The Guilty Abroad

by Peter J. Heck

  “Aye, he’s the sort would be back the next day asking for more,” said Lestrade, with a chuckle. “Still, you seem friendly enough to that little wife of his. What were you doing at their place to begin with, if you weren’t his friend?”

  “I told you that already,” said my employer. “My daughter wanted to hear the spooks talk, and my wife thought it was a good idea, and so Cabot and I had to go along to make sure neither of them got swindled. Mrs. McPhee may be prettier and sweeter than her husband, but she’s not much more honest.”

  “Better not to have gone at all, then,” said Lestrade. Then his face turned more earnest, as he continued. “But you know, I’ve begun to think McPhee might not be our man. If he’d had aught to do with the killing, he’d have been working like a Trojan to convince us he was innocent. And he’s not—he just takes it for granted, like. It doesn’t occur to him that when all’s said and done, we’ll do anything but let him go. And until then, he knows how to spend his time in jail. He’s already got the other prisoners into card games.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Mr. Clemens. He took a sip of the whisky. “Meanwhile the killer’s had damn near two days to cover his tracks, or get clean away, if that’s what he wanted.”

  “Not so!” Lestrade bristled, but then, evidently recalling whose liquor it was he was drinking, he calmed down. “This isn’t a common street killing, where some drunken ruffian stabs one of his fellows on the spur of the moment and takes to his heels. The whole look of it is different—there was planning went into this, or I’ll eat my hat.”

  “That seems clear enough,” I agreed. I was starting to feel somewhat less put-upon, now that I’d had a chance to rest in a soft chair with a glass of something good to drink. “But have you considered that the murder might have been the work of a hired killer? Let’s say it was the doctor’s son who wanted to be rid of him . . .”

  Mr. Clemens laughed. “We just tangled with the doctor’s son,” he explained when Lestrade looked puzzled. “He’s a rotten brat, and that’s about the best testimonial I can give him. He came after me with a stick, thinking I was one of your men, and Cabot had to knock him down and sit on him until he remembered his manners.”

  “I see,” said Lestrade, looking at me. “Sergeant Collins questioned him this morning, and said his alibi looked good. Do you think he could have hired his father’s killer?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “No,” said Mr. Clemens, practically at the same time. He looked at me, and I glared back at him.

  “I can see there’s a difference of opinion there,” said the Scotland Yard inspector, grinning. “I’ll keep that in mind, too.” He leaned forward and said in a quieter voice, “Now, here’s a tip for you. Terry Mulligan is still missing—that’s the Irish knave that came to the door of the place after the murder and ran away when he found the police there. McPhee claims he doesn’t know where Mulligan lives, and maybe he’s telling the truth for once. Said he used to meet him at a pub not far from his flat, a place called The Painted Woman. Nobody there claimed to know him when one of my lads went in. Maybe you’ll have better luck. If you do, I’d appreciate hearing anything you find out.”

  “Is Mulligan a suspect?” I asked. I remembered the man’s running away, but thought it a natural reaction. Anyone who associated with McPhee was likely to have good reason to avoid the police.

  “Perhaps,” said Lestrade, waving a hand. “Or perhaps a witness—he may have known something he didn’t have a chance to tell McPhee, you know. We’ll have a better idea when we’ve questioned him.”

  “Well, I don’t know what we’ll find out, but we’ll go ask, anyway,” said my employer. “Now, unless you’ve got something else important, why don’t we call in the ladies and let you ask your questions. It’s getting close to suppertime, and it’s chancy trying to get a good meal out of this cook when we sit down at the right time. I’d hate to see what happens when things get thrown off schedule.”

  “Fine, call in the ladies,” said Lestrade. “I’ll tell my constable to come in and take notes.” He drained his glass, put it on the table, and went to the door to call his man while Mr. Clemens went back to the sewing room to summon his wife and daughter.

