“I have a spare one, but I won’t let you buy it,” said Mr. Harrison, in obvious relief at the termination of the interview. “I shall be delighted to make you a present of it. Let me see now: I fancy it’s upstairs. If you’ll wait a minute I’ll get it.”
“That’s very good of you indeed,” Roger returned politely.
Mr. Harrison bustled out of the room.
Roger wondered how he could make use of his opportunity. Mr. Harrison had seemed very vague altogether about that anonymous letter. Was it possible that he had not thrown it away after all? If he had not, Roger would have very much liked to get hold of it; but of course it would be useless to ask for it outright.
By the direction of Mr. Harrison’s glance it had been plain which was the locked drawer. Roger bent and glanced at the lock. Then he drew a small bunch of innocent-looking keys from his pocket, chose one, and inserted it. The lock was a simple one and turned at once. Roger opened the drawer. There confronted him inside not an anonymous letter but a very French photograph.
“Why,” Roger asked himself, as he hastily shut and relocked the drawer, “do so many elderly men possess such nasty minds?”
CHAPTER XVII
Roger was very much pleased with himself. His visit to Roland House had achieved even more than he had hoped. Apart from anything else Wargrave, for instance, had admitted his intrigue with Mary Waterhouse and the fact that she had blackmailed him. Wargrave had known of course that anything he said to Roger in such circumstances could not be used as evidence, and that was why he had said it. Roger was really not surprised. He had guessed that Wargrave might let out something of that nature.
There were other things too. The anonymous letter was the most important of course. That was a striking confirmation of Roger’s reasoning that same morning. Information had been laid against Mary Waterhouse, just as he had seen that it must have been laid. Roger was not at all sure that the anonymous letter was not going to clinch his case.
He got back to the Albany to learn from his man that Chief Inspector Moresby had been on the telephone half an hour ago, and had left word for Mr. Sheringham to ring him up the next morning.
Mr. Sheringham rang him up the next morning.
“Well, we’ve got something from that enquiry you put through yesterday, Mr. Sheringham,” said Moresby. “I had it made on rather broader lines than you suggested, because I thought you might have overlooked one or two possibilities.”
“Yes?” said Roger, a little coldly.
“Well, it wasn’t him at all. It was the girl.”
“The girl!” Roger repeated, surprised.
“You didn’t expect that, Mr. Sheringham?”
“I didn’t,” said Roger, thinking ruefully of his beautiful theory.
“Well, I think we can bank on it. The maid remembers at No. 2 a young woman coming round just before the house was shut up last summer with an offer to make loose covers for armchairs. She had some patterns with her too. The maid remembers it, because the girl quoted prices that seemed even cheaper than the cost of the materials.”
“They will overdo it,” Roger murmured.
“Yes. Mrs. Cottington was out, and the girl——”
“Probably watched her go out.”
“Yes. Anyhow, she said she’d come back that afternoon, but she never did.”
“Ah!”
“Yes, you got that bit all right, Mr. Sheringham.”
“She questioned the maid, I suppose?”
“Yes. They talked a bit about when the work could be done, and the maid remembers saying that it wouldn’t be any good trying to fit them during the next couple of weeks because there wouldn’t be anyone there.”
“What about No. 6?”
“They don’t remember anything about her there; but I don’t think she ever called there. The maid says she asked whether it would be any good calling, and though she doesn’t remember anything being said about it I expect the Waterhouse girl got it out of her when they’d be away too.”
“The maid identifies her?”
“Half and half. She was wearing spectacles, and the maid thinks it might have been the girl in the photograph now. Before she swore she didn’t recognise it at all. This bit about the loose covers has jogged her memory.”
“Good,” said Roger. “You could do with a few more jogs like that in this case, Moresby. Try and think some up for yourself next time.”
Before he had hung up the receiver he had realised the mistake he had made in his reasoning before. It was a bad mistake. The reconstruction he had formed had really assumed knowledge on the part of both the man and the girl that Miss Staples’s house and its neighbours were empty. He had not realised this, considering it enough that only the man need know. But how could the Waterhouse girl have taken him there at all unless she knew too?
Did that mean that the whole theory must be abandoned? Certainly it had been rather over-subtle. The truth probably lay somewhere near it. In any case it was obvious now that the girl had told him of the situation regarding the three houses. She would be hardly likely to do this if she wanted to keep the end of their journey a secret from him; which meant that she could not have taken him there for the purpose of levying her blackmail. Well, that hardly mattered. There were plenty of other reasons why they might have gone. It was, after all, a detail that did not matter in the least. The point was that they must both have known that the houses would be empty, and both have had their reasons for wanting to make use of that belonging to Miss Staples. His reason was murder; hers was now irrelevant.
Roger realised, although Moresby had not mentioned it, that this new piece of information would be a disappointment to the chief inspector. It meant the destruction of his last hope of connecting Wargrave with Burnt Oak Road. Except for the possibility of fresh evidence cropping up from some new source, a contingency most unlikely after all this time, Moresby must now have abandoned all expectation of bringing Wargrave to justice.
