Death Makes a Prophet

by John Bude

  “May I keep this a moment?” asked Meredith.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Good. Now will you ask Mr. Mildmann to come in and have a word with me?”

  “But I don’t…I’m sure he…” Mrs. Summers appeared confused. “Oh, very well then—I’ll fetch him.”

  “Good!” reiterated Meredith, concealing a small, malicious smile.

  The moment the housekeeper had retired, he closely scanned the contents of the programme, noting carefully the various items that were billed. Then, as Terence came in, he slipped the programme quickly into his pocket. After Meredith had explained about the autopsy, he began his cross-examination. The boy’s answers came readily and certainly corroborated all that the housekeeper had already told him. Then they came to the show in the evening.

  “A good programme?” asked Meredith casually.

  “Yes—jolly good.”

  “I see that John Merridew, the Yorkshire comedian was on.”

  “Yes, he was jolly good, too.”

  “And Lou Shelton’s band?”

  “Oh jolly good. Really top-notch.”

  “And what about the juggler chap on the bicycle? I can’t recall his name at the moment. But I’ve seen his act once or twice at the Coliseum.”

  Terence appeared to hesitate a second or so, then he was off again on his eulogistic gallop.

  “Yes—he was frightfully clever, Inspector. Wonderful balance and all that. Jolly good show!”

  Meredith smiled. He pulled out the programme and handed it to Terence.

  “Just cast your eye through that, will you?”

  Terence did so, and when he had fully absorbed the contents of the programme he reddened violently.

  “Well?” rapped out the inspector.

  “I say…that’s queer…I seem to have got a bit muddled. The chap on the bicycle—”

  “Quite!” cut in Meredith. “There was no juggler on a bicycle. Curious, eh? I mean, curious that you should have thought a non-existent artist so thundering good.” His voice hardened. “Now look here, young fellow, you may as well come clean about this. You didn’t go over to Downchester yesterday afternoon with Mrs. Summers. You didn’t see a single item in this variety show. You merely glanced at this programme when Mrs. Summers got back and learnt up a number of details from her to suggest that you made this visit. Unfortunately I succeeded in catching you out first ball of the over. It’s true, isn’t it?” Terence looked down blankly at his bare and brawny knees, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He said nothing. Meredith went on sternly: “For your own sake I advise you to tell me just why you didn’t go to Downchester and what you did during yesterday afternoon and evening.”

  “I didn’t want to go,” muttered Terence sulkily. “So I just stayed back and mooned about the park.”

  “For about nine hours, eh? In the drizzle!”

  “Well, I don’t see why not. I like walking in the rain.”

  “Were you wearing a rain-coat?”

  “Of course.”

  “Could I see the coat?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. It seems a dappy request but you know best. It’s in the hall. I’ll fetch it.”

  A few seconds later Meredith knew that he had solved at least one outstanding problem in the case. Big, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, wearing a belted rain-coat! But what the devil was Terence Mildmann doing by the pond? Bluntly he posed the question. For the second time Terence reddened and remained stubbornly silent.

  Meredith warned him:

  “You realise that if you refuse to give your reasons for all this queer behaviour, young fellow, the police are bound to suspect the worst. I happen to know you were up against your father. That pond is only a few hundred yards from the Dower House. You see the implication?”

  Terence sprang up, goggling.

  “Good Lord, Inspector!—you’re not suggesting that I had anything to do with my father’s death? You can’t be such an outsized cad as that!”

  “Oh, can’t I!” said Meredith grimly. “Unless you’ll be frank with me, I’m bound to suspect anything. Why the devil can’t you come clean about all this?”

  “Because…because I can’t,” said Terence weakly. “I was just mooning about—that’s all. Killing time. I didn’t want my father to know that I hadn’t been to Downchester. I had to hang about until Mrs. Summers returned. You see that?”

  “In a way—yes,” admitted Meredith. “But what did you tell Mrs. Summers in the first place? You must have offered her some excuse.”

