The Key (10 page)

WHEN MISS BROWN had left the room Frank Abbott met his inspector’s eye and smiled faintly.

Lamb said, ‘Well?’

‘Oh, she’s lying – quite strenuously, I think, but not all the time. Some of it came easy, and some of it came hard. There’s an eel under the stone, as they say in France.’

Lamb looked suspicious.

‘This isn’t France, and you’d do better to keep your mind on your job. Or if you want to play at proverbs, here’s a good old English one – “Fine words butter no parsnips”. We’ll be getting along to Prior’s End to see what Madoc’s got to say. Of course they may have fixed up their tale so that it will hang together, but there’s quite a chance they haven’t. What with the inquest going off as smooth as butter, and the verdict what it was, they wouldn’t risk meeting or telephoning till it had blown over a bit.’

‘How are you going to stop her telephoning now?’

Lamb chuckled.

‘Mr Madoc’s line is going to be out of order, just in case anyone wants to ring him up before we get there. I doubt if she’d risk it though. It’s one of those party lines, they tell me, where anyone can take a turn at listening in. Anyhow, she won’t get the chance. But the girl at the Exchange will let us know if she has a try at it.’

Frank Abbott slipped an elastic band round his notebook and put it in his pocket. His gloom had departed, his pale blue eyes were alert.

‘She’s a clever woman,’ he said. ‘It was pretty good, the way she pulled herself together. A bit of a knockout blow, our coming in with that evidence just as she must have been thinking they’d got away with it.’

Lamb nodded.

‘She didn’t put up a bad story. Counsel for the defence could make quite a good thing of it, if it ever comes to that. By the way, just check up on that cook next door. Ask one of the maids here – they’ll know. I’ll have a word with Major Albany, and then we’ll be going.’

He had his word, and was out by the gate, when Frank came after him.

‘The name is Doris, sir. What you might call a near miss. Bright of her to think of it though.’

Lamb grunted.

‘Well, we’d better be getting off.’

It was close on twelve o’clock when they came up the track to Prior’s End. Mrs Williams opened the door, elderly and neat, with her grey hair in a bun and her hands damp and steaming.

‘As sure as you’ve got your hands in the flour or the water, there’ll be someone come to the door,’ she told Janice a minute or two later. ‘Two strangers, and wanting Mr Madoc, so I told them he wasn’t to be disturbed, and I showed them in on Miss Madoc.’

Miss Madoc had been very much surprised. She was engaged in the homely occupation of darning socks, and what with her size, her loose untidy dress – serge of the colour of boiled spinach, with dibs and dabs of embroidery here and there – and a green scarf that belonged to the dress, and a rust-coloured one she had put on in a fit of absentmindedness, and her mending-basket, and a scatteration of socks, she pretty well filled the old-fashioned sofa. When she got up, first removing the glasses she wore for needlework, she managed to upset the basket, and was evidently in two minds whether to retrieve it or to greet her unexpected guests. On being informed that they were police officers from Scotland Yard she sat down again rather heavily and forgot everything else.

‘Oh, then it will be about poor Mr Harsch. But I am afraid you can’t see my brother – we never disturb him when he is working. He is doing very important work for the Government – at least everyone says it is very important. But I don’t think I shall like it at all if it comes to living on tabloids, but he says that we all eat a great deal too much, and—’

Lamb interrupted her in his most solid voice.

‘I’m afraid that we shall have to see Mr Madoc. Will you kindly let him know that we are here.’

Frank Abbott was thinking that never in his fondest dreams had he expected to meet anyone so exactly like the White Queen. The greyish sandy hair in a confused tangle on her neck, the crumpled pallor of her face, the vague protruberant eyes, the general air of not knowing quite where anything was or what to do about it – you had only to put her into a crinoline and clap a crown on her head, and she could wander through to the far side of the looking-glass and be more at home there than she had ever been or ever could be on this side of it.

She was shaking her head at Lamb and saying, ‘Oh, dear – I don’t really see – I don’t know – he is so very easily put out – if there is anything that I can do—’

Lamb said heartily, ‘Well, that’s an idea!’ He took a chair and sat down. ‘We shall have to see your brother presently, but I daresay there are things that you can tell us just as well as he can.’

