by Clara Benson
‘Well go on, then, have a look at it.’
‘It’s in French,’ he said, taking the letter out of the envelope. ‘I seem to recall sleeping through most of my French lessons at school. I believe you gave me this just to test me.’
‘Hardly. What does it say?’
It was too dark to see much, so he moved towards a brightly-lit window and read through the letter with a frown. His French was a little rusty, but the purport of the missive was clear enough. He whistled.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘It appears he was sacked from the university for plagiarism.’
‘For what?’
‘Copying someone else’s work.’ She stared uncomprehendingly, and he went on, ‘At school you’ll get a thrashing for it, but in academia they’ll strip you of your titles and drum you out of the university, and your name will be ruined. It rather looks as though that’s what happened in Dr. Bachmann’s case. This is a letter in reply to his appeal against the sacking. It’s all very apologetic and regretful, but it says they’ve examined the facts, and while there are some small grounds to suppose that he mayn’t have been guilty, the evidence weighs too heavily against him for them to reconsider. No wonder he was looking a little peaky last night. Hmm—hmm. Now, what else does it say?’
He read on.
‘It doesn’t sound as if this has anything to do with the murder,’ said Valentina, but Freddy gave an exclamation.
‘Look!’ he said.
‘There’s no use in showing it to me—I won’t understand a word.’
‘No, but look! Do you see a name you recognize?’
She peered at the letter.
‘Horace—what’s that? Coddington.’ She glanced up. ‘Where does he come in, then?’
Freddy was still reading.
‘By Jove!’ he said at last. ‘It seems Bachmann asked for the name of the person who accused him of plagiarism, and they’ve obliged.’
‘Professor Coddington?’
‘Yes! It was Coddington who reported him in the first place and got him sacked!’
‘What a sneak!’ she said. ‘People ought to mind their own business.’
‘Quite. But the fact is, he ruined Bachmann’s reputation, and if that’s not a motive for murder then I don’t know what is. He must have found out for the first time yesterday that Coddington was the man responsible for his misfortunes. What’s more likely than that he took a heavy object to him in a fury? I should probably do the same thing myself in the circumstances.’
‘But I thought everyone had an alibi for the murder,’ she said.
‘Yes, that is a facer,’ said Freddy. ‘I wonder, though—I shall speak to Cedric. He was up last night too, and their rooms are both in the East Wing. Bachmann said he was going back to bed after all the commotion, but perhaps he didn’t. We’ve been assuming that the professor died at twenty past three at the hand of someone lying in wait for him, but he might have died a few minutes after that, because we didn’t find him until about twenty to four. Perhaps Bachmann, instead of going back to his room, dashed downstairs when Goose and I weren’t looking, and intercepted Coddington just as he came out of the secret passage.’
‘But how did he know it was the prof creeping about in her ladyship’s room?’
‘I couldn’t tell you,’ said Freddy, scratching his jaw in perplexity. ‘It’s not very satisfactory, I know, but I don’t like to reject such a strong motive out of hand. It’s the only one we’ve found so far. Look here, you’d better put this back before Bachmann discovers it’s missing. I don’t suppose you found anything else, did you?’
‘Like what? The real pearls, do you mean?’
‘Why do you say that?’ he said, staring.
‘Because everyone’s saying the ones you’ve got now are a copy.’
‘Is nothing secret in this house?’ he said in exasperation.
She gave him a pitying look.
‘They say that little man was an expert come to look at the necklace,’ she said. ‘I take it he gave you bad news?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, he did,’ said Freddy. ‘But you’d do well to keep it quiet. The family don’t want any scandal, and this would be a big one.’
‘What happened to them?’ she said. ‘Did her ladyship pawn them?’
‘I doubt it. It seems to be more a case of leaving them lying around accidentally.’
‘Does she do that a lot?’
‘More than she ought to, certainly.’
‘Maybe that’ll teach her, then,’ said Valentina. She appeared only half-interested in the subject. ‘What time is it?’ she said suddenly. ‘I’d better get back inside before I’m wanted.’
