Half-Mast Murder

by Milward Kennedy

  “I just walked across to the summer-house—and there was my poor old friend, dead in his chair. You can imagine that I was horror-stricken—overwhelmed—almost stunned.”

  Inwardly Guest commented that he showed his horror in a peculiar way.

  “I—well, I hardly know what I did. It didn’t take much to realise that he was dead—murdered. But no one was in sight—I looked in the only places where anyone could have hidden. Beyond the summer-house I mean, and on the steps down to the sea. No one in sight. And it seemed to me that the body was beginning to get cold. You know, it seemed an age, but I daresay it was only half a minute.”

  “Why did you touch the knife, Mr. Trent ?”

  “Touch it ? I ? I didn’t touch it. I—couldn’t. And it could have done no good. But, as a matter of fact, I nearly did. Then I saw on the table an envelope addressed to his lawyer.”

  He gulped : this, he seemed to realise, was thin ice, and it would be difficult to skate over it elegantly.

  “It seemed to me to be hard that he should alter his will and be taken at his word, so to speak. It could do him no harm and would help the living to leave things as they were. So—well, I tore the letter up. Of course it was wrong. I suddenly saw that I had thereby put myself in a dangerous position.”

  The Superintendent again commented silently that the danger was really due to the fact that he had very different and less altruistic motives for destroying the letter.

  “There I was, with those pieces of the letter. In a flash I saw that I had better keep quiet. It couldn’t make any difference. Whoever did the deed was well away. I looked at my watch ; it was just on a quarter-past three.”

  “Ah,” breathed the Superintendent, “and then, sir ?”

  “Well, my eye fell on the camera, and suddenly I thought I saw a way of safeguarding myself. You’ve explained it, I needn’t repeat it. I thought of getting a bit of string, and then, looking round for a bit, I saw that fishing-line. Two reels. I took one. You know the rest. Of course, what I wanted was that the discovery should be made as soon as possible—and the police summoned.”

  The Superintendent did not trouble to point out the inconsistency. He had by this time formed a very poor opinion of Mr. Trent, and proposed to waste no words on him.

  “And I hoped to be there when the discovery was made so as to put back the camera. I never thought of the finger-prints, like a fool, I suppose. And I’d been very careful not to touch anything in the summer-house.”

  He paused, as if lamenting his folly.

  “Rather a shock for you when you found the door locked, Mr. Trent ?”

  “I didn’t believe it when Richards came and said so. Though I couldn’t conceive how the door could even have got shut. Can you explain it ?”

  The Superintendent intimated politely, but no more, that that was no concern of Mr. Trent’s.

  “Oh, very well. I don’t suppose you can, if the truth be known. But locked it certainly was. And no key in the lock.”

  “How long did it take you to think of your plan about the photographs ?” Guest bluntly headed him off these useless speculations.

  “Came in a flash. And I ran out of the place as fast asl could and back into the walled garden. I’m pretty sure no one saw me—in fact, quite certain. The sun-blinds were all down in the house, you know” (Guest nodded ; this had been one of the first points which had been ascertained,· when first the question of visibility arose), “and there was no one on either of the terraces or on the lawn. I should say I was back in my chair in the walled garden by sixteen minutes past three.

  “Mind you,” he continued after a second’s reflection, “I don’t say I had the exact plan in my head. I was pretty shaken. I sat down there, with the camera in my pocket, and tried to pull myself together. And I had a nasty shock when I heard the top door of the walled garden open. I didn’t dare to look up—the whole point was to pretend that I was asleep. I don’t know who it was, no one appeared, the door shut again. So I just sat there and thought it out. My plan was to take the photograph as soon as Cynthia—Miss Paley, that is—and Shipman began their tennis. But they never did. And then I heard voices, faintly, on the terrace. I waited and waited, and finally decided to risk it : put the camera down on the ground wedged among the flagstones, so that it couldn’t move, and aimed at my chair, and then took the photograph with the fishing-line. And then I just hoped for the best, wound on the film, and just aimed the last one at the sun.”

