The Piccadilly Murder

by Anthony Berkeley

  The other two looked puzzled. “I don’t quite see it,” said Mouse.

  Mr. Chitterwick started. “Oh! I beg your pardon. Of course. I haven’t explained, have I? Why, I searched the register to find out who was occupying room Number 473 that night, and was able to discover that the man in question is no more like me than—than a vegetable marrow. That is,” said Mr. Chitterwick meticulously, “if I really do resemble a pea. I had to make a special journey to Ashton-under-Lyne to do so,” he added with feeling.

  “Ah,” nodded Mouse, “I begin to get you. And you think she was the accomplice, then?”

  “If there ever was one,” assented Mr. Chitterwick, with a diffident glance in the direction of Judith.

  “But I still don’t understand at all,” Judith cried. “I may be very dense, but why should this problematical woman send you maliciously to the telephone for a call that didn’t exist? That’s what you seem to be inferring, Mr. Chitterwick.”

  “Why, you see,” explained Mr. Chitterwick with some hesitation, “I think one could understand that, couldn’t one? I had already played my allotted part in witnessing what I had been meant to witness; I had to be got rid of before I witnessed what I was not meant to see, namely, the actual administration of the poison. Then I had to be brought back so that I should observe the actual death of Miss Sinclair, in which case I should not be likely to forget what I had already seen and would come forward as the chief witness against your husband; which, of course, is what actually happened.”

  “It seems terribly complicated,” Judith said doubtfully.

  “I think it’s quite simple really,” pleaded Mr. Chitterwick.

  There was a pause while they contemplated the possible complication of simplicity of these maneuvers.

  “But unfortunately you can’t describe this woman at all?” Judith challenged.

  “I’m afraid,” said Mr. Chitterwick humbly, “that is so. Really, I seem to remember very little indeed about her.”

  “What do you remember?” asked Mouse.

  Mr. Chitterwick searched his treacherous memory. “Well, I appear to have the impression that she was fairly tall, and perhaps dark, and I don’t think she was ugly or I should probably have noticed it. Though, really, I’m quite doubtful whether I ever looked her in the face at all. Probably not.”

  “It’s a pity you didn’t,” Mouse regretted. “A woman can’t disguise her face, you see. She may put on different clothes and so on, but she can’t stick on a false beard, can she?” He appealed to Judith, but though she looked at him thoughtfully she did not answer.

  “But she can put on a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles,” remarked Mr. Chitterwick, with more reminiscence than significance.

  Mouse sat up in his chair. “Good heavens, Chitterwick, you’re not suggesting that——?”

  “Dear me, no,” protested Mr. Chitterwick. “I assure you, it was merely a chance remark. Such a thought had never entered my mind.”

  Before anyone had time to elaborate this interesting theme there was a knock at the door. “The telephone, sir,” said the parlourmaid.

  Mr. Chitterwick made his apologies and withdrew.

  If any further proof were needed of Mr. Chitterwick’s new independence, it was in this installation of the telephone. He had simply overridden his aunt’s acid objections and insisted. For one in almost daily touch with Scotland Yard (as Mr. Chitterwick had pointed out) a telephone was quite indispensable.

  And appropriately enough it was Scotland Yard that wanted him now. Moresby’s voice came over the wires. “That you, Mr. Chitterwick, sir?”

  Mr. Chitterwick intimated that it was.

  “You sent us some fingerprints a little time ago, didn’t you?”

  Mr. Chitterwick’s heart gave a convulsive jump. “Yes, Chief Inspector, I did.”

  “And we couldn’t trace them in our records. Did you send one of those photos I had done for you to America, sir?”

  “Y-yes,” said Mr. Chitterwick breathlessly. “I did. Why?”

  “I should like to know, sir, whose prints they are.”

  “Why, Chief Inspector?” positively squeaked Mr. Chitterwick. “Have you—have you heard something from America?”

  “They thought it better to cable me direct, sir,” replied Moresby guardedly.

  “But why? What did they tell you?”

  “Umph! That’s confidential, Mr. Chitterwick, you’ll understand. No need to bother you with that, sir,” said Moresby in unctuous tones. “All I want to know from you is whose they are.”

