“God knows what they’ll want. Can’t see any object in such a course myself. Basil left a letter, saying he was going to shoot himself. It’s all plain enough. Beastly business. Don’t wonder you’ve got the horrors, Ronnie. It was enough to turn any one’s stomach. If he had to do it, he might have done it somewhere else. Suicides are like that – so absorbed over their own problems they can’t envisage the result on other people. Still, he left that letter. Clears things up a bit.” He looked at her steadily. “Don’t go imagining things, Ronnie. It’s all plain enough. Bad, I grant you, but it might have been worse.”
She sat very still, and then asked, “That letter, you saw the writing?”
“Yes. I saw it. Basil’s writing. Unmistakable – and the ink hadn’t dried black. That plain enough for you? Good. You stay in here. I’ll go and look out for the local bobbies, and keep an eye open for Martin, and once again, don’t go imagining things. If that Inspector bloke thinks you’re anxious about Martin, they’ll start badgering him when he does turn up. Got that?”
Veronica nodded, and Richard went out into the hall just before a car drew up with the Superintendent and his men from Sendover, the nearest town, some five miles away.
It was an hour later that Inspector Long came and found Richard Mallowood, saying:
“Now, sir, if you can spare me a few minutes?”
Richard got up from his seat by the fire in the hall, and knocked his pipe out.
“All right, Inspector. Shall we go into the morning-room, at the back of the hall there?”
The first few minutes were spent in putting down Richard’s name and age, and details of his arrival at Wulfstane. The next inquiry was concerning Basil’s arrival – on the Monday evening. It was now Wednesday. Richard said:
“I hadn’t been home here for some time. I’ve been out East for three years. I thought it would be pleasant to get Basil to come along while I was here, so I phoned him at his city office on Monday, and he agreed to come for a couple of days.”
“He didn’t give you any idea that he was worried, sir?”
“Not directly. I thought that he sounded nervy, but in my experience all these city men live on their nerves. While he was staying here he let out a few comments indicating that he had business worries. Swore about the complications of international finance, and the difficulties of collecting money from subsidiary companies in South America. He wanted information about Chinese currency and the silver market, which I was in a position to supply. I could tell he was worried, but I had no notion of the jam he was in.”
“Quite so,” said Long urbanely. “Now I want details of people in this house – just as a matter of routine.”
“This house belongs to my youngest brother and sister, Martin and Veronica. They live here, as they have always lived. There are two women servants and a house boy, and a gardener who lives at the lodge. Last night we were a party of six: Veronica and Martin; our eldest brother, Paul, who left at 7.30 this morning, Basil and myself, and a woman friend of my sister’s, a Mrs. Lorne. She left at nine o’clock this morning. She was asked to spend the evening by my sister, who didn’t relish the thought of a party with four men and only one woman.”
The Inspector scribbled industriously, and then asked:
“Could you give me an idea of what happened this morning, sir, up till the time when you heard the shot?”
“I’ll try. I knew Paul was leaving early, he was setting out on a holiday abroad. He said good-bye to the family last night, to save them all getting up at cock-crow. However, I’m an early riser by choice, and I went into his room at seven to see that he was awake. The maid brought his tray in, and I left him to it and went and had a shave. A little more than half an hour later I helped him down with his baggage and getting his car out; the gardener was about, but Paul doubted his capacity with cars. I say, stop me, if I’m wasting your time. I don’t know how much detail you want.”
“All I can get. Please go on just as you’ve begun.”
“Right. I saw Paul into his car, and saw that the gardener shoved the suitcases into the boot, and waved to him; you know the usual fatuities of an English leave-taking. Martin leaned out of his bedroom window and yelled ‘God speed,’ or some such Tommy rot. Then I went upstairs and finished dressing. I looked in at Basil before I came down again. He was awake, sitting up in bed smoking. I told him Paul had gone, and he asked what time the post came. I said I’d find out, and he asked me to have his letters sent up with his coffee. Then I went downstairs and had breakfast. That would have been about half-past eight. I heard Veronica come downstairs with Mrs. Lorne about nine, and she – Mrs. Lorne – went straight off in her own car. I think she was driving to Brighton to see some friends. A little later I came back to the dining-room; Martin had gone out by that time, and my sister was having breakfast or what she calls breakfast. I asked her about the mail, and she said she’d have Basil’s letters sent up on his tray when the postman came about 10.0. I went up to Basil again and told him he’d have to wait for an hour or so – he was still in bed. I asked him if he’d come our for a walk, but he didn’t want to. Said he’d got some letters to write, and that he’d go up to the old playroom so that he could work in peace. I went out myself about ten minutes later, and walked up to the top of Bonner Down. I was out all the morning, and came back for lunch soon after 12.30. I was in the bathroom at the east end of the first floor when I heard the report upstairs – and the rest you know.”
