He was in a dim, polished Tudor hall, low of ceiling and so much in twilight because all windows had been closed, all curtains drawn, against the noise.
"Martin!" said Jenny's voice.
A broad, low staircase, with carved balustrades, ascended along the left-hand wall. A heavy hinged panel at the side of the stairs stood more than part way open, and Jenny's face peered out at him.
"Martin," she said without preamble, "Grandmother's on the telephone."
Chapter 18
Martin strode over, hearing Dawson shut and lock the door behind him. Jenny was now regarding his forehead with far more consternation and concern than seemed possible if he had suffered serious injury.
"Just a minute, Jenny," he said. "What have you told her?"
"She only just started to speak. She said, 'Jennifer, I—' and that was where Dawson opened the door."
Taking the ‘phone from Jenny's hands as she moved out from under the stair-opening, Martin sat down on a low little chair and cleared his throat
"Lady Brayle? Martin Drake here."
To tell the truth, Martin was beginning to feel sorry for the old girl. True, she had brought the whole mess on herself by inviting MacDougall's Mammoth into her grounds. But H.M. was the evil genius. And, in the third round, H.M. had landed such a knockout punch that his adversary was still unconscious after the count. Or was H.M., actually, the evil genius? Martin was beginning to have other ideas. Still, the fact remained…
"Indeed," said Lady Brayle. "I was not aware, Captain Drake, that I wished to hold any conversation with you." Calm and even of voice, conscious of no interest but her own and not apparently caring who knew it, the lady with the cold grey eye spoke indifferently. "So?" muttered Martin.
"However! I have heard certain rumours, which I do not believe, concerning the Manor.' You will not trouble to comment on the facts. This would not interest me. You will merely be good enough to confirm or deny these rumours."
Martin held the telephone away from him and studied it. His temper, like a red line on a graph-paper, zig-zagged violently and then slowly soared high.
"Where are you now, Lady Brayle?"
"Really, that is not the slightest concern—"
"It may be. Where are you now?'
"I am at the Priory Hill vicarage, about two miles north of Brayle. I am in Mr. Bamham's study."
"Is that the clergyman who's so dead-set against horse-racing?"
Distantly, but still audible, the band-music swayed and jigged:
"Oh, I put my money on a bob-tailed nag, Doo-dah, doo-dah—"
"Has it occurred to you, Captain Drake, that I am waiting for an answer?"
"Madam," Martin said gently, "I can't answer your question as it deserves to be answered, because I don't know. I have a theory, but it may not be right Sir Henry Merrivale," he hoped he could keep his promise, "will ring you in half an hour and explain everything."
"You will regret this, Captain Drake. When I return home, I shall carry a riding-crop. It will be most unpleasant for the first half dozen people I meet inside my gates."
Martin put down the phone and ducked out from under the stairs. Jenny, her wide-spaced blue eyes filled not only with concern, clutched his arms.
"You didn't say anything to insult her?'
"I don't think so, and I don't care."
"Darling," Jenny asked quietly, "have you any idea how lordly you can look and sound, when you get annoyed with somebody?"
"Me?"
This, to him, seemed so nonsensical that he put it down to some fancy of Jenny's romantic brain. He glanced round the dim, heavily stuffy hall, where the lean and sallow-haired
Dawson in his shabby butler clothes seemed a kind of symbol.
"No," Jenny answered his thought mockingly, with a smile on her entirely irresistible mouth, "we didn't make the house look like a place of mourning because of the noise. It's a sort of gesture: when Grandmother comes back. Upstairs at the window we've been having a kind of signally-game with Mr. MacDougall. I don't know what it means, but he says it's frightfully important. Come along!"
Again the front-door knocker rapped, but far too heavily for it to have been Ruth Callice. Martin had his own guess.
"Chief Inspector Masters?" he shouted; and, at an affirmative reply, he nodded to Dawson.
Masters, having already pushed out a dent in his bowler hat and dusted off his blue serge suit, crossed the threshold with brief-case and cardboard folder under one arm; and he had the air of a tethered bull.
"Sorry to jntrude, miss," he said, being not quite sure of Jenny's title and knowing she didn't like it anyway, "but this is business."
