The superintendent flung himself round so suddenly that Mr. Williamson leapt back in alarm. “You wiped that chair?” he roared.
“Y-yes. I mean—well, why the devil not?” retorted Mr. Williamson, regaining courage as he found himself still alive. “Eh? Why shouldn’t I? You wouldn’t want her dress spoilt, would you?”
“What did she want to sit down at all for?”
“Because she came over queer,” replied Mr. Williamson with dignity. “I mean, she felt faint. Eh? Why shouldn’t she? What? It was pretty unnerving, wasn’t it? Why the dickens shouldn’t she feel faint? Eh?” said Mr. Williamson aggressively.
The superintendent turned to his inspector. “Crane, go down and bring Mrs. Lefroy up.”
“Inspector!” said Ronald Stratton gently.
“Yes, Mr. Stratton?”
“Give Mrs. Lefroy Superintendent Jamieson’s compliments, and ask her if she would oblige him by coming up here for a moment.”
Roger shook his head. It does not pay to irritate the police.
“And now, Mr. Williamson,” said the superintendent grimly, having taken no apparent notice of this exchange, “I’d be obliged if you would be kind enough to tell me what the blazes you did with that chair that’s given us so much trouble.”
“Trouble?” said Mr. Williamson, with innocent astonishment. “Why trouble? What’s it got—?”
“What did you do?” barked the superintendent rudely.
Mr. Williamson told his story.
He told it well. Roger, listening to his pupil with admiration, awarded him full marks. There is nothing like implicit belief in one’s fact to present a convincing result. Mr. Williamson had not the faintest doubt of any of his facts. His air of mild indignation that anything so ordinary as to wipe a chair for a lady should have given offence to the police could not possibly have been assumed.
Mrs. Lefroy seconded him with the true art that conceals art.
“What’s all the fuss?” she appealed to Celia. “Oughtn’t I to have felt faint, or what?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Celia. “I’m simply lost.”
“Finger-prints?” repeated Mrs. Lefroy wonderingly a moment later, after another glimpse of the superintendent’s heart. “I’m afraid I never thought of them. Why should I? Or foot-prints.”
“Oh, yes, talking of foot-prints,” Roger put in glibly, “were you able to verify the presence of grit on the chair-seat, Superintendent, or had Mr. Williamson in his zeal for Mrs. Lefroy’s frock polished all that off too?”
“Oh, he managed to leave a trace or two,” replied the superintendent grumpily.
Mr. Williamson summed it all up in a thoroughly dignified manner.
“If I really did anything I shouldn’t have done, I apologise; but I still can’t really see what the hell all the trouble’s about. Eh?”
It was for Roger, however, to administer the final jab. It was a nasty little underhand jab, for not only did it wound, but it managed to transform what must have been considered by its perpetrator as the keenest efficiency into a miserable piece of bungling.
“I noticed,” said Roger airily, “that you’d had the chair removed, and I couldn’t imagine why. It wasn’t until I made inquiries myself and heard how the chair had been wiped, that I wondered whether the absence of finger-prints might possibly be worrying you; but even then I could hardly believe that it was so, or you’d have made the same elementary inquiries as I did, and found out what had happened. I must tell Moresby about that, at Scotland Yard. He’ll be amused. Why, Superintendent,” Roger added with a light laugh, “you’ll be telling me next that you don’t know where all the bruising on the body came from!”
The superintendent appeared to have been stricken dumb, but Inspector Crane was able to ask:
“Did you anticipate bruising on the body, Mr. Sheringham?”
“Anticipate it? What happens when you bang the back of your head against the lower edge of a grand piano? ” Roger patted affectionately the piano in question. “What happens when someone picks you up and throws you violently on the floor? Do you bruise or don’t you—especially if you happen to be a woman, Inspector?”
A last ray of hope lit for an instant the superintendent’s darkening face.
“What’s this? There was a struggle of some kind, then?”
