Murder of a Martinet

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “It was all very silly, but I was tired and angry. Everyone seemed to be beastly. I washed up and decided I’d go out to the pictures. I’d had enough kitchen for that day.”

  “Did you go upstairs to get your outdoor things?”

  “No. They were down here, in the linen room. It’s a long way up to my bedroom, and I left my coat down here when I came in before tea. I always use the basement door when I go out.”

  “And you went to the pictures?”

  “No. I didn’t. It was a nice evening and there was a moon. I walked around the Outer Circle towards Baker Street, but when I got to York Gate I changed my mind about the flicks and walked up to the Inner Circle and went on right round it. It was very peaceful there.”

  “I know it is. It’s very beautiful, too.” said Macdonald. “It was just after nine when I got back,” said Madge. “I could hear the wireless on in my stepmother’s bedroom. I came in by the basement door and made some tea and had something to eat. Then I remembered I hadn’t sorted the laundry, which I always do on Monday. It’s quite a job, because the whole household send their laundry in the same basket, and I check the lot. I put out some linen to mend in the linen room, and the time just went. I realised it was nearly eleven, and I hadn’t taken Mother’s barley water to her room. As I took it upstairs I met my father in the hall and he asked me to come in and have a look at her.”

  3

  “Thinking back, and remembering what caused your stepmother’s death, do you think she was asleep or in a coma?” Macdonald spoke very quietly and watched Madge’s troubled face intently.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Her voice had a hopeless quality in it, as of one defeated. Then she braced herself and looked Macdonald in the face again. “I’d been up since six o’clock, and I’d been working hard nearly all day. This isn’t an easy house to work in, and I’d got in a temper and I was dog-tired. I tell you, I just didn’t care.” She paused and then added: “I had no reason to believe she was ill. I was certain her heart was nothing to worry about. I knew she had lost her temper as I had lost mine, but she had been put to bed and fussed over, and I’d had to get on with the chores. Remember, she was not my mother. She was no relation to me at all, and I didn’t love her. I just glanced at her lying there, looking very comfortable in the best linen sheets, snoring a bit as elderly patients do snore when they’ve had a mild barbiturate, and all I thought was Thank God she’s asleep. Daddy will have a quiet night for once.’ I tell you, I didn’t care. But I can also swear that I had no idea she was really Ml. Anyway, I was too tired to notice. All I wanted to do was to get to bed myself.”

  Macdonald listened to her intently, using all his experience and analytical skill to determine if her answer was a very honest one or a very skilful one. Every word she said struck him as reasonable. “I was dog-tired and I just didn’t care.” Macdonald knew he could not get any further on those lines. And she hadn’t even pretended to any affection for the dead woman. “I just didn’t notice. I just didn’t care.” It flashed through Macdonald’s mind that a jury would understand that: it was so harshly realistic, and no prosecuting counsel could break it down. “I was dog-tired”—and hadn’t she had every reason to be dog-tired?

  ‘‘So you went up to bed?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yes. Peter and Paula had still got their party on. Their rooms are over mine, and I could hear all their racket. It was no use going upstairs to complain. 1 read for a bit and then I took three aspirin tablets and went to sleep, and didn’t wake up until my alarm went off at five to six next morning.”

  Macdonald sat silent for a second or two. Then he said: “When I told you the cause of your stepmother’s death, you said, ‘Then she was murdered.’ Knowing, as you do know, the uses and effects of .insulin, that statement was perfectly logical. I think every statement you have made show’s the same quality of reason and common sense. So, using those qualities, will you tell me if you know of anybody who had any motive for killing Mrs. Farrington?”

  Madge answered at once. “No. I can’t. And if I could, I shouldn’t. You see . . . she was a maddening woman. She was selfish and domineering and intolerably inquisitive. At one time we had a gag in this house. I.C.M.H.—‘I could murder her.’ We’ve all said it. at one time or another: Paula and Peter, Joyce and Philip, and Anne and Tony—and me. Not Daddy. He loved her. He always did. I know we none of us meant it, but we said it.” She spoke clearly, almost harshly, and then added: “I don’t know who killed her. I don’t want to know. But if I did know I shouldn’t tell you. There are a few things which even I won’t do.”

