The Unfinished Clue (23 page)

"I don't mind what you do," said Geoffrey. "I mean, no, of course I don't want you to be arrested, but it's your own affair, not mine."

"But certainly it is your affair, my dear Geoffrey," said Lola. "And you must let me tell you that I have been very patient, because I have much sympathy, but it becomes absurd, the way you are behaving."

Francis surveyed his cousin benignly. "How is love's young dream? You must tell me, Lola, what you would like me to give you for a wedding-present."

Mr. Lewis wagged his finger admonishingly. "Now now, now!" he begged. "I've been talking to Lola about this marriage racket, and believe me I haven't finished yet. Don't get me wrong: I'm not against marriage. I'm a believer in it. It's a good thing - in its place." He nodded affably at Geoffrey. "I know just how you feel, Mr. Billington-Smith, but you've got to look at it from Lola's angle. You want to call her yours, but you've got to remember -"

"No, I don't," interrupted Geoffrey, choking over a piece of salad.

"Well, well, that's what you say," said Mr. Lewis tolerantly, "but I guess we all know what a young husband gets like when he's won a peach like Lola here for his bride. Don't we, sir?" he added, taking Mr. Tremlowe suddenly into his confidence.

"I fear I cannot give an opinion," replied Mr. Tremlow icily.

Geoffrey had swallowed the salad by this time. "I may as well tell you, Mr. - er - Lewis, that my faith in women is absolutely shattered."

"Now, you don't want to take it like that," said Mr. Lewis kindly. "Lola's got a duty to herself and the public. She's young. She's a top-liner. Supposing she was to marry you, right now, at the height of her career? Do you know what it would be? It would be a downright sin!"

"Yes, I quite agree, and I've already told her I don't want to marry her."

Francis turned his head. "But how clever of you, Geoffrey!" he said. "All broken off, is it?"

"It is not in the least broken off!" said Lola firmly. "Naturally I could not marry him when he had not any money, for that would have been a great piece of folly, but now he will have a fortune, and we can be married at once. Let me remind you, my dear Geoffrey, that on Monday you wanted so much to marry me that you became like a madman."

"Don't distress yourself, dear Lola," said Francis. "I feel quite sure that if you wait till all these tiresome policemen have gone away, you know he will once more wish to marry you."

Geoffrey started up. "What the devil do you mean?" he shouted.

Dinah said fiercely: "Shut up, Francis! Can't you stop trying to make mischief, just for half an hour? Sit down, Geoffrey: don't be drawn, you ass!"

Geoffrey banged his fist on the table. "I insist on your telling me what you mean! If you're insinuating that I've broken it off with Lola simply to put the police off the scent - not that there is a scent, because there isn't -"

"Of course I shouldn't have said it," apologised Francis. "So thoughtless of me! I'm so sorry."

"I'm telling you it isn't so!" said Geoffrey, his voice rising.

"No, no, of course," replied Francis soothingly.

Camilla, who had been staring at Geoffrey as she slowly assimilated the significance of this interchange, said: "Well, I must say I hadn't thought of that, though I did think it funny that the engagement was off so suddenly. You needn't try and shut me up, Basil. It seems to me anyone can say what they like about anybody in this house except me, but nobody need think I'm going to sit by while the murder's being pushed on to my husband, because I'm not! I haven't said a word till now but I've seen the way you all look at me and Basil, jusi because we don't belong to your precious family."

There was a note of hysteria in her voice. Halliday tried to frown her down. It was Mr. Lewis who dealt with the situation. "What we need is a little glass of something to steady our nerves," he said, and picked up the port decanter, and poured some into her glass. "A charming lady like you doesn't want to let herself get worked up. Look at you, do they? Well, if you take a peep in the mirror maybe you'll guess why. "

"My face is my fortune, sir, she said," and a fortune it would make you if ever you were to think of going on the stage."

Camilla was momentarily appeased by this fulsome flattery, and at once started to tell Mr. Lewis of all the people who, having seen her act in amateur theatricals. had not been able to imagine why she did not take it up professionally.

Lola, who had been sitting in frowning silence. suddenly smiled. "I see!" she said. "Certainly it is a very good thing that we should pretend we do not at all want to be married. But why did you not explain it to me, my dear Geoffrey? It is quite ridiculous, quite unreasonable. for you to imagine that I must think of everything for myself, though naturally now it is shown to me I see that if we pretend that we do not any longer love each other the police will not think that it is you who have stabbed the General because he would not permit that we should be married."

"Oh, my God!" cried Geoffrey, and rushed from the room.

Guest folded up his napkin and put it into its ring. "I rather think we've sat over this meal long enough," he remarked, and got up. "Anyway, I'm through."

