The Piccadilly Murder

by Anthony Berkeley

  “I see,” said Mr. Chitterwick.

  And that was about all he did see. As for any channels of further detection, or possibly fruitful avenues to explore, he could spy not a sign of one. Mr. Chitterwick, the hope of Riversmead, was ignominiously flummoxed.

  It was Mrs. Sinclair who suggested a glimpse of one avenue. “I’m going over to Earlshaze this afternoon. The place is legally my husband’s now, of course, and though I couldn’t bear to stay there I run over occasionally to keep an eye on things. Mouse is driving me over. Would you care to come too? You might like an opportunity to see Miss Goole again. I’m keeping her on till—till things are more settled.”

  It was not Mr. Chitterwick’s greatest wish ever to set eyes on Miss Goole again; on the other hand, the visit to Earlshaze meant action, and something, at any rate, to pretend to be doing; at least it was better than mooning forlornly about Riversmead, feeling (and no doubt looking) rather less like a detective than anything in this world.

  Mr. Chitterwick intimated that an opportunity to see Miss Goole again was just the very thing he had been wanting.

  Mouse was a vigorous driver for so small a man. They covered the twenty-odd miles between the two houses in twenty-seven minutes.

  Miss Goole received them kindly but firmly. To Mr. Chitterwick’s relief she bore Judith Sinclair away with her immediately to discuss certain accounts. The collaborators were left alone together.

  Freed from Miss Goole’s intimidating eye, Mr. Chitterwick was able to look about him with interest. This, then, was the prize for which the prosecution maintained that murder was not too great a crime, this ripe Georgian mansion of soft red brick and high, airy coolness inside. Mouse, observing his companion’s interested gaze, offered to show him round and proved to know almost as much about the place as any professional guide.

  It was, apparently, not the original house on the site. An earlier Elizabethan Earlshaze had been burnt down in the reign of George the Second, and the ruling Sinclair of the time had built the present mansion. Mr. Chitterwick viewed the pine-panelled walls, the carved mantelpieces, the ballroom, the picture gallery full of previous Sinclairs, the gun room, the grounds, the ornamental water, and sighed. Perhaps after all the prosecution was right. Murder might not be too high a price. Earlshaze was a highly desirable residence.

  The tour took them the better part of an hour. When they got back again to the house the business of the two women was finished, and to Mr. Chitterwick’s dismay Judith seemed to be trying to find an excuse to leave Mr. Chitterwick and Miss Goole together for a time. Mr. Chitterwick was quite sure that, left alone with this formidable young woman, any question he might have thought of putting to her would go clean out of his head.

  Perhaps his dismay was a trifle too plain, perhaps Mouse was giving yet another instance of his remarkable ability in reading Mr. Chitterwick’s mind; anyhow, he took matters in hand. “Judy, you’re looking rotten. Tired out. Black rings under eyes and all that. Isn’t she, Miss Goole?”

  Miss Goole agreed that she was with an almost imperceptible degree of the scorn that a healthy young woman feels for her less vigorous sisters.

  “I tell you what, then,” cried Mouse happily, with the air of one solving a difficult problem. “You go and lie down somewhere for a bit, Judy, and Miss Goole, Chitterwick, and I will stroll round the garden till tea-time. How’s that?” He made a secret sign to Judith.

  Taking her cue, Judith fell in at once.

  Miss Goole, however, did not. “I’m afraid I can scarcely spare the time to stroll aimlessly, Your Grace. Being in sole charge here, I find my time very fully occupied.” It was surprising what a number of intimations Miss Goole could manage to convey in a couple of simple sentences. Listening between the words one gathered that Miss Goole did not approve of the sentimentality which prevented the legal mistress of the house from taking up her residence there and directing in person; that, nevertheless, it was just as well that she should keep out of the way and leave such direction to more competent hands; that she had no objection to Mouse being Duke, indeed forgave him for it freely, but with the proviso that he shouldn’t expect to be treated by Miss Goole differently from anyone else except, perhaps, a little more strictly; that strolling round gardens for the sake of strolling was the last thing in the world that Miss Goole would care to do, and a duke about the last person one would wish to do it with; and that Mr. Chitterwick simply wasn’t there at all.