Jenny had gone rather white. "Yes," she acknowledged, and pressed Martin's arm. "After all, someone tried to kill Mr. Drake."
"And did kill that Puckston girl," said Martin. "I wanted to ask—" Jenny began. "Will you come upstairs, please?"
She led them to an octagonal room, of white walls framed in dark oak, above the front door. Here was the big oriel window with its three leaded panes — two slantwise, the other facing straight out — which looked down the gravel drive with its crowd, its gaudy exhibits, the oak-trees, and the green lawns.
Geraniums in flower-pots, as a homely touch, stood just inside the ledges of the diamond-paned windows. The dark oak window-seat ran round all sides of the octagonal room as well; like the chairs, it had flattish flowered cushions. With one window-light partly open, the babble now sounded at its loudest
"Mr. Masters," Jenny began.
Jenny, in white, her knees crossed, sat at one side of the window. Her elbow was propped on one knee, her chin in her hand.
"I think," she smiled, "I like H.M. far better than Martin likes Grandmother. But doesn't he ask the oddest questions sometimes?"
"Does he, miss?" inquired Masters, who was at his blandest card-sharper's air as he put down hat, brief-case, and folder.
‘He talked to me for ages yesterday at Fleet House: First all about certain things," her eyes moved towards Martin, who was sitting beside her, "when he hadn't been present Then, if you please, something that seemed to be about Grandmother's influence over me"
"Is that so, now, miss?" inquired Masters, as though hearing a mildly surprising revelation.
"And that's absurd, of course, I" Jenny had some intense purpose behind this; her eyes were lustrous. "You see, my parents were estranged. They sent me away to school from the time I was ten and onwards. Grandmother was always hovering about it's true. But most of the vacations were abroad with my parents. Then came the war and the Wrens. It's only since the war that Grandmother's had much 'influence.' I was wondering if H.M.—"
"Yes, miss?"
Martin who had got up and was staring out of the window, interposed.
"Where the devil is H.M., by the way?"
Masters's own temper flared as he sat down in a chair opposite Jenny. Everything grated now, everything jarred like a bad slate-pencil on a bad slate.
"Whatever he's doing," the Chief Inspector snapped, "he's not attending to business."
"There's a Derby-Day crowd round that race-track," said Martin, "all waving shillings. Is he still being bookie?"
"When I last saw the gentleman," Masters replied with dignity, "he was starting some kind of darts-contest." Masters looked at Jenny, not without sarcasm. "I suppose, miss, your grandmother doesn't keep a cellar full of beer?"
"Good heavens, not. She used to drink wine, but…"
"N-no," intoned Masters, "I didn't think she would keep a beer-cellar. And especially I didn't think she'd keep it in barrels with her photograph pasted on, and 'Here's how from Lady Brayle.’ As to what the old bounder's doing…"
"I can tell you what he's doing," said Martin. "He told Arthur Puckston last night he'd been thinking for several days Grandmother ought to be ousted or made popular. He's trying to make her popular. And do you know what'll happen?"
Masters didn't care, and said so.
"She told me she'd co
me back with a riding-crop. And she will. Isn't that so, Jenny?"
"Darling," pleaded Jenny, "she tried to make friends with you. I told you she was beginning to like you, but you wouldn't believe me. I didn't see her last night, because she went straight on to Priory Hill. Surely she tried to make friends with you?"
"Possibly. Anyhow, h didn't work. Now shell come back with a riding-crop. She'll lay it, right and left, across anybody she sees. Then there'll be a riot and real trouble."
"I don’t doubt it at all," Masters agreed, almost with satisfaction.
Then he whacked his hand down on the arm of the chair.
"Mr. Drake," Masters said, "this is a murder case. We had everything planned and even timed to a minute to catch the murderer. But Sir Henry's gone off his rocker, just as he did once at Coney Island, and what chance have we got now?"
'To catch—?" Jenny's face had gone even whiter. "But it couldn't possibly be.. anybody we know?"
Belatedly, Masters remembered official caution and his usual manner.
"Is that so, miss? Why not?"
"Weill" Jenny laughed, not convincingly. "I didn't do it Grandmother certainly didn't For the rest, there's the alibi!"
