The Castleford Conundrum

by J. J. Connington

  “I’ve only been out to dinner once in the last three weeks,” he pointed out, deliberately. “On every other occasion, I’ve come straight back from Heckford and put the stuff back in the drawer there. But on that night, now I recall it, I went straight on to dinner at Carron Hill; and I left my bag on the hall table all through the evening.”

  “Unlocked?”

  “Unlocked, of course. I didn’t imagine anyone would tamper with it.”

  “So it practically comes to this,” Sir Clinton suggested, “that the only chance of those four tablets going a-missing was at Carron Hill? You still hold to it that your register-entries are correct?”

  Dr. Glencaple evaded the first question and answered the second.

  “I’m quite prepared to swear that they are.”

  “So you suggest that someone at Carron Hill purloined these tablets from your bag. Can you make a guess at who did it?”

  Dr. Glencaple seemed to have recovered his coolness.

  “No,” he said, bluntly, “I don’t propose to insinuate anything that I can’t prove. I haven’t even said that the stuff was stolen by any of the Carron Hill people. I’ve given you facts, nothing more.”

  “You’re aware, of course, that morphine was found Mrs. Castleford’s body?”

  “I’m quite aware of it. That’s the very reason why I’m cautious in my statements.”

  “Very diplomatic,” Sir Clinton commented, though his tone was not altogether that of admiration. “And now I’d like some more information which involves no insinuations. I understand that you and your brother were taken aback by the news that Mrs. Castleford hadn’t signed this projected will?”

  “Completely,” Dr. Glencaple agreed, acidly. “Miss Lindfield took me entirely by surprise when she informed me of that.”

  “Where is Miss Lindfield at present? I understand that she has been left in a rather awkward position, financially, by this affair.”

  “She’s still staying at Carron Hill. Between ourselves”—he glanced from Sir Clinton to Wendover as though assuring himself of confidence—“I’m tiding her over until she can look out for something to do. We’re old friends, you understand, and naturally I could hardly see her stranded. I mention it lest you should find it out for yourself and put a wrong construction on it.”

  “Your brother is perhaps doing the same?” Sir Clinton asked.

  Dr. Glencaple shook his head with a faintly sardonic smile.

  “My brother’s in a different position. He’s married, you see.”

  “But surely the Castlefords would do something to help?” Sir Clinton persisted.

  “The Castlefords?” Dr. Glencaple was obviously amused by the mere suggestion. “No, I don’t see the Castlefords doing much for her. They’ve skinned her, financially. And you know the old saying: ‘First injure, and then hate.’ You never hate anyone so much as a person you’ve treated badly. That’s the Castleford attitude towards Miss Lindfield. Rather hard lines on her.”

  Wendover had been watching the doctor closely, and so far as he could judge, this was the plain truth. He found his dislike for Dr. Glencaple lessening to some extent. After all, this was rather a nice thing that he had done, and he had confessed to it in rather a nice way, evidently without the slightest desire to boast of his generosity. Wendover had drawn his own conclusions from the house and its furnishings. Dr. Glencaple was not particularly affluent, he guessed; and that made his action rather finer. And, by a further reaction, he began to readjust his pre-conceptions on another subject. This unknown girl Lindfield seemed to have been rather badly treated. He knew that she had been provided for under the old will and under the new one; Sir Clinton had explained that to him. And on the face of things, the Castlefords had dealt rather ungraciously with her, according to Dr. Glencaple’s account. Rough treatment, to turn a girl out into the world without any kind of help.

  “Was that the only reason for treating her like that?” Sir Clinton asked casually.

  “Well, I don’t think Miss Lindfield and the Castlefords were exactly enamoured of each other at any time,” Dr. Glencaple admitted, frankly. “She’s an efficient person and Mrs. Castleford practically handed over the running of Carron Hill to her. That probably had something to do with it. And, of course, it’s sometimes a difficult position When you get two good-looking girls, not related to each other, living under one roof . . . Well, I don’t know, but women are curious creatures in some ways.”

  “Jealousy, do you mean?” Wendover interjected.

  Dr. Glencaple seemed afraid that he had said too much.

  “Well, I don’t want to say anything against Hilary—Miss Castleford, I mean. I rather liked her, in fact, until this affair of Miss Lindfield. Still, as things were, one couldn’t help feeling that there was some rivalry on the premises; and Miss Lindfield was made to suffer for it when the Castlefords got the upper hand. That’s all the length I’d care to go.”

  Sir Clinton did not pursue the subject further. Instead, he turned to a fresh line.

  “Inspector Westerham tells me you have your young nephew with you just now. He hasn’t gone home?”

  “No. He was sent here for a change of air, and there was no point in sending him home in the middle of it. At the same time, we could hardly leave him at Carron Hill. There’s no relation of his there now, you see, apart from all other considerations. So I’m looking after him for the present.”

  “I’d like to see him,” Sir Clinton explained.

  “No objection to my being here while you question him?” Dr. Glencaple asked, with a quick glance at the Chief Constable.