  Disregarding these insinuations, Mouse dealt with the situation with an easy competence that aroused Mr. Chitterwick’s wistful envy. “Oh, but it won’t be aimless. I particularly wanted a chat with you, and this will be a good opportunity. See you at tea then, Judy. Try and get a nap.” And before Mr. Chitterwick could realize how it had happened the party had broken up and Miss Goole was strolling down a garden path between them with a long-suffering expression on her face and a rebellious glint behind her huge horn-rimmed spectacles.

  “You remember Mr. Chitterwick, of course?” Mouse remarked pleasantly by way of opening the important topic.

  “Perfectly,” responded Miss Goole, who had hitherto given no sign of recognition at all. “You came with Chief Inspector Moresby to Aldridge’s on the day of Miss Sinclair’s death.”

  “That is so,” beamed Mr. Chitterwick, pleased with this crumb.

  “But you are not actually connected with the police, Mr. Chitterwick?”

  “No, no. Dear me, no. Only in connection with this case. Most distressing, most distressing.”

  “And of course I saw you at the inquest and the police court.”

  “Yes, yes. That would be so, naturally.” Mr. Chitterwick had seen Miss Goole at those places too, but she had not appeared to see him.

  “Yours is a very responsible position, Mr. Chitterwick.”

  Mr. Chitterwick agreed that it was.

  “It is fortunate that you are so sure of what you saw.”

  “Fortunate?”

  “Any doubt would be so distressing,” observed Miss Goole drily.

  Mouse took a hand. “Yes, and in view of Mr. Chitterwick’s position in the case, no doubt you were rather surprised to see him here to-day, Miss Goole?”

  “Very few things surprise me, Your Grace,” replied that young woman cynically.

  “Still, I think it would surprise most people,” said Mouse patiently. “But the fact of the matter is that Mr. Chitterwick doesn’t feel nearly so sure now as he did, and if you don’t mind he would like to put a few questions to you about Major Sinclair.”

  “I have already given the police all the information they required,” said Miss Goole, being awkward.

  “Oh, this isn’t an official interrogation. Just a few quite private questions.”

  “I fail to see how any private questions to me concerning Major Sinclair can help Mr. Chitterwick make up his mind what he saw in the Piccadilly Palace.”

  Mouse sighed inaudibly and handed the ball to Mr. Chitterwick. That gentleman, in sheer alarm, plunged straight through these niceties into the heart of the business. “I remember you telling us next day, and I heard you repeat it in evidence, that you were quite sure that Miss Sinclair had definitely made up her mind to disinherit her nephew if he refused any longer to fall in with her matrimonial plans,” said Mr. Chitterwick quickly and all in one breath. “I take it that you still think that, Miss Goole?”

  “I know it.”

  “Yes, yes; of course. I mean, you haven’t changed your mind?”

  “I very rarely change my mind, Mr. Chitterwick, and never on questions of fact.”

  “You do put it as a fact, then?” persisted Mr. Chitterwick.

  “Without doubt. Unless she was trying to deceive me. She told me so herself.”

  “And yet this matter of disinheritance had actually been for years quite a joke between her and her nephew,” puzzled Mr. Chitterwick.

&n
bsp; “Who told you that?” asked Miss Goole sharply.

  “Mrs. Sinclair,” responded Mr. Chitterwick with meekness.

  Miss Goole raised her thick eyebrows. “Please don’t think I have any prejudices against either Major or Mrs. Sinclair. I haven’t. Indeed, so far not, that I am extremely sorry for Mrs. Sinclair and anxious to help her to the utmost in my power—provided, of course,” added Miss Goole with rectitude, “that I am asked to condone or shield no crime. But I am not a child. It is obviously to Major Sinclair’s interests to minimize the disputes about the inheritance. Naturally Mrs. Sinclair would say that he never took his aunt’s threats seriously.”

  “Then—then you don’t agree?” ventured Mr. Chitterwick.