"Oh, ah, miss? What do you know about an alibi?"
"Only what Ruth Callice told me yesterday." Jenny shivered violently; even her mouth seemed distorted; Martin quickly put his arm round her shoulder. "About a. blood-stained dagger somebody used to kill poor Enid Puckston, at half-past eleven or thereabouts."
"Anything else, miss?"
"Ruth said Mr. Stannard — he's a tremendous barrister — had suddenly snapped his fingers and said to her, 'You know, I was so tired and groggy I completely forgot to tell Inspector Drake about that alibi. No, wait' he said, 'let them find it out themselves.' But he told Ruth."
"You can forget the alibi too, miss," Masters remarked quietly. "It's shot to blazes."
From outside the window the churning tinkle of the merry-go-round, silent for a time, began to rise loudly with We're All Together Now. In the octagonal room, with its white walk and its red geraniums inside the window, the tune seemed to swirl round as in a bowl, above the babble of voices.
"So you did upset the alibi!" Martin muttered. "How?"
Masters looked complacent.
"We-ell No harm in telling that You people who were in the condemned cell when you found the dagger, you were doing a lot of talking…"
"Chief Inspector, how do you know so much about that conversation?"
Masters eyed him grimly.
"Aren't you forgetting, Mr. Drake, that I spent the night in that prison? Oh, ah! Keeping an eye on you to make sure nobody nailed you?"
"You could hear everything we said all the time?"
"I'm an old-fashioned copper," Masters said dryly. ‘I’ve had trickier jobs when I was a sergeant"
"But where were you during the test'? I mean, when I'd locked Stannard behind the iron door, and the others had gone?’
Masters snorted.
"Making myself comfortable," he said, "on top of that mountain of paper. Lummy! We'd get sixteen hours at a stretch in the old days when I was a sergeant On Saturday night I was facing the iron door. I could see you, Mr. Drake, by your own light, sitting on the paper-bales. I couldn't see down into the aisle, between the bales and the wall with the doors; but I could get there at one jump if I had to."
Here Masters smiled a peculiar smile.
"D'you think I'm a liar, sir? You look a bit funny. For instance! At shortly past twelve, you had a visitor."
The visitor had been Ruth Callice, of course.
Martin, his arm round Jenny's shoulder and the caress of her hair under his cheek, felt such a cold rush of guilty conscience that he was within a quarter-syllable of speaking out and denying it. At the same moment Jenny raised her head round and up, looked at Martin casually, and returned to her former position without comment After a quick heat of emotional temperature, Jenny's shoulder seemed to become as cool and lifeless as though it did not exist at all; as though it rested there out of mere politeness. If there could have been a mental conversation between them, Jenny would have begun.
(Please don't think Fm annoyed. I knew it would happen some time that night).
(What are you talking about?)
(The same thing you're thinking about. How far did it go?)
But Masters, or so the Chief Inspector believed, had no intention of giving away a fellow-male.
"A visitor," he repeated judicially. "Well, no harm in that I could see it in two seconds. Later the — hurrum! — the bloke went back the same way. Then nothing happened until a quarter to one. But at a quarter to one I heard someone else rustle in that aisle."
Both Martin and Jenny were jarred out of their mental conversation. Both sat up. The sound of We're All Together Now, mixed with crowd-babble, seemed to swirl higher."Somebody else?"
"Somebody, anyhow. It was just a bit of a faint rustle you could hardly hear, 'Streweth!" said Masters. "If I'd been younger in the force, I might have got the wind up myself.
"You wouldn't have heard it in any case, Mr. Drake. You were sound asleep. I got ready. I thought it was creeping towards you. Anyway, it wasn't. My eyes were enough used to the dark so I could make out the outlines of the doors in the wall. Just so! You remember, I told you last night there was a little camera trick that might interest you?"
"Yes! What about it?"
"Ordinary camera," Masters said, "borrowed from the local police. Infra-red film, infra-red bulb, from the chemist at Brayle. Useful to have along with you. Take photographs in the dark; not a glimmer to show you're taking 'em. If you know where to aim a camera.
