Comes a Stranger

by E. R. Punshon

  “He didn’t much mind whether it was strong or weak, but he made a fuss if it wasn’t hot enough,” she said.

  “On this occasion,” Major Harley asked the maid, “there was nothing said about wanting fresh tea because the other had gone cold?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” the maid answered. “Miss Perkins only said he wasn’t finished yet.”

  “Were those her actual words, what she actually said?” the Major asked, a little slowly, and he and Bobby exchanged uncomfortable glances.

  “Yes, sir, that’s what she said,” the girl answered. “So I took her cup and went away.”

  “That would be about half past four?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Miss Perkins had drunk her tea, I suppose.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I don’t quite see,” observed the Major thoughtfully. “how she knew Mr. Broast hadn’t finished his tea, when she says in her statement that after taking him his cup, she didn’t go into the library again till five.”

  “Miss Perkins was in the library when I came to clear,” the maid told him. “She wasn’t in her own room, so I knocked at the library door—Mr. Broast didn’t like you going in and interrupting—and she came out and said that about he wasn’t finished yet.”

  “Ah, yes,” the Major said heavily, and the hand with which he held the paper before him shook a little.

  He asked one or two more questions about the supply of strychnine which apparently the whole household knew was kept in the library basement for use as a rat poison. So far as the maid knew, it had not been employed for some considerable time, two or three years perhaps, as the rats had been either exterminated, or, with their uncanny instinct, thought it better to seek less dangerous haunts. She agreed everyone knew the poison was there and where it was kept, in a tin box secured by a padlock. An ordinary tin box and an ordinary padlock so far as she knew, but plainly marked ‘Poison’ in big white letters, so no one could make a mistake. She remembered having seen the box once, though her duties seldom took her into the library, and she was completely and absolutely certain that not a single grain of strychnine had ever been brought out of the library into the dwelling quarters of the house, for any reason or on any pretext whatever.

  The girl was dismissed and Major Harley referred again to the telegram that had just arrived.

  “We had better see what Miss Perkins has to say,” he remarked, and then, looking a little worried: “Owen,” he said, “Briggs states he saw Miss Kayne going to the library?”

  “Yes, sir. I think she’s there now,” Bobby answered.

  “Better go along ourselves then,” the Major said. “What’s she doing there?”

  No one answered this inquiry, and the three of them, Harley, Killick, Bobby, went together down the corridor leading to the door that separated the library annexe from the house proper, and that admitted into the small ante-room where Miss Perkins sat day in and day out behind the big writing table, busy with her typewriter.

  She was there now, very much occupied evidently, for as they drew near they could hear the swift, impersonal rattle of the machine as the lettering levers rose and fell, as the carriage was banged to its starting point. When they entered she looked up, executing a final fanfare on the machine.

  “The work must go on,” she said.

  “Some door,” Killick remarked to Bobby, struck by its size and weight.

  “Fireproof,” Bobby explained, “The one to the library proper is stronger still.”

  “Is Miss Kayne here?” the Major asked. “Have you seen her?”

  “She came in a few minutes ago. She went through to the library,” Miss Perkins answered. “Oh, I’m so sorry, but I do Wonder who will sign the letters now. I asked Miss Kayne when she came in and she said ‘No one’, but no one can’t Sign letters, can they? Only you see this is an important one, because it’s about something someone thought mightn’t be genuine, and it’s worth a Lot of money, only not if it isn’t, is it?”

  “Can you smell something,” Bobby asked Killick.

  “Burning garden stuff probably,” Killick remarked, sniffing at the air.

  Bobby said to Miss Perkins:

  “You mean a forgery? something in the library?”

  “Oh, No,” answered Miss Perkins with her accustomed giggle, “I’m quite sure there’s no forgeries in Our catalogue. I’m sure poor, Dear Mr. Broast made quite certain of that. There might be in other catalogues, of course, and poor Mr. Broast used to Laugh quite a lot when he saw entries he was ever so sure were only forgeries. But he won’t laugh any more now, will he?”

  “Nothing to laugh at in all this,” said Major Harley with some distaste.

  “Oh, no, there isn’t, is there?” agreed Miss Perkins meekly.