  “None whatever,” Sir Clinton agreed, lightly. “I only want to ask him a question or two. We may need him as a witness, and I want to test his memory, just to see how far we could rely on him.”

  Dr. Glencaple did not appear to relish this idea, altogether. Wendover, who had learned something of the boy’s mendacity, was not altogether surprised by the uncle’s attitude.

  Though a confirmed bachelor, Wendover liked children and had the gift of making himself liked by them in turn. But when Frankie Glencaple was ushered into the room by his uncle, the Squire decided at the first glance that this was not the kind of boy he cared for. Fat, flabby, with shifty eyes in a pasty face, Frankie made a very poor impression at first sight. Nor did Dr. Glencaple’s caution: “Now, Frankie, tell the truth,” help to mend matters. It was plain, from the glance which the boy threw at his uncle, that Dr. Glencaple did not stand any nonsense from his nephew and also that the boy resented this attitude. “A spoiled brat, if ever I saw one,” was Wendover’s disgusted verdict.

  “I want to know something about this rook-rifle of yours,” Sir Clinton began, pleasantly enough. “Miss Lindfield gave it to you, didn’t she?”

  Frankie acknowledged this by a rather discourteous nod.

  “Nice of her,” Sir Clinton commented. “I missed something in not having a generous aunt like her when I was your age, evidently. You’ve used it a good deal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Birds, and so forth? Can you shoot decently? It sometimes comes in useful.”

  This was not precisely the kind of interview that Frankie had expected. His natural desire to brag overcame his suspicions.

  “I can shoot sparrows on the wing.”

  “Pretty good,” Sir Clinton admitted, with a complete acceptance of the story which gained him Frankie’s liking and contempt at a single stroke. “Need to keep your eye in, though, for that sort of thing. What did you do on a wet day when there was nothing to shoot at out-of-doors?”

  “I did target shooting in the old harness room. Auntie Connie fixed up an old archery target on the wall and I pinned cardboard targets on to it. But target shooting’s no fun,” Frankie confessed glumly. “I like to see things jump when I hit them. It doesn’t hurt a target to shoot at it.”

  “I suppose you got some of the other people at Carron Hill to have shooting-matches with you?”

  Frankie shook his
head.

  “No. I tried with Auntie Connie, but she just shuts her eyes when she fires. She’s no good at all.”

  “And what about the others? Wouldn’t they take you on?”

  “Old Castleford and Hillie? Not much! He was always trying to pretend I wasn’t there; and she was always finding fault with me. I’d no use for them. I’d never have thought of asking them.”

  “Your aunt seems to have been your stand-by. You and she got on better?”

  For some reason which Wendover could not fathom, but which the Inspector would have guessed easily enough, Frankie seemed in two minds about the answer to this. He was about to say something; then, after a swift glance at his uncle’s face, he obviously changed his mind and his tone.

  “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly, “I liked her best.”

  “She helped you to make the time pass? Went walks with you, and that sort of thing?”

  “Yes. She helped me with bird’s-nesting, last time I was here. She’s no good at climbing trees, but she knows about birds’ eggs a lot. She took me over to the Public Library in the car and got out a lot of books with pictures of eggs in them when we didn’t know some of the ones we picked up. I’ve got the best collection in school. And this time she helped me to make fireworks—better than the kind you buy.”

  “The Public Library again?” Sir Clinton suggested, “I suppose you got your recipes there?”

  “Yes. I made some top-hole coloured fires and crackers out of a book they have in the Library.”

  “I suppose she bought the chemicals for you. You seem to have been in clover. Anything else she did for you?”

  “Yes. She got me a fishing-rod and taught me to cast. I cast better than she did. I caught a lot of fish, more than she could. I caught a trout that length . . .”

  “H’m! You and I must have a talk about the pools round here, sometime. I fish myself. Unfortunately I haven’t got a rod with me. Do you play golf, by the way?”

  Frankie shook his head.

  “No, she tried to teach me, but I hate it. It’s a girls’ game. Hillie’s good at it and she used to laugh at me when she saw me playing.”

  Sir Clinton looked at his watch.

  “Time’s getting on. I mustn’t keep you any longer, Dr. Glencaple. If you can solve the mystery of these tablets—something may suggest itself if you think over the business—I’d be glad to know as soon as possible. Officially, I’m not inclined to make a fuss.”

  When they got back into the car, Wendover expected that Carron Hill would be their next halting-place; but Sir Clinton had other views.

  “No, Squire. Curb your impatience. I’ve a call to make at the post-office.”

  Wendover had been putting two and two together during the interview with Dr. Glencaple, and now he thought he had fastened upon an important point.

  “That man Glencaple didn’t seem at all surprised when you mentioned that Mrs. Castleford had been dosed with morphine,” he said thoughtfully. “I thought your people were keeping their thumb on that.”

  Sir Clinton grinned pleasantly.