  “Naturally. I told her how much I loathed buses and tea-shops and stuffy theatres and all the rest of it. I told her I wanted to go for a thumping long walk. And, as she’s a jolly good sport, of course, she understood.”

  “Just that?” commented Meredith.

  “Just that,” echoed Terence with a challenging look.

  IV

  As Meredith left the lodge, Sid Arkwright came down the track that led to the barn. With Mrs. Hagge-Smith’s evidence fresh in his mind, the inspector took the opportunity to question him about the shooting incident at Welworth. It was in this manner that Meredith first came to hear about the Man in the Teddy-Bear Coat.

  “Was Inspector Duffy convinced that this man had been responsible for the shooting?” asked Meredith.

  “I can’t say, sir. He naturally didn’t tell me much. Anyway, there was never an arrest, so I reckon the inspector got bogged down and had to call it a day. He seemed pretty certain that I got winged in the leg because I happened to be dressed like Mr. Penpeti.”

  “Interesting. And this man, I take it, has never been seen again?”

  Sid looked round quickly, drew Meredith a little further into the barn, and said in a low voice:

  “That’s just where you’re wrong, sir. He has been seen again.”

  “Oh? By whom?”

  “Me,” said Sid.

  “You? When?”

  “About ten days ago, sir, before the convention actually started.”

  “Where?”

  “Well, believe it or not, sir, I’m damned if it wasn’t in that little upstairs sitting-room where Miss Parker was found last night.”

  “The devil it was!” exclaimed Meredith, profoundly interested. “Why the deuce didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Because I couldn’t see that it mattered,” answered Sid simply.

  “And how was it you came to be in that particular room?” demanded Meredith.

  Sid gave a lengthy and detailed explanation of the whole matter, the reason for his visit, his attempt to recover the letters for his employer, his startling encounter with the man in question. Meredith demanded a description. Tall, broad-shouldered, middle-aged, obviously educated. And his hair? Oh, darkish, turning grey at the sides.

  There and then, while Sid respectfully waited, Meredith drew up the following memorandum:

  Man seen by Menthu-Mut—Tall, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, belted rain-coat, hatless.

  Man seen passing gardener’s cottage—Tall, well-built, of middle-age, gentlemanly, soft hat, tweed suit.

  Man seen by Arkwright in girl’s room—Tall, broad-shouldered, of middle-age, educated, darkish hair.

  “One other point, Arkwright,” went on Meredith. “Was this fellow wearing his teddy-bear overcoat when you entered the room?”

  “No, sir. It was lying on the sofa.”

  “Did you notice what sort of suit he was wearing?”

  “Yes—rough tweed affair, it was. Expensive-looking.”

  “What about his hat?”

  “Brown tweed cap, sir. That was on the sofa near his coat.”

  Meredith closed his notebook and slipped it into his pocket. He took up his well-worn attaché-case which he had set down on the running-board of the Daimler.

  “Well, thank heaven
you had the good sense to tell me about this, Arkwright. It may have an important bearing on my line of investigation.” Meredith moved towards the door. “Well, I won’t keep you any longer.”

  In a flash Sid was after him.

  “Half a mo’, Inspector. There’s something else I want to tell you.”

  “Well?”

  “It was about a statement I made this morning. It come to me afterwards that I hadn’t been quite as exact as I should have been, sir.”

  “Oh?”

  “No, sir. I said as the only other person besides Miss Parker ’oo knew about them love-letters was Mr. Penpeti. That’s not true. I didn’t recall this fac’ until after you’d left, Inspector. It was last Saturday week, just after closing-time at The Leaning Man…I was coming back down the Tappin Mallet road when…”

  And there and then Sid told the inspector of Penpeti’s clandestine meeting with the unknown man in the moonlit lane. For the second time Meredith whipped out his notebook and made a series of detailed notes. In particular he found the scraps of conversation overheard by Arkwright by no means the least interesting part of this fresh evidence. Who was this man? Why had Penpeti elected to meet him? And what hold had this mysterious person over the man who was about to be elected High Prophet of this queer religious sect?

