The Murder at Sissingham Hall

by Clara Benson

  ‘But—that kiss, Rosamund. Why would you kiss me like that if you didn’t feel the same way about me as I do about you?’

  She lowered her eyes but did not deny that she had responded.

  ‘Perhaps it was a kind of nostalgia. Perhaps I was trying to imagine myself as I was eight years ago, before all this happened. Before Neville. Before—’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m sorry, Charles. I never meant you to—I mean, I thought we were friends.’

  ‘So did I,’ I said.

  ‘No, darling,’ she said gently. ‘It can’t be that sort of friendship. You know that.’

  ‘I don’t know it,’ I said.

  She smiled sadly, turned away and left the room.

  ‘Rosamund!’ I called after her desperately. I started after her but was brought up short when I bumped into Sylvia. I begged her pardon in a somewhat distracted fashion and she smiled stiffly.

  ‘What were you talking to Rosamund about?’ she asked, in an unnaturally bright voice.

  ‘I—nothing in particular,’ I replied, taken aback.

  ‘I see,’ she said.

  ‘Sylvia, I—’

  ‘Really, it’s quite all right,’ she said, still in that same, high voice. She pressed her lips together and hurried away.

  ‘Sylvia!’ I exclaimed.

  Had she overheard my interview with Rosamund? My mind was in a tumult and I could hardly think. What had I done? Had I behaved like a damned fool? Rosamund had always had that effect on me. I felt I needed to find a cool, quiet place to sit until my head cleared, and headed for the library. The room was empty but someone had obviously been in before me, as a newspaper and one or two other papers lay scattered on the desk. I glanced idly at the newspaper, which had been left open at the stock pages, but quickly cast it aside. My eye then fell on a scrap of paper containing a few scribbled notes. I pulled it towards me and stared at it in puzzlement. It appeared to be a list, although it made no sense to me. It read:

  Why dark?

  Arms

  Dog

  Keys

  ‘What on earth—?’ I murmured to myself. I was still gazing at it in astonishment when Angela Marchmont entered the room. She stopped as she caught sight of the paper in my hand.

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, in confusion.

  ‘Is this yours?’ I said, embarrassed. ‘I do beg your pardon but I couldn’t help seeing it.’ I held it out to her.

  ‘Yes, it’s mine,’ she said. ‘It’s just some silly thoughts I was scribbling down before breakfast. I find the library is a good place to clear one’s head.’

  ‘So it is,’ I agreed. I hesitated. ‘It’s none of my business of course, but may I ask—if I am correct in understanding this rather mysterious list, you are still thinking about Sir Neville’s murder. Does that mean you don’t think MacMurray did it? You seemed uncertain of his guilt yesterday.’

  She toyed for a moment with the rings on her fingers.

  ‘If only one knew what to do,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘Yes, Mr. Knox, after the events of this morning, it seems quite clear to me now that Hugh couldn’t possibly have done it.’

  ‘Events? Are you referring to Mrs. MacMurray?’ I asked in surprise. ‘But surely her attempt at suicide merely confirms that they were both in on it?’

  ‘But why should she attempt suicide? Of course, there is strong circumstantial evidence against Hugh but there is no evidence at all against Gwen. The police have never suggested for a moment that she had any hand in the matter. Why, then, should she try to kill herself?’

  ‘An upset in the balance of her mind caused by her husband’s arrest?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, I’m afraid that simply won’t do. Hugh has been arrested but who is to say whether he will be found guilty or even brought to trial? A thousand things could happen between now and then. There is no solid evidence that he was the guilty party, and I have the feeling the clever inspector knows it. In fact, I shouldn’t be surprised if the only reason he arrested Hugh was to try and frighten him into a confession. There was every reason in the world for Gwen to be frantic with worry but none at all for her to try to do away with herself.’

  ‘Then you think it wasn’t suicide at all but attempted murder.’

  She nodded.

  ‘But why should anybody want to kill her? Do you think she knew something?’

  ‘Yes, that seems to be the only conclusion. I think she must have known or suspected who the real killer was.’

  ‘Last night, she ran from the table saying that she was going to tell the inspector something,’ I exclaimed, suddenly remembering. ‘I wonder if that is what alerted the killer and spurred him to action.’

  ‘Yes, I wondered that too,’ she replied.

  I was feeling more and more perplexed.

  ‘But who was it?’ I said. ‘It seems as though first one, then another person has been eliminated. Soon there will be no-one left and I shall have to start suspecting myself!’

  Angela smiled wryly.

  ‘Yes, it does rather seem that way, doesn’t it? The problem is the lack of evidence. Even if we suspect who did it, we have no proof.’

  I looked at her curiously.

  ‘I believe you know who did it,’ I said.

  She did not reply directly but picked up her list and began tearing it into tiny pieces.

  ‘There was something I meant to ask you earlier about the night of Neville’s murder,’ she said.

  ‘Go on,’ I replied.

  ‘I’d like to know more about what happened when you and Rosamund went along to the study and heard what you thought was Neville’s voice through the door. The police think that it was Hugh speaking but if my theory is correct, he had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Then who could it have been?’ I said. ‘Everyone else was in the drawing-room—unless, of course, it was Sir Neville himself, as we originally thought.’ I was intrigued: was Angela reverting to the earlier theory that the crime was committed after a quarter to eleven?

