The Murder at Sissingham Hall

by Clara Benson

  ‘Thank you,’ said MacMurray. To my surprise, his demeanour was almost dignified.

  We left the morning-room, to be greeted by Gwen, who came hurrying up.

  ‘Oh Boopsie, what are they doing to you?’ she cried.

  MacMurray stopped.

  ‘I’m afraid they’re arresting me for Neville’s murder, Gwen,’ he said.

  Gwen screamed.

  ‘No! They mustn’t! I shan’t let them!’ she said.

  ‘Now then, old girl,’ said her husband kindly. ‘I shall be back in a jiffy when they realize they’ve got it all wrong, you’ll see. But until then, you must be brave for my sake.’

  He stooped and kissed her, then turned to the inspector.

  ‘Shall we go?’ he asked.

  Gwen followed them out of the house, weeping. I turned to Rosamund.

  ‘I wish we hadn’t had to see all that. I feel rather shabby somehow, as though we oughtn’t to have been watching.’

  She turned away and made no answer.

  ‘I must go and speak to Cook about dinner,’ was all she said and hurried off. I understood. After the strain of the last hour, she wanted to take refuge in domestic matters.

  Some time later I wandered disconsolately into the drawing-room, where I found Sylvia, Bobs and Angela Marchmont in animated conversation.

  ‘Hallo, old chap. So they’ve got Hugh now, then, I see.’ said Bobs. ‘Come on, tell us all.’

  I told them what had occurred.

  ‘Oh, poor Hugh,’ said Sylvia.

  ‘Never mind “poor Hugh”,’ said Bobs. ‘If a man resorts to murder and gets caught then he must face the consequences.’

  ‘Did he do it, though?’ said Angela. ‘The evidence against him is very flimsy.’

  ‘Why, of course he did it! I know you like to poke about and solve mysteries, Angela, but I think you’re making too much of this one. There’s no doubt he’s the man. He was on the terrace outside the French windows at the right time—he’s admitted as much—and you can’t deny he had the strongest of motives. And then there’s the fact that Simon saw him trying to get into the study in the middle of the night.’

  ‘What?’ I asked. Gale saw him that night?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sylvia. ‘He said he woke up and suddenly realized to his horror that he had left some of Neville’s private papers in the library by mistake, so he went downstairs to fetch them and put them in a safe place. As he reached the bottom of the stairs he looked down the passage and saw Hugh standing outside the study in a rather suspicious manner.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Some time after two o’clock, he said.’

  ‘But why on earth didn’t he say anything before?’

  ‘He didn’t realize the significance of what he’d seen at first. Then later, as you know, he started to feel that the police were all against him and looking to fasten the blame on him, so he kept quiet as he didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he had been out of bed himself on the night that Neville died.’

  ‘Did he tell you all this?’ I asked, surprised. It seemed rather uncharacteristic of the reserved Simon.

  ‘No, Joan wormed it out of him and told us. She’s wondering whether to tell Inspector Jameson about it.’

  ‘I suppose she’ll have to. Or someone will. At any rate, that seems to clinch the question,’ I said.

  ‘Does it, though?’ said Angela.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Why was he trying to get into the study that way?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ said Bobs. ‘Probably he forgot something, or wanted to get another look at the new will. Perhaps he wanted to destroy it, even.’

  ‘But he must surely have known that the study door was locked, since if he killed Neville he must have either checked it or locked it himself.’

  ‘He must have forgotten,’ said Bobs.

  ‘That seems rather unlikely, even for Hugh,’ said Angela. ‘No, to me it looks as though he didn’t know Neville was dead, and was trying to get into the study for reasons of his own—perhaps as you say, Bobs, to get a look at the will.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know why he was there,’ said Bobs, ‘but the fact that he was is jolly suspicious, and I’m sure the police will get the reason out of him one way or another.’

  I tended to agree with Bobs. Each piece of evidence, though small, built up to a larger whole that implicated only one man. I thought Angela was looking too deeply for hidden meanings and was making things unduly complicated, when in reality things were quite simple: Hugh MacMurray, on hearing of Sir Neville’s intention to disinherit him, had acted ruthlessly to prevent it and had covered up his tracks in a hurried and clumsy attempt to make the murder look like an accident. A sorry tale indeed, but why look further when the answer was there before our eyes?

