant things; and so on.

  When at last David was released, Roger felt that the worst was over. And evidently the police had not asked for an adjournment, so perhaps no surprises might be expected after all.

  Ronald Stratton followed his brother, and he too gave nothing away. Confirming David's account of Ena's behaviour at the party and her loss of temper over their horseplay, which Ronald manfully admitted to have been mistaken with so touchy a subject, he told of the anxiety about her disappearance which had resulted in the prolonged search, and of the finding of the body. He spoke with sincerity and frankness and obviously created an excellent impression on the jury.

  Questioned by the coroner, he not only agreed with David's estimate of the dead woman's mental instability, but conveyed the impression, without actually saying so, that David had been loyally minimizing this lack of balance, which in reality was a great deal more pronounced than he had suggested. He added further examples of her strange behaviour.

  Celia Stratton confirmed this and added that when staying with David she had frequently been distressed to hear his wife shrieking at him in their bedroom till all hours of the morning, like a mad woman.

  "Like a mad woman?" repeated the coroner deprecatingly. "You're sure that isn't too strong an expression, Miss Stratton?"

  "Not in the least," Celia retorted firmly. "If you'd heard her, you'd understand. She used almost to yowl, one might say, as if she'd completely lost control of herself."

  "Dear me," said the coroner sadly. "Very painful indeed."

  Roger privately thought that Celia had overdone it a trifle, but there was no doubt that the idea must be getting home to the jury that Ena Stratton had been anything but normal. As Celia was about to leave the stand, the coroner added one more question: "If you realized that your sister - in - law was really so seriously unbalanced as this, I wonder you did not advise your brother to consult an alienist about her, Miss Stratton."