Murder in the Basement

by Anthony Berkeley

“Oh, we shall prove it right enough, Mr. Sheringham,” returned the chief inspector, with professional optimism. “Don’t you worry about that.”

  “I’m not. This is going to be your case entirely. I don’t want to be mixed up in it. Have you been down to Roland House yet?”

  “Not personally. I’m going to-morrow morning.”

  “Though there’ll only be four of the original lot, I suppose,” Roger remarked carelessly. “Still, the others will be easy enough to trace.”

  “Four?”

  “Harrison, Mrs. Harrison (if she hasn’t left him), Amy, and Wargrave.”

  “No, they’re all there. All the ones in your book.”

  For a moment Roger looked surprised. Then he smiled.

  “Of course they are. That was foolish of me. If the staffs of preparatory schools left every time they resigned or were dismissed there’d be a general post throughout England at the end of every term.”

  “Ha, ha,” laughed the chief inspector dutifully.

  “Amy and Wargrave have brought it off by now, I suppose?”

  “They’re engaged to be married, yes.”

  “And Elsa Crimp and the curate?”

  “Miss Crimp and Mr. Stanford are also engaged,” said Moresby gravely.

  “And Leila Jevons and Mr. Duff?”

  “Are not engaged.”

  “Then you might do a kind action for a change and push them into one another’s arms while you’re down there, Moresby. You’ve had enquiries made already, I see?”

  “Well, of course, Mr. Sheringham,” retorted the chief inspector with dignity. “Seeing you weren’t going to help us out this time, we thought we’d better go ahead on our own.”

  Roger laughed. “Have some more beer, Moresby.”

  “Well, sir,” said Moresby, as if in some surprise at himself, “I don’t mind if I do.”

  CHAPTER IX

  As he had said to Roger, Chief Inspector Moresby was fairly satisfied in his own mind that he had the right person under suspicion. Murders in real life are seldom complicated. Where an overpowering motive exists, there, almost invariably, is your guilty party. Assuming, in this case, that Wargrave was the father of Mary Waterhouse’s unborn child, the motive was about as strong as could be imagined.

  Moresby had said nothing to Roger on the matter, but Miss Waterhouse’s past had been of considerable interest. The hospital report on the plate on her fractured leg, which had established her identity, had actually come from a prison infirmary. Mary Waterhouse, known then as Mary Weller, had slipped and fractured her leg on a slippery pavement in trying to escape arrest for stealing another girl’s handbag. Her record showed that there were two previous convictions against her, both for small offences. In all, she had served eight months in prison.

  It had not been easy to trace the Mary Weller who had been released from Chester Gaol to the Mary Waterhouse at Roland House three years later. There were no further police-records concerning her. After leaving prison that time the girl seemed to have made a real effort to go straight. Gradually Moresby and the tireless officers under him had uncovered the trail. As a waitress in a cafe; here, as a student at a certain college of shorthand-typing, as a clerk in this office, as a more trusted clerk in that, as the manageress of a small frock-shop in Shaftesbury Avenue, Miss Waterhouse (Waterhouse only in the two last-named situations) had been laboriously identified, until her final appearance as private secretary at Roland House.

  Moresby thought he could guess well enough what had happened there. Established now in a well-paid position, among people who knew nothing of her past, Miss Waterhouse had been anxious to set the final seal of marriage upon her respectability. A mind once crooked never becomes wholly straight. It had probably seemed to her, since no man came forward voluntarily, quite an ordinary thing to trap one. Mary Waterhouse played her cards, as she thought, cunningly enough. Unfortunately, however, she had picked on a man whose ambition was stronger than the feelings of shame and decency which he should have had; and it was ironical, the chief inspector reflected, that she had probably picked him because of that very ambition of his. And as if that was not mistake enough she had picked at the same time perhaps the one man in England who, when she threatened blackmail as she undoubtedly did if marriage was not forthcoming, was prepared actually to shoot her in furtherance of that ambition of his. Thus, at any rate, Moresby’s reconstruction.

