A Murder is Arranged

by Basil Thomson

  “On questioning the guests and staff at Scudamore Hall, Chief Inspector Vernon ascertained that the last person to see the deceased woman alive was a young man named Gerald Huskisson, of no occupation and known to be in financial straits. He also had met the woman in Paris and though he was believed to be in love with her he had had a serious quarrel with her—a fact that was known to other guests at the Hall.

  “Mr Vernon also informed me that he had made a search of the premises and had discovered in a shed at a small distance from the ordinary garage an Austin Twelve car bearing the number P.J.C.4291. The chief inspector recognised the number as that of a car which was wanted in connection with serious injuries to a woman who had been knocked down by it near Kingston. The driver had accelerated without stopping to succour the injured woman. Mr Vernon took the usual steps to discover the owner and found that it belonged to a Mr Oborn, a guest at the Hall. When questioned at Police Headquarters he denied all knowledge of the accident and said that a dent on the fender had been caused by bad steering when entering the shed. The number of the car had been supplied by two witnesses who saw the accident.

  “Arriving at Scudamore Hall the door was opened by a man dressed like a butler. I recognised this man as Alfred Curtis, alias Thomas Wilson, with Criminal Record Office number 2753. He has had five or six previous convictions, always for the same kind of offence—getting himself engaged as an indoor servant with a forged character and robbing members of the house party. He seemed much disconcerted at seeing me and without disclosing his identity I put discreet questions to Mr Forge about the butler’s movements on the night of the murder. It had been a very foggy night and some of the invited guests had telephoned to say that they might arrive very late, owing to the fog. The butler had therefore had to sit up until past 3 A.M. to receive them. Thus he had a watertight alibi if Dr Treherne, who made the post-mortem, was correct in believing that the woman had been shot not later than midnight.

  “The coroner intends to hold the inquest in the school-house at Marplesdon this afternoon at 2 P.M. and both Chief Inspector Vernon and I will be present. We think that it would be unwise to question any of the witnesses until they have given their evidence.

  “ALBERT DALLAS, Detective Inspector.”

  Richardson finished reading the report and rang for his messenger.

  “Ask Inspector Dallas to come, if he is in the building.”

  When Dallas presented himself Richardson said, “I’ve been reading your report. What impression did you form of the people you saw at Scudamore Hall?”

  “Well, sir, besides that ex-convict mentioned in my report I saw only Mr Forge, the owner of the house. He was greatly upset by the occurrence and kept saying, ‘This has been a lesson to me not to pick up chance acquaintances in a Paris hotel.’”

  “Had he any explanation to offer as to why that young woman should have gone out at or after midnight in evening dress?”

  “He thought she had gone out to keep a rendezvous with someone; he did not think it could be another member of the house party because the maid who waited on the murdered woman told him that a valuable mink coat was missing from her room and she must have been wearing it on such a cold night, yet her body was found with no wrap of any kind over her evening dress: the murderer had apparently stolen the coat.”

  “H’m! Then that fur coat may be a clue to her murderer.”

  “Yes sir, if it can be found, but Mr Vernon tells me that according to the maid it bore no distinguishing mark by which it could be identified; it had not even the name of the maker; the maid is positive about that because she had examined it carefully.”

  “Had Mr Forge nothing to tell you about the woman’s friends or relations in France or in this country?”

  “Nothing at all, sir. Mr Vernon has already written to the police judiciaire in Paris asking for full enquiry to be made about her, telling them the date when she was staying at the Hotel Terminus St Lazare. A search of her papers produced nothing of interest to the police.”

  “You say in your report that no trace of the bullet could be found in Crooked Lane. Were there any signs of a car having passed through?”

  “Yes sir. I have been with Mr Vernon to the spot in Crooked Lane where the body was found and in spite of the ground being lightly frozen I could distinctly trace the wheel tracks of a light car which had broken through the frozen crust of mud. There is a gateway into a field a few yards from the spot and I could trace tracks of the car in the manoeuvre of turning in that gateway. There were no tracks nearer the house, but on the other side of the gate there were double tracks: the car must have returned in the direction from which it came. Since writing my report I have made enquiries at one or two cottages at the end of the lane. One woman said that she had heard a car passing in the direction of Crooked Lane and had seen through her window the glare of headlights as it returned.”

  “You say that one of the guests at Scudamore Hall had left his car in a shed and not in the proper garage. Have you enquired the reason for this?”

  “No sir, not yet. I was waiting until after the inquest. That car is the one that I mentioned in my report as being suspected of having knocked down and gravely injured a woman.”

  “I see. Well, you will attend the inquest this afternoon and let me hear the result as soon as possible.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Chapter Two

  THE BREAKFAST TABLE at Scudamore Hall was set with only three places when the gong rang and the host, Walter Forge, struck a serio-comic attitude on entering the room and finding only Huskisson and Oborn present.

  “Good Lord!” he said. “Is this what we’re reduced to—three hungry men and no ladies? I hope that you have appetites; I’m as hungry as a hawk. What have we here?” he went on, going to the side table where four or five dishes were sputtering over spirit lamps. “The rule of the house is that everybody helps himself. Come along, you two, and make your choice.”

