The Piccadilly Murder

by Anthony Berkeley

  Gradually her sobs lessened.

  She sat up, rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands, and retrieved her wrapper from the floor, whither it had finally and modestly retired, to dab her cheeks. “I’m sorry. It was foolish of me, but for the moment everything seemed so utterly hopeless.”

  “I know,” nodded Mr. Chitterwick, exuding sympathy in all directions. “I know. I know.”

  “Then, Mr. Chitterwick, you will? You really will?”

  “I’ll look into it for you, yes,” continued to nod Mr. Chitterwick, with a perfectly fatuous beam. “Depend upon it, we’ll find some way of saving your husband if he’s really innocent. Oh, without a doubt.”

  The lady hesitated for a moment. “Mr. Chitterwick,” she said in a low voice, “it’s no good pretending to try to thank you. Perhaps you can imagine what it means to me. And—and—–”

  “I’ll let you out by the other door,” said Mr. Chitterwick hastily.

  But he kissed her good night after helping her on with her wrapper (an avuncular kiss rather than paternal this time, perhaps), and quite right too.

  VII

  CONVERSATION IN A TEMPLE

  Worn out with the varied emotions of the night before, Mr. Chitterwick slept the next morning till an indecently late hour. To his shame he found himself easily the last down to breakfast. But this shame was rapidly dispelled, for never had Mr. Chitterwick received such a welcome.

  Lady Milborne turned her most delightful smile on him and kept it there. Lord Milborne quite unnecessarily got up to show him which dish contained the porridge, which the kedgeree, which the eggs and bacon, and which the kidneys—a puzzle which Mr. Chitterwick could quite easily have solved unaided by the simple ruse of lifting the covers and looking for himself. Mouse (surname still unknown) positively leapt up to pour out his coffee for him. The black-and-silver aunt (now a grey knitted-silk aunt) wished him good-morning in the tone of one welcoming a favourite brother back from Australia. And her niece smiled at him in silence, but such an understanding, grateful, altogether intimate smile that Mr. Chitterwick’s heart gave quite a little jump.

  In fact, it seemed that everyone was delighted to do Mr. Chitterwick honour.

  Basking in this universal appreciation, and trying not to realize how little he deserved it, Mr. Chitterwick made a triumphal breakfast. Nobody referred to such a thing as a train, and plans were openly discussed covering the whole week of Mr. Chitterwick’s invitation. Behind his beam that gentleman wondered, a little guiltily now in the broad daylight, just what version of the previous night’s episode Judith Sinclair had issued for publication. He hoped that it was a prudently expurgated one.

  Not until he was smoking his after-breakfast cigarette in that same little pseudo-Greek temple by the lake, whither he had succeeded in retiring alone for the purpose, did Mr. Chitterwick make any real effort to estimate the position to which he had committed himself; and when he did so he found himself very uneasy indeed. Not that he actively regretted the promises he had made to Judith Sinclair. It was emotion which had brought them into being, no doubt, but they were grounded on something firmer. One argument that had been used, and one only, had impressed him. Would it be likely that a man who was held in such estimation, not only by his friends but by his own wife (thought Mr. Chitterwick with unaccustomed cynicism), as was Major Sinclair should be guilty of such a particularly mean murder? Mr. Chitterwick had to admit that it was not likely. For though a man may successfully deceive his friends as to his true character, it is not so easy for him to hoodwink his wife.

  No, on psychological probabilities Major Sinclair had a chance.

  On the other hand, on straightforward evidence he had none.

  As for the extraneous evidence, that, as Moresby had explained with regard to the phial, though awkward was not damning. Mr. Chitterwick’s evidence, however, was damning, quite damning; and abstractedly smoking his cigarette, that gentleman himself did not at all see how he was going to get round it.

