Crossword Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “I think Mr. Owen means the police may suspect us all. I think he is quite right. I expect they will. I expect it will be their first idea.” She looked down steadily at the long, crimson trail their eyes were all otherwise a little apt to avoid. “I suppose, whoever did it, there would be blood on his clothes most likely. The police will want to be sure there’s no blood on anything belonging to us.”

  “Oh, that’s all rot,” Colin repeated, though with less assurance. He looked angrily and doubtfully at Bobby. “There’s no blood on anything of mine, anyhow.”

  “But there was dew on your shoes,” Bobby said slowly. “It may be that means as much.”

  Colin made a quick movement, and for a moment Bobby thought he was going to attack him. But if Colin had had that intention he mastered himself and turned away, muttering angrily. Bobby said:

  “We’ve got to use the ’phone, though. That ought to have been done before.” He looked round. Cooper was still sitting on the doorsteps, looking very white and ill, but his wife made him a sudden gesture and he stood up and came a step or two towards them and then stood still again. He seemed indeed, Bobby thought, the most affected of them all. To Colin, Bobby said: “I’m going into the house to ring up the police and a doctor. I will ask you and Mrs. Cooper to stay here. You will be a guarantee, each of you, that neither of you touches the body. If Cooper will come into the house with me, he and I will each guarantee that neither of us touches anything but the ’phone.”

  “You seem to think you’ve got to do it all,” Colin said to him ill-temperedly.

  “I was the first to find the body,” Bobby answered. “As you said, my window is just above, and I heard nothing. I think, in a way, it is my job.”

  “What kept you awake?” Mrs. Cooper said to him, and he thought there was a slight touch of suspicion in her voice.

  “Oh, you know, those scones,” he answered; “very jolly and all that, but I thought they might touch off that tooth of mine, and so they did. Not awfully bad, but I didn’t sleep.”

  “Oh, well, have it your own way,” Colin said, ignoring the toothache and referring to the arrangement Bobby had suggested. As Bobby turned away, Colin added quite loudly to Mrs. Cooper, so loudly that Bobby was sure he was meant to hear: “Do you think he had toothache really, or is he putting that on?”

  Mrs. Cooper did not answer and Bobby made no sign of having heard. He went into the house, followed by Cooper, who still went unsteadily and stumbling, almost like a drunken man.

  “Pull yourself together,” Bobby told him sharply.

  “It’s his hair,” Cooper muttered, “grey hair, all... all over... grey hair that’s all bloody now.”

  “I’m going to ring up to get help,” Bobby said.

  In the hall he took down an overcoat from the hatstand and gave it to Cooper, who was shivering violently and seemed very cold.

  “You had better put that on,” he said.

  They crossed the hall and entered the study. Bobby went across to the door that led into the garden. He did not touch it, but he could see that it was not locked and that the bolts were drawn. Presumably that was how Mr. Winterton had left the house. Bobby went to the ’phone and rang up first the police and then a doctor whose name Cooper gave him.

  That done, they went out again to join the other two in their vigil by the body. Mrs. Cooper had procured from the garage a motor-rug, with which she had covered the body.

  “I couldn’t leave the poor gentleman lying there like that,” she said when Bobby rejoined them.

  Bobby made no comment. Cooper went back to his seat on the front door steps. Mrs. Cooper took her place at the dead man’s head and stood there, composed and grave, still with her air of lending a touch of dignity to the crude brutality of the scene. Colin paced restlessly up and down along the gravel path. Bobby occupied himself making a careful examination of the lawn along the path traced by those footsteps in the dew that the sun had made to vanish before his eyes. He found nothing; if any signs existed, they were too slight or hidden for him to distinguish. None of them spoke. Presently a boy arrived with milk from a neighbouring farm. Mrs. Cooper told him to leave it at the kitchen door, and, afterwards he ran, wide-eyed and excited, with news that there had been an “accident” at Fairview. When the doctor arrived, there was already a little crowd clustered at the entrance to the drive where Bobby had told them they must wait. There was nothing the doctor could do except estimate from the appearance of the body that the blow on the head must have been almost instantaneously fatal, that the knife-thrust had been inflicted afterwards, and that death had probably occurred about one or two in the morning.

