Murder in the Basement

by Anthony Berkeley

  It was not often that Elsa Crimp consciously took another person for a model. Unconsciously her entire attitude was modelled on that of other persons, chiefly living in Chelsea, but consciously not. Yet Miss Crimp during the last few weeks had had a wistful eye on Amy Harrison. She did not like Amy Harrison; in fact she detested her; but one could not deny that Miss Harrison’s methods were effective; it was impossible to imagine that Amy’s quarry would escape her in the end, however coyly he might twist and turn during the pursuit. Miss Crimp watched, noted, and went off to do likewise. Nevertheless Mr. Stanford remained uncaptured. It was a nuisance.

  She lit another cigarette.

  Mr. Stanford must be compromised, that was all. Hopelessly, irrevocably compromised. But how the devil to compromise a man who turns round and positively runs whenever he sees you coming in the distance? That was the problem.

  Her cigarette gave her no help.

  She threw it away, and lit another.

  Being in love costs a terrible lot in cigarettes.

  VI

  The Rev. Michael Stanford was brushing his hair. He brushed and brushed at it, polishing his sleek head till it gleamed again. He was thinking of Elsa Crimp.

  He was thinking: “I’d sooner die than marry her. But she’ll get me in the end. I can’t stand out much longer. It’s no good complaining to the vicar. He wouldn’t understand. He’d laugh. I’ve told her and I’ve told her that the celibacy of the clergy is one of my strongest principles. But what does she do? Oh, heavens above, what doesn’t she do? I’ve never met such a girl. It’s awful.

  “And it’s no use leaving here and going somewhere else. She’d only follow me.

  “Oh, dear, oh, dear.”

  He put down his brushes, dropped on his knees by the bedside, and prayed to be delivered from Elsa Crimp.

  There was little conviction in his prayer. For the first time since his early teens the Rev. Michael Stanford was beginning to doubt the omnipotence of the Almighty.

  VII

  In his bedroom at Roland House Mr. Wargrave smiled complacently at himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. He had decided some weeks ago to accept Amy on the last day of term; there were only five days left now.

  Mr. Wargrave did not believe in luck. It was not luck that Amy Harrison should, apparently of her own accord, have reached precisely the same conclusion as Mr. Wargrave had reached over two years ago, namely that a marriage between them was the best possible thing that could happen for their joint interests. No, it was not luck in the least; it was sound stage-management; for these last two years Mr. Wargrave had, by the subtlest suggestion, been implanting in Amy’s mind just that very idea.

  Now Amy of course imagined that the idea was entirely her own, but that was precisely what Mr. Wargrave had intended she should imagine.

  Mr. Wargrave was ambitious. For a young master without a degree at either of the major universities, without money, without prospects, without influential friends, and with a slight Lancashire accent, the future may well look bleak. Efficiency at one’s job will never lead alone to the proprietorship of a paying school. Mr. Wargrave had known all that from the beginning. He had therefore chosen his school with some care. There had to be an only daughter attached to it, of not too prepossessing aspect. Having found such a school, Mr. Wargrave had dug himself in, made a careful study of the daughter in question and what would be likely to meet with her greatest approval, and got to work.

  But there was nothing crude in Mr. Wargrave’s methods. Amy was never to know the careful plan that had been laid. Amy was never to be in a position to throw up at him that he had married her for her school alone. He was to do no chasing himself; oh, no; Amy was to make the running.

  And Amy had made it.

  Mr. Wargrave had got a good deal of quiet amusement out of Amy’s wooing. It had been such a business-like wooing. There had been no question of love or anything inefficient like that. Amy’s wooing had consisted almost entirely in elaborating, clarifying, and throwing back at their own author Mr. Wargrave’s original hints. A woman cannot run a boys’ school alone, had been the burden of Amy’s song, however capable she may be; she must have an efficient male at her side, and that male must be either her brother or her husband, and Amy had no brother. In spite of his habitual earnestness Mr. Wargrave had smiled to himself occasionally, not because he saw the humour of the situation, but because his plan was working out so successfully.