  There was a heavy silence.

  “So you see——” Mr. Trent began nervously.

  “I do,” said Guest rather savagely. “I can’t conceive why you did it—nor yet why you did not tell me all this straight away. It strikes me as a pretty poor way of showing your respect and—affection for an old friend. Still, that’s your affair, and not mine.”

  Mr. Trent was struck dumb by so frank a criticism, and began to stutter an indignant protest, which the other ignored.

  “What’s more, I don’t believe even now that you’ve told me the whole story. Oh, I don’t say you’re guilty of murder. It may sound a strange thing for a policeman to say, but, frankly, I don’t think you’ve got the guts to murder a man, even in his sleep.”

  Again the critic vainly tried to protest.

  “You can be thankful I take that view,” continued the disgusted Superintendent. “Otherwise you’d be under lock and key before you knew where you were. As it is, you’d better stay here. And remember the house is under supervision. And, while you’re here, it may comfort you to remember that all this is bound to come out in court, sooner or later, and Mrs Arkwright and the rest will know exactly how you behaved.”

  And with that he stamped out of the room, inwardly amazed at the strength of his own feelings, and leaving Mr. Trent in ah unpleasant mixture of panic and anger.

  CHAPTER XX

  STAMPEDES A SUPERINTENDENT

  If Superintendent Guest had had a companion to whom he could unburden himself on the way down to the police station, instead of a subordinate with whom the secrets of his heart were not to be discussed, he would have admitted that he was a good deal surprised, and not a little shamed, by his outburst. But something about Trent thoroughly roused him. He felt rather sorry that, so far as he could see, the fellow was clear of the murder.

  The subordinate, glancing at the frowning figure at his side, supposed that he was meditating the solution of the case ; had he, too, been free to express his thoughts in words, he would have said that the “Super” had been making a mess of things all the morning. And he would have added that thank goodness it was nearly time for a bite of food.

  A message awaited Guest from the Chief Constable. He proposed to look him up soon after one o’clock, and hoped that he was free to talk the case over with him at lunch. No more port, though, said Guest to himself, with the prospect of a heavy afternoon before him.

  He glanced at his watch and saw that he had half an hour or so to spare before he need expect Major Dillon. He decided that he could best occupy it in an examination of the papers found in the Professor’s desk and safe.

  These had in the interval been arranged conveniently and neatly in files, and it was a comparatively simple matter to inspect them. They seemed to consist exclusively of manuscript notes and other literary material, and nowhere was there anything which seemed “dangerous.” Certainly there was no sign of the mysterious letters to which that publisher fellow had alluded.

  On the other hand, there was a rough outline of the new book : or at least a series of notes which appeared to constitute such an outline and which agreed with the portions which existed in manuscript. Incidentally Guest was surprised to find that the Professor apparently wrote his books in his own hand, instead of dictating them. However, perhaps that was the safest plan with scientific books and real histories—as opposed to reminiscences.

  Little more had been written than an introductory chapter, consisting of a general survey of the world before the war, viewed internat
ionally. The second chapter had been started, and was apparently to deal with colonial expansion : how far did colonies generally meet the need for expansion and how far were they merely prizes for Imperialism ?

  The third chapter was to deal with armaments. The notes were fairly suggestive. “The Two Trades” ; “The Thirst” ; “Creating the Thirst” ; “Better Ways of Assuaging It”—these were among the jottings. It seemed to Guest that they bore out what Sir Guy Rogers had said. At any rate, those Letters from a Munition Maker, if of the character which he had described, would find a place in Chapter III.

  The Superintendent found nothing else to arouse his interest until he reached what evidently was to be Chapter VII. Here apparently the Professor had intended to examine certain causes of the war, which in his opinion lay not in Europe at all, but across the Atlantic. The notes were brief and unilluminating—almost as if the Professor had not been sure what the chapter was to contain, or what material he would have to work upon. This was borne out by the fact that the next chapter was described as “VIII (?VII).”

