“And you have, I believe, between two hundred and two hundred and fifty juvenile delinquents in the College?”
“Yes. But the College buildings are well secured and patrolled. I should say it was most unlikely that anyone could leave the College unsponsored.”
“We shall have to check up on that, of course. Had Mr. Gulbrandsen given any cause for—shall we say, rancour? Any unpopular decisions as to policy?”
Miss Bellever shook her head.
“Oh no, Mr. Gulbrandsen had nothing whatever to do with the running of the College, or with administrative matters.”
“What was the purpose of his visit?”
“I have no idea.”
“But he was annoyed to find Mr. Serrocold absent, and immediately decided to wait until he returned?”
“Yes.”
“So his business here was definitely with Mr. Serrocold?”
“Yes. But it would be—because it would be almost certainly business to do with the Institute.”
“Yes, presumably that is so. Did he have a conference with Mr. Serrocold?”
“No, there was no time. Mr. Serrocold only arrived just before dinner this evening.”
“But after dinner, Mr. Gulbrandsen said he had important letters to write and went away to do so. He didn’t suggest a session with Mr. Serrocold?”
Miss Bellever hesitated.
“No. No, he didn’t.”
“Surely that was rather odd—if he had waited on at inconvenience to himself to see Mr. Serrocold?”
“Yes, it was odd.”
The oddness of it seemed to strike Miss Bellever for the first time.
“Mr. Serrocold did not accompany him to his room?”
“No. Mr. Serrocold remained in the Hall.”
“And you have no idea at what time Mr. Gulbrandsen was killed?”
“I think it is possible that we heard the shot. If so, it was at twenty-three minutes past nine.”
“You heard a shot? And it did not alarm you?”
“The circumstances were peculiar.”
She explained in rather more detail the scene between Lewis Serrocold and Edgar Lawson which had been in progress.
“So it occurred to no one that the shot might actually have come from within the house?”
“No. No, I certainly don’t think so. We were all so relieved, you know, that the shot didn’t come from in here.”
Miss Bellever added rather grimly:
“You don’t expect murder and attempted murder in the same house on the same night.”
Inspector Curry acknowledged the truth of that.
“All the same,” said Miss Bellever, suddenly, “you know I believe that’s what made me go along to Mr. Gulbrandsen’s room later. I did mean to ask him if he would like anything, but it was a kind of excuse to reassure myself that everything was all right.”
Inspector Curry stared at her for a moment.
“What made you think it mightn’t be all right?”
“I don’t know. I think it was the shot outside. It hadn’t meant anything at the time. But afterwards it came back into my mind. I told myself that it was only a backfire from Mr. Restarick’s car—”
“Mr. Restarick’s car?”
“Yes. Alex Restarick. He arrived by car this evening—he arrived just after all this happened.”
“I see. When you discovered Mr. Gulbrandsen’s body, did you touch anything in the room?”
“Of course not.” Miss Bellever sounded reproachful. “Naturally I knew that nothing must be touched or moved.”
“And just now, when you took us into the room, everything was exactly as it had been when you found the body?”
Miss Bellever considered. She sat back screwing up her eyes. She had, Inspector Curry thought, one of those photographic memories.
“One thing was different,” she said. “There was nothing in the typewriter.”
“You mean,” said Inspector Curry, “that when you first went in, Mr. Gulbrandsen had been writing a letter on the typewriter, and that that letter had since been removed?”
“Yes, I’m almost sure that I saw the white edge of the paper sticking up.”
“Thank you, Miss Bellever. Who else went into that room before we arrived?”
“Mr. Serrocold, of course. He remained there when I came to meet you. And Mrs. Serrocold and Miss Marple went there. Mrs. Serrocold insisted.”
“Mrs. Serrocold and Miss Marple,” said Inspector Curry. “Which is Miss Marple?”
“The old lady with white hair. She was a school friend of Mrs. Serrocold’s. She came on a visit about four days ago.”
