Spider's Web

by Agatha Christie

  ‘Yes, we had a telephone call at the station,’ the Inspector told them. Nodding to Hugo, he added, ‘Good evening, Mr Birch.’

  ‘Er–good evening, Inspector,’ Hugo mumbled.

  ‘It looks as though somebody’s been hoaxing you, Inspector,’ Sir Rowland suggested.

  ‘Yes,’ Clarissa agreed. ‘We’ve been playing bridge here all evening.’

  The others nodded in support, and Clarissa asked, ‘Who did they say had been murdered?’

  ‘No names were mentioned,’ the Inspector informed them. ‘The caller just said that a man had been murdered at Copplestone Court, and would we come along immediately. They rang off before any additional information could be obtained.’

  ‘It must have been a hoax,’ Clarissa declared, adding virtuously, ‘What a wicked thing to do.’

  Hugo tut-tutted, and the Inspector replied, ‘You’d be surprised, madam, at the potty things people do.’

  He paused, glancing at each of them in turn, and then continued, addressing Clarissa. ‘Well now, according to you, nothing out of the ordinary has happened here this evening?’ Without waiting for an answer, he added, ‘Perhaps I’d better see Mr Hailsham-Brown as well.’

  ‘He’s not here,’ Clarissa told the Inspector. ‘I don’t expect him back until late tonight.’

  ‘I see,’ he replied. ‘Who is staying in the house at present?’

  ‘Sir Rowland Delahaye, and Mr Warrender,’ said Clarissa, indicating them in turn. She added, ‘And Mr Birch, whom you already know, is here for the evening.’

  Sir Rowland and Jeremy murmured acknowledgements. ‘Oh, and yes,’ Clarissa went on as though she had just remembered, ‘my little stepdaughter.’ She emphasized ‘little’. ‘She’s in bed and asleep.’

  ‘What about servants?’ the Inspector wanted to know.

  ‘There are two of them. A married couple. But it’s their night out, and they’ve gone to the cinema in Maidstone.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Inspector, nodding his head gravely.

  Just at that moment, Elgin came into the room from the hall, almost colliding with the Constable who was still keeping guard there. After a quick questioning look at the Inspector, Elgin addressed Clarissa. ‘Would you be wanting anything, madam?’ he asked.

  Clarissa looked startled. ‘I thought you were at the pictures, Elgin,’ she exclaimed, as the Inspector gave her a sharp glance.

  ‘We returned almost immediately, madam,’ Elgin explained. ‘My wife was not feeling well.’ Sounding embarrassed, he added, delicately, ‘Er–gastric trouble. It must have been something she ate.’ Looking from the Inspector to the Constable, he asked, ‘Is anything–wrong?’

  ‘What’s your name?’ the Inspector asked him.

  ‘Elgin, sir,’ the butler replied. ‘I’m sure I hope there’s nothing–’

  He was interrupted by the Inspector. ‘Someone rang up the police station and said that a murder had been committed here.’

  ‘A murder?’ Elgin gasped.

  ‘What do you know about that?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all, sir.’

  ‘It wasn’t you who rang up, then?’ the Inspector asked him.

  ‘No, indeed not.’

  ‘When you returned to the house, you came in by the back door–at least I suppose you did?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Elgin replied, nervousness now making him rather more deferential in manner.

  ‘Did you notice anything unusual?’

  The butler thought for a moment, and then replied, ‘Now I come to think of it, there was a strange car standing near the stables.’

  ‘A strange car? What do you mean?’

  ‘I wondered at the time whose it might be,’ Elgin recalled. ‘It seemed a curious place to leave it.’

  ‘Was there anybody in it?’

  ‘Not so far as I could see, sir.’

  ‘Go and take a look at it, Jones,’ the Inspector ordered his Constable.

  ‘Jones!’ Clarissa exclaimed involuntarily, with a start.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said the Inspector, turning to her.

  Clarissa recovered herself quickly. Smiling at him, she murmured, ‘It’s nothing–just–I didn’t think he looked very Welsh.’

  The Inspector gestured to Constable Jones and to Elgin, indicating that they should go. They left the room together, and a silence ensued. After a moment, Jeremy moved to sit on the sofa and began to eat the sandwiches. The Inspector put his hat and gloves on the armchair, and then, taking a deep breath, addressed the assembled company.