Besides the scarves, she wore a very large mosaic brooch depicting the Coliseum at Rome, and three strings of beads, a short one of blue and silver Venetian glass, and two, much longer, of coral and little round gold pierced beads respectively. Every time she moved the coral rubbed the glass and the gold beads clinked.

Lamb felt in a pocket and produced a door-key.

‘Now, Miss Madoc, perhaps you can tell me whether you have seen a key like this before.’

She inspected it diffidently, and then brightened.

‘Oh, yes – it is like the one Mr Harsch had – the key of the church. There was something about it at the inquest, but I really didn’t take it all in. I find that sort of thing very confusing, if you know what I mean.’

‘Well, we’re trying to get it all quite clear. I hope you can help us. When did you last see any key like this one?’

Miss Madoc appeared to be trying to think. When she spoke she had just the right voice for the White Queen, Abbott thought – high and rather bleating.

‘Well, let me see – Mr Harsch kept his key lying on his dressing-table – but it wasn’t there on Tuesday night when I turned down the bed. Mrs Williams wasn’t quite the thing, and I did it for her, but of course he never slept in it, poor man – only I couldn’t have known, could I? But then I seem to have seen it later than that – at least I didn’t see it then – but if I had it would have been later, if you know what I mean.’

Lamb remained imperturbable.

‘You are speaking about the key?’

Miss Madoc twitched a scarf. All the chains jangled.

‘Was I? I’m afraid I’ve forgotten. It was so very sad about Mr Harsch.’

‘Yes. You were telling us about turning down his bed on Tuesday night. But it was later on that you saw the key, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes – yes – of course – I remember. I couldn’t have seen it then, could I, because he had taken it to let himself into the church. But next day when I was brushing my brother’s clothes the key fell out of his pocket on to the floor.’ She paused, bewildered. ‘But of course it couldn’t have been Mr Harsch’s key – could it? Do you know, I never thought about that.’

Lamb was not at all anxious that she should think about it now. He interposed with a direct question.

‘These clothes that you were brushing – were they the ones that Mr Madoc was wearing the night before?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘On the Tuesday evening?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘And the key that fell out was like this?’ He held out Bush’s key on the palm of his hand.

‘Oh, yes!’ said Miss Madoc brightly.

‘What did you do with it?’

She looked shocked.

‘Oh, I put it back. My brother is most particular about nobody touching his things.’

Lamb got up.

‘Thank you, Miss Madoc. And now we will see Mr Madoc’

She rose in alarm, shedding socks.

‘Oh, but I’m afraid you can’t – he’s working – I really couldn’t – I mean, we never interrupt him when he’s working.’

The Chief Inspector had a formidable manner when he chose. He evoked it now with so much success that Miss Madoc found herself meekly treading the forbidden path to the laboratory door, knocking upon it and impelled across the threshold with a few faltering words of introduction, after which she departed in a hurry and was thankful for the sound of the closing door.

Evan Madoc, straightening up with a test-tube in his hand, stared haughtily at the intruders. On being informed of their identity he abated nothing of the haughtiness, but enquired what they wanted in very much the same tone which he would have used to Mrs Williams or his sister. Politeness to strangers or deference to the law had no part in it. He was at work – he had been interrupted. Would they kindly state their business and get out. If not in words, at any rate in tone and manner, nothing could have been plainer.

‘Riding high,’ was Frank Abbott’s mental comment, ‘Well, it’s one way of playing a bad hand.’

Old Lamb was being quite polite, quite businesslike.

‘We have been asked to make some enquiries in connection with the death of Mr Michael Harsch. I believe you can help us, Mr Madoc.’

The erratic black eyebrows rose. The eyes beneath them sharpened, hardened. An icy voice said, ‘I should think it most improbable. What do you want?’

Lamb let him have it.

‘I want to know what you were doing in the Church Cut at a time not very long before a quarter to ten, when the shot which killed Mr Harsch was fired.’

The black slanting line of the brows came down again, descending until they made an angry line above the frowning eyes. The hand which held the test-tube closed hard and then relaxed. The glass dropped broken to the floor. Evan Madoc did not even look at it. He said, ‘Who says that I was there?’

