Half-Mast Murder

by Milward Kennedy

  “No. My brother was rather silent, but that wasn’t unusual.”

  “And during the morning ?”

  “Nothing unusual. We were all about the house and garden. My brother watched Cynthia—that’s my niece—and Mr. Shipman play tennis. And I think they went bathing. At any rate, everyone turned up to lunch quite cheerful.”

  “The Professor wasn’t so silent ?”

  “No, he was quite gay. Though he said, almost as if he was complaining, that he’d frittered away the morning, and that life was too short to be wasted in frivolities.”

  “Was that a hint, do you suppose ? I’m told that Mr. Shipman——”

  Mrs. Arkwright’s eye positively twinkled.

  “No. I don’t think he had any notion of how the land lay. Poor dear, he was thinking of his work. He generally was, you see. It was a Crusade—or the quest of the Grail—to him, you must remember.”

  She quickly grew serious again.

  “And after lunch ? I gather it was over about 2.15 ?”

  “I should think about then.”

  “After lunch Mr. Trent and the Professor strolled down to the edge of the cliff ?”

  “Yes. At least, they went off in that direction.”

  “And the rest of the party ?”

  “Let me see. I think that the three of us sat here finishing our coffee. Mr. Trent doesn’t take it, and my brother took his outside. The two young people were chaffing each other about a fresh tennis match they were to have that afternoon. I was—well, chaperoning them, I suppose, though they didn’t let me realise it.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Arkwright ? And then ? Every detail may be important, you know.”

  “Dear me. May it ? It’s so difficult to know what is a detail, you know.”

  “Well, ma’am, how long did you three stay in the room ?”

  “Of course. I remember. Richards came past the window with a tray of lemonade, for the summer-house, you know. My brother liked a jug of it at his side, these hot days, when he was working. And Cynthia caught sight of him—of Richards I mean, of course—and called to him to give her the tray and she’d take it down. So he did.”

  “And do you know what time that was ?”

  “Why, yes. I believe I do. It was just after half-past two. I know, because they’d been deciding the time for their match. Half-past three, they’d decided. ‘ Just an hour from now,’ Cynthia had said, and the clock struck the half-hour directly afterwards. And then Richards came by. So it must have been just after half-past, musn’t it, when she took the tray down ? Is that an important detail ? Oh, I see. Of course. It shows poor Harry was still alive then, doesn’t it ?”

  “Quite so, ma’am.” The Superintendent answered very solemnly. “And did you and Mr. Shipman stay in here until Miss Paley came back ?”

  “No, I don’t think we did, in fact I know we didn’t. He went up to change into tennis flannels again—they’d been playing before lunch, you know. And in this hot weather—but never mind that detail. Anyhow, Mr. Shipman went up to change, and I’m afraid that for my part, Superintendent, I thought that I’d indulge in a brief siesta. Just for half an hour, you know.”

  She smiled apologetically.

  “And you did, ma’am ?” Guest smiled in return.

  “Worse than that,” she confessed. “It stretched to nearly an hour. I woke up with a start and looked at my watch and saw it was nearly half-past three, and I’d promised to watch the tennis match, you know. So I hurried down, or I was just going to, when I thought I heard Cynthia in her room. So I knocked, and went in and found the poor child lying on her bed almost in tears. She said she’d a terrible headache, and I daresay she had a headache, but I’m not sure how bad it was. Between you and me, Superintendent, I fancied that she and Mr. Shipman had had a little tiff, you know. Especially as she said the match was off.”

  Mrs. Arkwright by this time had slipped into a stream of narrative, and her own troubles seemed to have vanished in it. Guest thought that he could not do better than let her continue, noting down a fact or a time as she mentioned them.

