Murder at the Manor

by Martin Edwards

  “This is how it is,” continued Peasegood after a pause; “and you’re the first person I’ve spoken to about it. This afternoon, just as I was about to leave my office for the day, Mrs. Whiteside called on me.”

  “Walshawe’s housekeeper!” exclaimed Marshford.

  “Walshawe’s housekeeper—exactly. She requested an interview. Her manner was mysterious. She was some time in coming to a point—I had to ask her, at last, what she really wanted. Eventually she told me that not many months before his death Mr. Walshawe made a new will, and entrusted it to her keeping.”

  The detective whistled.

  “Just so,” continued Peasegood. “I, too, felt inclined to whistle. Instead, I asked to see the will she spoke of. She produced it. I read it hastily. It is a perfectly good will; nothing can upset it. Or, rather, there’s only one thing that might upset it—we’ll talk of what that is later. But—to give you particulars of it—it was made on the twenty-fourth of last May; it was written out by Walshawe himself on a sheet of foolscap; it is duly and properly signed and witnessed. Quite a good will.”

  “And its provisions?” asked Marshford.

  “Simple—very!” replied Peasegood. “It appoints the same executors—myself and Mr. John Entwhistle. Mrs. Carstone is left the residue of everything—real and personal estate—as before. The trifling legacies are as before. But a sum of ten thousand pounds is left to Jane Whiteside, and a like sum to her son Richard.”

  Peasegood paused and laughed a little.

  “That’s the difference,” he said—“a little difference of twenty thousand pounds. I said it would make no difference to Mrs. Carstone. It doesn’t. Walshawe, first and last, died worth a quarter of a million. Mrs. Carstone can easily afford to drop twenty thousand. Twenty thousand is nothing to her. But ten thousand is a lot to Mrs. Whiteside—and to her son.”

  “To anybody but wealthy people!” exclaimed the detective. “Um! Well, that’s news, Mr. Peasegood. But—do you think it has any bearing on the mystery of Walshawe’s death?”

  Peasegood’s eyes and mouth became inscrutable for a minute. Then he smiled.

  “You asked me if I’d take anything,” he said. “I’ll take a little whisky, and I’ll smoke a cigar. Then—I’ll tell you something.”

  His face became inscrutable again, and remained so until Marshford had summoned the waiter and his demands for refreshment had been supplied, and he kept silence until he had smoked a good inch of his cigar. When he turned to the detective again it was with a smile that seemed to suggest much.

  “I dare say you’re as well aware as I am that—especially in professions like yours and mine—men who are practised in deducing one thing from another are apt to think pretty sharply at times,” he said. “I thought with unusual sharpness when Mrs. Whiteside revealed the existence of this will and I’d convinced myself that it would stand. Or, rather, I didn’t so much think as remember. I remembered—that’s the word—remembered.”

  “Remembered—what?” asked Marshford.

  Peasegood bent forward with a sidelong glance at the door, and he tapped the detective’s knee.

  “I remembered two very striking facts—striking in connection with what we know,” he replied, in a whisper. “First that Jane Whiteside’s son, her co-beneficiary, is a chemist in London; second, that he was in Flamstock during the evening and night immediately preceding Walshawe’s death. That’s what I remembered.”

  Marshford opened his eyes to their widest extent. Once more he whistled.

  “Whew!” he exclaimed, supplementing the whistle. “That’s—gad, I don’t know what that isn’t, or—is! Anyway, it’s news of rare significance.”

  “Some people,” observed Peasegood, calmly—“some people would call it news of sinister significance. It’s news that’s worth thinking about, anyway. I,” he continued, smiling grimly—“I have been thinking about it ever since I remembered it.”

  “What have you thought?” asked Marshford.

  “Nothing that’s very clear yet,” replied the solicitor. “But you may be sure that Mrs. Whiteside had long since told her son of the will which she kept locked-up in her private repository for such things. He’d no doubt seen it. And a man will dare much for ten thousand pounds.”

  “You think he—or he and his mother between them—administered the stuff to Walshawe?” suggested the detective.

