“Oh, you do, do you? Did the Bishop tell you?” The Chancellor rose and paced up and down in anger.
“No, sir. A paper was found.”
“Papers?” (Was there a note of surprise in the angry voice? Had the Chancellor reason to believe he had himself disposed of all the available evidence?) Mack reserved his opinion, for the Chancellor now plunged abruptly into his story:
“Yes, he had a hold over me and I’ll tell you about it. Five years ago when we patched up that affair at the Theological College, I sat down and wrote the whole story, and my whole opinion about it, in the most open terms, to a friend in the office of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. I thought it only right that the facts should be on record. I wrote it by hand in my own office, and put it away in a pigeon-hole to think it over, in an envelope labelled ‘Thomas Ulder’. Oh, I know it wasn’t business-like, but I was short handed in the war, overworked and hard driven. I wasn’t sure of a few points so I determined to go up and make enquiries for myself. No doubt the news of that got about, and Ulder followed me, making enquiries on his own. He had a ferret’s power for nosing things out if they concerned himself. Anyhow, the long and short of it was that when I got back the first news my new girl clerk gave me was that a clergyman had called, asking if there was any letter for him, and he had pressed her so warmly that she had looked everywhere for him, and she was so sorry but she hadn’t been able to come across anything, though she had hunted through ever so many files in the outer office. Need I tell you that she had left him comfortably seated by my own desk, and that when I looked in it my letter had disappeared.”
“But that’s five years ago!”
“Just so, so I supposed my idiot clerk had made some mistake or I’d destroyed the letter in a hurry. I worried over it seriously for a time, and then concluded it was all my mistake. But I can tell you I never wrote another version of the affair after the fright I had! For you see there was the whole case against him in black—and no white at all—and the reasons we’d had for suppressing the affair.”
“But what were those reasons? All the rest was common gossip when I came here, but I never did understand why you didn’t prosecute him, and never shall—drunkenness—immorality—theft too, I suppose?”
“That last was the trouble. He was treasurer of three or four wealthy societies, and he had been quietly abstracting funds for years. And the boards to whom he was responsible were so unbusiness-like, and so easily gulled, that they had never found out—old colonels, maiden ladies and such-like who trusted him and couldn’t add two and two, and the old Bishop and some of the Cathedral people who never had time to attend meetings or look into things. It was that young Marling who got on the track of it, when Ulder was rash enough to ask him to make up some accounts for him at the Theological College. I suppose by that time Ulder had got to believe he could fool all the people all the time. Well, I said at first, ‘Prosecute and be damned’, and then I saw what it would mean. Dirty scandal, and a terrible financial loss to the funds concerned, for who would subscribe to them in the future? So we patched things up, got up a subscription fund for the societies between us, and made Ulder put in a fair sum too, by Jove, to escape prison. Then we turned him out of the College and left him in his living, of which he had the advowson.”
“That was abominable! Couldn’t happen in Scotland!”
“Yes and no. It’s one of those parishes where dissent has so strong a hold, and Ulder had been so hated, that there was no congregation left. A scheme was already on foot for amalgamating it with the next parish, Orley, and then came the war and no more was said about it. I fancy our Father in God here was thankful not to come up against Ulder over it, as we certainly should have. Well, pressure has been brought on the Bishop by the Chapter, who incidentally bought the advowson from Ulder at a price, and the Bishop has had to make a move to revise the scheme. That, I imagine, is why Ulder was on the war-path. For years he has evidently been poking out and amassing evidence against every one of us who, like myself and the Canon, had a chink in our armour. No doubt he collected every bit of scandal he could about the fair Judith and her folly, and this has brought things to a head. If he can quash her divorce and she can’t marry her present lover, she’ll be left with a child by him on her father’s hands. Oh yes, it’s as serious as that! Did the Bishop not make it clear? I should not have mentioned it had I known. Dear, dear, I’m very fond of the Rt. Rev. Mark, but moral courage is not his strong suit!”
