Death Came Softly

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “I’m not assuming anything, Mrs. Stamford. It’s too early in the day to make assumptions,” said Macdonald. “All that I can say is that I think the local police were right in believing that the professor’s death is a problem which calls for investigation. Once again I should like to express my sympathy with your sister and you over the distress to which you are subjected. Now, with your permission, I will wander round the house.”

  His last words were addressed to Eve, and she nodded in acquiescence.

  “Of course, and do tell me, before you go away, if you find anything—which helps to explain.”

  As he closed the door, Macdonald heard Mrs. Stamford’s voice.

  “Oh, Eve, why did you ever come here?”

  * * *

  When Macdonald left Mrs. Merrion with her sister, he stood for a moment in the entrance hall. The front door, its double doors standing open to the sunshine, was flanked on either side by long windows; at the farther end of the hall two archways, on either side of a fireplace, led to the inner hall, where was the main stairway, and passages, to right and left behind the stairs, leading on one side to the kitchens, on the other to the southwest wing where Professor Crewdon’s quarters were situated. Macdonald, coming quietly out of the sitting room, stood still a moment when he saw a tall, fair-headed young man standing by the front door, apparently intent on examining a row of electric switches in a box to the right of the door. The glass-fronted box was open, and the young man was experimenting with the switches, without result so far as the electric lights in the hall were concerned.

  As though he became aware of Macdonald’s silent scrutiny, the young man wheeled around and stared at him. As he stared his rather sullen face lightened and he took a step forward.

  “Hallo. I suppose you’re the Scotland Yard chap—but we’ve met before, haven’t we? I seem to remember you.”

  “Yes, I think we have. You’re Mr. Lockersley, I take it?”

  Macdonald looked again at the square, palish face with its deep-set, rather frowning eyes, and then recollection dawned on him and he laughed a little.

  “I remember. I didn’t know your name, though. We met on the top of Hard Knott Pass and walked down and crossed the Duddon Valley. It was raining.”

  “God! I should say it was raining—and we argued Berkleyan metaphysics to the tune of that Oxford limerick:

  ‘There was a young man who said God

  Must find it remarkably odd,

      That the sycamore tree

      Still continues to be

  Though there’s no one about in the quad. . . .’

  We went on over Wrynose, and the rain left off just as we got to the top and saw the Langdale Pikes. How funny. . . . I remember wondering what you were, and put you down as an ex-schoolmaster—and you’re Scotland Yard.”

  “Yes. I thought you were a Communist with leanings to Soviet culture. Do those electric switches really interest you, or were you fiddling with them absent-mindedly?”

  “No. I wasn’t absent-minded. I very seldom am. I was wondering what lights they controlled. None, apparently.”

  “Probably the lights in the porch, and beyond. You’d better be careful you haven’t left any on.”

  “It wouldn’t matter. All the outside bulbs have been removed.”

  Lockersley took a step through the open doors and stood in the wide portico, taking out his cigarette case. Macdonald followed him, and then Lockersley asked in a lowered voice:

  “I suppose the fact that you are here indicates that the old man was murdered?”

  “It indicates that an inquiry is being made. Have you any suggestions to offer?”

  “Me? No. None, at the present moment. I can’t see any point in his being killed. He was a kind old chap, much more tolerant of human idiocy than I am. There was nothing spectacular about his life or his work, good though it was, I believe. Anthropologists don’t possess the kind of valuable secrets that scientists do, or men working in hush-hush ministries. In short, I can’t see any point in murdering him in a cave to provide an exercise in detection.”

  “I’m quite sure that he wasn’t murdered to provide work for my department, and there’s a possibility that he wasn’t murdered at all, of course.”

  They had left the porch and wandered slowly on to the wide terrace, looking down the valley toward the red sandstone scarp beyond the lake. Lockersley came to a halt, staring at the sunlit vista with frowning eyes.