  The only possible way of approach to the problem (if as a problem the case was now to be treated) seemed to be temporarily to ignore that evidence altogether, assume the Major’s innocence, see what new facts or fancies arose from that assumption, and then endeavour to work the awkward evidence in to corroborate them. It was a difficult way of going to work, and Mr. Chitterwick had to admit that the chances of success appeared so remote as to be imperceptible; but his word had been given, and he must offer the thing a trial.

  Nevertheless, his position at Riversmead Priory was going to be embarrassing. Though it was no fault of his own, that position seemed to rest at present on quite false pretences. From the way in which he had been treated at breakfast it was clear to Mr. Chitterwick that it was understood not merely that he would examine the possibilities of Major Sinclair’s innocence, which after all was all he had undertaken to do even at the most emotional moments of the night before, but that he would secure his life and liberty. Even, no doubt, to the extent of perjury.

  Mr. Chitterwick’s regard for truth and honesty was wont to reach at times an almost morbid degree. He felt it would be quite impossible to stay on unless the real state of affairs was made quite clear, that he was willing only to test the case from the angle of the Major’s possible innocence and, should he not be able to satisfy himself that there were any grounds to support that theory, he must revert to his previous attitude and give his evidence in the High Court with as much conviction as he had given it before the magistrates. That must be clearly understood.

  But how to convey it?

  He could put it to Mrs. Sinclair; but though of course she would be quite sensible about it he was unwilling to do anything at the moment to dampen the spark of hope which his promises had kindled in her. He could put it to either Lady Milborne or her husband. But the former, he felt sure, would not altogether appreciate the delicacy of the situation; and the idea of making what amounted to conditions with his host for a continuance of his stay seemed tactless, to say the least. Mrs. Relph, the aunt? She would understand without a doubt; but . . .

  In the end Mr. Chitterwick decided to make use of the young man they called Mouse as the most suitable channel for disseminating his decision.

  It is a trite observation that to think of a thing is often to call it into being. Hardly had Mr. Chitterwick arrived at this conclusion than the young man himself materialized in the entrance to the temple, a pipe in his mouth and a newspaper in his hand.

  “I saw you start off in this direction and guessed you might be here,” he said with a friendly smile. “Not butting in if I join you, am I?”

  “By no means,” beamed Mr. Chitterwick. “I should be very pleased. As it happens I was thinking of coming to look for you. There is something I wanted to say.” And while the matter was fresh and clear in his own mind, he straightway put it forward.

  The young man seemed endowed with understanding. “Oh, that’s all right. Of course. Couldn’t expect you to do anything else. The great thing is that you’ll keep an open mind for a bit, at any rate.”

  “ Oh, yes,” agreed Mr. Chitterwick, much relieved. “Certainly I will do that.”

  “While you investigate,” said the young man called Mouse.

  “Eh?” said Mr. Chitterwick.

  The young man blew a cloud of smoke in the direction of the entrance and watched it as it settled into thick grey folds in the still, sunshine-laden air. “You did promise Judy to look into matters for her, didn’t you?” he asked, with an air of carelessness.

  “Did I? I don’t ... It may be. But if so it was very . . . Dear me.” Mr. Chitterwick had only a very vague idea of what he had promised.

  “So she seems to have understood,” observed the young man.

  “Oh!” Mr. Chitterwick contrived to look both blank and unhappy at the same moment.

  Mr. Chitterwick was a modest man. It is true that he had, by a
simple process of putting two and two together, solved the previous year an exceptionally difficult case; but no publicity had attended that effort, for owing to lack of evidence it had been impossible to bring the criminal to justice. So that, although Mr. Chitterwick had received unofficial congratulations from the chiefs of Scotland Yard, his name had not been made known to the public in that connection at all. Indeed, it had been understood that the truth must remain a secret and the case be officially written off as insoluble, so that Mr. Chitterwick was even precluded from referring to it had he wished to do so.

