A Case of Duplicity in Dorset

by Clara Benson

  ‘It wasn’t just me,’ said Freddy, as Iris gave him an odd look.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Ralph. ‘At any rate, I caught him in the act, but it seems as though the servants have somehow turned the story around and got it into their heads that there’s a dead body lying about somewhere.’

  ‘There is,’ said Freddy. ‘Somebody has killed Professor Coddington.’

  It took some minutes to explain this to Ralph’s satisfaction, and he stared.

  ‘Good gracious!’ he said, then adopted his most pompous manner. ‘I hope this will be a lesson to you in future, Freddy. You’re far too old to be playing silly jokes these days.’

  ‘What’s the joke got to do with anything?’ said Freddy testily. ‘How were we supposed to know that old Coddington was going to take it into his head to go sneaking around in the secret passage and run off with the pearls?’

  At that there were several exclamations of astonishment around the table, for not all had heard this part of the story.

  ‘Run off with the pearls?’ said Cynthia, her eyes gleaming with excitement. ‘Surely not! Do you mean to say the professor was a thief?’

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ said Freddy. ‘All we know is that he had the necklace in his hand when we found him.’

  ‘Well!’ breathed Cynthia.

  ‘But why?’ said Lavinia.

  ‘Perhaps he wasn’t a professor at all, but an impostor,’ suggested Daphne.

  Dr. Bachmann shook his head.

  ‘No, no, no, this cannot be,’ he said. ‘I knew Professor Coddington very slightly, and this was the same man. It could not be a mistake.’

  ‘I had no idea that academics were paid so little,’ said Ralph.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the quiet Mr. Wray. ‘This is all very upsetting. It is not pleasant to discover that an acquaintance was not a good person, but I believe this may have been the case here. We must all pray for his soul.’

  His words reminded Freddy suddenly of the conversation he had had with the clergyman the evening before. It seemed that someone, at least, had sensed the disaster that was about to befall them. Freddy wondered whether Mr. Wray had foreseen more of the event than he had told, and resolved to have a quiet word with him later.

  Mrs. Dragusha looked aghast. She was wringing her hands.

  ‘But this is terrible,’ she muttered to herself. ‘It is all my fault.’

  ‘What do you mean, Mrs. Dragusha?’ said Daphne. ‘How could it have been your fault?’

  Mrs. Dragusha glanced at her and came to herself.

  ‘I have been very unwise,’ she said. ‘But I had not the first idea that he would—’ She shook herself. ‘I must go and speak to his Grace.’

  And with that she stood up and hurried out.

  ‘What did she mean?’ said Daphne, looking after her in puzzlement, but nobody was listening, for they were all too busy speculating wildly about what might have happened the night before. Some said that the professor must have hoped to escape to London and sell the pearls there, while others thought he must have caught a thief in the act and died while retrieving the necklace. Lavinia declared she was certain that he must have been walking in his sleep and taken the pearls accidentally, then fallen and hit his head, but this idea was roundly pooh-poohed as being absurdly far-fetched. At that Lavinia bridled and said it was no more far-fetched than the idea that he had been murdered, for who could possibly have wanted to kill the poor man? Here she put a handkerchief to her eyes and began to sniff.

  Freddy decided to leave them to it, and went out of the room. Iris followed him.

  ‘Was all that true?’ she said out in the hall. ‘Were you really playing a joke on Ralph?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Freddy resignedly.

  ‘But why?’

  Freddy shrugged.

  ‘Because it was three o’clock in the morning and there was nothing else to do.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. She twisted a bangle around her wrist. ‘I thought it might be because—’

  ‘Because what?’

  ‘Nothing. Ridiculous of you, though.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Freddy.

  She looked as though she wanted to say something, but thought better of it.

  ‘Well, don’t do it again,’ she said at last.

  They were still standing together when Daphne came out of the breakfast-room. Iris turned on her heel and walked away.

