Half-Mast Murder

by Milward Kennedy

  Shipman flashed a look sideways at him, and then resumed his nonchalant survey of the ceiling.

  In a couple of minutes the constable returned with a neat dossier, which he laid before the Superintendent, and withdrew. Guest opened it and ran his eye through the report. He was at pains to keep his face expressionless, for he was well aware that more of those sideway glances were being hurled at him. In fact, the report was, in his opinion, rather disappointing : he did some very rapid thinking, and then resumed his conversation (not to call it interrogation).

  “I take it you are prepared to swear, Mr. Shipman, that no one went from the summer-house to the walled garden while you were sitting on the terrace ?”

  The change of topic clearly surprised the young man, who replied rather impatiently that he had already said that if anyone had gone past the “cross-roads” he and Mrs. Arkwright must have seen him.

  “Or her,” said the Superintendent thoughtfully, and was astonished by the effect of the two little words on Mr. Shipman’s expression.

  “Oho !” thought he to himself, while the other, collecting himself, asserted that no one had passed.

  Guest ran rapidly over this new line of thought. If it was true that Miss Paley was upstairs—and he thought that there was no doubt of it—whilst Shipman and Mrs. Arkwright were on the terrace, the alarm produced by his casual interjection could have no relation to that particular period of time.

  Furthermore, the fact that the report in front of him stated with absolute confidence that the unknown finger-prints on the camera case were not Mr. Shipman’s, seemed a point in the young man’s favour. For it seemed to suggest that someone else had had an interest in trying to produce evidence that the Professor had been alive at four o’clock or so, long after he was, in fact, dead in his arm-chair.

  Suppose, then, that, as the evidence seemed to show to be a very likely theory, the young man’s part had been limited to faking the evidence of suicide ? Suppose he was trying to shelter —whom but Miss Cynthia Paley ?

  Shipman watched his interlocutor very uncomfortably during the pause in the conversation. The Superintendent’s next words fulfilled his worst fears.

  “There’s such a thing as accessory after the fact, Mr. Shipman,” he said slowly and gravely. “And I don’t think you do Miss Paley much good, either, by all this fencing with me.”

  “Miss Paley ! What the devil do you mean ?”

  “I suggest to you, Mr. Shipman, that when you met Miss Paley coming back—let’s say from the tennis-court—and saw how upset she was, and she went up to the house, saying she wasn’t up to tennis—you walked on to the summer-house. She might have had a row with her uncle, perhaps. And in the summer-house, you found—a dead body. Well ?”

  The last word was fired out like a bullet. And George Shipman jumped so violently that he dropped his cigarette. He leant forward to recover it, but Guest, fearing that he wanted to recover himself as well, promptly put his foot on it, and ground it into the carpet.

  “Come along, now, sir,” he said. “You can take it from me that I’ve plenty of evidence. For example, her story is that she was on the terrace or the lawn all the time till she met you, but I’ve a witness who’ll swear that at a minute or so after three o’clock she was nowhere to be seen. By your present attitude, you won’t shield her, and you’ll only make it worse for yourself. Is my account pretty accurate ?”

  “Damn it, yes.” Shipman spoke in a quivering voice. “But I can’t believe that she——” His voice tailed away into silence, and he stared miserably at the Superintendent.

  “I take it,” said the latter briskly, “that you decided to make it look as if it was a suicide ? Yes. Now besides what I’ve described, I take it that you pressed the Professor’s fingers on the hilt of the knife ?”

  Shipman nodded.

  “And you first wiped the handle with a bathing-dress ?”

  He nodded again.

  “Why did you do that ? Were there finger-prints there already ?”

  “Yes,” he muttered.

  “Sure of that ?” asked Guest sharply. “Not the marks of gloves, for instance ?”

  “No, fingers,” said Shipman, in some surprise, He spoke dully, and seemed overwhelmed by the situation which affairs had reached.

  “Big or small ? Man’s or woman’s ?” was the next question. Shipman evidently strained every nerve to recall the appearance of the knife-handle.

