“Westfield,” Penross said, “is dead.” He added: “That was one of the things I came to tell you. His body was discovered wedged among the rocks at Trecarne Head at low tide today. One of the local fishermen spotted something unusual and went in as close as he dared. He reported to us as soon as he got back and we sent out a search party. It was Westfield all right. His body was caught between two rocks that are uncovered at low water, otherwise we’d probably not have discovered him for weeks.”
Jonathan Boyce looked at him enquiringly.
“What’s the answer? Suicide?”
Penross pursed his lips.
“Difficult to be sure,” he said. “It could have been an accident. You know what the coast is like just there—it’s an unhealthy spot after dark, particularly if you’re a stranger to the district. The edge is crumbling and it wouldn’t be difficult to miss your footing and go over.”
Mordecai Tremaine thought of the gaunt, unscalable cliff with the black rocks thrusting viciously through the angry surf far below, upon which he had once stood with Adrian Carthallow. He shivered. His mind was seeing a human figure hurtling down through the darkness and he could hear a wild, despairing cry that was being torn into nothing on the wind.
Penross was saying:
“There’s a lot to be filled in, of course. But the motive’s looking healthy enough. It was a case of rogues falling out—with blackmail at the back of it.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Mordecai Tremaine said, “that Westfield was trying his hand at blackmail, but you still have to clear Helen Carthallow.”
“Yes,” Penross said, “I still have to clear Mrs. Carthallow. And I don’t mind admitting that I’m not as confident as I might look. I’m worried about that story of hers.”
He added:
“Have you any ideas?”
“Yes,” said Mordecai Tremaine slowly. “Yes, I have.”
Jonathan Boyce took out his pipe once more and regarded his friend suspiciously. He had heard that tone before. He had a feeling that Inspector Charles Penross was in for a shock.
8
MORDECAI TREMAINE WAS feeling embarrassed. His discomfort was intensified by the fact that he knew he should have been enjoying himself. These people had gathered here on his account. He should have been experiencing a sense of power and exultation.
He glanced around the crowded lounge of Paradise. They were all waiting for him. He pushed his pince-nez into a safer position with that instinctive, nervous gesture. He said:
“I believe Inspector Penross has already given you an indication as to why you’ve been asked to come here, and in any case with the exception of Colonel Neale we all know each other fairly well so that there’s no need for me to go into long explanations.”
The elderly, military looking man with the grey moustache who was seated near the window felt the curious eyes being turned upon him at the mention of his name, and crossed one leg over its companion with a calm deliberation.
“As the one apparent stranger,” he observed, “I must confess I’m at a loss to understand why you should wish me to be present.”
“I’m hoping you may be able to help me, Colonel,” Mordecai Tremaine told him. “In any case, I thought it necessary that you should be here in view of your—interest—in Adrian Carthallow.”
“I see. Am I to assume that you believe I may be able to tell you who killed him?”
“No, I don’t mean that.” Mordecai Tremaine paused. And then he said, carefully: “You see, the name of the person who caused Adrian Carthallow’s death is already known to me.”
His words left a stillness behind them. An unbearable stillness through which there crept an insidious, chilling fear.
Elton Steele’s big hands clenched slowly. He looked at Helen Carthallow, sitting rigid in her chair, her face drained of all its colour. His glance went beyond her to Inspector Penross, leaning against the door, his slight form curiously expectant and his bright eyes regarding them all in one comprehensive stare.
“All right,” he said, tensely. “If you know, what are you waiting for? Aren’t you going to arrest anybody?”
Mordecai Tremaine said, mildly, as if he had noticed nothing:
“It isn’t quite so simple as that. When a man dies his death isn’t an isolated fact that you can lift out by itself and put neatly on one side. It’s mixed up with all kinds of other things. That’s one of the reasons why I asked you to come here. The newspapers have already given a great deal of publicity to Adrian Carthallow’s death and before long they’re going to give it a great deal more. It’s to be expected, of course. It’s a newspaper’s job to give its readers the facts. But there’s no reason why it should give them a lot of facts that don’t really matter.”
