“You had better do so,” he said. “The police have evidence of your threat to your wife from two different sources.”
Budge’s face was a study. For a moment it was a battleground of the emotions. The colour ebbed back to his face and his expression of fear changed to one of surprise.
“You mean——” he asked, and stopped.
“I mean,” retorted Bray, as irritated as a hunter who feels his quarry eluding his grasp with a wriggle of unexpected strength, “that your wife’s lawyer handed me this,” and he passed the document to Budge.
Budge read it once. He read it again, slowly, and Charles perceived that he was thinking quickly and desperately while he stared at the fatal message from the woman who had been called Mrs. Budge.
“My God!” he said at last. “The bitch!”
The Inspector looked at him sternly. “We have evidence confirming the fact that you threatened your wife,” he said.
Budge’s eyes were now like gimlets, and they fastened calmly, if warily, on the Inspector’s. Gone was the furtiveness and fear of a few minutes ago. Charles felt the change in the temper of the interview, not without malicious satisfaction. It was as if during a duel one of the antagonists had tripped and bright death had quivered for a moment at his heart. Some miracle had enabled the threatened man to regain his feet, and now he was on level terms, fighting for his life with the chances at least not in his disfavour. Bray, to whom the change was equally obvious, gave no other sign of irritation than a mounting colour.
“My dear Inspector, it is obvious you are a bachelor,” replied the other. “Otherwise you would be aware that in a married quarrel it is no rare thing for a husband to offer to wring his wife’s neck. But you could hardly hold the position you do without some knowledge of human nature. Do you think any jury would convict on the evidence of a threat as between husband and wife? The woman was hysterical when she wrote this, and had it not been for this tragedy, she would have called on her solicitors in a day or two and got the note back. Where’s the motive?”
Bray did not take offence at the calculated insolence of the other’s tone. “The motive was an estate of, let me say, something over £100,000.”
The thrust told. Budge attempted no ripost.
“In addition, you were seen by Nurse Evans leaving the only possible exit from the room where the murder took place immediately after the probable time of the murder,” went on Bray. “We have positive evidence that your wife’s body was in your bedroom for a period,” he added quietly.
Budge rose and looked down at his interrogator. “I swear before God that I had no hand in the murder of my wife,” he said earnestly. “Find who did that foul work with the body, and then perhaps you will be on the track of the man you want. I tell you here and now, Inspector, that there’s more in this than meets the eye, and you won’t be able to clap your handcuffs on the murderer as easily as you think. Do I look like an intelligent man, and do you think I would harm a hair of my wife’s head as long as I was sharing in her income while she lived and was left it when she died a natural death? If you’d asked Tarr, Inspector, whether my wife, poor soul, ever grudged me any sum I liked to draw, you’d have been less ready to take notice of the hysterical doings of an overwrought woman.”
Bray rose also to his feet. “I don’t propose to beat about the bush any longer,” he said. “Let us assume you are as innocent as you state. So far I have not accused you, nor shall I do so until I have given you the statutory caution and have the warrant in my pocket. But you know a great deal that has a bearing on the case and you have not been frank with me. If you are innocent, any help in the solution of this mystery that you can give will help in establishing that innocence. Not to give it renders you liable to a charge as accessory.”
“You’ve already as good as accused me of the murder,” the man retorted sullenly. “I’m damned if I say a word.”
The suave outlines of Bray’s face sharpened with temper. “Well, you’ll cool your heels in prison for a little.”
“You can’t do that without a warrant,” Budge retorted instantly.
“Oh, yes, we can,” replied the other. “We will detain you as an important witness.”
Charles waited with amusement to see how Bray’s bluff would work. Its effect was unexpected. Budge laughed loudly with the forced tone of one who laughs seldom.
“So you’d put me in prison, would you?” he said at last. “Well, all I can say is this—do that, and by God you’ll see hell let loose in this hotel, clever Mr. Policeman.”