  ‘It seems I missed all the fun last night,’ said Daphne. ‘What did she want, by the way?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Freddy as he watched Iris depart.

  ‘She’s the sort who likes to hedge her bets, you know,’ said Daphne. ‘You’d better watch out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. Come out for a walk and tell me what happened last night. The place is crawling with police and Lavinia’s being even more insufferable than usual.’

  They went out and wandered around the garden. The sun was out and there was a breeze, and it looked as though it would be a pleasant day. Daphne listened in astonishment as Freddy recounted the events of the night before.

  ‘It’s almost too much to believe,’ she said. ‘Do you think he died accidentally?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then somebody killed him. But in that case why didn’t they take the pearls?’

  ‘That is very much the question,’ said Freddy.

  ‘You say there was an eye-glass in the professor’s pocket, and he did mention that he wanted to look at the pearls more closely—although I don’t know why he didn’t just ask.’

  ‘I suspect he thought they were fake,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Really? But why?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear him at dinner? He said something of the kind then. I wonder whether he didn’t suspect that the real ones had been pawned secretly. He was pontificating about aristocratic families and their secrets yesterday afternoon, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he believed he was about to unearth yet another scandal. He probably thought he wouldn’t be allowed to examine the pearls closely, and wanted to get all the kudos for exposing the necklace as a forgery, so he decided to take them without bothering to ask permission.’

  ‘But the pearls aren’t fake, are they?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Freddy. ‘Cedric isn’t short of money as far as I know.’

  Daphne was thinking.

  ‘The professor did seem the type to do that sort of thing, didn’t he? He liked to find out secrets. I overheard him talking to Mr. Wray about something or other. What was it, now? Something about somebody’s not having a legitimate claim to the dukedom.’

  ‘Oh, the fourth Duke, you mean? That’s an old story,’ said Freddy.

  ‘I don’t know. It was something to do with John Wareham, I think.’

  ‘That sounds like it. I’m a little hazy on all the facts, but he was the black sheep of the family—you know, the one who ran off to India and brought back the Belsingham pearls. I believe he spent some years plaguing the family with claims that he ought to be Duke rather than his elder brother, although I’m fairly sure nobody took him seriously.’

  ‘Perhaps Professor Coddington thought he’d found out some new information that would have proved him right,’ said Daphne.

  ‘That would certainly set the cat among the pigeons. I wonder if that was it, then. I shall ask Mr. Wray,’ said Freddy. ‘Which reminds me—the old fellow said something very odd to me last night. He seemed to think he could sense danger approaching, or something of the sort. He has a gift for that kind of thing, apparently.’

  ‘Really?’ said Daphne. ‘How very strange! Visions, do you mean?’

  ‘That’s what it sounded like, although he couldn’t be any more specific than that. But he was convinced that something terrible was going to happen, and he was rather cut up that he couldn’t do an
ything to stop it.’

  ‘But it’s hardly his fault, is it? I mean, he could hardly be expected to predict something like this. None of us could.’

  ‘Well, quite. I’ll bet he’s kicking himself this morning, though, for not having prevented it.’

  They heard someone hailing them, and saw Goose and Ro approaching them from the house.

  ‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ said Goose, giving Daphne an appreciative glance as he arrived.

  ‘Are the police still here?’ said Freddy.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ro. ‘They’re tramping around my bedroom and fossicking about in the secret passage.’

  ‘It’s all jolly queer, don’t you think?’ said Freddy.

  ‘Of course it’s queer,’ said Ro. ‘You don’t think we have a murder every week, do you?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I was talking about the murder itself, and how it happened. It looks as though the professor was hit from behind just after he came out of the passage, but what was the killer doing in the library at the time? And was he waiting for Coddington to come out so he could kill him, or was he there for quite a different purpose? Have they found any sign that the murderer came from outside, by the way?’

  ‘No,’ replied Goose. ‘I’m afraid it rather looks as though it was someone in the house.’

  ‘I can hardly believe it!’ said Daphne. ‘One of us, you mean. Unless it was a servant.’