Roberta Fairham was holding her handbag on her lap. The catch snapped suddenly under the pressure of her fingers. Her lips were tightly compressed. Tremaine glanced at her. He said:
“I see that Miss Fairham understands me. The story of how and why Adrian Carthallow came to die will have to be told to the world, but there’s no need for every private feeling and emotion to be dragged out. Certain painful matters needn’t go beyond the walls of this room—provided each one of you will tell me the truth.”
Hilda Eveland said, doubtfully:
“I see what you’re driving at, Mordecai. None of us wants to see any unnecessary scandal. But surely we’ve all told you as much as we know?”
“The trouble is,” said Mordecai Tremaine, “that you haven’t.”
He was looking straight at Helen Carthallow. She returned his gaze with a stubborn defiance. Her voice was harsh.
“You said just now that you knew who killed Adrian. There isn’t anything remarkable in that. I’ve already told the police that it was I who killed him.”
“You told the police, Mrs. Carthallow, that you shot your husband accidentally. You said that he took the gun out of the desk and that there was a struggle between you.”
“Well?”
“In the first place, although your fingerprints were found on the gun your husband’s were not. In the second place, it was an idiosyncracy of his that whenever he had occasion to use one of the keys on the bunch he always carried he invariably took off the particular key he wanted and replaced it when he had finished with it. But when you took me into the study the bunch of keys still hung from the lock—and the key of the drawer in which he kept his gun was with all the others.”
Her glance flickered away. The lock of hair came down over her eyes.
“Perhaps he didn’t take the key off. I don’t remember. It doesn’t prove anything.”
“I think it does,” Mordecai Tremaine said. “I think it proves that it wasn’t your husband who took out that gun. I think it proves that you didn’t shoot him accidentally.”
Lewis Haldean was on his feet. His blond beard was thrust aggressively forward. Indignation was flaming in his face.
“Look here, Tremaine, I’m damned if I’ll sit here and listen to your accusations against Helen!”
Elton Steele and Lester Imleyson moved to add their protests to his. Steele’s expression was openly menacing but in Imleyson’s features Tremaine thought he could detect a gnawing fear.
“You were at the house that day, Mr. Imleyson,” he said quietly. “I think you’re aware that Mrs. Carthallow isn’t telling the truth.”
Imleyson was silent. He looked like a man who knew that he ought to be voicing a vigorous denial but who dared not speak too hastily lest he betrayed himself. Steele turned towards him. There was a dull suspicion in his dark face.
Helen Carthallow said, metallically:
“It was nothing to do with Lester. He had no hand in it.”
“He did have a hand in it,” said Mordecai Tremaine.
For an instant after that no one moved or spoke. But the tension had reached a point at which something must snap. Looking at the three men still facing him, Mordecai Tremaine was aware of it and knew that he had allowed the dra
ma to go far enough.
“Sit down, gentlemen,” he said, “and let me tell you what really happened that day.”
It was significant that they obeyed him. He waited until they were seated, and said:
“Adrian Carthallow had an appointment in Wadestow on the afternoon of the day on which he died and was not expected back here until the time for dinner in the evening. So Mrs.Carthallow arranged to meet Mr. Imleyson here in the belief that since the servants had been given a holiday they would be unobserved.”
He saw her startled movement and addressed himself directly to her.
“I don’t need to stress that point, Mrs. Carthallow. The relationship between Mr. Imleyson and yourself was no secret. The situation was growing difficult. Your husband and Mr. Imleyson all but came to blows at the race-meeting. It may be that you decided upon a rendezvous here because you wanted to talk the whole matter over—I don’t pretend to be certain of your motive, but you did agree to meet here in your house. In order to avoid gossip you left Wadestow by train and Mr. Imleyson used his car.
“Unfortunately for your plans your husband changed his mind about staying. He came straight back here and since he travelled by road it didn’t take him as long as it took you to make your rather roundabout train journey. When you arrived at the house he was already here.”
