Half-Mast Murder

by Milward Kennedy

  “That all depends,” Mr. Trent interrupted, a Little hastily. “It’s a pity, I agree, that you didn’t bring the photos along with you.”

  “How’s that, sir ?”

  “Why, these shoes. That afternoon was the first time I’d worn them. That can easily be proved, I think. I bought them locally, and changed into them just before lunch. If by any chance they figure in the photograph——”

  “They do, sir. Or a pair just like them. I suppose you’ve only the one pair ?”

  “Oh, yes. I should think Richards or one of the maids could verify that.”

  The Superintendent noticed that Mr. Trent was singularly full of suggestions ; it really seemed that he had been waiting for an opportunity to direct attention to this business of the snapshots.

  There was a knock on the door ; the detective entered and handed a note to the Superintendent, who tore it open and read it with considerable satisfaction.

  “Wait,” he said to the man as he was about to retire. “You don’t mind ?” He turned to Mr. Trent. “But as soon as you and I have finished our talk, I’ve a job for him, and I’d like him to stand by.”

  “Oh, certainly,” said Mr. Trent. He too was delighted with the progress of the talk.

  “Let’s see,” Guest resumed. “Those snapshots. Oh, yes. Then I think we may certainly take it that the one of you was taken that afternoon. And I’m glad to say that, by the angle of the shadow of a hollyhock across the foreground, we can fix the time pretty accurately. Not as accurately as I should like, but it looks as if the camera had been moved a trifle when the picture was taken. A pity ; still, there’s no doubt it’s you—though, if I may say so, it’s not very flattering. The—er—shoes come out rather large.”

  Mr. Trent was drumming impatiently with his fingers on the arm of the chair.

  “Never mind that,” he said irritably. “What time was it taken ?”

  “Between four and a quarter past.”

  “Then—he must have been alive then.”

  “You never heard him enter the garden, sir ?”

  “No. Not a sound. But, as I told you—I took forty winks. And I should think I was at my soundest at about that time.”

  The Superintendent still looked dubious.

  “Don’t you agree ?” Mr. Trent asked sharply.

  “What, that it proves that the Professor was alive at four o’clock ?”

  He leant forward towards Mr. Trent, who frankly abandoned the attempt to smoke, and twisted his pipe nervously between his fingers.

  “At four o’clock it was pretty well impossible for anyone to go from the summer-house to the walled garden without Mrs. Arkwright or Mr. Shipman, or both, seeing him. They were on the terrace, looking towards that entrance to the walled garden. Possibly a boy scout could have done it with a dash—but I don’t imagine the Professor carried his hobby of ‘ surprise ’ photographs quite to that length.”

  He stopped abruptly and waited for the other to speak.

  “Then—who——” Mr. Trent began slowly and with obvious reluctance.

  “What about you, Mr. Trent ?” Guest asked briskly.

  “I !” said the latter, in shocked tones.

  “Come, sir. You took the opening I gave you very nicely and led me to the subject of the photographs. I quite see that it would be convenient to you to fix the time——”

  “But that’s absurd, my good man. I couldn’t have gone to the summer-house at four o’clock. So why should I need that foolish proof ? And, apart from that ; why shouldn’t someone else have taken the photographs ?”

  “All in good time, Mr. Trent. First of all, I suggest that someone who had been in the summer-house much earlier—I put it mildly, you see—wanted to have a proof—an alibi, if you like—which would for one thing suggest that the Professor was still alive at four o’clock. Secondly, I noticed—you couldn’t miss it—the remarkable difference between the first four snapshots and the last two. The first four were good—very good ; the fifth was poor ; the sixth—I should say it was exposed just to finish the film. In other words, whoever took it hadn’t a sixth—for him, a second—subject to suit the general scheme of the film, so to speak. And couldn’t go and look for one without spoiling the whole game. And had to finish the film, to bear out the account of the Professor’s intentions.”

  “This is monstrous,” Mr. Trent burst out.