  “So then I. thought I’d better go and find Mr. Shipman and calm him down, if he needed it ; yo u know, two young people when they behave like that can upset a whole household, and in hot weather like this——Please forgive me : the weather keeps coming in, doesn’t it ? Where was I ? Oh, yes, I remember. And there was poor Mr. Shipman on the upper terrace. Such a nice boy—I’ve got to the stage of calling him George now. Actually I believe I got there yesterday afternoon. He was so charming and sat and talked to me by the trees there, all the afternoon. Or, when I say that, I mean he sat there till tea-time and talked now and again. But I was wrong about the tiff—he was really very worried, I could see, about Cynthia’s headache. You might have thought it was acute meningitis by the way he spoke of it.”

  Then she laughed and added :

  “Not that she was much better than he was. When she did come down again at tea time, and saw that he’d scratched his finger, you never heard such a fuss. And in front of that little American too. Poor George ! He got quite annoyed and embarrassed about it ! But that was later of course. I mustn’t miss out any details, must I ?”

  And she proceeded to tell how the tea had been brought out, and how the bell had been rung and Mr. Trent had appeared, and Cynthia and the American . . . until Guest finally had to bring her to a pause.

  “Now there are just two things I’d like to be perfectly clear about, ma’am,” he said. “First of all, from where you sat you could see the gap at the end of the path—the point where you turn to the left to go to the summer-house ?”

  “Yes, certainly. It was straight in front of me, and as I was just sitting there, knitting—well, of course I saw it. And no one went past there, I’m positive, while I was there. Besides, who was there to go ?”

  “Quite so, ma’am,” the Superintendent reassured her, though mentally noting that Mr. Trent was not altogether under observation, and that with luck he might have crossed that open space unnoticed. But, on the other hand, if Mr. Shipman also had been gazing in that direction . . .

  “What else, Superintendent ?”

  “Beg your pardon, ma’am, I was wool-gathering. The second point is a tiny one. Mr. Shipman’s hand wasn’t cut at lunchtime ?”

  “Scratched, I should call it. No, I didn’t notice it. Nor did Cynthia. But he’ll tell you that, if you really want to know. Is that all ?”

  And she moved as if to retire. Guest very apologetically begged her to bear with him a little longer.

  “Those two points just occurred as you spoke, ma’am,” he explained. “There are one or two more things I want to know. I want you to tell me all about the actual discovery—all you saw, I mean. And I want to know whether anyone in the house, so far as you know, takes sleeping-draughts of any kind. And then finally I’d like to hear what young Mr. Julian Paley said when he came up here last night.”

  This time it was Mrs. Arkwright who sighed resignedly.

  CHAPTER IX

  YANKS IN A YOUTH

  “I don’t think there is much I can say about the—the discovery, as you call it,” she said. “You know, I expect, that I sent Richards down to the summer-house to tell my brother that tea was ready. Once he got into his work, he was liable to bury himself in it, you know. It was his passion ; everything had to give in to it—or would have done, if I hadn’t put my foot down now and again. Richards came rushing back to say he couldn’t get in or make my brother hear, so we went down to see about it.”

  Guest could not extract from her any reason why they should all have gone down ; nor could she, apparently, realise that it was curious that they should have done so. She justified it illogically, but not unnaturally, by the result. Nor could she give any useful information about the actual discovery. She had been more than occupied in attending to her niece, and the news of her brother’s death, on the top of that, had turned the whole scene, for her, into a nightmare.

  As to sleepin
g-draughts, Mrs. Arkwright had a little tin of Sedebrol, and the medicine cupboard also of course contained a supply of aspirin, but that was as much as she could say. She did not think it likely that anyone in the house had such things. The Professor certainly had not—he had a strong prejudice against any kind of drug. “The opium traffic,” she added vaguely.

  The third question ? Oh, yes, her nephew’s visit. She had seen him for a minute, that was all. She had told him that his sister was very much upset, and that it would only make her worse to see him. And although Mrs. Arkwright herself had never quarrelled with Julian Paley, and had indeed rather taken his part against his uncle, she had told him fairly plainly that she felt it hardly right to bring him into the house again the moment his uncle was dead—whatever the motive for his visit. She thought that he had quite understood and respected her feelings. He had gone off quickly, and had not spoken to anyone but herself and, of course, Richards. But Richards had only opened the door and then gone immediately in search of Mrs. Arkwright. She had heard the car draw up in the drive and the bell ring, and there had been no interval of time during which Julian could have spoken to the butler.