"Well, tell Fay I hope her headache's better," said Francis, selecting a nectarine from the dish in front of him.

Guest had reached the door, but he stopped and took a half-step back into the room. For one moment a very ugly light indeed shone in his eyes. Then he turned, and walked calmly out of the room.

"A strong man roused," commented Francis, peeling the nectarine. "Whatever can I have said to annoy him?"

At half past two Mr. Lewis took his departure, and both Lola and Camilla went upstairs to rest until tea-time. Stephen Guest was nowhere to be seen, and Halliday, realising that Mr. Tremlowe was waiting to read the General's Will, tactfully withdrew into the billiard-room.

The Will had been drawn up five years previously, and contained no surprises. Fay received an annuity on the condition that she did not marry again; Francis received ,000; and with the exception of a number of small legacies to servants and pensioners, the rest of the General's property was left to his son Geoffrey.

Geoffrey was so much relieved to find that he had not been disinherited in favour of Francis that he became quite friendly towards his cousin, and having told him that he was sorry Sir Arthur had not left him a larger sum, he took him into the garden, and tried to impress upon him the true nature of his feelings towards Lola.

Dinah, gathering flowers on the other side of a clipped yew-hedge, heard him say earnestly: "Of course I realise you were only joking, but you know it might be frightfully serious for me if a story like that got about."

Gosh, what a fool he is! thought Miss Fawcett scornfully, and withdrew to the garden-hall with her basket.

Twenty minutes later she walked into the morningroom, carrying a bowl of sweet-peas, and found Inspector Harding standing in front of the bookcase wit I i a volume open in his hand. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said. "I didn't know you were here. May I just put these on thc table?"

"You can do anything you like," said Harding, with a smile. "It isn't my house, you know!"

"Well, it isn't mine either, if it comes to that. I thought I might be disturbing you." She glanced at thc book in his hand. "Hullo, doing a crossword puzzle," she inquired.

Harding returned Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary to its place on the shelf. "No," he replied. "Not a crossword puzzle. Another sort of puzzle. What has been happening to annoy you?"

Dinah looked sharply up at him. "You don't miss much, do you, Mr. Harding?" she said.

"I only thought you looked a trifle cross," explained Harding.

She grinned. "Well, as a matter of fact I'm fed up to the back teeth," she announced. "At any moment now I should think we shall all turn into a set of lunatics, and start gibbering at you."

"Oh no, don't!" begged Harding. "Tell me what's fed you up instead."

Dinah sat down on the arm of a chair. "I'm not at all sure that you aren't being serpent-like," she said.

"However, I'm past caring, and the sooner you arrest somebody for this murder - preferably Francis - the better."

"What has he been doing?" inquired Harding.

"Making mischief," said Dinah viciously. "I say, did he pinch that money, do you think, or did Arthur really have remorse, and send it to him?"

Harding said, watching her: "I don't know. Are you anxious about it?"

"Anxious?" said Dinah.

"I thought," Harding said diffidently, "that you seemed to be on terms of great friendship with Captain Billington-Smith."

"Then I don't think much of you as a detective," said Dinah. "I can't stand Francis. How on earth did you come to make such a mistake?"

Inspector Harding apologised. "I don't think my judgment was likely to be entirely impartial on that point," he said in extenuation.

Since this was spoken almost inaudibly Miss Fawcett did not quite gather its import, and continued briskly: "In fact, if someone's got to be arrested for having killed Arthur I'd rather it was Francis than anyone, except perhaps Camilla, and I suppose you can't manage to shove it on to her?"

Inspector Harding allowed this aspersion on his integrity to pass without demur, and merely remarked that he thought it would be difficult.

"A pity," said Miss Fawcett regretfully. "She's a frightful cad. And if she comes oiling up to you, as I rather think she may, with a whole lot of tales about anybody else, don't encourage her! You can't place the slightest reliance on anything she says, and she'll only lead you on quite the wrong track."

"Thank you very much for warning me," said Harding meekly.

Miss Fawcett blushed. "You're laughing at me."

"I shouldn't dream of laughing at you," he said.

Miss Fawcett became aware suddenly that Inspector Harding was regarding her with a light in his grey eyes that was far from professional. She felt her cheeks groom rather warmer. "Well, I must go and do the rest of thc flowers," she said, with great presence of mind, and got up. "I suppose there's nothing you want? You'll ring it there is, won't you?"

"No, I don't think I shall ring for it," said Harding, with a faint smile. He held open the door, and Miss Fawcett retired in good order.

