The Murder at Sissingham Hall

by Clara Benson

  Of course, I had always known that Bobs occasionally took a morally dubious view of things but I had always put it down to natural high spirits, never thinking for a moment that he would ever do anything seriously wrong. I felt that I hardly knew the man. Was this what Sylvia had meant when she warned me that after having been away for eight years I might find that people had changed beyond recognition? Perhaps she had been wiser than I knew. I felt a stab of sorrow at the thought that Rosamund had trusted Bobs enough to place herself in his power. He had promised to marry her once she had freed herself from Sir Neville, but could she rely upon him to keep his promise? She had taken an enormous risk—one that involved the public shame of lengthy divorce proceedings with no guarantee of a husband at the end of it. It all seemed terribly uncertain to me. How, for example, did Bobs stand to gain from marrying a divorced woman? He was his own master but there was no denying that his family would be against the match given his future destiny as a peer of the realm. And there would be public disapproval, no doubt: the newspapers, for example, would surely have many things to say on the matter.

  I am ashamed to say that at that moment, a thought began to form at the back of my mind—a thought which I quashed immediately but not before an insidious voice in my head had painted an all-too-clear picture of the much more lenient view the public would take of the heir to a viscountcy’s marrying a widow rather than a divorcée. I put the idea firmly out of my mind. My oldest friend had disappointed me greatly, but I would not think that of him.

  I drew myself up straight. My way forward was clear: I must fix things with Rosamund and try to restore our friendship to what it had been before my earlier blunder so that, when the time came—and I doubted not that it would—she should know that she could turn to me for help and succour. The best thing to do, I reflected, would be to write her a note. Having resolved upon a course of action, I immediately felt better. I should apologize for my clumsiness and take my leave to save embarrassment on both sides, whilst making it clear to her that I should be always at her disposal if she needed me. Then I should depart quietly from the house with as little fuss as possible, ready to return if needed. I took up a pen and paper and spent some time deep in thought, then wrote as follows:

  My dearest Rosamund,

  I write in the hope that you will forgive me for what I have done, although you could hardly be blamed for thinking it unforgiveable. Believe me, I should never, even in my wildest moments, have dreamt of acting as I did, had I not in my heart of hearts been convinced that my place was by your side. Now that I have had time to reflect, I can clearly see my mistake—it was very wrong of me to assume that the only thing standing in the way of our reunion was your husband. I failed completely to consider your own feelings and for that I beg your pardon.

  And now, it seems that the only thing for me to do is to free you from my unwelcome presence, although of course this cannot wholly make amends for what I have done. When I am gone and you look back on the events of the past few days, I hope that you will think of me kindly as a friend—albeit a misguided one in so many ways.

  Your devoted servant always,

  Charles

  I read it through and then signed it. It was short but to the point. I had never found it easy to express my thoughts on paper and rather than get tangled up in long, wordy phrases that might read badly and thus hinder my cause, I judged it wisest to be as brief as possible.

  I had just sealed the envelope when the bell rang for lunch, so I decided to wait until after that meal before delivering the note and taking my departure. To my relief, Rosamund did not appear at the table, having sent word that she had a headache and intended to rest in her room for an hour or two. Angela Marchmont arrived a little late, as she had just come from Mrs. MacMurray’s side. There had been no change in Gwen’s condition, she said: she was still unconscious and being looked after by her maid and Dr. Carter. Mrs. Marchmont said little during the meal: her face wore a strangely dark expression, mingled with a hint of sadness. Bobs, meanwhile, was in fine spirits, which I felt was rather inappropriate given the presence of a dying woman in the house. As it was such a fine sunny day he wanted to get out of the house, he said, and suggested that he take Sylvia, Joan and Simon Gale out in his car for a tour of the countryside.

  ‘The ’bus wants an airing,’ he said, ‘and I’m tired of sticking around the house all day. And I’ve never properly made it up to you, Gale, for running you into that ditch on our arrival. You must let me show you how a real motor goes—my word, it throws that old pile of rusty metal of Neville’s into the shade.’

