‘That’s where you’re very likely wrong,’ said the disillusioned Inspector. ‘Whenever we get called in to a crime in classy country surroundings, you may bet your life it’s because the Chief Constable plays golf with half the suspects, and doesn’t want to handle the thing himself.’
Events were to prove him to be to a certain extent justified. Almost the first thing that the Chief Constable said to him was: ‘I’m not going to pretend I’m not glad to hand over this business to you, Inspector. Very awkward case: most astounding! I’ve known the murdered man for years. Know his brother too. I don’t like it.’
‘No, sir,’ said the Inspector.
‘What’s more,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘it’s a damned queer business! Can’t see myself how the murder can possibly have been committed. Of course, our DetectiveInspector’s away, sick. This is Inspector Colwall, who’s had charge of the case up till now.’
‘Glad to know you,’ said Hemingway, mentally writing Colwall down as a painstaking man who had probably missed every vital point in the case.
‘Inexplicable!’ pronounced Major Bolton, but not, it was gathered, with reference to Hemingway’s polite remark. ‘You’d better go through it from the start. Take a chair!’
Hemingway obeyed this invitation, nodded to his Sergeant to follow his example, and turned a bright, enquiring eye upon the Major.
‘The murdered man,’ said Major Bolton, ‘was a wealthy bachelor. He bought Lexham Manor some years ago. Sort of show-place: oak panelling, and that kind of thing. Cost a packet: never could make out why he wanted it. Not that sort of man, on the face of it. Made his money in trade. Head of a firm of importers, but been a sleeping-partner for some years now. East Indian stuff: spices, and that kind of thing. Mind you, I’m not saying he was a self-made man! Perfectly respectable family, and all that. Don’t know anything about his parents: believe the father was a country solicitor. There were three children: Nathaniel, the murdered man, Matthew, and Joseph. Matthew doesn’t come into it. Dead for years. His widow’s in America, with her third husband. Never met the lady myself, but I know her children. They’re both in it, up to the neck. Couple of years ago, Joseph – bit of a rolling-stone: no harm in him, but a feckless sort of a fellow – came home from wherever he’d been – South America, I believe, but that’s nothing: he’s been all over the world at one time or another – and took up his residence at Lexham Manor. Never had much use for Nat Herriard myself, but to give him his due, he treated his family well. Better than any of ‘em deserved, if you ask me. Not that there’s anything against Joseph. What you might call a well-meaning ass. Sort of Peter Pan, if you get my meaning. Got a wife. Gossip says he picked her up out of the chorus. Don’t know anything about that. Colourless kind of woman. Pretty once, run to fat now. Never could make anything of her. Either deep as the devil, or a born fool. Know the type?’
The Inspector nodded. ‘I do, sir, and what’s more I wish I didn’t.’
Major Bolton gave a snort of laughter. ‘Mind you, I haven’t anything on her, and I don’t myself see her sticking a knife into her brother-in-law. All the same, no one in these parts could ever understand her consenting to live at Lexham, sponging on Nat. However, she’s a placid kind of a woman, and I daresay she’d had enough of roaming about the world with Joseph. Tiresome sort of man, Joseph. No money-sense. No sense at all, if you ask me. Ever see a play called Dear Brutus?’
‘Barrie,’ responded the Inspector. ‘If you’ve a taste for him, it’s in his best manner. Myself –’
‘Well, Joe’s always put me in mind of one of the characters in it,’ said the Chief Constable, ruthlessly interrupting what Sergeant Ware knew would have been a pithy lecture on the Drama. ‘Silly old footler who danced about in a wood. Know the one I mean?’
‘Coade,’ said Hemingway.