  When they had taken their seats Forge tried to lighten the gloom of his two guests by forced gaiety.

  “This inquest this afternoon is the devil. I’ve never attended one before and I hear that the coroner is a grim bloke with a mouth set like a steel trap. I dunno what sort of figure I shall cut in a witness box. Have they summoned both of you?”

  “Only me,” said Huskisson; “I suppose because I was the last person in the house party to see her alive—poor girl.”

  “And I because she was staying in my house, I suppose. You’ve not had a summons?” he asked, turning to Oborn.

  “No, thank God! And that’s why I’m going to attack these sausages with an unimpaired appetite.”

  “Your turn will come when you’re had before the beak for knocking down that woman,” said Huskisson sourly.

  “I never knocked her down,” said Oborn in his pleasant voice. He was an upstanding and rather good-looking man in the early forties; well dressed, well groomed and easy mannered.

  “Funny,” said Huskisson, “that two people who saw the accident have come forward to give the number of your car.”

  “Both of them women. Have you ever met a woman yet who could remember the register number of a car? The fact that they both gave the same number is the proof that they concocted the story.”

  “I’m afraid that argument won’t go down with the beaks and I’m told that the Kingston Bench gives short shrift to motorists.”

  Mr Forge’s forced gaiety evaporated. “This is going to be the worst Christmas I’ve spent and I’d hoped that it was going to be the liveliest. I had counted so much on poor Margaret to keep things going.”

  Huskisson rose, leaving half his bacon and sausages uneaten. “I’ve just remembered that I’ve a telegram to answer if you’ll excuse me,” he said as he left the room.

  He was a tall, thin, rather cadaverous-looking young man with lantern jaws.

  “Our young friend seems to be taking this business very much to heart,” said Oborn.

  “He is; don’t for
get that he was fond of Margaret and I was beginning to think that she was fond of him, although they quarrelled.”

  “That won’t sound very pretty when he’s called into the box this afternoon,” said Oborn. He changed his tone to an imitation of a coroner. “‘You quarrelled with this lady on the evening before her death and you were the last person to see her alive. What was the quarrel about?’ No, I don’t wonder that he hasn’t much appetite for breakfast.”

  “Oh, enough of this kind of talk,” exclaimed Forge, whose nerves were frayed to breaking point. “Three or four of the people upstairs have sent messages that they are leaving this morning. Our party is practically broken up by this catastrophe. You won’t be able to leave until this Kingston business is cleared up.”

  “No, unless they drag me off to a prison cell on the evidence of those two fools of women.”

  “Well, I feel like shutting up the house and packing off to Paris again. Her death would have upset me anyway, but to have been murdered in cold blood like this…Who the devil could it have been?”

  Oborn helped himself to another sausage. Forge looked at him almost with repugnance. “You seem to take the thing lightly,” he said.

  “You forget I didn’t know the lady.”

  “Didn’t know her? Why, she told me that she was looking forward to meeting you again. In fact that was one of the reasons why I asked you to come down.”

  “Another feminine mistake. Oborn is not a very uncommon name.”

  “What is your first name?”

  “Douglas.”

  “Oh no, that wasn’t it. It was an ordinary name like Jim or Jack that she gave me—Jim, I’m sure it was.”

  “There you are,” said Oborn, shrugging his shoulders. “If you want proof of my name I can show you my motor licence, my A.A. membership card and my passport. Those ought to be good enough.”

  “Have you got a second name?” asked Forge.

  “I have, but it’s a guilty secret I like to keep to myself. My godfathers and godmother conferred on me the name of Cadwallader and I’ve been trying to bury the name for the past forty years.”

  Forge was in no mood for flippancy. He pushed back his plate and went towards the door. “You can amuse yourself this morning, I suppose. I shall be busy.”

  “Righto! I’ve got letters to write and a lot of things to see to. Have I your permission to use your telephone for long-distance calls?”

  “Of course; as many as you like.”

  Left to himself, Oborn picked up the morning paper and scanned the headlines. His attention was caught by a paragraph relating the facts of the Kingston accident and giving the date of the hearing. The butler slithered into the room unobtrusively, as all good butlers should. After shutting the door and looking round him he came forward and murmured, “Bad business, that accident.”

  “Yes, it was unfortunate, but these things will happen.”

  “It was a blasted silly thing to do. You’d better have stood your ground. Now, with your bolting like that there’ll be a lot more publicity—just what we want to avoid.”

  “Don’t you jump to conclusions, my friend: they’re not healthy.” Then, with a sudden change of tone due to the entrance of the footman, he said, “Yes, you’re right; probably we’re in for snow.”

  “Yes sir,” responded the butler. “It promises to be quite a Christmas card sort of Christmas.”

