Half-Mast Murder

by Milward Kennedy

  “In fact, Mr. Shipman, bathing and lawn tennis have been your chief occupations here, since you came down last week ?”

  “That’s the sort of idea. Of course lawners isn’t much of a game, but——” He grinned, and the Superintendent found no difficulty in completing the sentence.

  “And now about yesterday. I understand you bathed before lunch ?”

  He nodded.

  “And after lunch ?”

  “Well, I was going to play tennis with Cynth—Miss Paley, but she didn’t feel up to it.”

  “Quite so, sir. But directly after lunch, what did you do ?”

  “Let me see. After lunch. Yes.”

  Guest tried to spur his memory.

  “You and Mrs. Arkwright and Miss Paley had coffee in here, I understand. And just about half-past two the butler went past the window with a tray of lemonade, and Miss Paley took it from him and carried it down to the summer-house.”

  “Oh, yes. That’s right.”

  “And what did you do after that ?”

  “Well, I sat there a bit, and then I went upstairs to change, you know.”

  “Did you go up when Mrs. Arkwright did ?”

  “Er—yes. I think so.”

  “Then you were changed some time before it was time for your tennis ? You had decided to play at 3.30, hadn’t you ?”

  “Yes. Well, I took a bit of time changing, I suppose. A hot day and so on. And the bathe had made me peckish, you know, and consequently I was a bit sleepy after lunch.”

  “Yes, sir. And after you’d changed ?”

  “I strolled down to the terrace and met Miss Paley—that is, she was there, you know. And she said she didn’t feel up to playing, and went indoors.”

  “You can’t say what time that was ?”

  “Not exactly. I should think about a quarter-past three—or getting on that way. Perhaps rather earlier.”

  “And what did you do after that ?”

  “Sat about on the terrace, and talked to Mrs. Arkwright.”

  “She came down at 3.30, so you were alone for twenty minutes or so.”

  “I daresay.”

  “Were you on the terrace all the time ?”

  “Well, really I don’t——”

  “It’s important, you know, sir. You see, from the terrace you’d see anyone who went towards or from the summer-house —at that point where the paths make a kind of cross-roads.”

  “By Jove, yes. So you would. All I can say is, I never saw anyone. And either Mrs. Arkwright or I certainly would have done.”

  “What I want to know, sir, is whether you were there all the time before Mrs. Arkwright came down ?”

  “Oh, I see. Well, I couldn’t swear that no one went to the summer-house then, because I was strolling about, you know. I mean, I didn’t sit still on the seat, like I did after Mrs. Arkwright came down.”

  “But still you were on the terrace all the time ? If so, you’d be able to swear that no one came from the house and went to the summer-house ?”

  “As a matter of fact, now I come to think of it, I went as far as the entrance to the walled garden. But Trent was there and I didn’t like to disturb him.”

  “Was he working ?”

  Mr. Shipman grinned.

  “No, he was asleep, I should say.”

  “And you didn’t yourself go to the summer-house ?”

  “Oh, no.”

  There was a pause. The Superintendent could not decide whether Mr. Shipman was as stupid as the interview suggested ; he was inclined to suspect that he was not. Mr. Shipman broke the silence.

  “I say, Superintendent, what’s the idea ? Don’t you think that the Professor killed himself ?”

  “What makes you think so, sir ?”

  “Well, I don’t see how else you can explain it. I mean, we had to break in the door, you know, and the key was inside the summer-house.”

  “Quite so, sir,” said the Superintendent, making a quick mental note. “That may be so, or it may not. We have to make full enquiries, you know.”

  He proceeded to question him about the actual discovery of the Professor’s body, but could extract nothing new. The young man seemed totally unable to explain why the butler’s report had made them all so anxious to dash down to the summer-house. Psychology, he said, was not his strong suit.

