Thrones, Dominations

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  This at least, Harriet decided, had not changed. It would be as improper as ever to ask him to tell. She opened her newspaper, to read about the Rhineland. Hitler was offering conditions for peace. She looked at the pages bleakly. Perhaps a diffuse and uncertain fright makes one feel sick? Miss Gloria Tallant, she saw, was still missing. The police were widening their search.

  ‘Will you be working this morning?’ Peter enquired.

  ‘I hope so. I mean to try. Unless you need me, that is . . .’

  ‘I will hope to see you at lunch-time,’ he said. ‘We have a lot to talk over.’

  ‘So, Charles, what’s the scoop?’

  ‘Amery has turned up, as you said he would. I have cautioned him and told him he is under suspicion of murder.’

  ‘What has he done to deserve it?’ said Wimsey lightly.

  ‘Told us lies about his movements on the evening of the murder; demonstrated beyond doubt a motive for a crime of passion against the woman.’

  ‘What lies has the silly fellow told you?’ asked Wimsey.

  ‘Well, at first he said he had never been anywhere near the bungalow in Hampton. He had found Mrs Harwell was not in town, and he had gone home disappointed, and the first thing he knew about anything was when he read it in his paper. But when confronted with the fact that the station-master at Hampton had seen someone of his description arriving at about six thirty on the evening in question, and was of the opinion that the person had not left Hampton by train that night. . .’

  ‘He just might have overlooked him,’ said Wimsey.

  ‘Well, in the event, on being told about the sighting, Amery changed his story. He had been down to Hampton, that evening. He had walked up the lane towards the address he had been given, but then suddenly changed his mind about calling unexpectedly on Mrs Harwell, and after walking a little by the river he had gone home on a Green Line bus. Nobody, he thought, would have seen him arrive home that evening. I pressed him a little about the alleged strange conduct, going nearly there, and then not even knocking on the door, and he told us that she tormented him, played cat and mouse with him, and that he had suddenly decided that he couldn’t face another episode of her cruelty.

  ‘So then, of course, we asked for his fingerprints. We told him that if he had told us the truth his prints could not be found in the bungalow, and we would be able to eliminate him from the enquiry.’

  ‘Whereupon, I suppose, he raised objections?’ said Wimsey.

  ‘No, he didn’t. Gave us the prints as meek as a lamb. And they match the prints on one of the sherry glasses.’

  ‘So you conclude?’

  ‘Well, Peter, he’s lying. He might even be the maniac reported by our two jolly blackmailers – if there ever was a maniac, that is. The maniac was howling in the woodshed, and then he ran off in the general direction of the house, and I suppose might have broken in. So if it was Amery wailing in the shed, and if he did go in to the bungalow, he is probably the last person to have seen Mrs Harwell alive. And, logically, the last person to have seen the victim alive . . .’

  ‘. . . is the murderer,’ said Wimsey. ‘I take it that you put it to Amery that he had killed her?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We always try for a confession. But he denies it emphatically. Would have died rather than harm a hair of her head; adored her, cannot bear to think of life without her . . . And a lot more in the same line.’

  ‘So why tell you fibs in the first place?’

  ‘He was frightened and upset. Or so he says.’

  ‘The thing now is to see what he says when confronted with the prints on the sherry glass,’ said Wimsey. ‘It’s a pity that poets have such a poor regard for truth, but he’ll have to say something.’

  ‘He has acquired a rather stroppy lawyer who will make sure that he says as little as possible henceforth.’

  ‘I thought he was broke?’ said Wimsey.

  ‘Sir Jude Shearman has come forward to pay the lawyer.’

  ‘Has he now?’

  ‘He is apparently interested in Amery’s plays,’ said Charles, dryly.

  ‘Which are certainly more commercial if he is to be in the news accused of murder,’ said Wimsey. ‘It’s a strange world we live in, Charles.’

  ‘I’ll let you know what he says when we interview him again.’