“Thank you, sir. That’s an excellent clear statement. The only other thing I want to ask you just at the moment is this. That shot gun which your brother used, was it his own?”
“No. It was mine. I was shooting with it when we were out yesterday. Basil and Martin and I had a day out together with our guns, and Basil took a fancy to mine. He wanted to buy it from me, but I wouldn’t let him have it.”
“Was the gun put away when you came in?”
Richard frowned. “No. I don’t think it was. When we got back – about tea-time – we found Paul had arrived, and Mrs. Lorne came a few minutes later. Basil said he’d clean it in the gun-room later. Actually he took it up to his own room. I saw it there this morning, but didn’t say anything. Lord, oh Lord, how was I to know?” asked Richard wearily. “He might have used his own gun, poor devil. Rotten business!”
“A very sad business,” agreed Long. “I should like to offer you my sympathy, sir. It was a shocking thing to see your own brother like that.”
Richard nodded. “Ay. I wish my sister hadn’t seen it. Worse for her than for me. Bad enough for anybody, but horrible for a woman.”
Long nodded his head in sympathy. Basil Mallowood might have been a bad hat, but his end was indeed “a shocking thing.”
CHAPTER FOUR
LONG was a very painstaking and conscientious officer. His mission for the arrest of Basil Mallowood had turned out very differently from what he had planned, but Long determined to collect all possible data and make a tidy job of it before he sent in his report to his superior officers. The Coroners Inquest would be a “local job,” straightforward enough in all conscience, but Long intended to get his own report set out in full. Superintendent Watson of Sendover, was quite willing to have Long’s co-operation in the matter, and was glad that the Inspector had been on the spot, for Long’s own evidence was very useful. He had heard the report of the gun from the upper floor of the house, and he had examined the body within a few minutes of death.
Long, having considered Richard Mallowood’s statement and found it satisfactory, then asked if he might see Veronica. He had with him in the morning-room a junior officer who had accompanied him to Wulfstane – Sergeant Beach. When Long had entered the house in the first place, intent on locating the noise caused by Richard Mallowood’s assault on the door upstairs, Beach had remained on duty at the open front door. Later he had entered the hall, and had heard Ada and the cook talking in the macabre manner of their kind.
When Veronica Mallowood came into t
he morning-room, Long got up politely and murmured a few words of conventional sympathy. He felt rather nonplussed by Veronica: she was something fresh in his experience, and her calm, cold dignity was somehow as surprising as her unusual height and statuesque appearance. Long was not accustomed to a woman looking down at him, and Veronica’s dark eyes had a quality which puzzled him and made him wary. Generally a reasonable man, Long was guilty of unreason when his mental reaction to Veronica formulated itself. “My hat! she looks capable of anything.”
“Thank you,” said Veronica in reply to his greeting, seating herself deliberately, but not in the chair which Long had set for her, and then waiting for his questions. Her answers covered the same grounds as Richard’s in the main, and she had very little to add. She repeated Richard’s inquiries on Basil’s behalf for the letters, and said that she had told the maid to take his post up with his breakfast tray. On leaving the kitchen she had gone upstairs and had called good morning to Basil through his bedroom door. She had not gone in but had heard him reply, and had told him that she was going out. She was out all the morning until twelve-thirty, when she had gone straight up to her bedroom, having entered the house by the drawing-room window. She had been at the door of her own room when she heard the gun go off, and had heard and seen Ada drop the tray by Martin’s bedroom door. Richard had appeared on the side of the landing where his own door was situated; furthest, that is, from the stairs which led to the upper storey where the old playroom was situated.
