‘Depends how you look at it. You and Joe will be comparatively rich, while I shall be comparatively poor. Death duties will be heavy. I doubt if it will work out at more than eighty thousand pounds for Joseph, and forty thousand pounds to you and to me.’
‘Will you be able to keep on this place?’ she asked.
‘Hardly. It will be sold, and the proceeds pooled, I suppose.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry about that!’ she said mechanically.
His lips twisted. ‘How sweet of you!’ he mocked. He glanced towards Hemingway. ‘Interested, Inspector?’
‘I’m always interested,’ Hemingway responded.
Maud chose that moment to come into the hall from the wide corridor leading past the billiard-room to the servants’ quarters. She was still carrying her mutilated book, and it was evidently still absorbing her attention, for she said without preamble: ‘They all say they know nothing about it. If you did it, Stephen, it would be more manly of you to own up to it.’
‘God’s teeth, how many more times do you want to be told that I never touched your book?’ Stephen demanded.
‘There is no need to swear,’ Maud said. ‘When I was a girl gentlemen did not use strong language in front of ladies. Of course, times have changed, but I do not think for the better. It’s my belief someone wantonly destroyed this book.’ Her pale gaze drifted to the Inspector’s face. ‘You don’t seem to be doing anything,’ she said, on a note of severity. ‘I think you ought to discover who put my book into the incinerator. It may not seem important to you, but as far as I can see you aren’t getting any further over my brother-in-law’s death, so you might turn your attention to this for a change.’
‘Good God, Aunt, you surely don’t expect Scotland Yard to bother itself about a miserable book!’ exclaimed Paula. ‘We’re all sick and tired of hearing about it!’
‘And I,’ said Maud, quite sharply, ‘am sick and tired of hearing about Nat’s murder, and Nat’s will!’
‘In that case,’ said Stephen, ‘we can’t expect you to be interested in Blyth’s verdict.’
‘No, I am not interested,’ Maud replied. ‘I do not want a large fortune, and I do not want to be obliged to continue living in this house. I shall write to town for a copy of the Life of the Empress at once, and when I have finished reading it, I shall give it to the library in place of this one.’
Joseph, who was coming down the stairs, overheard this, and threw up his hands. ‘Oh, my dear, are we never to hear the last of that book? I thought we had decided to forget about it!’
‘You may have decided to forget about it, Joseph, but it was not your book. I was very much interested in it, and I want to know what the end was.’
‘Well, my dear, and so you shall,’ promised Joseph. ‘When all this stress is over, I’ll get you a copy, never fear!’
‘Thank you, Joseph, I will get one for myself, without waiting for anything to be over,’ said Maud, walking away.
The Inspector picked up his hat again. Joseph said: ‘Ah, Inspector! Just off ? I mustn’t ask you if you’ve discovered anything, must I? I know you won’t keep us in suspense longer than you need.’
‘Certainly not, sir. I understand I have to congratulate you, by the way.’
Joseph winced. ‘Please don’t, Inspector! What has happened isn’t in the least what I wanted. But it may all come right yet.’
‘I hope it may, I’m sure, sir. I’m sorry about Mrs Herriard’s book, and I’m afraid she thinks I ought to bring someone to justice about it.’
Joseph smiled wearily. ‘I think we’ve all heard enough about that book,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, my wife has a way, which the young people find tiresome, of recounting stray pieces of what she has read. The least said about it the better. She’ll soon forget about it.’
‘For the last time,’ said Stephen dangerously, ‘I – did – not – touch – the – book!’
‘Very well, old chap, we’ll leave it at that,’ said Joseph in a soothing voice.
The Inspector then left the house, accompanied by Sergeant Ware. During the drive back to the town, he was unusually silent, and the Sergeant, stealing a glance at him, saw that he was frowning. Over a lunch of cold turkey and ham at the Blue Dog, Hemingway continued to frown until the Sergeant ventured to ask him what he thought about the morning’s work.
‘I’m beginning to get some very queer ideas about this case,’ replied Hemingway, digging into a fine Stilton cheese. ‘Very queer. I wouldn’t wonder if I began seeing things soon.’