  CHAPTER VI

  “BUT the whole thing is utterly inconceivable, Eddie,” said Anne.

  Colonel Farrington had gone upstairs to see Anne after he had left Macdonald in the kitchen with Madge. He had told Anne what Macdonald had said about insulin being the cause of death, and Anne looked horrified and bewildered.

  “Now don’t get upset, Anne,” begged the Colonel. “There must be an explanation, and it’s due to Baring that every inquiry should be made. You’ll like this C.I.D. man. He’s a very quiet, courteous fellow; he listens attentively and doesn’t interrupt. Quite unlike the average official of today. This chap—on my soul, he’d have made a fine officer in the Army, and I can’t say more than that. All he wants is a plain statement of fact. He’ll see his way through it, you take it from me. Clearheaded and thoughtful, and very considerate, too. So you’ve nothing to worry about, my dear. I just thought I’d let you know he was in the house. Is Paula up. do you know? He may want to see her, too. She went in to see Muriel just before Baring came. Better let Macdonald have all the details. Wiser and more dignified to meet him halfway.”

  After the Colonel had left her, Anne went into her bedroom and glanced at herself in the mirror. Her reflection horrified her, for a pallid face and shadowed eyes looked back at her from the glass. She put some rouge on her cheeks, chose a discreet lipstick, and added a dark line to her arched eyebrows, conscious all the time that she felt sick and cold. It was all very well for the Colonel to take things so calmly. He had said, “There must be an explanation.” But did the police always get the right explanation? It seemed a long time before she heard voices on the stairs which heralded the arrival of Colonel Farrington and the C.I.D. man. The Colonel knocked, as he always did, and waited for her to answer before he came in.

  “This is Chief Inspector Macdonald, my dear. My daughter-in-law, Mrs. Strange, Chief Inspector. Her husband is my stepson, but we claim to be ‘in-laws’ all the same.” The tall C.I.D. man bowed to Anne formally, and she murmured, “How do you do,” as the Colonel said, “Now I’ll leave you to it. The Chief Inspector was good enough to say I gave my evidence clearly. I know he’ll say the same of you.” Having sat down, Anne turned to Macdonald and waited for him to speak.

  “I asked Colonel Farrington and his daughter to tell me the events of Monday,” began Macdonald. “They were both excellent witnesses and gave me a very clear idea of the circumstances preceding Mrs. Farrington’s death. I gather that you did not actually see her on Monday, but will you tell me in your own words If you can add anything to what the others have told me?”

  “Very well,” said Anne. “I was out most of Monday. I went to lunch with a friend who was in the W.R.A.F. with me. I got back here about half-past three and went straight upstairs without seeing anybody. My father-in-law generally comes up here and has a drink with me about six o’clock. On Monday he only glanced in, just to tell me that Mrs. Farrington was unwell and had gone to bed. I asked him if there was anything I could do, and he said would I go down and see Madge in the kitchen sometime and tell her he wouldn’t be wanting any supper, as he was waiting for the doctor to come. I didn’t go down immediately, because my husband came m, but I did so about half-past six or a quarter to seven and then came back here to get our own supper. I have a kitchenette on this floor.”

  “I see,” said Macdonald. “Did you meet any other member of
the household on the stairs or in the hall?”

  “I met Paula coming upstairs with her hands full of sherry glasses as I went down, and I saw Joyce in the hall as I came up from the kitchen, She had just come in, and I told her Mrs. Farrington was not well and would she try to prevent the twins making too much noise with their party. Joyce and Philip have the floor above this one, and the twins have the attics, but they do make a shocking lot of noise sometimes.”

  “As is the way of the young,” said Macdonald, a halfsmile on his grave face, “Do you remember what time the twins’ party arrived, and who admitted them?”