Chapter Sixteen

The police car which had conveyed the Sergeant to Bramhurst did not return to Ralton until quite a late hour. The Sergeant found Inspector Harding at the police station, and at once proceeded to give him a faithful account of his investigations. These had been most thorough, for, acting on the Inspector's instructions, he had made inquiries at numerous points along the road, and although in most instances he had drawn blank, he had traced an A.A. official to his home, and ascertained from him that Captain Billington-Smith's car had passed the big cross-roads a few miles south of Bramhurst shortly after one o'clock. The A.A. man remembered the car, for he had held it up to allow a lorry to pass first, but he had not noticed whether it was running badly. This, coupled with a positive statement from the mechanic at the garage in Bramhurst that Captain Billington-Smith had driven his car into the yard at one-thirty precisely, seemed to prove that either Captain Billington-Smith's watch had been an hour slow when he looked at it, or that he had his own reasons for wanting to make the police believe that it was twelve thirty when he arrived at Bramhurst. As to the choked jet, it had certainly been cleaned, but whether it had been in a bad enough condition seriously to impede the running of the car was a point on which the Sergeant could not induce the garage hands to put forward an opinion. The spare tyre had certainly been flat, and he had mended this while Captain Billington-Smith was having lunch. The waiter at the Stag corroborated the evidence in as much as he was able to state that the Captain had not entered the dining-room until a quarter to two, which circumstance he remembered perfectly, the Captain having been the last person to order lunch that day.

Inspector Harding had also been making investigations, and the results of one of these came to hand , at ten o'clock that evening, when he received a note from the Superintendent summoning him back to the police station. Here there awaited him a spare and weather beaten man in a plain suit who had certain information to give him. He was the postman who served thc Lyndhurst district, and he was able to state definitely that on Monday morning at eleven-thirty when he was on hip way up to Dean Farm by the cart-track that ran between Moorsale Park and the Grange, he had passed Captain Billington-Smith's car, parked a little way up the track hard against the spinney at the bottom of the Grange garden. The track was scarcely ever used, the main approach to Dean Farm being from the main road on the other side, but he himself always used this back entrance, to save a long detour.

The Sergeant had gone home some time before the postman's visit, but the Superintendent was still in the police station, and found this new disclosure so conclusive that he would have liked to go at once to the nearest magistrate to procure a warrant for Captain Billington-Smith's arrest.

Inspector Harding was not so enthusiastic. When the postman had left them, he said (most unreasonably, the Superintendent thought) that the case seemed to be getting in a worse tangle than ever, and picked up his hat. "It's all wrong, Superintendent," he complained. "I'm going to bed, to sleep on it."

The Superintendent watched him walk over to the door, and made up his mind to tell the Chief Constable that they'd have done better without calling in Scotland Yard, just as he'd always prophesied. Here was a piece of news come to hand that solved the whole case, and all this precious Inspector did about it was to go off home to bed. "What about the inquest tomorrow morning?" he asked.

"I think an adjournment, don't you?" Harding suggested.

"The way things are shaping that's what I shall have to ask for," said the Superintendent crushingly.

As might have been expected, the court-room at Silsbury was crowded next morning, but those who had come in the hope of hearing thrilling disclosures were disappointed. Of the Grange party, only Geoffrey and Francis, the Hallidays, and Stephen Guest were present. The police evidence was followed by the evidence of both doctors, and there was nothing in what they had to say to interest an audience who already had all the facts of the case in mind. Dr Raymond gave it as his opinion that death had occurred some time between twelve and one o'clock, but admitted, upon pressure, that it was difficult to reach any degree of certainty on this point. Death had been caused by a blow from a shallow instrument driven into the deceased's neck below the right ear, and severing the carotid artery. He agreed with the Divisional Surgeon that the blow was struck by someone standing slightly behind the General.

Here a slight quickening of interest was caused by Inspector Harding, who rose to his feet to put a question to the doctor. He wanted to know whether, in Dr Raymond's opinion, death would have been instantaneous.

"Practically instantaneous," replied the doctor.

"What in your opinion, doctor, would have been the maximum time to elapse between the actual striking of the blow and death?"

The doctor hesitated. "I should not like to give am very definite opinion on that point. In my view, death must have taken place within a minute, or even less."

"Thank you," said the Inspector, and sat down again.

After Dr Raymond, Mrs. Twining was called, and recounted in a composed manner the circumstance: under which she had discovered the General's body. She was followed by Guest, Halliday, and Finch, who in turn described briefly how they had found the General's body, and what measures they took to ensure that nothing should be disturbed until the police came. After that, the Superintendent, arose, and asked for an adjournment.

This being granted there was nothing left for the disappointed audience to do but to go discontentedly home.

In spite of her declared intention not to be present at the inquest Mrs. Chudleigh was foremost amongst those who filed out of the court-room. By the time she got outside, however, Geoffrey, Francis, and Mr. Tremlowe had all embarked in Francis's car, so that she was unable to get a word with any of them. The Hallidays, with Stephen Guest and Finch, had come in the Daimler, and would return in it as soon as Guest had bought some tobacco, and Camilla a new lipstick. Mrs. Chudleigh saw Camilla just leaving the building, and caught up with her, explanations for her presence at the inquest hurrying off her tongue.