Bray, skilled to detect the undercurrents of a witness’s emotions, realized that Budge was in earnest. The thought of prison had scared him less than the prospect of what would happen if he were away from the Garden Hotel. For a moment he was perturbed.
Meanwhile Budge stood, his brow wrinkled with thought. “Look here, Inspector,” he said after a time. “I’ve told you there’s more in this than meets the eye. Will you give me half an hour to myself if I guarantee to bring at the end of that period positive proof that I had nothing to do with this business?”
Bray hesitated. His case was incomplete and he could not possibly risk detaining on suspicion at this stage.
“Right,” he said. “I’ll stay here, but you mustn’t leave the building.”
“Thank you,” Budge answered, and left the room.
Bray called in Billings. “See that Budge does not leave this hotel,” he said. “He can do what he likes otherwise. Don’t trail him—just keep an eye on the exits.”
IV
“Now, ‘fountain of all knowledge,’ tell us how, in your opinion, Budge managed to commit this murder?” asked Charles.
“The reconstruction is fairly easy,” answered Bray. “The only point is how did Budge originally get in the room? He may have slipped in through the window after waiting outside on the verandah until Miss Sanctuary’s back was turned. Alternatively he was already concealed in the room; the wardrobe would have made an excellent hiding-place, as quite a good view can be obtained from inside if one puts one’s eye to the crack in the door.”
“How thorough of you!” exclaimed Charles in admiration. “I never thought of crawling into the wardrobe. What fun you detectives have!”
“So far, so good,” Bray continued imperturbably. “When Miss Sanctuary went to the door and was absorbed in conversation, he crept up, put out the light, which is near the door, and grabbed her from behind. As you will have noticed, the bedroom door has one of those tricky locks which, even with the key in them, will lock automatically if slammed. As he dragged her back, therefore, he could slam the door with his foot and she would be at his mercy, unable to recognize him. He knocked her unconscious, and then put on the light and tied her up. He thought she would be unable to identify him. Actually she does remember something. Her assailant wore a ring with an ornamental band on his left hand.” Bray paused impressively. “So has Budge.”
“That is interesting,” Charles answered slowly. He seemed immersed in thought. “Dash it all though, thousands of people must wear rings like that—it might so easily be a coincidence.”
“It might,” agreed Bray. “Taken by itself it means nothing. In conjunction with the motive and the means and the basket in Budge’s room, however, it takes the place of the material clue. It is a link in the chain.
“Budge then, in my opinion, disposed of Miss Sanctuary in the wardrobe so that if she came to, she would not be able to identify him. This was shrewd. Blindfolding would not be certain enough to make sure that she did not have some clue to his identity. When she was locked in the wardrobe, his mind would be at ease.
“He now turned his attention to his unconscious wife. He garrotted her quickly and neatly, and hauled her body out of bed, bundled it into the next verandah, and stuffed it into a laundry basket before the onset of rigor mortis.
“He would excite no suspicion or comment dragging about his precious laundry baskets. As you helpfully suggested, it would be very easy to
stow it in a room until the police had searched the suite, and then put it back again, to dispose of it at his leisure.”
“A method of disposal,” pointed out Charles, “which, according to your own man, Wuthering, needed the skill of at least a G.P. or a medical student.”
“He may have had some such experience,” said Bray. “So far I have been able to discover absolutely nothing about the life of either before they came to the hotel.”
Charles shook his head slowly. “That’s an ingenious reconstruction, but it does not point to Budge more than anyone else. Your case isn’t complete, and you know it in your heart of hearts.”
“Wait and see,” answered Bray grimly.
“Aren’t you afraid that now he is cornered he may take poison or jump out of the window?” asked Charles ingenuously.
“Murderers never commit suicide except in novels,” answered his friend abstractedly. “The two types are poles apart.” Looking up suddenly he met Charles’s grin and realized that his leg was being pulled. He smiled in acknowledgment. “Do you really think that Budge is going to return with any proof of his innocence that we can’t riddle with holes?”