  Transcript of interview between Mr Claude Amery and Chief Inspector Parker, 9 March 1936, ten in the forenoon. Present: the aforementioned and Sergeant Veal, stenographer; Mr Manteau, solicitor.

  Amery cautioned.

  Chief Inspector Parker: ‘Mr Amery, I have to tell you that we know for certain you have been lying to us. Would you like to correct any part of what you have already told us?’

  Mr Manteau: ‘My client maintains the truth of his statement.’

  Amery: ‘Yes.’

  Chief Inspector Parker: ‘I think you should reconsider this statement, Mr Amery. Your fingerprints have been found.’

  Amery: ‘I might have fingered the door knocker while I was hesitating about going on with the visit or turning back.’

  Chief Inspector Parker: ‘Your prints are on the door knocker, as you say. They have also been found inside the bungalow, on the stem of a sherry glass.’

  Amery: ‘They can’t be! I saw her wash them up.’

  Manteau: ‘I protest. My client is being tricked into making admissions.’

  Chief Inspector Parker: ‘Would you like to vary your statement, Mr Amery?’

  Amery: ‘Yes, all right. I shall make myself look a hell of a fool, but here goes.’

  Amery then made a statement. When he had signed it Chief Inspector Parker allowed him to leave, having warned him not to leave home without telling the police of his whereabouts, and instructed him to deposit his passport with the police.

  Statement made by Mr Claude Amery, Scotland Yard, 9 March 1936, eleven in the forenoon:

  I was very anxious to see Mrs Harwell. I had a personal matter of great urgency to discuss with her. On calling at Hyde House for the third time in a day I was told by the porter that Mrs Harwell was away, and I managed to persuade the man to divulge the address, which he had been given to redirect the post. On finding the address I took a train to Hampton, intending to surprise Mrs Harwell. I walked from the station to the bungalow, not wishing to take a taxi, in case it compromised her, since I knew that Mr Harwell was still in town. I arrived at about six in the evening.

  Mrs Harwell was not very pleased to see me, and I formed the impression from the laid table, and her general manner, that she was expecting somebody else. However, she offered me a drink, and I accepted a glass of sherry. We sat and talked for some time, during which time she looked several times at her watch. Eventually she told me I would have to go, and showed me out. What with the disappointment at the reception I had received, and the unfamiliarity of Hampton, which I was visiting for the first time, I got lost, and missed the station. I wandered about for some time in the dark, and then had supper in a pub, of which I cannot remember the name.

  Here there was a marginal note in Charles’s hand. Description fits the Hare and Hounds according to the local police, although that is some five miles from Rose Cottage. A darts match was in progress at the Hare and Hounds which was very crowded. Nobody remembers a person of Amery’s description.

  After having a bite to eat, I was still angry at Mrs Harwell. I wandered about for some time although it had become extremely cold, and when I finally arrived at the station I found I had missed the last train. The thought came to me that while I was cold and stranded, a person unknown was dining alone with Mrs Harwell, and I returned to the bungalow, intending to hang about long enough to discover, if I could, who my rival was. At about eleven o’clock, as near as I could judge, my watch having stopped, I returned to Rose Cottage, and took up a position in the garden, where I could see anyone coming or going. There was a car parked in the driveway, the other side of the garden. I cannot tell what make or model of car it was; I am not interested in cars. Sever
al times I advanced on the cottage, and looked in through the downstairs windows. The room was lit, and the curtains were not drawn, except those of the bedroom. I could see nobody in any of the living-rooms, a fact which led me to draw painful conclusions. It began to rain quite heavily, and I took shelter in the garden shed, from which I could see the lighted window of the bungalow. Unfortunately during my vigil I nodded off, sitting on a deckchair, and I was woken by the sound of the car leaving.