  Gale looked somewhat alarmed, as well he might.

  ‘I’m not sure that—’ he began.

  ‘Oh do let’s, Simon,’ said Joan. ‘It’s a beautiful day and it will do us all good to get out of the house. I’d like to forget my woes for a few hours and I’m sure you would too.’

  ‘Yes, it sounds a marvellous idea,’ agreed Sylvia. ‘And don’t worry about Bobs’s driving, Simon. I shall undertake to ensure that he drives safely and that we return in one piece.’

  ‘Once again, dear sister, I see the triumph of hope over experience in your eyes,’ began Bobs, then stopped at a warning look from Sylvia, for Gale was beginning to turn rather white. ‘Come now, I promise I shall conduct myself as one conveying a maiden aunt to prayer,’ he went on hurriedly.

  ‘Oh do come, Simon,’ said Joan.

  Gale was eventually persuaded that he would not be putting his life in mortal peril by getting into a motor-car with Bobs and after some bustle, the party set off cheerfully. Angela Marchmont had disappeared—I supposed to resume her vigil over Gwen MacMurray. For my account I was pleased, as it meant that I should be able to effect my own departure with little fanfare. I had decided that I should take the path over the fields to the station and send for my bags later, thus avoiding any awkward leave-taking scenes and maintaining at least some of my dignity.

  I went upstairs and pushed my note under Rosamund’s door, not without some trepidation, then repaired to my room to pack up my belongings. The house was silent, seemingly empty, and I was visited by a sudden desire to get out as soon as was humanly possible. Packing complete, I looked round to make sure I had not forgotten anything and remembered that I had left my pen in the library before lunch. It had belonged to my father and was one of the few mementoes I had of him, so I had no wish to lose it. I passed along the landing towards the stairs and, as I did so, thought I heard the sound of a door opening softly. I turned but saw nothing. Perhaps I had imagined it.

  I hurried downstairs and made my way to the library, where I found my pen still lying on the desk. I put it in my pocket and was just about to leave when the door opened and someone entered. It was Rosamund.

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘Hallo,’ I said awkwardly.

  She said nothing but stood with her back to the door, eyes narrowed, as though calculating something.

  ‘Angela says that Hugh didn’t murder Neville at all, and that he will be released soon,’ she said finally. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘She did seem quite certain that he was innocent but I don’t know why she thinks he will be released. Surely that depends on the police.’

  ‘Do you think he did it?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think any more,’ I replied frankly. ‘First we thought it was an accident, then Gale went and made an ass of himself, then after all that MacMurray got himself arrested. And now Angela seems to think that Gwen didn’t try to kill herself at all but was attacked by someone else, which means that our mysterious murderer is still at large. It seems as though we are all still under suspicion.’

  ‘But they can’t arrest anybody without proof, can they? That’s the trouble with all this—there’s no proof,’ she said.

  I nodded.

  ‘It seems so,’ I said. ‘I think Hugh MacMurray was arrested pretty much on the strength of one hand-print and a weak alibi but of course any decent defence
counsel will simply say that nobody knows when that hand-print was put there. He could have leant against the French windows at any time. There’s nothing to say he did it on the night of the murder. My feeling is that the police arrested him in the hope of getting a confession out of him but if he doesn’t oblige then they have nothing to build a case on. I am starting to think that this will never be solved, and that we will all remain under suspicion for the rest of our lives. It’s damnable.’

  ‘Yes. If only I could put all this behind me and begin afresh,’ she murmured, almost as though talking to herself.

  Her words reminded me of Bobs’s revelation of that morning and my heart sank. I had forgotten that she and Bobs had already planned their future together, and that I should once more have to retreat into the background, overlooked and unthought-of.

