The Ginger Cat Mystery (15 page)

“Quite so, but there's one thing that must puzzle you. How on earth did Frank Cornell stagger up the second half-flight of steps with a bullet in his brain? Seems impossible to me.”

“Unlikely, but not impossible,” commented Vereker now hanging on every word the man spoke.

“Might I make an amateurish suggestion, Mr. Vereker?”

“Do so by all means. I'm open to all kinds of suggestions bearing on the case.”

“Well, I suggest the murderer dragged the body up the stairs after the shooting and left it there.”

“And your reasons?” asked Vereker promptly.

“His reason was to try and hide the place of execution,” replied Cornell blandly.

“You've settled the gender of the murderer, I see,” said Vereker quickly.

The remark was received by Cornell with a sharp upward jerk of the head. “Well, yes, in a way. As a matter of fact I used the word, his, to cover male and female. But a woman seldom uses a revolver or pistol to kill, I'm told. They resort to gentler methods like poisoning. Isn't that so?”

“Generally speaking, yes, but everything depends on the circumstances. In this case the automatic pistol in Mrs. Cornell's drawer may have been the first means to hand and therefore a cardinal factor.”

“You have an idea that it was Mrs. Cornell's weapon?” asked Cornell.

“I'm inclined to think it was but time will prove. We shall probably find the gun before long,” replied Vereker with a smile.

“You must drag the lily pool if you haven't done so already.”

“Inspector Heather is getting that job done to-day, I believe.”

“Of course, it's an obvious measure. I hope I'm not boring you talking your ‘shop,' Mr. Vereker.”

“No, no, I'm never tired of talking detection. You must remember it's not exactly shop with me. I might soon tire if we began to discuss painting.”

“Good, because I've thought a good deal about this crime. I have so much time to think that it's natural in a way I should brood on it. My idea of the shot being fired from the music room was based on a suspicion that the murderer entered the house by the music room.”

“That implies possession of keys to unlock the doors,” remarked Vereker at once.

“Naturally. There's a duplicate set missing. It's a set I once had in my possession. I'm certain I returned them to my brother John, but I wouldn't be positive. If I did, someone must have pinched them from Crawley's pantry.”

“That someone must know the Manor customs. He must have known where the keys were kept,” suggested Vereker.

“Your argument's sound, Mr. Vereker, but don't infer from my remark that I'm pointing the accusing finger at any inmate of the Manor. It was merely a factor which struck me as important.”

“It's very important. We'd very much like to know how those keys disappeared, and more important still, who took them. May I ask why you possessed a duplicate set of keys to the music room, Mr. Cornell?”

“I used to sit and compose there at the grand piano. To be confidential with you, Mr. Vereker, I've never got on very well with my sister-in-law. I didn't think John was wise in marrying a woman so much younger than himself and I'm afraid I was indiscreet enough to say so openly. That indiscretion flung up a barrier between my sister-in-law and myself which our subsequent knowledge of one another failed to remove. I have no positive dislike for the lady, but I couldn't take her to my heart as I should have liked to. I absented myself from the music room after a year and trumped up some excuse about not caring for the atmosphere of the room. I traded rather blatantly on the ghost nonsense that had gathered round the apartment and John, who was a confirmed believer in spirits, swallowed my excuse. He bought me a piano as a result. I like the instrument; it has a finer tone than their old box of wires.”

“I suppose your move in getting an exhumation of your brother's body didn't improve your relations with your sister-in-law?” asked Vereker pointedly.

“It fairly tore things!” exclaimed Cornell vehemently. “I couldn't help it. I won't go into details, but there seemed something fishy about John's sudden death. It preyed on my mind till I took action. Perhaps I oughtn't to have done so. The result simply knocked my suspicions on the head. In any case, I'm satisfied now and the less said about the subject the better.”

“Perhaps you're right,” continued Vereker boldly, “but I was inclined to think the affair had some obscure connection with Frank Cornell's murder.”

“I don't follow you.”

“Let us suppose that Frank Cornell by some means learned that his father's death was brought about by foul means. The murderer of your brother might, on learning this, take steps to remove your nephew.”