  ‘I don’t see which of them it could have been,’ said Goose. ‘Most of them have been with us for years.’

  ‘Who was up last night?’ said Freddy. ‘Can we rule anybody out?’

  ‘Let’s see, now, what happened?’ said Goose. ‘Ro howled, then we all came out, then everybody went away again, and then Ro came out again five minutes later and said the pearls were missing. So obviously it couldn’t have been you or I, Freddy. We were standing around in the corridor all the while, and can give each other an alibi. I suppose when Ro went back into her room after waking the whole house up, she might have chased him through the passage and brained him, then come back and raised the alarm about the pearls being missing.’

  ‘Ass,’ said Ro. ‘Of course I didn’t.’

  ‘How long had he been dead when we found him?’ said Freddy. ‘It can’t have been more than a few minutes, surely. Let’s look at what happened. What time did you scream, Ro?’

  ‘How d’you expect me to remember that?’

  ‘I think it was about ten past three,’ said Goose. ‘We were outside Ralph’s door at the time, and I remember I looked at my watch just before that, and it was just before ten past.’

  ‘Very well, that’s probably near enough,’ said Freddy. ‘Anyway, when Ro yelled I assume the professor realized he’d been rumbled and hot-footed it back into the passage. Then everybody came out of their rooms and went back in again when they found out there was nothing doing. Let’s say everybody had gone back to bed by twenty past three. Then Ro came out a minute or two after that, and we spent five minutes hunting around for the pearls. We must have gone into the passage at about half past three and found the professor at twenty to four. Allowing ten minutes for Coddington to stumble back through the passage after Ro woke up and caught him, he must have died at about twenty past three, or certainly not much after. That leaves the murderer twenty minutes to make good his escape.’

  ‘But it also means it can’t have been any of the people who came out of their rooms,’ said Ro. ‘If the professor died at twenty past three, then most of them were still out in the corridor with us at that time.’

  ‘Who came out?’ said Freddy. ‘We ought to make a list.’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ said Goose. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Yes, because anyone who showed himself after Ro screamed can’t have killed the professor, don’t you see? Between ten past and twenty past three most of the guests were out of their rooms, asking what the devil was happening. But since we know Coddington must have died at twenty past, then none of those people can be the murderer.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said Goose. ‘Let’s think, then. We three, of course. Nugs and Ralph. You came out too, didn’t you, Daphne?’

  ‘Yes, said Daphne. ‘I didn’t hear the scream, but I heard a racket outside my room so came out to see what was happening. Iris was up, I remember.’ Here she glared briefly at Freddy. ‘Mrs. Fitzsimmons came out, and Mr. Wray, I think. And the Duke.’

  ‘What about Mrs. Philpott?’ said Ro.

  ‘She got up, too,’ said Daphne. ‘And so did Mrs. Dragusha. The Duke practically pushed them both back into their rooms afterwards.’

  ‘So our society dressmaker wasn’t scampering gaily about the place with a lead cudgel either,’ said Freddy. ‘Now, is that all? Wasn’t there someone else? Ah—I remember: Dr. Bachmann was up too, wasn’t he? I think that’s everybody. Who’s left without an alibi, then? Bea and my mother. They both sleep in the East Wing, so they have a perfectly good excuse for having stayed in bed. Not that I’m so partial as to believe my mother is incapable of murder, but even she’s not the sort to go around whacking people on the skull without at least the glimmerings of a motive. And the same goes for your mother, I imagine.’

  ‘Might someone have run downstairs afterwards?’ suggested Ro. ‘After they’d all supposedly gone back to their rooms, I mean. There might just have been time to get to the library and kill him that way.’

  ‘I don’t think so, because Goose and I stayed out on the landing,’ said Freddy. ‘We’d have seen them.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Goose. ‘What about the people who went back to the East Wing? Nugs was suspiciously keen to get back to bed, for one.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that old dodderer did it,’ said Freddy. ‘He couldn’t possibly move fast enough.’