"Oh, good morning, Mrs. Halliday! Such a lovely day, I thought I would come into Silsbury to do a little shopping. I always take the bus in at least once a month: it is really most convenient. And since I happened to be in town I thought I would just pop in at the inquest to try and get a word with Lady Billington-Smith. But I see she is not here."

"No, she stayed at home," said Camilla. "It wasn't as though anything was done at the inquest. I must say, I can't see the sense of it because we all knew everything that was said. It wasn't my idea of an inquest at all, and what on earth the police want an adjournment for when they've had all this time to find out who did the murder I can't imagine. Especially as it's absolutely under their noses. It's perfectly obvious who did it, and I don't mind telling you that I suspected it from the start. I mean, the way he behaved!"

"Really?" said Mrs. Chudleigh, keeping step with her along the street. "I hope I'm not inquisitive, but it is rather absurd that there should be so much mystery about it."

Camilla gave her empty laugh. "Yes, it makes me pretty wild, the way they all stick together, just because it's in the family. Well, I spoke my mind about it. Of course they didn't like it, but what I say is, why should everything be shifted on to my husband when someone else had far more reason to want to get rid of poor Sir Arthur? It's absolutely unfair, and so I told them!"

"Oh, but surely no one suspects Mr. Halliday?" said Mrs. Chudleigh.

"Oh, don't they?" snapped Camilla. "I've got eyes, and I'm not quite a fool, Mrs. Chudleigh!"

"But who do you think did it?" asked Mrs. Chudleigh, hurrying to keep up with her.

"Well, I won't mention any names," said Camillia darkly, "but we all know who had a simply frightful row with poor Sir Arthur the very day he was murdered, and was going to be thrown out of the house. Yes, and then, if you please, we are told that he'd broken off his engagement! Of course every one could guess that's simply a blind to lead the police off the scent, but if you ask me Inspector Harding's on to him already, and if there's any more talk of asking Basil a whole lot of insulting questions, I shall say right out that they'd better ask why that engagement was broken off so suddenly , that's all!"

"Good gracious, you don't think Geoffrey did it?" gasped the Vicar's wife. "Oh, but that can't be so! Such a nice boy, and so delicate! And besides he couldn't have done it, for I saw him myself that morning, quite a long way from the Grange."

"You saw him?" said Camilla, stopping in front of a draper's window.

"Yes, I saw him on my way home. I wonder if I ought to tell the Inspector? I think it is my clear duty to find him, and tell him. I suppose he will be at the Grange, won't he?"

"You could just as easily tell them at the police station," said Camilla maliciously.

"No, Mrs. Halliday, I shall do no such thing. I hope I should never shirk what I know to be my duty, and I am quite aware that it is the Inspector who is in charge of the case. It's most inconvenient, for I have a great deal on my hands, but I always say one can make time if one wants to, and I shall call at the Grange on my way home. And at the same time I shall hope to have a little quiet talk with Lady Billington-Smith."

"I expect she'll love that," said Camilla. "I don't know when you saw Geoffrey, but I do know it would take a lot to convince me he didn't do it!"

The first person to reach the Grange after the inquest was Inspector Harding. He was admitted by the footman, and had hardly set foot inside the house when Miss Fawcett came running downstairs, and leaned over the banisters. "Is that you, Geoffrey?" she called. "What happened?"

"No, it's not Geoffrey," said Harding, walking forward. "Nothing much happened. We asked for an adjournment."

"You don't mean to say we've got to go on as we are?"

"Not for long, I hope."

"Oh, my giddy aunt!" groaned Miss Fawcett. "This is ceasing to be funny!"

Harding regarded her in some amusement. "Do tell me," he said, "is that how a murder generally strikes you?"

"Not the murder," explained Dinah. Just the , the general effect. When I joined this little house-party every one seemed more or less human. You ought to see us en famine now. More like a zoo than anything - 'specially when Camilla starts screeching." She looked down at him from her superior elevation, and inquired with friendly interest: "What are you going to do now? Crawl round looking for footprints?"

"That was all done before I came," explained Harding gravely.

Miss Fawcett shook her head. "If you want a thing well done you should do it yourself," she said.

"I wish you'd come downstairs; I'm getting a crick in the neck," returned Inspector Harding.

"Surely," said Miss Fawcett with severity, "you didn't come here to waste time talking to me, Inspector?"

"Don't call me Inspector. I came to talk to Captain Billington-Smith, but I have an idea he hasn't yet come back from Silsbury."