  • • •

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much of what happened between the lights going out and the discovery of the murder,” said Mrs. Clemens. She and her daughter sat side by side on the sofa; Mr. Clemens had taken his position behind them, sitting on a windowsill with a refilled whisky glass. I thought he might have taken that position to assure Lestrade that he wasn’t prompting his wife and daughter by his gestures or expressions. Of course, anyone who had spent as much time with any of the three as I had—and that was less than a week—would know the absurdity of such a notion. Mrs. Clemens had a mind of her own, as did her daughters, and Mr. Clemens was no more likely to dictate their answers than to order them to fly to the moon.

  “Well, tell us what you do remember, before and after the séance as well as during it,” said Lestrade, very patiently. “You never know just what might turn out to be important.”

  Given this opening, Mrs. Clemens embarked on a detailed description of the evening’s events. I had not remembered—if, indeed, I had even noticed—what color vest Cedric Villiers had worn, or that Mrs. Parkhurst had worn garnets while her sister wore pearls. On the other hand, I thought I had a more exact recollection of what people (and in this case, the purported spirits) had said. I had previously been aware of my own ability to remember in great detail a conversation at which I had been present, but now I was surprised to learn how many details of people’s appearance and manner had completely escaped my notice.

  But looking at the evening as a whole, her memories of the séance differed from mine primarily in small details. She had recognized the melody the “ghostly” violinist had played—some air by Mendelssohn—and she recalled a scent of fresh flowers in the room at one point, where I had noticed nothing in the way of odors. And she had heard her husband mutter a few things that had not reached my ears, none of which were really germane to Mr. Lestrade’s investigation. Lestrade asked her a few specific questions—had she seen or heard anyone moving about the room, had she noticed any sound that might have been the report of a firearm—both of which she answered in the negative. On the whole, it was evident that she had little of substance to add to what I remembered, and what the other witnesses we had interviewed had reported.

  Then Inspector Lestrade turned to Susy Clemens, who had sat quietly, but with an interested expression, while her mother had answered his questions. “Now, young miss,” he said, “I suppose you saw pretty much the same as your mother . . .”

  “You may suppose so,” she said, with a severe expression. “You may suppose whatever you wish, but you won’t learn much if you’ve already made up your mind.”

  “Really, Susy, that’s rather impertinent of you,” said Mrs. Clemens, but Lestrade raised a hand. Mr. Clemens, for his part, was doing his best to keep from grinning.

  “Mrs. Clemens, I’ve been given worse lectures by my superiors than I’m likely to get from your daughter,” the detective said. “Anyhow, she’s got the right of it. Any witness might have the one clue that will open up a hard case for us. But I’m wondering”—he turned to face Susy Clemens again—“what exactly prompted you to say that, young miss. Or was it just a general remark?”

  Susy Clemens tossed her head scornfully. “You wouldn’t be here if you had gotten anywhere with Mr. McPhee, and that means you’ve had the wrong man in jail all along. But you were so sure the night of the murder that he was your man that you didn’t question any of us, when everything was fresh in our minds. Now we’ve all had two days to talk about the murder, and you’ll never know whether I saw something myself or heard Papa mention it at breakfast. The murderer could be anywhere by now—on a boat to America, if he wanted. And it’s all because you made up your mind that Mr. McPhee knew the truth, and ignored anything that pointed
any other way.”

  “Perhaps you’re right, miss,” said Lestrade, doing a good job of keeping his calm. “The fact is, the Detective Branch have our own procedures, and we’ve a great deal of experience at solving crimes. A good bit more than even the brightest young American lady, I’d think.”

  “And you’re still getting no place at all,” said Susy. “Do you want to know what I saw that night?”

  “Yes, perhaps I’d better,” said Lestrade. “Just tell us what you remember about the séance, in your own words, and I’ll stop you if I have questions.”

  “Oh, what Mother told you will do quite well for what I saw during the séance,” said Susy, staring directly at the detective. “What you don’t seem to be asking about is what happened afterward, between the time we found the doctor dead and the time you arrived. I knew as soon as the lights came up that somebody in that room had to be the murderer, and I made up my mind to pay particular attention to what everyone said and did. That wasn’t as easy as I’d have liked, because of course we women were all shooed into the bedroom so we wouldn’t have to look at the dead body.”