  Dinner was a sombre affair. Gwen, in particular, was unable to eat anything, so she sat there, gazing at nothing, for the duration of the meal. She looked terrible: tears had left tracks in her face-powder and her eyes were red-rimmed. She had certainly taken her husband’s arrest very hard.

  ‘Cheer up, Gwen,’ said Bobs, at last. ‘Hugh will be back with you in no time, you’ll see. The police don’t have a leg to stand on.’

  Gwen turned her eyes on him.

  ‘Do you think so?’ she said dully.

  ‘I’m sure of it. Now, eat up your dinner, there’s a good girl. A wife oughtn’t to let herself get too thin.’

  She looked down at her plate.

  ‘But they say they have evidence,’ she said. ‘They say that Hugh was the only person to go near the study that evening—’

  She stopped and sat up, staring straight ahead.

  ‘Darling, none of us really believe that Hugh had anything to do with it,’ said Rosamund. ‘Now you mustn’t fret. I’ve called Mr. Pomfrey and he will go along and clear everything up. He’s such a clever man that I know we can rely on him absolutely. Perhaps he can convince them it was an accident, which I really think it must have been, despite what the police say.’

  ‘No!’ said Gwen loudly, making us all jump. ‘Don’t pretend. Nobody really believes that, do they?’ She glared round at us. ‘I’ve seen you all, huddling in corners, whispering to each other about who you think did it, pointing your fingers. And now the police have fixed on Hugh as the most likely suspect, just because he happened to leave the room for a few minutes at the wrong time. Well, they’re wrong. Hugh didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it—he simply isn’t capable. But I don’t believe for one minute it was accidental.’ She turned to look at Rosamund. ‘You say you think it was an accident but you know it wasn’t really, don’t you?’ she said sharply.

  Rosamund looked startled for a second, then lowered her eyes.

  ‘Ah!’ said Gwen. There was a glint in her eye and her expression seemed to suggest that she had won some victory. She drew herself up.

  ‘I know you all think I don’t care a damn for Hugh, or for anyone but myself but it’s not true,’ she said fiercely. ‘He’s my husband and I won’t let him hang, do you hear? I shall tell that policeman—I shall tell him—’

  Before she could finish, she lost what little self-control she had left, burst into sobs and almost ran out of the room. Rosamund looked around the table with a worried expression on her face.

  ‘Oh dear!’ she exclaimed. ‘Perhaps I should go to her. I should hate for her to do anything silly. She’s not herself this evening.’

  She excused herself hurriedly and followed Gwen out of the room.

  ‘Bless my soul,’ said Bobs. ‘It looks as though Gwen has a heart that beats under that carapace after all.’

  When the rest of us entered the drawing-room, we found Rosamund alone.

  ‘Where’s Gwen?’ asked Joan.

  ‘I’ve persuaded her to go to bed,’ she replied. ‘Poor darling, she truly is desperately unhappy about Hugh’s arrest. I told her that of course we’ll do everything we can to help him but I’m not sure sh
e was listening.’

  ‘Is that quite kind, Rosamund?’ said Joan. ‘I mean, I’m not sure you ought to be encouraging her to think that Hugh is going to get off scot-free. After all, things do look rather bad for him.’

  Rosamund made no reply but rose and went to the window. She looked out into the darkness, a preoccupied expression on her face.

  ‘Do you believe he did it, then?’ asked Mrs. Marchmont of Joan.

  Joan looked a little ashamed.

  ‘Of course one hates to think of one’s friends doing anything of the sort but—’

  ‘His explanation of what he was doing out on the terrace was rather feeble,’ I said. ‘Why, he seemed to expect Jameson to believe that he went out there just to take the air. It was jolly cold that night, so why in heaven’s name he should go outside to clear his head when he could have done that perfectly well in the conservatory or somewhere else, I don’t know. And then there was the hand-print on the French window.’

  ‘What did he say about that?’ asked Angela.