  ‘I don’t know—I’ve seen him get up quite a turn of speed when the dinner-bell rings,’ said Goose.

  ‘But why would he want to kill Coddington?’

  ‘Well you must admit he was annoying,’ said Goose. ‘I’m sure we’d all have happily given him a tap on the noodle given enough provocation. I know I would.’

  ‘Dr. Bachmann went back to the East Wing too,’ said Ro, then had a sudden thought. ‘What was he doing in the West Wing, anyway? He couldn’t possibly have heard the scream from his bedroom.’

  Nor could Cedric, thought Freddy, but said nothing, as it seemed obvious enough to him why the Duke had been wandering around in the wrong part of the house.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Freddy, I forgot to say the police want to see you,’ said Goose. ‘I expect they want to question you and make sure our stories agree. See what you can find out from them,’ he added, as Freddy prepared to depart.

  ‘I shall,’ said Freddy.

  In the hall Cynthia had button-holed Sir Henry Rollison, the Chief Constable, and was talking to him very fast of her theory that Professor Coddington had been killed by a gang of cut-throat thieves, and that they had all by the merest stroke of luck escaped being murdered in their beds.

  ‘But it’s true,’ she was saying. ‘I could give you a list of notorious criminals who are currently at large in London. They will stop at nothing, Sir Henry, nothing! Why, there is one in particular—nothing less than a desperado, I should call him—who did something in London—I forget what, exactly, but I’m sure it was quite dreadful. My son will be able to tell you his name—he works for the Clarion too, you know—one of their most valuable reporters. I dare say you’ve read his work—although on second thoughts, perhaps you haven’t, since I don’t suppose you get the London papers down here, do you? There you are, darling,’ she said, without pausing for breath, as Freddy came in. ‘Freddy, tell Sir Henry about that horrid man you were writing about last week, and convince him that he must have murdered the professor.’

  Sir Henry was wearing a slightly hunted look, and Freddy thought he could see a sign
of appeal in his eyes.

  ‘If you’re talking about Bert Dymchurch and his gang, then there’s nothing doing,’ he said. ‘They were all found guilty and sentenced to ten years apiece.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Cynthia. ‘Well, then, if he didn’t do it, it must have been one of the other ones. Goodness knows, there are plenty of wicked people in the world. Now, Sir Henry—’

  ‘You are Mr. Pilkington-Soames, yes?’ said Sir Henry, not quite interrupting. ‘I hear you and Lord Holme found Professor Coddington’s body.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Then you’re the very man I should like to speak to. You won’t mind answering a few questions, will you? Come and meet Inspector Trubshaw. I beg your pardon, madam.’

  He led Freddy firmly into the study and introduced him to the efficient inspector who had ejected them all from the library earlier that morning. Inspector Trubshaw gave Freddy an appraising glance and asked him abruptly to sit down.

  ‘I’d better go and speak to the Duchess,’ said Sir Henry, whereupon, having escaped neatly from Cynthia, he departed through another door.

  ‘Hallo, hallo, this is a to-do, what?’ said Freddy. ‘I dare say it ruined your breakfast when the news came in—I know it certainly ruined mine. Sorry for interrupting your Saturday, and all that.’

  ‘I take it the professor wasn’t a friend of yours,’ said Trubshaw.

  ‘Your deduction is correct, inspector. No, I’d never met him before yesterday. I don’t think anybody had, as a matter of fact. I understand he was rather foisted upon the family.’

  Trubshaw consulted his notes.

  ‘You are a cousin of the Duke, I believe,’ he said.

  ‘Yes—well, my mother is, at any rate. I’m once removed, I think they call it—not that they’ve ever managed to remove me, although I’m sure they’d like nothing better at times. By the way, I ought to warn you before we start that I’m by way of being a reporter. I work for the Clarion, up in London, so anything you tell me is likely to end up in print, unless you put an embargo on it.’