“Well, thank you, Miss Bellever. All that you have told us is quite clear. I’ll go into things with Mr. Serrocold now. Ah, but perhaps—Miss Marple’s an old lady, isn’t she? I’ll just have a word with her first and then she can go off to bed. Rather cruel to keep an old lady like that up,” said Inspector Curry virtuously. “This must have been a shock to her.”
“I’ll tell her, shall I?”
“If you please.”
Miss Bellever went out. Inspector Curry looked at the ceiling.
“Gulbrandsen?” he said. “Why Gulbrandsen? Two hundred odd, maladjusted youngsters on the premises. No reason any of them shouldn’t have done it. Probably one of them did. But why Gulbrandsen? The stranger within the gates.”
Sergeant Lake said: “Of course, we don’t know everything yet.”
Inspector Curry said:
“So far, we don’t know anything at all.”
He jumped up and was gallant when Miss Marple came in. She seemed a little flustered and he hurried to put her at her ease.
“Now don’t upset yourself, Ma’am.” The old ones like Ma’am, he thought. To them, police officers were definitely of the lower classes and should show respect to their betters. “This is all very distressing, I know. But we’ve just got to get the facts clear. Get it all clear.”
“Oh yes, I know,” said Miss Marple. “So difficult, isn’t it? To be clear about anything, I mean. Because if you’re looking at one thing, you can’t be looking at another. And one so often looks at the wrong thing, though whether because one happens to do so or because you’re meant to, it’s very hard to say. Misdirection, the conjurers call it. So clever, aren’t they? And I never have known how they manage with a bowl of goldfish—because really that cannot fold up small, can it?”
Inspector Curry blinked a little and said soothingly:
“Quite so. Now, Ma’am, I’ve had an account of this evening’s events from Miss Bellever. A most anxious time for all of you, I’m sure.”
“Yes, indeed. It was all so dramatic, you know.”
“First this to-do between Mr. Serrocold and”—he looked down at a note he had made—“this Edgar Lawson.”
“A very odd young man,” said Miss Marple. “I have felt all along that there was something wrong about him.”
“I’m sure you have,” said Inspector Curry. “And then, after that excitement was over, there came Mr. Gulbrandsen’s death. I understand that you went with Mrs. Serrocold to see the—er—the body.”
“Yes, I did. She asked me to come with her. We are very old friends.”
“Quite so. And you went along to Mr. Gulbrandsen’s room. Did you touch anything while you were in the room, either of you?”
“Oh no. Mr. Serrocold warned us not to.”
“Did you happen to notice, Ma’am, whether there was a letter or a piece of paper, say, in the typewriter?”
“There wasn’t,” said Miss Marple promptly. “I noticed that at once because it seemed to me odd. Mr. Gulbrandsen was sitting there at the typewriter, so he must have been typing something. Yes, I thought it very odd.”
Inspector Curry looked at her sharply. He said:
“Did you have much conversation with Mr. Gulbrandsen while he was here?”
“Very little.”
“There is nothing especial—or significant that you can remember?”
> Miss Marple considered.
“He asked me about Mrs. Serrocold’s health. In particular, about her heart.”
“Her heart? Is there something wrong with her heart?”
“Nothing whatever, I understand.”
Inspector Curry was silent for a moment or two, then he said:
“You heard a shot this evening during the quarrel between Mr. Serrocold and Edgar Lawson?”
“I didn’t actually hear it myself. I am a little deaf, you know. But Mrs. Serrocold mentioned it as being outside in the park.”
“Mr. Gulbrandsen left the party immediately after dinner, I understand?”
“Yes, he said he had letters to write.”
“He didn’t show any wish for a business conference with Mr. Serrocold?”
“No.”
Miss Marple added:
“You see, they’d already had one little talk.”
“They had? When? I understood that Mr. Serrocold only returned home just before dinner.”
“That’s quite true, but he walked up through the park, and Mr. Gulbrandsen went out to meet him and they walked up and down the terrace together.”
“Who else knows this?”