  “Carbon monoxide,” he said meditatively. “I saw his face when they brought him in. I knew then, from the color of it. They oughtn’t to have moved him, ought they—but Keston has the brains of a louse apart from his own subject.”

  “Oh, it was natural enough to move him,” replied Macdonald. “For one thing, in the green light of the cave no one would have noticed the color of his face. They just assumed heart failure, and the rest followed.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Then they got busy with theories about charcoal.” He turned and faced Macdonald. “If you got that brazier going with the charcoal alight, do you really think the cave would get full of gas? There’s a good through draught between the door and lancet. I noticed it particularly when Keston dropped a burning match on the floor of the cave one evening, and some leaves smoked a bit.”

  “Quite true, but it wouldn’t have been necessary to fill the cave with carbon monoxide. The chemists say that two parts in ten thousand is lethal. However, it’s all very nebulous at present. But since you are here, and I am here, would you like to give me an account of your own doings that night?”

  Lockersley smiled. “I thought that would be coming. Assuming you could find any reason for me to have murdered the old boy I do look pretty fishy. I was out nearly all night, you know.”

  “Say if you tell me about it in your own words.”

  “Right. It was very simple. I went off for a tramp over Maldon Moor. I thought Mrs. Merrion would like a day alone with her sister, and if I cleared off she wouldn’t have to worry her kind heart by entertaining me. It was a damned hot morning, an absolute scorcher. I did about twelve miles, and climbed to the base of the crag on the top of the moor. It was slow going, because it was so hot, and I sat down about two o’clock and ate my sandwiches. I think I must have got a touch of the sun, because I lay down in the heather after I’d eaten my sandwiches and went to sleep like a log. I woke up because I was cold, three hours later. By that time the mist was round me like a blanket, absolutely thick. You couldn’t see a thing.”

  Macdonald nodded. “Yes, so I was told—result of a sudden drop in temperature to seaward. What did you do?”

  “Cursed, vigorously, and then cursed again. I felt a damned fool, caught out like any cockney hiker. I hadn’t a compass, and I couldn’t remember which direction I was facing. I knew that if I went downhill trusting to luck I might well land in a bog. There are some deep ones to the south of the tor. Thinking it out, I came to the conclusion that I might as well stay put for a bit, because I knew the summer mists don’t last long, not like the winter variety. My head ached, too—sunstroke or eye-strain or something—so I burrowed down in the heather to keep myself warm and went to sleep again. When I woke up the light was fading, but the mist was thinning a bit. I stayed where I was until I’d smoked my last cigarette. By that time it was dusk—nearly eleven o’clock by our summertime reckoning—but the mist had cleared off and I could see a star or two. I set out and made my way downhill, none too easy on that rough ground. I kept my direction pretty well, though, because I could see the pole star. I struck the woods above the head of the valley, up there to the west, and then I knew where I was. I got back to the house between two and three after climbing the fences round the deer park and wading the stream. Not a bad walk. I was feeling pretty fit again by that time, and could have gone on for hours, only I was damned hungry. I found the front door open and went to the kitchens to find some food. Carter was up, snoring in the armchair. He found me some food and we made tea, and wondere
d when Keston would blow in. He’d gone out to look for me—silly damn fool thing to do. He must have known the chances of finding me were nil, but Mrs. Merrion was worried, and he’s a chivalrous sort of bloke.”

  Macdonald nodded. “Thanks for the recital. The trouble is there’s no means of proving it. You didn’t meet anyone at any stage of your walk, I suppose?”

  “Not once I’d cleared the estate—about mid-day that would be. Once on the moor I might have been the only soul in creation. Same with Keston. He went up through the deer park, by a more orthodox route than the one I came by, and through the gates on the border of the estate. Of course he didn’t meet anyone. If we’d only been at the other end of the estate, and come up the drive—well, we might have seen something that would have helped you, but neither of us was within a mile of the Hermit’s Cave.”

  “What do you make of Keston?”