  “I think,” answered Peasegood deliberately; “I think that when a man dies as suddenly as Walshawe did, when it’s found that he was poisoned, when it’s discovered that two people benefit by his death to the extent of twenty thousand pounds, to be paid to them in cash and unconditionally soon after his decease, and when one of these persons is a man acquainted with drugs and their properties—why, then, it’s high time that some inquiry should be made.”

  “Did you say as much to Mrs. Whiteside?” asked Marshford.

  “No, I didn’t,” replied the solicitor. “All that I said to Mrs. Whiteside was—to ask her why she didn’t bring forward this will at once. She replied that she didn’t know that there was any occasion for hurry, and that she’d thought she’d wait until things had got settled down a bit.”

  The detective reflected in silence for a while.

  “What about her manner?” he suddenly asked. “You’d have thought—good heavens!—why, if they’re guilty, you’d have thought they’d be afraid to bring that will forward. They can’t be—fools?”

  “Apart from her mysterious way of introducing the subject, the woman’s manner was calm enough,” answered Peasegood. “And, as to their being fools, you’ve got to remember this—the onus probandi rests on us if we accuse them. We’ve got to prove—prove, mind you!—that they, or one of them, poisoned Walshawe, I repeat—prove!”

  “The man may be the guilty party, his mother may be perfectly innocent,” remarked Marshford.

  “And the mother may be the guilty party, and the son as innocent as you are,” said Peasegood.

  Marshford nodded.

  “Anyway, there’s a motive,” he said. “But I can see certain things that are in their favour. And the first is—since the son’s a chemist, his knowledge would surely show him a cleverer way of getting rid of Walshawe than that. Considering that he’s a chemist, and, of course, supposing that he’s guilty, it was clumsy—clumsy.”

  “I’m not so sure,” replied Peasegood. “You’ve got to remember this—good sleeper as Walshawe boasted himself to be, there’s nobody can prove that he didn’t take drugs at times. For instance, that particular night he’d been giving a dinner-party, he sat up, to my knowledge—I was one of his guests—until quite two o’clock. He may have said to himself, as on many similar occasions, “I’m a bit excited. I’ll take something to make me sleep,” and he may have taken this stuff. You can’t prove that he hadn’t it by him, any more than you can prove that these people—or one of them—contrived to administer it to him. All you can say is this: Walshawe undoubtedly died of veronal poisoning. There is nothing to show that he ever took veronal. Jane Whiteside and Richard Whiteside benefit by his death to the extent of twenty thousand pounds. They had the opportunity of administering—”

  “For that matter,” said Marshford suddenly, “Jane Whiteside had abundant opportunities—daily opportunities. Why choose that particular night?”

  Peasegood got up and began to put on his coat.

  “I said, to begin with, that Richard may be the sole guilty party,” he answered. “He was in Flamstock that night. He came by the six train that Wednesday evening; he left at eight next morning, having spent the night at the Manor House. And it seems to me that the first thing to do is to find out if Richard Whiteside is in particular need of—his legacy—eh?”

  “Just so—just so,” agreed Marshford. “Leave that to me. I shall want his address.”

  Peasegood laid a slip of paper on the table.

 
“That’s his address,” he said. “Be cautious, Marshford. Well, I’m going.”

  The detective accompanied his visitor downstairs. In the hall, a little, middle-aged, blue-spectacled man, who carried a bag and a travelling-rug, was booking a room at the office window. And when the detective came back from the door, after saying “good night” to Peasegood, the landlady called to him, glancing at the new arrival.

  “Here’s a gentleman asking for you, Mr. Marshford,” she said.

  The little, blue-spectacled man made a bow, and presented the detective with a card.

  “My name and address, sir,” he said politely, in a sharp, businesslike fashion. “Can I have a few words with you?”

  Marshford looked at the card, and read:

  “William W. Williams, M.P.S., Dispensing and Family Chemist, The Pharmacy, Llandinas.”

  “Come this way, Mr. Williams,” responded Marshford.

  And as he led his second caller up the stairs, he said to himself that the evening was certainly yielding fruit. For he had no doubt whatever that Mr. William W. Williams had come to tell him something about the Walshawe case.