“I not only think but know,” answered Charles complacently.
Jamming in his eyeglass, he picked up a copy of the Mercury which lay on the table and re-read his story for the third time, while the clock ticked out the seconds and Bray went into the bedroom and looked at the results of his men’s labours in plans and potential clues. They were disappointing, and he returned twenty-five minutes later to find Charles looking at his relinquished society gossip column with an expression of acute distaste. His deputy was not wasting his chances. Six paragraphs were devoted to a description of the decoration of the new flat of his inamorata.
“Pink bathrooms!” exclaimed Charles in disgust.
There was a knock on the door and Budge came silently in, followed by the gaunt figure of Miss Mumby and the bald corpulence of Winterton. They stood sheepishly beside Budge.
“I saw both these people on the night of the murder,” he said, without preamble. “I think they can satisfy you that your suspicions are unfounded.”
Bray raised an inquiring eyebrow at Miss Mumby.
“On the night of the murder,” said Miss Mumby at once, staring Bray in the eyes, “Mr. Budge came to my suite to discuss some damage which he said my pets had done in the lounge. We discussed it for about half an hour, and he left at a minute or two before nine-thirty.”
“You are as certain of the time as that?” asked Bray incredulously.
“Certainly. Before he left he remarked that my clock was ten minutes slow and that it was really nine-twenty-eight. I put the clock on but still could not believe he was right until I heard St. Michael’s clock strike over the road, which proved he was right.”
Bray turned to Winterton.
“Mr. Budge called on me in my room on the night of the murder,” Winterton affirmed, “with reference to a complaint I had made about some shirts I had sent to the laundry. The way the neckbands were stretched and the collars shrunk was really intolerable, and I wrote to Budge and told him so. I remember quite well that directly Budge came into the room he said he had had a slight argument with Miss Mumby about the time. We compared watches, and we both made it twenty-six minutes to ten. Budge did not stay long—just long enough to promise to look into the matter, apologized very handsomely I must say—I fancy it was about ten minutes.”
Winterton clicked audibly and stared at the policeman defiantly.
Bray’s sensations can only be compared to those of a man who steps on a stair that isn’t there; or to those of a greyhound pursuing an electric hare round a track, when it suddenly vanishes. Budge’s movements were now completely accounted for without a moment to spare. After speaking to Miss Mumby he had gone straight to his bedroom, looked in, and without waiting a second had gone on to Winterton’s room. He could only just have left Winterton’s room a minute when Nurse Evans had found him again on the point of leaving his bedroom.
Baulked of his hare, Bray still, like the greyhounds, persisted in sniffing for a little round the hole.
“Why did neither of you tell me this when I was investigating the movements of everyone in the hotel yesterday?” he asked sternly.
Winterton looked at him with a bovine stare. “I didn’t see what my complaint about shirts had to do with the murder,” he said stubbornly.
Bray made a last effort. “You will both be prepared to swear to every detail of this story in a court of law?” he pressed.
“Certainly,” snapped Miss Mumby.
“Of course,” puffed Winterton.
“Very well then,” said the Inspector, bowing to the inevitable. “That accounts satisfactorily for your movements, Budge, and there the matter can rest for a moment.”
“Thank you, Inspector,” replied Budge cheerily. “I hope you will realize that you exceeded your duty a little.”
His remark drew fire from the detective’s grey-blue eyes, but he said nothing.
Budge turned and left. Miss Mumby, with gawky strides, followed in his rear. Winterton shuffled deprecatingly out after them, polishing his head with his handkerchief.
As the door closed, Charles spoke. “O, frabjious morn, Callooh, Callay,” he chortled, whirling his monocle till it made a shining disc of fire. “What a perfectly incredibly marvellously watertight alibi.”
For a moment Bray looked as if he would explode. Seizing a large pouffe as the only available safety-valve, he hurled it with all his force at the door.