  ‘It seems,’ he declared, speaking slowly and deliberately, ‘that someone came here tonight who is unaccounted for.’ He looked at Clarissa. ‘You’re sure you weren’t expecting anyone?’ he asked her.

  ‘Oh, no–no,’ Clarissa replied. ‘We didn’t want anyone to turn up. You see, we were just the four of us for bridge.’

  ‘Really?’ said the Inspector. ‘I’m fond of a game of bridge myself.’

  ‘Oh, are you?’ Clarissa replied. ‘Do you play Blackwood?’

  ‘I just like a common-sense game,’ the Inspector told her. ‘Tell me, Mrs Hailsham-Brown,’ he continued, ‘you haven’t lived here for very long, have you?’

  ‘No,’ she told him. ‘About six weeks.’

  The Inspector regarded her steadily. ‘And there’s been no funny business of any kind since you’ve been living here?’ he asked.

  Before Clarissa could answer, Sir Rowland interjected. ‘What exactly do you mean by funny business, Inspector?’

  The Inspector turned to address him. ‘Well, it’s rather a curious story, sir,’ he informed Sir Rowland. ‘This house used to belong to Mr Sellon, the antique dealer. He died six months ago.’

  ‘Yes,’ Clarissa remembered. ‘He had some kind of accident, didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the Inspector. ‘He fell downstairs, pitched on his head.’ He looked around at Jeremy and Hugo, and added, ‘Accidental death, they brought in. It might have been that, but it might not.’

  ‘Do you mean,’ Clarissa asked, ‘that somebody might have pushed him?’

  The Inspector turned to her. ‘That,’ he agreed, ‘or else somebody hit him a crack on the head–’

  He paused, and the tension among his hearers was palpable. Into the silence the Inspector went on. ‘Someone could have arranged Sellon’s body to look right, at the bottom of the stairs.’

  ‘The staircase here in this house?’ Clarissa asked nervously.

  ‘No, it happened at his shop,’ the Inspector informed her. ‘There was no conclusive evidence, of course–but he was rather a dark horse, Mr Sellon.’

  ‘In what way, Inspector?’ Sir Rowland asked him.

  ‘Well,’ the Inspector replied, ‘once or twice there were a couple of things he had to explain to us, as you might say. And the Narcotics Squad came down from London and had a word with him on one occasion…’ He paused before continuing, ‘but it was all no more than suspicion.’

  ‘Officially, that is to say,’ Sir Rowland observed.

  The Inspector turned to him. ‘That’s right, sir,’ he said meaningfully. ‘Officially.’

  ‘Whereas, unofficially–?’ Sir Rowland prompted him.

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t go into that,’ the Inspector replied. He went on, ‘There was, however, one rather curious circumstance. There was an unfinished letter on Mr Sellon’s desk, in which he mentioned that he’d come into possession of something which he described as an unparalleled rarity, which he would–’ Here the Inspector paused, as if recollecting the exact words, ‘–would guarantee wasn’t a forgery, and he was asking fourteen thousand pounds for it.’

  Sir Rowland looked thoughtful. ‘Fourteen thousand pounds,’ he murmured. In a louder voice he continued, ‘Yes, that’s a lot of money indeed. Now, I wonder what it could be? Jewellery, I suppose, but the word forgery suggests–I don’t know, a picture, perhaps?’

  Jeremy continued to munch at the sandwiches, as the Inspector re
plied, ‘Yes, perhaps. There was nothing in the shop worth such a large sum of money. The insurance inventory made that clear. Mr Sellon’s partner was a woman who has a business of her own in London, and she wrote and said she couldn’t give us any help or information.’

  Sir Rowland nodded his head slowly. ‘So he might have been murdered, and the article, whatever it was, stolen,’ he suggested.

  ‘It’s quite possible, sir,’ the Inspector agreed, ‘but again, the would-be thief may not have been able to find it.’

  ‘Now, why do you think that?’ Sir Rowland asked.

  ‘Because,’ the Inspector replied, ‘the shop has been broken into twice since then. Broken into and ransacked.’

  Clarissa looked puzzled. ‘Why are you telling us all this, Inspector?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘Because, Mrs Hailsham-Brown,’ said the Inspector, turning to her, ‘it’s occurred to me that whatever was hidden away by Mr Sellon may have been hidden here in this house, and not at his shop in Maidstone. That’s why I asked you if anything peculiar had come to your notice.’

