The Crime at the ‘Noah’s Ark’: A Golden Age Mystery

by Molly Thynne

  Neither were they asked to go back to Carew’s room. Bates conducted his examination, such as it was, in the office, and he began with Constantine.

  “I understand that it was you as first saw the rope,” he said slowly; “May I ask you what caused you to look out of your window at that time of night?”

  Constantine smiled.

  “I know that it seems an odd thing to have done on a cold winter’s morning,” he admitted readily. “But the explanation is really quite simple. I had been playing chess with Mr. Soames, here, and as is the way with chess players, we got led on from one game to another, with the result that it was nearly two-thirty when Mr. Soames left me to go to his room. After he had gone I pottered about, putting away the chess-men and damping down the fire, in the way one does when one’s too tired to do the sensible thing and go straight to bed. The result was that it must have been half-past three before I was undressed. I was just about to get into bed when I realized that the room was thick with smoke. We had been playing, you must remember, for a long time, and we had both been smoking heavily all the time. I put on a dressing-gown and threw up the window, meaning to leave it open for five minutes or so to air the room. Soames and I had been discussing the snowfall just before he left me, and with that in my mind, I suppose, I thrust my head out to see if it showed any signs of stopping. My attention was at once caught by the light streaming from the window of Major Carew’s room.”

  Bates looked up sharply.

  “This is the first I’ve heard of a light in that room. It was in darkness, I understand, when you went in later?”

  “I’m pretty sure I spoke of the light to Girling afterwards, but he must have forgotten to mention it. It’s been a pretty stirring evening for us all, you know.”

  “I can believe you, sir. You’ve no idea when it was turned off, I suppose?”

  Constantine shook his head.

  “Since I’ve had time to think things over,” he said, “I’ve realized how thoroughly we played into the murderer’s hands. We ought, of course, to have made a determined effort, then and there, to get into Major Carew’s room; but you must remember we were all obsessed with the fact that the man was drunk, and more than likely to make a nuisance of himself. He had been locked in, and there was every reason to think that he might resent the fact, should he find it out. Indeed, we had been on the alert for something of the sort all the evening, and had been prepared, the moment we heard any noise, to go and try to quiet him, and, if possible, to persuade him to go to bed. Incredible as it seems, the one explanation that occurred to any of us when we saw the rope, was that he had used it to get out, and our one object, from then on, was to waylay him and get him back to his room before he succeeded in disturbing the whole house.”

  “I understand that you did try to go in. I’d like to hear exactly what you did do, in its right order, if you don’t mind, sir.”

  “We did the stupidest thing we could have done, as it turned out,” replied Constantine ruefully. “As soon as I saw the rope, which was plainly visible in the light from the window, I immediately, as I said, jumped to the conclusion that Major Carew had either used it or was just about to do so. I hurried to his room and had actually rapped on his door, when I discovered that the key was no longer in the lock. I then tried the door, and when I found that locked, called to him through it as loudly as I dared. I did not want to wake the other people on that floor, but I knew that I had made enough noise to attract his attention, supposing he were awake and in his room. I’m sorry to say that, when he didn’t answer, I allowed myself to be led astray into thinking that he had escaped by way of the window to the balcony below; had somehow managed to get back into the inn, and was wandering, probably in a fuddled condition, about the house. It seemed a natural supposition that, if he were indignant at having been locked in, he would commandeer the key to prevent any other further interference with his movements.”

  “You didn’t happen to look through the keyhole, sir?” asked Bates.

  Stuart suppressed a smile. Inquisitive as the old man was, it was difficult to imagine even his pet vice leading him to such undignified depths. But Constantine took the suggestion seriously enough.

  “I wish I had,” he said frankly. “If the murderer had been in the room then, I might possibly have seen him. As it was, I merely went up the short flight of steps to Mr. Soames’s room and roused him. He looked out of my window, saw the rope, and went for Mr Stuart. The light was still on then, but that is the last time either of us looked out, and we never realized that it had been put out until Girling opened the door and we found the room in darkness.”

  “While Mr. Soames was gone, what did you do, sir?”

