This brutal truth made Joseph wince. He said: ‘Stephen, Stephen!’ in an imploring voice.
‘I think,’ said Maud, getting up, ‘that I shall go and sit in the drawing-room with my book.’
Joseph glanced at her with humorous affection. ‘Yes, my dear, do that!’ he said. ‘Try to put it all out of your mind! How I wish that I could do the same! But I am afraid the Inspector will want to see you.’
‘Oh yes!’ she said, uninterested.
‘There is nothing to be afraid of, you know. He is quite human.’
‘I am not afraid, thank you, Joseph,’ she replied placidly.
Paula barely waited until she had left the room before
ejaculating: ‘If I’ve got to listen to extracts from that ghastly book on top of everything else, I think my nerve will crack!’
‘Keep calm, sister: Aunt has lost the book.’
‘Stephen!’ exclaimed Joseph. ‘No, that’s too bad of you! If you’ve hidden it, you must give it back to her at once.’
‘I haven’t touched it,’ said Stephen curtly.
Neither Mathilda nor Paula believed this, but as Joseph showed signs of pressing the point, they intervened to prevent an explosion. Mathilda said that no doubt it would turn up; and Paula wondered how Roydon was getting on with the Inspector.
He was not, as a matter of fact, getting on very well. Policemen represented to him, quite irrationally, his personal enemies. He did not like them; they made him nervous, in much the same way that butlers did, so that he felt that his clothes were shabby and his hands too large. To conceal this discomfort, he assumed a grand manner, and was inclined to overact his unconcern. He said: ‘Ah, Inspector, you want a word with me, don’t you? I’m quite ready to tell you anything I know, of course, but I’m afraid that won’t be much. I’m only down for the week-end, as I daresay you’ve heard. In fact, I hardly knew Mr Herriard.’
He ended on his nervous laugh. He hadn’t meant to say all that; he knew it must have sounded artificial, but somehow he was unable to stop himself. To occupy his hands, he lit a cigarette, and began to smoke it, rather too fast. He wished the Inspector would stop staring at him so unblinkingly. As though he were a wild beast in a show! he thought resentfully.
The Inspector asked him for his name and address, and
slowly wrote these down in his notebook. ‘Were you acquainted with the deceased previous to your arrival here?’ he asked.
‘No. Well, naturally I knew of him, but I hadn’t actually met him. I came down with Miss Herriard. She invited me.’
‘I understand you are occupying the bedroom next to the deceased’s?’
‘Oh well, yes, in a way I suppose I am!’ conceded Roydon. ‘Only there’s a bathroom in between, so naturally I didn’t hear anything, if that’s what you mean.’
‘When you left the drawing-room after tea, did you go straight upstairs to your room?’
‘Yes. At least, no! Now I come to think of it, Miss Clare and I went into the library. As far as I remember, Miss Herriard joined us there. It was after that that I went up to change. I’ve no idea where Mr Herriard was by that time. I never saw him again after I left the drawing-room.’
The Inspector thanked him, and requested him to ask Miss Herriard to come to him.
Paula was not afraid of policemen. She answered the Inspector’s questions impatiently; and when he asked her if she had had any quarrel with Nathaniel, said that no one could possibly live for half a day with Nathaniel without quarrelling with him. But when the Inspector wanted to know why she had quarrelled with her uncle, she replied haughtily that it was none of his business.
This did nothing to prejudice him in her favour, and since under his remorseless probing she very soon lost her temper it was not long before he had learnt that she had wanted Nathaniel to give her money for some undivulged purpose, and that he had refused.
‘But if you think that that’s got anything to do with the murder you’re a fool!’ Paula said. ‘I shouldn’t have told you, only that the whole house knows it, so that you were bound to find it out sooner or later. Do you want to know anything else?’
‘Yes, miss, I want to know what you did when you left the drawing-room after tea.’
‘Oh, I don’t know!’ she said. ‘Do you think I keep a record of my movements?’
‘Did you go straight upstairs?’
She condescended to give the matter a little thought. ‘No; I went into the library. I went upstairs later, with Mr Roydon.’
‘Did you go to your own room?’
‘Of course! Where else should I go?’
‘And you did not come out of it again until you joined the rest of the party downstairs?’
‘No,’ she replied briefly.
He let her go, and sent for Edgar Mottisfont. If she had been belligerent, and Roydon patronising, Mottisfont provided a contrast to them both by using an ingratiating manner. That he was nervous was plain to be seen, but they were all nervous, the Inspector thought, and no wonder. Mottisfont seemed more shocked than any of them, reiterating his horror, and his incomprehension. He had been intimately acquainted with Nathaniel for close on thirty years; for many years he had spent Christmas with Nathaniel. Nothing like this, he said, unconscious of absurdity, had ever happened before.
‘I understand there had been some unpleasantness,’ the Inspector said.
‘He was a hard man. Out of touch with the younger generation, you know. It was Miss Herriard’s fault for bringing Roydon here. She should have known better! However, that’s not my affair. I’ve never pretended to understand that couple. Seemed to take a delight in annoying their uncle! I don’t know why Herriard put up with them, but there’s no doubt he was fond of them, in his way.’