  Lockersley shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Not much. He dislikes me, for one thing. When I’m anywhere about he emulates a hedgehog, head well in, prickles well out. He’s a decent chap, I believe, and a useful scholar, but a marked introvert. Sensitive as hell, and hates you to know it. He was devoted to old Crewdon; he’s got a capacity for selfless devotion, but he’s an irritating beggar, all the same.”

  “Why does he dislike you?”

  Again Lockersley shrugged his shoulders, and a grin twitched his mobile lips. “Why not? A number of people do. Likes and dislikes are fundamentally irrational. Keston loathed me the minute he set eyes on me, and he hasn’t got to love me any more on further acquaintance. I think for one thing he resented anybody else coming to stay here. He liked the place to be—” Lockersley broke off and laughed a little. “I’m doing a lot of talking, and a fair amount of rot at that. It’s all quite irrelevant from your point of view, moreover. My attitude to Keston, and his to me, can have no conceivable bearing on your question—who killed Crewdon, and why? Certainly Keston didn’t. If ever one man was devoted to another, Keston was devoted to Crewdon.”

  As they talked the two men had walked slowly along the length of the house and up on to the terraced levels of the rose garden, where Mrs. Merrion had been at work clearing away the weeds. Macdonald turned and looked across the valley to the wooded slopes opposite, and something in his face told Lockersley that he appreciated the valley to the full, but he made no comment on its beauty, turning back to the other and saying:

  “You mentioned a short while ago that Keston was in the Hermit’s Cave with you some time, and that he dropped a match there. When was that?”

  “It was the evening before the professor’s death. Mrs. Stamford arrived after tea, and we all sat in the garden blethering—a rather tiresome party, with that ass Rhodian practicing his manly charm on Mrs. Stamford, and Keston bleating pedantries at intervals. Someone mentioned the cave, and Rhodian said he wanted to see it. I took him along there after dinner, mainly to get him out of Mrs. Merrion’s way. She was looking a bit frayed, as well she might, with all of us talking at cross-purposes. Keston must have followed us down the drive, because he came into the cave while Rhodian and I were still there.”

  “You were there for some time?”

  “Oh, about five or ten minutes, I suppose. I was rather interested to see how Rhodian reacted to the cave. It’s a queer place, you either like it or dislike it. He loathed it, said it gave him the jitters. Queer, you know. He’s a very commonplace tough, not enough imagination to animate a flea, but something in that cave made him almighty anxious to get out of it.”

  “While you were there, did anybody mention the professor’s habit of sleeping in the cave?”

  “Why, yes. Rhodian said he wouldn’t sleep there for any money—he had the feeling that the rock would fall on him or something—but so far as the professor’s sleeping in the cave was concerned, that wasn’t news. We were all aware of it.”

  “Did you notice a brazier standing in a niche in the rock?”

  “No, not then. I’d seen it before. I suppose it was there on that occasion, but I didn’t register it.”

  “When Keston came along, did he join you as though he were glad of company, conversationally, so to speak?”

  “No. He doesn’t enjoy casual conversation, least of all mine. I think he came along to see what we were up to, and rather resented us being there at all, as though we were intruding in the professor’s bedroom.”

  “And he dropped a match on the ground?”

  “Yes. It set light to some leaves and I remember noticing the odd way the smoke coiled up and found its way out of the entrance without filling the cave. Incidentally, if you want to see Keston, there he is snooping around. He has taken to watching me. He’s convinced I bumped old Crewdon off. Why, God knows, unless he thinks I have a diseased mind which designs futile murders as a jeu d’esprit.”

  * * *

  Macdonald saw Keston’s thin, dark-clad figure standing a few yards away; he seemed to be contemplating the little pool in the rock garden, and something about the droop of his narrow shoulders was dejected. Seen in the sunshine, in the gaiety of that beautiful garden, he looked out of place, an unlovely, melancholy figure of a man, in an environment to which he seemed alien.