  Almost dancing with excitement though he was Mr. Chitterwick nevertheless managed to keep his head. “But—but that’s confidential too, Chief Inspector. Most confidential. I’m afraid . . . Oh, quite impossible.”

  “Meaning, I suppose, sir,” came Moresby’s voice wearily, “that you refuse to tell me unless I tell you what America says?”

  It may have been because he was not confronting the chief inspector face to face that Mr. Chitterwick managed to speak with such firmness; the telephone is a wonderful stimulant. “Certainly. That would be only . . . In fact, I must insist that if I am to . . . Yes, certainly.”

  “Very well, Mr. Chitterwick,” said Moresby resignedly. “Though of course you’ll understand that we could have found out quickly enough for ourselves if it had been necessary. Still, there’s no real reason why you shouldn’t know; and if it’s the party I suspect you may go so far as to drop a word of warning in the right quarter, if you like. America notifies us that these prints belong to a very shady character, suspected of having had a finger in more than one jewel robbery over there, whose owner they’ve never been able to identify; and even now they’ve got nothing definite against her, though they advise us to keep a pretty sharp eye on her over here. They got the prints off a jewel case that had been rifled, but they didn’t correspond with those of any member of the household, and they could never find the owner of them. But they believe she takes a position as lady’s maid or something like that to a rich woman to get opportunities of robbing her employer’s friends; much too fly to rob the employer herself.”

  “Good gracious me!” gasped Mr. Chitterwick.

  “Now, then, sir, if you’ll tell me whether the name begins with a G or not, I fancy that’ll be enough, over the telephone. Eh?”

  “It does, Chief Inspector; you’re perfectly right. God bless my soul!”

  It was a seething Mr. Chitterwick who returned to the study with his momentous news.

  “Good Lord!” exclaimed Mouse, with blank astonishment. “That paragon of all the virtues!”

  “I never did trust her,” cried Judith, true to her sex.

  They looked at each other.

  “My hat!” Mouse breathed, in a somewhat strangled voice. “What—what about that chance remark of yours now, Chitterwick?”

  “And—she must be used to playing a part,” said Mr. Chitterwick soberly.

  It was Judith who, quite unexpectedly, appointed herself counsel for the defence. “We mustn’t let ourselves be led away by side issues,” she said, with brisk common sense. “Because a woman may be a thief that doesn’t make her the accomplice in a murder. Besides, trying so far as I can to look at it all without prejudice, Mr. Chitterwick has yet to convince me that such person as that accomplice exists at all.”

  “It was only conjecture,” murmured Mr. Chitterwick. “Purely inductive conjecture.”

  “I’m betting on it myself,” Mouse said firmly. “And what’s more, I’m betting Chitterwick’s found her.”

  Mr. Chitterwick looked at Judith. “Really, Mrs. Sinclair,” he beamed, “I think I have.”

  Judith did not smile back. “But Miss Goole!” she muttered, rather incredulously.

  “She’s dark, she’s tall, without those spectacles she might not be bad-looking,” almost chanted Mouse. “Oh, we’ve found her
all right.”

  “Well, I hope so, certainly,” Judith sighed, and relapsed into a reverie.

  Mouse turned to Mr. Chitterwick. “Have you got that summary of yours handy, Chitterwick?”

  “I have it here,” said Mr. Chitterwick promptly, and drew it from his breast pocket.

  Mouse turned over the pages. “Here we are. ‘Obscure Points Requiring Explanation.’ Listen to me, Judy, and I’ll dot Chitterwick’s i’s and cross his t’s for you. I think you’ll agree this clinches it.

  “ ‘Why the interview was arranged by Miss Sinclair for the Piccadilly Palace.’ It wasn’t. It was arranged by Miss Goole, who simply typed in ‘Piccadilly Palace’ in Miss Sinclair’s letter to Lynn instead of the place that had really been arranged; when Lynn’s letter arrived to say he would meet her there, she would have some explanation to suit Point No. 1.

  “Point No. 2. ‘How the poison was administered.’ Well, we know that now, thanks to Sherlock Chitterwick here.