  Soon after that two cars arrived, containing Major Markham and his assistants, and with them, as Bobby saw with some relief, his own chief, Superintendent Mitchell, who had been spending the night at a local hotel and for whom Major Markham had called on his way.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mary Raby’s Story

  The investigation was soon in full swing. Photographers were busy; finger-print experts busier still; sketches were made; careful measurements taken of everything measurable. The victim’s body was subjected to a meticulous examination. Of the lawn, an even more careful and minute examination was made, and a careful search was instituted in the hope of finding the weapon used to inflict the injuries on the head. Bobby’s precaution in neither allowing the body to be touched nor in permitting either himself or any of the others to re-enter the house received official approval; and in the house itself a close inspection was organised, inch by inch almost.

  But this had not been in force very long before Superintendent Mitchell came out to where were standing the two Coopers with Bobby, who for his part felt his position a little anomalous, not quite sure whether he was to consider himself investigator or investigatee. Mitchell said to them:

  “One room seems to be locked on the inside. We can’t get the door open; it’s the room at the corner there; that last window ought to belong to it.”

  “That’s Mr. Winterton’s own room,” Mrs. Cooper explained at once. “The poor gentleman must have locked it behind him when he came out here.”

  “It’s locked on the inside,” Mitchell repeated.

  “I don’t see how it. could be,” Mrs. Cooper said doubtfully. “Not on the inside.”

  “Not unless someone’s hiding there,” suggested Colin, who had been pacing restlessly up and down the garden paths but had now come up to join them.

  Mrs. Cooper looked very startled; her husband looked more like fainting than ever. Mitchell stared at Colin doubtfully.

  “What makes you think that?” he asked.

  “Well, if the door’s locked on the inside...” Colin replied and left it at that.

  “I helped Mr. Winterton to wedge his window securely last night,” Bobby said. “I heard him lock the door behind him after I said good night. I tried it again this morning, as soon as I saw what had happened when I looked out of my window. His door was still locked.”

  Mitchell looked very thoughtful. The locked door evidently puzzled him. Mrs. Cooper was looking puzzled, too, and Bobby thought there was some suspicion in the glances she was giving him. Colin repeated obstinately, but not with much conviction:

  “Well, if it’s right the door’s locked on the inside... well, then, there must be someone inside.”

  Mitchell, still looking thoughtful, went back into the house, and came out again at once with Major Markham and one or two others. They asked for a ladder, and Cooper took them round to the outhouse, where one was kept.

  While they were thus engaged, Mary Raby – whose absence Bobby had noticed by now, for, though in the first shock of his discovery he had not thought of her, he had since remarked that she had not yet made her appearance – came to the entrance to the drive. The policeman on duty there, holding back the little, awestruck, curious crowd gathered to stare and chat and whisper together, did not at first want to let her through, but did so when she explained she was
one of the household and her position in it. Bobby went to meet her as she hurried up the drive, and she called out quickly:

  “Is it true? Is it really true? I’ve only just heard... it isn’t really...

  She paused, for she had caught sight of the still form upon the lawn – decently covered now, but of unmistakable significance.

  “Oh, how did it happen? Who did it?” she asked, speaking almost to herself in low, stammering tones.

  “They’re trying to find out,” Bobby answered. “It’s a bad business.”

  He wondered how it was she had been so long in hearing of what had happened, but he supposed that he had better leave the question to be put by those in charge.

  Major Markham and Superintendent Mitchell came back, with two of their men carrying the ladder they had been for. They put it in position, and Bobby, leaving Miss Raby, went across to Mitchell and told him of his vigil on the threshold of the room the night before; and explained, too, how he had wedged the window. Considerable force had, indeed, to be used to get it open, even to the extent of smashing some of the woodwork. Then the officer who had done this descended again, and Mitchell, with Major Markham following him, climbed up in his place and through into the room.