  “Go and talk to him. Perhaps you can cheer him up. He needs it.” Lockersley’s brooding eyes had an impish gleam, and Macdonald wondered what nature of mind had its being behind that enigmatic countenance. He had read some of Lockersley’s work, and admired its skill, even while being exasperated by the satirical, angry mind which inspired the bitter verses with their queer rhythms and vivid word painting. Lockersley called across the garden:

  “Hi, Keston! Come along and be subjected to a little skilled analysis, and practice a little in turn. Here is Scotland Yard on our tracks.”

  Keston looked his distaste: he stood still, frowning, staring as Macdonald walked toward him, and Lockersley with a wave of his hand walked away toward the head of the valley. Keston bowed to Macdonald across the lily pool, a courtesy which seemed comic and artificial in that sunlit setting of woodland and wild, lovely garden.

  “Chief Inspector Macdonald? Mrs. Merrion told me that you were here. I shall be interested to know if you have formed any conclusions about this most unhappy matter.”

  “Conclusions are for the final chapter, Mr. Keston. I can be said to be at work on the prologue.”

  Macdonald made his way by a rough little stone path to the place where the other was standing, and Keston stared at him in a half surprised, half melancholy way. Macdonald thought the professor’s secretary a rather pathetic figure, but his face was an interesting and intelligent one. Seeking around in his mind for some manner of making contact with the man, Macdonald said:

  “It seems probable that you knew Professor Crewdon better than anyone else in this place. You worked with him, and thereby knew something of his mind. I should be interested to know if you have any ideas on the subject of his death.”

  Keston took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief, an unconscious action which Macdonald judged to be indicative of thinking, and at length the other replied:

  “It is difficult to say that I have any ideas. I have thought about nothing else these past days, but my mind is confused. The whole thing seems unreal, a very horrible fantasy. I don’t believe that the professor lighted that brazier himself. I asked him several times if he did not find that the cave was cold, but he said no; somehow it retained the day’s warmth, and even in the early morning the temperature did not drop unduly. That is true, I know. The rock seems to get warmed in the sunshine, and the cave is a pleasant place at nights.”

  “That being so, assuming that the brazier was lighted, as it appears to have been, can you suggest how it was done if the professor did not light it himself?”

  “I can’t, I can’t!” cried Keston. “That is the maddening, the distressful part of it. Unless he were unconscious, no one could have entered the cave and lighted the brazier without his being aware of it. One’s mind travels on
the most improbable speculations. Could he have been killed elsewhere, and his body conveyed to the cave after death?”

  “I very much doubt it,” said Macdonald. “He was a big man, and heavy, and it would have been difficult to carry his body even a short distance—difficult for one man, that is. Besides, there is this to consider. It seems overwhelmingly probable that his death was caused by someone in this household. No one outside, so far as can be ascertained, knew that he was in the habit of sleeping in the cave. No one outside would know of the existence of charcoal in the cave. Assuming then that someone in this household was the culprit, one has to remember that two inmates of the house—yourself and Mr. Lockersley—were out that night. It was quite uncertain when and how you would return. I don’t think any murderer would take risks carrying a heavy body about when any moment he might be surprised by a belated walker coming upon him.”

  Keston nodded, looking owlish in his extreme thoughtfulness. “Yes. I see your point, but consider what you imply. This household, you say. There was in this house that night the following persons: Mrs. Merrion and her sister, Mrs. Stamford, the professor’s daughters. Myself and Mr. Lockersley, for some part of the night, at least. Carter and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Brady, the professor’s servants. One of these, you say, was the culprit. Take the servants first. They all knew that Lockersley was out, and that later I went out in search of him. They had no means of knowing when either I or Lockersley would return. Carter was in the kitchen when Lockersley came in, and Brady appeared in the kitchen a little later. Had either of them been absent when Lockersley and I returned, their absence would have been noticeable. I agree with you that, if either were possessed by murderous impulses, they would not have chosen that night to put them into execution.”