“I can see that the Bishop and his daughter have every reason to be relieved that Ulder has gone out of their lives.” Mack spoke mildly in the effort to lay a trap. “But I cannot really see what harm he could do you after all these years.”
“His idea was to publish my letter in a penny rag as soon as he left the country,” said the Chancellor, his face lined and sagging again. “No names, but the circumstances clear as daylight. Can you imagine how I’d stand in my profession after my letter was printed, admitting my collusion in a case of this sort—condoning misappropriation of funds, publicly exonerating the man while privately I was exposing him to my intimates? Let alone my accursed carelessness in my correspondence. And I’ve a son coming home from India to go into partnership with me!”
“So you were going to pay up?”
“I hadn’t decided. I told Ulder I must think things over. It wasn’t only my concern, you see. I told him I must get expert legal advice before I reached any conclusion, and he told me he had no time to spare, and the letter to the Press would go in a week, unless I produced securities. I never slept a wink trying to decide, I can tell you, and I was no nearer a decision this morning.”
“Didn’t you take some sleeping draught to get you through the night?”
“Why the devil shouldn’t I?” The Chancellor was just indignantly evading the question when Mack put another.
“And you did not get your letter out of Ulder by persuasion or perhaps by force last night?”
“I did not, though I was tempted to. He only let me have a glimpse of it and then covered it up under the bedclothes. He was a sick man. What could I do?”
“Did you notice where he kept his papers?”
“A bag of some sort, I imagine. I didn’t notice. Look here, sir”—the Chancellor grew very red and indignant—“I think I’ve given you all the assistance I can. If you want any more answers I insist on asking my partner to come here, and act on behalf of every one whom you choose to suspect.”
“I’d be sorry to seem to go beyond my powers,” said Mack pacifically. It was safe, he considered, to lay before the Chancellor the whole question of the missing papers and the possibility of a missing bag. For by general agreement the Chancellor had been the first to pay his visit, and certainly the papers relating to the other victims must have been still in Ulder’s possession when the Chancellor left. “I’ve told my men to look round everywhere for the bag and the papers at once, so perhaps you wouldn’t mind giving us a hand,” he ended up.
“A search? Have you a search warrant?” said the Chancellor, as Dick had foretold.
“No, but I’ve told my man to send for one. The Bishop and Canon made no objections to a search. Come, sir, surely we can count on your co-operation!”
But that was the last thing he could count on, decided Mack, as the Chancellor grunted non-committally and made for the door. The house was resounding now with the noises which Mack was soon to recognize as the end of a service in Chapel, the creaking of swing-doors, the hushed reverent voices of the ordinands rising to a cheerful hubbub, followed by another hush as their ecclesiastical superiors passed through them to the library or the Bishop’s room. Well, if Mack was sure of anything, it was that the suggestion of murder would soon go round, so he had better hurry upstairs to catch this—was she Mrs. Mortimer or Mrs. Fitzroy or Miss Broome?—he hardly knew—this Judith was good enough—and see if Tonks had come across anything suspicious in his cursory view of the bedrooms in the old wing.
“Come in, Mabel!
You’d better finish up quickly!” Mack steered his way by Judith’s voice. “Just those frocks, and be careful of that Reville velvet, and leave out the red hat and mink coat. I must go and explain to Mrs. Broome that I simply must get out of this mausoleum as soon as they’ve taken poor Moira away. Oh!” she swung round as Mack drew attention to his presence by a portentous cough.
“I thought you were the housemaid! What on earth are you doing here? Most compromising! I think I’d better call my friend Tonks!”
“You can unpack those bags!” Mack, justly ignoring such unworthy suspicions, pointed at the expensive suitcase and gold-fitted dressing-case. “No one can leave this house without my permission.”
“I shan’t unpack, because I never do that for myself,” replied Judith composedly. “And why mayn’t I go?”
“Because,” said Mack with calculated shock tactics, “Madam, a murder has been committed in this house, and I have to question every one who was in any way connected with the victim, Mr. Ulder!”