  “Perhaps they’ve been forgeries on your shelves though,” observed Bobby, “that have found their way, not into your catalogues but into other people’s.”

  “Oh,” said Miss Perkins, looking at him suddenly. She drew nearer her handbag that lay by her on the table. “Oh, yes,” she said, and into her manner as she uttered those words there had come a sudden and a startling change.

  Major Harley noticed it and made up his mind suddenly.

  “I won’t bother Miss Kayne yet,” he said. “Miss Perkins, there are some questions it is necessary to ask you. I am not satisfied with some of the replies you have given, and with certain other matters. I am not satisfied that your real name is Eliza Perkins. I have received a telegram from the police authorities at Fromavon. The suggestion is that your real name is Agnes Elizabeth Moult, that you are the daughter of John Moult, of Fromavon, and of Agnes Mayne Moult, née Windham, of whom nothing is known since she left her husband, taking her child, Agnes Elizabeth, then about five years of age, with her, in the company of a junior assistant of the Fromavon College library, named Basil Royston Oast.”

  “You think that’s me?” said Miss Perkins. “Suppose it is, can’t you change your name if you want to?”

  “Certainly,” agreed the Major. “A change of name is, however, sometimes matter for suspicion.”

  “Suspicion?” repeated Miss Perkins. She was evidently a little nervous now. She was fiddling with her handbag, drawing the zip fastener to and fro. Her manner was still quite different from that she ordinarily showed. “Suspicion? what about?”

  “Of complicity in or knowledge of recent events,” answered the Major. “You understand I am questioning you in connection with these murders; that anything you say will be used in evidence, if necessary; and that, if you prefer, and it would probably be wise, you need answer no questions till you have received legal assistance?”

  Miss Perkins shook her head gently.

  “Yes, but I don’t think I do understand at all,” she said. “Do you mean you suspect me of shooting poor Mr. Nat Kayne? Why should I? He was always ever so nice. I was dreadfully sorry when I heard. Besides Mrs. Somerville can tell you I was talking to her. We were both in her kitchen at ten o’clock when it happened.”

  “I am not satisfied on that point,” Major Harley said. “Sergeant Owen has been making inquiries. Mrs. Payne thinks it was much later when Mrs. Somerville left that night. Mrs. Payne has no wireless, Mrs. Somerville seems to judge times entirely by the wireless programme, and to set her clock by it. It is easy to alter the hands of a clock and if that were done that night, Mrs. Somerville may be entirely mistaken about the time.”

  “Oh, you are Clever,” said Miss Perkins, dropping back into the manner that was familiar to them. She even produced her characteristic giggle. “So is Sergeant Owen, awfully Clever. But then everyone says so, don’t they? Oh, you don’t really think it was me shot poor Sir William too, do you?”

  “We notice there is no alibi for you,” Major Harley said. “We notice two hand towels were missed that night by Mrs. Somerville and that an imprint in a flower bed near the window of Sir William’s window was made apparently by a foot round which something, it might be a towel, had been wrapped. A s
earch will be made for the weapon used, a small two-two automatic.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Miss Perkins, and took her handkerchief from her handbag and wiped her eyes and her lips. “Oh, yes,” she said again. “I suppose if you find it, you will be Quite Sure. Oh, and then there’s poor Mr. Broast, too. It’s quite a List, isn’t it?”

  “Several people, including yourself,” Major Harley answered slowly, “had access to the strychnine kept in the basement here. Our information is that you were in the library when the maid came at half past four to take away the empty tea cups. In your statement you say you did not enter the library after taking Mr. Broast his tea until five o’clock. I must ask you to accompany us to the police station. You will be wise to obtain legal assistance before saying anything further. Will you please let me have your handbag?”

  “Oh, no, I Couldn’t,” she answered at once. “I’ve got Everything in it.”

  “I must insist,” the Major said.

  “Oh, I see,” she exclaimed, pulling the zip fastener to and fro. “You think if I had strychnine in it, tiny traces of it may be there still?”

  “That is a question for the experts,” Major Harley said. “Examination will be necessary.”

  “What I’m wearing, too?” she asked. “Perhaps you think some of it may have stuck to my clothes or my gloves?”

