I feel sure that the important facts, which will clear up the case, lie within the knowledge of at least one member of the family and must be extracted, though it’s a damned unpleasant job.
Chapter Seven
The Open Window
by Col. Halstock
Arriving at Flaxmere early on the morning of Boxing Day, thanking heaven that no newspapers were published on that day and we could pursue our investigations in privacy, I found Rousdon in a state of annoyance.
“Remember those shutters in the study, sir?” he inquired unnecessarily. “We found them all hooked shut on the inside last night, but when one of the men left on duty here opened them this morning, one of the windows was wide open at the bottom!”
The murder was beginning to look like an outside job, after all, and of course he was riled, having been so sure about Witcombe last night.
I made light of it. “Careless maid?” I suggested. But it seemed a bit queer, for I had looked at the shutters myself the night before and was sure they were all closed and hooked. I asked Rousdon which window was open.
“The one looking out at the side of the house, almost behind Sir Osmond’s chair,” he told me. “I’ve just sent for the girl who was responsible for closing the windows and shutters last night—name of Betty Willett.”
Constable Mere ushered the girl in with a benevolent air; I think he’d been trying to reassure her outside the door, but she looked thoroughly scared. She told us in a whisper, that she had been in service at Flaxmere for three years.
Yes—still in a whisper, with her eyes starting out of her head—she closed the shutters in the study last night.
“You needn’t be scared!” Rousdon exhorted her. “We’re not blaming you! When did you attend to these shutters?”
“Before the Christmas tree was lit, sir. That was Sir Osmond’s orders, given me by Miss Portisham. I was to close the shutters of the lib’ery d’reckly after lunch, to show off the lights, you see, sir; an’ I was to close the shutters of the study at the same time, because Sir Osmond didn’t want to be disturbed when I went round later to draw the curtains in the other rooms—they haven’t all got shutters; on’y the study an’ lib’ery an’ dinin’-room. An’ that’s what I did, sir.”
We questioned her closely about closing the windows. She always closed any windows that were open, she declared; “those are orders.” She remembered that one of the study windows at the front of the house was open a bit at the top and she shut it. She was quite sure the other windows were all shut and was quite shocked at the idea that any of them might have been open at the bottom. “Sir Osmond never had the study windows open at the bottom in the winter,” she maintained. She was also quite certain that she had hooked all the shutters; Sir Osmond was very particular about that, she said.
I asked if she drew the curtains. She said, no, Sir Osmond never had the curtains drawn over the shutters in the study. This was in accordance with what we had observed. We dismissed the girl and went into the study to look at the window.
The shutters were now all folded back. Sir Osmond’s study always impressed me as rather a forbidding room and now, fireless, in the thin light of a wet winter morning, the shiny leather chairs, the office furniture and the brown cord carpet looked positively bleak. The window behind Sir Osmond’s table, which looked out on to a wide paved path with a naked flower border beyond, was open about two feet at the bottom. Cold, damp air flowed in. I fetched my gloves and closed the shutters and stood near the chair in which the body had been found. I could feel a draught round my neck; he could never have sat there for a moment without noticing it. Clearly the window was opened after he was killed.
Rousdon and I examined the shutters and the catch; it didn’t seem possible to fasten the hook from outside, though of course it would have been easy to draw the shutters together and then push down the window.
I sent Rousdon round to the path outside the window, not letting him climb out over the sill, and made him experiment on the hooked shutters with the blade of a pen-knife, after we had examined them for any marks of previous work of the same kind, which we failed to find.
After a good deal of scratching and scraping he got the hook open. Then I tried to balance the hook so that when the shutters were pulled to from outside, it would fall into its eye. It didn’t work very well.
I was trying my best to demonstrate that the murder might have been done by someone who escaped through the window. It would give us the problem of catching an unknown, vanished, criminal, instead of merely picking one out from a batch of suspects under our noses, but it would exculpate the family.
Rousdon, who submitted to the experiments impatiently, finally disposed of my idea—which I didn’t really believe in but wanted to make possible.
“These windows are heavy and noisy,” he pointed out. “If anyone pushed up the bottom sash, Sir Osmond couldn’t help hearing; he wouldn’t have stayed quietly in his chair with his back to the window, in the position in which he was shot.”
Still, the window might have been opened and the catch of the shutters unfastened before Sir Osmond entered the study; the murderer could have waited—no; it wouldn’t do. Whoever came in was expected or at least didn’t alarm Sir Osmond. He had been sitting in his chair at the table, expecting no danger.
“Besides,” said Rousdon; “why should anyone going out of that window fiddle about with the catch in the hope of making it fall into the eye, which was chancy, and then not push down the sash, which was easy and obvious?”
He noticed me scrutinizing the path and flowerbed beyond.
“Been over everything, sir,” he assured me. “Window ledge, wall and all, and the window frame for any sign of forcing the catch, though I admit it wouldn’t be too difficult to push that back from outside with a pen-knife and leave no scratch. Finger-print man has been all over it and taken photographs. There are prints; quite a lot; the maid’s, of course; and perhaps others. As for the path, you could walk up and down on those paving-stones all night and not leave a mark, after this rain.”