“He was no connection of mine, and I’m not surprised to hear he was murdered.” If Mack had hoped for a womanly collapse, for tears and hysterical admissions, he was bitterly disappointed. Either Judith had got the truth out of her father or Dick, or else she had the best of reasons for knowing the truth already, decided Mack, for she neither changed colour nor looked at herself with one shade less interest in the glass, as she fastened on her little scarlet hat. “I thought he was supposed to have over-dosed himself, but I suppose you big police hats like to have a good run for your money? What happened?”
“He died of morphia-poisoning—a fatal dose was administered to him late last night, and you were one of his last visitors, Mrs. Fitzroy.”
“Not Mrs. Fitzroy yet, I’m sorry to say, though of course”—she brightened—“everything is all right now, and I’ll be able to ask you to my wedding in a month or two! Better call me Judith like every one else, for I do feel a little anonymous. Who gave him the morphia?”
“We are searching the house for any trace of the poison.” Mack glared angrily into the big eyes gazing with such assumed innocence into his. “And I myself would like to see the contents of these boxes.”
“Why, of course!” Judith seemed, he thought, to recoil momentarily at a sudden thought, but she recovered herself quickly. “May I just run and tell Mummy I’m not going after all—see my hands are quite empty, and there’s my bag! I’ll be back in one sec! Mabel! Mabel!” She ran out into the passage. “Come back and help me like a lamb! The police are going to search all my things—isn’t it dread? And you must show him where I put all my poisons! Mummy!” Her pretty voice resounded from Mrs. Broome’s boudoir opposite. “I’m not going after all! The big god policeman says I mustn’t—do you think he’s taken a fancy to me, for I’m sure I could fall for him in quite a big way! May I take one of Daddy’s big silk hankies, darling?” The voice sounded a little more remote now. “Because I must have something to cry into when he arrests me, mustn’t I? Don’t come! I know just where they are! I’d hate you to move from that sofa after the morning you’ve had. You didn’t poison Ulder by any chance, did you? No, not quite Girls’ Friendly tactics! And of course, Sue darling, no one would ever suspect you, as you’re a blonde, let alone that you were about the only person who didn’t drop in on Ulder for a quiet cup of poison last night! Well, good-bye! I’ll see you both on the steps of the gallows, I expect!”
“I never can make up my mind,” said Mrs. Broome desperately from the sofa, where she lay, supposed to be resting, trying to address envelopes, and doing nothing but weep softly, “whether darling Judith is mad or bad or both.”
“Neither, darling, I expect!” It was best to leave it at that, thought wise little Sue, and confine herself to soothing pats and chat and suggestions of hot milk. By all the symptoms of nursery days she recognized that Judith was immersed in some plot—on the track of some great idea. And whether beautiful erratic Judith’s plots and ideas would be effective in a case like this, Sue could not tell. Only one thing was certain, that the more ghastly any situation might be, the gayer and more flippant would her stepsister become. She could only hope that Dick, this new, old, already dear friend, would not misjudge her. And that he would deliver them from this appalling sense of mystery and fear which hung over the house like the snow drifting in at every open window, and the echoing tread of strange men on the old varnished, uneven floors of the Palace.
VII
THURSDAY—LUNCHEON
There is a dreadful moment in bad dreams when we half wake, trying in vain to speak, and fall back invariably into a worse nightmare. That was the sensation of most of the house party during luncheon on that ill-fated Thursday at Evelake Palace.
The prelude introduced the theme crudely enough. The party were assembled in the old library, the gong had sounded, and Mrs. Broome was about to lead the way in, when the noise of the loud crunching wheels of two heavy vehicles was heard in the drive. No one spoke the word “ambulance”, but Mrs. Broome disappeared, shutting the door behind her, as if locking the party in till her return. After a pause men’s steps were heard on the staircase, and, after a long interval, they returned, uneven under a heavy load, and the door of the hearse was slammed. Then the feet of the ambulance men who were to take Moira away sounded on the stairs. The Chancellor attempted a remark to the Bishop, to find the prelate’s eyes shut, his lips moving in prayer. Bobs, on his own responsibility, stepped forward, as he heard the great hall door close, and hustled the guests into the dining-room. Any occupation, if it were only with knives and forks, was better than that listening in silence. There was at least some noise in this room, for Soames, sallower and more shaky than ever, seemed to knock over every plate and glass he touched. Twice he disappeared while Doris, with haughty disapproval, carried on her work unmoved. Some of those present would never, thought Dick, smell the odour of boiled cod or taste the tang of cloves in steamed apple pudding, without living through that meal again.