‘May I ask, sir, if Miss Herriard had any particular reason for bringing Mr Roydon here?’
Mottisfont seemed to feel that he had said too much. He replied evasively: ‘You’d better ask her. It had nothing to do with me.’
‘There was no quarrel between yourself and Mr Herriard?’
As he put the question, the Inspector knew that there had been a quarrel. It was as though a curtain was drawn swiftly over Mottisfont’s face, shutting him in. He had been a little off his guard, talking querulously about the young Herriards, but now he was wary again, trying to make up his mind, the Inspector guessed, what he should say. Probably he didn’t know who might have overheard his quarrel; didn’t dare lie; didn’t want to tell the truth. All the same, these nervous witnesses! The Inspector waited, keeping his gaze steady on Mottisfont’s face.
The weak grey eyes behind Mottisfont’s spectacles shifted. ‘Not a quarrel. Oh, dear me, no! Nothing of that sort! Why, we’ve been in partnership for twenty-five years! What an idea! We merely disagreed about a matter purely concerned with the business. Herriard was more or less of a sleeping-partner, you know, but very fond of interfering with the actual running of the business, if you gave him the chance. A little old-fashioned: didn’t move with the times. Many’s the battle-royal we’ve waged! But I think I may claim to have been able to handle him!’
Considering him: weak eyes, harassed brow, peevish mouth; and remembering Nathaniel’s dominant personality, the Inspector disbelieved him, but he did not press the matter. He thought the whole pack of them were lying, one way or another, some to shield others, some from fear. No sense in getting oneself bogged in a swamp of misstatements until he’d heard what the experts, busy in Nathaniel’s room upstairs, had gleaned. He seemed, therefore, to accept Mottisfont’s statements, and asked the inevitable question: ‘When you left the drawing-room, where did you go?’
He’d known what the answer would be, of course. Mottisfont had gone up to his room, to change for dinner, and had not come out of it again until he had joined the rest of the party in the drawing-room.
The Inspector dismissed him, suppressing a sigh. Alibis were the bane of a detective’s life, but he felt he would have welcomed one now. Gave one something to catch hold of,
in a manner of speaking. You might have a chance of disproving an alibi: more of a chance, at any rate, than of disproving that these people had all been in their own rooms when Nathaniel was killed.
Consulting his notebook, the Inspector sent for Miss Dean.
As soon as Valerie came into the room, he saw that she
was badly frightened. He did not think, critically surveying her, that she would be capable of stabbing anyone, but he thought she could be scared into talking, and felt more hopeful.
Her first words were an agitated disclaimer of any knowledge at all of the crime, and a demand to be allowed to go home at once. He told her that she had nothing to be afraid of, if she was quite frank with him.
She said: ‘But I don’t know anything! I went straight up to my room to change. I never had any quarrel with Mr Herriard! I can’t think why you should want to question me. I should have thought Miss Herriard was the person who could tell you most. It was all her fault!’
‘What makes you say that, miss?’
‘Because it was! Of course, they’ll all be furious with me for saying so, but I don’t see why I should sacrifice myself to protect them! She wanted Mr Herriard to let her have two thousand pounds to finance Mr Roydon’s play – though I’m absolutely certain he had nothing to do with it, because he’s not that kind of person at all. But Paula was furious because Mr Herriard didn’t like Willoughby’s play, silly old fool, and she had a simply frantic row with him, and absolutely slammed out of the room. Actually, it’s a marvellous play, but Mr Herriard was definitely moth-eaten, and he rather loathed it. Besides which he was in a stinking temper already, because I rather think he’d been having a row with Mr Mottisfont.’
‘What about?’ asked the Inspector quickly.
‘Oh, I don’t know, only Mr Mottisfont was utterly sunk
in gloom – of course, he’s wet all round the edges too – and everything was ghastly, one way and another.’
‘In what way, miss?’
‘Oh, on account of Stephen’s being in one of his foul moods, and Paula doing nothing but stride about the place in a temper, and Mathilda Clare thinking herself very clever, and completely monopolising Stephen, just as though she were the only person who counted! And she isn’t even moderately good-looking. In fact, she’s haggish.’
There did not seem to be very much to be made of this, although the disclosure that Paula wanted money for Roydon’s play would bear looking into, the Inspector thought.
‘The only person who’s been in the least decent,’ pursued Valerie, now fairly launched on a flood of grievances, ‘is Uncle Joseph. I wish I’d never come, and I know my mother will be utterly livid when she hears what’s happened! It isn’t as if it was even any use my coming, because I never had a chance to get to know Mr Herriard, which was the whole idea. I think he was a woman-hater.’
‘Indeed, miss? Didn’t you and him get on together?’
‘Well, we never had a chance, what with one thing and another. I must say, I thought he was frightfully rude, but Stephen was just about as tactless as he could be, goodness knows why! and Paula would keep on about Willoughby’s play, when anyone could see it was only making Mr Herriard worse.’