Lamb pulled a paper out of his pocket and unfolded it without hurry.

‘You were seen and heard, Mr Madoc. I have a statement here which says, “Mr Madoc came along the Cut from the direction of the church. I could see him quite plainly in the moonlight. Miss Brown was just outside the garden door of the Rectory. Mr Madoc said, ‘Where are you going, Medora?‘ and she said, ‘It hasn’t got anything to do with you.’ ” Have you any comment to make on that statement? The witness is prepared to swear to it, and to the conversation which followed. He says, in effect, that you forbade Miss Brown to go to the church, and that you took from her the key which she had in her hand and went off with it. I may say that Miss Brown admits to having gone into the lane.’

Evan Madoc laughed. It was a very angry sound. His face was haggard and his eyes burned.

‘Oh, she says she went into the lane? What else does she say?’

‘I’m not here to tell you about other people’s statements – I’m here to ask you what you have to say. There is evidence to show that you were in possession of one of the church keys at the time that Mr Harsch was shot. There is evidence that you quarrelled with Miss Brown about him. Have you anything to say on these two points?’

Madoc drew himself up.

‘If you have all this evidence, what more do you want?’

‘Do you admit that you were in the Church Cut at somewhere around about half-past nine on Tuesday evening?’

‘Why shouldn’t I admit it?’

‘Would you care to make a statement as to what took place there?’

He laughed again.

‘So that you can check it up with your witness and try and catch me in a lie! That’s what you would like to do, isn’t it? But that’s just what you won’t do, because I don’t tell lies – I speak the truth. That’s one thing you don’t reckon on in someone you suspect, is it – that he may tell the truth. That knocks the bottom out of your trap – doesn’t it? Write down what I say and you can have your statement, and every word of it will be true!’

Lamb looked round over his shoulder and nodded. The notebook came out of Frank Abbott’s pocket. He found himself in a chair and wrote upon his knee.

Madoc began to walk up and down, throwing off short, furious sentences, his hands plunged deep in his pockets, every jerky stride, every abrupt turn, full of angry energy.

‘Tuesday evening. I didn’t look at the time. I went out and walked. When I came to the Church Cut I saw Miss Brown. I thought she was going to the church. I thought she was making a fool of herself. I could see she had got something in her hand. Harsch was playing in the church. I told her she could listen to him from where she was. I told her to hand over the key. When she wouldn’t, I twisted her arm. The key fell down. I picked it up and went away. That’s all – make anything you like of it! And get out of here! I’m working!’

No one was in a hurry but Mr Madoc. Sergeant Abbott wrote. Lamb presented his imperturbable front (Impersonation of a Prize Ox at Grass, as his irreverent subordinate had it).

‘Just a moment, Mr Madoc. This business is important for you as well as for us. It can’t be rushed over. I’d like you to take time to think before you speak, and it is my duty to warn you that what you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.’

The words pulled Evan Madoc up short. He checked in the middle of a stride, flung round, and said, ‘Good God! What are you suggesting?’

‘It is not my place to suggest. I am warning you. I’ve got my duty to do, and it would be better for you as well as for me if you would sit down quietly and think before you say anything. All right, it’s just as you like – but I’ve warned you. I’m asking you whether you used the key you took from Miss Brown. I’m asking you whether you went to the church and saw Mr Harsch on Tuesday evening.’

Madoc had already made a violent gesture of dissent. He now repeated it, shaking his head with an energy which shook his whole body too. After which he stood, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched forward, glowering, a lock of black hair tossed up like a ruffled feather accentuating the upward twist of the eyebrow.

‘You deny that you went to the church?’

Madoc said with the extreme of bitterness, ‘If I say no, you’ll be sure I lie. If I say yes, you will ask me whether I shot Michael Harsch, and if I say yes to that, you will believe me with greediness. But if I tell you that I loved him like a brother, and that I would give my right hand to have him back, you will again be very sure that I am lying. Because it is not in you to believe good – you can only believe evil.’

Lamb cleared, his throat.

‘I should like to ask you to clarify those remarks, Mr Madoc. We don’t want any confusion over this. I am not clear whether you are stating that you did go to the church, or that you did not.’