  There had been difficulties, of course, but Amy had not known of them. Mr. Wargrave was no celibate, and it is almost impossible for any young man, however earnestly ambitious, to reach the age of twenty-nine without having formed any attachment on the way. Mr. Wargrave’s attachment had expected him to marry her. Needless to say, Mr. Wargrave had stood no nonsense of that sort, but there had been the difficulty.

  Mr. Wargrave knew he deserved to succeed. With any obstacles in his way he was ready to deal quite drastically.

  VIII

  Mr. Duff was reading in bed. That is to say, there was a book on his pillow; but Mr. Duff’s attention was not really on his book.

  Mr. Duff was worried. There was a row going on, and Mr. Duff would be compelled sooner or later to support one side or the other. He wanted to support Mr. Parker and Amy. That was the sensible thing to do. In fact Mr. Duff was quite sure he dared not support any side in opposition to Amy. On the other hand Leila Jevons was already at loggerheads with Amy and would be presumably supporting Mr. Rice’s team; and how could Mr. Duff not range himself, obscurely but devoutly, on any side that contained Miss Jevons? It would be hopeless, of course; Mr. Duff knew that; but perhaps even his unimportant alliance might hearten Miss Jevons a little—if she ever noticed it, which was unlikely enough.

  Amy. . . .

  Mr. Duff thought of his old mother and very nearly ground his teeth. It was for his old mother’s sake that Mr. Duff had borne all these years the scarcely hidden insults and contempt of Amy. If he were to lose his place here, what chance would he ever have of getting another; and what would happen to his old mother then? Sometimes, when Amy had been ruder than usual, Mr. Duff would go so far as to soothe himself to sleep with visions of Amy’s death, sometimes in a lingering illness of a highly unpleasant nature, sometimes in an extremely painful accident. Mr. Harrison would never dismiss him, Mr. Duff knew; but he knew just as well that Amy was only biding her time to do so. Occasionally he would feel quite desperate and even try to think out ways of diverting Amy from her purpose, such as saving her life or saving the school or introducing into it three or four titled pupils; but all the time he knew he would never be able to do anything that would win him Amy’s regard, or even her reprieve.

  Amy. . . .

  His old mother. . . .

  Miss Jevons had an old mother too. It was another wonderful bond between them.

  Miss Jevons. . . .

  Leila. . . .

  Had she really smiled at him rather particularly when he passed her in the hall yesterday morning? Had she? For the hundredth time Mr. Duff debated this important question.

  For the hundredth time he decided it. No, of course she hadn’t. Why should she? It was ridiculous, preposterous, insane to think that a wonderful girl like Leila Jevons could ever . . .

  “Oh, God,” groaned Mr. Duff, “I wish we were all dead.”

  IX

  Mr. Parker drew the whisky-bottle towards him and contemplated it fondly before pouring himself out another nip. Really a final one this time; yes, really. He deserved an extra one to-night. Well, he had had an extra two already; this made the third. Well, he deserved an extra three then. That was all right. Yes, certainly he deserved an extra three to-day of all days.

  Made things right with that damned Amy, and brought about the resignation of the insufferable Rice. That was a day’s work if you liked. An extra three? Dammit, an extra four.

  Mr. P
arker took his extra fourth.

  The house, with the exception of Mr. Parker, slept.

  Mr. Parker toasted them with an extra fifth.

  ------------------------

  *Note: For reasons of clarity the real names of the persons mentioned in the manuscript have been substituted for the fictional ones given them by its author.

  PART III

  CHAPTER VIII

  “And that’s as far as you got, Mr. Sheringham? That’s a pity. It was just getting interesting.”

  “It was getting boring to me,” said Roger, “and that’s why I gave it up.”

  It was the evening after Moresby’s call at the Albany, and once again the two were sitting in front of Roger’s fire. The chief inspector had come round with the expressed intention of learning what more he could.

