“A signal?”
“Why not? The murderess had to escape before Mr. Newtree and the rest of you came up and found what had happened. Time was running short.”
“I still don’t see why she should have risked rousing the house just so that Merewether could watch her escape.”
“Help her escape, Mr. Christmas. She could not risk going down the stairs and out at the front door. Once outside the house she was fairly safe in that fog, but with a party on and people coming in and out of the front door, to say nothing of Greenaway hovering about with refreshments and so on, it would have been too risky to go downstairs and through the hall. There remained the window.”
“Well?”
“You climbed out of that window yourself, Mr. Christmas. Did you enjoy it?”
“I didn’t mind at the moment. I shouldn’t have cared about doing it in cold blood. When I was hanging on to the window-sill by my eyelashes, so to speak, there was a drop of two or three feet on to a sloping out-house roof. Once on the out-house, it was fairly easy to scramble down.”
“You are—how tall, Mr. Christmas? Six foot three?”
“Six foot two!”
“The woman who got out of that window on the night of the murder took size four in shoes. She was probably about five foot to five foot four in height. It would have been a risky business her getting out of that window alone. She might well have slipped and injured herself severely, to say nothing of the noise she would make dropping three or four feet on to a galvanized iron roof. She had to escape by the window, and she had to be assisted. Dr. Merewether leaned over the sill and holding her wrists lowered her until her feet touched or nearly touched the roof. The rest she had to do by herself.”
“I still think,” said John, “that to make a noise, a cry or whatever it was, that might have alarmed the house, was an extraordinarily risky way of getting help from an accomplice.”
“Might have alarmed the house,” repeated Hembrow slowly. “Why do you keep saying that, Mr. Christmas? It did not alarm the house. It was not sufficiently loud and startling, as you yourself just said, to alarm the house. If Dr. Merewether had not answered it, no one else would have done. You said so yourself. And, even if some other person had thought it necessary to go up, Dr. Merewether could effectually have prevented him, as he prevented Dr. Mordby. And, in any case, it’s difficult to do a murder without taking some small risk, you know, Mr. Christmas. The alternative, which would have involved Dr. Merewether’s going secretly up to Frew’s flat under a pretence of fetching something from the hall, or some other pretext, would have been riskier still, if Greenaway or somebody had seen him go up. Also, without some kind of signal, he could not know that the murder had been accomplished. For the woman had to wait her opportunity before she could accomplish it. I’m sorry, Mr. Christmas,” said Hembrow kindly and regretfully. “You see how it is. You see why I advised you to withdraw. For it’s not just a theory that happens to fit the facts. There’s plenty of evidence to prove it, though not quite enough yet to convince a jury against a clever defence.”
“Well,” said John, “the papers that Cold sent on to Mrs. Rudgwick—where do they come in? Have you any theory as to what was inside that envelope?”
“I have a theory,” replied Hembrow slowly, “but it’s only conjecture so far. I think there was a will inside the envelope.”
“A will? A last will and testament and all that, do you mean?”
“A last will, yes,” said Hembrow, with an emphasis on the adjective. “A will which it was in somebody’s interest to suppress. Hence the attempt on Cold’s flat. Hence the attack which I’ve been expecting on Mrs. Rudgwick’s shop. (It hasn’t come off, by the way; I had men watching the place and there’s been no attempt at burglary.)”
“But what an extraordinary thing to do with one’s will! Why not give it to one’s solicitor in the ordinary way?”
Hembrow shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s fairly plain that Mr. Frew wasn’t an ordinary man. He was an eccentric, and as eccentric in this as in everything else. The will which he did leave with his solicitor was extraordinary enough in parts, after all.”
“It certainly was.”
“Now, I surmise,” went on Hembrow, “that he left a later will. And that we shall find his last will in the envelope now in the possession of Mrs. Emily Rudgwick. I expect to find that in the new will the clause leaving all that property (and it’s property of very considerable value) to Dr. Merewether is left out.”
“But why? Why set about it in such an extraordinary way?”