‘I was thinking myself of something you once said to me,’ said the Sergeant slowly.
‘If you thought more about what I say to you you’d very likely get to be an Inspector one of these days,’ replied Hemingway. ‘What did I say?’
‘You told me that when a case got so gummed up that it looked hopeless you liked it, because it meant that something was going to break.’
‘I won’t say it isn’t true, because very often it is, but it won’t do you any good to remember that kind of remark,’ said Hemingway severely.
‘Well, sir, is this case gummed up enough for you yet?’
‘Yes,’ said Hemingway, ‘it is.’
‘You’ve got something?’
‘I’ve got a strong feeling that things moved a bit too fast for someone this morning,’ said Hemingway. ‘It’s no use asking me how I get these hunches: it’s what they call a flair. That’s why they made me an Inspector.’
The Sergeant sighed, and waited patiently.
‘While I was prowling round the house today, more like a Boy Scout than a policeman, I treated myself to a nice quiet review of the case.’ Hemingway poised a piece of cheese on his knife, and raised it to his mouth. ‘And taking one thing with another, and adding them up together with a bit of flair, and a knowledge of psychology, I came to the conclusion that I was being led around by the nose. Now, that’s a thing I don’t take kindly to at all. What’s more, the Department wouldn’t like it.’ He put the cheese into his mouth, and munched it.
‘Who’s leading you around by the nose?’ asked the Sergeant, intent, but bewildered.
Hemingway washed the cheese down with some beer. ‘Kind old Uncle Joseph,’ he answered.
The Sergeant frowned. ‘Trying to put you off young Stephen’s scent? But –’
‘No,’ said Hemingway. ‘Trying to put me off his own scent.’
‘But, good lord, Chief, you don’t think he did it, do you?’ gasped the Sergeant.
Hemingway regarded him pityingly. ‘You can’t help not having flair, because it’s French, and you wouldn’t understand it,’ he said, ‘but you ought to be able to do ordinary arithmetic.’
‘I can,’ said the Sergeant, nettled. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, I can add two and two together and make it four as well as anyone. What I can’t do is to make it five. But I daresay that’s French too.’
‘No,’ said Hemingway, quite unruffled. ‘That’s Vision, my lad. You haven’t got it.’
‘No, but I know what it is,’ retorted the Sergeant insubordinately. ‘It’s seeing things, like you warned me you were beginning to.’
‘One of these days I shall get annoyed with you,’ said Hemingway. ‘You’ll be reduced to the ranks, very likely.’
‘But, Chief, he couldn’t have done it!’ the Sergeant pointed out.
‘If it comes to that, they couldn’t any of them have done it.’
‘I know; but he’s the one man who’s got an alibi from the moment Herriard went upstairs to the moment when he was found dead!’
‘When you put it to me like that, I can’t make out why I didn’t suspect him at the outset,’ said Hemingway imperturbably.
The Sergeant said almost despairingly: ‘He was talking to Miss Clare through the communicating door into the bathroom. You aren’t going to tell me you suspect her of being mixed up in it?’
‘No, I’m not. What I am going to tell you, though, is that when you get a bunch of suspects only one of whom has had the foresight to pr
ovide himself with an alibi, you want to keep a very sharp eye on that one. I admit I didn’t, but that was very likely because you distracted me.’
The Sergeant swallowed something in his throat. ‘Very likely,’ he agreed bitterly.
‘That’s right,’ said Hemingway. ‘You stop giving me lip, and think it over. Whichever way you turn in this case, you come up against Joseph. You must have noticed it. Take the party itself ! Whose bright idea was that? You can ask any of the people up at the Manor, and they’ll all give you the same answer: Joseph! I never met the late Nathaniel when he was alive, but I’ve heard enough about him to be pretty sure he wasn’t the kind of man who liked Christmas parties. No, it was kind old Uncle Joseph who thought it would be nice to have a real old-fashioned Christmas, with a lot of goodwill floating around, and everyone making up old quarrels, and living happily ever after. Young Stephen wasn’t on good terms with Nathaniel, on account of his bit of fluff; Paula had been worrying the life out of him to put up the cash for Roydon’s play; Mottisfont had been getting his goat by selling arms to China, in a highly illegal fashion. So Joseph gets the bright idea of asking all three of them, plus two of the causes of the trouble, down to Lexham. You can say he was being well-meaning but tactless, if you like; on the other hand, you can widen your horizon a bit, and ask yourself if he wasn’t perhaps getting together all the people most likely to quarrel with Nathaniel, to act as cover for himself.’