  ‘Try and remember the voice, Mr. Knox,’ said Angela. ‘Who do you think it was?’

  ‘Unfortunately, as I have already told the inspector, I don’t remember hearing much at all. I certainly couldn’t tell you who was speaking. I was listening to Rosamund’s side of the conversation, if you see what I mean, and didn’t hear whoever it was on the other side of the door.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said. An odd sort of expression came over her face.

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t be of more help,’ I said.

  ‘On the contrary, you have been very helpful,’ she said sadly.

  I watched her as she drummed her fingers absently on the desk.

  ‘It is difficult to know what to do,’ she said at last. ‘But I think I shall have a word with Rosamund. Perhaps she will help me.’

  ‘You mean she might be able to tell you who was speaking through the door? I don’t think she remembers any more than I do.’

  ‘Well, we shall see,’ she said.

  She went off, passing Bobs as he entered the room.

  ‘Hallo, old chap,’ he said. ‘This is a to-do, what?’

  ‘You mean Gwen? Yes.’

  ‘Funny that she should try to kill herself after old Hugh’s arrest, isn’t it?’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ I replied, ‘Mrs. Marchmont has just been telling me the most extraordinary thing.’

  I told him about her theory. He whistled.

  ‘I say!’ he exclaimed. ‘That rather puts the cat among the pigeons, what?’

  ‘If it’s true, then yes, it means we are back where we started.’

  ‘I suppose it does.’

  ‘I think Angela suspects who did it but she wouldn’t tell me who it was. I don’t suppose you have any ideas yourself?’

  Bobs shrugged.

  ‘No idea, I’m afraid. I was sure it was Gale but it seems I
was wrong. I’m sure the police will catch whoever it was sooner or later.’

  To my surprise, he seemed almost unconcerned. He picked up the newspaper and turned a page, then put it down again. His thoughts were clearly elsewhere.

  ‘Something troubling you, old chap?’ I asked.

  He roused himself with an effort.

  ‘Eh, what? Oh, no, no,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking of something, that’s all. I was wondering when the police will allow us to leave, in fact.’

  ‘But I thought Rosamund wanted us all to stay.’

  He looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Yes, dash it! That’s just it. It’s all very well for her to say that but it makes a chap feel a cad. I’ve told her that but she won’t seem to listen.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, it looks rather a shabby trick to be hanging about a woman when her husband has just died. Makes one look rather a vulture, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘Of course, it’s one thing when the man’s alive and everybody accepts the situation in a civilized sort of fashion but it’s quite another when he’s lying there cold and dead and people are casting around for someone to pin the blame on.’

  I looked at Bobs’s sheepish face and felt the dawning of an awful realization loom upon me. ‘Bobs, are you telling me that you—you and Rosamund—’ I stopped, unable to go on.

  Bobs uttered an incredulous laugh.

  ‘Good heavens, Charles,’ he said. ‘You don’t mean to say you didn’t know?’

  SEVENTEEN

  I sat down, my head reeling. What an imbecile I had been! How could I have been so blind? A hundred and one scenes from the past few days raced through my mind: a mysterious conversation at dinner; Rosamund’s radiant look as she and Bobs returned from a walk together; a photograph in the newspaper—the meaning of them all suddenly became perfectly clear to me. Had everybody known about it except me? Of course, Sylvia must have known. It was inevitable—after all, Bobs was her brother and Rosamund her friend. Sir Neville, it appeared, had known and accepted it. The others probably suspected it if they did not know for certain. The remembrance of my own monstrous error of only a few minutes ago now flooded upon me and I felt the blood rush hot across my face. It already seemed as though I had ruined everything with Sylvia but would Rosamund tell Bobs what had happened too? Would they laugh about it together and joke about how poor old Charles had made an idiot of himself once again? I thought I understood, now, the cryptic remarks Sylvia had made on the first night of our stay here. I had been offended at the time but now it looked as though she had been right—I had been hopelessly, stupidly, absurdly naïve. What a mistake it had been to come to Sissingham! I had come here and knowingly laid myself open to Rosamund’s influence, having convinced myself that I was too old and experienced in the ways of the world to fall for that kind of thing again. How wrong I had been!

  Bobs was looking at me with an unsuspecting smile. I made an effort to speak.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I must confess the news comes as a complete surprise to me.’

  ‘You astound me,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind, old thing. I know you were engaged to her once, but of course that was a long time ago, and Rosamund was so fearfully keen to see you again when I told her that you had returned to England that I thought I’d better bring you along. Of course, the weekend didn’t exactly turn out as planned, did it? Poor old stick-in-the-mud Neville. One can’t help feeling sorry for him—dull and unwanted in life and soon-to-be-forgotten in death.’

  I did not like the tone of his voice in talking about the dead man and frowned. He laughed.

  ‘Poor old Charles!’ he said affectionately. ‘You always were one to back the losing team. Very well, I shan’t wound your sensibilities any more. I shall merely say that he was highly respected and will be briefly missed.’