  The enquiries made at Roland House so far had been non-committal. It had not been divulged that Miss Waterhouse and the dead girl found in the Lewisham cellar were the same person. Moresby wished to see for himself the reactions which this piece of news would provoke.

  At eleven o’clock on the morning after he had returned Roger Sheringham’s manuscript, he was ringing the bell at Roland House.

  He asked for Mr. Harrison, without giving his name and business, and was shown into an obvious parking-room for parents. The time of year being now towards the end of March, the Easter term was nearly over and, from what he had learned about preparatory schools from Roger’s manuscript, Moresby knew that tempers should now be ragged and nerves on edge. He was callous enough to be pleased that it should be so. Well-controlled nerves on the part of the interviewed are little use to the interviewer.

  The door opened and a young woman came in: a young woman with sandy eyebrows and distinctly prominent greenish eyes. Moresby looked at her with interest. Without doubt this was the formidable Miss Harrison.

  She smiled on him. There is nothing like the prospect of a pupil for withdrawing the sting from the proprietor of a school.

  “How do you do?” she said, coming forward. “I must introduce myself—Miss Harrison. You asked for my father? He’s engaged just at present. So perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me what you wanted to see him about. Was it about a boy?”

  “No, madam,” Moresby said bluntly. “It wasn’t about a boy.”

  “Oh,” Amy looked surprised for a moment. When she spoke again her manner had undergone a complete change. Moresby smiled to himself. “What is it, then?” she asked, quite sharply. “As I said, my father’s exceedingly busy. I can deal with any matter for him.”

  “Not with this one, I’m afraid, madam. I must see your father himself. My business is important. I am a police officer. Here is my card.”

  Amy scrutinised the card. “Well, really!”

  Without appearing to do so, Moresby was watching her closely. Her manner showed nothing but a rather annoyed surprise; not the faintest trace of apprehension was discernible. Well, he thought, she’s got no idea; he’s dropped her no hint.

  “Very well,” she said shortly. “I’ll tell my father.” Moresby was left alone again.

  A few minutes later a maid arrived to conduct him to the headmaster’s study. Moresby noted, with inward amusement, that not being a parent he was clearly of no further importance in Amy’s eyes.

  Mr. Harrison rose somewhat irresolutely from his desk, pulling nervously at his beard and glancing from the card in his hand to his visitor and back again. “You wanted to see me . . . ?”

  Moresby waited until the door was closed, and then went to the point bluntly. “I’m sorry, sir, but I have some rather shocking news for you.”

  Mr. Harrison blinked. “For me?”

  “Yes. You remember that girl who was found under the cellar floor in a villa in Lewisham? The papers were full of it. Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you that she has been traced to this establishment.”

  “To—here? But we haven’t—er—lost anyone,” said Mr. Harrison stupidly.

  “You had a young woman here last summer who went under the name of Mary Waterhouse?”

  “Mary Wa—Good heavens, you don’t mean . . . ?”

  Mr. Harrison sat abruptly back in his chair and stared up at the chief inspector, his mouth drooping foolishly open. (It’s a good job those parents can’t s
ee him, Moresby thought.)

  “I’m afraid so, sir. There’s no doubt about it.”

  “But . . . Why, but she was going to Australia. To be married. She told us so.”

  “She didn’t go.”

  “But how do you know? Have you looked . . . ?”

  “In Australia?” said Moresby patiently. “No, sir. There’s no need. I can’t go into details at this stage, but you can take it from me quite definitely that there’s nothing wrong with the identification. And that being the case I want to ask a few questions about her life here, if you’d be good enough to answer them.”

  “Yes, yes,” muttered Mr. Harrison, and pushed a bell-push on his desk with a finger that visibly shook. “Yes, of course. But I can’t believe . . . Yes, of course.” In reply to an obviously interrogatory glance from Moresby at the bell-push he added: “I’11 send for my daughter. We’d better have her in. She’ll know far more about Miss Waterhouse than—er—than I do.”

  “Very well, sir,” Moresby assented affably. To himself he was thinking: Mr. Sheringham hit this old bird off all right. And the girl. Wonderful how these writers do it.