‘Well, I’m a plain man myself,’ said the Chief Constable, conveying in these simple words his contempt for all whimsies. ‘However, they say it takes all sorts to make a world. Next we come to Stephen and Paula Herriard. They’re Nat’s nephew and niece, Matthew’s children. Always treated Lexham Manor as a second home. I know ‘em both, and I don’t like either of ‘em. Stephen’s a rough-tongued young man with no manners, and not enough to do; and Paula – nice-looking girl, if you like that stormy type – is on the stage. Both got small private means: enough to make ‘em independent, but not enough to make a splash with. It’s always been assumed that Stephen was Nat’s heir. Stands to reason he would be. Only a few months ago he got engaged to a girl. Never set eyes on her myself, but Nat couldn’t stand her. Said she was a gold-digger. Daresay he was right. You didn’t take to her, did you, Colwall?’
‘No, sir. Silly little thing, and not, in my opinion, the right sort for a gentleman to marry.’
‘Well, she’s in it too. I don’t mean that she committed the murder, for from what Colwall tells me it doesn’t look as though she’s the sort of girl who could do such a thing, but she was one of the people staying in the house at the time. Stephen brought her down, presumably to introduce her to Nat. According to what the servants say, they didn’t get on at all. Quite possible that Nat’s annoyance over her may have precipitated matters.’
‘Precipitated matters?’ repeated Hemingway.
‘Don’t know that it’s quite fair to say that,’ amended the Major. ‘But there seems to have been a row between Nat and Stephen. Of course, if Nat threatened to cut Stephen off with a shilling if he married the girl – well, you never know, do you? I wouldn’t put it beyond Stephen to stick a knife into someone. Always seemed to me a callous young devil. Then there’s this Roydon-fellow.’
From the Major’s expression it could easily be deduced that he disapproved profoundly of Mr Roydon. The reason was at once made apparent. ‘He calls himself a playwright, or some such nonsense,’ said the Major.
‘He does, does he?’ said Hemingway. ‘Well, that’s very interesting, sir. What did you say his name was?’
‘Willoughby Roydon. Don’t suppose you’ve heard of him; I know I hadn’t. As far as I can make out, he hasn’t had anything put on – really put on, I mean.’
The Inspector appeared to appreciate the distinction, nodding, and saying sapiently: ‘Sunday evenings, eh? Uplift and Modernism. I know. What’s he doing in the case, sir?’
‘Friend of Paula Herriard. He’s written a play which she wanted her uncle to back. Don’t know what it was about. Daresay it would be all the same to me if I did. I don’t go in for that kind of thing. Can’t stand highbrows at any price. Point is, Nat didn’t like it. This Roydon-fellow seems to have read the thing aloud to him yesterday afternoon, and Nat lost his temper over it, and there was a general sort of a row. Well, I’m a fair-minded man, and, after all, you can’t be surprised, can you? I mean, coming down to stay with a man, and then reading stuff aloud to him! Never heard of such a thing!’
‘Did Mr Herriard quarrel with Mr Roydon, then?’ asked Hemingway.
‘That we can’t make out, can we, Colwall? Roydon says he didn’t.’
‘Well, sir, it’s a bit more than that,’ said Colwall. ‘They didn’t any of them say as Mr Herriard had actually had words with Mr Roydon. It was Miss Herriard he quarrelled with. According to what the butler told me, Mr Herriard threatened to cut her out of his will, and said he wouldn’t have her, nor Mr Stephen either, to stay again. Of course, there’s no denying he was a violent-tempered kind of man. No saying whether he meant it or not. If he did, and Mr Stephen knew that he did, it puts an ugly complexion on the matter, that’s what I say.’
‘Yes, yes!’ said the Major, elbowing him out of the discussion. ‘All very well, but we mustn’t exclude the other possibilities. There’s Mottisfont, for instance. I consider he will bear looking into. He’s been Nat’s partner for a great many years, Inspector, and there’s plenty of evidence to show that he’s been up to something Nat didn’t like. The servants say that he was shut up with Nat yesterday, and that there was a quarrel between them.
You didn’t feel satisfied about him, did you, Colwall?’
‘Not altogether, I didn’t, sir. Very nervous gentleman, for a man of his years. He didn’t speak the truth to me, or at least not all of it, that I am sure of.’
‘They never do,’ said Hemingway. ‘Are there any more suspects?’