“Yes, I can imagine how you feel,” cooed Charles sympathetically.
Chapter Ten
Miss Mumby Gives the Show Away
I
“OF course, this sort of thing is always happening,” Bray said with philosophic resignation when he met Charles an hour later. “One generally bangs one’s head against three brick walls before one finds the right turning. In a sense the perfection of Budge’s alibi is a help. It definitely excludes him from my list of suspects, and I have to go right back to the beginning and start again.”
Charles could not but admire the infinite patience of Scotland Yard in the genuine enthusiasm with which Bray cleaned his slate of hypotheses and started again.
“The devil of this case is that as it is an inside job,” went on Bray gloomily, “there is not likely to be any clue connecting the murderer obviously with his victim. Each of my suspects, for instance, have probably been in Mrs. Budge’s suite heaps of times, and might have left foot-prints all over the ceiling for all the use it would be.”
“Do not despair,” Charles answered comfortingly. “Remember motive, the policeman’s friend.”
“Yes,” answered Bray. “This case is going to be solved on the question of motive, if at all. There are some strange features about this ordinary-looking hotel, and if we can get to the bottom of them we may run our motive to earth at the same time.”
“What do you think particularly curious?” asked Charles.
Bray told him briefly of Mrs. Budge’s inexplicably large income. “That’s not all,” Bray went on. “Hasn’t it occurred to you as strange that in this hotel, with the proprietress murdered and policemen perpetually clumping over the place, no one has attempted to leave?”
“Presumably you have refused to let them?”
Bray snorted. “The police can’t do that sort of thing in real life. As long as they kept in touch with us they are perfectly free to move—and yet they don’t.” He shook his head, puzzled.
“So far as I can see from the business records, the hotel has always been run in a perfectly straightforward manner. It was started five years ago, and the Rev. Septimus Blood, Mr. Winterton and Miss Mumby moved in at once. A Samuel Eggfeldt was the next guest, and he stayed until he was run over and killed in a street accident. During the remainder of the time, Mr. Nicholas Twing, Colonel Cantrip, the Misses Geranium and Hectoring, Eppoliki and Mrs. Walton all moved in. Mrs. Walton, by the way, was
to leave next week, as apparently she is a widow and is engaged to marry St. Clair Addington. I got the tip from the Chief to save her all the bother I could. Addington and the Chief are old friends. Then the latest arrivals were Miss Arrow, who left after three months, Miss Sanctuary, Lady Viola and yourself. The only peculiarity is that everyone who has arrived here has, with one exception, stayed, but after all this is a residential hotel and apparently a very comfortable one, so there is really nothing very suspicious in that.”
“If you are really yearning for something suspicious to fasten on,” said Charles, “I can gratify your base appetite. The morning after the murder I called in to see the Rev. Septimus Blood. While I was there, Budge called for the laundry basket. Innocent enough request you will say, but Blood refused to let him have it—nearly knocked him down. Now Blood is not only a bacteriologist, he is a Bachelor of Medicine with considerable clinical experience. Putting two and two together, and noting that the laundry basket is of a size excessively convenient for the reception of a corpse, I suggest for your consideration that the body was in the basket at the time; and that Blood subsequently cut it up and distributed it in that charming way which has so appealed to us all. One might look uneasy with a skeleton in the cupboard, but that was nothing to Blood’s uneasiness. I suggest the solution is the body in the basket.”
For the second time that day Bray stared at Charles in amazement, this time amazement tinged with fury. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” he asked coldly.
“I tried to,” Charles pointed out with sweet reasonableness, “but you would not give me a chance.”
Bray’s reply was unprintable. “I’m going to see the Rev. Septimus Blood anyway,” he added, when he felt better. This time Charles did not accompany him...
II
“How goes it, Charles?” asked Viola, leaning over his shoulder and looking at a pad on which Charles had written, after earnest thought for ten minutes, the following words:
Crime in Kensington Page 10