  There was another pause. The Superintendent had a sudden idea. He opened his case again, and produced the print of the photograph of the tennis-player. He held it out towards Mr. Shipman, and glanced keenly at the other’s outstretched hand. Mr. Shipman was only able to conjecture that the Professor had taken the photograph on the day before the tragedy ; he admitted, with a flash of his white, even teeth, that he was the subject of the portrait.

  His scrutiny of it gave Guest ample opportunity to study his right hand ; there was no trace of the cut or scratch which Mrs. Arkwright had mentioned. Perhaps it was the left hand. But the left hand throughout the interview had been much to the fore, carrying cigarettes to Mr. Shipman’s lips, and it bore no trace of a recent cut. Both hands, in fact, were remarkably well groomed, despite their “useful” appearance.

  Shipman handed back the snapshot with a grin.

  “Meant to be me, I think,” he said, “but I’m not really so ferocious as that.”

  Guest made no reply, but went straight to the point which really interested him.

  “So your hand’s all right again, sir ?” he queried rather sharply.

  “Hand ? What d’you mean ?”

  “I understood you’d cut it yesterday, and that Miss Paley——”

  “Oh !” He seemed distinctly taken aback. “Good heavens, that was nothing. Just a scratch—a thorn or probably a scrape when I was bathing. You know how a pin-prick bleeds.”

  Guest turned it off with a laugh, more or less convincingly. But he was not altogether satisfied—particularly since the suggestion of a scratch while bathing was manifestly absurd. The incident rather confirmed his suspicion that Mr. Shipman’s appearance slightly belied his character. Still, there was nothing very tangible to take hold of, so he concluded the interview by ascertaining that Mrs. Arkwright had asked Mr. Shipman to stay on in the house, an invitation which he had accepted because he thought that she really wanted him to do so.

  CHAPTER X

  INTERVIEWS AN INGÉNUE

  Mrs. Arkwright came into the room to tell the Superintendent that her niece was not well enough to come downstairs, but that there seemed no reason why he should not question her for a few minutes if he wished to do so. He said he would like to, and Mrs. Arkwright departed to warn Miss Paley.

  A constable met Guest in the hall and handed him a note from the station. It was in reply to his message, and told him that the bunch of keys did not include a duplicate of the one found on the side table. He stood a minute in the hall tapping the piece of paper against the finger-tips of his left hand, his lips screwed up in a silent whistle, his gaze fixed abstractedly on the barometer.

  He roused himself from his brown study with a physical jerk. He would see Miss Paley before he allowed himself to make a first attempt to visualise the case as a whole, and to decide the points which particularly needed further investigation. The more of its pieces you have, the easier the jig-saw puzzle becomes. He gave a brief order to the detective, and then asked the maid, who was waiting in the hall, to conduct him to Miss Paley’s room.

  Cynthia Paley presented a picturesque appearance, her close-cropped, golden head propped on a quantity of pillows, her shoulders enveloped in a blue silk Chinese wrap. Her delicate, oval face was very pale, and there were heavy, dark lines under her blue eyes. The room was in deep shadow, and was scented with eau-de-Cologne. Mrs. Arkwright was seated in a low chair by the window, and looked enquiringly at Guest as he entered. He interpreted the look aright and invited her to remain.

  Cynthia Paley greeted him with a wan smile.

  “Now, Superintendent,” Mrs. Arkwright said, “you mustn’t disturb our patient too mu
ch.”

  “Of course not, ma’am. The thing to do is to get her well and strong again, and give her a change of air, isn’t it ? There’s only one or two questions I want to ask her.”

  He sat down in a chair beside the bed. There was no mistaking the girl’s expression : apprehension. The Superintendent tried to adopt as reassuring a tone as possible.

  “Now, Miss Paley, don’t be alarmed. First of all, you can tell me how your uncle was when you took down the tray of lemonade to him yesterday. Quite cheerful, and so on ?”

  “Yes, I think so.” Her voice was very faint; there was no diminution of her look of alarm. “He—didn’t say much. Just ‘ thank you.’ He was busy writing.”

  “Ah, he was already at work ?”