  Holding up a hand as though she had suddenly remembered, Clarissa said excitedly, ‘Somebody rang up only today and asked to speak to me, and when I came to the phone whoever it was had just hung up. In a way, that’s rather odd, isn’t it?’ She turned to Jeremy, adding, ‘Oh yes, of course. You know, that man who came the other day and wanted to buy things–a horsey sort of man in a check suit. He wanted to buy that desk.’

  The Inspector crossed the room to look at the desk. ‘This one here?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Clarissa replied. ‘I told him, of course, that it wasn’t ours to sell, but he didn’t seem to believe me. He offered me a large sum, far more than it’s worth.’

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ the Inspector commented as he studied the desk. ‘These things often have a secret drawer, you know.’

  ‘Yes, this one has,’ Clarissa told him. ‘But there was nothing very exciting in it. Only some old autographs.’

  The Inspector looked interested. ‘Old autographs can be immensely valuable, I understand,’ he said. ‘Whose were they?’

  ‘I can assure you, Inspector,’ Sir Rowland informed him, ‘that these weren’t anything rare enough to be worth more than a pound or two.’

  The door to the hall opened, and Constable Jones entered, carrying a small booklet and a pair of gloves.

  ‘Yes, Jones? What is it?’ the Inspector asked him.

  ‘I’ve examined the car, sir,’ he replied. ‘Just a pair of gloves on the driving seat. But I found this registration book in the side pocket.’ He handed the book to the Inspector, and Clarissa exchanged a smile with Jeremy as they heard the Constable’s strong Welsh accent.

  The Inspector examined the registration book. ‘“Oliver Costello, 27 Morgan Mansions, London SW3”,’ he read aloud. Then, turning to Clarissa, he asked sharply, ‘Has a man called Costello been here today?’

  Chapter 11

  The four friends exchanged guiltily furtive glances. Clarissa and Sir Rowland both looked as though they were about to attempt an answer, but it was Clarissa who actually spoke. ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘He was here about–’ She paused, and then, ‘let me see,’ she continued. ‘Yes, it was about half past six.’

  ‘Is he a friend of yours?’ the Inspector asked her.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t call him a friend,’ Clarissa replied. ‘I had met him only once or twice.’ She deliberately assumed an embarrassed look, and then said, hesitantly, ‘It’s–a little awkward, really–’ She looked appealingly at Sir Rowland, as though passing the ball to him.

  That gentleman was quick to respond to her unspoken request. ‘Perhaps, Inspector,’ he said, ‘it would be better if I explained the situation.’

  ‘Please do, sir,’ the Inspector responded somewhat tersely.

  ‘Well,’ Sir Rowland continued, ‘it concerns the first Mrs Hailsham-Brown. She and Hailsham-Brown were divorced just over a year ago, and recently she married Mr Oliver Costello.’

  ‘I see,’ observed the Inspector. ‘And Mr Costello came here today.’ He turned to Clarissa. ‘Why was that?’ he asked. ‘Did he come by appointment?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Clarissa replied glibly. ‘As a matter of fact, when Miranda and my husband divorced, she took with her one or two things that weren’t really hers. Oliver Costello happened to be in this part of the world, and he just looked in to return them to Henry.’

  ‘What kind of things?’ the Inspector asked quickly.

  Clarissa was ready for this question. ‘Nothing very important,’ she said with a smile. Picking up the small silver cigarette-box from a table by the sofa, she held it out to the Inspector. ‘This was one of them,’ she told him. ‘It belonged to my husband’s mother, and he values it for sentimental reasons.’

  The Inspector looked at Clarissa reflectively for a moment, before asking her, ‘How long did Mr Costello remain here when he came at six-thirty?’

  ‘Oh, a very short time,’ she replied as she replaced the cigarette box on the table. ‘He said he was in a hurry. About ten minutes, I should think. No longer than that.’

  ‘And your interview was quite amicable?’ the Inspector enquired.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Clarissa assured him. ‘I thought it was very kind of him to take the trouble to return the things.’

  The Inspector thought for a moment, before asking, ‘Did he mention where he was going when he left here?’

  ‘No,’ Clarissa replied. ‘Actually, he went out by that window,’ she continued, gesturing towards the French windows. ‘As a matter of fact, my lady gardener, Miss Peake, was here, and she offered to show him out through the garden.’