“I told the police he was here before me,” she said, but her voice was unsteady.
Mordecai Tremaine nodded.
“I know,” he said. “But what you didn’t tell them was that he was already dead.”
The agony in the dark eyes staring from the white face did unpleasant things to Mordecai Tremaine’s heart, but he knew that he must go on. He said, steadily, trying to keep all emotion out of his voice:
“You knew Mr. Imleyson intended to drive by road from Wadestow and your first thought was that he had reached the house before you and had unexpectedly encountered your husband. You thought there’d been a quarrel, with yourself as the cause, and that Mr. Imleyson had killed him.
“It must have been a dreadful moment for you when you went into the study and saw your husband’s dead body. You had to force yourself to think; to remain calm instead of giving way to hysteria. There was only one thing that mattered. You had to save Mr. Imleyson.
“You picked up the gun and wiped it clean so that his fingerprints wouldn’t give him away, and whilst you were trying to make sure he hadn’t left any other traces of his presence you were thinking out your story. At first you thought Mr.Imleyson had somehow obtained your husband’s gun and shot him from a distance of several feet, and that was why your first statement to the police said that you were standing on the other side of the room and that your husband had told you to fire. It wasn’t a very good story, but it was the best thing you could invent on the spur of the moment that you believed would tally with the evidence.
“When you realized that it didn’t tally and that your husband had been killed at close range you pretended you’d decided to tell the truth and said that you’d had a quarrel and a struggle, in the course of which the gun had gone off accidentally. The fact that you told that first improbable story at all was to my mind a proof of one thing—that you didn’t believe your husband’s death was an accident, but that someone had killed him deliberately. Which meant that you knew someone who had a motive for killing him and someone who had also possessed the opportunity of doing so. And it was also a proof that that someone was a person for whom you cared a great deal.
“I don’t know whether you looked for Mr. Imleyson or whether you called his name to see if he was still in the house. But it was because you wanted to give him time to get away if he was in the neighbourhood that you didn’t use the telephone. You came all the way down to me on the beach not because you thought I might be able to help you, but because it would do two things. It would delay the arrival of the police, and it would produce a witness to testify that Mr. Imleyson wasn’t at the house.
“You were ahead of me as we went up the steps from the beach. When we reached the top you made what I thought was the rather odd remark that there was no one there. I didn’t realize it then, of course, but you wanted to make sure that if Mr. Imleyson was anywhere near you would see him first and would be able to warn him to keep out of sight. That remark to me was made partly in relief and partly to encourage me away from thinking there might be someone else in the neighbourhood.”
Mordecai Tremaine stopped, but Helen Carthallow did not speak. She was sitting very still, as though she was afraid that if she made a movement her self-control would go. He looked at her compassionately.
“I’m afraid this is all very painful to you, Mrs. Carthallow,” he said, “but I think it better that what there is to say should be said here among us rather than that it should be left to appear in the newspapers. You thought that Mr. Imleyson had reached the house before you, but in fact he had trouble with his car and was a few minutes late for your appointment. The door was open and he went into the house because he didn’t expect anyone but you to be there. He saw you through the doorway of the study—and he also saw your husband’s dead body.
“He didn’t say anything to you. I don’t doubt that for a moment he was too stunned to speak. When you’d seen your husband lying dead your immediate reaction had been that Mr. Imleyson had killed him. His reaction was that you had done so. That was why he didn’t make his presence known to you, and you were so engrossed with what you were doing that you didn’t suspect that he was watching you.
“Probably he watched you through the narrow space between the door and the jamb, and what he saw confirmed him in his belief that you had killed your husband and that you were trying to hide the signs of your guilt. Maybe he actually saw you wiping the gun. He didn’t dream that you were acting, as you thought, to save him.