I called Rousdon indoors and sent for Parkins, who for years had combined the duties of butler and valet to Sir Osmond. I knew him and trusted him. He was a pale man with a big nose and thick wrinkles down his cheeks, and this morning he looked worried and paler than ever.
I asked him first if he was perfectly certain that every member of the staff was in the servants’ hall when Mr. Witcombe entered to distribute the presents.
“I’ll swear to that, sir,” Parkins declared eagerly. “In accordance with Sir Osmond’s orders I had assembled the staff in the library to see the tree lighted up, and we then returned to the servants’ hall; all except Bingham, that is. He was to stay on duty by the tree. But he was back with us before Mr. Witcombe arrived, entering in a hurry and saying, jocular like, ‘So I haven’t missed the bus?’ meanin’, sir, that he was in time to receive his gift, having been kept, doubtless, seein’ to the lights.”
I made particular note of this for it cleared Bingham completely. He wouldn’t have risked going to the study by any route whilst Witcombe was still wandering about the hall and library with his crackers, and if he got to the servants’ hall before Witcombe arrived, he couldn’t have had a chance to do the shooting. I was frowning—a trick I have when concentrating—in the effort to picture their movements exactly, and apparently Parkins thought I didn’t believe him.
“It’s quite all right about Bingham, sir; I assure you, sir,” he insisted. “He always got on very well with Sir Osmond—if you’ll pardon the liberty, sir. And he couldn’t have done it; he came in and Mr. Witcombe followed close on his heels, sir, as the saying is.”
“All right,” I assured him. “You’ve cleared that up. Now what about that girl, Elizabeth Willett; is she a bit careless? Is it likely that she left a shutter unhooked in the study, or a window open, and wouldn’t remember? Girls are so
metimes unreliable.” I thought the girl had spoken the exact truth, but I wanted to make sure.
“That they are, sir,” Parkins agreed with feeling. “But Betty is a good girl and very careful in her work. Most methodical she is, sir, and if she said she closed a window I’d take her word for it without going to look at it myself, which is more than I’d do with some.”
I thanked the man and dismissed him, but he hesitated and then jerked out, “Excuse me, sir, but maybe you didn’t notice, seeing it’s a small thing and gentlemen are not always so partic’lar about noticing things like that when they know there’s someone else will attend to them, which of course it’s my duty to notice and attend to in the usual course—” He suddenly dried up.
I prompted him; “Yes, Parkins. What is it?”
“Well, sir!” His words now came in a rush, as if he had suddenly got rid of some obstruction in his throat. “When I saw my poor master’s clothes I couldn’t help but notice his coat and all the fluff on it; or rather, sir, not exactly fluff, but little white hairs, sir, as if off some cheap fur. It was all I could do to keep from going at once for the clothes-brush, sir, and I couldn’t help thinking it odd, being sure that I had brushed the coat most particularly, so that there wasn’t a speck on it, before Sir Osmond put it on yesterday morning.”
I asked quickly if he had touched the coat.
“No, sir; I kept my hands off it and you can see for yourself, sir. All along the top of the pockets.”
“When did you notice this?”
“Last night, sir. You remember, sir, you sent me for a sheet to cover the body? And when I brought it into the study, sir, and looked at my poor master, I noticed it at once.”
“Why didn’t you tell us at the time?” growled Rousdon.
“It’s difficult to explain, sir,” said Parkins, answering Rousdon’s question but addressing himself to me. “I noticed it as it might be Sir Osmond was going out and I was giving him a final look-over and brush-down, quite automatic as it were, and then I received instructions from you, sir, about seeing that all was clear for carrying the body through the hall, and I put the other out of my mind. But it came back to me, quite sudden-like, this morning, sir, and I thought I ought to draw your attention to it. I hope I was right, sir?” He looked quite pathetically anxious.
I assured him that he had done the right thing and I asked him if he knew what Sir Osmond habitually carried in his pockets.
“Oh yes, indeed, sir. Sir Osmond was very methodical and I know just what articles he usually placed in the pocket of each suit. Hundreds of times I’ve laid those things out, sir.”
We took him into the study, where the clothing from Sir Osmond’s body was stacked in a neat heap. Rousdon couldn’t restrain his triumphant satisfaction. He picked up the coat and examined it carefully. On the dark blue cloth were certainly a great many tiny white hairs, chiefly along the edges of the pockets and on the fold of the right-hand lapel. Parkins watched eagerly with his pale, prominent eyes.
“You see what I mean, sir?”
I directed his attention to a table on which lay several little collections of objects, labelled to show which pockets they had been taken from. I asked the man to notice carefully whether anything which Sir Osmond would normally have carried was missing, or in the wrong pocket, or if there were anything unusual there.
Parkins surveyed the notebook, fountain-pen, ivory-handled pen-knife, gold watch, note-case, coins and other items, moving his lips as if he were reciting a prayer. Finally he turned to me and reported, “All correct, sir, as it seems. All in the right pockets, too, according to the labels.”
He couldn’t give us any idea of the amount of money Sir Osmond was carrying but thought Miss Portisham would know. I dismissed him with orders to send Miss Portisham to the library and an injunction not to talk to anyone about the white hairs.