  “You were wearing gloves?” the Major asked. “Yes, I think your clothing will have to be examined, too. May I have your handbag, please?”

  “Oh, dear,” Miss Perkins said, “what a lot of things you have thought of—so Clever of you. I daresay now the tiniest little grain of strychnine… So Clever. I expect it’s Mr. Owen really. Miss Farrar said he was, and so I thought perhaps he might be. Oh, there’s another murder, too, you haven’t said a word about—the murder of whoever it was you found buried up there by the trees, and nothing left of her but only bones—bones, a skull, and nothing more.”

  “We think perhaps it was your mother buried there,” the Major said gently.

  “Oh, well,” she said. “Now, then. Well?”

  “However that may be,” Major Harley said, “these other murders must be accounted for. One murder is no excuse for others.”

  She drew back the zip fastener of her handbag again and replaced her handkerchief. She appeared to be fumbling for something. There came into Bobby’s mind an oddly clear memory of how once before, when he was questioning her, she had fidgeted with the zip fastening of her handbag. Her look, her manner, had been the same—oddly the same. It crossed his mind that possibly it was the same thing she was feeling for, both now and then. The heavy writing table was between them or he would have tried to take the bag from her. She said:

  “I do think it’s so Silly. I mean, blaming it all on poor little me. Don’t you think so? I mean, I do think it’s Silly. Don’t you? I mean, have I got to go with you?”

  “It will be my duty to detain you,” the Major answered. “You will be charged with the murder of Nathaniel Kayne, with the murder of Sir William Winders, in both cases by shooting, with the murder of Basil Royston Oast, commonly known as Basil Broast, by the administration of poison.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Miss Perkins, and finding at last what she fumbled for in her handbag she drew out a small point twenty-two automatic and levelled it at them and began to fire.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  FIRE ENDS ALL

  It was so sudden, so unexpected, that for the fraction of a second they remained all three perfectly still, motionless targets. Bobby felt a blow over his heart. He found afterwards a bullet embedded in his notebook. Killick instinctively flung up his hand to guard himself. A bullet that otherwise would have passed harmlessly by, struck his wrist watch and was deflected upwards. Major Harley felt one bullet stir his hair, like the touch of a caressing hand. Yet another passed between his coat and arm, and a fifth cut the string by which the ‘No Smoking’ placard was suspended, so that it hung awry.

  Then it was all over before they had well realized it had begun. Between them and Miss Perkins was the heavy writing table at which she worked. She was still firing at them from her deadly little automatic as she stepped back to the inner door, the one admitting to the library proper. She opened it and passed through, slamming and locking it behind her.

  The three men stood and looked at each other, a trifle dazed by the storming death through which they had just passed, though unharmed. Killick was swearing to himself in a soft monotone as he nursed his damaged wrist and examined his broken watch. Major Harley, with an air of almost ludicrous surprise, said:

  “Well, now then.”

  For the moment none of them remembered that Miss Kayne had last been seen making her way hither, and that now presumably she, too, was within the library, behind that locked door. Killick suddenly ran to the door and shook it with some vague idea of forcing it open. The air was full of the acrid smell of powder. There was another smell, too, but fainter, and one they were for the moment too confused and excited to pay much attention to. Killick, still shaking the door, said:

  “It’s locked, she’s locked it.”

  “Solid bit of work,” said the Major. “Fireproof. Strong. What’s next?”

  “I think there should be a spare key somewhere, sir,” Bobby said.

  “See if you can find it, look sharp,” the Major said. He added, still with his air of surprise: “Well, now, you know, I never expected that.” Bobby was already out in the corridor. The Major called after him: “Send someone round to watch the windows in case she tries to get away there.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bobby, and ran on.

  “Has she any more ammunition?” Killick said. “It was a seven shooter—even if she hasn’t another clip, she’ll have a shot or two left.”

  “What about Miss Kayne, where is she?” Major Harley asked, suddenly remembering. Then he said: “Yes, one or two shots left, I think—nasty things at close quarters, those two-twos. Lucky she missed us. I hope Owen gets that key quick.”