  “Point No. 3. ‘How Major Sinclair’s fingerprints were obtained on the phial.’ Miss Goole as the accomplice clears that up too. Lynn said the phial was like the ones that Miss Sinclair’s eyedrops were in, didn’t he? Well, then.

  “Point No. 4. ‘How the phial was conveyed to Miss Sinclair’s hand.’ Sherlock’s explained that. And Point No. 5. ‘Why Miss Goole is disguised,’ stands to reason. There you are, you see. Every single difficult point cleared up. Doesn’t that absolutely fix that hag as the accomplice?”

  “It’s more convincing than I thought at first,” Judith admitted.

  “And here’s another possible pointer,” continued Mouse, upon whom the mantle of inspiration seemed to have fallen. “The Goole is a jewel thief. What about Miss Sinclair’s jewels? Haven’t any been missed since her death?”

  But at that Judith shook her head with decision. “Not so far as I or anyone else knows. I’ve had to have an inventory made out, of course, for proving the will, and everything of which there’s any previous record is there.”

  Mouse looked disappointed. “Oh! I should have thought, once a jewel thief, always a jewel thief. And with such a wonderful opportunity. Wouldn’t you, Chitterwick?”

  “Criminals are well known to be remarkably tenacious in their habits,” pronounced that authority. “I should certainly have thought . . . You might do well to look into that point perhaps a little more closely, Mrs. Sinclair.”

  Judith intimated that she would do so.

  Mouse and Mr. Chitterwick embarked on an excited discussion of the light that had been thrown on the whole case by this development, the former maintaining that the identity of the accomplice must prove a pointer toward the person of the real murderer, the latter agreeing with great heartiness and continuing to conceal his own private conviction of who that person must prove to be; Mr. Chitterwick did not believe in jumping his fences till he had had a good look for possible ditches the other side.

  “Mr. Chitterwick!” said Judith abruptly. She had relapsed into her interrupted reverie and taken no part in the discussion that had been proceeding. “Mr. Chitterwick, I’ve been thinking this over. We must keep it to ourselves.”

  “To ourselves?” said Mouse in surprise. “But——”

  “To ourselves,” Judith repeated firmly. “That is, for the present. However convincing it all may sound, you see, we’ve actually proved nothing at all. And I know exactly what the police, and even Lynn’s own solicitors, will say. Proof, proof, proof! We must go some way toward proving our case before we let out a thing about it to another soul. Don’t you agree, Mr. Chitterwick?”

  Mr. Chitterwick considered for a moment. “I do. Quite decidedly. A premature disclosure might be fatal. At all costs,” said Mr. Chitterwick, relapsing into unwonted slang, “we must not risk scaring our birds.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Mouse admitted reluctantly. “But it does seem rather tough on Lynn. Couldn’t Judy just drop him a hint that we’ve practically cleared him already and we’re just waiting to clinch our case?”

  Mr. Chitterwick looked doubtfully at Judith. “It would be inadvisable.”

  “Quite,” Judith agreed. “It’s very hard on Lynn; but he’ll understand later.”

  On that basis the matter was left. Mr. Chitterwick contrived to hint, without saying anything definite, that he already saw one or two lines of inquiry which might prove helpful in establishing the identity of the murderer, but that they could not be followed up for a day or two at least. The conversation became general.

  “By the way,” Mouse remarked casually a little later, “the missing heir lands to-morrow, Chitterwick.”

  “Indeed?” said Mr. Chitterwick with interest. “At Liverpool?”

  “No, Southampton. I’m taking the Bentley down there to meet him, with Judy.”

  “And bring him up to London?”

  “No; Agatha’s idea is that he had better come direct to Riversmead, so that Judy and the rest of us can get to know him in peace and comfort. Good scheme, I think. He’ll be better parked there than raising Cain in London.”

  “Is he likely to raise Cain in London?”

  “Judy rather gathered from his letter that he intends to move heaven and earth to get Lynn cleared. Eh, Judy?”

  “He certainly seemed quite enthusiastic,” Judith said drily. “An impetuous person, I gathered.”

  “And at the cost to himself of a large fortune,” said Mr. Chitterwick, equally drily. “Not only an impetuous person, one would say, but a most altruistic one. I should quite like to meet him.”