  The morning was spent in the bustle of departures. All the guests were leaving except those whom the police had warned to remain within call. The inquest had been fixed for two o’clock. Huskisson and Forge lunched early and drove off to the coroner’s court together. The popular Press had already contrived to invest the proceedings with mystery; it is astonishing to see how many people can find time to attend any kind of public enquiry if it involves a mystery. The seats allotted to the public in the court were altogether insufficient for the number of people who sought admission, since the space available was much reduced by the presence of reporters from most of the newspapers, both morning and evening. A queue had had to be formed. To gain admission was an easy matter for Mr Forge and Huskisson, who had only to show their subpoenas. Huskisson was subjected to close scrutiny, for the rumour that he had been in love with the murdered woman had already been circulated.

  The Surrey coroner was a strong man with a sound belief in the efficacy of police enquiries: he had already made up his mind to direct his jury to return an open verdict, which would leave the police a free hand in carrying out their enquiries. The first witness called was Henry Farnell. He described in laconic sentences how he was passing along Crooked Lane on his way to work when he came upon the body of the deceased lying on her side with her head towards the direction from which he was approaching. Seeing that the body showed no sign of life, he did not touch it but went to the police station to report what he had seen.

  The next witness was Arthur Stove, a police constable who had been sent by his superintendent in charge of an ambulance stretcher to bring the body to the village schoolhouse. Judging from the fact that the woman was wearing evening dress, the superintendent surmised that she was one of the guests at Scudamore Hall and he sent the witness to the Hall to make enquiries. Mr Forge then came down to the schoolhouse and identified the body. The superintendent notified the coroner.

  Hid you find any weapon, bullet or cartridge case on the spot?”

  “No sir. I made a very careful search and found nothing.”

  “You found nothing that would give a clue to the identity of the murderer?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  The next witness was Dr Treherne, who had made the post-mortem examination. He testified that the woman was aged about twenty-seven or twenty-eight. The cause of death had been a bullet which traversed the brain and he judged from the state of the body that death had taken place not later than midnight.

  “Could the wound have been self-inflicted?” asked the coroner.

  “In my opinion, no. If that had been the case the weapon would have been found near the body; moreover, the direction of the shot would probably have been upward, whereas in fact it was horizontal.”

  “Had she been shot from behind?”

  “No sir; the bullet entered on the right side of the head and emerged at about the same level on the left.”

  “Were there any signs of a struggle or bruising?”

  “None at all.”

  The next witness was Walter Forge, who spoke of having identified the body as that of one of his guests at Scudamore Hall. He had met her in a hotel in Paris but he knew nothing whatever about her family or her history.”

  “Did any member of your household see her go out that night?”

  “No one, but I have since learned from the maid who waited on her that her fur coat is missing.”

  “At what hour on that evening did you last see her?”

  “As far as I can remember she left the bridge table when I did, at about ten o’clock. I was occupied after that in receiving other guests who had been delayed by the fog.”

  “Did anyone else leave the bridge table at the same time?”

  “Yes; Mr Huskisson. We left one table and three new arrivals took our places.”

  Gerald Huskisson was the next witness. He was essentially what lawyers would call a bad witness in the impression he left on the jury. He hesitated before answering every question as if he feared committing himself by his answer and left the impression on the minds of all who heard him that he had something to hide.

  “At what hour did you last see the deceased alive?”

  “I suppose that it was about eleven.”

  “You left the bridge table together at ten o’clock?”

  “Yes, to make room for other players.”

  “Did you spend approximately the next hour with her?”

  “A good part of it.”

  “Where?”

  “In the library.”

  “Was anyone else in the library at that time?”

&
nbsp; “No.”

  “Did you have a quarrel?”

  “I suppose you might call it a quarrel.”

  The coroner leaned forward. “What did you quarrel about?”

  “That I must decline to say. It was an entirely private matter.”

  The coroner’s lower jaw advanced half an inch. He was not accustomed to evasive replies to his questions. After all, the coroner’s court, as he knew, was the oldest in the kingdom. He repeated his question. “What —did—you—quarrel—about?”

  “I—decline—to—say.”

  “Very well, then the jury will form their own conclusions. How long had you known Miss Gask?”

  “I first met her in Paris about six months ago.”

  “Were you on very friendly terms with her?”

  “Y-e-s; quite friendly.”

  “Did you see much of her?”

  “A good deal.”

  “Which of you left the library first on that night?”

  Huskisson hesitated, as if trying to remember. “I think I did.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I went to bed.”

  “You didn’t join any of the other guests?”

  “No.”

  “And you left this young woman alone in the library?”

  “I did.”

  “And never saw her again alive?”

  “No.”

  The coroner considered for a moment and then began his summing up. He said that the medical evidence left no doubt at all it had been a case of murder and not suicide. He pointed out that so far no weapon had been found and that there was no evidence against any particular member of the house party at Scudamore Hall. “The police are pursuing their enquiries and you may safely leave the question of the perpetrator of this crime to them. My advice to you is to find a verdict of wilful murder by some person unknown.”

  Heads went together on the jury benches and after less than three minutes exchange of views the foreman stood up and returned a verdict of wilful murder by some person unknown.