Again, thought Long, a clear concise statement, untinged by any feeling. Veronica spoke deliberately, her deep voice worrying Long in some way. It was not like any woman’s voice he had ever heard. He asked her if she had observed any signs of nerviness or depression in her late brother, but Veronica replied:
“He seemed very much as usual to me. I noticed no difference except for the fact that he had aged considerably since I last saw him. His hair was getting a bit grey, and he was heavier than when last I saw him.”
“Mr. Basil Mallowood was not a frequent visitor here, then?” inquired Long, and she replied:
“No. He seldom came. He preferred city life to country life.”
Long nodded, and then said, “Might I see your brother, Martin, next. I might as well get all these statements finished straight away.”
“Martin is still out. We – he and I – spend most of our time out of doors. He may not be back until evening.”
Long racked his brains afterwards to understand why something in her voice caught his attention. The deep tones were just the same. Veronica sat looking out of the window, her expression a little bored, her hands resting slack and still on her knee, but somehow Long figuratively pricked up his ears. He glanced back a few pages in his notes; and then said:
“I take it you did not see him this morning? He went out before you came downstairs?”
“I saw him from my window, as he went out. He was going through the spinney and later walking over to Wendle Mere – about five miles away. He often shoots there. He lost a pocket-book while he was out with the others yesterday, and he thought he might have dropped it there. I saw him later in the morning – about twelve, when I was walking back from the farm. He had been to the spinney and spent some time there, bird watching. I saw him cross Wendle Beacon and waved to him when I was in the valley.”
“Oh, did you…” said Long to himself. He was writing busily, but in his ears was Veronica’s cry – in a very different voice. “It isn’t Martin! It isn’t Martin after all.” She’d probably forgotten that: the shock of seeing Basil’s body had made her forget those tense minutes.
“Since you have volunteered that, I might as well get it clear,” he said. “Have you an ordnance map, or some large scale map of the locality you mention?”
Veronica made a gesture towards the bookcase. “You’ll find one there,” she said evenly.
Long found the map, and spread it flat on the table. He put his pencil on the Manor House, clearly marked on the map, and then found Wendle Mere – about five miles away, as Veronica had stated.
“Can you show me the point where you met Mr. Martin?” he inquired.
Veronica took the pencil and made a mark with it.
“Here,” she said. “This is the border of the spinney, and this the road I was walking on. Martin left the road on the further side and walked up the down by one of the sheep tracks. I sat on the stile there watching him climb. It’s pretty steep. He waved to me, as he went over the top and then I came home.”
“You came home direct, by the road?”
“Yes.”
Long nodded. “What it really amounts to is this. Your brother Martin must have been some miles distant from the Manor when you reached home, provided he kept on in the direction he was going when you last saw him?”
“Yes,” replied Veronica, and Long nodded.
“Thanks. That clears that point. Could I now see your house parlourmaid, Ada Brown?”
“I’ll send her to you.”
Veronica went out, and Sergeant Beach put in in a low voice, “This other Mallowood – Martin – is he a fair chap?”
Long nodded:
“They’re all alike, aren’t they?” said Beach. “You couldn’t mistake them for anything but brothers and sister. I caught a glimpse of the fair one, Martin that’d be, when I was on duty by the hall door. He was just cutting across the garden.”
“Was he?” said Long thoughtfully, and added, “Why the deuce did she put that bit in? She looks sensible enough.”
“She reminds me of something in the Natural History Museum,” said Beach, and Long swallowed a snort of laughter… mammoths, pterodactyls, saurians.
“She’s by way of being an outsize,” he murmured.
Ada Brown was dealt with firmly, and her natural garrulity not given much chance. Long only wanted a clear, foolproof table of events with corroboration. If there were any “funny stuff” in this case, it would be for somebody else to deal with. Ada produced the following facts and was prepared to swear to them. She had taken up Mr. Paul’s breakfast tray at 7.0 o’clock. He was still in bed, but awake, the curtains of his room drawn back, and it was quite light in the room. After giving him his tray, Ada had gone out again and fetched his shaving water. When she came back with it, Mr. Richard Mallowood was in the room, chatting to his brother, and she met Mr. Basil in the passage, coming back from the bathroom. He looked half-asleep – and not half bad-tempered. Both Richard and Basil had been in their dressing-gowns. Ada had then laid breakfast in the dining-room, and made tea for Richard, who had been quite chatty.