  The maid who answered the bell was sent off in search of Miss Harrison, and Moresby filled up the interval before her appearance with putting one or two questions about Miss Waterhouse’s duties. Mr. Harrison, however, seemed to be becoming with each moment more horror-struck at the fate which had overtaken his late secretary, so that his answers grew more and more mumbled. Finally Moresby gave him up, and frankly waited for his daughter.

  “Yes?” said that young woman brusquely to her father, taking no notice of Moresby on the hearthrug. “What is it, father? I’m very busy.”

  “My dear, that nice girl who was here last summer . . . your secretary . . . you remember.”

  “My secretary?”

  “Yes, yes. Miss . . . Miss . . .”

  “Waterhouse,” put in Moresby.

  “Waterhouse, yes. As I was saying. Miss Waterhouse . . . you remember?”

  “Of course I remember. What about her? She went to Australia, to get married. Or so she said. She’s never written. Why? Are the police after her?”

  “The police have found her, Miss Harrison,” Moresby replied, for the force. “She’s dead. Murdered.”

  “Indeed?” Amy stared at him coldly through her rimless pince-nez.

  “You remember the girl found under the cellar floor in that villa in Lewisham? That was Miss Waterhouse.”

  “Nonsense,” said Amy crisply. “I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “That,” said Moresby gently, “unfortunately does not alter the fact of Miss Waterhouse having been murdered, Miss Harrison.”

  It took a minute or two to persuade Miss Harrison that someone known to her had actually had the bad form to get herself murdered, and Moresby then went ahead with his questions. At first he began by putting these as much to Mr. Harrison as to his daughter. Since, however, Amy answered each one and Mr. Harrison could only pull his beard distractedly and mutter into it, the nominal head of the establishment was soon relegated to the background, where he remained practically ignored. In any case he seemed to prefer it so.

  Even Amy, however, was not very helpful, but Moresby was satisfied that this was because she could not be, not because she was keeping anything back. Miss Waterhouse had answered an advertisement for a personal secretary in the first place; her references were excellent, she herself had made an admirable impression; Amy had engaged her at once. With her usual efficiency Amy had made notes of the references in question, which she was now able to produce; two of them were from the two last firms with whom Miss Waterhouse was known to have worked; the third, and most glowing, must have been forged. Since her engagement Miss Waterhouse had given complete satisfaction. She was neat, methodical, and willing in her work; with the infants’ class, in which type of work she had frankly stated at the beginning she had had no experience whatever, she had proved an excellent governess; she had been popular with the rest of the staff; Miss Harrison had been very sorry to lose her.

  On the question of her relations with Wargrave, Moresby purposely did not touch, except to ask, with apparent jocosity, how it was that such a paragon had not made a hit with any impressionable junior master; to which Amy coldly retorted that that kind of thing was not encouraged at Roland House, and in any case Miss Waterhouse had quite evidently not been that kind of girl.

  “I see you don’t remember all the details of the case, Miss Harrison,” Moresby replied. “You’re forgetting that the girl who was found, Miss Waterhouse, was going to have a baby. Can you account for that in any way?”

  Miss Harrison’s sallow face flushed. “I cannot. And even if I could, I should prefer not to do so. In any case, I never repeat scandal.”

  “Ah, there was some scandal, then, connected with Miss Waterhouse?” Moresby said quickly.

  “None, so far as I know. My remark was a purely general one.”

  “I see. Then although this may be the motive for the death of a friend of yours, whom you liked and respected, you won’t tell me anything which might help us to find out who killed her?”

  But Amy was not to be caught by those methods.

  “I’m afraid it isn’t a case of ‘won’t,’ ” she answered calmly. “I simply don’t know anything. If I did I would tell you, whoever was involved. One has one’s standards.”

  Moresby believed that she was speaking the truth.

  He asked Mr. and Miss Harrison to keep all this news to themselves at any rate until he had interviewed the various members of the staff, explaining that he wanted to come on each mind fresh before opinions, possibly erroneous, had had time to crystallise, and enquired laboriously as to names.