  “Yes.”

  Then there must have been an interval, Guest said to himself, between the arrival of the lemonade and the moment when the Professor and Mr. Trent parted company. That seemed to square with the latter’s account of events.

  “Did you pour out a glass of lemonade for him ?”

  She thought for a second, and then said that her uncle had asked her to do so. Guest was not altogether surprised by the slight hesitation, though he could not help regretting it.

  “You didn’t stay and talk then, but came straight back ?”

  “Yes.”

  “Straight back to the house ?” he insisted, and again she hesitated.

  “N-no,” she said. “I walked across the lawn and sat upon the terrace.”

  “I see. And you sat there—till when ?”

  “Till George—Mr. Shipman came out.”

  “Oh. But you weren’t seated on the terrace then, were you ? I understood him to say——’

  “Oh. No. No, I wasn’t. I just strolled down to the tennis-court. We were going to play a little later. And then I came back and met him.”

  “And told him you weren’t feeling up to a game ? I hope there was nothing wrong with the court, Miss Paley.” Guest smiled.

  “Oh, no. It was—so hot. I felt—rather faint.”

  “Quite so,” was Guest’s characteristic comment. “However, the point is that from the time when you left your uncle to the time when you met Mr. Shipman, you’d almost certainly have seen anyone who went to the summer-house, or came from it.”

  “Yes, I think so,” she answered, more faintly than ever.

  “And you saw no one ?”

  She shook her head, her lips framing an inaudible “No.”

  “So that, as you met Mr. Shipman at about ten minutes past three, we know that up to that time you were the last person to enter the summer-house. And if anyone else went in it was after that.” The Superintendent spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, seeming not to invite comment. “Was the door of the summer-house open when you left it ?” he went on.

  The girl nodded. Guest looked thoughtfully at the carpet.

  “Now about tea,” he resumed. “What made you so alarmed, Miss Paley, when the butler came back from the summer-house ?”

  This she could not or would not answer.

  “And what alarmed you when you all went down there ?” was his next question.

  “I suppose the—the shock. The news.”

  Mrs. Arkwright moved restlessly behind him, but Guest’s tone remained quiet and gentle when he said :

  “You mean the news of your uncle’s death ? But you fainted —collapsed—before the door had been broken down.”

  “Yes,” she said, and her eyes wore an expression of even greater alarm. “I—the noise of the hammering. And the flag.” And her shoulders began to shake, and her eyes to fill with tears. Her aunt came quickly over and signed to the Superintendent.

  “A last question,” he said hurriedly. “Have you seen your brother since he came down ?”

  She shook her head, and then began to sob violently. Mrs. Arkwright hustled Guest from the room with a firmness which almost surprised him, until he thought again of that determined chin.

  “I’m sorry, Superintendent,” she said when they were on the landing, the bedroom door closed behind them “But you see how terribly this has upset her. And you’re the first visitor I’ve allowed her to have. I knew she would want to know how it happened, if I let one of the others see her, even George. So you see she doesn’t really know anything.”

  “Quite so,” Guest answered, in accordance with his custom. “You mean that, apart from the servants, she’s seen no one but you and me so far ?”

  “Yes. And only the housemaid, of the servants. You see, she is the new-comer on the staff, so I thought Cynthia wouldn’t talk to her. I’m so afraid of this preying on her mind.”

  Guest hardly felt qualified to dispute the old lady’s judgment, but in his heart of hearts he wondered whether she was aware of the difference between the young girls of to-day and those of the Victorian era. Nor had he forgotten those snapshots, which suggested an athletic, outdoor person of flesh and blood, and not a delicate Dresden shepherdess to be kept in cotton-wool.