  Richards was recalled, and confirmed this. His conversation with Mr. Julian, had been very brief. “This is a terrible business,” Mr. Julian had said, and had asked if he could see Mrs. Arkwright. He had refused even to come inside the house, and had waited in the porch till Mrs. Arkwright came down.

  Presumably then, Guest thought to himself, this nephew has no idea how his uncle met with his end. It struck him that possibly Mrs. Arkwright herself did not know that a knife had been used. Hesitatingly, for he did not want to shock the old lady afresh, he opened his attaché-case, and with a few words of warning produced the weapon.

  Mrs. Arkwright bravely mastered her emotion, and immediately identified it as one which used always to lie on the writing-table in the summer-house. The Professor, she believed, had acquired it many years ago in Sicily. He used it as a paper-knife. It had, she thought, no special associations for him.

  The Superintendent replaced it, and for a few moments reflected in silence.

  “I’m very sorry, ma’am,” he said at length, “to bother you like this. But I think it’s best if I try to ask you about all the points now ; I may not have to worry you again then. Now, about the keys of the summer-house ?”

  It seemed that there was only one. The Professor never let anyone enter it except when he was there. He kept the key on a bunch which also, Mrs. Arkwright believed, held the key of the safe.

  “He used to say that the papers in there were a kind of moral dynamite,” she observed, in explanation of her brother’s habit of always carrying the keys on his person. “Of course,” she admitted, “there were probably ways in which one of the servants, say, could have taken an impression, but why should any of them have done so ?”

  The Superintendent did not offer any possible explanation, though to himself he said that the Professor’s description of the papers suggested a plausible one. Pursuing this train of thought, he ascertained that the Professor used to bring such papers as he needed down from London in a special case ; and that his study in London also contained a safe, but one with a combination lock. No one but he (and probably the solicitor) knew the combination, It appeared, furthermore, that the study in the London house was decidedly inaccessible, since it was a room opening off the Professor’s bedroom. It seemed to Guest that the “papers” might have an important bearing on the case, for it certainly appeared that, if anyone wanted to steal them, the chances of doing so were very much better while the Professor was at Cliff’s End than while he was in London. The comparative isolation of the summer-house, on its little promontory. . . .

  “What about the gate on the staircase down to the sea ?” he suddenly asked Mrs. Arkwright. “It’s always kept locked, isn’t it ?”

  “It has a spring lock,” she answered. “The staircase is only used for bathing, you know. The key is kept hanging up in the hall.”

  Richards was again summoned. He happened to know that the key was in its place at lunch-time on the previous day, for Miss Cynthia, coming in after her bathe, had given it to him to hang up. He was sent to look whether it was still there, and promptly returned with an affirmative report.

  “Is there only the one key ?” Guest asked, when the butler had withdrawn again.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Arkwright. “That is to say, there were two, but one was lost. Oh, some time ago. In fact”—she hesitated—“I think my nephew has got it. He used to have a key because he used it more than anyone else as a boy, and when he left us—· you know. My brother didn’t of course bother about it.”

  Guest said that of course he quite understood : the main thing was just to know that there was only the one key in use. In fact, he did his best to prevent Mrs. Arkwright from guessing his real thought—which was that the news of the second key possibly made Mr. Julian Paley’s movements an. important question. It was possible that he possessed a means of entering the grounds of Cliff’s End without being observed by any member of the household.

  He told Mrs. Arkwright briefly about the arrangements for the inquest, and assured her that everything possible would be done to spare her and the rest of the family’s feelings, and generally intimated that the interview was at an end.

  “I think I should like to have a talk to Miss Cynthia Paley now, if I may,” he added.