  “You’d better see them in order of seniority, if you really want to question each one,” Amy said briskly, having run through the list. “I’ll send for Mr. Parker.”

  “Mr. Parker? Ah, yes; the senior master, isn’t he? Well, I think I won’t see him first after all. It would be better to keep him to the end, I fancy, in case anything crops up from the others that I might want him to check. I think I’ll begin with one of the junior ones. Let me see, you said they were . . . ?”

  “Mr. Wargrave and Mr. Rice.”

  “Ah, yes. I’d forgotten. I’ll begin with Mr. Wargrave, then. Now, that was a very handy little room where you saw me first, Miss Harrison. Do you think I might have the loan of that, for these interviews?”

  “Certainly. I’ll ask Mr. Wargrave to come to you at once. Father, just take Mr. . . . er . . .”

  “Don’t bother, please, Miss Harrison.” Moresby had already rung the bell for the maid. “I couldn’t give you the bother of fetching Mr. Wargrave yourself. We’ll just send the maid for him, because I’ve remembered another couple of questions I wanted to ask you.”

  He hurriedly thought up one or two unimportant queries, and invested them with as much solemnity as he could. Moresby was taking no chances. Sure though he was in his own mind that Amy Harrison knew nothing, he was not going to risk the conveyance of any sort of warning to Wargrave.

  Two minutes later he was conducted, by Mr. Harrison, across the hall into the morning-room, where Wargrave was waiting for him. With a muttered word or two instructing the latter to answer any questions that were put to him, Mr. Harrison left them together.

  Moresby sized up his man in a swift glance: the rather narrow forehead, pinched together on the temples, on which the hair grew low, the big jaw and determined mouth, the slightly snub nose, the large and protuberant ears, the closely-cut hair, the eyes, set just a little too close together and surmounted by heavy, black brows, the general build below medium height but stocky and powerful, the large hands. A difficult, sulky-looking customer, decided Moresby, and no mistake, and not one who looked likely to give anything away.

  He assumed his most genial expression.<
br />
  “Mr. Wargrave?”

  “Yes?”

  “I am a police officer, from Scotland Yard.”

  Mr. Wargrave raised his formidable eyebrows a fraction of an inch, but said nothing.

  Moresby pushed his hands in his pockets. “I’ve come on a highly unpleasant errand, Mr. Wargrave; and though I know everyone here will give me all the help they can, the bringer of bad news is never welcome, is he?” Moresby smiled.

  Mr. Wargrave did not return the smile. “You mean, someone’s been getting into trouble?” he asked, and Moresby noticed the Lancashire accent in his voice.

  “Somebody’s got, sir. You remember a Miss Waterhouse who was here for about a year, up till last summer?”

  “Very well. She went to Australia.”

  “Excuse me, sir, she didn’t. She went to Lewisham, and somebody murdered her there.”

  Moresby had purposely conveyed the information with as much brutal bluntness as he could. Moreover, by putting a little extra stress on the word “somebody” he conveyed just the faintest hint that the identity of that “somebody” was perfectly well known to himself.

  The result was disappointing.

  “Oh!” said Mr. Wargrave, and added nothing further. His expression did not alter by a fraction.

  “You don’t seem very surprised, sir?”

  “On the contrary,” returned Mr. Wargrave imperturbably, “I am extremely surprised. How did it happen?”

  “You remember the Lewisham Basement Mystery, as the papers called it?”

  “Oh! So that was—Miss Waterhouse?” Wargrave turned suddenly away, and fiddled with the window.

  “It was.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  When Wargrave spoke again his words were perceptibly more hesitating. “Have you any idea who—did it?”

  “That’s what I’m here for, sir, to try to find out.”

  “You think the answer lies here, then?” Wargrave asked sharply. “That’s ridiculous, of course.”

  “I can’t say. It may be, and yet again it may not. But she’d been here up to within a week or two of her death, so it’s here that I’ve got to start my enquiries. So if you’ll be good enough to answer my questions, sir—” With a business-like air Moresby produced a note-book and pencil.