“Yes, but that theory at once brings my old suspicions up again. The inquest settled the matter of my brother's death as far as I'm concerned, but you must, of course, work out the problem on your own lines. I think you'll eventually find your idea isn't worth considering. Seeing that your suspicions are so comprehensive, I daresay they include Miss Mayo, my daughter and myself?”

“A detective has to keep an open mind,” replied Vereker with some embarrassment at the direct question.

“Certainly, no one is sacrosanct. I felt from the very first that suspicion would fall on Stella.”

“It's a very delicate matter, Mr. Cornell, for you and me to discuss but the relations which existed between your daughter and the dead man were bound to attract inquiry.”

“I suppose they were,” said Cornell and a worried expression came over his impassive face. “My daughter loved Frank very deeply. I was dead against her choice and was rather intolerant about the whole matter. I forbade her to marry him. Girls of to-day don't seem to heed what their parents say and, of course, she could have ignored my wishes altogether if she had chosen. The old patriarchal days are gone. Still, she wisely refrained from marrying him. I say, wisely, because I knew Frank's character. He was an altogether lovable man up to a point. Generous, amiable, easy-going, but he had no guts, to put it bluntly. An invertebrate, without definite ambitions, no steadfastness of character, and no serious outlook on life. He thought of nothing but pleasure. Drink and women were his ruling passions. His genial, inoffensive nature might have carried him through life without any serious mishap as a bachelor, but I couldn't see him in the rôle of my Stella's husband. Stella is of a finer texture than most women. In time he would have broken the girl's heart and her whole life would have become embittered and futile. I couldn't allow this to happen and I did all I could to frustrate it. This may sound a bit high-falutin to you, Mr. Vereker. I don't know. The cynical modern laughs at our old-fashioned faith in decent, purposeful lives. They say we lack a sense of humour and don't look at life from a progressive, scientific point of view. Sexual freedom, they aver, is merely a frank acceptance of Nature's law, and that to look upon work as the foundation of ordered living is merely mistaking the means for the end. Some even go as far as to say that the gospel of work is the invention of the hypocritical industrialist to feather his own nest. To return, however, to Stella. She is naturally bound to be suspected. She was the wronged woman, cast aside by her lover who had transferred his affections to Miss Mayo. In a spirit of revenge she shot the faithless fellow and trusted, if her crime were discovered, to some hope of mercy at the hands of her fellow creatures.”

“I'm afraid she'd get little mercy at the hands of English law,” said Vereker. “A murderer is a murderer and the unwritten law, as it is called, is merely a negation of all law.”

“Just so and to add weight to the suspicions that the police and you yourself must entertain, Stella knew where the music room keys were kept and also where Mrs. Cornell's automatic pistol was hidden,” continued Cornell bitterly.

“Those factors not only apply to her but to everyone in the house and even to yourself and Mrs. Cornell,” said Vereker.

“Ah, yes, I'd quite forgotten myself,” said David Cornell with strange gusto. “I shot Frank Cornell because he had broken my girl's heart. Quite a likely proposition when you come to examine it closely enough. I'm blind and would feel fairly safe from discovery behind my misfortune. Dear, dear, it's an amazing world!”

The old man ceased talking and letting his head sink on his breast seemed lost in profound thought and completely oblivious of the presence of his guest. Suddenly a light scratching noise was heard in the studio in which the two men were sitting. At once David Cornell rose to his feet and, crossing the room with remarkable assurance for a man who couldn't see, turned the door handle and flung open the door. It swung inwards on its hinges with an unpleasant creaking sound.

“Misty wants to see my visitor,” he said as a grey Persian cat entered the room and stalked with uplifted tail to where Vereker was seated. Vereker stroked the animal which at once returned the friendly greeting by rubbing himself against his leg.

“That infernal door gets on my nerves,” said Cornell irritably. Crossing to a writing-desk, he pulled open a drawer and extracted a small can of oil. The action at once arrested Vereker's attention and he immediately rose to his feet.

“Let me do it for you, Mr. Cornell,” he said.

“Thanks very much,” replied the old man extending the oil can to his guest. “You'll find that it's the bottom hinge that's got the soprano voice.”

Vereker took the can, oiled both the hinges, swung the door noiselessly to and fro, and returning to his chair handed the small can back to his host.

“Splendid stuff that ‘Three in One,'” he remarked with suppressed excitement. “It really does the work thoroughly. But I must be getting back, Mr. Cornell. It's nearly lunchtime and I've a lot of work ahead of me.”