  Mrs. Arkwright hesitated, then asked whether it was really necessary. “The poor child is terribly upset by this,” she said. “And I don’t see how she can possibly tell you any more about it.”

  “There’s just this,” Guest replied gently. “As far as I know at present, Miss Paley was the last person to see your brother alive. Her impressions may be very important, you know. But of course, if you think it better, I can see Mr. Shipman first.”

  Mrs. Arkwright certainly thought that the interview with her niece should be postponed as long as possible, and Guest promised that this should be done.

  After Mrs. Arkwright had withdrawn, the Superintendent gazed thoughtfully out of the window for some minutes.

  “Funny business,” he remarked at length to the detective. The other made a sound which apparently combined assent with interrogation.

  “Anyhow,” Guest went on, “things seem to be narrowing down as regards time. At half-past two Miss Paley took down the tray with the lemonade. At half-past three Mrs. Arkwright was on the terrace with Mr. Shipman, and could have seen anyone who went to or came from the summer-house. And, in fact, as the Professor had been dead for more than an hour when the discovery was made it seems pretty safe to say that the murder was committed before half-past three. So there’s our critical hour—half-past two to half-past three.”

  There was another brief silence while the Superintendent considered his line of action. Finally he told the detective to send down a message at once to the station to the effect that an immediate investigation should be made as to the origin of the chloral hydrate, the narcotic found in the lemonade. It seemed difficult to imagine why it had been put there, but equally difficult to think that it had been put there by someone who was not a member of the household. And, if so, then the chances seemed to be that it had been procured in Torgate ; and it was of a sufficiently unusual character to make it reasonably likely that its purchase could be identified, probably in the form of Syrupus Chloral.

  The detective was also instructed to enquire whether the bunch of keys which had been found in the safe included a duplicate of the one which had lain in the summer-house on the small table to the left of the door, and which had been found to be the key of the door. The Superintendent, in fact, regretted somewhat that he had not decided to complete his study of the various reports at the station before he resumed his work of interviewing the inmates of Cliff’s End, for he foresaw a good many supplementary interviews when he began to fit the facts together into their proper pattern.

  Guest was left alone with his thoughts while
the detective departed to despatch these messages by car to Torgate. He was again assailed by an uneasy feeling that the “political aspect” did indeed make a difference to the handling of the case ; he must certainly try to find someone who could give him a clear idea of what the Professor meant by describing his papers as “moral dynamite.” Perhaps that little American, with his Harmonious Society, or whatever it was called . . .

  When the detective returned, his chief thrust these anxieties to the background and politely summoned Mr. George Shipman to his presence.

  “Good morning, Superintendent—that’s the right title, isn’t it ? I hear you want to see me. Is this the patient’s chair—or have you got that by mistake ?”

  Mr. Shipman’s manner was distinctly breezy, and was perhaps not out of keeping with his appearance. He was a good-looking, athletic young fellow, about six feet in height, with smooth, dark hair, a sunburnt complexion, capable hands, which, like his face, told of an outdoor existence, and forehead and eyes which suggested imagination and intelligence. He was dressed with what Guest described to himself as careless opulence ; in other words, his clothes told simultaneously of a country holiday and an expensive tailor.

  Guest smiled in return, though inwardly he felt that the young man’s attitude was somewhat out of place in a guest of the stricken family.

  Mr. Shipman sat down and continued his breezy career.

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you much. Shocking business, isn’t it ? But fire ahead. You ask what you like and I’ll answer as well as I can.” And he lit a cigarette.

  The Superintendent thanked him politely, with no trace of irony in his tone or manner. He began by enquiring about Mr. Shipman himself, his identity and so forth, and learnt with little difficulty that he was one of that diminishing class who can afford a life of leisure and are unable to admit that such leisure implies a certain responsibility. Mr. George Shipman had apparently sauntered through Public School and University, devoting much energy to success in games, yet avoiding failure in the more academic pursuits without a great deal of difficulty. He made no secret of his attachment to Cynthia Paley, but equally did not pretend to much interest in her uncle’s work.