“And we’d better arrange to stay in town for the night,” Mouse added, “in case anything crops up to be done on the spot. Unfortunately our place is shut up now it’s August, or I could have put you up there. We’d better wire for rooms somewhere.”
“If you would care to come out to Chiswick . . .” said Mr. Chitterwick diffidently. “My aunt would be exceedingly pleased to put you and Mrs. Sinclair up.”
“That’s extraordinarily kind of you,” said Mouse. “We’d love to.”
Mr. Chitterwick retired to despatch an agitated telegram.
The journey the next morning was accomplished in what must have been even for Mouse something like record time. The sports Bentley in which it was his pleasure to hurtle along the highway devoured the miles to such purpose that they were able to have not only an unhurried lunch in London but a leisurely cocktail before it.
During the previous evening Mr. Chitterwick had spent some considerable time with Mouse in compiling as accurate a time-table of the tragedy as he possibly could. From the moment of his taking his seat in the Piccadilly Palace lounge, the time of which he was luckily able to fix almost to a minute through having glanced at the clock in the vestibule as he came through, to the moment when he had got up to arouse Miss Sinclair from her supposed sleep (rather more difficult to fix, this, though Mr. Chitterwick knew the time of his return to the lounge after the abortive visit to the telephone), every incident, however trivial, that he could remember was sorted into its appropriate minute. Judith and Mouse had then been furnished with another copy apiece, and the three had set to work to learn it off by heart. If they were to do the thing at all, at least they should do it thoroughly.
It was their purpose to run through the whole thing twice, on the first occasion keeping the exact times as shown in Mr, Chitterwick’s time-table, on the second occupying the same period, but without regard to the true time. Mr. Chitterwick was to play himself at the first performance, changing places with Mouse for the second. In view of the importance of securing the exact tables, they arrived at the Piccadilly Palace some time before the programme was to begin and made sure of them.
As Mr. Chitterwick sat alone at his own table he felt curiously excited. Most of us have our own private superstitions and fancies, and by some occult means Mr. Chitterwick had arrived at the quite illogical but no less firm conclusion that this was the last throw of the dice to determine Major Sinclair’s fate; if he was to be proved innocent, then the revelation which was to accomplish this miracle would make itself apparent during the playing of this tragic farce; if nothing emerged, he would hang. There was no reason for this decision of Mr. Chitterwick’s; he argued against it, telling himself that it was preposterous; and the more he argued the more firmly he found himself believing it.
At the other table Judith was sitting alone, her face showing the anxiety she was feeling. It was perhaps the hesitation she had displayed for a moment when first told of the plan that had first induced this unreasonable conviction in Mr. Chitterwick’s mind. That something like it was in her own too he felt sure. She caught his eyes and smiled nervously. Mr. Chitterwick tried to send a reassuring smile back, but felt that its lines were a little uncertain. The right atmosphere had been caught, without doubt. If Mouse had been certain that Lady Milborne would spoil it, Mr. Chitterwick himself was not sure that Judith’s presence was not making it almost a little too poignant.
He glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost half-past two. Beckoning to a waitress (for once one happened providentially to be hovering in the neighbourhood), Mr. Chitterwick ordered black coffee and a benedictine.
There is no need to detail the events of the next thirty-five minutes. Everything proceeded as had been arranged. For four minutes Mr. Chitterwick studied the apparently unconscious Judith, for six he played the cat-and-mouse game with a ferociously glaring Mouse, even going so far as to con over certain selected passages from “The Wreck of the Hesperus” again—a point about which he had not thought it necessary to enlighten his collaborators. At two-forty-seven he pretended to look up at an imaginary waitress and left the lounge.
The following quarter of an hour Mr. Chitterwick found uncommonly slow in passing. He wandered about the lower passages as he had done on the day of the tragedy when awaiting Moresby, peering into deserted rooms “for residents only” where one resident might have killed another resident with the apparent improbability of the body being discovered for several weeks; he sauntered about the vestibule, watching the rounders and their female friends streaming out in the great after-lunch exodus; he even found himself in the telephone room, and fled hastily on being demanded his number by the ear-phoned young woman knitting behind the counter. Finally, at one minute past three, he returned to his table, which a turned-up chair and his unfinished coffee upon it had preserved for him.