  By the time he left the barn, Meredith’s head was full of new and startling theories about the crime. He decided to have a meal at the inn and spend the rest of the evening up in the privacy of his bedroom, trying to make sense out of these apparently unrelated odds and ends of evidence.

  Chapter XVII

  Pow-Wow with Penpeti

  I

  Seated in the commodious but rickety basket-chair in his oak-beamed bedroom after a really excellent meal, Meredith opened his notebook and began his first unhurried analysis of the facts.

  Of two things he now felt sure. (1) Terence Mildmann had been lurking near that pond. He was there for some nefarious purpose, since it was evident that he was hedging on the real reason for not accompanying Mrs. Summers to Downchester. (2) The man whom Arkwright had met up in the Parker girl’s room some ten days before was the same man seen by the gardener and his wife passing their cottage window shortly before ten the previous night. True, on that second occasion, he hadn’t been wearing his teddy-bear overcoat and he had evidently changed his tweed cap for a shooting-hat; but for the rest the two descriptions matched up perfectly. And further, wasn’t it safe to assume that it was this man Hilda had heard upstairs and later in the hall? And further still, wasn’t this the man who had taken a crack at Arkwright in Welworth, when the lad was returning from a fancy-dress dance dressed as Penpeti?

  At once Meredith’s deft mind pounced on another possibility. This man had made an attempt on Arkwright’s life, thinking him to be Penpeti. Did it mean that poor Mildmann had lost his life for the same reason?

  By heaven, it was a plausible assumption! Very plausible! Mildmann had been poisoned, not because he was Mildmann, but because the murderer had believed him to be Penpeti. For some reason this mysterious intruder had a grudge against Penpeti. In the light of all the evidence to date, a very suggestive line of thought. This man was obviously well-acquainted with Penelope Parker. He knew all about her habits and his way about the Dower House. He had known her, without doubt, at Welworth. Was he more than a mere friend or acquaintance? Was he, by any chance, her lover? Or more precisely, had he at one time been her lover? An exalted position he had held in the girl’s life until Penpeti came along and threw a spanner into the works.

  Meredith grinned. The same old motive—jealousy. The same old triangular set-up—two men, one woman. But in this case the most logical of all the theories he could put up. Accept this relationship between the three of them and so much was explained away. The shooting affair in Welworth; the secret visits to the Dower House; perhaps the murder itself. Doubtless Inspector Duffy could help him to make a more precise assessment of this relationship, for during his investigations at Welworth, Duffy had probably unearthed far more information than Arkwright realised.

  Well, The Leaning Man was on the telephone. So was the Borough H.Q. of the Welworth Garden City Police. So what was he waiting for? If he wanted the best information—Duffy had it!

  Ten minutes later Meredith was speaking with Inspector Duffy. He had left H.Q., but the sergeant-on-duty had given him the number of Duffy’s private residence. Luckily the inspector was in.

  He talked well and he talked a lot. A nice stream-lined summary of what he called the “Mayblossom Cut Case”. And when some twenty minutes later Meredith rang off, he knew he had been barking up the right tree. This middle-aged, well-set-up gentleman had visited Penelope Parker, late one night, at her Welworth house. In fact, almost directly after the shooting incident in the Cut! Penpeti, too, had been seen by Duffy himself, paying the girl a visit. Good heavens, yes! It was all lining-up a treat. Duffy was posting off the dossier of the case that night.