  Guest went carefully through the couple of pages which remained, but gleaned nothing from them. After a final survey of the causes of war, the Professor apparently intended to consider how far similar factors still remained. He had scribbled down such headings as “The Failure to Use the League,” “Nationalism in the League,” and so on. Guest was not only disappointed, he was a little disgusted. Of course he didn’t hold with war, but he wasn’t sure that it would be a good thing to abolish it altogether ; and he certainly wasn’t sure that the League of Nations, anyhow, could do that—and the fact that he had only the haziest idea of what the League of Nations really was rather strengthened him in his opinion. “You can’t trust these foreigners,” he said to himself, and had rather a shock when it suddenly occurred to him that he spent most of his time distrusting his own impeccable countrymen.

  He was rescued from these revolutionary imaginings by the arrival of the Chief Constable, once more attired as a superior gamekeeper.

  “Well, Superintendent,” he greeted him heartily, “none the worse for our literary evening, I hope ? Personally I slept like a log.”

  Guest intimated that, though he slept well, he had early been up and doing.

  Major Dillon grinned.

  “Coals of fire, eh ? Well, now, come along. I want to hear how things are going, and lunch seems a good way to do it. I’ve ordered a lunch at the Yacht Club—in a private room.”

  The Superintendent was about to get into the car when he bethought himself of the hapless Mr. Shipman.

  “Oh, one minute, sir,” he said hastily. “I—er—detained a young man this morning, but I think he’s clear, and I’ll just give word that he can go.”

  The Chief Constable raised his eyebrows.

  “For goodness’ sake, Superintendent, don’t confide that sort of thing to me. I’ll back you most of the way, but there are limits.”

  “It’s perfectly all right, Major. Quite in order,” Guest retorted stiffly, and returned to the station.

  Mr. Shipman seemed relieved at his release, and to bear no particular animosity against the police for having detained him. But the news that his story seemed corroborated and himself cleared of murder (whatever other offences he might be found to have committed) did not apparently elate him much.

  “I might add,” said Guest, as a happy thought, “that I haven’t any reason to suppose that Miss Paley stabbed her uncle either. But please don’t mention that to anyone.”

  Mr. Shipman brightened considerably, and promised quite effusively that he would not breathe a word to a soul. Guest felt that he had more than squared the account and himself departed beaming to rejoin Major Dillon.

  The lunch lacked the richness and the variety of last night’s dinner, and the stage of coffee and cigars was pretty soon reached.

  “Now, Superintendent, let’s hear what you’ve been up to.”

  Guest’s ideas were arranged neatly enough, thanks to his meditations at Cliff’s End, and he gave the Chief Constable an able and succinct report, to which he listened with a twinkling eye.

  “You’ve rather been taking the bit between your teeth, haven’t you, Superintendent ?” he asked at the end. “Of course I don’t want to interfere, but all this unofficial interrogation, leading you up to the very edge of an arrest—well, isn’t it a bit risky ?”

  The Superintendent stoutly declined to agree. “It’s the only way with this kind of people, sir,” he asserted. “You know, I don’t believe in all this stuff about high-class political murder. It was one of the household did this job.”

  “I don’t say I altogether agree or disagree with you,” said the Major, looking at his cigar with half-closed eyes. “In fact, about half and half. That’s partly why I wanted to see you.”

  Guest looked at him enquiringly.

  “Yes,” he continued. “That’s a good part of my reason and I’m very thankful I did come along after what you’ve told me. For your analysis leaves only two likely people, doesn’t it—assuming of course that you exclude Mrs. Arkwright.”

  “You can safely do that, sir, both on psychological grounds and also—well, because the other evidence makes it impossible. You’d better see my time-table.”