The little drama had played itself out.
But Mr. Chitterwick was not dissatisfied as he got up and joined Judith at her table, Mouse materializing there too a moment later.
“Well, Mr. Chitterwick?” Judith asked, the commonplace words a little unsteadily spoken. Judith was evidently feeling the strain.
Mr. Chitterwick nodded sagely. “One point, at any rate, occurs to me,” he said, trying to speak as matter-of-factly as possible. “You probably noticed yourself, Mouse, that——”
“No, don’t tell me yet,” Mouse interrupted. “I’ve got a point too, but I want to see if you discover it independently.”
“So have I!” said Judith.
Mr. Chitterwick permitted himself a small beam. “Come, that really is most encouraging. If none of them overlap, that is three distinct points already. I quite agree that it would be best to test them by independent observation. In that case, perhaps we might . . . ?”
“At once, yes,” Mouse assented, and rose. “Keep your heart up, Judy, old girl. We really are getting hold of something now.”
“Yes, certainly I do anticipate quite definite results from this experiment,” said Mr. Chitterwick, with much earnestness.
Judith smiled at them both.
Really, thought Mr. Chitterwick, as he scuttled away to the entrance to the lounge, that is one of the bravest women I have ever heard of. One would do a great deal to reward such courage, a very great deal indeed.
The following thirty-five minutes passed much as before, except that Mr. Chitterwick found that glaring was not one of his accomplishments. The three met once more at Judith’s table.
Mr. Chitterwick was undisguisedly excited. “I have made another discovery,” he burst out. “A second one. Dear me, I really wonder if . . . Well, it must have been that, or that he was a consummate fool. God bless my soul, this may alter everything!”
“What, Mr. Chitterwick?” Judith implored. “What?”
“Do you see that mirror on the opposite wall?” babbled Mr. Chitterwick. “Well——!”
“Got it in one,” Mouse chimed in, no less excited. “That was my discovery. You mean, you saw . . . ?”
“Couldn’t help seeing!” Mr. Chitterwick spluttered. “Good gracious me, Mouse! I just happened to glance in what I thought the right direction, and I couldn’t help seeing.”
“What couldn’t you help seeing?” Judith moaned. “Oh, please tell me, one of you.”
Mr. Chitterwick was contrite. “I beg your pardon. I should have explained, but really I was quite carried away for the moment. You see that mirror there? Well, when I was extending my hand over your cup I looked in that direction in which I fancied that man had been looking and it took my eyes directly to the mirror; and in it—in it,” positively squeaked Mr. Chitterwick, “I plainly saw Mouse watching me!”
For a moment Judith turned rather white, and her hand clutched at the lapel of her coat; the next instant she had recovered herself. “And—and that suggests to you . . . ?”
“For the moment, if you don’t mind,” sa
id Mr. Chitterwick, rubicund with emotion, “I should prefer not to say. In point of fact, it suggests such a revolutionary theory to me that I hardly like to commit it to words before I’ve thought it over carefully. But it may (I only say it may, mind you) alter the whole aspect of the case.”
“You mean,” Judith breathed, “definitely prove Lynn’s innocence?
“I mustn’t commit myself.” Mr. Chitterwick shook his head, but his beam committed him completely.
“Do you think the same, Mouse?”
“Blessed if I can see what Chitterwick’s thinking,” replied Mouse in candid bewilderment. “I noticed the point myself, and it looked funny to me; I wanted to see if he’d notice it too. But I can’t draw any conclusion except that the man must have been a born fool.”
“And he wasn’t that,” Mr. Chitterwick warned seriously. “Dear me, no. Very far from it.”
“Well, if you won’t tell me, I suppose you won’t,” said Judith, with a pettishness which showed her to be feminine enough at bottom. “Anyhow, will you tell me the other discovery you made?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Chitterwick hastily, a little alarmed by this pettishness. “Of course. And that may prove to be important too. Very important. It struck me, you see, when I was waiting outside during the period of my telephone call, that I had never known fourteen minutes to pass more slowly. From that I passed to the thought of how long, in such circumstances, a quarter of an hour can be. Much longer, I thought next, than one would imagine prussic acid to be in taking effect.”