‘Why, sir, he’s nothing but a soft old fool!’ protested the Sergeant ‘I’ve met his sort many times!’
‘That’s what he wanted you to think,’ said Hemingway. ‘What you’re forgetting is that he’s been an actor. Now, I know a bit about the stage. In fact, I know a lot about it. Joseph can tell me all he likes about playing Hamlet, and Othello, and Romeo: I don’t believe him, and, what’s more, I never did. He’s got Character-part written all over him. He was the poor old father who couldn’t pay the rent in The Wicked Baron, or What Happened to Girls in the ‘Eighties; he was the butler in about half a hundred comedies; he was the First Grave-digger in Hamlet; he was –’
‘All right, I get it!’ the Sergeant said hurriedly.
‘And if I’m not much mistaken,’ pursued Hemingway, ‘his most successful rôle was that of the kind old uncle in a melodrama entitled Christmas at Lexham Manor, or Who Killed Nat Herriard? I’m bound to say it’s a most talented performance.’
‘I don’t see how you make that out, sir, really I don’t! If he’d got his brother to make a will leaving everything to him, there might be some grounds for suspecting him. But he didn’t: he got him to leave his money to Stephen Herriard.’
‘That’s where he was cleverer than what you seem to be, my lad. In spite of having started life in a solicitor’s office, he forgot the little formality of providing witnesses to see that will signed. You don’t need to know much about law to know you’ve got to have the signature to a will properly witnessed. You heard Miss Herriard telling me that he also forgot to put in some clause or other. What she meant was an Attestation Clause. That meant that the witnesses to the will would have to swear to Nathaniel’s having signed it in their presence before it was admitted to probate. So if Stephen didn’t get convicted of the murder, Joseph had still got a trump-card up his sleeve. In due course, by which I mean when the case had been nicely packed up one way or another, it would transpire that the will wasn’t in order after all.’
‘Yes, but it didn’t transpire in due course,’ objected the Sergeant. ‘It transpired today, and the case isn’t anything like packed up.’
‘No,’ said Hemingway. ‘It isn’t. I told you I had a hunch things had been happening just a bit too quickly for someone. Kind Uncle Joseph hadn’t reckoned with the Lord High Everything Else. For some reason, which I haven’t yet had time to discover, something brought the matter up, and Sturry blew the gaff. I don’t fancy Joseph wanted that at all. He wouldn’t like Sturry cutting in ahead of his cue.’
The Sergeant scratched his head. ‘It sounds plausible, the way you tell it, sir, but I’d say it was too cunning for a chap like Joseph Herriard.’
‘That’s because you think he’s just a ham actor with a heart of gold. What you ought to bear in mind is the possibility that he’s a darned good actor, without any heart at all. You go back over all we’ve heard about this Christmas party! You picked up plenty of stuff from the servants yourself.’
‘I don’t know that I set much store by what they said,’ said the Sergeant dubiously.
‘I don’t set a bit of store by any of the information they thought they were giving. But they told you a lot they didn’t set any store by themselves, and that was valuable. What about Joseph hanging up paper-streamers, and bits of holly all over the house, until Nathaniel was fit to murder him?’
‘Well, what about it?’ asked the Sergeant, staring.
‘It all fits in,’ Hemingway said. ‘Kind old Uncle Joseph going to a lot of trouble to make things bright and cheerful for a set of people whom even he must have known wouldn’t like it any more than Nathaniel did. Kind old Uncle Joseph, in fact, working his brother up into a rare state of bad temper. He got on Nathaniel’s nerves. He meant to. He did everything he knew Nathaniel didn’t like, from decorating the house to clapping him on the back
when he had lumbago.’