  “The party came about eight, and Peter let them in with his own latchkey. They crept in very quietly—probably he was anxious not to be caught by the old folks—but by the time they got onto the landing above they had all got the giggles, and I heard Joyce go out and tell them to be quiet. My husband and I were alone up here until after the nine o’clock news, when Coionel Farrington came up and asked me if I would go and sit downstairs, as he wanted to go out for a breath of fresh air; he had been in the house all day. Of course I said I would go down at once and would sit with the drawing-room door open, so that I should hear if my mother-in-law rang her little bell.”

  “Did Colonel Farrington tell you that he had given his wife a sleeping tablet?”

  Anne hesitated before she replied. Macdonald had been aware from the moment he saw her that she was in a state of tension. She was certainly frightened, and she had not had Madge’s training. A nurse is trained to meet all emergencies with a calm face and steady hands, and five years’ training has a lasting effect. Anne was keeping still by a visible effort: her lips were dry and her pleasant conversational voice sounded forced. Yet to Macdonald’s mind it was Anne who had more poise as a rule, more social flair, more reason to be satisfied with herself than Madge, and self-satisfaction does give a certain sort of poise.

  Anne reached out for a cigarette and. lighted it before she replied: “Yes. He did. He said something about not liking dope; he’s very old-fashioned, you know. I took my knitting and went downstairs with him and told him not to hurry back. Then I went and made up the drawing-room fire, which had gone low, and sat with the door open.”

  “How were you sitting—with your back to the door?” “No. I sat with my feet up on the settee, sideways to the door, so that I could see into the hall. I was watching for Madge. You see, Madge is the only one of us who could really tell if Mrs. Farrington was :11 or just fussing. She was very nervous of herself, you know, and was always heading for a crisis over her heart pains.”

  “Yes. I understand about that. Did you see anybody pass through the hall?”

  “Nobody at all. I was a bit worried because I could hear the twins’ wireless. They must have had it on very loud. But I knew that if Mrs. Farrington heard it she would ring her bell. Oh. the telephone rang once. The bell is in the hall, but the instrument is just by the settee in the drawing-room.

  I snatched the receiver off to stop the bell ringing.”

  “Who was it calling?”

  “A friend of Mrs. Farrington’s, one of those tiresome women who talks interminably. She wanted help with a Primrose League fete and poured out a flood of details which she apparently wanted me to write down. I did start making notes, and then I got impatient and rang off.”

  “So that during the time you were telephoning you would not have noticed if anybody passed through the hall?”

  “No. I suppose I shouldn’t.”

  “Did you write down the number of the telephone caller?”

  “No. I think she said her name was Jones, but it didn’t convey anything to me. After that I just sat and knitted until Eddie, Colonel Farrington, came in, soon after ten. He sat and talked to me for a few minutes, and then I went upstairs.”

  “While you were talking to him was the drawing-room door open or shut?”

  “I think it was shut. He closed it as he came in. I said, ‘It’s all right. She hasn’t rung for anything, so she must be asleep,’ and he said, ‘Good. Nothing like sleep for curing aches and pains.’ ”

  “Can you remember if you and he were talking about anything in particular? That is to say, was it a conversation which absorbed your attention, or just trivialities?”

  “Nothing very important. I was a bit sleepy. I think I said how much we should miss Madge if she did go to America. She’s been so good about running this house.”

  “That I can well believe.” said Macdonald. “Wasn’t her father rather upset about the prospect of her going?”

  “No. Not upset. He’s the most unselfish person in the world. He always wants all of us to do what is likely to make us happy, and he thought it would be very good for Madge to get away.”

  “He struck me as an eminently kindly, unselfish man,” said Macdonald. “When does Miss Madge go to America?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her that yourself,” replied Anne. “I don’t think the date has been settled, but I may be mistaken.”