“Ah!” nodded Mouse, getting the point.
“Now, I see here,” continued Mr. Chitterwick, adjusting his pince-nez and consulting his time-table, “that I fixed the time at which I saw the man’s hand over Miss Sinclair’s cup as two-forty-four; and the time at which I rose to go over to her, and consequently the time she died, as three-six. That gives twenty-two minutes, you see; or, assuming that she did not drink her coffee for as much as seven minutes, a full quarter of an hour. Well, I know it depends on the size of the dose how soon after administration death would ensue, but if the dose was a fairly large one, as is to be expected in such a case, a quarter of an hour seems excessive.”
“Very neat,” approved Mouse. “Ve-ry neat.”
“But I must look up prussic acid in my Taylor, and also, of course, I must ascertain the size of the dose which was supposed to have been administered. I must confess I have forgotten that.”
“Half a minute,” said Mouse, and fished for his notebook.
“But I do know,” continued Mr. Chitterwick, “that with prussic acid, insensibility, in the case of a large dose, is almost immediate and death very rapid indeed.”
“Half a minute,” repeated Mouse, rapidly flicking pages. “I’ve got an idea. Ah, here we are. Sir James Ridley’s evidence at the inquest. ‘Dose estimated at not less than half an ounce of ordinary B.P. mixture, equivalent to about five grains of anhydrous prussic acid.’ If you understand what that means.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Chitterwick, wrinkling his forehead. “That would be a very fair dose. Very fair indeed. Humph, I must certainly look up my Taylor. This is very interesting.”
“I don’t understand,” said Judith, in obvious perplexity. “If what you’re saying is the case, it seems actually to point away from this other man.”
“It does,” admitted Mr. Chitterwick. “That’s the extraordinary thing. Or else——”
“That he delayed her taking it,” Mouse supplied, “until he was clear of the place. Isn’t that more likely?”
“Very much so,” Mr. Chitterwick agreed readily. “That is undoubtedly the true explanation. He would, of course, not wish her to become insensible while he was still with her. No doubt he delayed her drinking her coffee until he saw a favourable opportunity, and then left in haste before she had actually done so.”
“Then the point doesn’t seem very important after all,” suggested Judith.
“We have to bear in mind every point, however apparently unimportant, when we have so little to go on,” Mr. Chitterwick told her rather primly. “And we mustn’t forget that you had one of your own to tell us. Now, what was that?”
“Why, this peering of Miss Sinclair’s. I peered at Mouse when we were talking, and at you, and it seemed to me that however short-sighted I was I shouldn’t want to peer closely at somebody sitting next to me just in the ordinary way of conversation. What I suggest is that Miss Sinclair was peering because she had her suspicions that the man wasn’t Lynn at all.”
“That presupposes that the man definitely was impersonating your husband,” Mr. Chitterwick murmured.
“Well, I thought we were quite agreed on that, considering the bogus telephone call and the way he was decoyed to that place where nobody would be able to prove an alibi for him. I thought that if anything was certain it was that the man was definitely impersonating Lynn.” Judith must have been a little overstrung, or she would not have spoken quite so indignantly.
“Yes, yes,” Mr. Chitterwick soothed her. “I have no doubt that probably was the case; I just wished to warn you against taking anything quite for granted to build a theory on. With that proviso, I think that is a very sound point you make, Mrs. Sinclair.”
“She wouldn’t be able to see him well, you understand,” went on Judith more calmly, “and something in his voice struck her as wrong. Voices are almost impossible to imitate, you see. So that’s why she was peering like that.”
“I think you’ve probably hit it, Judy,” said Mouse, looking at her admiringly and not at all as one looks at a sister. Mr. Chitterwick intercepted the look and started slightly. God bless my soul, he thought, I do believe the boy’s half in love with her; well, no wonder. Mr. Chitterwick was not sure that he was not half in love with her himself.
“But it wouldn’t carry much conviction, I’m afraid, in court,” Judith sighed.
“Every little helps,” encouraged Mr. Chitterwick.