  “Rather large,” he said at length, but there was an element of dubiety. The Superintendent judged, correctly enough, that he had no clear recollection at all. At the time he had doubtless assumed, without considering it, that the finger-prints were Miss Paley’s. Now he was ready to swear the opposite. Guest abandoned the point, though one thing seemed certain—that the prints had been those of bare fingers.

  “You put the bathing-dress in the safe ?” he asked next. “Yes.”

  “Why ?”

  “I—I hardly know. But the safe door was open, and the keys on the floor, and I just chucked them both in and shut the safe door to with my foot.”

  “Wait a minute, Mr. Shipman. Where was the key of the summer-house ?”

  “Oh, that. That was on the key-ring. I suppose that was why I picked up the bunch. Of course, I remember now. I had to get the right key. But, honestly, I hardly know why I chucked the things into the safe. Stupid of me, I suppose.”

  “And what time was this ?”

  “Well, I hardly know. It seemed to take the devil of a time, but I suppose it was only a matter of five minutes, really.”

  “Now, let’s work it out,” said Guest. His tone was that of a physician famous for his bedside manner. “It was, I suppose, about ten minutes past three when you met Miss Paley. Did you go straight on to the summer-house ?”

  “Well, no. As a matter of fact, I strolled about and wondered what was up, and what I’d better do. And I peeped into the walled garden—er—by the lower gate. I said the top one when you asked me before, but that was later. Anyhow, there was Trent asleep. So then I thought the trouble must be something to do with the Professor. And I went and peeped into the summer-house and—my God, you can imagine how I felt.”

  “You could see from the door that he was dead ?”

  “It certainly looked like it,” he replied, with a shudder. “I mean, I could see the knife, and he was all collapsed in the chair, and the blood on the floor. Of course I wasn’t sure, and I felt his pulse.”

  “You didn’t shout for help ? Did you at once think that Miss Paley——?”

  “I didn’t then—and I don’t now.”

  “Why didn’t you call for help or something ?” Guest pressed him.

  “Oh, I suppose it was because Cynthia—Miss Paley hadn’t said anything to me,” he answered wearily.

  “Just so,” Guest spoke triumphantly. “You didn’t give the alarm because you were afraid that Miss Paley was—let’s say—involved.”

  “But I can assure you of this, the impression she gave me was, that she’d had a terrible shock—not that she’d done anything herself.”

  “Quite so, sir.” The Superintendent found refuge in his favourite non-committal expression. “And that’s as much as you can tell me, sir ? And you’re certain you saw no one else go to or from the summer-house ?”

  The unfortunate young man, who seemed crushed by the weight of his own admissions, vehemently repeated that that was so.

  “Well ?” he enquired heavily. “Anything more ? Can I go ?”

  “Sorry, sir,” the Superintendent replied. “You’ll appreciate that I shall have to check your story. I’ll have to detain you here for a couple of hours, say. We’ll make you as comfortable as we can.”

  “But what the devil ! Either you arrest me or——”

  Guest permitted himself a gentle smile.

  “Oh, no, sir. ‘ Detain ’ is the word. Just a matter of form, sir.”

  “Talk of Magna Charta and Habeas Corpus,” he observed bitterly. “Are you serious ?
I can promise that my solicitor——”

  The Superintendent managed to some extent to pacify him, though he fancied that he suspected the true purpose of the detention, which was to isolate Mr. Shipman from the household at Cliff’s End, while the new line of investigation was rapidly followed up.

  “By the way,” Guest asked as an afterthought, “did you wipe the jug and tumbler too ?”

  The other nodded.

  “Yes, with my handkerchief. Cynthia had said something about lemonade. And I was afraid—finger-prints, you know.

  There was a pause.

  “Right,” said Guest. “I must be off.”

  Mr. Shipman was led fuming away, and the Superintendent made haste to report progress to the Chief Constable, who expressed his gratification.

  “About the inquest, sir,” said the Superintendent, in conclusion, “could you fix it so that there’s an immediate adjournment for further evidence ? I don’t want to lose a moment at this stage.”