“What the deuce did Mr. Witcombe find, or expect to find, in Sir Osmond’s pockets?” grunted Rousdon as Parkins shut the door behind him. The fellow was positively gloating. I left him to question Miss Portisham about the money Sir Osmond had, though I didn’t suppose she would be able to tell us anything really helpful, and went out to take a look round outside the study window.
As I left the library I met Miss Portisham. She looked rather “dressed up” in a black silk frock but I had an idea that she had put on her best because it was the only black one she had. It showed up her dark auburn hair, which looked very smooth and shining. I said good morning to her and she threw me a sudden, appealing and rather scared look from her blue eyes. She was certainly an attractive young woman; a bit plump, perhaps, but with a neat little figure. I don’t wonder she caused the family some anxiety, though I felt positive there was no serious cause for it. I thought to myself that this was a nasty jar for her, with all the family looking at her askance, no doubt, and a good job gone. But she looked plucky.
After an unfruitful survey of the paved path and flower border outside the study window, I spoke to Constable Stapley who was on duty there, and returned to the front door. As I did so a sports car hummed up the drive and stopped. A tall man of about thirty-five crept out from under the hood. That hawk nose and square chin were familiar. I hurried forward.
“Morning, sir!” called out Kenneth Stour. “I’m staying with the Tollards, you know, and we heard the news this morning. Shocking business. I thought I’d better come round—might be of use? And I’d like to see Dittie.”
The shiny car, the really good leather coat, the whole air of the man suggested a prosperity that I had never associated with Kenneth, but I hadn’t seen him for years and I knew he was making some name on the London stage now. His breezy manner was just the same as ever. I wasn’t too pleased to see any visitor at this moment and asked him rather abruptly how he had heard the news when there were no papers.
“News just leaks, y’know,” he replied. “Probably the Flaxmere milkman has a cousin who’s walking out with the boy who delivers the bread to the Tollards!”
I pointed out that no one delivers bread on Bank Holiday and no one walks out before ten o’clock in the morning, but I know how news does seep out and float abroad, apparently on the air. Another point struck me. “So you know Dittie is here?” I asked him.
“Bound to be; whole family always comes for Christmas. But why this cross-examination?”
I don’t know why I should have felt so suspicious of him, but it struck me as odd, his driving up at that moment. I took him inside the front door and advised him to ring the bell and ask Parkins if Dittie would see him. I hadn’t seen any of the family that morning.
“I don’t think I’ll ring the bell just yet,” he announced coolly. “That is, if you can spare me a moment, Colonel.”
I didn’t feel inclined for a friendly chat with anyone. I’d just been making mental notes of half a dozen points I wanted to inquire into. I suppose I growled at him. I told him I was up to my eyes in a difficult business.
“I rather thought it might be difficult,” he remarked. “Look here, sir; I really want to speak to you. I think I might possibly be able to help.”
I told him that if he had anything relevant to tell me, he’d better tell it quickly; the hall was empty; I went over to the fireplace and stood before the blazing logs. I was leaving the drawing-room free for the use of the family and I didn’t want him to entrench himself in the library.
“I’m a student of human nature, Colonel Halstock, and a bit of a criminologist,” he began grandly. “Oh yes, you think that all rot, but at least you know that I’ve got brains and if I give you my word that I won’t do any fool detective work on my own and that I’ll obey orders, will you let me help you in any way I can?”
I asked him how he knew that I wanted help.
“Oh, I know you’ve got your trained men and finger-print experts and all that. But sometimes a private individual can pick up information. I worked
with you once before, you remember, and you were good enough to say—”
“You were younger then, and less cocksure,” I told him, and asked what he was after, anyway. Did he know anything? If so, he’d better tell me and have done with it.
“I don’t know anything in the police sense. You’d be the last man to encourage anyone to communicate unfounded suspicions,” he had the cheek to say. “But I know the family— some of them—pretty well.”
I told him that so did I, and that was my trouble. I didn’t admit, however, that I’d been half inclined to call in Scotland Yard straight away last night. I did say that I hoped we might have the whole case straightened out in half an hour.
“And if you haven’t,” he said, not in the least discouraged, “you’ll tell me how things stand and give me a chance. Colonel Halstock, you know how I felt about Dittie, ten years ago. My feelings haven’t changed. This is a rotten thing for them all and in some ways it’s worst of all for her, because she has no one who can really help her. David—well, you know David! I don’t want publicity. I merely want to be of use. That’s hard for you to believe, of an actor. But perhaps you can believe it of Kenneth Stour whom you’ve known for thirty-five years.”
It’s impossible to describe Kenneth Stour’s charm; that sounds an effeminate word, but there’s nothing of the sissy-boy about him. Opposition simply doesn’t affect him; he behaves as if he couldn’t see or feel it. By persisting in the assumption that you’re agreeing with everything he suggests, he hypnotises you into doing so. That’s the only way I can explain why I trusted him as I did in this case, although I met him with a feeling of suspicion which I didn’t shake off for a long time.
The Santa Klaus Murder Page 8