In that case, he thought, it did not really matter much what he himself did.
So he rang up Wargrave, and asked him to dinner.
“Dinner?” Wargrave said, in obvious surprise. “Sorry, impossible. I’m on duty here.”
“Your prep?”
“Yes. In any case——”
“In any case,” said Roger firmly, “you’ll come to dinner with me here this evening. You can go back by the 11.40. Don’t tell me you can’t get leave off for an evening when you want it, now.” He slightly emphasised the last word.
“When I want it, perhaps,” Wargrave said drily. “But as it happens——”
“Look here,” Roger interrupted, “I’ll say just this to you now. A certain chief inspector whom we both know has almost certainly given up all hope of laying by the heels a certain party. I haven’t. In fact I’ve got quite a lot of new evidence which will come as a nasty surprise to someone. But before I hand it over to our friend, I want a talk with you. Now will you come to dinner? ”
There was a long pause at the other end.
“Yes,” said Wargrave.
“I thought you would,” Roger said, with the greatest cheerfulness. “Get here about half-past seven. That will give us time for a glass of sherry. Don’t bother to dress.”
He rang off and went out to the kitchen of his flat.
“Meadows, I’ve just asked a friend to dinner to-night. I want you to give us a rather macabre little meal.”
“I beg your pardon, sir? A what little meal? ”
“Macabre. Gruesome. Horrible. Shivery.”
“I don’t think I quite understand, sir.”
“Never mind, then,” said Roger. “But it’s a pity. I do think something macabre is rather called for.”
If Meadows was unable to rise to any macabre heights concerning the food that evening, there was a distinctly macabre feeling in th
e air. Wargrave contributed to it. Really, thought Roger, the man did look like a murderer, with that sullen face and those black eyebrows and the hair that grew so low on his forehead, which always produces a sinister effect. Roger regarded his guest with pride. It was the first time he had entertained an almost self-confessed murderer to dinner—though he could not help wondering how many times he might have entertained a murderer unawares. It was a theory of Roger’s that out of every score of people one knows, one at least is an undetected murderer. It was an hypothesis for which there was no evidence whatever, but it gave Roger a good deal of foolish pleasure in trying to pick out the twentieth ones in question.
Wargrave spoke little, answering his host’s chatter about books, plays, and the like in little more than monosyllables. If he was apprehensive, he did not show it. As Moresby had already had occasion to observe, the man’s self-control was abnormal. Roger hugged himself as he watched him. Wargrave was a new type to him. He was being cruel to the fellow, he knew; but why not? A little cruelty would do Wargrave no harm.
It was not until dinner was over, and the port on the table, that Roger introduced the subject of the meeting. All through dinner he had been waiting to see if Wargrave would introduce it himself, but not a word had he said that even hinted at such a thing. And yet he must have been waiting on tenterhooks for the other’s explanation of his open threat over the telephone in the morning.
“Well, Wargrave,” Roger said suddenly, breaking off a conversation concerning the shortcomings of English preparatory schools in the matter of the teaching of science. “Well, Wargrave, what does it feel like to have committed a successful murder?”
Wargrave looked at him unmoved. “I haven’t committed a successful murder.”
“Don’t be modest. I should call it a very successful one. But for a piece of shocking bad luck it would never have been found out at all. But you didn’t leave it at that. You took care that even if the impossible did happen and the body was found, there would be no evidence to prove a case against you. I do congratulate you, really.”
“I haven’t committed murder at all.”
“Well, execution, then; or whatever you choose to call it. You needn’t be suspicious, by the way. There’s no one from Scotland Yard concealed behind the window-curtains, and there’s certainly no dictaphone hidden under the table. Search the room, if you like.”
“This is extremely good port, Sheringham.”
“I’m glad you like it. But I wish you’d talk to me about things. You know murder’s my hobby. I don’t get a chance of hearing a real murderer discuss his crime every day, you know. In fact, you’re the first one I’ve ever met in person. Why be so selfish? ”
“I thought it was you who wanted to say things to me.”
“Well, I have one or two points to put before you, it’s true. But will you answer me a few questions first? ”
“Depends what they are,” Wargrave said nonchalantly, sipping his port.
Roger leaned back in his chair. “Well, the first one is this: how long are you going to keep this up?”
For the first time Wargrave shot a suspicious look at his host.
“Keep what up?” he asked.
“That you killed Mary Waterhouse.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“I know you didn’t. So do you. So does one other person. But we three are the only people who do know it. And what I want to ask you seriously is: is it worth it? ”
“Is what worth what?” Wargrave’s tone was definitely uneasy at last.
“Is it worth pretending you did, in order to shield this other person? There’ve been no consequences yet, to speak of. But they’re bound to come. At present it’s only rumours, and the cold shoulders of your colleagues. But do you think it’s going to stop at that? You’re bound to be ruined, man. It’s almost an open secret already. You’ll have to leave Roland House; you’ll never get another job; and—you’ll have to break off your engagement, if you’re to be logical. I mean,” said Roger, picking his words more carefully, “if you’re to carry the thing through logically.”