  “I am not in a position to say how Major Sinclair took them. But I am,” said Miss Goole with finality, “with regard to Miss Sinclair. And if it is any help to you to know, Mr. Chitterwick, I can tell you that she herself took them very seriously indeed.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Chitterwick, who did not seem to himself to be advancing very much.

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  It was broken by a sneeze from Miss Goole. It was a violent sneeze, so violent that it blew her spectacles into a neighbouring rose bush and caused Mouse to scratch himself severely in the retrieving of them. Miss Goole looked properly ashamed of herself, as well she might (a sneeze is perhaps the least efficient exhibition of self-control), and had Mr. Chitterwick not held the opinion he did of her he would have said that she actually blushed. In any case, she put the spectacles on again with a nervous haste that spoke many things. Mr. Chitterwick was vaguely sorry that she found it necessary to do so. Her features, as revealed in that short couple of seconds, were regular, classical, and by no means ill-pleasing; with a little more attention to appearance and a little less to efficiency Miss Goole might have been a good deal more pleasant to look upon than she was, reflected Mr. Chitterwick, who liked pleasant-looking things.

  Another impression remained with Mr. Chitterwick, too, besides Miss Goole’s personal possibilities, and that was that without her spectacles she had seemed for an instant vaguely familiar to him. He could have sworn he had seen her face somewhere before. But it was, of course, impossible that this could be the case.

  “There was another thing you wanted to ask Miss Goole about, Chitterwick, wasn’t there?” said Mouse, tactfully smoothing over Miss Goole’s exhibition of putting the spectacles.

  “Was there?” said Mr. Chitterwick vaguely, pondering the matter of this reminiscence. “Oh, yes. Of course. To be sure. Er—ah, yes; I remember. It was about the behaviour of Major Sinclair to his aunt. Did he seem fond of her? Was he what you might term an affectionate nephew? Did he strike you as—as, in short, an affectionate nephew?”

  “Major Sinclair always seemed to me as affectionate as any nephew would be toward an aunt from whom he had such expectations,” replied the cynical Miss Goole, rendered perhaps even more cynical by the accident to her spectacles.

  “Apart from the matter of his marriage, they appeared to be on the best of terms?”

  “Oh, certainly.”

  “I see. You—er—liked Major Sinclair personally?”

  “Really, Mr. Chitterwick,” observed Miss Goole with some exasperation, “does the question of whether I personally liked or disliked Major Sinclair help you to make up your mind whether you saw him put poison in his aunt’s coffee or not?”

  “Er—no,” Mr. Chitterwick had to admit. “That is . . . You see, the fact of the matter is . . . Well . . .” He looked imploringly at Mouse.

  “Mr. Chitterwick has rather more purpose in his questions than that,” Mouse came to the rescue.

  “Of course,” agreed Mr. Chitterwick with relief. “Rather more purpose. Exactly. Quite so. And now,” continued Mr. Chitterwick, feeling more like his own man again, “there is another matter. I ventured to ask you before, if I remember, whether you could explain why Miss Sinclair made the appointment with the Major at the Piccadilly Palace. You replied, I think I am right in saying, that you did not know, at any rate, such was my impression. Can you alter that at all now?”

  “Do you mean, do I know now what I did not know then?” A direct young woman, Miss Goole, and an awkward one, too.

  “No, no. Oh, dear, no. That would be impossible, of course. I meant, could you not cast your mind back and recollect, perhaps, some chance remark of Miss Sinclair’s which might throw some light on it. I don’t say it is inconceivable that she should not have felt called upon to explain such a strange choice of meeting places, but I do feel that it is extremely likely that she should have done so. Can you remember nothing at all?”

  “The point seems to puzzle you very much,” observed Miss Goole, with the first sign of curiosity she had yet shown.

  “It does.” Mr. Chitterwick shone agreement, glad to have roused even this faint show of interest. “It is, to my mind, the one quite unexpected (I do not say inexplicable, for an explanation there must be) point in Miss Sinclair’s behaviour. After all, the lounge of the Piccadilly Palace is the last place one would look for Miss Sinclair, isn’t it?”

  “I remember I was surprised myself when she made the appointment,” admitted Miss Goole.

  “You are sure,” asked Mr. Chitterwick darkly, “that she did make the appointment?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It was not the Major who made the appointment and she who agreed to it?”