  “Right!” thought Meredith, now brimful of mental energy. “Accept two facts. This man in the teddy-bear coat—we’ll call him ‘Ted’ for short—is the murderer. Mildmann was poisoned because Ted thought he was actually Penpeti. Now how does this fit in with the circumstances surrounding the case? First, the murderer must have seen Mildmann in the guise of Penpeti approaching the Dower House. Otherwise how could he have anticipated his arrival? No point about Ted having overheard any conversation between Arkwright and his employer about the proposed visit. If he’d done that, he’d have known that Mildmann wasn’t Penpeti. No—somehow he must have spotted the disguised Mildmann coming towards the house. But is this possible? Accept Hilda’s evidence and the answer is definitely ‘Yes’. It was for this reason that Ted nipped out via the french-windows. Precisely! And if he’d nipped out through the french-windows, he couldn’t have nipped back up the stairs and poisoned the sherry. There just wouldn’t have been time to do this and get clear before Mildmann was in the room. Besides, the Parker girl wouldn’t have stood there quite calmly, while Ted dashed in, doped the sherry and dashed out again. So what? The theory’s a dud. Unless, of course, the Parker girl told him that Penpeti was coming to visit her that evening. But, confound it, he wasn’t! Only Mildmann dressed as Penpeti. And the girl didn’t even know that Mildmann was going to visit her. So that theory also went up in smoke. Just one other possibility, eh? Ted doctored the sherry on the off-chance that, sooner or later, Penpeti would turn up and take a swig of the stuff. Umph—not worth a second thought. Too chancy. Too indefinite. After all, the girl might have taken a drink immediately after Ted’s departure. Result—instantaneous death. Body discovered. Sherry found to be poisoned and removed before Penpeti ever came near the damned decanter. So the theory that Ted had murdered Mildmann, thinking him to be Penpeti, was a wash-out. Cul-de-sac! Boomp! Just like that!”

  Meredith pattered off on a new scent.

  “Suppose Ted’s intention was simply to murder the girl and that Mildmann’s death was merely an unfortunate P.S. to the main plot? Quite. I’ve thought of this before. Objection to acceptance? Simply this—if Mildmann’s death were accidental, why the devil had he troubled to put on his gloves once inside the Dower House? So I’m back where I started, eh? Mildmann poisoned the sherry in order to kill the girl and then committed suicide. This means that Ted merely sneaked into the house to see Penelope, had a talk with her, crept down the stairs, saw Mildmann approaching the house and cleared out through the french-windows. Ted didn’t tamper with the sherry at all. Well, what about it? The most common-sense of all explanations to date. No need to evolve elaborate reasons for the lack of Ted’s finger-prints on the decanter. They weren’t there for the simple reason that Ted didn’t touch the decanter.”

  Meredith sighed, burrowed deeper into his basket-chair and idly watched his pipe-smoke mounting to the ceiling. So he was back where he had started and progress in the case was, precisely, nil! No—that wa
s wrong. Surely he had now identified and vindicated two persons whom he might have considered as possible suspects—Terence Mildmann and this mysterious friend of Penelope’s. Although both had been seen near the locale of the crime on the evening of the double tragedy, neither could, according to the available evidence, be implicated. What Terence was doing by that pond at nine o’clock on a wet night, the Lord only knew! Why that other fellow had broken into the Dower House and waylaid the Parker girl…well, the Lord only knew that, too! But the answers to these teasing questions didn’t matter a damn. They were quite irrelevant. What mattered was this—it now left Eustace Mildmann as the only possible suspect. And he’d already half-convinced himself that Mildmann couldn’t have done it. After all, if Mildmann were to be accepted as the murderer, then the motive for the crime was obviously the recovery of the letters. Penelope had refused to hand them over, so Mildmann had slyly poisoned the sherry, persuaded her to take a drink, waited until she collapsed, broken into her desk and removed the letter-case. A drastic bit of skullduggery, to say the least of it, when he could have bound and gagged the girl whilst rifling the desk. So even the motive seemed a thin one. But what followed seemed even more illogical. Having recovered the letters, Mildmann suddenly decided to commit suicide. But, in heaven’s name, why? The whole business just didn’t add up. Why take such care to leave no finger-prints when, ten minutes after the crime, he knew he’d be a dead man? What had he done with his gloves? Why had he succumbed far more slowly to the effects of the prussic acid than the girl? Yet, unless he had entered the Dower House without intention to murder the girl, why had he carried the poison phial on his person?