  “And have you spotted the victim, sir?”

  Roger took a pull at his tankard. “I don’t know that I have. As I told you, I can’t guarantee to have collected all the wheels within the wheels. Probably a lot more was going on than I ever suspected.”

  “As it is I was surprised that they hadn’t all murdered each other by the end of the week.”

  “Moresby,” said Roger seriously, “if preparatory school terms went on one week longer than they do, the mortality would be tremendous.”

  “I can quite believe it, sir. I’ve learnt a lot from that manuscript of yours. So you won’t have a guess at who the girl was?”

  “Oh, I’ll have a guess. It ought to have been Amy, of course. Anybody might have murdered her. I was quite ready to do so myself, after only a couple of weeks, and she was amiability itself to me. But I’m quite sure no one would have had the courage. No, it certainly wasn’t Amy. That sort of person simply doesn’t get murdered.

  “The Leila Jevons type does, though. But what was the motive? She was harmless enough. So far as I know nobody was in the least interested in her personally, except Duff; and he certainly didn’t want to murder her. No, I can’t think it was Leila Jevons.

  “Phyllis Harrison? Well, I’ve never seen a more obvious affair in progress than between her and Rice. Her husband had motive enough. And you know what those weak men are. When the worm does turn, he very often turns a good deal too far. And yet . . . Well, I don’t know, but Harrison didn’t really seem to care enough for her. All wrong, you’ll say, in the case of a young wife and a middle-aged husband, but he didn’t. And he was a bit afraid of her, I should say. She had a pretty sense of humour, you know, and wasn’t nearly such a fool as it pleased her to pretend; bone-lazy, and utterly self-centred of course, but no fool. Not that that would have saved her if Harrison lost his head and saw red, but—”

  “There was nothing like that, Mr. Sheringham. It was premeditated if a murder ever was.”

  “Then it wasn’t Phyllis Harrison,” Roger said promptly.

  “The only person who could have planned murder against her was Rice, if she wouldn’t give him up. But she would have, I’m sure. She was only amusing herself with him. Rice was a bit of an oaf, you know.

  “Whom does that leave? The pretty parlour-maid, Lily? No. Elsa Crimp? Her curate might well have murdered her. But the best curates don’t murder, do they? I don’t think she was especially objectionable to anyone else. Personally I found her rather amusing.

  “And that only leaves Mary Waterhouse. Well, I’m not sure about her. She was the only one of the lot whom I didn’t feel I knew inside out. Sometimes I used to think she was genuine, and sometimes I used to think she was an arrant little hypocrite. On the whole I imagine she was. That smugness of hers was rather too good to be true. And if she was a hypocrite there’s no saying how far her hypocrisy might not have gone. Let me see, the girl you found was going to have a baby, wasn’t she? Well, that fits Mary Waterhouse all right—and she’s about the only one it does fit, too. Yes, and that would account for the story about the Australian, and leaving the country at the end of the term. Yes,” said Roger excitedly, “and she was the only one, I think, with no near relatives, so there’d be no one to report it if she disappeared. It is Mary Waterhouse, isn’t it, Moresby?”

  “It is, sir,” said the chief inspector, a little disappointed. He had expected Roger to plump for Amy Harrison.

  “Humph,” said Roger, and looked more serious. “Mary Waterhouse. . . . So she got murdered, did she? It’s a bit of a shock, Moresby, to hear of anyone one’s known, even so slightly, getting murdered. Murder’s so—final.”

  “To two people, usually,” said the chief inspector grimly.

  “Any idea who did it?” Roger asked.

  “Not to say really, Mr. Sheringham; but I think I’ve picked up a tip or two from your manuscript.”

  “You mustn’t rely on that too closely, you know.”

  “Of course not, sir. But—well, I take it most of the references you make are fact? That wall, for instance?”

  Roger nodded. “Yes.” He was about to say something further when he caught sight of the significant expression on the chief inspector’s face. “I say, Moresby, you don’t think . . . ?”