  ‘If there were only some proof, or even a confession, then there would be no more doubt, would there?’ she went on in a louder tone.

  ‘I suppose not,’ I said, wondering what she was getting at.

  Rosamund moved away from the door and advanced towards the desk, scrutinizing me closely, as though trying to read something in my face. I began to feel more and more puzzled. At length, she appeared to reach some kind of resolution.

  She turned away, and her next words astounded me.

  ‘Do the police know that you were tried for murder in South Africa?’ she asked, picking a book from the shelf and leafing through its pages idly.

  The suddenness of the question took my breath away, and for a moment I was unable to answer.

  ‘How—how—’ I stammered eventually.

  ‘How did I know about that?’ she said. ‘That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? From Neville, of course.’

  ‘He told you?’

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ she replied. ‘You’ll think it awful of me, but I just happened to find a telegram on his desk when I was rummaging one day. Your name caught my eye, and before I could stop myself I found I had read the whole thing!’ She opened her eyes wide and smiled her most beguiling smile. ‘Simply dreadful of me, wasn’t it?’

  She looked almost pleased.

  ‘So,’ she went on. ‘Does the inspector know or not?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, at last.

  ‘Then he’s spoken to you about it,’ she said. ‘What did he say? Didn’t he think it suspicious? I mean, the fact that there’s been a murder in the house, and that one of the guests was once tried for killing someone else?’

  I started. Was it possible that Rosamund believed me capable of murdering her husband? I opened my mouth to protest, but she paid no heed.

  ‘And of course, you had a very strong motive,’ she said, lowering her eyes modestly. ‘After all, you did tell me so yourself.’

  ‘Rosamund!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘So they could hardly be blamed for thinking you did it, could they? Especially if some other evidence came to light.’

  ‘What other evidence?’

  She came forward and put her hand on my arm.

  ‘Come, Charles, you don’t need to pretend to me,’ she said persuasively. ‘You know what the police will say. They’ll say that you were still in love with me and so you decided to put Neville out of the way. You went into the study, hit him on the head and rearranged his body to try and make it look as though he had fallen accidentally and hit his head. Of course, I knew nothing about it—I should have been horrified if I’d had any idea you were planning such a thing. Poor Neville! I see now that it was my own fault, for letting you think—well, perhaps I do lead people on a little. It’s a very bad habit of mine, I know, but I do so like to be liked. Will you believe me, Charles, when I say I never meant this to happen?’

  My legs felt suddenly weak. I could hardly believe my ears.

  ‘You don’t really believe that, surely,’ I said, when I finally found my voice. ‘You can’t really think I killed Sir Neville—you, of all people.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But it doesn’t matter what I think, does it? If the police believe you did it and can find some evidence, then that’s enough.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous. There is no evidence.’

  ‘Oh, you never know what might turn up,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘And,’ I went on more firmly, ‘I have an alibi, just as you do.’

  ‘Yes, I do, don’t I?’ she said, as though the idea were a novel one. ‘But I wonder how long it will take for the police to realize their mistake, now that they have decided Hugh is innocent.’

  ‘What mistake?’

  ‘Why, the time of the murder, of course! Once they see that it wasn’t Hugh who did it, they’ll realize that their times are all wrong. Then they’ll turn their attention to you and me, Charles.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

  She gave a sigh of impatience.

  ‘How slow you are sometimes! If it wasn’t Hugh in the study impersonating Neville at a quarter to eleven, then who was it? That’s what they’ll be asking themselves.’

  ‘Why, I don’t know. It’s a mystery, since everyone else is accounted for.’

  ‘Yes, as you say, everyone is accounted for. They were all in the drawing-room at the time. The police know that.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, silly, that means that you and I are the next suspects. Don’t you see? There’s only our word for it that anybody spoke to us through the door at all. If you assume for a moment that we were wrong, or lying—and that’s what the police will do—then there’s no proof at all that Neville was still alive at a quarter to eleven. He could have died much earlier than that—at any time after about nine o’clock in fact, when he went to his study. And how many of us have an alibi for that period?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, surprised, as I considered this new angle. ‘I see what you mean. I don’t remember exactly what I was doing, but I’m sure I left the drawing-room at least once. Other people probably did too. The police will have to start looking into all the alibis again.’