  3

  The Scientific Visitor

  Once within the private sitting-room the caller unwound the shawl and comforter in which he was swathed, and took off a heavy travelling overcoat that lay beneath them. He then presented himself as a little, spare man of active frame and movements. What Marshford could see of his eyes beneath his spectacles, and his mouth beneath his beard and moustache, seemed to show that his mind was as active as his body.

  He bustled into the chair which Peasegood had just vacated, accepted the detective’s offer of a drink with ready cordiality, and, having expressed his thanks in a set phrase, clapped his hands on his knees and looked searchingly at his host.

  “I have come a long way to see you, Mr. Marshford,” he said. “Yes, indeed, a long way I have come, sir?”

  “That shows that you want to see me on important business, Mr. Williams,” observed Marshford. “I gather that, of course.”

  “Important business, sir; oh, yes, indeed! Of the first importance, in my opinion, Mr. Marshford,” replied the visitor. He cleared his throat, as if he meant to indulge in a lengthy speech. “I have read what has been in the papers, sir, about Mr. Septimus Walshawe,” he began. “I gathered from the papers that you are in charge of that case?”

  “I am,” said Marshford. “And if you can throw any light on it, I shall be much obliged to you.”

  Williams again cleared his throat.

  “I can, sir,” he answered. “Yes, indeed I can. I knew the late Mr. Septimus Walshawe, sir, though I have not set eyes on him for twenty-five years. Mr. Walshawe, sir, used to live in Llandinas, and though I have not seen Mr. Walshawe since he left—five-and-twenty years ago—I know something about him which, as I gather from the papers, nobody here in Flamstock knows, and you do not know, either. Yes, indeed!”

  “Yes?” said Marshford. “What?”

  Williams drew his chair close to the detective’s. He wagged his head with a knowing air.

  “This, sir,” he said. “The late Septimus Walshawe was a victim of drugs—or, rather, of one drug. Of one drug, Mr. Marshford.”

  “What drug?” asked Marshford quietly.

  Williams slapped his knees, put his face close to the detective’s and rapped out one word.

  “Opium!” he said. “Opium!”

  Marshford stared silently at his visitor for a minute or two. Here, indeed, was a revelation which he had not expected—a revelation which might mean a great deal.

  “You’re quite sure of what you allege?” he asked at last.

  “Allege!” exclaimed the chemist, with a laugh. “I know! Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Marshford! As if I should come all this way, whatever, to talk about something that I wasn’t sure of! Oh, yes; I know, sir!”

  “What do you know?” said Marshford.

  “I know this,” replied Williams. “Mr. Walshawe lived in Llandinas—at a house called Plas Newydd, Mr. Marshford—for five years before he came to live here. Soon after he came into Llandinas, he came to my shop for opium. He told me that he had become accustomed to taking it at times for a certain internal disorder which he had contracted while abroad. I made it up for him in five-grain pills. He had so many a month, and as time went on he began to increase his doses. But when he left our neighbourhood he was not taking so much—not nearly so much—as he did later on.”

  “How,” asked Marshford, “how do you know what he took later on?”

  The chemist smiled slyly.

  “How do I know indeed?” he said. “Because I have sent him his opium pills to his house here in Flamstock ever since he came here. Yes, indeed; five-and-twenty years I have sent them, once a month. And he needed more and more a month every year. That man, sir, was a victim to the opium habit.”

  “You sent him a supply of opium pills regularly?” asked Marshford.

  “Once a month I sent them—yes,” replied Williams. “In a neat box, sir, sealed. Oh, yes; for five-and-twenty years, Mr. Marshford!”

  “I thought,” remarked Marshford, reflectively, “that a confirmed opium-taker showed marked signs of the vice?”

  “Not always, sir—not always! He wouldn’t,” said Williams. “He was a fresh-coloured, lively-looking man when I knew him, and was to the end, judging from the accounts I’ve read in the papers. No, sir; I don’t think he would show the usual signs much.”

  “You don’t think that anybody else would detect it?” suggested Marshford.