  He hinted remotely at this alternative point of view, and expressed a firm hope that within a day or two Miss Paley would be herself again, and ready and able to add her efforts to those of all the rest who were determined that the shocking business should be clea red up. And with that he made his way downstairs and out on to the terrace. He saw that two men were seated on the lower stage, in the shade of the trees by which the party had been assembled at tea-time the day before. They were Mr. Trent and Mr. Shipman ; he did not want to spend any more time yet with either of them, so he made his way carefully and quietly to the door into the walled garden, and through the garden to the summer-house.

  He spent some time in refreshing his recollection of its position and appearance, and finally satisfied himself that no one could possibly have got in or out of it through any of the windows, and equally that it was impossible through any of the windows to see the chair in front of the writing-table.

  He sighed gently. This seemed to clarify the limits of his problem, though it made it no easier to solve.

  At half-past two, or five and twenty minutes to three, Miss Cynthia Paley had taken the Professor his tray of lemonade. He was then quite cheerful, and hard at work, and the door of the summer-house was open. That, at all events, was her story. At five o’clock the door was locked and the Professor had been stabbed to death, while under the influence of a sleeping-draught. According to Mrs. Arkwright, who should know if anyone did, there was only the one key to the summer-house, and that one was kept on the Professor’s key-ring ; but it had been removed from the ring and laid on the little table behind the door, and the rest of the bunch thrown into the safe. With it in the safe was the bathing-dress which had been used to wipe the handle of the fatal knife clean of blood.

  All this seemed at least to hang together. It suggested, especially when the finger-prints on the handle were taken into account, that the murderer had made an attempt to create an impression that the Professor had killed himself.

  It followed surely from this that the murderer’s knowledge of the effects of the drug was small ; he must have assumed that the medical examination of the death would not reveal its presence, or its effects on the Professor at the time of his death.

  Secondly, it followed that the murderer must either have possessed a duplicate key of the summer-house, or else he had contrived to put it down on that table by the door after the discovery of the murder. In other words, it must be one of the men who broke into the summer-house ; or, at all events, one of those three must have put the key on the table, and, if that man was not the murderer, he was at least an accomplice.

  Not three men, Guest recollected suddenly ; there had also been little Mr. Quirk. And yet—Mr. Quirk had been perfectly certain that none of the other three had been near that table. If he had been the man with the key, he surely would not have been so positive, particularly since he himself admittedly was alone in the summer-house a few minutes later. His evidence, in other words, tended to exonerate everyone but h
imself from any suspicion of having put the key on thé table.

  The wiping of the knife-handle was another point which continued to worry the Superintendent. If the murderer had worn gloves, why had he been so careful to wipe the handle ? And not only that, but also the tumbler and the glass ?

  Guest shrugged his shoulders, and decided to return to the station and after lunch resume his interrupted scrutiny of his “exhibits.” Equally important, he must try to put down on paper where each member of the household at Cliff’s End had been during the period between 2.30 and 5 ; and what other member of the household was in a position to corroborate each claim. There seemed to be a number of “gaps” in the stories which he had heard, and a careful analysis was an essential preliminary to some further questions.

  Mr. Shipman and Mr. Trent were still seated on the lower terrace, so Guest returned by the way he had come, and on his emergence from the upper door of the walled garden ignored the evident interest which the two men took in his movements and kept straight on across the grass toward the landward end of the house. This course brought him past the back door and the servants’ quarters, and here he happened to encounter the housemaid of whom Mrs. Arkwright had spoken to him.

  He greeted her pleasantly, and, urged by some sudden impulse, remarked that he had seen Miss Cynthia, and that she seemed to be a good deal better.

  “Pore young lady,” the girl answered, “it give me the shock of me natural to see her lying there like a ghost last night, and muttering to herself about that murdering knife.”

  The Superintendent blessed his instinct. Without betraying the keenness of his interest, he questioned the girl and satisfied himself that she had no doubt at all of the subject of Miss Paley’s mutters. And as he drove down to Torgate he added a mental note to his list of “movements of the household” which called for the most accurate scrutiny. This Miss Paley seemed to be gifted with something remarkably like second sight, and the police are notoriously sceptical of the genuineness of qualities of that kind.