  But the point was that Mr. Chitterwick’s modesty prevented him from believing that any great credit was really due to himself. He had done no investigating at all. The idea of active detection, ferreting out things that people were trying to conceal, grimly following up slender clues, making a general nuisance of himself, repelled him completely. He was a quiet man and one who always tried to live at peace with his fellow beings; and no one can do that and be a detective as well. All he had done in that case was to sit tight while other and more adventurous people did the spade work of investigation, and then simply use their results to draw the correct conclusion; a procedure (thought Mr. Chitterwick modestly) which might have been followed by really anyone of moderate intelligence. There was therefore no experience behind him of real detection on which to found the fulfilment of this unfortunate promise which he seemed to have made; and, as before, he simply had not the faintest idea of how to go about it.

  “Dear me,” said Mr. Chitterwick, harassed.

  The young man gave further proof of his endowment of understanding. “As it happens, I’d rather been trying to do something on those lines myself. At least, I went so far as to get all the facts tabulated, and so on. But after that I came to a dead end. Couldn’t see how to get any farther. So if you are going to look into things, I wonder if you’d care to take me on as a sort of assistant? Join forces, in fact.”

  “That would certainly be a very great help,” warmly agreed Mr. Chitterwick, who found himself liking this young man more and more. “But really . . . And, in any case, isn’t this a matter for Major Sinclair’s solicitors?”

  “No. They didn’t tell Judy so, of course, but they gave me quite a definite hint. I’m sure they haven’t the least doubt that Lynn’s guilty, and they’re actually frightened of employing a private detective for fear of what he might find out. They think Lynn has a sporting chance at present, in spite of your evidence, and they don’t want any more awkward facts brought to light.”

  “I see. And you, of course, are still more sure that Major Sinclair is innocent?”

  The young man called Mouse looked a little embarrassed. “I don’t want to buck about him, Chitterwick, but Lynn really is one of the very best. Not too many brains, perhaps; Judy’s got them, plenty for both. But I’d as soon believe that he’d done this thing as I would that I’d done it myself.” He went rather red.

  “Then what do you believe?” asked Mr. Chitterwick, with sympathy but with interest as well.

  The other laughed shortly. “Blessed if I know what to believe. Knowing Miss Sinclair, I can’t credit her with suicide at all, let alone in such a place as the lounge of the Piccadilly Palace; and yet . . . Still, that’s what we’ve got to try to find out, isn’t it?”

  It was Mr. Chitterwick’s turn to look embarrassed. “Yes. Of course. No doubt. Without question I am very willing to do my best. That is, what I can. But the trouble is, you see . . . Well, really, detection is a specialist’s work, and I have no qualifications at all.”

  “Is that so?” asked the young man, and his smile was strangely confident. It was as if Mr. Chitterwick had made a very subtle joke, the point of which one might well be forgiven for not seeing.

  “Quite so,” replied Mr. Chitterwick with much earnestness.

  “Then,” said the young man, “what about that Poisoned Chocolates Case, as the papers called it?”

  “Eh?” said Mr. Chitterwick.

  “I know all about that.”

  “You—you do? Er—how?”

  “The son of the assistant commissioner happens to be rather a friend of mine.”

  “Oh!” said Mr. Chitterwick.

  “So I don’t think we’ll bother about lack of qualifications.”

  “No, but really,” said Mr. Chitterwick, and tried very hard to explain how he had not solved that case at all but simply allowed it to solve itself.

  “Pooh!” said the young man, or made noises to that effect.

  Before he realized how it had happened Mr. Chitterwick found the partnership fully established, with himself in the rôle of governing director.

  “Very well,” sighed Mr. Chitterwick, accepting the inevitable. “You may assure Mrs. Sinclair at least that I shall do all I can, little though it may prove to be, Mr.—— I’m really very sorry, but I haven’t discovered your name.”

  “Oh, call me Mouse,” said the young man carelessly. “Everyone does.”

  They proceeded to get down to the case.