  “It’s only a friendly talk we’re having, Mr. Trent,” Guest interrupted him calmly and mendaciously. “If you prefer to say no more, it’s quite O.K. Or perhaps I ought——”

  “Nonsense. This must be cleared up. Why shouldn’t someone else have taken the photograph ?”

  “Because, Mr. Trent, the case of the camera bears the fingerprints of only two men—Professor Paley and yourself.”

  The man of letters tried with trembling fingers to relight his pipe. “You may remember that, earlier this morning, one of my men asked you if you’d seen a document before, and gave it to you to examine. You must forgive the trick—but I didn’t want to drag you down to the station and charge you or anything of the kind.”

  “I object very strongly,” said Mr. Trent. “Wholly irregular, I should say it was. If you mean to accuse me——”

  “Gently, sir. I haven’t charged you yet, but I admit that I may have to. And I think I certainly must warn you—if I’d had the report before I should have done so at once.”

  And with due solemnity he delivered the statutory warning, well aware that in fact he ought not to have delayed it till this point was reached.

  “I don’t care a jot for all that red tape,” Mr. Trent said savagely. “You must listen to me. It’s a scandal that——”

  “Look here, Mr. Trent,” the Superintendent again iaterrupted him. “I want to play perfectly fair. I think I ought to have warned you sooner. So that now I think that the best thing I can do—it’s giving you a good deal more than you’ve given me, but never mind—is to tell you just what I’ve got against you. I’don’t want you to speak till I’ve done, and even then I’d advise you not to. Is that clear ?”

  “Very well. Let’s hear what you’ve got to say. But the whole thing is absurd nonsense. And I don’t see what on earth the photographs have got to do with it ?”

  “Just this, Mr. Trent. Only two people held that camera case—the Professor and you. The Professor couldn’t have taken the photographs, because we know from other sources that he certainly was dead some time before four o’clock.”

  Mr. Trent started, and seemed about to speak, but Guest went on firmly.

  “In other words, Mr. Trent, when you took that snapshot, the purpose was to fake an alibi, so to call it. That only means one thing—that when you took it you knew the Professor was dead. And that means that you had been in the summer-house and seen his dead body.”

  “Doesn’t prove I killed him.” Trent could no longer restrain himself. “And why on earth should I dream of murdering him —my best friend ?”

  CHAPTER XIX

  ELECTRIFIES AN ESSAYIST

  An uncomfortable silence followed Mr. Trent’s question, or perhaps challenge would better describe it.

  Guest became painfully aware for the third time that morning that he had reached a point where an arrest seemed the obvious next move. Was he for the third time to shy at the last moment, and leave a potential criminal to consider ways and means either of meeting his charges or even of evading arrest ?

  In his own mind he was satisfied that Mr. Shipman, though he had been guilty of folly, if not worse, in tampering with the scene in the summer-house, in failing to give the alarm, and in concealing subsequently the most important part of his knowledge, yet was not guilty of the major crime.

  There was plenty of evidence to show that others had preceded him in the summer-house. Indeed it was clearly established by Miss Paley’s evidence that her uncle was dead before Mr. Shipman entered, after his meeting with her ; and it was no less certain that he had not had the opportunity to visit it at an
earlier hour after lunch. True, there was the possibility that Miss Paley had not told the truth (as, certainly, she had not told the whole truth), in order to shield Mr. Shipman. But that was not the impression which Guest had gained ; on the contrary, he was inclined to think that he had been induced to imagine that the two young people were bound by closer ties of affection than really was the case. At all events, he doubted whether the affection was overwhelmingly strong on the girl’s side, and he even wondered whether the explanation of their failure to seek the Professor’s assent to their engagement was not to be found there, in the girl’s unwillingness to become engaged, and not in any expectation of the Professor’s opposition.

  Then Miss Paley. Her conduct immediately after lunch called for a lot of consideration ; but her conduct just before she met Mr. Shipman seemed on a par with his. Guest did not feel that she had been guilty of the stabbing ; true, if she had been, it would not have been wholly inconsistent with her conduct—but it would have been very nearly so. Furthermore, there seemed to be clear indications, apart from her own evidence, that someone had been inside the summer-house after the murder and before her visit.