Bobs, having bolted his fish and got back some energy with a good draught of bitter, seized on the Pilgrim’s Progress by his place, opened it haphazard, and began to read. He was not lucky with his sortes virgilianae, noted Dick, for though the passage was appropriate it was hardly inspiriting for the suspects at the moment. “Now there was not far from the place where they lay a castle called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair.”
The steps echoed on the stairs again: Bobs’ voice grew purely mechanical. The doors of the ambulance banged for the last time; the two vehicles were started up, the wheels crunching on the avenue. The dead man and the dying old woman had set off at last on what was certainly the last drive of the one, and almost certainly of the other.
“Yes, Major Mack! You must come in to lunch.” Mrs. Broome opened the dining-room door and beckoned to a figure in the hall. “You’d prefer it elsewhere? Really I am very sorry but the house is so upset to-day that it would be most kind if you would not insist on a separate meal. And such a pleasure to have you,” she added, with the ghost of her usual hospitality. “Your men are dining in the servants’ hall.”
Every one knew that, for sounds of merriment, most alien to the dining-room party, had reached them now and again when the service door was opened. “A man do help to make a meal go,” Cook had pronounced graciously, but it seemed hardly likely that Mack’s presence would add to the gaiety of the dining-room. With a scowl he sat down between two candidates of obvious innocence, and bent disgustedly over his plate.
“Then with a grim and surly voice” read Bobs, “the giant bid them awake and asked them whence they were and what they did in his grounds. They told him that they were pilgrims and had lost their way.”
“Darling? is that you!” Judith’s clear voice rang out from the telephone in the hall. “Listen, it’s no use coming for me to-day as we arranged when you rang up after breakfast. The most weird, appalling things are happening here. That wretched parson didn’t do himself in, but got himse
lf murdered!—Yes—M for mother—U for Ulder—yes, murdered. And we’re all suspected, every one of us, and none of us may leave the house. No, no, darling, of course I didn’t do it! I might have if it had occurred to me, of course, because there’s no doubt it’s all a happy release for us, isn’t it? … What? … What? … A lawyer? … Oh yes, dear old Chancellor Chailly is here, and you’ve only to look at his darling side-whiskers to know that you’re legally represented all right—except of course that he may possibly be the murderer.”
“The Giant therefore”—Bobs raised his voice—“drove them before him and put them into a dark dungeon, very nasty and stinking to the spirits of those two men,” but every one’s ears were strained for another voice outside. Who would not prefer Judith to Bunyan?
“Yes, Father, the Canon and parsons and all are suspected! But perhaps I’d better not tell you all about it here. Yes, you come out and see me this afternoon if you can in the snow … no, perhaps better not, as poor Papa doesn’t approve of us, does he, and he’s so much to fuss him! Better wait till to-morrow, and ring me up again to-night. … Oh, I’m bearing up! It’s all rather shattering in a way, but it’s dreadfully funny too. I’ve had my boxes searched—oh, only because I was running away to you! … Oh yes, the Chancellor is going to raise Cain about it, for he says the police had no right to without asking my leave, and Mack never did—just rushed at my pretties! But you see this policeman is a big noise, the Chief Constable, so I didn’t know I could say: ‘Villain, I defy thee!’ And I had the loveliest fun. I put him through it all right. I shook out all my frocks and explained to him about the cut and style, and what I’d paid for them! ... I thought he’d have a fit. Mrs. Mack favours five-guinea reach-me-downs, I gather! And my frilly things and pretties! I didn’t spare him one, and how he goggled!
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