  Those on the lawn waited expectantly, half anticipating the sounds of a struggle to show the criminal had been discovered hiding there. But nothing happened, and the two investigators could be seen moving quietly to and fro inside the room. Colin said:

  “There is no one there; not likely there would be; all bunk that the door was locked inside.”

  “It can’t have been if there was no one there,” Mrs. Cooper agreed.

  “Well, it was,” Bobby said, with emphasis.

  “How can it have been if no one was there?” Miss Raby asked;

  and again Bobby thought Mrs. Cooper looked at him doubtfully and suspiciously.

  Some of Major Markham’s men came up, and removed Mr. Winterton’s body to the garage, which had been hastily made ready for its temporary reception, and then a message came that the members of the household were at liberty to return indoors, as the preliminary investigation was now complete. A suggestion Mrs. Cooper made that she should prepare breakfast was very favourably received. Mrs. Adams and the day-girl, Jane, hitherto held up with the rest of the crowd at the entrance to the drive, were permitted to come through to help Mrs. Cooper, now busy in the kitchen. Her husband even yet hardly seemed recovered from the shock of what had happened, and was of little use. Bobby, receiving no instructions, retired to his own room – where he found proof that it had not escaped the swift search made by the investigators – and busied himself writing a full report. Miss Raby, after attempting to enter the study, and finding it had been adopted as police headquarters, went to sit in the drawing-room, where she was presently joined by Colin, who, more from habit than for any other reason, had brought with him his Ruff’s Guide, and sat by the window with it on his knees, but without opening it.

  Presently the finger-print experts appeared to ask if they had any objection to their impressions being taken, and, none of them caring to object, the ceremony was duly gone through, though Colin grumbled that of course all their finger-prints must be all over the house – why not? The finger-print experts explained it was just a formality, and agreed cheerfully when Colin observed that it was a – qualified – formality. Those of the Coopers, of Bobby, of Mrs. Adams, and of the day-girl had been taken, and Miss Raby was about to undergo the same experience when certain savoury smells announced that breakfast was ready.

  Mrs. Cooper had prepared it on a liberal scale. It was done full justice to, and Mrs. Cooper’s popularity in official circles became remarkable. Bobby thought he had no appetite, but discovered he had when he put it to the test. Colin, however, contented himself with copious draughts of strong tea he strengthened still further, Bobby noticed, from a private flask, and a little dry toast he left almost untasted on his plate. Miss Raby, too, showed small disposition for food, though she seemed glad of the tea she was offered, and Jane, trying to tempt her with some crisp, fried ham, remarked that Mr. Cooper, too, wouldn’t touch a thing till Mrs. Cooper fair made him, and all the better for it he was, too.

  One by one they were summoned into the study, to tell what they knew and to answer the innumerable questions put them. All the time, too, the telephone bell kept ringing, so that one of Major Markham’s plain-clothes men was kept almost continually busy answering it. Early in the afternoon there arrived, in a big, fast car, a round little man in horn-rimmed spectacles, who was, Bobby learnt, Mr. Waring, the solicitor who had acted both for George Winterton and for his brother, Archibald. He disappeared into the study, and was there a long time, talking to Major Markham. Miss Raby and Bobby were the only two of the household who had not yet been asked for their statements, and, while they were waiting, Miss Raby said to Bobby:

  “You know I wasn’t at home last night. I suppose I had better say so at once.”

  “I wondered why you seemed rather late in coming,” Bobby answered. “Of course, you mustn’t try to hide anything.”

  “No,” she agreed. “The car broke down. Miles had to take the engine nearly to bits.”

  “Miles?” Bobby repeated. “You mean Miles Winterton, Mr. Winterton’s other nephew?” When she nodded, he said gravely: “If Mr. Miles Winterton was near here last night, you ought to say so at once; he ought to have come along himself. It would make a very bad impression if it was thought he was keeping away on purpose.”