'1 could see that the end door opposite the bale-mountain— Mr. Drake was sleeping against the same wall about ten feet from the door — started to open. Soft as soft! And wider. No sense for me to yell lum's name if nothing was after Mr. Drake. I snapped a picture at the door before it closed.
"We-el," resumed Masters, tapping the brief-case on the table beside him, "I got the print from the chemist this morning. Not a good picture, no. But a picture of Enid Puckston."
"Of, what did you say?"
"Of Enid Puckston," repeated Masters, and tapped the briefcase again. "Creeping in backwards. Facing the camera. On tip-toe," Master's face darkened, "and with a 'What larks!' delighted look. Like a kid playing a prank. Somebody's hand was on her arm, drawing her in."
Masters drew a deep breath.
"And this," Martin demanded, "was at a quarter to one in the morning?"
"That's right And — come now! Blimy-O'Reilly! Can't you see the trick of it?"
"I can see that the dagger we found among that heap of rapiers…"
"Oh, ah! Exactly. It'd been planted there, with fresh blood on it to make what you think what you did think later. That somebody'd killed the girl about half-past eleven. But the girl was still alive. Not even in the prison!
"You're the arms expert, Mr. Drake. And that Italian dagger you found, now! I told you knife-wounds can't be identified certain-sure like bullet-wounds. Would you say mat dagger was (hurrum!) unique?"
"Lord, no. There are plenty of them. I've got one something like it in my own collection."
Masters bent forward, his fingers spread. Every word he spoke seemed to pounce.
"Then: a quarter to one. Everything dark and quiet Somebody from outside leads Enid Puckston along the aisle. Creeping; hardly a rustle. Soft as soft Like a cat! Door opens (no noise; notice that), door closes. They're in the old mortuary.
"Somebody takes her across the mortuary, out into the garden under the windows of the condemned cell. Somebody kills her there with another dagger. Enid's carried the travelling-robe; it's in the photograph. Somebody carries her body, soft as soft, down the underground stair from the mortuary, along the passage, through a door, into the shaft under the gallows-trap…'
Masters, reverting to his normal tone, sat up straight
"How was I supposed to know," he demand
ed, "there'd been a murder in the prison that night? I was uneasy, like: ah, ah! But my job was to follow Mr. Drake. And I did, when he left at what he thought was four o'clock. I followed you both," he looked at Jenny, "down over that field."
Now here was a characteristic of Jenny: that, though she had been furious a few minutes before over, a little matter concerning Ruth, it seemed swept out of her mind at anything concerning Martin.
"You said," she exclaimed to Masters, "the murde — this person — you said this person was 'somebody from outside.'"
Masters pulled himself together, remembering official caution.
"Did I say that, miss?" he inquired, eyeing the brief-case. "Then I must have meant it mustn't I?" "So in that case…"
"As for the trick with fresh blood on the dagger that wasn't used, that's easy. Lummy! The whole alibi-trick was only a conjuring principle. Sir Henry could tell you that People won't believe what's as clear as daylight People won't believe how small a space a body can occupy; and, when a dozen girls walk out of a little cabinet there's no hocus-pocus: the girls were honestly there. They won't believe the time a thing happened, from a coin-change to a couple of bodies, was back-to-foremost Sir Henry could tell you that But will he? Oh, no! He was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago.."
Martin Drake, stung by memory, fumbled at his wrist watch.
"Fifteen minutes!" he echoed. "It's more than half an hour!" "What do you mean, more than half an, hour?" "I promised Lady Brayle—"
"Martin, you did!" Jenny began to move apprehensively. " — that H.M. would ring her in half an hour. If she doesn't hear from him, she'll be here and start a riot!" "Agreed," said Masters.
"Then you never will catch your murderer," said Martin, whose brain burned to know the look of somebody's face. "And I’ve got a score to settle too."
"You have," agreed Masters, looking at him in a curious way.
"Isn't there any way to find H.M.?"
"Find him?" said Masters. "That's easy enough. By the signalling system. But get him here? Hoi He's off his chump, I tell you!"
"What's this signalling business?"
Jenny hurried to a writing desk, and took up a sheet of paper with a list typed on it. Hastening to the middle page of the window, she raised her right arm and waved.
The Skeleton in the Clock shm-18 Page 22