‘Make sure you put the letter back before Dr. Bachmann goes up to bed,’ warned Freddy.
‘I will,’ she said, and was gone.
The drizzle was becoming heavier, so he went back into the house through the kitchen, much to the consternation of the servants, then made his way to the billiard-room, there to practise some shots and think about what he had just learned. One person in the house was now known to have had a clear motive for killing the professor, but could Bachmann have done it? His story about not being able to sleep had sounded a little thin. Might he have been out of bed for quite a different reason? Might he, in fact, have risen with the express purpose of revenging himself on the man who had been the direct cause of his disgrace? Freddy tried to think how it might have happened. Presumably Bachmann would have gone to the professor’s room first, and would have found him absent. What would he have done then? He would have wandered along the corridor to search for him, most likely—just as he had done, in fact. Perhaps Bachmann had been standing at the head of the stairs, wondering whether to go down and look for Coddington, when Ro had screamed and he had come into the West Wing corridor to find out what was happening. That was pretty much the story he had told Freddy, in fact. So far, so good, but there things became less certain, as Valentina had pointed out. Had Bachmann waited for everybody to return to their rooms, then run downstairs to the library and done the deed quickly? Had the sash weight been in his plans all along? Or had he seized upon the nearest weapon and struck? No, thought Freddy—that did not seem possible. The weights had been lying on the window-sill, far from the door to the passage and where the professor had been found. To pick up a weight Dr. Bachmann would have had to walk thirty feet across the room. If he had done the deed then it must have been deliberate and premeditated, then. But again, how did Bachmann know the professor would be coming out of the passage into the library? He could not have known that the man in Ro’s room was Coddington—since at the time everybody had been assuming it was Freddy, Goose and Nugs playing a joke—and therefore could not have known he was intending to escape through the secret passage. None of it seemed to make sense.
Wrapped up in his ruminations, Freddy realized he was missing every shot, and so gave it up and went into the small salon, where the other guests were all now gathered. The first thing he saw was Dr. Bachmann talking to Bea. She looked as though she were enjoying the attention. Kitty Fitzsimmons was talking to Mrs. Dragusha, but Cedric was nowhere to be seen, and Freddy was about to withdraw when he was seized upon by his mother, who had been holding herself in all day and wanted to give vent to her feelings. The matter for offence was chiefly her treatment at the hands of the police, who had unaccountably failed to appreciate Mrs. Pilkington-Soames’s standing in the family and her position as society reporter at that august London publication, the Clarion.
‘If I didn’t know better, I should say that Sir Henry had been trying to avoid me,’ she said. ‘He seemed most unwilling to give me any useful information. All I asked was whether they expected to make an arrest soon in this case, and whether he thought the reputation of the Dorset police had suffered after their ignominious failure to catch that horrid man who drowned his wife in a horse trough—wh
at was his name again?—you know, that ferrety little shopkeeper with the wart on his chin—quite obviously a murderer to look at him, and yet it seems the Dorset police disagreed, because he wasn’t caught until he moved to Suffolk and tried the same trick again—but as soon as I brought the subject up Sir Henry made some excuse and practically ran in the opposite direction. And Inspector Trubshaw was most impertinent, too.’
‘Was he? What did he say?’ said Freddy with interest.
‘Never mind,’ said his mother, turning slightly pink. ‘But it was most disrespectful. At any rate, they ought to have been consulting me about this murder, since I’m by way of being an expert, but instead I’ve had to spend the afternoon listening to Lavinia Philpott talking about someone called Lady Turpin, whom I imagine she invented.’
‘Lady Turpin? The wife of Lord Turpin, the tea magnate, do you mean?’ said Freddy, looking around to make sure that Lavinia was out of earshot, since his mother was not too particular about talking about people in their hearing.
‘Oh, one of these new creations, is it? Then I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if Lavinia scraped the acquaintance by force. It was nice of Bea to take pity on her and invite her here, but really, she has no idea how to behave in polite company. Why, I could hardly bear to watch her at dinner tonight.’