“After you had left the house he went into the study with the idea of making sure there was nothing left that might incriminate you. He found your handkerchief. In your agitation and your anxiety to see that there was nothing to direct suspicion against Mr. Imleyson you’d left it behind. You see, you weren’t so calm, after all; you weren’t thinking and acting so coolly. It’s a proof of your innocence that you did leave it behind, just as it’s a further proof that for so intelligent a woman you told so thin a story to the police.”
Mordecai Tremaine broke off. Lester Imleyson was staring at Helen Carthallow, his face bearing the look of a man to whom revelation had brought utter dismay.
“Helen,” he said. “Helen—I didn’t know. I thought—”
She was quite calm now. The worst for her was past.
“It’s too late now, Lester,” she said. “Perhaps it was as well for both of us that it happened that way.”
There was no bitterness in her voice, none of the hard quality that had marked her attitude in the days that had followed Adrian Carthallow’s death. Mordecai Tremaine said, quietly:
“I’m going to say this, Mrs. Carthallow, because it helps to explain both your own position and Mr. Imleyson’s. You thought you were in love with each other. But when the crisis came neither of you proved able to stand up to it. Each of you believed the other to have been guilty of a dreadful crime. Each of you tried to shield the other, but there was no longer any trust; there was no love, only a torturing fear. That’s why you seemed to become so hard and bitter and why Mr. Imleyson, although he wouldn’t listen to any accusations against you, wasn’t at your side where he might have been expected to be. When he gave you that handkerchief he intended it to be a sign to you that he was aware of what you had done.”
“It isn’t too late, Helen.” Imleyson made an impulsive movement towards her. We can start again. . . .”
“No, Lester,” she said. “It’s gone too deep. We can’t go back now.”
For an instant he stood facing her, and then, slowly, he sat down again in his chair. It was clear from his face that despite that gesture he knew that she was right. Whatever had existed between them was dead, and
there could be no recalling it to life.
Mordecai Tremaine watched them uncomfortably. Although, before Adrian Carthallow’s death, he had been inclined to condemn his wife and Lester Imleyson because of their liaison, now that he was witnessing the final and public disavowal his sentimental soul was in distress. The romantic streak in him would not allow him to regard it unmoved.
It was Lewis Haldean who saved an awkward moment from becoming also an unbearably painful one. The blond man was sitting forward in his chair, his blue eyes intent.
“You can’t leave things there, Tremaine,” he said, in his rich, vibrant voice. “If Helen didn’t kill Adrian—or rather, if you’ve at last decided to admit that she didn’t—and if Imleyson didn’t do it, who did shoot him?”
“I’m coming to that now,” said Mordecai Tremaine.
It was his sense of theatre that made him pause. He looked around at them and it must be admitted that now he was not entirely without satisfaction on account of the power he held over them.
Even Hilda Eveland was showing signs of strain.
“Don’t keep us in suspense, Mordecai. Who did kill Adrian?”
Only Colonel Neale appeared unaffected by the tension in the atmosphere. He was leaning back with apparent calm, a faint smile that seemed to hold something of irony upon his lips.
Mordecai Tremaine said:
“Men and women don’t lead single-track lives. They branch off in a number of different directions. From time to time other people’s tracks cut across them or run closely parallel. That’s why, in a case of this nature, it isn’t easy to pick out the one line that matters and follow it from start to finish so that you can see just who and why and when. The truth you’re looking for is obscured by other things that happened to be going on at the same time but that don’t really affect your line at all, although sometimes they get so mixed up that they cause you to look at the problem from the wrong angle altogether.
“Adrian Carthallow’s death was complicated by the presence of several tracks that were connected with his own but that actually belonged to other people. You’ve already heard how the relationship between Mrs. Carthallow and Mr. Imleyson served to make the problem more confused. There were other things, too. For instance, there was the portrait. Did Mr.Imleyson destroy it in jealous rage? Or did Adrian Carthallow ruin it himself and for the same reason? Either of those two explanations could have served, but fortunately Miss Fairham was able to clear up that difficulty.”
So Pretty a Problem Page 24