  “I had no hand in that,” said the Scotland Yard man.

  “Oh, I know that,” said Susy. “But it did make it very hard for me to watch anyone who wasn’t in the bedroom, which meant all the men, of course. Sir Denis came in briefly when Mr. McPhee wanted his wife to come out and talk, and Papa stuck his head in to see how we were doing, but for the most part they stayed out in the other rooms until the police came and sent the rest of them into the bedroom with us. Still, I tried to see if anyone was acting guilty, or not quite the way I’d expect after they’d just had someone killed in front of them.”

  “Ah, but you can never judge how someone will react to a murder,” Lestrade said, in an unctuous voice.

  “No, and of course I didn’t really know anyone except Mama and Papa, and Mr. Cabot a little bit, so I hadn’t very much to judge on. Mrs. Parkhurst did seem genuinely afflicted, and her sister was very solicitous—though I don’t think Miss Donning was anywhere near as sorry to see the doctor dead as you might think.”

  “After talking to her, I’m not surprised,” said Mr. Clemens, standing up and moving around the sofa. “She had a long-standing grudge against the doctor, from what she told me and Cabot.”

  “I can believe that,” said Susy. “She seemed . . . not quite happy at the doctor’s death—perhaps relieved would be the right word. She kept telling her sister everything would be all right now, which seemed not quite the right thing to say.”

  “What about the others?” asked Lestrade.

  “As soon as we sat down, Mrs. Boulton started talking like a runaway train,” said Susy. “I wondered if she was trying to distract Mrs. Parkhurst from what had just happened, or if she’s always that way. But she didn’t stop talking until the detective arrived. And Lady Alice sat over by the window and took a little book out and began to read. I thought that was a very sensible thing to do, and wished I’d brought along something to read. And Mrs. McPhee seemed almost dazed—it’s as if she’d been asleep, really asleep the whole time and was just waking up, the way you do in the morning. I think she must have been in a genuine trance during the séance—I don’t know how she would have shammed that convincingly.”

  “Well, that’s all very good,” said Lestrade, with an indulgent smile. “I’ll make certain to keep all that in mind—”

  “I’m quite sure you will,” Susy interrupted, ice in her tone. “But I’m not finished yet.” Lestrade’s smile vanished, and he nodded as she continued. “The men came into the bedroom after the police arrived and began their investigation. But just before they were all herded in, I stepped out into the larger room, just to escape all the crowding. And I noticed that several things had changed from when we were all there.”

  “Ah, this promises to be interesting, then,” said Lestrade. “And what had changed, young lady?”

  “There were three large silver candlesticks in the room when we sat down. I thought they were for light, or maybe just for atmosphere, because the gas was lit when we came in. But nobody lit them until after the séance. Then I thought perhaps they were some of the things people brought to try to lure the spirits—remember, Mrs. McPhee asked us to bring something metal. But when I came out and looked around, there were only two of them. I thought at the time one of them must have been taken into the other room, except there were plenty of lamps in that room, too. But I didn’t see it on the way out, and I was looking for it. Sometime between when the lights went out and the time the police arrived, one candlestick disappeared.”

  “Are you certain of that? Might you have counted them wrong?”

  Susy drew herself up straight and gave Lestrade a look I would not have wanted turned my way for all the money in England. “I might miscount the difference between twenty and twenty-one, or even between ten and eleven. I do not think it likely that I would have mistaken two for three. And that was not the only thing different.”

  “What else was different?” asked the detective.

  “There had been a book on the windowsill near the table—I had glanced at it when we came in, and saw that it was written by someone named Blavatsky, which I thought was an unusual name. It was missing, too.”