“Very well, don't let me detain you. Drop in whenever you feel like it. You're a good listener and I'm fond of talking. Besides, I'd like to know how you're getting on with your detective job. It's more interesting than reading about the game in books or rather having them read to me.”

“I don't know so much about that,” replied Vereker. “I think it was a gangster called Jack Diamond who said detective yarns were ‘bunk,' but I'm afraid he found out at last that actual crime was the sublimest bunk of all. I'll take you at your word and look in when I've got a moment to spare. Good morning.”

On leaving David Cornell's bungalow, Vereker made his way across the paddock towards the belt of woodland which cut off the grounds of Marston Manor from the surrounding lands. His intention was to pass through the Manor grounds, see what success had attended Heather's dragging and searching operations, and then pass out by the lodge gate nearer Marston village. As he slowly crossed the paddock he was lost in his own thoughts and those thoughts were centred on David Cornell. Swift as he usually was in weighing up the general character of a man as left on him by first impressions, he found on this occasion that no such picture would form clearly in his mind. He ascribed his inability to form a rough and ready judgment in the first place to Cornell's blindness. In his conversation with him he had felt all the time the presence of a curious barrier. It was as if he had been talking to someone standing on the other side of an opaque screen. Secondly, he had formed the opinion that David Cornell did not present a mere portrait of himself with his words. He had talked openly, even volubly, but the ideas and opinions expressed might be merely intellectual counters flung about in the game of conversation and not rising straight from the heart. It was a common trick among sophisticated people. Even when the words were charged with emotion, it was merely the simulated emotion of an actor playing a part. That part was almost invariably the character the player wished his hearer to ascribe to him. Vereker had entered the bungalow harbouring only the tentative suspicion against Cornell which facts forbade him as a detective to disregard. He had been prepared to leave it completely convinced that the blind man had no vestige of connection with the murder of Frank Cornell. Now he was not so sure. There was something about Cornell's inferences regarding the manner in which the crime had been committed, the spot from which the shot had been fired, the theory of the removal of the body from the half-landing to the first storey corridor, which was very unusual, to say the least of it. For a man without trained observation his theoretical deductions were startling enough to rouse suspicion. He had jocularly designated the motive that could have driven him to such an act as if to minimize its cogency as a motive. All this might be the astute attempt of a cunning brain to mislead the investigator. The one great safeguard against suspicion Cornell possessed was his inability to see. The man who fired the shot was either an expert marksman or had reached the most deadly spot by mere chance. Was there any method or ruse by which Cornell could have made sure of hitting the desired mark, were he the man who had used the automatic pistol? He was well acquainted with the type of weapon. He had also known where to lay his hand on one. Vereker asked himself these questions and began to formulate all sorts of theories which would render such a feat possible. Suddenly as he was about to leave the paddock and enter the boundary wood of the Manor grounds, he stopped dead.

“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “Why didn't I think of that before? I really must pull myself together; I'm getting rusty!”

For fully five minutes he stood almost motionless. His eyes seemed to be examining the beautiful markings on the bole of a silver birch in front of him, the forefinger and thumb of his right hand caressed his chin with a slow, rhythmic motion, his lips were tightly compressed. Inwardly he was bubbling with excitement over some bright intuition, his thoughts playing round it swiftly with the most searching criticism. Having evidently decided the matter to his satisfaction, he quickly passed through a gap in the thorn hedge bordering the wood and walked rapidly along the beaten path that traversed it and led out to the gate in the Manor garden wall. He had not gone far when he heard voices ahead of him. He stood and listened. The speakers were evidently a man and a woman and they were approaching at a slow pace. All at once they came into view in the distance and Vereker saw that they were Roland Carstairs and Stella Cornell. They were so engrossed in the subject of their discussion that they failed to notice him. Not wishing to meet them at this moment, Vereker swiftly stepped off the path and secreted himself behind a dense clump of hazel undergrowth nearby. He would let them pass and then proceed on his way. As they approached their voices grew more distinct and the tones disclosed that the speakers were labouring under strong emotion. Vereker, not altogether an unwilling eavesdropper, listened intently and when the pair passed within a few yards of where he stood he heard Stella Cornell say: