The Witness on the Roof (25 page)

Joan was twisting her hands together nervously; two red spots burned hotly on her cheeks.

“I don't think I can come to-day, Cynthia. I must see Uncle Septimus. You don't mind, do you, dear?”

“Oh, no, of course I don't! It is a delight to go alone!” retorted Mrs. Trewhistle with fine irony. “I—I never liked Granny at her best!” with sudden fire. “I always thought her an old beast, but I never imagined that even she would bring this upon us!”

Joan stared at her cousin in surprise.

“Granny—bring this upon us! What do you mean, Cynthia?”

“Why, if she had behaved like a Christian and left her money to you instead of making that idiotic will,” Cynthia explained, “we should never have known about Evelyn; we should have avoided all this worry; and she would have been just as well off, poor thing!”

Joan made no reply; she crossed to the window and looked out over the Square garden. The two had come up to London the previous day ostensibly for a week's shopping. In reality, since her fancied recognition of Warchester had become a certainty, Joan had found life at the Towers unendurable. It was unbearable for her to live in daily, hourly contact with Warchester, to know that between them lay that terrible barrier of doubt and suspicion, to meet the look in Warchester's eyes, and remember that it was he who had placed the pistol in her murdered sister's hand. Nor had there been signs wanting that the strain of the situation was telling upon Warchester also; he was distinctly thinner; his dark face had a worn, haggard look. It had been impossible, of course, with the uncertainty hanging over them as to what turn the police investigations might take next, to hold their projected house-party for the autumn shooting. Fortunately, the invitations had not been issued, and Joan caught eagerly at Cynthia's suggestion that they two should go up to town together to see about winter gowns. Warchester had made no objection; nay, Joan fancied that the very notion was a relief to him. He had contented himself with insisting that the two should make his town house their headquarters instead of staying at an hotel.

Joan, however, was finding now that even London failed to afford any distraction from that terrible anxiety that was worrying her. Constantly wondering what was going on at the Towers in her absence, she could not spend her days as Cynthia did, in driving from one shop to another.

This morning she had constrained herself to accompany her cousin, but now that luncheon was over, with all her fears revived by that paragraph in the midday papers, she felt that another such round would be an impossibility. At all hazards she must see Septimus Lockyer, she must ascertain how the inquiries were progressing.

So, despite Cynthia's air of ill-usage, she insisted on seeing that lady off to her milliner alone in the motor, while she directed the man to call a taxi for herself.

Luckily, Septimus Lockyer was at home and disengaged. His face was unusually grave as he rose to greet his niece.

“You are the very person I was thinking of, Joan! I was just wondering whether I should be likely to find you at home if I called. So Warchester is coming up to-night?”

“Warchester!” Joan faltered as she took the chair he drew up for her. “No, he is too busy with the improvements to leave just now. I do not expect to stay more than a few days.”

For answer her uncle showed her a telegram he had just received.

“Can you make it convenient to give me an hour any time this evening—Warchester.”

“I have telegraphed to him to dine with me at eight,” the
K.C.
went on. “So I expect he is on his way now: And what can I do for you, child?”

“Oh—I—nothing!” with a guilty flush. “Cynthia has some shopping to do, and I—I wanted to know how you were, Uncle Septimus, that was all.”

“That was very sweet of you.” Unseen by her, the
K.C.
permitted himself a faint, incredulous smile. “You don't ask why I wanted to see you, child.”

“N—o.” Joan felt herself begin to tremble. “It—was it about the paper?”

“Paper—what paper?” Septimus Lockyer stared at her.

Joan threw back her furs.

“I saw just now that they have an important clue—that an arrest may be expected in a day or two,” she faltered.

Her uncle frowned.

“Now that public interest has been aroused by learning that the victim of the Grove Street Mystery has been identified as Miss Marie De Lavelle, a former music-hall artist, they will put that sort of thing in every day for a week,” he said sceptically. “No, what I wanted to say was this—Hewlett has been talking to your stepmother. Why didn't you tell me the other day that you saw something of this murder, Joan?”

Joan sat suddenly motionless, her eyes fixed in a horrified stare upon her uncle. “What do you mean?”

Septimus Lockyer's keen gaze was upon her.

“I think you know, Joan. Your stepmother says that you were scrambling about upon the roofs, and that you saw something through the window of No. 18. Be quite frank, please, child, for that is the only thing now.”

“Uncle Septimus!” Joan's exclamation was almost inaudible; she felt unnerved. Strangely enough, this contingency had never occurred to her. The night of terrors which had followed upon her expedition along the Grove Street roofs, and in which she had been unable to keep from her stepmother the fearful sight she had witnessed had almost faded from her memory. She recalled it now, all the more vividly perhaps for that past forgetfulness. How, much had she told? she asked herself helplessly. How much had Mrs. Spencer remembered and repeated?

She glanced up desperately into Septimus Lockyer's face.

“How—how can I remember? It is so long ago.”

“Don't you remember?” the lawyer asked pointedly.

Joan shivered; warm though the room was, she had grown suddenly cold. She drew her furs around her again. How much did Septimus Lockyer know?

“I—I was very little, Uncle Septimus—only ten years old. It is impossible that I can recall things clearly after all this time.”

Septimus Lockyer's gaze did not alter. With his vast experience of cross-examination he gathered almost by instinct when a witness was hostile, when there was something being kept back, something that it was material he should elicit.

“Will you just tell me all that you can remember?” he said very quietly.

It could not be that he was seeking her testimony to inculpate the man she loved.

Mechanically she fastened her sables round her neck.

“I had been longing to get on the roof—that was the first time I had been able to manage it,” she said, in an expressionless, unemotional voice which, as Septimus Lockyer well knew, was very different from her usual clear, ringing tones, “but I think I was disappointed. It was not so amusing as I had imagined, playing there by myself. At last I came to a window—it may have been No. 18—I do not know. My head was just level with the window-ledge, and I peeped in. A woman lay dead on the hearth-rug; a man was stooping over her, placing a pistol in her hand.”

“Yes?” Septimus Lockyer prompted as she paused, his eyes still watching her keenly.

Joan taught her breath.

“I was frightened, terrified—and there was a door at the right hand; it was opening slowly, I thought there was some one on the other side. I cried out—I fell back. Someone would shoot me too, I thought, as I picked myself up and ran back along the roof to the Mews. Then—then I told my stepmother about it, as you know. The next day Mr. Hurst came to fetch me to Davenant Hall, and after that, though for a long time I used to lie awake, too frightened to sleep when I thought of the dead woman I had seen, it gradually faded from my memory until—until I heard someone speak of the Grove Street Murder. I could not help thinking that it must have been the woman who was murdered that I had seen. But it was so long before, it did not seem to me it was any use my speaking then. I never dreamt that it was Evelyn—how could I, when I had a letter from her that very morning? Yet since—since you have told me I have thought that the hair was the same colour. But oh, Uncle Septimus, isn't there some mistake?” her voice breaking suddenly in a quiver. “It couldn't have been my own sister I saw lying there!”

The
K.C.
gave her arm a kindly pat.

“Don't blame yourself for that, my child. You could not be expected to recognize her after five years. Besides, you did not see the face, I gather. What was the man like?” he asked quickly.

Joan was taken off her guard.

“Oh—he—I—I don't know, Uncle Septimus! I only had a glance at him, you see!”

“It was not Gregory, I suppose, your father's stableman?”

The question was so unlike anything Joan had expected that for a second she could only stare at her questioner in stupefaction.

“No, no, of course it was not!” she said at last. “What could make you think of such a thing, Uncle Septimus?”

“You are sure it was not Gregory?”

Septimus Lockyer drew a notebook from his pocket and consulted it for a moment. Then there came one of those quiet thrusts of his that had made him one of the most dreaded cross-examiners at the Bar.

“Have you ever seen this man—the one who put this pistol in the dead girl's hand—since?”

But with a woman's quick wit Joan had decided upon her plan of action now. She would not, by an unguarded answer, place in jeopardy the liberty, perhaps the life, of the man she loved. She was not looking up; one hand was gently touching the great bunch of Parma violets tucked in front of her coat.

“No,” she said quietly. “No, I have not seen him, Uncle Septimus. I should scarcely be likely to, should I? And I could scarcely recognize him now if I did. He—I do not think there was anything remarkable about him in any way.”

Her grand-uncle's keen eyes took in every detail—the fair face, a little pale perhaps, but otherwise unmoved, the slender hands that did not tremble as she readjusted her flowers. To him, as a student of human nature in all its phases, there was something suspicious in her very calm, in the absence of all excitement.

The door at the other end of the room opened, and the manservant looked in.

“Mr. Hewlett, sir, would be glad if you could speak to him for a minute. I was to say that his business is important. I have shown him into the study.”

“Quite right, Blake! Tell Mr. Hewlett that I will be with him in a minute.”

As the man withdrew Septimus Lockyer looked across at his niece.

“And that is all, Joan? You cannot help us further? Remember perfect frankness is always the best course, child.”

“Of course it is,” Joan assented. She stood up and glanced out of the window. “Ah, my cab is there, I see! I must not keep you from your visitor, Uncle Septimus. I only wish I had known my evidence would have been of any importance earlier. But, you see, my father forbade me to mention what I had seen, and when you told me the other day what had really taken place I was too utterly horrified even to remember the past. Then when I did recall it it seemed too indefinite to be of any use. However, you will let me know if anything turns up?”

“Certainly!” Septimus Lockyer assented. “I want to help you, you know, Joan.”

Lady Warchester moved to the door.

“You have always been very kind to me, Uncle Septimus; I wonder what made you ask me about Gregory?”

“We have to think of everybody in a case like this,” Mr. Lockyer replied evasively. “Do you remember whether Gregory was in the loft when you got on the roof, Joan?”

“No, he would have stopped me if he had been there!” Joan's laugh sounded forced. “But Gregory would not have hurt Evie, Uncle Septimus; he was always devoted to her.”

“I see.”

The
K.C.
's face was very thoughtful as he escorted his niece down to her cab. He handed her in and waited until the cab had turned into Piccadilly, then he went back into his flat.

The study door was half open. Hewlett sat on a chair near the door; he rose as Mr. Lockyer entered.

“Good afternoon, sir! I took the liberty of calling, for I felt I should like to consult you at once. I have just been calling at Scotland Yard, and while I was there some news came.”

“Scotland Yard! Ah!” Septimus Lockyer's face did not alter, but in some way the detective divined that he was prepared for what was coming. “What was it, Hewlett?”

Hewlett fidgeted with some papers he held in his hand.

“You know that they have been making inquiries from registrars and others with a view to discovering whether Miss Evelyn Spencer was married, and to whom?” he said at last.

Mr. Lockyer nodded.

“I know. A very sensible proceeding too.”

“Well, sir, the entry of the marriage has been discovered in the register of the church of St. Gudule in the little town of Larnac in Guernsey. A special messenger arrived with a copy while I was with Inspector Hudger just now.”

“Yes?” Septimus Lockyer questioned quietly. “What was the husband's name, Hewlett?”

The detective looked away from him and studied a paper in his hand with apparent interest.

“Wilton, sir!”

Septimus Lockyer made no rejoinder for a minute; he went over to his spirit-stand and, pouring out two tiny glasses of green Chartreuse, drank one.

“Let me see it,” he said then, holding out his hand.

Without a word Hewlett handed it to him. It was an ordinary copy of a certificate of a marriage solemnized on January 16th, 1895, between Evelyn Cecil Mary, daughter of John Spencer and Mary Evelyn, his wife, and—

Septimus Lockyer rubbed his eyes and stared at the bride-groom's name again. His expression lightened.

“Why, Hewlett, Hewlett, don't you realize that this is not Lord Warchester? It is his cousin Basil! What a fright you gave me, man! Don't you see that this is Herbert Basil Paul Stavordale Wilton, eldest son of Herbert Basil Wilton, clerk in Holy Orders, and Margaret Stavordale Wilton, his wife! This—this alters everything!”