  Major Dillon seemed to think that this was well within his capacity. “By the way, Superintendent,” he added, “Sir Guy’s port seems to have had a good effect,” and he rang off before Guest could reply.

  CHAPTER XVII

  INCOMMODES AN INVALID

  The day was still young, and the Superintendent realised that much might depend upon his course of procedure. He lit a pipe, and through the haze of smoke tried to see how the pieces of the puzzle had begun to fit themselves together.

  Was he justified in taking extreme steps in the case of Miss Paley ? He ticked off on his hand his five main counts against her. But he felt vaguely dissatisfied ; he kept coming up against that camera and its photographs.

  Finally, with an exclamation of annoyance, he sprang up and hurried to the room where Shipman in fact though not in theory was incarcerated. He explained his irruption by the fact that he had one more fact to put to him : could he remember whether, when he first entered the summer-house and discovered the Professor’s death, a camera, in a case, had been lying on the newspapers on the sofa ?

  Shipman, when reassured that the answer to the question was not likely to do harm but good alike to himself and to Miss Paley, thought very hard over the matter : he clutched his hair with both hands, elbows on the table, as he tried to reconstruct in every detail the scene in the summer-house.

  “No,” he said at last, “I’m practically certain it wasn’t there. Quite certain, in fact. There were just the two fishing-lines. They were on the sofa, but not on the newspapers. Beside them, if you know what I mean.”

  The Superintendent thanked him, and, declining to express any. opinion in answer to Shipman’s anxious enquiries as to what he thought of the case, retired again to his own office to think things over. A blunder, even in the order in which he re-examined the possible actors, might lead to disaster.

  One thing at least was clear ; he must retrace his steps to Cliff’s End. He definitely required two pieces of information, or evidence, and really he needed them as a prelude to his further interviews. But it was unlikely that he could get them in time. He decided that he would leave matters to chance.

  He summoned the plain-clothes man again, and with him was driven back to Cliff’s End. He gave him on the way careful instructions as to the two jobs of work required of him.

  The butler failed once more to show any surprise either at the Superintendent’s return or at the non-return of Mr. Shipman. And he made no objection to ushering the Superintendent once more into Mrs. Arkwright’s room. The old lady made no effort to conceal both her surprise and her anxiety.

  “Back already, Superintendent ? And Richards tells me that Mr. Shipman went off in the car with you. You surely don’t mean to say that you think that that nice boy——”

  “I think he can help us, ma’am, that’s all. In fact, he’s doing so. But it isn’t really you I came to see, ma’am——”

  “I’m glad of that. You know, even at a time like this, the housekeeping has to go on.”

  “Of course, ma’am. And I’m afraid I’m interrupting it badly. As I say, it isn’t you I want to see, but you may wish to be present. The fact of the matter is, it’s essential for me to have another talk with Miss Paley.”

  “With Cynthia ! Well, I really don’t know. Your last talk upset her terribly, you know, poor child.”

  “I’m sorry to seem heartless,” Guest replied, “but I feel I must insist. Miss Paley really must be given a chance—at once—to clear up some peculiar problems.”

  Mrs. Arkwright was startled by something in his tone, and without another word led the way to her niece’s room.

  She knocked, and a faint voice called, “Come in.”

  She motioned to Guest to wait a minute. Through the closed door he could hear the murmur of voices, and seemed to detect a note of protest in one of them. Mrs. Arkwright reappeared on the landing.

  “She’s very much upset by the idea,” she told him, “but I suppose if you insist——”

  “Look here, Mrs. Arkwright,” he answered, “I don’t want to alarm you, but I think you ought to know that your niece is in a very equivocal position.”

  He was pleased with the phrase, and it had a marked effect on the old lady, who fairly gaped at him.

  “Very equivocal,” he repeated, like a man rolling a sip of brandy round his tongue. “Has she seen a doctor ?” he asked abruptly.

  “Oh, no. There’s nothing serious. It’s just the shock—general nerve strain, you know. In the ordinary way I should prescribe a dose, but the circumstances are rather special.”

  The twinkle in the old lady’s eye suggested to Guest that the phrase which he so greatly admired had not conveyed the sense which he had intended.