  “I tried again to rouse Major Carew. Then, when I could get no answer, I went down the passage to the stairs, where I met Mr. Stuart and Mr. Soames.”

  Bates thanked him and turned to Soames.

  “I’ll have your story now, if you don’t mind, sir,” he said.

  Soames gave an account of all that had happened after he had roused Stuart, and Stuart corroborated it, and described his own investigations on the balcony.

  When he had finished Bates rose to his feet, tucked the notebook away in his pocket and buttoned the flap. “There’s one more question,” he said. “Did any of you gentlemen know this Major Carew—apart from meeting him here, I mean?”

  The question met with a flat denial, amplified emphatically by Soames.

  “I’ve no wish to speak ill of the dead,” he said, “but you can take it from me that he wasn’t the sort of chap anybody would wish to know.”

  “I gather from Mr. Girling that he was not what you would call a sober sort of gentleman,” suggested Bates.

  “He’s been drinking steadily ever since he set foot inside the place,” answered Stuart.

  “So that any one, coming on him suddenly, wouldn’t have much difficulty in catching him unawares?”

  “None, I should say. He would probably wake up thoroughly fuddled,” replied Constantine.

  Bates picked up his helmet.

  “I’ll wish you good-evening, gentlemen,” he said. “There’s nothing now to keep you from your beds. I’ve been through the pockets of the deceased, and there’s some letters addressed to him at a club in London. If the wires aren’t down, I’ll get in touch with it to-morrow, and some one there will no doubt put me on to his relations.”

  He stumped out, his heavy boots clumping on the tiled passage leading to the lounge. Soames strolled to the door and listened to the sound of his footsteps mounting the stairs. Then he turned back into the room.

  “He didn’t ask whether it was the first time any one had attacked Carew this evening,” he observed grimly.

  “For which I’m thankful,” said Constantine. “We don’t want either Ford or that boy Trevor involved if we can help it.”

  “All the same, there was one moment at least when each of them would have been ready enough to choke the life out of him,” Soames reminded him.

  “There have been moments to-day when I could have watched him drown, cheerfully, myself,” said Stuart. “But that doesn’t mean that I would be capable of creeping into his room in the middle of the night and doing him in. Besides, judging by the robbery, revenge wasn’t the motive.”

  “I’m not saying it was,” answered Soames stubbornly. “What I do say is that there’s only one man in this house whose movements I don’t understand, and that man’s young Ford. Mind you, I’ve nothing against him. He seems a decent enough chap in himself, but I’m not forgetting that he was up and dressed directly after Miss Adderley had started the scare about the masked man.”

  Constantine lifted the coffee-pot off the hob and poured himself out a cup.

  “You’ve got Ford on the brain,” he said dryly. “Have another cup of coffee and clear some of the cobwebs out of your brain. Admitting that he was up and dressed, so, for the matter of fact, were you and I, at two o’clock this morning. I’m inclined to think that Ba
tes feels very much the same about us as you feel about Ford. His question as to why I happened to be looking out of my window at that time of night was a shrewd one, and I’m not by any means certain that he swallowed my explanation. The fact that it’s a true and perfectly natural one to me doesn’t make it so to him. No doubt it is the first time he’s come across an old person of my age who’s in the habit of sitting up till the small hours playing what he would probably stigmatize as a ‘silly game.’ It may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black!”

  Soames laughed, but he still stuck to his guns.

  “It isn’t only that,” he said. “I was on my way down from the billiard-room this evening when I ran into the younger Miss Ford. She was coming round the corner of that passage leading to her room, and she didn’t see me till I was right on her. She’d got her head turned away and was talking to some one I couldn’t see, but it was clear enough who it was. She was in a fine paddy, with her cheeks all scarlet and her eyes fairly blazing. It wasn’t that though, it was what she said.”

  He paused.

  “I suppose you want me to ask you what it was,” remarked Constantine with a sigh. “Rather than spoil your effect, I’ll play up. Let’s have it.”