  Bobby had, in fact, secured it at once from the glass case in the hall where it and others hung. As he took it down he heard his name called, and saw behind him Mr. Adams who had walked in by the open and unattended front door, since Briggs was in no state to carry out his accustomed duties.

  “Is it true Broast has killed himself?” Adams asked quickly. “If it is, I must see the Mandeville leaves at once.”

  “Why? do you think they are fakes?” Bobby asked.

  “No,” answered Adams, “not these, not the ones here, the ones he sold. He kept the genuine and then forged copies he sold. He was doing that all the time. Half the things he sold, autographed copies and all, were forged, and he used the money he made like that to buy genuine. He filled other libraries with forgeries that he might have genuine himself for his own. Old Kayne started it and Broast carried on.”

  “If you had told us that before—” Bobby said angrily.

  “How could I when I wasn’t sure?” Adams retorted. “I wasn’t going to risk ruining myself and my firm and my clients, too. I kept to my instructions.”

  “Sergeant, sergeant,” roared the Major’s voice.

  “Yes, sir,” answered Bobby, recalled to a sense of the urgency of the position.

  He went back at a run, the key in his hand. Adams followed. Major Harley was standing in the doorway of the ante-room with his hand outstretched. Bobby gave him the key. The Major ran across to the inner door and fitted the key to the lock. Adams said:

  “What’s burning? there’s something burning.”

  “It’s powder, young lady doing pistol practice,” grumbled Killick, looking ruefully at his wrist.

  “There’s something burning, too,” Bobby said.

  Major Harley threw open the door of the library. A trail of smoke issued, and within they saw a great column rising to the roof, shot through by the dull glow of flame.

  “Good God, it’s on fire,” shouted the Major. “Get help—quick. Where are the women?”


  Killick rushed away to give the alarm. Adams stood still. The Major, Bobby following him, ran forward. Smoke eddied round them. They could feel the heat of the flames. Under the impact of the fresh current of air from the open doors, the central column of smoke changed to a pillar of fire, licking even the roof, then died down again into black, swirling, suffocating smoke. An armful of books, a shower of books, came flying through the air, thrown from above. The whole air became full of books, descending in a kind of heavy hail, as though the heavens rained books. They looked up. On the iron gallery above they saw a heavy, gross, running, maniacal figure: Miss Kayne, running at speed along that narrow iron gallery, and as she ran plucking books from the shelves at her side and hurling them down to feed the growing, leaping flames that burned beneath, flames that already leaped to reach the roof, that curled round and about the projecting wooden bookcases, that showed, too, for one clear instant, the glowing colours of the Glastonbury Psalter before wrapping it in a fiercer light.

  Instinctively Bobby made a movement to save that lovely relic of an age when men might still make beauty without thinking of its market value, but Major Harley stopped him.

  “You go this way, I’ll go that, we must catch her,” he said, and even as he spoke a heavy volume, a product of the Kelmscott Press, the Chaucer, perhaps the most splendid book ever printed in England, came crashing down and struck him on one shoulder and sent him spinning and sprawling. Another volume, less heavy though, Bobby warded off with his hands, or it would have caught him on the head. Another and another followed, and they saw Miss Kayne looking down at them from above, ringed round with smoke and fire.

  She vanished. The Major scrambled to his feet.

  “Catch her, stop her,” he repeated, “I’ll go this way, you go that”; and an enormous iron-clapsed ‘Breeches’ Bible fell heavily between them, missing them by inches.

  Then began the strangest, weirdest chase. Up the iron, spiral stairs, along the iron galleries, raced Bobby, ran Major Harley. Before them, agile and swift, for all her enormous bulk; light on her feet, it seemed, as any girl, raced Miss Kayne, still plucking as she fled books from the shelves to hurl down to feed the increasing flames beneath. She ran, she leaped as though her frantic spirit took no heed of the gross burden of her flesh. At one moment when Bobby was close behind she somehow swung down by an iron support from the upper gallery to the lower, and when next he saw her through the swirling smoke, through the flames so richly fed that now by their own force they were licking up the serried ranks of books below, shelf after shelf, book after book, bursting into flames, opening their leaves in fire as rosebuds into beauty, she had climbed back into a third yet higher gallery that ran across the lower end of the library hall.