“Look here, Sheringham, I simply don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, yes, you do.”
“I’ve told you I didn’t kill the girl. You seem to think I know who did.”
“I know you know who did.”
“If it’s this ridiculous idea of yours about Duff . . .”
“I’m not thinking about Duff at all. I never did think about Duff. That was a piece of bluff, to see how you’d react. I’m thinking about the person who really shot Mary Waterhouse. You know who that is, as well as I do—and better.”
Wargrave was fiddling with the stem of his wine-glass. His face had gone perceptibly whiter.
“Look here, Sheringham, I don’t know what extraordinary idea you’ve got in your mind,” he said, his voice not quite steady, “but if you really are suspecting some quite innocent person . . . I have your word that we’re not overheard here?”
“Absolutely.”
“All right, then; it doesn’t matter what I say. I did shoot her.”
“Ah!” Roger breathed.
“You’ve been damned clever to get it out of me, because I still don’t know whether you’re bluffing or not,” Wargrave said, in tones of resentment. “But you can’t do anything even now. It isn’t evidence. You can tell the police what you like. I shall simply deny it.”
“Of course,” Roger approved. “Naturally.”
Wargrave glowered at him in silence.
“Have some more port,” said Roger, and passed the decanter.
“So what’s this new evidence of yours?” Wargrave asked at last, as he refilled his glass.
“It alarms you that I’ve got some new evidence? “Roger asked, with interest.
“Not in the least. It can’t be anything definite, or the police would have found it themselves. You needn’t think you frightened me this morning. I know perfectly well I’m safe. I shall never be arrested.”
“No?”
“Never,” Wargrave said firmly. “They couldn’t possibly get a conviction. We all know that.” He smiled his tight little humourless smile.
“Well, I must say you’re a cool devil,” Roger admired.
“I haven’t lost my head, if that’s what you mean.”
“Except over the revolver, perhaps.”
Wargrave frowned. “Yes, that was a silly move. I had the wind up that day. However, it really didn’t matter.”
“As you took care to remove the bullet. If you hadn’t done that . . .”
“But I did, you see. So far as I knew,” said Wargrave frankly, “I made none of the usual foolish mistakes. You were quite right in what you told us that evening, Sheringham. Murder really is a very simple matter, to anyone of ordinary intelligence.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled again, this time with something approaching triumph.
Roger watched him, fascinated. “Ah, you remember that?”
“Certainly I do. It made a very deep impression on me at the time.”
“You find it a relief to talk openly, at last?”
Wargrave considered. “Yes, I think I do. I—well, I’ve had some bad moments, as you can imagine.”
“Yes. And talking of imagination, you’ve got a lot more of it than I should ever have given you credit for, Wargrave.”
“Oh? How do you make that out? ”
“I think it must take a great deal of imagination to carry through a successful murder. That point didn’t occur to me when I was saying how simple it was. It isn’t really, at all. The number of things you must have had to foresee and guard against is tremendous.”
“Oh, well . . .”said Wargrave, modestly.
“You don’t mind answering a few questions?”
“I don’t think so. Ask them, anyhow.”
“Well, it’s a psychological point really that’s been puzzling me most. How on earth did you induce Miss Waterhouse to go to that house with you? I assume, by the way, that the choice of the house resulted from her possession of the key, and that she’d told you of her enquiries down there, from which she’d learnt that those three houses would all be empty during the second week in August?”
Wargrave nodded. “Yes, that’s quite right.”
“Well, how did you persuade her to take you there?”
“I’m not sure,” Wargrave said slowly, “that I’d better tell you that.”
“Why not? I give you my word not to pass it on. I’m only asking for personal curiosity. Besides, it can’t do you harm in any case.”
Wargrave seemed to be debating this. “Well, it was her idea.”
“That both of you should go there?”
“Yes.”
“You knew she’d been a crook?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Then how did she explain her possession of the key?”
“Oh! Well, she said it was her aunt’s house.”
“What reason did she give for taking you there?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Nice empty house, you know. Convenient, and all that.”
“But why need a nice empty house when she’d got a flat where you could go to her?”
Wargrave hesitated. “There were reasons.”
“You mean, she suggested on the spur of the moment that there was a nice empty house to which she had access: why not go?”
“Well, yes; that’s pretty well what did happen.”
“You hadn’t intended to kill her, then? It was quite unpremeditated, when you found what a magnificent opportunity had been presented to you?” Roger asked excitedly.
Wargrave nodded. “You’ve about hit it, Sheringham.”
Roger thumped the table. “You conveniently having a revolver in one hand, and a suit-case of mixed sand and cement in the other, I suppose? Wargrave, I was perfectly right. You haven’t got so much imagination after all.”
“What do you mean? “Wargrave asked, looking alarmed.
Murder in the Basement Page 19