“If my theory is correct,” said Hembrow, “Frew had some reason for disliking Dr. Merewether. He may have left these two wills on purpose to annoy and disappoint him. I gather that it was quite the sort of thing he would do.”
“Quite. He was—well, capable of malice. And you think—”
“I think that Merewether learnt through his accomplice of the second will. (Frew had probably told him about the first.) I think he determined to take the risk of obtaining and destroying the second will, if possible.”
“He was the amateur burglar at Gilbert Cold’s then?”
Hembrow smiled.
“I have very little doubt of that fact, though the rest of it is pure conjecture, I admit. Consider the clues we have to the identity of the burglar. First, a pair of surgical forceps. Second, footprints in soft ground. When Dr. Merewether attended to the corpse on the night of the murder he accidentally trod on the bloodstains. The rug was a plum-coloured one, if you remember, and the wet stains on it were not very obvious. He then trod on the parquet floor and left a light but fairly clear print of his shoe there. The prints in Cold’s garden correspond in measurement exactly to that print left by Dr. Merewether in the studio. Thirdly, the cigarette-end.”
Hembrow pulled open a drawer in his writing-table and took from it an envelope which he opened carefully. He laid a flattened half-cigarette on the table before him.
“A dark smoking-mixture and an A.G. paper. Dr. Merewether rolled his own cigarette with A.G. papers, I noticed on the night of the murder. And he had a dark, sticky tobacco resembling this in his pouch.”
“Quite true, I’ve tried it. And poisonous stuff it is.”
“So you see, Mr. Christmas, why I say that if you’ve got friendly feelings for the doctor, you’d better leave this case alone.”
John said nothing for a moment. Then, opening his cigarette-case he replied evenly:
“No, Inspector. I’m determined to see it through.” Hembrow smiled rather pityingly.
“You’re determined to turn a blind eye to the evidence, then?”
“I think,” said John non-committally, “that the theory you’ve just expounded is very ingenious and would sound quite plausible to anybody who didn’t know Dr. Merewether.”
Hembrow looked a trifle annoyed.
“I think the footprints, the forceps and the cigarette-end make it more than an ingenious theory, Mr. Christmas.”
“Well,” said John with a smile, “I hope that if you arrest Dr. Merewether, it will only be for attempted burglary and not for murder. I’m afraid you’ll come a cropper, Hembrow, if you make it a capital charge.”
“I shall certainly not make an arrest until I have a complete case to lay before a jury,” replied Hembrow stiffly, and then, as there came a knock on the door: “Come in!”
A plain-clothes man entered.
“Sergeant Douglas is waiting to see you, sir, about this studio murder case. He has a woman with him, a Mrs. Rudgwick.”
“Send him up.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Douglas,” explained Hembrow to John, “is the man who’s been watching the Rudgwick’s place. It will be interesting to see what’s inside that envelope. If I find what I confidently expect to find, I think we shall soon be justified in detaining a certain gentleman.”
“That,” said Christmas amiably, “would be a pity.”
Hembrow smiled.
A burly, bearded man of about forty entered and saluted. “In company with Constable Hawk and Constable Williams I watched the premises of No. 5 Henneker Mews from two a.m. until ten a.m., relieving Sergeant Brushwood. All was quiet during the night. At ten a.m. I entered the premises and questioned the occupants as to a certain sealed package received by them by post. The woman, Emily Rudgwick, positively refused to make a statement beyond the fact that she had received such a package and that it was still in her possession. She offered, however, to accompany me here and make a statement to you, Inspector, personally. She is waiting below and has the package in question with her.”
“Right. Bring her up, Sergeant.”
In a few moments Mrs. Rudgwick entered the room. As she greeted the Inspector and took the seat he offered her, Christmas was struck again with her likeness to her murdered brother, a likeness not so much of feature as of expression and style. In her outdoor clothes she looked much less slatternly and disreputable than she had looked in the crowded dirty kitchen behind the shop. In her black draperies and large black hat, with her commanding height and coarse, handsome face she achieved, in fact, a certain distinction. The hat-brim was broken, and the voluminous silk scarf around her neck was torn and spotted with grease, but she wore them with an air.