‘Properly speaking, there aren’t,’ said Colwall. ‘There’s Miss Clare, but she’s got an alibi. Besides, there doesn’t seem to be any motive. Kind of cousin, she is. Otherwise, there’s only the servants. Most of them couldn’t have had any reason to murder their master. I don’t know that any of them had, except that Mr Herriard was very rough with his valet, by what the butler told me. Threw things at him when he was out of temper. Quite one of the Old School, as you might say.’
Hemingway was unimpressed. ‘Nothing to stop him giving notice, if he couldn’t stand Mr Herriard,’ he said. ‘Unless, of course, he’d got a legacy coming to him?’
‘That I don’t know, not having seen the will, but I should not think he had. He’d only been with Mr Herriard a matter of a few months. Mind you, he never said Mr Herriard was a hard master! It was the butler told me that. Ford spoke very nicely about his master. Spoke up for Mr Stephen, too.’
‘What’s he like?’ demanded Hemingway.
‘Wiry little chap, about thirty-five or six, I’d say. Bit scared of me, he was, but he spoke out quite honest and aboveboard, and didn’t try to throw suspicion on to anyone – except Mr Roydon, maybe, though he was only telling me what it was his duty to, after all.’
‘What about the butler?’
‘I’d say he was all right. Very starchy he is, but not above putting his ear to keyholes. He doesn’t like Mr Stephen, but that’s nothing. He’s been some time with Mr Herriard.’
‘Might be coming in for a legacy, of course,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘He’d hardly commit a murder for it, though. Not a man like Sturry. Besides –’ He paused, frowning, and then said, shooting a look at Hemingway from under his brows: ‘Not the point. I told you this was the devil of a case, Inspector. The suspects aren’t worrying me: it’s how the deuce the murder was committed at all.’
‘What, you aren’t going to tell me this is one of these locked-door cases you read about, sir?’ exclaimed Hemingway incredulously.
‘It is, just that. Now, you listen to the facts as we know them! Roydon read his play to the rest of the house-party after tea yesterday. It ended in a general row; the party split up, and went off upstairs to change for dinner, leaving Miss Clare in the library, and Joseph Herriard trying to smooth his brother down in the drawing-room. Nat then went up to his room, still furious. Miss Clare, who came out of the library just as he was going upstairs, heard him slam his bedroom door. She and Joseph then went up together. They were the last people except the murderer, of course – to see Nat alive. Some time between then, which must have been between seven-thirty and eight, and when the party gathered in the drawing-room again for cocktails, Nat was stabbed to death in his bedroom. When he didn’t join the party, Joseph went up to tell him they were all waiting for him. He found Ford outside Nat’s door, pretty worried at getting no answer to his knocking. The door was locked, and when Ford and Stephen Herriard forced the lock, Nat was lying dead on the floor, with the windows latched securely, both the door into his bedroom and that from his bathroom on to the upper hall locked on the inside, and only the ventilator above the bathroom window open.’
‘What kind of a ventilator?’ asked Hemingway.
‘The ordinary sort, opening outwards, which you often get above a casement-window.’
‘Big enough for anyone to get in through it?’
The Chief Constable looked at Inspector Colwall, who said slowly: ‘Well, it is, and it isn’t, if you take my meaning. A man would have to be pretty small to do it, and, what’s more, he’d need to be clever. It isn’t as though the room’s on the ground-floor, you see. What with having to climb up to it, and then squirm in without making any noise – well, I don’t see how it could have been done, I’m bound to confess. Nor I couldn’t discover any signs of footprints on the sill, but you can’t go by that entirely, for it was snowing hard all yesterday evening, and they might easily have been covered up.’
‘Any finger-prints?’
‘Only on the insides of the windows, and they were Ford’s, just as you’d expect. It was he who shut the windows after tea, and drew the curtains.’
‘What about the door-keys?’
‘That’s just it,’ said the Major. ‘We’ve had them carefully examined, and we can’t detect any of the scratches you’d expect to find if they’d been turned in the locks from outside.’