‘Nonsense, she eats perfectly correctly,’ said Freddy.
‘But you can’t deny she’s awkward. I found her peering into the linen cupboard when I came up to dress tonight, and had to explain to her that if one needs an extra blanket then one asks a servant to fetch it. I said it kindly, of course, but she didn’t seem to be paying attention. Anyway, she’s insufferable. It’s such a shame Daphne is stuck with her.’
‘I thought you didn’t like Daphne.’
‘Well, perhaps she’s not quite as bad as I thought,’ said Cynthia graciously. ‘She was most complimentary about my dress and was the only person to notice that I’d chosen this peridot ring specifically to match the colour of my eyes. You really ought to try and keep her away from Lavinia as much as possible, before the damage of her influence becomes irreversible.’
There was no suitable reply to that, so Freddy did not argue. He eventually effected an escape, and went to look for Cedric. The Duke was in his study, sitting in his favourite chair and gazing into a glass of whisky.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, as Freddy came in. ‘Has Bea sent you to fetch me?’
‘No, she’s talking to Dr. Bachmann.’
‘Hmph. He was always sweet on her, and I expect nothing’s changed. She’s still a good-looking woman. I ought to be in there making merry with my guests, oughtn’t I? But somehow I can’t summon up the enthusiasm, what with one thing and another.’
‘Are the police coming back?’ said Freddy.
‘Tomorrow, they said,’ replied Cedric. ‘Although I should far rather they stayed away. Nobody’s trotted forward conveniently to confess to the murder, and I still haven’t decided whether or not to tell them about the pearls.’
‘I’d say better not, at least until you’ve spoken to Keble’s and done a little investigating on your own account.’
‘Yes, perhaps you’re right. Lord knows we don’t want a scandal.’
‘Listen,’ said Freddy. ‘There’s something I’ve found out, and I’m not certain what to do about it. It might have something to do with the murder.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s Dr. Bachmann,’ said Freddy, and proceeded to tell Cedric what he had found out, although without mentioning the part Valentina had played.
‘Do you mean to say you went rifling through his things?’ said Cedric indignantly. ‘That’s not playing cricket, is it? Freddy, I’m surprised at you.’
‘I didn’t just do it on a whim,’ said Freddy. ‘Bachmann was one of the people who appeared in the corridor during all the uproar, but his room is in the East Wing. Nobody who sleeps there could possibly have heard the scream, so I just wondered what he was doing up, that’s all. It was a natural suspicion given the circumstances, you must agree.’
Cedric opened his mouth to object, but then closed it again, perhaps realizing that it was as well to keep quiet, given his own unwarranted presence in the West Wing corridor that night.
‘So, given that Dr. Bachmann had an excellent reason to hold a grudge against Coddington,’ continued Freddy, ‘I naturally wondered whether he might possibly have committed the murder. The only way that he could have done it as far as I can see would have been to hare downstairs after everybody had gone back to bed and do it quickly then, so I wanted to ask you whether you saw him go back to the East Wing last night. If not, then it might be a good idea to ask him where he was.’
‘But he’s an old friend of mine,’ said Cedric. ‘He couldn’t possibly have done it. And even if he could have done it he couldn’t have done it.’
‘What?’
‘I mean, not then. I saw him go into his room, you see. We said goodnight to each other.’
‘Might he have waited a moment then come out again?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Cedric. ‘His door squeaks appallingly—as a matter of fact, I’ve been meaning to speak to one of the servants about it. It took me a while to drop off when I went back to bed, and I’m pretty sure I’d have heard him if he’d come out of his room again.’
‘Bother,’ said Freddy. ‘And it was such a beautiful theory. But ought we to tell the police about it?’
‘You may, if you like. But I should like to know how you propose to explain what you were doing scrabbling around in Bachmann’s underthings.’
This was a fair point, Freddy was forced to admit.
‘I suppose motive doesn’t make a case,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it had better wait until we have some more concrete evidence.’