Next, she went and prepared a tray for Mrs. Lorne and took that up, and she gave Long to understand that she’d seen enough of breakfast trays to last her “her natural.” Miss Mallowood came down and saw Mrs. Lorne off about nine o’clock, and then went and had her own breakfast in the dining-room – “apples and oranges, like a monkey,” said Ada. Finally Miss Mallowood had “put the lid on it” by telling Ada to take a tray up to Mr. Basil, as though she hadn’t got enough to do, what with six bedrooms and no one to give her a hand. Long expressed a modicum of sympathy here, and encouraged Ada to go on with her statement. The post came at 10.0, “same as usual,” she went on, and she had then taken up Mr. Basil’s tray and his letters, two of them, one a long one, sealed, both with London postmarks. Mr. Basil was up, but still in his pyjamas, “not ‘arf gaudy, neither,” said Ada. He was shaving in front of his mirror, and he told her “to bung the tray on the table, and leave him in peace for an hour” – “which I done,” said Ada. “I didn’t go and do his room until nearly twelve. He was upstairs then. I heard him galumphing round. Awful to think about, it is. Me doing the bedrooms and him up there with that gun. Gives me the proper horrors to think about it. He had that gun in his bedroom, too. I saw it when I went in to turn the beds down last night.”
Ada could tell Long nothing about the rest of the household during the morning, except that they had gone out. She hall seen Miss Mallowoo
d set out with a gun under her arm before the post came. Mr. Martin and Mr. Richard went out earlier. “Leastways, I didn’t see them about, nor hear them neither, and Mr. Richard you can always hear him when he’s about the house. Whistles and sings to himself all the time.”
Long asked her if she had ever seen Paul and Basil and Richard before this visit, and she shook her head. “No, never, but you could tell they was all brothers, they’re that alike – Miss Mallowood’s like them, too. She’s a queer creature,” said Ada. “Not like any lady I ever set eyes on before. Gives me the hump to look at her, and don’t she just hate those brothers of hers, Paul and Basil, both of them. I’ve heard her say some things about them, too. My word I have!”
“And my word, you’ll be getting yourself into trouble if you go gossipping about your mistress,” said Long.
“Well, you’re police, aren’t you? There’s a thing or two you ought to know,” said Ada ominously, but Long did not encourage her to go on. He had the facts he needed, and that was enough. He could make a clear reconstruction of the events of the morning up till the time Basil Mallowood went upstairs, and as for the actual shooting, there was no ground for doubting that it was what it appeared to be – a suicide. The door of the playroom had been locked on the inside – the big old key was still in the lock when Long had examined it, and the man had not been dead for more than ten minutes when they got the door open. The letter to Richard had been written by Basil himself, and written recently, as its ink testified. Long was no expert over handwriting, but he was certain that the letter left for Richard was written by the same hand as that which had written some notes found in his pockets, and on the labels of his suitcases.
After Ada had been dismissed, Long sat and meditated for a while. It was all straightforward enough, except that statement of Miss Mallowood’s about having seen her brother Martin while she was out in the morning. If she had seen him and talked to him, why had she called his name as she banged on the door of the playroom? There could be only one answer. She had reason to believe that Martin might be likely to shoot himself… but then when she had seen the body and knew that it was Basil who was dead, why had she told that story of seeing Martin climbing Wendle Beacon, three miles away? Obviously to prove that Martin could not have been in the house when the shot was fired. Long puzzled afresh. That door had been locked from the inside, there was no doubt about that. The casement window was jammed-to, and below it was a clear thirty foot drop, no ledge or pipe or creeper to assist a descent. The most skilful of cat-burglars could not have found a means of getting down that wall. Then there was the manner of the shooting to be taken into account. The muzzle of the gun must have been below the dead man’s chin when it was fired, the stock on the floor. The body had not been moved, Long was certain of that, as was Superintendent Watson. Basil Mallowood had been sitting in the armchair when he shot himself – and the letter he had left was in his own handwriting. It was a puzzle. If it had not been for Veronica’s statement about Martin the whole thing would have been perfectly simple. The Inspector turned to Sergeant Beach.
Rope's End, Rogue's End Page 5