  At that point I went to the door of the house and knocked loudly, and for some time, hoping that Mrs Harwell would admit me for a second interview. I got no answer. I then wandered about for some time, very distressed, returning to the bungalow at about one o’clock in the morning, to try one last time. This time, getting no answer at the front door I walked around the house to the back, and looked through the windows from the veranda. I saw Mrs Harwell sitting beside the fire. She could not have been unaware of my presence, because I was banging on the window pane, but she did not let me in.

  Finally realising that she did not wish to talk to me, being now very cold, and having spent all my money on the train ticket, and on supper, I began to walk to my mother’s house in Barnes, which was considerably nearer than my lodgings in town. This took me most of the rest of the night. Eventually I got on the first bus of the morning going over Kingston Bridge, and arrived in Barnes at around half past seven. My ordeal having given me a severe chill, I took to my bed, and was unaware what had happened to Mrs Harwell until I returned to my London lodgings three days later, and found that the police had been looking for me.

  Peter read this carefully several times through, and then took it to show it to Harriet.

  ‘Give me the fiction writer’s view of this, would you, Harriet?’

  Harriet read it. ‘I have some difficulty imagining Claude Amery as a murderer,’ she said at last. ‘Although he did say . . . I suppose the police will verify all this?’

  ‘It might have been designed to be difficult to verify,’ said Peter. ‘We could buy Bunter a set of darts, and send him forth to loose them at a target in the Hare and Hounds; but even if he finds somebody who recognises Amery, that will only cover – what – an hour and a half? – of the fatal night.’

  ‘It might be worth doing, just the same,’ said Harriet. ‘Can Bunter play darts?’

  ‘If he can’t it will be the first deficiency in the man I have ever detected,’ said Peter. ‘Bunter could be sent. But you realise there’s a sort of catch to it, Harriet. If the man is lying, he will have made very sure that anything that could possibly be verified in his story will be verified. If he is telling the truth, then it’s in the lap of the gods whether anybody will actually remember him or not.’

  ‘As for the rest of the story . . .’

  ‘It could hardly have been made to sound more completely incredible to a policeman if he had been trying.’

  ‘I’m not sure it is incredible to me.’

  ‘Can you say why?’

  ‘I have no other but a woman’s reason.’

  ‘You think him so because you think him so?’

  ‘You know, Peter, Claude is rather wet, but he’s not stupid. Furthermore, he is a playwright.’

  ‘So if he were to invent an entire scene. . .’

  ‘It would hang together properly. It would be more believable than life. And it would have some dialogue in it; he likes dialogue.’

  ‘You must allow for the literary form of the document. A statement made in a police station is paraphrased as it is taken down by a wooden-faced sergeant with a notebook and slow handwriting.’

  ‘You mean it may be only approximately what Amery actually said?’

  ‘It should be correct in substance, though it may not be in prose style. The salient point is that it lets out Harwell completely. Can you think of a reason why Amery would do that falsely, and deliberately? Would he incriminate himself to protect the promoter of his play?’

  ‘Surely not,’ said Harriet. ‘But how does he exonerate Laurence Harwell?’

  ‘Timing,’ said Peter. ‘If Harwell was banging on the doors of Hyde House a little after twelve, and Amery saw Rosamund alive at about one o’clock.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And in exonerating Harwell he looks likely to put the noose round his own neck. By his own account he was the last to see her alive. And by his own account he was desperate, and thought himself slighted by her. Incidentally, you were going to tell me something he said, just now.’

  ‘She was playing cat and mouse with him, Peter. And he said if it went on he didn’t know what he mightn’t do.’

  ‘And did you take him to mean he might injure her?’

  ‘No, not at all. I took him to mean he might injure himself.’

  ‘This is an unusual way of committing suicide,’ said Peter.

  ‘He can’t realise. He must just think you will believe him.’

  ‘Well, Harriet, people who are telling the truth may well expect to be believed, however preposterous the story sounds. And this one doesn’t sound preposterous so much as exceptionally difficult to check up on. After all, he wouldn’t be the first or last young man to be driven distracted by unrequited love. I’d like to ask him some questions; I wonder if Charles will let me talk to him.’