He left the Duke to his whisky and went out into the hall, where he stood for a few minutes, eyeing the top of the staircase where it branched into two and led off into the East and West Wings respectively. If Dr. Bachmann had not run downstairs at twenty past three, then might somebody else have done it? If so, then who? He turned and saw his grandfather, who was just then coming quietly out of the small salon.
‘What are you up to now?’ said Freddy.
‘Escaping from your mother,’ said Nugs. ‘My, but she’s an exasperating woman! Takes after your grandmother, you know. As a matter of fact I wonder sometimes whether she’s anything to do with me. I find it difficult to believe that any real daughter of mine could be quite so irritating as she is.’
‘Nugs,’ said Freddy. ‘You’re in the East Wing. Did you see anything last night after you went back to bed? After Ro yelled, I mean.’
‘Eh? What’s that? What are you talking about?’ said Nugs. A guilty look appeared momentarily on his face.
‘There’s something wrong with the murder,’ said Freddy. ‘I don’t know what it is, but the theory of how he died doesn’t seem to fit the facts, and I’m trying to find one that does fit. We’ve been assuming that someone was lying in wait for him in the library, but now I wonder whether it happened quite differently, and that somebody ran downstairs after the disturbance and did it then, either while Goose and I were in Ro’s room or while we were chasing the professor through the secret passage. But if you went straight back to bed then you won’t have seen anybody.’
‘We-ell,’ said Nugs, ‘If you must know, I didn’t go straight back to bed. I went back into my room then came out again.’
‘You surprise me,’ said Freddy dryly. ‘Don’t tell me you went and made a nuisance of yourself to Mrs. Dragusha this time.’
‘Certainly not!’ said Nugs. ‘What do you take me for? As a matter of fact, it was all perfectly innocent. I just happened to remember I hadn’t finished my glass of whisky when we came up to play the joke on young Uttridge, so I went down to get it.’
‘At what time was that, exactly
?’
‘How should I know? I never notice that sort of thing. A few minutes after the party on the landing, probably.’
‘Did you see anybody?’
‘Not in the East Wing. I saw you and Goose and Ro from the top of the stairs, though. You were all standing outside her room, jabbering about something. Then you went into her room and I went downstairs. I topped up the whisky, then sat in the study for a bit. I dare say I dozed for a minute or two.’
‘Hmm. Then you’d have had to pass the library. Did you see anything?’
‘How should I remember?’
‘Think! It might be important.’
Nugs blew out his cheeks and thought.
‘As far as I can recall the door was ajar and the light was off,’ he said at last.
‘And you didn’t see anybody downstairs?’
‘Not a soul.’
‘How long did you stay in the study?’
‘I don’t know. Twenty minutes, perhaps? I started feeling cold after a while, so I went back to bed and missed all the fun after you found the professor.’
Freddy thought. As far as he could tell, Nugs must have come downstairs again at about half past three. The murder had presumably taken place some time around then, so why had Nugs not seen the murderer? Had he been hiding behind something, lying in wait?
‘Did you hear anyone wandering around while you were in the study?’
‘I don’t hear anything these days,’ said Nugs. ‘Do you mean the murderer? Would he be arriving or leaving?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Freddy.
‘Stupid old Codfish, getting himself murdered and ruining everyone’s weekend,’ said Nugs, with an unrepentant lack of sympathy. ‘They’re all the same, these ghastly academics. Ridiculously thick-skinned, with no idea how to behave in polite company. What sort of half-wit continues with a theft when he’s already been discovered? Didn’t he think anybody would notice the pearls were missing after Ro caught him burgling her room?’
Freddy stared. This had not occurred to him, but of course his grandfather was right. Why had the professor not dropped the pearls and made a run for it when Ro woke up and discovered him in her room? Why had he proceeded coolly to take the necklace? For surely he must have known it was inevitable that he would be discovered. Had he intended to steal the pearls after all, rather than just examine them? That reminded Freddy of another question which he had not resolved satisfactorily: why had Coddington had no torch in his hand when he was found? He had been through the secret passage, and his project to take the pearls would have been almost impossible without one. Where was the torch? Who had taken it?