“Well, Inspector,” she said without preamble, “I’ve brought along this precious envelope you seem to be so anxious to get hold of. Though I’m sure I don’t know why I should take the trouble, never having been what you might call friendly with the police. I suppose it’s no use asking you why you’re so anxious about it, but just out of curiosity I’d rather like to know.”
“I’ve no objection to your knowing, Mrs. Rudgwick,” replied Hembrow with a smile. “I think its contents may throw light upon the murder of your brother.”
“Think so? Well, it hasn’t got the name of the murderer written inside it, or anything like that.”
“I hardly expected anything so definite as that.”
“It seems to come from my brother Gordon,” said Mrs. Rudgwick, opening her shabby handbag with a great air of doing a favour, “but as there’s nothing private about it I don’t mind your seeing it.”
“Seems to come?” echoed Hembrow with surprise.
“Well, it’s his writing. I’d know his queer crooked-up writing anywhere. But it hasn’t got his name to it.”
Hembrow looked a trifle disconcerted. A will without the name of the testator was scarcely within the bounds of possibility! He leant eagerly and impatiently over his desk. Mrs. Rudgwick, as if enjoying her moment of importance and determined to spin it out as long as possible, slowly groped among the various objects in her large bag and drew forth an extremely grimy handkerchief on which she proceeded to blow her nose. Then she carefully replaced the handkerchief and took out of her bag a foolscap envelope of a very strong, good quality, bearing the blue chalk lines and red sealing-wax dabs of the registered post. This she handed across to the Inspector, and folding her hands on her lap and leaning back in her chair, waited to enjoy the denouement.
Hembrow, in spite of his eagerness to know what it contained, was true to his instinct and training, and turned the envelope carefully over and over, examining it in detail. The writing was certainly Gordon Frew’s, the ink was black and had the look of having been dry for a long time, and the envelope was slightly rubbed and soiled at the corners. It was also queerly faintly indented at the back here and there in a way that puzzled Hembrow for a moment, until he remembered that Cold had hidden it for safety under his mattress. The wire springs probably accounted for those indentations. Having examined the envelope in detail he opened it and drew out a twice-folded sheet of thick stiff paper.
Hembrow gazed attentively at the sheet of paper for a short moment that seemed to John a long one. Mystification, disappointment, disgust and mystification again chased one another across his face. He handed the sheet to John. At first glance it appeared to be a perfectly blank piece of paper. But in the very middle of it, in the small cramped hand of the murdered man, there was a single line of writing. It read:
“Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
John turned the paper over. There was nothing else. Only that one line, exquisitely, evenly written, as though the writer had enjoyed inscribing the words. Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Hembrow remarked in tones of deep disgust:
“Well, I’m dashed!”
“That’s just how I felt,” said Mrs. Rudgwick placidly. “Speaking for myself, I never was one to let my conscience trouble me much.”
Chapter XIV
Ophelia in Hampstead
Serafine shut the front door of her Hampstead cottage behind her and glanced regretfully at the bare black boughs and sunny blue skies which invited her so temptingly to take a walk over the wintry heath. Then she turned her steps in the opposite direction, down towards the High Street. Imogen had suddenly decided to be prostrated by the shock of Gordon Frew’s murder and was lying in bed with the blinds drawn, suffering from neuralgia.
“Darling auntie,” said Serafine, when she went in to say good morning to her, “you bore the shock so wonderfully at first. Do go on being wonderful. It’s so much more interesting and unusual to be wonderful than to be prostrated.”
“Do you really think so?” murmured her aunt, opening wide her lovely eyes and considering this view for a moment. Then she remembered her neuralgia, and her lids dropped wearily. She sighed.
“Have some aspirin.”
Imogen looked at her reproachfully.
“Serafine! When you know it always makes me sick immediately.”
“Well,” murmured Serafine, who was not at her best in a sick-room, vaguely, “a hot-water bottle, some tea...”
“Got some,” sighed Imogen, moving her head languidly to one side.
“Beef-tea.”
“Don’t be disgusting.”
“An osteopath.”