  “Why, I saw that book, myself,” said Mr. Clemens. “She’s one of those silly spiritualists who claims to know the secrets of the universe, but never tells you anything but a pack of lies and moonshine. I saw that book on the table when Wentworth and Sir Denis were moving the poor doctor to the sofa. Can’t say I noticed it afterward, though. As for the missing candlestick, if someone brought it, they probably packed it up to take home with them.”

  “Nothing else was packed up,” she insisted. “And I thought it was very suspicious that the chairs had been rearranged around that table, too.”

  “Well, then, Miss Clemens—let’s assume you’re right,” said Lestrade, leaning forward. “Let’s say there was a candlestick and a book gone missing, and chairs had been moved all about. What do you think all that means?”

  For the first time, Susy looked uncertain of herself. “Do you know, Mr. Lestrade, I’ve thought and thought about that. And after two days of asking myself that question, I’m afraid I have to tell you I haven’t the faintest notion.”

  19

  Naturally, after the visit from Chief Inspector Lestrade, the only subject the Clemens children wanted to discuss at dinner was the murder investigation. For most of the meal, Susy Clemens was the envy of her younger sisters, both for her lecturing the Scotland Yard detective and for her having noticed the items she claimed were missing or moved from the room where the murder had taken place. Mrs. Clemens tried (without much success, I fear) to steer the conversation to other topics, but inevitably someone would have something more to say about the murder case, and we would be off again.

  The stickiest question was, if the various items really had vanished (an issue on which Susy would tolerate no dissent), who had taken them, and why. As one might well imagine, opinions varied wildly—especially among the two younger girls.

  “I think Slippery Ed took the candlestick,” said little Jean Clemens.

  “Hush, child!” said Mrs. Clemens. “You should show more respect for your elders—call him ‘Mister McPhee.’ ”

  Jean would not be dissuaded. “Papa always calls him ‘Slippery Ed,’ and I heard him say that man would steal the gold out of your teeth if you left your mouth open. So I think he’s the one who stole the candlestick.”

  Mr. Clemens had suddenly busied himself with carving himself another slice of the roast, and so he missed the look his wife sent in his direction, which managed somehow to combine long suffering and suppressed amusement. “Who wants some more roast beef?” he said, innocence written on his face.

  “I don’t think Mr. McPhee stole the candlestick,” said Clara Clemens, with the condescension older sisters reserve for younger. “Why would a man steal something from his own living room?
Not even Slippery Ed is that stupid.”

  “Maybe somebody lent it to him, and it was valuable, so he stole it,” shot back Jean.

  “I don’t think so,” said Susy. “He wasn’t in the room during the séance, so he couldn’t have stolen it then. And then he went with Mr. Cabot to bring back the police. And after that, the police were there. Nobody would steal something while the police were right there watching.”

  “If they thought it belonged to him, they wouldn’t know he was stealing it,” said Jean, sticking to her guns. “After all, it was his place, even if he was renting it.”

  “Well, that wouldn’t matter once there’d been a murder there,” said Mr. Clemens, having decided it was safe to emerge from the shelter of the roast. He put down the knife and fork and took a sip of his wine, then said, “If somebody tries to take something away, the police get very suspicious, because it might be a clue. Ed would surely know that. He’s been in trouble with the police enough times to know that.”

  “Then if he didn’t steal the candlestick, who did?” asked Jean.

  “I think it must have been the murderer,” said Clara, between forkfuls of peas and carrots. She put down her fork and added, “A person who would murder someone wouldn’t think anything of stealing, too. But I think it’s the missing book that’s important, not the candlestick.”

  “We’re talking about somebody who shot a man in a room full of witnesses, without any of us hearing the gun go off,” said Mr. Clemens. He wiped his moustache with his linen handkerchief, then continued. “I’m a lot more worried about that than sneaking off with a candlestick, or a book, or whatever else might be missing. But I suspect that Susy is overlooking perfectly good explanations for where those things went. They could have been brought to the séance by guests—remember, Mrs. McPhee told us that anyone who wanted to talk to a particular spook should bring something the person had used. The owners probably just took them home afterwards. Or maybe they were just pushed underneath the table, or moved to the other room.”