“I shouldn’t think anybody else,” said Miss Marple. “Unless, of course, Mr. Serrocold told Mrs. Serrocold. I just happened to be looking out of my window—at some birds.”
“Birds?”
“Birds.” Miss Marple added after a moment or two, “I thought, perhaps, they might be siskins.”
Inspector Curry was uninterested in siskins.
“You didn’t,” he said delicately, “happen to—er—overhear anything of what they said?”
Innocent, china blue eyes met his.
“Only fragments, I’m afraid,” said Miss Marple gently.
“And those fragments?”
Miss Marple was silent a moment, then she said:
“I do not know the actual subject of their conversation, but their immediate concern was to keep whatever it was from the knowledge of Mrs. Serrocold. To spare her—that was how Mr. Gulbrandsen put it, and Mr. Serrocold said, ‘I agree that it is she who must be considered.’ They also mentioned a ‘big responsibility’ and that they should, perhaps, ‘take outside advice.’”
She paused.
“I think, you know, you had better ask Mr. Serrocold himself about all this.”
“We shall do so, Ma’am. Now there is nothing else that struck you as unusual this evening?”
Miss Marple considered.
“It was all so unusual, if you know what I mean—”
“Quite so. Quite so.”
Something flickered into Miss Marple’s memory.
“There was one rather unusual incident. Mr. Serrocold stopped Mrs. Serrocold from taking her medicine. Miss Bellever was quite put out about it.”
She smiled in a deprecating fashion.
“But that, of course, is such a little thing….”
“Yes, of course. Well, thank you, Miss Marple.”
As Miss Marple went out of the room, Sergeant Lake said: “She’s old, but she’s sharp….”
Ten
Lewis Serrocold came into the office and immediately the whole focus of the room shifted. He turned to close the door behind him, and in doing so he created an atmosphere of privacy. He walked over and sat down, not in the chair Miss Marple had just vacated but in his own chair behind the desk. Miss Bellever had settled Inspector Curry in a chair drawn up to one side of the desk, as though unconsciously she had reserved Lewis Serrocold’s chair against his coming.
When he had sat down, Lewis Serrocold looked at the two police officers thoughtfully. His face looked drawn and tired. It was the face of a man who was passing through a severe ordeal, and it surprised Inspector Curry a little because, though Christian Gulbrandsen’s death must undeniably have been a shock to Lewis Serrocold, yet Gulbrandsen had not been a close friend or relation, only a rather remote connection by marriage.
In an odd way, the tables seemed to have been turned. It did not seem as though Lewis Serrocold had come into the room to answer police questioning. It seemed rather that Lewis Serrocold had arrived to preside over a court of inquiry. It irritated Inspector Curry a little.
He said briskly: “Now, Mr. Serrocold—”
Lewis Serrocold still seemed lost in thought. He said with a sigh, “How difficult it is to know the right thing to do.”
Inspector Curry said:
“I think we will be the judges as to that, Mr. Serrocold. Now about Mr. Gulbrandsen, he arrived unexpectedly, I understand?”
“Quite unexpectedly.”
“You did not know he was coming?”
“I had not the least idea of it.”
“And you have no idea of why he came?”
Lewis Serrocold said quietly,
“Oh yes, I know why he came. He told me.”
“When?”
“I walked up from the station. He was watching from the house and came out to meet me. It was then that he explained what had brought him here.”
“Business connected with the Gulbrandsen Institute, I suppose?”
“Oh no, it was nothing to do with the Gulbrandsen Institute.”
“Miss Bellever seemed to think it was.”
“Naturally. That would be the assumption. Gulbrandsen did nothing to correct that impression. Neither did I.”
“Why, Mr. Serrocold?”
Lewis Serrocold said slowly:
“Because it seemed to both of us important that no hint should arise as to the real purpose of his visit.”
“What was the real purpose?”
Lewis Serrocold was silent for a minute or two. He sighed.