“It can’t be that. I was adjusted only a fortnight ago. But if you would do something for me—”
“Love to.”
“Take this prescription down to Halliday’s and get him to send it up as soon as he can.”
“Won’t the chemist at the corner do?”
“Darling! It’s not drugs. It’s a herbal prescription. Of course you have to go to a herbalist.”
“I can get most of these out of the garden,” said Serafine, running her eye down the prescription. “Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to be flippant. Of course I’ll take it to Halliday’s with pleasure.”
“You don’t look very well yourself,” murmured Imogen, opening her eyes again and regarding her niece with a lively interest not altogether in keeping with the part of an invalid. “You’ve been looking horribly washed out ever since that dreadful night.”
“Thank you, Aunt Imogen, I am in excellent health.”
“Oh, of course you always say that! I used to do Coué myself at one time. But one gets so tired of keeping everything to oneself. I’m not surprised it’s died out.”
“Neither am I. As a subject of conversation, health can’t hope to compete with illness. It’s too monotonous.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” murmured Imogen placidly. “All I say is, you’re not looking well. Why don’t you marry that nice young Christmas and settle down? Of course he’s a little young for you, but—”
“I should think so. My dear aunt, I’m thirty-seven.”
“Are you really? Well, that’s not much nowadays. I should so like to see you fall in love and marry.”
“At thirty-seven,” said Serafine, “one does not fall in love and marry. One makes a suitable alliance. Or not, as the case may be.”
“In my opinion,” said Imogen, “a woman should marry at twenty. I was twenty myself when I married.”
“At twenty, my dear aunt, most of us have not attained the age of discretion.
”
“Oh, if you wait for that,” said her aunt, “of course you don’t marry at all...” Suddenly remembering that she was an invalid she closed her eyes and sighed. “But your life is your own, my darling. Do as you like.”
“I expect I shall,” said Serafine amiably, and tiptoed out of the sick-room.
She sauntered down the High Street. The soft November sunlight, filtered through thin mists that made the blue sky whitish, hurt her eyes. She was paying the penalty of sleeplessness with a raging headache. No need to lie awake at night because one man had been murdered and another would be arrested and hanged. It had happened before. It happened, in fact, with lamentable frequency. But not so near at home. Dreadful to feel so restless, dreadful to be so helpless, dreadful to think that already George Merewether might be under arrest. There was little comfort in telling oneself that, even so, he might be proved innocent, must surely be proved innocent. In her heart Serafine had as little doubt that Merewether was the murderer as she had that the murder was justified. Stopping to look with unseeing eyes in a picture-framer’s window, she thought: Imogen would say I had fallen in love at first sight. Gazing raptly at a framed oleograph called “The Sailor’s Home-coming,” Serafine pondered the matter and came to the conclusion that her aunt would be, roughly speaking, right. One would not take this painful interest in the murderous activities of a gentleman to whom one was indifferent...
At this point Serafine became aware of a woman hovering near her, passing and re-passing close to her, as though she wanted to speak to her but had not the courage or the decision to do so. Some down-and-out waiting her chance to beg; or perhaps a possible purchaser for “The Sailor’s Home-coming” anxious to obtain a better view of it. Serafine turned away from the shop-window and found a woman in black standing on the kerb and looking at her with an anxious and appealing expression. Not a beggar, not an ordinary beggar, anyhow. Her clothes, though carelessly put on and much in need of brushing, were costly and becoming, and she carried a morocco handbag and an umbrella. She looked at Serafine uncertainly and piteously as if she wished to ask for help but were afraid of a rebuff. Serafine did not pass on, but stopped and looked back at her, struck by the singular beauty of her small, oval face. It was a pale face, barely flushed on the cheeks, modelled with such delicacy and precision as far transcended any beauty of mere colour. From broad forehead to rounded chin there was not one blurred or uncertain line. Under thin, black eyebrows two deep-set dark eyes gazed submissively and nervously at Serafine. The thick, dark lashes curled back like a child’s. It was an unobtrusive and yet exquisite beauty, a beauty which did not quickly take the eye, but which, having taken it, held it and would not let it go.
The Studio Crime Page 17