  Rosamund shook her head.

  ‘The only alibis they will look into are ours,’ she said. ‘Don’t you understand? What motive could we possibly have for lying about hearing a voice in the study, if not a guilty one?’

  ‘But Rosamund, that’s absurd. Of course you made a mistake. Surely you can convince the inspector of what you heard through the door. We know now that I didn’t hear anything, but surely you couldn’t have been so badly mistaken.’

  Rosamund looked at me pityingly.

  ‘My dear idiot, of course I wasn’t mistaken,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet? There never was any voice through the door.’

  I stared.

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘I know what I said, but it wasn’t true, Charles. I was lying. I thought you would have realized that long ago, but it seems not.’ She began to laugh. ‘I knew it was a risky thing to do, but I never dreamed you would be taken in by it as beautifully as you were. Thank you, darling, for protecting me so innocently. You’ve been a great help to me.’

  ‘A great help?’ I repeated stupidly. My head was beginning to whirl.

  ‘Of course. If it hadn’t been for you backing me up, I should be the main suspect now, and that would be such a bore. I might even be in prison, and you know that would never do.’

  ‘But, Rosamund, even if I hadn’t supported your story, surely the police wouldn’t suspect you of the murder?’

  ‘Well they’d be awful fools if they didn’t,’ she said simply, ‘since it was me who did it.’

  There was a pause, then I laughed in disbelief.

  ‘You oughtn’t to joke about things like that,’ I said. ‘With the police snooping around, someone might overhear you and take it seriously.’

  Rosamund regarded me thoughtfully.

  ‘Do you know, Charles,’ she said, ‘I’ve often suspected you were blind where I was concerned, and now I see I was right. I wonder what I should have to do to make you believe anything bad of me.’


  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, darling, that either you are frightfully stupid or I have been frightfully clever. And I’m not at all sure that it’s the latter.’

  ‘That’s rather unkind of you,’ I said, stung.

  ‘Is it? I’m merely saying what I think. I’m trying to tell you the truth about what happened, and you won’t believe me.’

  ‘Of course I don’t believe you,’ I said.

  She pouted.

  ‘But I want to tell you about it. I’ve been bursting to tell someone about it for days, but there’s no-one else to tell. Bobs would make a fuss and anyone else would go straight to the police. I know I can trust you not to say anything.’

  ‘Bobs would make a fuss?’ I was momentarily distracted at the mention of his name.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she exclaimed. ‘I know he’s done some odd things in the past, but I think even he would raise his eyebrows at murder.’

  ‘Rosamund, why didn’t you tell me about you and Bobs?’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling, but I thought everybody knew. I was sure Bobs would have told you, at least.’

  ‘He didn’t. Not until today, at any rate. And you let me go ahead and make a fool of myself,’ I said bitterly.

  ‘Perhaps, but you did it splendidly,’ she replied with a laugh.

  I was past laughing. I was depressed and humiliated and wanted nothing more than to leave as soon as possible.

  ‘I must go,’ I said.

  ‘But you haven’t heard how I killed Neville yet,’ she said.

  I stared, thunderstruck. Could it really be true?

  ‘I thought you were joking,’ I said.

  ‘Of course I wasn’t joking. What an extraordinary idea! But I must say I think I pulled it off rather well in the circumstances.’

  ‘But how could you possibly have done it? There wasn’t time. Even if, as you say, Sir Neville was killed before a quarter to eleven, I’m sure nobody left the room for more than a few minutes. Yes, I remember now—you were dancing with everybody that evening.’

  ‘Yes, but that was afterwards. I did it before that.’