She continued in this strain for several minutes, leaving the Inspector with the impression that the household contained few, if any, persons who would have been unwilling to have murdered Nathaniel.
This somewhat irresponsible testimony was contradicted by Maud, who when summoned to the morning-room came in with the deliberate tread of all stout persons, and betrayed neither alarm nor any particular interest.
Maud baffled the Inspector. She answered readily any questions put to her, but her face told him nothing, and she seemed either to be very stupid or very much too clever. She said that she had been in her bedroom from the time she had left the drawing-room until she had returned to it, just before dinner. The Inspector had expected that: it would be quite a shock, he reflected bitterly, if any of these people said anything else. Maud said that no doubt her husband could corroborate her statement, since he had been in his dressingroom, next door. The Inspector nodded, and asked her if there had been much unpleasantness in the house.
Maud’s pale eyes stared at him. ‘I didn’t notice anything,’ she said.
In face of what he had heard from the other witnesses, this startled the Inspector. He looked suspiciously at Maud, and said: ‘Come, come, Mrs Herriard! Isn’t it a fact that there had been a good deal of quarrelling going on between the deceased and certain members of the house-party?’
‘I daresay,’ said Maud indifferently. ‘I didn’t pay any attention. My brother-in-law was a very quarrelsome man.’
‘Oh!’ said the Inspector. ‘Then you wouldn’t say that there had been anything out of the ordinary in the way of unpleasantness?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘There is always unpleasantness in this house. Mr Herriard was very disagreeable.’
The Inspector coughed. ‘You’ve lived here for some time, haven’t you, madam?’
‘Two years,’ she said, without a change in her expression.
‘Then I may take it that you know most of the ins and outs of the place, as one might say?’
‘I never interfered,’ said Maud.
‘No, madam, I’m sure…Would you say that there had been any serious trouble between the deceased and any of his guests?’
‘No. There is usually trouble when my husband’s nephew and niece visit Lexham. They do not try to please their uncle. The Herriards are like that.’
‘Quarrelsome, do you mean?’
‘Yes. Mr Herriard liked it.’
‘He liked having his relations quarrel with him?’ asked the Inspector incredulously.
‘I don’t think he minded. He never seemed to like people who were civil to him. He was very rude himself, very. He didn’t mean anything by it.’
‘Would you say that there had been serious trouble over this play which Miss Herriard wanted her uncle to spend money on?’
‘Oh no!’ Maud said calmly. ‘He didn’t care about the play, that’s all. I didn’t either.’
‘Did he refuse to put up any money?’
‘I expect so. I daresay he would have in the end, however. He was very fond of Paula. It was a stupid moment for her to have chosen, that’s all.’
‘Why was it a stupid moment, madam?’
Her eyes slowly turned towards him again. ‘Mr Herriard was annoyed about the party.’
‘In what way?’
‘He didn’t want a party.’
‘But if he didn’t want it, why did he have it?’
‘It was my husband’s doing. He is not at all like his brother. He thought it would be a good thing. But Mr Herriard very much disliked Miss Dean, and that upset him.’
The Inspector pricked up his ears. ‘He disliked Miss Dean? He didn’t want his nephew to marry her?’
‘No. But I don’t suppose he will. I always thought he had made a mistake. I expect he stuck to it to annoy his uncle.’
This seemed fantastic to the Inspector. ‘Stuck to it to annoy his uncle?’
‘He likes annoying people,’ said Maud.
This matter-of-fact opinion, stated with a simplicity that could not but carry weight, confused the Inspector’s mind. He began to perceive that he had to deal with extraordinary people, and it was with misgiving that he presently confronted Mathilda Clare.
His first thought was that she was no beauty, his second that she had very shrewd eyes. Her indefinable air of expensive chic slightly alarmed him, but he found her perfectly easy to get on with, if not very helpful.
She corroborated Maud’s testimony. She had never yet, she told him, stayed at Lexham Manor without finding herself pitchforked into the middle of a family quarrel. ‘Though I’m bound to say,’ she admitted, ‘that things weren’t usually as sultry as they have been this Christmas. That was Joseph Herriard’s fault. He meant it all for the best, but he’s one of those tactless creatures who spend t
heir whole lives putting their feet into it. This time he’s surpassed himself, for not content with getting Miss Dean into the home he allowed Miss Herriard to bring Mr Roydon here.’
‘I understand that Mr Roydon came to get Mr Herriard to finance a play of his?’
‘That was the general idea,’ admitted Mathilda. ‘But Mr Herriard thought not.’
‘Very upsetting for Mr Roydon,’ said the Inspector invitingly.
‘Not at all. He is now determined to let the play stand on its merits.’
‘Oh! And Miss Herriard?’
‘Miss Herriard,’ responded Mathilda coolly, ‘treated the assembled company to a dramatic scene – she’s an actress, good in emotional rôles. I wasn’t present, but I’m told that she and Mr Herriard had a really splendid quarrel, and enjoyed themselves hugely.’