  ‘What will you ask, Sherlock?’

  ‘Whether he heard the dog barking. There is famously something highly suggestive about a dog that doesn’t bark.’

  Amery’s lawyer had clearly told Amery not to talk to anyone unless he was present. Peter had some difficulty in arranging the interview he desired, and then was obliged to meet Amery in Manteau’s offices, where he was confronted by a hostile witness, scowling at him, and poised ready to interject, ‘Don’t answer that!’

  Amery stared at Wimsey with reddened, vacant eyes.

  ‘I am sorry to trouble you, Amery,’ Wimsey began. ‘I have seen your statement to the police, and there are one or two points I would like you to enlarge upon.’

  ‘My client does not have to answer any questions from you, Lord Peter,’ said Mr Manteau. ‘You have no standing in the matter.’

  ‘None. I quite agree. But I may just possibly be able to help.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ said Amery.

  ‘I would like to know whether, during your repeated visits to the bungalow during the evening of the 27th, you heard the dog barking?’

  ‘It barked when I first arrived,’ said Amery. ‘Damn thing was all over me. Rosamund put it in the bedroom.’

  ‘Did it go on barking from there?’ Wimsey enquired.

  ‘No. It whimpered a bit, and scratched the door. Then it was quiet until I left.’

  ‘But when Rosamund showed you out it began to bark again?’

  ‘Yes. We passed the bedroom door to get to the front door, and that set it off.’

  ‘Very well. Now later in the evening you returned to the bungalow, and spent some time standing around in the garden and in the garden shed?’

  ‘Yes. I said so.’

  ‘Did you hear the dog barking then?’

  ‘Yes, just briefly. I was afraid it would give me away.’

  ‘You thought that it had detected your presence outside the house, and was raising the alarm?’

  ‘I was afraid so, yes.’

  ‘Was it a good guard dog, then?’

  ‘Heavens, no. Silly brute would bark at anyone, friend or foe alike. It just got excited, that’s all.’

  ‘But its barking like that might have made somebody wonder why. Did it occur to you that it might be barking at somebody or something indoors?’

  ‘No,’ said Amery, slowly. ‘It didn’t. I assumed it was fussing about me.’

  ‘And when you returned to the house for the third time, what then?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t hear it then. That’s odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s what I thought. I mean, you seem to have been prowling about, knocking on windows . . .’

  ‘My client—’ be
gan Mr Manteau.

  ‘It’s all right, Manteau,’ said Amery crossly. ‘I’ve already told the police that. What’s the good of denying what I’ve already said?’

  ‘In your own interests—’ Manteau began.

  ‘Don’t you think I want all this cleared up?’ said Amery. ‘Lord Peter is trying to help. He must want Rosamund’s murderer caught and punished; he knew her.’

  ‘I did have the privilege of meeting her,’ said Wimsey.

  ‘And so you must have loved her too! She was the most beautiful person, Lord Peter, wasn’t she? How could anyone have borne to hurt her? I’m the last person in the world who would have laid a finger on her; you do believe that, Lord Peter, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s what can be proved rather than what I or anyone believes that will help us,’ said Wimsey. ‘So you were close to the house, and walking round it; you knocked at the front door, you entered the veranda, and you peered into the window of the living-room from there.’

  ‘And she was sitting in the chair, taking no notice of me at all. She broke my heart, Lord Peter.’

  ‘But the dog wasn’t barking at you then?’

  ‘No,’ said Amery, frowning. ‘I didn’t think of it at the time. Perhaps she had let it out for a run.’

  ‘It would surely have come straight to you, if she had done that.’

  ‘I suppose it would.’

  ‘You said it was all over you earlier in the evening.’

  ‘My client cannot be supposed to be an expert in the behaviour patterns of dogs,’ said Manteau.