  He produced his pocket-book and found the page, and was about to hand it over when he remembered that he had an addition and a slight correction to make. He now had learnt that, though Mr. Shipman had met Miss Paley at something like 3.10—or more probably 3.12—he had walked back with her as far as the house (by the way, the two of them must be asked to verify that) ; at 3.14 they had been together on the upper terrace, going towards the house. And at practically the same time Mr. Trent had been in the summer-house. At 3.16—or say 3.17—he had been out of it and back at his work in the walled garden ; and at, say, 3.20 Mr. Shipman in turn had entered the summer-house. Ah, yes, and Miss Paley had been in the summer-house, say, at 3.5, or possibly even a little later than that, for she could not on her evidence have been there more than a couple of minutes, and it was not till 3.13 or 3.14 that she and Mr. Shipman were back on the upper terrace.

  He made these alterations and handed over the book. While Major Dillon perused it, Guest meditated upon that question of the exact time when Miss Paley had been in the summer-house. Curious.

  “Yes,” said the Major, “we’ll rule her out on both grounds. Good work, this, of yours, Superintendent.”

  Guest looked his satisfaction, but asked his host to explain what he meant about his reasons for wanting the conference.

  Major Dillon apparently found his cigar in need of close scrutiny, and when he spoke he seemed rather embarrassed.

  “Fact of the matter is, it seems to me that we must assume that the political motive is the likeliest one. Indeed I have been —well„I’ve had a message from—let’s say an influential quarter A lot of importance is attached to this case. I mean, on political grounds. And—oh, well, the fact is, we’re being pressed, very hard, to call in Scotland Yard.”

  Guest reddened with anger, but said nothing.

  “Of course, I personally see no need for that,”, the Major went on, more easily. “And I think you’ve made amazing progress in the time. But—you see, don’t you, how awkwardly I’m placed ? ’ ’

  “It’s for you to say, sir, of course,” Guest responded stiffly “But if I might make a suggestion—?”

  “My dear fellow, go ahead.”

  “Well, sir. Why not give me a bit longer ? Personally I don’t see why, even, if we do come up against this political motive, we shouldn’t be able to see our way through it.”

  “The trouble is, that if we do that, and then after all are obliged—by the case, I mean, not by outsiders—to call in the Yard, they’ll have their usual grouse, that we didn’t call ’em in till the scent was cold.”

  “Then you’ve decided to ?” asked the Superintendent, making no attempt to conceal his chagrin.

  Major Dillon drowned the last quart
er of his cigar in the dregs of his coffee.

  “Don’t see how I can help myself,” he muttered. “I’m infernally sorry.”

  “I suppose it wouldn’t help I if—mean you couldn’t delay your assent till to-night ?”

  “To-night ? But you can’t——”

  “It’s rushing things a bit, but I think it can be done. I fancy I can get a case, against the right man, I mean. I’ve eliminated a lot, and with a bit of luck I can get two bits of corroborative evidence. I’m afraid it will be nothing but circumstantial evidence—may never be anything else, especially if we have to rush like this.”

  Dillon smiled.

  “No need to rush,” he observed. “But if you honestly think you see your way—well, go ahead. Or, I tell you what, how soon will you know whether you’ve got that corroborative evidence ?”

  The Superintendent shrugged his shoulders.

  “If I can get hold of the man quickly, it won’t be a matter of more than an hour or so.”

  “Good enough,” said Dillon. “I’ll stand by and see where you get to.”

  “Then we’ll get a move on right away,” Guest proposed, “and first of all I’d like to ring up the station.”

  The call was a short one, and the Superintendent, emerging from the door, led the way out of the club and along the seafront.

  He went up to the first boatman whom they saw, and asked where Tom Cluse was to be found.

  “Third groin,” the man replied briefly. “’Im with the whiskers. Can’t mistake ’im. Shore to be lots er nursemaids round ’im. It’s the whiskers do it.”

  They went briskly on their way until they reached the third of the series of breakwaters, built mainly of railway sleepers, which ran from the parade to the sea, and served not only to meet the onset of the storms, but also to keep the sand from shifting and thinning ; and the sand, the “children’s playground,” was an important source of Torgate’s prosperity.