  “She said: ‘Don’t be a coward as well as a fool, Geoff. You’ll have to own up sooner or later, and you may as well make a clean breast of it now.’ Then she saw me and dried up, but she’d got plenty more up her sleeve by the look of her.”

  Stuart cast a swift glance at Constantine. In the light of his own suspicions this was interesting. To his surprise, the old man was chuckling quietly to himself.

  “You are barking up the wrong tree, Soames,” he said. “If Angela Ford says her brother’s a fool, she’s probably right, though she’s hardly got the sanction of the Bible. But whatever Geoffrey may have been up to, you may take my word for it that he’s neither a thief nor a murderer. If he’d any homicidal instincts, Romsey would have been in his grave long ago!” he concluded thoughtfully.

  “That’s all very well, doctor,” was Soames’s stubborn rejoinder. “They’re your friends, and I should no doubt feel the same about them if they were mine. There’s no other suspect in this house that I can see, so I’m keeping my eye on Mr. Geoffrey Ford until further notice. Meanwhile, I’m for bed. Anybody coming?”

  Constantine rose to his feet and threw his cigarette end into the fire.

  “If you’re in search of a suspect,” he said gently, “why not young Melnotte? His room is next to Carew’s, and he never showed up this evening till everything was practically over. He may have been in his room all the time, or, again, he may not. And he nearly fainted when he saw Carew. You must admit that, considering he did not know him, and showed very plainly that he disliked him, he took his death very much to heart. And, what is more, there’s a communicating door between his room and Carew’s. It’s locked, and he told me that the key had been missing ever since he arrived, which may or may not be true.”

  Stuart, who was watching Constantine’s face, realized that he was unashamedly palling Soames’s leg. His gravity was portentous, but his dark eyes were snapping with mischief.

  For a moment Soames was taken aback, then his common sense asserted itself.

  “It’s an idea,” he agreed solemnly. “Miss Adderley may have run into him and have mistaken that night-cap thing he wears in bed for a mask. Let’s go and ask him now whether he did it. He’ll probably say, ‘Quate,’ and commit suicide with his curling-tongs, then the whole thing will be nicely settled.”

  He started to leave the room, but at the door he turned and addressed them—

  “I may be wrong about Ford, and, of course, the mere idea that Melnotte should have anything to do with this business is simply funny, but we’ve got to face the fact that every single soul in this house, barring the women, is under suspicion. Come to that, we do not know where Melnotte was this evening; he does happen to be better fitted to shin down that rope than most of us. His room is next door to Carew’s; it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to have slipped through the communicating door, and we know nothing whatever about him. He’s one of these lounge lizards that crop up in every walk of life, respectable and otherwise. He may be a professional crook for all we know.” He swung round and disappeared down the passage. Constantine chuckled appreciatively.

  “He got his own back very nicely,” he said, as he prepared to follow. “And, what’s more, he’s right. Personally, I’m prepared to give a clean bill both to Melnotte and Geoffrey Ford, but I’m simply working on intuition in the one case, and my knowledge of the man’s character and circumstances in the other. But Soames is right in one thing. We are all under suspicion, in the sense that any one of us could have murdered Carew to-night and got away with the emeralds. There is only one bit of evidence in our favour—that of the light in Carew’s room. Soames and I can corroborate each other’s story that it was on just before he called you, and, from then on, we were all in each other’s company and could have had no opportunity of turning it off.” He pulled himself up suddenly.

  “No, I’m wrong there,” he exclaimed. “I’m providing myself with an alibi I haven’t earned. There was a period when you and Soames were downstairs in which my movements were unchecked. I could have turned off the light then. It will be interesting to see what conclusions our friend Bates will have arrived at by to-morrow; but, given the facts as he knows them, I don’t think we can blame him if he looks on all three of us with suspicion.”

  Stuart gave vent to a hearty yawn.

  “Well, all I ask is that, if we have got a homicidal burglar in our midst, he will confine his future operations to the daytime. It’s close on five now, and when I consider that I arrived here the day before yesterday and that I haven’t had a decent night’s rest since, I can’t help feeling a little peevish!”