“Gulbrandsen came over here regularly twice a year for meetings of the trustees. The last meeting was only a month ago. Consequently he was not due to come over again for another five months. I think, therefore, that anyone might realise that the business that brought him must definitely be urgent business, but I still think that the normal assumption would be that it was a business visit, and that the matter—however urgent—would be a Trust matter. As far as I know, Gulbrandsen did nothing to contradict that impression—or thought he didn’t. Yes, perhaps that is nearer the truth—he thought he didn’t.”
“I’m afraid, Mr. Serrocold, that I don’t quite follow you.”
Lewis Serrocold did not answer at once. Then he said gravely:
“I fully realise that with Gulbrandsen’s death—which was murder, undeniably murder, I have got to put all the facts before you. But, frankly, I am concerned for my wife’s happiness and peace of mind. It is not for me to dictate to you, Inspector, but if you can see your way to keeping certain things from her as far as possible, I shall be grateful. You see, Inspector Curry, Christian Gulbrandsen came here expressly to tell me that he believed my wife was being slowly and cold-bloodedly poisoned.”
“What?”
Curry leaned forward incredulously.
Serrocold nodded.
“Yes, it was, as you can imagine, a tremendous shock to me. I had had no suspicion of such a thing myself, but as soon as Christian told me, I realised that certain symptoms my wife had complained of lately, were quite compatible with that belief. What she took to be rheumatism, leg cramps, pain, and occasional sickness. All that fits in very well with the symptoms of arsenic poisoning.”
“Miss Marple told us that Christian Gulbrandsen asked her about the condition of Mrs. Serrocold’s heart?”
“Did he now? That is interesting. I suppose he thought that a heart poison would be used since it paved the way to a sudden death without undue suspicion. But I think myself that arsenic is more likely.”
“You definitely think, then, that Christian Gulbrandsen’s suspicions were well founded?”
“Oh yes, I think so. For one thing, Gulbrandsen would hardly come to me with such a suggestion unless he was fairly sure of his facts. He was a cautious and hardheaded man, difficult to convince, but very shrewd.”
>
“What was his evidence?”
“We had no time to go into that. Our interview was a hurried one. It served only the purpose of explaining his visit, and a mutual agreement that nothing whatever should be said to my wife about the matter until we were sure of our facts.”
“And whom did he suspect of administering poison?”
“He did not say, and actually I don’t think he knew. He may have suspected. I think now that he probably did suspect—otherwise why should he be killed?”
“But he mentioned no name to you?”
“He mentioned no name. We agreed that we must investigate the matter thoroughly, and he suggested inviting the advice and cooperation of Dr. Galbraith, the Bishop of Cromer. Dr. Galbraith is a very old friend of the Gulbrandsens and is one of the trustees of the Institute. He is a man of great wisdom and experience and would be of great help and comfort to my wife if—if it was necessary to tell her of our suspicions. We meant to rely on his advice as to whether or not to consult the police.”
“Quite extraordinary,” said Curry.
“Gulbrandsen left us after dinner to write to Dr. Galbraith. He was actually in the act of typing a letter to him when he was shot.”
“How do you know?”
Lewis said calmly,
“Because I took the letter out of the typewriter. I have it here.”
From his breast pocket, he drew out a folded typewritten sheet of paper and handed it to Curry.
The latter said sharply.
“You shouldn’t have taken this, or touched anything in the room.”
“I touched nothing else. I know that I committed an unpardonable offence in your eyes in moving this, but I had a very strong reason. I felt certain that my wife would insist on coming into the room and I was afraid that she might read something of what is written here. I admit myself in the wrong, but I am afraid I would do the same again. I would do anything—anything—to save my wife unhappiness.”
Inspector Curry said no more for the moment. He read the typewritten sheet.
Dear Dr. Galbraith. If it is at all possible, I beg that you will come to Stonygates as soon as you receive this. A crisis of extraordinary gravity has arisen and I am at a loss how to deal with it. I know how deep your affection is for our dear Carrie Louise, and how grave your concern will be for anything that affects her. How much has she got to know? How much can we keep from her? Those are the questions that I find so difficult to answer.