  ‘Do you intend to marry Rosamund?’ I found myself asking.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he said carelessly. ‘Goodness knows, she spent long enough trying to convince Neville to give her a divorce. It would look rather bad on my part to drop the old girl now.’

  ‘Was Sir Neville unwilling to grant her a divorce, then?’

  ‘Oh, he agreed to it all right but kept putting it off for one reason or another. He seemed to think that the chaps at his club would look rather blackly on him if he detached himself from his wife. For my part, I don’t know why he didn’t bite the bullet and get it over with as quickly as possible, once he realized that she was determined to have her own way. There are plenty of people who don’t give two hoots about that sort of thing. Never stand between a woman and what she wants, Charles, if you want any sort of a quiet life. I say, she is rather marvellous, though, don’t you think? Can’t you see her lording it over everybody when I inherit the title? She will be in her element, playing the grande dame and greeting the great and the good at Bucklands. That’s far more her “thing” than sitting buried here in the middle of nowhere, with nobody but an elderly husband and a sulky child to talk to.’

  I winced. This was too uncomfortably true. I realized now that even as a wealthy man I could never have provided Rosamund with the things she really wanted. Glory, prestige, the admiration of others, would never be mine. Bobs, on the other hand, would be the ideal husband: rich and good-looking, he liked nothing better than to be seen out and about, disporting himself in all the fashionable places and appearing in the society pages. And of course, following the death of his elder brother, he was now in line to inherit a viscountcy, together with a grand country seat and a house in Grosvenor Square. I had to admit that he was a far more attractive prospect than I—a nobody with a disgraced father and a murder trial behind him, almost more at home in the harsh heat of South Africa than in his native land.

  ‘Anyway,’ went on Bobs, ‘you can see why things are a little awkward at present—I mean, what happens? The Young Pretender comes down for a weekend and the Old King very conveniently departs this earth under mysterious and suspicious circumstances. Elderly ladies and other persons of a more moral disposition than I might look rather askance on the whole thing, don’t you think? I should myself, in fact, if it were someone else. And the Governor is likely to be a bore, too. I don’t suppose he’d have been any too pleased at the scandal of my marrying a divorcée but that would be as nothing to a murder charge hanging over the head of his only remaining son. If I were he I should probably disinherit me outright, in favour of Sylvia.’

  His tone was jocular but there was a furrow on his forehead which suggested he was more serious than he cared to admit.

  ‘But why should the police fasten on you as a likely suspect?’ I asked.

  ‘Motive, my dear chap, motive,’ he said simply. ‘I wanted to marry Rosamund and Neville stood in the way—that’s how they’ll see it.’

  ‘But you said that Sir Neville had agreed to a divorce.’

  ‘In principle, yes, but as I said, he kept putting it off. In fact, he had been putting it off for so long that I shouldn’t have been surprised if he had changed his mind at last. They’ll say I became impatient and decided to act.’

  ‘But you have an alibi,’ I pointed out.

  ‘So they say,’ he said. ‘But it rests on the word of one of the servants. Perhaps I paid the fellow a handsome sum to invent a story and save my own skin. Or perhaps I knew something to his disadvantage and was threatening to reveal the secret if he refused to help me.’

  There was a strange gleam in his eye as he said it and in his demeanour altogether there was something I did not quite understand. Why was he so eager to include himself amongst the list of suspects in the murder of Sir Neville?

  ‘I think you are worrying needlessly,’ I said, ‘but your course of action is quite clear to me. Rosamund needs you at present and it would be a low sort of trick to scoot off back to town now, leaving her to face all this alone.’

  He laughed mirthlessly.

  ‘A low sort of
trick? I know for a certain fact that she would do exactly the same thing to me if the boot were on the other leg. She would never be silly enough to hang about and allow herself to get involved in a scandal if she could save her own skin.’

  I could hardly believe my ears.

  ‘How dare you insult Rosamund like that?’ I demanded angrily.

  ‘Because I know the woman well—almost as well as I know myself. We are as like as two peas, Charles. Why do you think we rub along so well together? We understand each other, she and I.’

  I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable at the turn the conversation had taken.

  ‘I don’t think you understand her as well as you think you do,’ I said stiffly. ‘Remember, I was once engaged to her and the picture you paint is one I don’t recognize at all.’

  Bobs shrugged.

  ‘Have it your own way,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’re right about my staying at Sissingham for now, though.’ He stood up and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Rosamund is a frail little creature who can’t look after herself, Charles,’ he said. ‘She’s tough, that one. She needs to be, too.’

  He then went out and I was left alone with my thoughts, which were anything but happy ones. I was horrified, angry, confused and embarrassed, all at the same time. Oh, how I wished I could go back in time and undo what I had done that morning! Or, better, that I had never come to Sissingham at all. It had led to nothing but misfortune and misery for myself and others. I was furious with Bobs: not only had he stolen the woman I had once—nay, still loved and made me look a fool in the process, he had spoken of her in a cavalier fashion that offended me and did a gross injustice to her. And yet this was the man she had chosen! Could she ever be happy with him? I felt I had been duped and betrayed by my childhood friend, who was only now beginning to show his true colours.