‘Yes, but he’s the sort of chap who always does put his foot into it,’ interposed the Sergeant.
‘That’s what you were meant to think,’ said Hemingway. ‘You wait a bit, because I’m going to show you that kind Uncle Joseph’s tactlessness is the predominant feature in this case. Piecing together all the information we’ve picked up, what do we get?’
‘Joseph trying to keep the peace,’ answered the Sergeant promptly.
‘Not on your life we don’t! Joseph throwing oil on the flames, more like. A man who wants to keep the peace doesn’t invite a set of highly incompatible people down to stay with a bad-tempered old curmudgeon who’s already got his knife into most of them.’
‘But everyone says he was always trying to smooth rows over!’
‘Thanks, I’ve heard him doing that for myself, and anything more calculated to make an angry person look round for a hatchet I’ve yet to see!’ retorted Hemingway. ‘Why, he even got on my nerves! But I haven’t finished, not anything like. Having got the whole party into a state when anything might have happened, he does a bit more pseudo-balm-spreading by hinting to Stephen’s blonde that Stephen’s due to inherit his uncle’s fortune, and it’s up to her to keep him quiet. Looked at your way, that’s more of his peacemaking; looked at my way, it’s a nail in Stephen’s coffin. No man could be as big a fool as to think that what you said to that girl wouldn’t come out at the wrong moment. He was making sure that we should discover that Stephen had reason to think he was the heir.’
‘Look here, sir, that’s going too far!’ the Sergeant exclaimed. ‘The one thing that does stand out a mile is that he fair dotes on his nephew! Why, look at the way he would stick to it the murder had been done from outside! And the way he kept on saying that his brother must have taken Stephen’s cigarette-case up to his room himself !’
‘I am looking at it,’ said Hemingway grimly. ‘Two of the silliest theories I’ve ever had to listen to. They wouldn’t have convinced a child in arms.’
‘But you can’t get away from the fact that he’s fond of Stephen!’
‘I’m not meant to get away from it,’ replied Hemingway. ‘I’ve had it thrust under my nose at every turn. The only thing I haven’t yet been privileged to see is any reason for all this overflowing affection. I’ve seen a good bit of kind Uncle Joseph and his nephew since I came down here, and I haven’t yet heard Stephen do other than treat him like dirt. That young man loathes the very sight of Joseph, and he takes no trouble to hide it. I’ve met some rude customers in my time, but anything to touch Stephen’s rudeness to Joseph I’ve never seen. But it doesn’t matter what he says: Joseph doesn’t take a bit of umbrage; he just
goes on loving his dear nephew.’
‘Well, after all, he is his nephew, and when you’ve known a chap since he was a kid –’
‘Now you have gone off the rails!’ said Hemingway. ‘When Stephen was a kid, Joseph was drifting about the world creating a sensation with his masterly portrayal of Mine Host of the Garter Inn, and Snug the Joiner, and very likely a First Citizen as well, not to mention a Soothsayer, and William, a Country Fellow. He wasn’t within a couple of thousand miles of this country. If he knew that he’d got a nephew, that’s about all he did know of Stephen until he planted himself on Nathaniel a couple of years ago. And if you’re going to tell me that an affinity sprang up between them, you can spare your breath! Stephen never had a bit of time for kind Uncle Joseph, as you’ve heard over and over again from the servants. Went out of his way to be rude to him. In return for which, I’m being asked to believe that Joseph fair doted on him. Well, as far as I’m concerned, he overdid his doting. It isn’t in human nature to dote on a young chap who does nothing but hand you out offensive remarks on a plate. In fact, that’s where all kind Uncle Joseph’s highly organised plans began to come a bit unstuck. Stephen wouldn’t co-operate. However, Joseph banked on a lot of half-baked people like you thinking that he was a saint, and letting it go at that. The trouble is, I’m not half-baked, and I don’t believe in saints who carry on like Joseph, playing up to the gallery all the time, till you feel you ought to give him a round of applause.’
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