  ‘Just that he tried the handle but the door was locked. According to his story, he peered through the glass but it was dark and he couldn’t see anything.’

  ‘Not the most convincing explanation, I agree,’ said Bobs soberly. ‘Well, I must say it looks like it’s curtains for old Hugh.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that!’ said Sylvia, distressed.

  ‘Look at the facts though, old girl. Who had the most reason to kill Neville? Who was the only person found loitering by the French windows at the fatal hour? And who was fool enough to leave his hand-prints all over the place?’

  ‘The hand-print doesn’t prove anything,’ said Sylvia. ‘None of it proves anything.’

  ‘But it all adds up and points very clearly to one person,’ said her brother. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Angela? You’re the detecting genius among us. What do you think?’

  But Angela was frowning at something and appeared not to have heard.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Bobs, what did you say?’ she asked, rousing herself with some effort.

  ‘I asked whether you don’t think all the evidence points to Hugh’s guilt.’

  Mrs. Marchmont considered.

  ‘It certainly seems to,’ she said at last. ‘But I was thinking of what Mr. Knox just said.’

  ‘I?’ I said. ‘About MacMurray, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. There was something—ah, it’s gone now. A symptom of a brain declining with age, I’m afraid,’ she said, smiling wryly. ‘Never mind, perhaps it will come back to me. It was probably unimportant.’

  I looked at her curiously.

  ‘You seem unconvinced of MacMurray’s guilt,’ I said. ‘You think he shouldn’t have been arrested, then?’

  ‘No—I wouldn’t say that exactly,’ she said. ‘But after what has happened over the past few days my mind is in a whirl and I simply don’t know what to think. Inspector Jameson is a very capable man and of course he had no choice but to arrest Hugh, given the circumstances.’

  She would say no more on the subject but instead suggested a game of cards and we passed the rest of the evening quietly engaged in that pursuit.

  SIXTEEN

  The next morning, Joan burst into the breakfast-room with a wild look on her face just as Bobs and I were helping ourselves to a plateful of kidneys each.

  ‘Whatever is the matter?’ said Bobs.

  ‘Gwen won’t wake up!’ she exclaimed. ‘Her maid is having a fit of hysterics. I’ve sent for the doctor. Oh, I do hope we’re not too late.’

  ‘What?’ Bobs and I cried together.

  With one accord we hurried out of the room and followed Joan upstairs to the MacMurrays’ room, where we found a smart maid sobbing loudly and wringing her hands and Angela Marchmont bending over the bed where Gwen lay, holding the unconscious woman’s wrist.

  ‘Is she alive?’ asked Bobs.

  ‘I think so—just,’ replied Angela. ‘But her pulse is very weak. I do hope the doctor comes soon.’

  She cast her eyes around the room and they fell on a glass standing on a little table by the bed. She bent down and sniffed.

  ‘Brandy, I should say,’ she said.

  I moved to pick up the glass and examine it but she shook her head quickly.

  ‘I think it would be better not to touch that,’ she said.

  Her face was set, almost grim in its expression.

  I remembered Rosamund’s words of the previous evening. ‘I should hate for her to do anything silly,’ she had said. Had she suspected that it might come to this? That Gwen, distraught at Hugh’s arrest and terrified that her part in the plot might come to light, would choose to take the easiest way out?

  Just then, Rosamund entered the room.

  ‘She’s not—dead?’ she asked, almost fearfully.

  ‘No,’ replied Angela, ‘but I think it may be touch and go.’

  ‘Do let me look after her while you go and have breakfast,’ said Rosamund.

  Angela shook her head.

  ‘Oh but I insist. She is my guest, after all.’

  ‘No, darling,’ said Angela firmly. ‘I shall stay with her until the doctor arrives. You go down with Mr. Knox and Joan and wait for Dr. Carter.’

  Rosamund was reluctantly forced to give in.

  ‘You thought this might happen, didn’t you?’ I said to Rosamund as we descended the stairs. ‘You said she might do something silly, given her state of mind. I can’t say I took the remark seriously but it looks as though you were right.’