“A struggle?” said Roger, with fine disgust. “No, man! An Apache dance!”
IV
The police had gone, finally, and Roger was shaking his head at Ronald Stratton in the study. As it was Sunday evening, the party was not changing; and the rest were having their cocktails in the drawing-room. Roger, however, had taken his host down to the study to tell him what he thought of him.
“Really, Ronald, you shouldn’t have lost your temper with the superintendent, you know,” he chided, rather unhappily. “You’ve made an enemy of the man now, and it simply doesn’t do to put the police at enmity—especially in such a delicate case as this,” Roger added with meaning.
“I suppose so,” Ronald admitted. “But I simply couldn’t help it. I can’t stand people trying to bully me.”
“Tchah!” said Roger.
“You surely don’t think it can have done any harm?” Ronald asked.
“I hope not, sincerely. But the trouble was, you see, that I had to back you up to a certain extent, with the result that I treated the man as an opponent, instead of as a possible ally.”
“But does that matter?”
“I suppose not, really. Yes, I suppose everything is all right now.”
“You don’t sound very certain, Roger?” said Ronald Stratton, not without anxiety.
“One never can be quite certain with the police,” Roger replied, rubbing it in. “Still, I think they haven’t many doubts left about suicide now. At least, I don’t see how they can have. But for all that,” added Roger thoughtfully, “it wouldn’t be a bad idea to strengthen the case for it a little more still, if we can.”
“As how?”
“Well, just an idea that occurred to me. We’ve got plenty of evidence that Mrs. Stratton was chatting about suicide most of the evening, but if the police are still suspicious they may be pleased to consider all our evidence tainted. Can’t you produce something that can’t be questioned, on that point? A letter, for instance. The record of the written word is so much more convincing, you see, than the mere report of the spoken one.”
“I see the idea,” Ronald nodded. “But I’m afraid she’s never written to me on those lines. But she might have to Celia.”
“Run and ask your sister,” Roger suggested.
Ronald ran.
“No,” he reported. “Celia hasn’t got any letters like that. But what about David?”
“Ring him up and ask him,” said Roger.
Ronald rang up his brother.
David, it transpired, could produce nothing, but thought that if any such letters existed they might have been written to a certain Janet Aldersley.
“Lives in Westerford,” Ronald explained. “Ena’s particular friend and confidante about the brutality and general iniquities of her unworthy husband.”
“Get out the car,” Roger said briskly. “There’s half an hour yet before dinner. We’ll go and see her.”
“Right you are,” agreed Ronald, impressed.
Miss Aldersley lived in a large house on the farther side of Westerford. Ronald was able to arrange an interview with her without disturbing the Aldersley parents. She was tearful, and much impressed by the idea that she might be of help.
Roger explained the object of the visit.
“If you had any such letters,” he said smoothly, “it would help to shorten the proceedings at the inquest, I fancy, and any way in which we can do that will of course help, too, to lessen the scandal, Miss Aldersley.”
“It’s too dreadful,” sobbed Miss Aldersley, who was fair and fluffy and of a type to be impressed by her late friend’s histrionics. “Poor, poor Ena ! How could she ever have done such a thing
?”
“Yes, but has she ever written to you of it in her letters?” Roger asked patiently.
“Oh, yes. Often, poor darling. But I never thought she would really ever do such a thing. Oh, I shall never forgive myself, never. Do you think I could possibly have prevented it? You don’t, Mr. Sheringham, do you?”
Roger was tactful, and set about obtaining possession of the letters.
Miss Aldersley, convinced at last that she would only be serving her dead friend’s best interests by handing them over, agreed without much difficulty and went off to find them.
Roger carried them away with him in triumph.
“Don’t take them to the police,” he said, as he gave them to Ronald in the car a minute later. “I don’t trust them. Take them round to the coroner yourself, directly after dinner. He’ll probably be quite glad of the chance of a private word with you, too, as he knows you personally.”