‘That’s queer,’ said Hemingway, with the bird-like look in his eye which his Sergeant knew betokened lively interest. ‘Sounds like a classy case, after all. Any signs of a struggle in the room, sir?’
‘None whatsoever.’
‘Looks as though he wasn’t expecting trouble from his visitor, then. Those the photographs, sir? Thank you.’ He considered them for a moment or two, and remarked: ‘Still in his day-clothes.’
‘Yes; there were no signs that he’d started to change. Ford had prepared his bath, and laid out his dinner-jacket and things.’
‘He didn’t have this Ford in to help him dress?’
‘Apparently he did sometimes, but not always. He rang if he wanted Ford.’
‘Oh! Weapon?’
‘The doctors are agreed that the blow was struck with a thin, sharp instrument, probably a knife. You’ll see the position of the wound. There was scarcely any external bleeding, but death, I’m informed, must have followed within a very few minutes.’
‘I see, sir. Weapon not found?’
‘Not so far. But to my mind it hasn’t been looked for,’ said the Major, casting a severe glance towards Inspector Colwall.
The Inspector reddened. ‘It was looked for in the deceased’s room, sir, but you know as well as I do that it’s a very big house, and what with that, and the number of people all staying there, with their baggage – well, it’s a tall order to find the weapon, and I didn’t like to turn the place upside-down.’
The Major looked unconvinced, but Hemingway said: ‘No, you’d have been at it all night and half today, I daresay.’
‘Well, that’s where it is,’ said Colwall gratefully.
‘I don’t know that the weapon’s going to interest me much,’ pursued Hemingway. ‘What with all these thrillers that get written nowadays by people who ought to know better than to go putting ideas into criminals’ heads, there’s no chance of any murderer forgetting to wipe off his fingerprints. Sickening, I call it. Now, how do you figure the murderer got into that room, Inspector?’
Colwall shook his head. ‘It’s got me beat. If there wasn’t any hanky-panky with the key – and that’s an expert’s job, when you come to think of it – I don’t see how anyone could have got in.’
‘No; but there’s one piece of evidence we mustn’t forget,’ interposed the Chief Constable. ‘Stephen Herriard’s cigarette-case was found lying on the floor by the fire, halfhidden by an armchair.’
‘That doesn’t look so good for Stephen Herriard,’ said Hemingway. ‘Does he own it?’
‘Yes, he owned it, but Miss Clare deposed that he had given it to Miss Dean before he went up to change for dinner.’
‘What did she have to say to that?’ asked Hemingway, addressing himself to Colwall.
Inspector Colwall sighed. ‘She had a lot to say, being one of those who can’t give you a plain yes or no. Anyone would have thought she expected to be charged with having committed the murder, simply through admitting she’d had the case! In the end, she did say she’d had it, but she swore she never took it out of the drawing-room. Her theory is that Mr Stephen himself must have picked it up, and I’m bound to say it’s likely he did.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He didn’t say much,’ answered Colwall reflectively. ‘He didn’t, so to speak, get
much chance, for Miss Clare started in to tell Miss Dean off good and proper, and what with that, and Mr Joseph trying to make me believe the case might have slipped out of Mr Stephen’s pocket after the murder had been discovered, when he was bending over the body –’
‘Could it?’ interrupted Hemingway.
‘Not a chance, seeing where it was found. Mr Stephen saw that himself. If he’d been sitting in a chair by the fire, though, and took out his case for a cigarette, and put it back sort of careless, so that it didn’t slip into his pocket, but fell into the chair instead, and maybe slid off when he got up – well, that might account for it.’
‘Sat down with his uncle for a chat and a quiet smoke, and then murdered him when he wasn’t looking?’ demanded Hemingway. ‘Cold-blooded chap he’d have to be!’
‘He is,’ said the Major shortly. ‘Anyone will tell you that.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Colwall. ‘Cold as a fish, that’s what he is. Why, from all I could see, he doesn’t even care two pins for that girl of his! Didn’t turn a hair when Miss Clare said that she’d had his cigarette-case. You don’t catch him trying to shield anyone!’