  What then was the explanation of her curious conduct—especially her failure to raise the alarm ? She had clearly been terribly shocked by what she had seen ; but the shock seemed to have frozen her to inaction. Was she, too, shielding someone else ? Could it be Mr. Trent—who apparently was almost as much an uncle as the Professor had been ? Or was the other explanation which all along had haunted Guest’s mind the right one ?

  If so, it was possible that she only knew a part of the truth ; her ignorance of Dr. Cummings seemed entirely genuine.

  Thirdly, Mr. Trent. There was no difficulty in finding his motive. There was that quarrel with the Professor ; and there was that letter which the Professor had written after lunch. It was true that the only evidence of the quarrel was Richards’ account of what he had overheard. Richards, with his past history, was a witness whose credibility might be shaken without too much difficulty. He might indeed be regarded as to some extent a suspect, but for one or two considerations which definitely ruled him out: he had never been accused of a crime of violence, he seemed to have wiped his slate clean of the stain left by his youthful folly, through his years of faithful service to his benefactor, and had no sort or kind of motive for murdering him, and, finally, he could not have visited the summer-house unobserved at any time during the afternoon without taking an enormous risk. The effective action of Mr. Shipman, in locking the door of the summer-house, made it impossible for him to have committed the crime under the pretence of summoning his master to tea—and, in any case, this was out of the question, since it was certain that the Professor was killed long before that.

  Still, there was Richards’ evidence of the quarrel between Trent and the Professor. It was not unreasonable to think that, in the course of the quarrel, the Professor told Trent that he would not remain his executor. That might mean his literary or his financial executor ; in either case, Trent would lose both financially and morally if he were cut out of the will. He presumably knew as much ; and if, on the top of the quarrel, he had seen on the Professor’s desk a letter addressed to the lawyers—a firm, moreover, which he could hardly have failed to recognise—he certainly would have been glad to have it destroyed. True, the letter did not contain what he supposed ; but how was he to know that the Professor had already written to his solicitors, and that the letter on his desk merely contained an unidentified enclosure which (as happens to the best of us) he had forgotten to enclose ?

  But this, the Superintendent reflected, hardly seemed a sufficient motive for murder. Suppose Mr. Trent had done somewhat the same as Mr. Shipman ? That is, entered the summer-house and found the Professor dead in his chair. On the desk is an envelope addressed to his lawyer : Trent takes it. Then, instead of calling for help, and perhaps uneasily conscious of the quarrel overnight, he decides, instead, to build up an alibi for use in case he is suspected ? The camera and the fishing-line give him his cue ; and perhaps the Professor had really spoken of his intention to finish the film. It was not so very difficult, after all, to stow the camera in one of those capacious pockets.

  These theories explained why Trent and Shipman, and indeed Miss Paley too, were so anxious to rush down to the summer-house : the little American’s “impression” became a very sound and reasonable one. So far, therefore, the Superintendent felt that the evidence of murder against Mr. Trent was very weak : and, furthermore, two points remained unexplained—the marks of a pair of gloves and that wet foot-mark by the safe.

  These reflections, which indeed had been occupying the Superintendent’s mind on and off throughout the morning, arranged themselves a great deal more rapidly than they can be set out on paper. Still, the silence which followed Mr. Trent’s challenge was a protracted one, and Guest became aware that his subordinate was shifting his feet in some embarrassment in the background and that the man of letters was watching him with growing confidence, not to say elation, and a certain amount of contemptuous amusement.

  “I’ve been thinking it over carefully, Mr. Trent,” he said at last. “I said I wanted to play fair ; but I don’t think I can do that by telling you exactly why I’m anxious to have a full statement from you. You see, you insist on interrupting, and it’s almost bound to lead to an argument—you might say a cross-examination.”

  “Well, really, Superintendent, I think it’s for me to risk that, if I like to. After all, I know it’s impossible for me to incriminate myself.”