  Williams looked round him, and sank his voice to a whisper.

  “I think that somebody here did detect it—was well aware of it,” he answered. “Yes, indeed, I do, Mr. Marshford—oh, yes!”

  “Who?” asked Marshford bluntly.

  “Whoever poisoned him,” replied the chemist with another sly smile. “Yes, sir—whoever poisoned him.”

  Marshford considered this suggestion awhile. It was some time before he spoke; meanwhile his visitor sat tapping his knees and watching him.

  “Look here, Mr. Williams,” said the detective at last. “You’ve got a theory, and you’ve come here to tell me what it is. I’m much obliged to you. And now—what is it?”

  Williams cleared his throat with one of his sharp, dry coughs.

  “This, sir,” he said. “It seems certain that somebody wanted to get Walshawe out of the way. That somebody knew that he took opium in the shape of pills—probably knew how many he took, and the chemical value of the pills, and made the veronal up to resemble the pills—so closely, indeed, that Walshawe didn’t know they weren’t opium pills. Yes, indeed!”

  “That argues a certain amount of chemical knowledge, Mr. Williams,” said Marshford—“I mean on the part of the poisoner.”

  “Oh, it does!” agreed Williams. “Or it argues that the poisoner knew where to get veronal made up in the form and of the strength he wanted. Oh, yes!”

  “That’s your theory?” said Marshford.

  “That’s my theory, sir,” answered the chemist. “I formed that theory as soon as I read the case in the papers. And having business in London to-morrow I took this place on my way so that I could tell you what I thought. And I venture to predict, sir, that if you ever do get to the bottom of this mystery, you’ll find that theory to be correct. Yes, indeed! You don’t know of anything that fits in with it, I suppose?”

  “I may tell you something about that later, Mr. Williams,” replied Marshford. “I suppose you are going to stay the night here?”

  The chemist rose and began to gather together his belongings.

  “I am, sir,” he said. “I am now about to take some much-needed refreshment, and then I am going to bed—I have had a long journey, whatever. I shall have the pleasure of seeing you in the morning, Mr. Marshford?”

  “Yes, t
hat’s it—see me in the morning,” replied Marshford. “I’m going to think over what you’ve told me.”

  He sat for some time after the chemist had gone away, thinking steadily on the news just given to him. He was beginning to see a clear line now as regards the administration of the veronal, and it certainly seemed to lead to a strong suggestion of the guilt of the Whitesides, mother and son—or, at any rate, one or other of them. It might be that both were concerned; it might be that only the son was concerned. And it might be that the son was innocent and the mother guilty.

  “Anyhow,” he murmured, as he drew up a chair to the writing-desk, “the first thing to do is to find out all about the son, and I’ll set Chivvins on to that at once.”

  But he had scarcely written a line of his letter when the old waiter put his grey head inside the door again and announced the third visitor of the evening.

  4

  The Imaginative Visitor

  “Mr. Pitt-Carnaby, sir,” said the waiter, mouthing the double-barrelled name with a reverence which showed Marshford that this latest caller was a person of importance. He bowed the visitor in and moved across the room on pretence of mending the fire. “Followed me straight in, sir—wouldn’t wait,” he whispered to the detective as he passed him.

  Marshford looked up from his writing and recognised an elderly gentleman whom he had once or twice seen in the streets of Flamstock and who was chiefly remarkable for the fact that he always wore a knickerbocker suit and a Scotch cap with ribbons depending from its hinder end. He was a bearded and spectacled gentleman. Marshford, on the rare occasions on which he had seen him, had set him down as being a little eccentric. All the same Mr. Pitt-Carnaby looked business-like enough as he took the chair which had already been twice occupied that evening.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” said the third visitor. “I am Mr. Pitt-Carnaby, of the Hollies. I have come to speak to you about Mr. Walshawe’s mysterious death. Mr. Walshawe was one of my colleagues on the magisterial bench; he was also a personal friend of mine. We had many tastes in common—we were, for instance, both collectors of antiquities. Naturally, I have thought and reflected a great deal on the circumstances of his sudden decease.”