  “It certainly does seem a wicked waste of Girling’s excellent beds,” agreed Constantine. “All the same, I should like to know what the doctor’s verdict is before I go to mine.”

  As it turned out, they met the doctor and Bates on the stairs on their way up to bed.

  “Fractured skull,” said the doctor in answer to Constantine’s inquiry. “The instrument used must have had a sharp angle to it, judging from the cleanness with which the skin is cut, but with a nasty mess like that it’s difficult to tell.”

  “Would a jemmy have done it?” asked Constantine.

  The doctor looked dubious.

  “It might. But, from the damage done, I should suggest a shorter, heavier weapon, myself.”

  “We shall be moving the body to the station early to-morrow morning,” put in Bates, with the obvious intention of cutting the conversation short. “It can go in the lock-up there till the inquest. It’s a bit awkward here for Mr. Girling, what with ladies in the house and all. Good-night, gentlemen. I shall be round in the morning.”

  Constantine accepted his dismissal with good grace, and followed Stuart up the stairs.

  All three slept the sleep of the just for the few hours of the night that remained to them, and far into the following morning. After breakfast they forgathered in Girling’s office and learned from him that the constable had already put in a good day’s work.

  “Makin’ a day of it, Tom is,” he remarked, with a reminiscent smile. “Haven’t seen him so busy since old Marlowe’s ricks were fired. He got his man then, though, and happen he’ll get him this time. He’s thorough, that I will say. Had ’em all on the mat this morning, servants and gentry alike!”

  “I wonder whether he arrived at anything?” said Stuart.

  “If he did he didn’t pass it on to me. Very close-mouthed he was, when I saw him last; but if you ask me, I’d say he didn’t. Every soul, bar one, in my employ comes from the village here, and there isn’t one that Tom and I haven’t known all their lives like, and their fathers before them. There’s only one outsider, and that’s the cook. She’s a Brighton woman, and her references’d satisfy
anybody. As for the London lot, there’s three chauffeurs and two maids. Lord Romsey, he vouched for his man at once. Been his chauffeur nine years, and was in his stables before that. Quite nasty he turned when Tom pressed him a bit over the man’s habits and that. Mrs. Cloude’s man was her husband’s batman through the War, and she won’t hear nothin’ against him. As for Mrs. van Dolen—”

  Girling’s wizened face creased into a thousand wrinkles as he paused, his shoulders shaking with mirth.

  “Let’s have it, Girling, for pity’s sake,” urged Soames.

  “Well, it seems as she took her chauffeur straight from the Home Secretary,” Girling informed them, “He left because he found the work too heavy for him, him havin’ been invalided out of the army. There wasn’t nothin’ the matter with his references, but Tom wasn’t takin’ no chances, so he got on to London, and the gentleman came to the phone himself. Said he was prepared to speak for the man personally if he was in any trouble. So that’s that. Proper put back Tom was, over that, I fancy. I’ll lay he was pinnin’ somethin’ on to that chap. Nice fellow, too, as I told him.”

  “Bates’s tight lips don’t seem to have availed him much so far,” remarked Constantine, with a smile.

  “Bless you, I didn’t get all that from him,” answered Girling cheerfully. “They were all in the bar after he’d got through with them, and there wasn’t nothin’ to prevent them talkin’. And they did talk, too! If that Mrs. van Dolen could have heard some of the things as was said about her and her jewels, I’m thinkin’ it wouldn’t have done her any harm.”

  “Has he had a thorough look round the place?” asked Soames.

  “I’d say he had,” replied Girling dryly. “Two of the maids gave notice before nine this morning, owin’ to him pokin’ about among their things, and a nice time I had of it gettin’ them to stay on. He hadn’t no right to do it, either, havin’ no warrant. Lucky for him they didn’t know that, and I wasn’t goin’ to tell ’em. I don’t want to get old Tom into trouble, but he’s goin’ a bit far over this business. I think he knows that the Chief Constable will be all for applyin’ to London as soon as the snow lets up, and Tom’s tryin’ to get on with it before the chap from the Yard turns up. I don’t blame him neither, provided he don’t go too far.”