  “Well, that’s simple enough. We’re staying in London to-night. Come down with us to-morrow.”

  “Shouldn’t I be in the way?” Mr. Chitterwick demurred.

  “Of course not. Agatha’s expecting you back at Riversmead any time you want to come. There’s a bedroom at your disposal there, you know, whenever you want to pop down, and a trencher on the ancestral board.”

  “That is exceedingly kind of your sister,” said Mr. Chitterwick warmly.

  “It’s little enough, considering what you’re doing for us,” returned Mouse, with equal warmth.

  Both men turned slightly red and looked extremely uncomfortable in the manner adjudged correct by the Englishman at the least hint of a suspicion of sentiment. Mr. Chitterwick turned off the awkward moment by mumbling something about in that case he must insist that Mouse and Judith stayed where they were for the night; Mouse and Judith mumbled back that they would be delighted to do so and it was exceedingly kind of him, but wouldn’t it be too much bother for Miss Chitterwick? Whereupon, and as the discussion seemed to be at an end, Mr. Chitterwick went off to fetch that lady to assure her guests in person how remarkably little trouble it was to put up for the night a duke and his adopted sister.

  Or rather, as Mr. Chitterwick had some reason to think during that same evening, a duke and the lady who had adopted him as a brother; for though Judith’s attitude was nothing more than the casual affection of sister to brother, that of Mouse was anything but complementary. Mr. Chitterwick found himself sighing more than once over the pity of such an estimable and charming young man having fallen in love so helplessly and so hopelessly. But such, no doubt, reflected Mr. Chitterwick with altruistic philosophy, is the way of the world.

  It was not until the end of the evening that any further contribution was made toward the progress of the case, and then it was Mr. Chitterwick who made it. He sat up suddenly in his chair and gave vent to an exclamation which made the rest of the company, who happened at the moment to be peacefully discussing the intensive cultivation of mushrooms, jump nimbly in their seats. “God bless my eternal soul!” positively boomed Mr. Chitterwick.

  “Ambrose!” exclaimed his scandalized aunt.

  “Good gracious me! Well, of all the . . . ! Good heaven!” continued to ejaculate Mr. Chitterwick, seemingly lost in a daze of wonderment.<
br />
  “What?” demanded the others.

  Mr. Chitterwick seemed to come to his senses, or some of them. “I’ve just realized . . . I probably told you that Miss Goole seemed to remind me of somebody, but I couldn’t. . . Really, memory does play the most surprising . . . I’ve been racking my brains ever since, trying to remember who . . . And now, thinking about mushrooms of all things . . . Now what connection could there be between that girl and mushrooms?”

  “What girl?” patiently asked Mouse, exchanging a smile with Miss Chitterwick as they both contemplated Mr. Chitterwick’s bewildered face.

  “Whom does Miss Goole remind you of?” as patiently asked Judith.

  Mr. Chitterwick started slightly. “Oh, yes. I beg your pardon. Why, there was a girl in the Piccadilly Palace lounge. Quite a pretty girl. She happened to catch my eye. I mean,” amended Mr. Chitterwick hastily, conscious of his aunt’s gaze, “I mean, I happened to notice her and thought what a pretty girl she was, before I began to—to study Miss Sinclair. It was only a passing incident. I’ve never thought of it from that moment to this. I don’t think I even glanced at her again. How long she stayed there I haven’t the faintest idea. I found Miss Sinclair so much more interesting, you see.” He paused and looked vaguely at the others, evidently thinking hard.

  “And Miss Goole reminds you of that girl?” Judith asked quietly.

  Mr. Chitterwick gazed at her for a moment as if weighing his words; then he seemed to make up his mind. “That girl was Miss Goole,” he said firmly.

  There was a short silence, such as follows a momentous announcement. Then Judith laughed shrilly. “Yes, I think that does clinch it, as Mouse would say. My God, I’ll——” Mr. Chitterwick, looking at her in consternation, was astonished at the expression of vindictiveness on her usually calm features—one might almost say malignant vindictiveness, as if she would positively gloat over the sight of Miss Goole being torn in pieces under her very eyes; the knuckles of her hands as she gripped the arms of her chair were white; she was obviously on the verge of hysteria.