It was past four o’clock. Mr. Chitterwick, catching the unusual sight of a waitress passing their table, took the opportunity to order tea.
Over the meal they discussed their immediate movements. Judith was going to take advantage of being in London to see her husband in Pentonville, it having been intimated to her by the authorities that she might do so within reason whenever she wished, and Mr. Chitterwick had a few points on which he wished her to question the Major on his behalf and bring back as explicit replies as possible. He noted them down for her, and she undertook to find out what her husband knew.
As for Mr. Chitterwick himself, he was going to Scotland Yard. As an honest man he wished to warn Moresby that he no longer felt quite so sure as before of Major Sinclair’s guilt. As an unofficial detective he wanted to question that official about one or two matters on his own account.
Mouse offered to escort Judith to Pentonville, and the three arranged a trysting place in order to reach Chiswick in comfortable time for dinner.
As his taxi chugged down Whitehall Mr. Chitterwick reflected, not for the first time, what particularly charming people these were with whom this distressing case had brought him in contact. Judith, of course, was a woman in a million, but to Mouse, too, Mr. Chitterwick felt himself peculiarly attracted; he was such a simple soul, and quite unaffected. If there were more dukes like him, thought Mr. Chitterwick (who knew rather less than nothing about the others), there would be less talk of absurd social revolutions.
Moresby received Mr. Chitterwick with affection and pressed him to a seat. “Well, sir? Just come along to make sure we haven’t let our little bird fly away, eh?”
“No, Chief Inspector,” said Mr. Chitterwick, in some embarrassment. “Er—no. Rather the reverse, in fact.”
“Not come to say you’ve thought better of it and decided not to give evidence for us after all, I hope?” queried the chief inspector with amusement. “Or brought the fingerpr
ints of the gardener’s daughter, eh, sir?”
“Well, I have come,” said Mr. Chitterwick bravely, “partially to tell you that I do not feel so certain of Major Sinclair’s guilt as I did before.”
Moresby’s amusement ceased suddenly. He looked searchingly at Mr. Chitterwick. “Those friends of his been trying to get round you, sir?” he asked quite sternly.
“Eh?” said Mr. Chitterwick.
“Brought a duke in to help ’em, I understand,” said Moresby in a scathing voice. “Well, I didn’t think you were the sort of gentleman to let himself be got round by a duke.” Moresby spoke as if a duke were some sort of low confidence trickster, capable of imposing on only the veriest nitwit.
“You—you know what has happened, then?” said Mr. Chitterwick, a helpless feeling invading him, as many better men before him, at the realization of the all-embracing tentacles of Scotland Yard.
“I know where you’ve been staying, sir, and that they’d brought a duke along to help in the game; and I didn’t imagine,” said Moresby, with heavy sarcasm, “that the game was croquet, even at this time of the year.”
The case put like that, Mr. Chitterwick found himself with very little to say. “I am not proposing to refuse to give my evidence, Chief Inspector,” he replied, with what dignity he could. “Pray don’t think that. I must, in duty bound, recount what I saw. On the other hand, I am naturally anxious not to be the means of hanging an innocent man.”
“No more so than us, sir,” Moresby assured him.
“Now, then, let’s talk it over sensibly. What’s altered your opinion about our bird?”
Mr. Chitterwick was in something of a quandary. It was absurd to answer merely that Major Sinclair’s friends gave him a very good character; the character that Major Sinclair’s friends gave him mattered just exactly nothing to Moresby. It would be, Mr. Chitterwick felt, equally useless to propound his theory that the whole thing was a plot aimed against Major Sinclair and that the man he himself had seen was simply impersonating that unfortunate soldier, having neatly removed him for the period in question from human observation; in the absence of the strongest evidence to support it any Scotland Yard man would excusably regard such a suggestion as fantastic. On the other hand, Mr. Chitterwick did not wish to divulge the discoveries he was sure he had made in the Piccadilly Palace lounge that afternoon; they were highly contentious, unaccompanied by any supporting evidence, and would certainly be dismissed by the practical Moresby as bunkum. Mr. Chitterwick was forced to fall back on a line of defence in which he did not for a moment believe, but which would serve his purpose just as well.
The Piccadilly Murder Page 15