  It was the matter of Major Sinclair’s alibi that interested Mr. Chitterwick chiefly in the new circumstances. If that could be substantiated to cover the time right up to half-past three, of course the Major was proved innocent, whatever might be the real truth of the mystery. Unfortunately, however, he had been unable to produce a single witness in support of it.

  According to his own account the Major had lunched at his club, the Rainbow, in Piccadilly. At about a quarter-past two, when he had finished lunch, he was called to the telephone. So much was not in question. The person at the other end of the line announced himself as one Eccles, a man who had been up at Oxford with him. Major Sinclair was surprised. Although they had gone up to the same college in the same year, he had barely known Eccles. Their interests had been completely different, and St. Mary’s is well known to be a cliquey college; Major Sinclair had been a member of the Bullingdom, and Eccles had been what members of the Bullingdom would have described as “a pretty ghastly sort of feller; writes poetry, or some rot like that.”

  However, the Major was no longer a member of the Bullingdom, and so was able to feign an interest in Mr. Eccles and ask politely after his present circumstances. Eccles told him that it was too long a story to relate over the telephone, but what he wanted was to see the Major in person, adding mysteriously that it was the chance of a lifetime for both of them, and that if the Major missed it he would kick himself forever afterward. He refused to explain any further, saying that he would go into the whole thing when they met. Would the Major come round as soon as possible to his, Eccles’s office, where they could talk in privacy?

  Naturally Sinclair agreed to do so. Eccles gave him the address, adding that it was the top floor and, as he had only just taken the place, there was no name on the door. He added as if by an afterthought that he had to pop down the road to see a man first, but would almost certainly be back before Sinclair arrived; but should he be detained for a few minutes, would the latter wait. The Major gave him a few minutes to see his man and then, pleasantly curious, left his club at about half-past two.

  There was no difficulty in finding the building. It was a small one in an unimportant street in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden. Sinclair climbed three flights of stone steps, which could well have done with a washing, to the top landing. This was even dirtier than the rest and showed no signs of occupation at all. There were cobwebs in the corners, but the Major, not usually a particularly observant man, noticed that the dust had been cleared away round the edges of the door and the door-frame, which pointed to the fact that it was in use. There was no other door on the top landing.

  Sinclair gathered that Eccles must still be seeing his man, for there was no answer to his rings. He composed himself to wait and began to read a lunchtime edition of the Evening Standard, which he had fortunately bought on the way in case of such a contingency. The place
had not impressed him favourably, and he was half suspecting by now that Eccles only wanted him to invest money in some wildcat scheme, or perhaps even to effect a personal loan; but he knew from experience of the offices of certain solicitors that one cannot always judge by appearances and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and go on waiting.

  He continued to give Eccles the benefit of the doubt until twenty-past three when, in view of his appointment with his aunt at the Piccadilly Palace for half-past, he could wait no longer. Asked why he had waited as long as all that, Sinclair replied that he kept thinking that Eccles must be back the next minute, and having waited so long already it seemed a pity to spoil things by not staying for another couple of minutes.

  “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed it,” observed Mouse, “but that’s just about what always does happen on those occasions.”

  Mr. Chitterwick agreed that he had noticed it.

  Not another soul had paid a visit to the top landing while Sinclair was waiting there, nor could anyone be found who had seen him either enter the building or even on his way to it. His solicitors, whose fears regarding the employment of a private detective had not extended to an attempt to prove this alibi, had done everything possible to unearth such a person, and none could be found. On the other hand the police had discovered at once that the office in question was empty and had been for months, and that Eccles himself was in the consular service and at present stationed in the Malay States; he would not be in England till his leave became due next year.

  “Um!” said Mr. Chitterwick thoughtfully. “Yes. You see, the trouble is that Major Sinclair, by leaving his club at half-past two, as he certainly did, would arrive at the Piccadilly Palace, had he gone straight there and this story were false, at exactly the time when I myself actually saw him—er—actually saw the other man arrive—about twenty minutes to three.”