  Guest shook his head and rose to his feet. He stood over Mr. Trent almost menacingly and admonished him with stabs of his forefinger in the air.

  “No. It won’t do. The regulations don’t exist to be set aside for me—or you, Mr. Trent. We’ll leave it like this, that you’ll think things over carefully and consider whether it isn’t your wisest plan to tell me all you know. You see, I may know a good deal of it already, and may draw the wrong conclusions because I don’t know it all.”

  Mr. Trent again produced his ancient briar, filled and lit it.

  “I’ll think it over, since you insist,” he said. “That’s to say, I’ll try to remember any details about the day’s doings which till now I’ve overlooked, or forgotten. How’s that ?”

  “Better than nothing,” said Guest. “Don’t forget, Mr. Trent, that at the beginning of our talk I said that the problem I wanted to solve, and wanted you to help me in solving, was this : when was Professor Paley killed. And, short of fixing the exact time, the best thing is to narrow down the time during which the murder must have taken place. At present that period stretches, say, from twenty-five minutes to three until five or ten minutes past.”

  He paused suggestively. Mr. Trent exhaled a large cloud of smoke.

  “I see, Superintendent. I’ll think very hard about it. But I think I can safely say, here and now, that I know nothing which would put the time of the murder before three o’clock. In fact, I can’t possibly narrow it down to more than a quarter-past three. So it seems that I can’t really help you at all.”

  “On the contrary,” said the Superintendent, “what you say is of the utmost interest. I think I can even go so far as to say that, if you really mean what you’ve hinted—about the quarter-past three, I mean—there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t tell me the whole story.”

  By this time the man of letters had lost his air of superiority again ; at Guest’s last words he brightened, but then looked suspiciously at him.

  “Look here,” he said suddenly. “Let’s talk quietly about this. Alone, I mean. I won’t make a statement, or not yet. But if I’m sure you won’t use——”

  “Quite so, sir. I agree to that,” and the Superintendent motioned to the detective to withdraw.

  When the two men were alone, Mr. Trent carefully put down his pipe on the table beside him, leant forward in his chair, and ip a quiet voice, little above a whisper, proceeded to relate to the Superintendent al
most precisely what the latter had surmised of the critic’s movements that afternoon. He slid very lightly over the quarrel of the previous night, but Guest saw no reason to interrupt his narrative on that account.

  “It must have been just about half-past two when I went into the walled garden. I told you that before, but perhaps I ought just to mention that Harry Paley and I had an argument—or disagreement, I might call it. Never mind what about. Say it affected the arrangements he’d made in his will for other people. No names.”

  Guest gathered that he was supposed to think that this referred to Julian Paley, and the underlying suggestion to be that Mr. Trent had appeared in the röle of Friend to Prodigal Nephew. He made a throaty noise by way of encouragement to the narrator to continue.

  “I tried to read, you know. I’d got some reviewing to do. But I wasn’t happy in my own mind about it all. And I thought I’d go and have a word with Harry about it. He was at work, of course, and didn’t like to be interrupted. But there are times when an old friend feels justified in taking a liberty. And, with these young people running about, it wasn’t so easy to have a quiet word with one’s host.”

  “Quite so, Mr. Trent.”

  “You appreciate my feeling ? Good. Well, I strolled out of the walled garden and along to the summer-house. No one was about. On the tennis-lawn, I mean.”

  “What ! Do you mean that on the terrace——”

  Mr. Trent smiled. “No, the guard was not yet mounted there. But I caught a glimpse of George Shipman and Cynthia walking up towards the house. I hadn’t heard them in the tennis-lawn, so I don’t know where they’d been. And, well, frankly, I haven’t cared to say too much about it all to either of them. I haven’t seen Cynthia of course, and Shipman naturally enough avoids the subject. In fact, if it weren’t for Cynthia, I should think he’d have been off home by now.”

  The Superintendent was not interested in Mr. Trent’s analysis of Mr. Shipman’s frame of mind, though he was not surprised at it. However, the man of letters returned from his digression of his own accord, and resumed his account of events.