  “I really must warn you,” he said again, “it may come to—well, detaining her.”

  “Arresting her, d’you mean ?” asked Mrs. Arkwright, but, to Guest’s surprise, with no diminution of the twinkle ; indeed, his warnings seemed only to lessen her alarm. “If you mean to say that you think Cynthia—pooh ! You’d better come in at once.”

  Guest shook his head gravely, but the old lady refused to be impressed and ushered him into the room.

  “Here’s the policeman, my dear,” she said, smiling round at Guest. “And I’m afraid he’s got into a terrible tangle. He wants us to help him out of it—nothing to be alarmed about.”

  He greeted Miss Paley quietly ; he observed that she had evidently occupied the small delay in making her appearance as picturesque, and as languid, as possible. A tray, standing on a table by her bed, did not suggest, if its empty plates and toast-rack were fair evidence, that she was suffering from a serious lack of appetite.

  He took a chair beside the bed, and sat facing her. The light fell on her face. Mrs. Arkwright did not take up her previous position by the window, but seated herself on the edge of the bed, and, taking her niece’s hand in hers, patted it reassuringly.

  “The fact of the matter is, miss,” said Guest, “that I thought I ought to give you an opportunity to add to what you told me before—or to correct it. I quite realise that the shock of your uncle’s death was so recent then that you couldn’t talk about it all. But I’m sure you want to help us to catch the guilty party.”

  “Of—of course.” Cynthia Paley’s voice, if not her intention, wavered.

  “Very good,” Guest replied, and waited.

  “I—well—I——” she started, and then fell silent.

  “Come now, miss.”

  “I—told you all I could.”

  The Superintendent raised his eyebrows till they nearly met his hair, and Mrs. Arkwright, although unhappy at the turn which the interview seemed to be taking, was hard put to it not to laugh out loud.

  “You mean that ? And I’m to take it as final ?” he asked sternly. She nodded. Her “Yes” was so faint that it was hardly audible. He rose to his feet and addressed Mrs. Arkwright.

  “I shall have to send a doctor along to see Miss Paley,” he said.

 
“Nonsense,” came the prompt answer, “there’s no need at all.”

  “Ah, but there is, ma’am, from my point of view. I want to be sure that there’s no harm in moving her.”

  “Moving her ?” Mrs. Arkwright exclaimed. “What do you mean ?”

  “Why, ma’am, I took a bit of a risk in having this talk, instead of coming up here with a warrant for her arrest.”

  A faint scream came from the bed. Mrs. Arkwright patted her niece’s hand again.

  “Do you mean you’re really serious, Superintendent ?” she asked, and added to Cynthia Paley, “Now don’t be frightened. You ought to be laughing.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Guest said respectfully, “but what choice have I got ? Now if the young lady will be frank with me and tell me what she knows——”

  “But she’s done that already. I was in the room myself, and heard her.”

  He shook his head.

  “Won’t do, I’m afraid. Mind you, I don’t want to trap her into saying anything ; but if she’s innocent—and of course you’re quite sure she is—the best thing she can do is to speak out. No, it’s a fact that she hasn’t told me—or, I daresay, you either—all she knows. I’ll give you just one example. She didn’t tell me that when she met Mr. Shipman down on the tennis-court, at about ten minutes past three, she had just come out of the summer-house.”

  “What ! You mean my brother was still alive then. But I don’t see——”

  Guest arrested her with a movement of his hand, and kept his eyes on her niece, who was lying back as white as a sheet, the picture of terror. Mrs. Arkwright was taken aback by the girl’s manner and appearance.

  “He was already dead then, ma’am,” the Superintendent observed in even tones. Mrs. Arkwright’s eyes flickered from one to the other.

  “Cynthia !” she said, “do you mean to say——Is this true ? Hadn’t you better say something ?”

  “It’s—it’s true,” the girl said very faintly. Mrs. Arkwright gave a gasp.

  “But—but you never told anyone—sent for anyone,” she said.

  “No—no. I—of course. I ought to have done. But—I was so—upset and—frightened. Can’t you understand ?”