  “I don’t expect he knows anything about it yet,” she answered quickly, but with a note of hesitation, almost of fear, in her voice, so that Bobby thought he detected in her a hidden apprehension, one of which she herself was perhaps not yet wholly conscious, but that all the same was ready at any moment to leap into full growth.

  “Does she know something, or is it just that she’s afraid?” he asked himself. “Is it for herself she’s afraid; is it for her reputation, or is it – is it for Miles Winterton, because of what’s happened here... for him, or of him?”

  For it was a fact that might be of very strange significance if Miles Winterton had really been in the vicinity of Suffby Cove during the night. There had been, Bobby knew, some bad feeling between uncle and nephew, and now this looked as if identity could be proved – “identity,” that is, in the sense of identity of time and place between the suspect and the crime.

  She saw how he was looking at her, and understood something of what was passing through his mind, though not all. She said quickly:

  “I don’t want you to misunderstand me. Miles and I have been engaged quite a long time, and some friends I have, who live not very far away on the Ipswich road, know about us. I’ve met Miles there other times, after Mr. Winterton made a fuss about us, and last night we were all there together till quite late. I slept with my friend. They have only two bedrooms; she has one and her mother has the other, and I shared hers.”

  “Where did Mr. Miles Winterton go?” Bobby could not help asking, though he knew it was not his place to question her.

  “He said he would be all right in the car,” she answered, in a low, uneasy voice. “It’s not his own; he borrows it from a friend; it is very big, with lots of room. It was parked at the bottom of the orchard, and he said it would do ever so nicely. It was a lovely night, quite fine and warm. We were to start early, so as to get back here without anyone knowing.”

  “Didn’t Mrs. Adams know?” Bobby asked.

  “Oh, yes, but she promised not to say anything. She said it would be all right. She said it was a shame I couldn’t see Miles oftener, and she would do just the same in my place. Only, then, when we were coming back, the car stopped and wouldn’t go, and it took Miles ever so long to get it right again. He said it was very old, and nearly worn out.”

  The story was probable enough. It might not be difficult to obtain corroboration for it. But accepting it implied that Miles could very well have journeyed hither in the night and done – what ha
d been done, and returned again to the orchard behind the cottage of Mary Raby’s friend, and none have known it. Then, too, he knew the house and his uncle’s ways, and it might have been possible for him, as it would not have been for a stranger, to entice Mr. Winterton out into the garden.

  It looked bad enough to Bobby, almost as if the solution lay there. Only there were points unexplained. The theory of Miles Winterton’s guilt did not seem as yet to make a coherent whole. But when they knew more – The small quiet voice of Mary Raby broke upon his thoughts. She had read them clearly, perhaps because of a certain correspondence with her own. She said, with a kind of controlled passion:

  “He didn’t do it; he never did.”

  “Well, tell them everything, but don’t tell them that,” Bobby said. “To declare a man is innocent is as good as saying that you know others think him guilty.”

  A policeman opened the study door, and came up to them. “Major Markham’s compliments,” he said, “and might he have the pleasure of seeing Miss Mary Raby now?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Certain Evidence

  It was a long time before Miss Raby emerged from the study, and when she did her bearing showed very plainly how trying she had found the ordeal. She said to Bobby as she passed him:

  “It’s not fair to talk about Miles. I’m sure he doesn’t even know yet. Why should he?” She added: “There’s a crossword puzzle I ought to send the Daily Announcer to-night, and I can’t even think. Shall I send them poor Mr. Winterton’s instead? That one he was working on, you know.”

  Bobby saw that in the reaction of her relief at escaping from the close questioning to which she had been subjected, she was on the point of breaking down and becoming hysterical. He took her into the drawing-room, which was fortunately unoccupied, and made her lie down on the sofa, and then sent Mrs. Cooper to her with a cup of strong tea.