  Macdonald waited for a second or two, his pause being quite deliberate. He was still trying to assess Anne and decide what it was that kept her nerves aquiver. The Chief Inspector found that the majority of persons he questioned were nervous or excited to start with, but when they found they were not being browbeaten or interrupted the nervousness generally wore off, as though the sound of their own voices and the expression of their own experiences had a calming effect. It was on this account that Macdonald generally encouraged his witnesses to tell their story in their own way. It gave him a better chance to study them and arrive at a rough-and-ready judgment of their characteristics.

  Anne put out her cigarette and asked abruptly: “Is that all?”

  “No.” replied Macdonald. “Colonel Farrington will have told you the cause of Mrs. Farrington’s death?”

  “Yes.”

  “His own theory, as you probably know, is that Dr. Baring injected insulin by mistake. For various reasons, that is in the highest degree improbable. Without going into technical reasons, it seems probable that Mrs. Farrington was murdered. It is my duty to ask you if you can tell me of anyone who, in your opinion, had any motive to wish for her death, or any grudge or enmity against her.”

  “Of course not,” Anne retorted immediately. “The idea seems ridiculous to me. She was a very harmless old lady, a bit tiresome, perhaps, because she fussed a lot over her health, but she was what you would call a very nice woman: courteous and gracious, and devoted to her children.”

  “You were fond of her?” queried Macdonald.

  Anne frowned. “I find that question rather offensive,” she replied.

  “I’m afraid that an inquiry into suspected murder is often offensive, Mrs. Strange,” replied Macdonald. “I asked you a very simple question. If a person has an affection for another, they can generally give some information about them which may be valuable.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t give you much information about her. While I and my husband had many reasons to be grateful to her, I never got on to terms of intimacy with my mother-in-law. She was very set and limited in her outlook and we had very little in common. To put it simply, she rather bored me, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t respect her good qualities.”

  “And you know of nobody who had any motive to wish her out of the way?”

  “Nobody at all.”

  “You would say that it is untrue that Mrs. Farrington had the ability to exasperate everybody in this house except her husband?”

  Anne moved jerkily, restlessly. “Did Madge tell you that? If so, she ought to be ashamed of herself.”

  “I didn’t say that anybody told me. I asked you if it were untrue.”

  “In essentials, quite untrue. In a house like this there tend to be small irritations, but to exaggerate them at a time like this is unforgivable.”

  “Thank you for answering my questions, Mrs. Strange. I am sorry that you found them painful, but if you think it over you will realise that an inqui
ry of this nature has to take precedence over people’s feelings. Only one thing matters, and that is to find the truth.”

  Anne made no reply, and with a formal bow, Macdonald left her.

  2

  On the flight of stairs leading from Anne’s floor to the one above. Mrs. Pinks was busy brushing down the stair carpet. Seeing her thus occupied, Macdonald said: “You’ve got a tidy-sized job there. Do you do the whole lot from top to bottom at one go, or do a flight a day?”

  “I do the whole blooming lot, seventy of ’em, bang off. Never did fancy doing jobs by ’alves. I always says if everyone did as they ought in this ’ouse, these stairs’d be done by them what uses them most: one flight Mrs. Tony, one flight Mrs. Philip, one flight the twins, leaving the basement to me. But if you knew the words they’d ’ad, and the complaints they makes, why, you wouldn’t believe it. Same with the bathrooms. Always someone else’s fault. I wouldn’t live in this ’ouse, not for any money.”

  Mrs. Pinks stood up to let Macdonald pass, adding: “And if you’ve got a minute to spare some time, I’d like a word with you meself.”

  “I’ve got plenty of time,” replied Macdonald. “It’s my job to listen to anybody who’s got a word to say.”

  “Well, say if we pop up into the box room, along to the right on the next floor. Mrs. Philip’s gone out, and Miss Paula’s still in bed. Never met such a girl for stopping in bed. Gives me the fair fidgets.”

  She led the way along the passage on the second floor to a little room which was used for storing suitcases and trunks, and having closed the door, she turned and faced Macdonald, her skinny arms folded across the bib of her apron.

  “You’re a C.I.D. man?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re asking about things because you believe that someone bumped off old Mrs. F.?”