  “But the police have Major Sinclair’s letter to her agreeing to the appointment.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, exactly. But the suggestion might have come from him in the first place.”

  “So far as my knowledge goes, it did not. Certainly Miss Sinclair dictated a letter to me, making the appointment. She did not explain it in any way, nor did she make any comment when I brought it, with others, for her to sign.” Miss Goole was evidently tired of the matter. “In any case, the point seems to me of very small importance. Miss Sinclair might have thought that, having an important question to discuss, one is never so much alone as in a crowd.”

  “But why did she not summon him to Aldridge’s, where it would have been possible to hold the interview in complete privacy?”

  “Really, I’m afraid I can’t tell you. But doesn’t the point occur to you that if it had been Major Sinclair who made the appointment, with the result we know, that only makes the case against him blacker still?” said Miss Goole tartly.

  “Oh, yes; quite so; that might be so, of course,” mumbled Mr. Chitterwick in some embarrassment.

  Mr. Chitterwick knew that very well indeed, but he did not want it pointed out in the presence of such a pro-Sinclair partisan as Mouse. For Mr. Chitterwick was determined to be neither pro- nor anti-Sinclair. If he was to be driven to investigate, then his object must be, not to clear Sinclair, but simply to discover the truth, whatever that might be. And this matter of the appointment at the Piccadilly Palace had seemed to him of great importance from the very beginning of the case. It was so utterly improbable from every psychological as well as material standpoint that Miss Sinclair should have made it herself, and Mr. Chitterwick had suspected very early that the suggestion had come from the Major; for though the lounge of the Piccadilly Palace is a bad place wherein to threaten a nephew with disinheritance, it is an excellent place to poison an aunt in such a way as to make the result look like suicide. Mr. Chitterwick, had therefore recognized that if it could be shown that the suggestion had come from the Major, the case against him (as Miss Goole had inconveniently pointed out) became a good deal blacker. Now that he was bound on the quest of the truth it was a point Mr. Chitterwick very much wanted to clear up; but apparently, it was impossible to do so satisfactorily. However, on balance, Miss Goole’s replies favoured the Major.

  Mr. Chitterwick being unable to think of anything else to ask, they returned to the house and tea.

 
Whatever may have been Major Sinclair’s feelings toward his aunt there was little doubt of the old lady’s toward him. The place was plastered with his photographs. In the small, cosy room which had done duty for Miss Sinclair’s boudoir there were no less than five of him, including an enlargement in profile which particularly caught Mr. Chitterwick’s eye. His heart sank as he studied it during tea. The Sinclair profile was more characteristic than its full face. Undoubtedly it was that profile, quite undoubtedly that nose, which he had seen in the Piccadilly Palace.

  The journey back to Riversmead Priory was taken more calmly. Mouse sat alone in front; Mr. Chitterwick kept Judith company in the back. Their conversation turned on the newly found cousin, and Judith gave further details from the solicitor’s letter.

  “He seems to have had a most romantic career. His parents left him absolutely nothing, of course, and he had his own living to make from the beginning, but he’s comfortably off already, I understand, and only twenty-eight.”

  “Dear me,” said Mr. Chitterwick, registering admiration.

  “He’s been simply everything, too. Bellboy in an hotel, waiter, motor mechanic, shop assistant, in the films and on the stage too, even part owner at one time of a travelling circus and his own exhibition rough rider in it! A regular Jack of all trades.”

  “One of those fortunate people who can turn their hands to anything,” amplified Mr. Chitterwick, thinking with interest that he had never heard of a rough-riding waiter before; the combination must surely be unique. He began to look forward to meeting this accomplished young man.

  Judith ceased to make conversation, and Mr. Chitterwick retired into a reverie.

  He could not disguise that he had made no progress at all. Miss Goole had nothing helpful to offer. She did not seem in the least antagonistic to the Major; but, then, neither did she appear to be prejudiced in his favour; she was simply neutral, as indeed was only correct in her position. Only one point could Mr. Chitterwick recall of real interest in the interview, and that was the glimpse he had had of her without her glasses.