On such small details, Roger told himself with some satisfaction, is the unassailable case built.
But calling in on Colin that night for a last word before going to bed, Roger found that a certain uneasiness still remained with him.
“We’ve got our stories all pat,” he said, sitting on the bed and watching Colin brush his hair, “but we must allow for the unexpected. I don’t think the police are likely now to ask for an adjournment tomorrow; but after Ronald’s attitude, if they have by any remote chance got something up their sleeves for us, they’ll have been keeping it darker than ever.”
Colin looked round from his dressing-table. “But what could they have up their sleeves, man?”
“Goodness knows. But I wish now I’d played that superintendent a little more tactfully. Ah, well, we must just sit tight and know nothing, that’s all. If only that David doesn’t let us all down …”
CHAPTER XIV
INQUEST ON A VILE BODY
I
The coroner shuffled his papers.
“Well, gentlemen, that being so, we’ll proceed to hear the evidence. Mr. Stratton, will you …? Mr. David Stratton, I should have said. Yes. Now, Mr. Stratton, I quite realise that this is a very painful occasion for you. Very painful, indeed. You may be sure that we won’t trouble you more than necessary, but it is my duty to ask you a few questions. Now, let me see. Yes. Perhaps the best thing would be for you to tell us exactly what led up to this distressing event, yes.”
Roger held his breath.
He need not have been alarmed. David gave his evidence clearly and without faltering. He spoke in much the same abrupt, almost jerky tones as those with which he had first answered the questions of Inspector Crane, but now they appeared nothing but a cloak for nervousness.
The coroner was as kind to him as possible, and led him in a way which, Roger considered, might have given a suspicious superintendent of police some pain. (Ronald’s call on the coroner the previous evening had been an excellent move.) After telling his story David was asked a few questions about his own movements; but only, it seemed, with the object of finding out why he had not followed his wife out of the ballroom and whether, had he done so shortly afterwards, it would not have been possible to avert the tragedy; to which David frankly replied that his wife very often behaved in an odd way, and he had no anticipation at all that this performance in particular might have serious consequences. As for ringing up the police-station later, he had learned a long time ago from Dr. Chalmers that his wife could not be held to be always strictly accountable for her actions, and being worried over her disappearance had thought it best to take this precaution; he had never done so before, because the occasion had never arisen. Altogether, Roger thought admiringly, David could not have carried greater conviction had he been innocent.
“Yes,” clucked the elderly little coroner. “Quite so. This is very distressing for you, Mr. Stratton, I know, but I am bound to ask you. With regard to what you say about your wife’s behaviour at times …”
David gave instances, shortly and with obvious reluctance. Mrs. Stratton had been subject to profound fits of depression; she was accustomed occasionally, in company, to drink for effect, though it was impossible to call her a drunkard; she often lost her temper over trifles, and would then rave and storm in a quite unbalanced way; she would worry for days over the most insignificant things; and so on.
When at last David was released, Roger felt that the worst was over.
And evidently the police had not asked for an adjournment, so perhaps no surprises might be expected after all.
Ronald Stratton followed his brother and he, too, gave nothing away. Confirming David’s account of Ena’s behaviour at the party and her loss of temper over their horseplay, which Ronald manfully admitted to have been mistaken with so touchy a subject, he told of the anxiety about her disappearance which had resulted in the prolonged search, and of the finding of the body. He spoke with sincerity and frankness, and obviously created an excellent impression on the jury.
Questioned by the coroner, he not only agreed with David’s estimate of the dead woman’s mental instability, but conveyed the impression, without actually saying so, that David had been loyally minimising this lack of balance, which in reality was a great deal more pronounced than he had suggested. He added further examples of her strange behaviour.
Celia Stratton confirmed this, and added that when staying with David she had frequently been distressed to hear his wife shrieking at him in their bedroom till all hours of the morning, like a mad woman.