  “Well, it’s a clue, isn’t it, sir? I mean, the chap knew how to build right enough. The joints between those bricks on the cellar floor were properly made; no doubt about that. And then there’s the matter of the sand and cement. We never could trace where that came from, you know, and yet cement isn’t stuff that’s usually bought in small quantities.”

  “You mean, it was brought from the school all ready?”

  “I should say that’s how it looks to me.”

  “Yes.” Roger considered. “Yes, it does. By Jove!—Wargrave. . . . I never liked the fellow, but dash it all. . .”

  “There’s a bit in your manuscript saying that he and the girl had been sweet on each other once, too.”

  “Yes. Yes, I believe they were supposed to have been. But that doesn’t mean anything really. He may only have been using her to bring Amy up to scratch. He was quite capable of it.”

  “That really was like you wrote it, sir?”

  “About Wargrave and Amy Harrison? Pretty well. She was certainly chasing him, and I don’t fancy he was unwilling. He was certainly very earnest, and very ambitious.”

  “And wouldn’t stick at much, in your opinion?”

  “No,” said Roger, a little unwillingly. “No, I don’t believe he would.”

  “Ah,” said Moresby.

  Roger got up and drew some more beer.

  “But look here,” he said, as he sat down again, “how do you know it was anyone from the school at all? It needn’t have been, need it?”

  “Oh, no; it needn’t. But I’d take a bet with you, Mr. Sheringham, that it was. She doesn’t seem to have had much life outside the school. We’ve made enquiries. Always spent the holidays in lodgings somewhere, or staying with one of the other girls. Of course, she may have spent a bit of them with a man; we haven’t been able to check up on her as close as that; but I don’t fancy we need look much further than the school. Do you, sir?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. But it’s a nasty thought that one of those fellows whom I used to feed with must be a murderer. Ugh! ”

  “Lots of people must have said that in their time, Mr. Sheringham,” observed Moresby drily. “There’ve been lots of murderers.”

  The two men kept silence for a few moments.

  “Well?” said Roger. “Is there any other way I can help you?”

  “That book of yours, sir. How were you going on with it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got a few rough notes somewhere. The row was to progress. There was going to be some trouble between Amy Harrison and Rice over the swimming-bath, and a quarrel between Leila Jevons and Mary Waterhouse over something or other. Everyone was to get embroiled a little further. But it’s of no importance to you. I mean, it wouldn’t have thrown any more light on either your p
roblem or on Mary Waterhouse. You’ll have to work it now from the other end, won’t you?”

  “The other end?”

  “The cellar. How did Mary Waterhouse come to get into that cellar? Did she walk there? Was she decoyed? Did anyone see her? Did anyone see the man she was with? Is there any connection between her and that house, or between any of the men—well, say Wargrave if you like—and that house? Can you answer any of those questions yet?”

  “Not a one,” said Moresby cheerfully. “And it’s going to be a job to do so. We tried that end before, but didn’t get an inch forrader. We may of course now we know who the girl is, but I’m not hopeful. No, it’s the school end we shall have to concentrate on, I fancy.”

  “Beginning by asking Mr. Wargrave to account for his movements during the first week or so of his last summer holidays?”

  “Well, perhaps not beginning that way; but I don’t think it will be long before we get to that. Not that it’s going to help us much, as we can’t put the death closer than a week. No one can be expected to account for every minute of a whole week.”

  “That’s very fairly said, for a policeman,” Roger approved.

  “Oh, we’re fairer than some of you amachures think,” grinned Moresby, not to be drawn.

  “In other words, you’re going to have some difficulty in proving your case?”

  “Plenty, sir, I’ve no doubt. But that’s what often happens to us. We know well enough who’s the guilty party, but it’s not so easy to prove it.”

  “Yes,” said Roger thoughtfully. “And if you don’t have a good deal of luck in this case you’re not going to prove it at all.”