  ‘Oh yes, how dreadful!’ she said. 'I did think she was behaving a little oddly but I don’t think I really believed she would try to kill herself. She must have been driven to it in the desperation of her mind.’

  Dr. Carter arrived shortly afterwards and was shown up to Gwen’s room, whilst we all sat in the morning-room in a state of anxious suspense. Eventually, Angela Marchmont joined us.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Rosamund.

  Angela shook her head.

  ‘Things don’t look good, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘She is still unconscious and her pulse has become weaker. The doctor thinks she may be close to the end.’

  We sat in shocked silence for a moment.

  ‘Will—will she wake up at all?’ asked Rosamund hesitantly.

  ‘No. She is in a deep coma at present. Her maid is with her and is doing everything she can to make her comfortable. Poor Gwen will not be left alone for a second.’

  ‘Did the doctor say what it was she took?’ asked Sylvia.

  ‘He thinks it was probably Veronal,’ said Angela. ‘There was a little bottle of the stuff in her dressing-case. Does anybody know whether she took it regularly?’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ said Rosamund. ‘She had been having difficulty sleeping for several months, she told me.’

  ‘Where did the brandy come from?’

  ‘I gave it to her,’ replied Rosamund. ‘She was completely done in after what happened yesterday, so I poured her a glass. She drank some of it then said she would take the remainder up to bed.’

  ‘Then she must have added the Veronal when she got to her room,’ I said. ‘I wonder whether she really intended to do herself harm, or whether it was an accident.’

  ‘We may never know,’ said Angela.

  ‘Poor Gwen,’ said Sylvia. There were tears in her eyes. ‘Someone will have to tell Hugh.’

  ‘Need he be told?’ asked Joan. ‘I mean, perhaps we ought to wait.’ She did not say for what.

  Rosamund left the room while the point was being decided. With no thought but that of lending her a sympathetic ear, I followed her and found her in the conservatory, absent-mindedly pulling the leaves off a rather ugly aspidistra. I thought how beautiful she looked, even in the midst of tragedy, her porcelain skin beautifully framed by her red-gold hair. She looked up and gave me a smile of the sort she used to give me in the old days, when I thought her smiles were for me alone.

  ‘Dear Charles,’ she said. ‘You have been such a fr
iend to me over these past few days. I don’t know what I should have done without you.’

  I took her hand.

  ‘I’m awfully pleased if you think I’ve been of any help,’ I said. ‘But really, I don’t see how one could have done anything differently.’

  She gazed into my eyes and immediately it was as though eight years had melted away into nothingness.

  ‘Why wouldn’t you marry me, Rosamund?’ I asked.

  She smiled. She knew her power over me had never died; of course she did.

  ‘Oh Charles,’ she said. ‘It would never have worked between us.’

  ‘But I thought we were in love.’

  ‘So we were but we were young and foolish and so dreadfully poor,’ she said. ‘Oh, I know they say love conquers all but is that really true? Does it conquer cold and ragged clothes and hunger and misery?’

  ‘Then you had no faith in me? You didn’t believe I should ever make my fortune.’

  ‘Oh but I did. I had every faith in you. But I could never have gone with you to Africa, you know that, and to wait at home in England, trusting to an uncertain future, scraping to get by—I couldn’t do that. I was weak, Charles, and you were much better off without me.’

  I kept hold of her hand, still. I seemed to have lost my head.

  ‘And now?’

  ‘And now what?’

  ‘Am I still better off without you?’

  She gazed at me for an eternity. Her breath came fast.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I said roughly, then took her in my arms and kissed her. For one long second she responded, then she shook herself free.

  ‘Don’t!’ she exclaimed. ‘Don’t you understand? It’s all too late now. Even if Neville had never been in the picture, surely you must see that things have changed. You’ve been away eight years, Charles. Why, that’s practically a lifetime.’

  ‘Not for me, it isn’t. You are the same to me as you ever were.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s not true. I was never—what you thought I was. The Rosamund you thought you loved is a perfect creature of your imagination. She’s not even human. But I—I’m a real human being, with faults and imperfections just like anybody else and I don’t want to be loved by someone who would expect me to be a sort of goddess. I should only disappoint you, don’t you see?’