  ‘Your gardener–does she live on the premises?’ the Inspector wanted to know.

  ‘Well, yes. But not in the house. She lives in the cottage.’

  ‘I think I should like a word with her,’ the Inspector decided. He turned to the Constable. ‘Jones, go and get her.’

  ‘There’s a telephone connection through to the cottage. Shall I call her for you, Inspector?’ Clarissa offered.

  ‘If you would be so kind, Mrs Hailsham-Brown,’ the Inspector replied.

  ‘Not at all. I don’t suppose she’ll have gone to bed yet,’ Clarissa said, pressing a button on the telephone. She flashed a smile at the Inspector, who responded by looking bashful. Jeremy smiled to himself and took another sandwich.

  Clarissa spoke into the telephone. ‘Hello, Miss Peake. This is Mrs Hailsham-Brown…I wonder, would you mind coming over? Something rather important has happened…Oh yes, of course that will be all right. Thank you.’

  She replaced the receiver and turned to the Inspector. ‘Miss Peake has been washing her hair, but she’ll get dressed and come right over.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Inspector. ‘After all, Costello may have mentioned to her where he was going.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, he may have,’ Clarissa agreed.

  The Inspector looked puzzled. ‘The question that bothers me,’ he announced to the room in general, ‘is why Mr Costello’s car is still here, and where is Mr Costello?’

  Clarissa gave an involuntary glance towards the bookshelves and the panel, then walked across to the French windows to watch for Miss Peake. Jeremy, noticing her glance, sat back innocently and crossed his legs as the Inspector continued, ‘Apparently this Miss Peake was the last person to see him. He left, you say, by that window. Did you lock it after him?’

  ‘No,’ Clarissa replied, standing at the window with her back to the Inspector.

  ‘Oh?’ the Inspector queried.

  Something in his tone made Clarissa turn to face him. ‘Well, I–I don’t think so,’ she said, hesitantly.

  ‘So he might have re-entered that way,’ the Inspector observed. He took a deep breath and announced importantly, ‘I think, Mrs Hailsham-Brown, that, with your permission, I should like to search the house.’

  ‘Of course,’ Clarissa replied with a friendly smile. ‘Well, yo
u’ve seen this room. Nobody could be hidden here.’ She held the window curtains open for a moment, as though awaiting Miss Peake, and then exclaimed, ‘Look! Through here is the library.’ Going to the library door and opening it, she suggested, ‘Would you like to go in there?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Inspector. ‘Jones!’ As the two police officers went into the library, the Inspector added, ‘Just see where that door leads to, Jones,’ gesturing towards another door immediately inside the library.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ the Constable replied, as he went through the door indicated.

  As soon as they were out of earshot, Sir Rowland went to Clarissa. ‘What’s on the other side?’ he asked her quietly, indicating the panel.

  ‘Bookshelves,’ she replied tersely.

  He nodded and strolled nonchalantly across to the sofa, as the Constable’s voice was heard calling, ‘Just another door through to the hall, sir.’

  The two officers returned from the library. ‘Right,’ said the Inspector. He looked at Sir Rowland, apparently taking note of the fact that he had moved. ‘Now we’ll search the rest of the house,’ he announced, going to the hall door.

  ‘I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind,’ Clarissa offered, ‘in case my little stepdaughter should wake up and be frightened. Not that I think she will. It’s extraordinary how deeply children can sleep. You have to practically shake them awake.’

  As the Inspector opened the hall door, she asked him, ‘Have you got any children, Inspector?’

  ‘One boy and one girl,’ he replied shortly, as he made his way out of the room, crossed the hall, and began to ascend the stairs.

  ‘Isn’t that nice?’ Clarissa observed. She turned to the Constable. ‘Mr Jones,’ she invited him with a gesture to precede her. He made his way out of the room and she followed him closely.

  As soon as they had gone, the three remaining occupants of the room looked at one another. Hugo wiped his hands and Jeremy mopped his forehead. ‘And now what?’ Jeremy asked, taking another sandwich.

  Sir Rowland shook his head. ‘I don’t like this,’ he told them. ‘We’re getting in very deep.’

  ‘If you ask me,’ Hugo advised him, ‘there’s only one thing to do. Come clean. Own up now before it’s too late.’