“Like a mad woman?” repeated the coroner deprecatingly. “You’re sure that isn’t too strong an expression, Miss Stratton?”
“Not in the least,” Celia reported firmly. “If you’d heard her, you’d understand. She used almost to yowl, one might say, as if she’d completely lost control of herself.”
“Dear me,” said the coroner sadly. “Very painful, indeed.”
Roger privately thought that Celia had overdone it a trifle, but there was no doubt that the idea must be getting home to the jury that Ena Stratton had been anything but normal.
As Celia was about to leave the stand, the coroner added one more question:
“If you realised that your sister-in-law was really so seriously unbalanced as this, I wonder you did not advise your brother to consult an alienist about her, Miss Stratton?”
“But I did!” Celia retorted indignantly. “Of course I did. My elder brother and I both wanted him to do so. But he said he’d already consulted Dr. Chalmers, who had advised him that though his wife was unbalanced to some extent, it couldn’t be considered pronounced enough to warrant sending her to a home just yet, though that might come later.”
“I see, I see,” hastily agreed the coroner. “Yes, we can hear all about that from Dr. Chalmers himself, yes.”
Roger smiled and blessed the ways of coroners’ courts. In a court of law, governed by the rules of evidence, Celia’s last statement would not have been allowed even to reach completion; and it was a useful one. But not perhaps, Roger reflected, for Dr. Chalmers, who stood a chance of getting hauled over the coals for negligence.
Roger also noticed, with considerable interest, that so far not a word had been said about chairs.
He himself was called next.
Asked to do so, he described glibly enough the part he had played in the scene that followed the discovery of the body.
“In consequence of a communication made to me by Mr. Williamson, I called Mr. Ronald Stratton quietly out of the next room and accompanied him up to the roof, followed by Mr. Williamson.”
Yes. Just a moment, Mr. Sheringham. What was this communication that Mr. Williamson made to you?”
“He told me that he had found Mrs. Stratton,” amplified Roger, who had thought he had achieved rather nicely the official phraseology.
He continued his story.
“And I should like to say, Mr. Coroner,” he said unctuously, “that I take full responsibility for the cutting down of the body before the police arrived.”
; “Of course. Quite so. Yes. You had naturally to make certain that life was extinct. Of course. Yes, Mr. Sheringham? And then?”
Roger went on.
Not a word was said about chairs.
“Quite so. Your experience, of which we have all of course heard, was of great service. We can be sure that everything was done in a perfectly regular and proper manner. Yes. Now, Mr. Sheringham, you have heard the evidence that has been given regarding the state of Mrs. Stratton’s mind. Did you yourself notice anything unusual in her behaviour?”
“Yes. My attention had been called to Mrs. Stratton earlier in the evening, in consequence of overhearing a remark made by Mr. Williamson to Mr. Ronald Stratton.” Roger paused provocatively.
“I think you may tell us what the remark was, Mr. Sheringham. We are not bound by the strict laws of evidence here, you know.”
“Mr. Williamson said: ‘Is your sister-in-law mad, Ronald?’”
Laughter in court.
“Ah!” said the coroner, not without a smile himself. “Indeed? That is very interesting. We will hear from Mr. Williamson himself about that. And that caused you to observe Mrs. Stratton closely, Mr. Sheringham?”
“It did. With the result that I considered that Mr. Williamson’s question, though put in a somewhat exaggerated form, was not without foundation.”
“What did you see that led you to that conclusion?”
“I noticed then that Mrs. Stratton was evidently suffering from a mild form of exhibitionism. She wished to be attracting notice all the time.” Roger cited the climbing on the beam and the Apache dance, a reference to which he had been anxious to make, and added a reference to his conversation with Mrs. Stratton on the roof, in the course of which she had threatened suicide.
“I’m afraid, however, that I attached no importance to this threat. I put it down as being part of her general desire to impress.”
“Are you still of this opinion?”
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