  “I hope you found a pedigree mare at home in that nest, Squire. Glencaple’s a medico. He was called in to identify the body, formally. No medical man could help seeing the ‘pin-point pupil’ if the eye was open; and he’d draw his own conclusions. Besides, although you couldn’t get a doctor to discuss his cases with you, he’ll discuss them quick enough with a colleague. The medical profession’s a sort of free-masonry. Ripponden wouldn’t feel bound to secrecy with another doctor, though he’d never think of saying a word to an unofficial layman. I’d have been more surprised if Glencaple had pretended to know nothing about it.”

  “There’s something in that, perhaps,” Wendover admitted, rather against the grain.

  At the post-office, Sir Clinton had little difficulty in inducing the girl to talk. P. C. Gumley’s manoeuvres had raised many doubts in her mind with regard to her own position in the matter of the telegram which she had divulged; and she was so grateful to the Chief Constable for the reassurance he gave her that she was ready to help in any way she could. The envelope containing the telegram, she explained, had been collected from a pillar-box near Carron Hill. She knew that, because naturally she had been specially interested in the telegram and she had asked the postman about it. It was the only letter in the box, at that collection, and he had noticed the sprawling handwriting as he took it out of the pillar. There were only three collections a day from that box: one in the morning, one in the early afternoon, and one about six o’clock.

  “When would letters lifted in the early afternoon collection reach this office?” Sir Clinton asked.

  “About ten past four, or a shade earlier, sir.”

  “Has anyone else asked for this bit of information lately?” Sir Clinton inquired.

  “It’s funny you should ask that, sir,” the girl replied promptly. “Somebody did ask. It was poor Mrs. Castleford herself. She asked me about all the collections from that box, just a few days before her death. No, I don’t mean the times the letters are lifted from the box—they’re marked on the box, of course. What she wanted was the times that letters collected from that pillar would be brought to the office here by the postman. Something about catching the London mail, I think, was why she asked.”

  “You’re quite sure about this?” Sir Clinton asked, in a rather dubious tone.

  “Yes, sir, quite sure. She asked me to write down the times for her on a sheet of paper.”

  “To write them down?” Sir Clinton was obviously surprised by this procedure.

  “Yes, sir. That’s why I’m so proof-positive about it. If it hadn’t been for that, it’d most likely have slipped my memory. And of course, her dying like that, it made me think about her and kept it fresh in my mind. I’m quite sure about it.”

  “Don’t forget it,” Sir Clinton warned her with a smile. “And—if I were you—I think I’d forget about this interview for the present. You understand?”

  The girl was only too glad to promise this. She wouldn’t say a word to anyone, not she! She’d had one lesson from “that policeman”; and she’d take better care another time.

  “This man Gumley seems an impressive character,” the Chief Constable commented. “He’s got some initiative and he evidently has a certain command of bluff, or he wouldn’t have got a sight of that telegram.”

  Wendover was not to be diverted by laudations of P. C. Gumley.

  “What do you make of that last piece of evidence?” he demanded.

  “It’s curious,” Sir Clinton admitted. “It might even be highly suggestive to an ingenious mind. But then I never had that kind of mind. What does strike me as peculiar is that she wanted the times written down.”

  Wendover considered this dispassionately for some moments before answering.

  “My recollection of her was that she was a feather-headed woman who couldn’t concentrate on anything. Likely enough she didn’t trust her memory.”

  “Very probably,” Sir Clinton admitted. “And now, Squire, your patience will be rewarded. Carron Hill, next.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Opportunities

  Throughout the morning, Wendover had been chafing under Sir Clinton’s procedure. In his opinion, the Chief Constable should have gone straight to Carron Hill and learned what the Castlefords had to tell. After that, there would be time enough to hunt up the minor characters in the drama and extract evidence from them. In his mind, he blamed his friend for putting the cart before the horse. Now, however, they had at last reached Carron Hill; and Wendover found himself looking forward—not altogether without apprehension—to hearing the Castleford side of the case.

  On the very threshold, however, Sir Clinton disappointed him once more. Sending in his card, he asked if Miss Lindfield could spare him a few minutes; and a swift impish glance at Wendover showed quite plainly that he was amused at the Squire’s baffled impatience in face of this unanticipated move.

  Wendover h
ad the knack of taking things philosophically, and he curbed his impatience with the reflection that Miss Lindfield promised to be an interesting personality. She was little more than a name to him. Sir Clinton had given him a précis of the evidence collected by the police; but this arid abstract dealt purely with events and interviews. Only by inference did it yield any indication of the actors’ personalities. He had gathered vaguely that, under the old regime, Miss Lindfield had been virtual mistress of Carron Hill. The tragedy had dethroned her; and now, penniless and on sufferance, she was lingering upon the scene, dependent on Dr. Glencaple’s charity until she found a fresh footing for herself.

  For the first time, Wendover began to feel qualms about the Castlefords. Was it playing the game to turn this girl out, as they evidently meant to do? He had an uncomfortable feeling that there was more behind the business than appeared in the evidence—old scores being paid off, or something of that sort. The Carron Hill vice-regency might have led to friction; and now, with the tables turned, the Castlefords might be retaliating in kind.

  While he was busy with these reflections, the door opened and Miss Lindfield came into the room. As she stood, glancing from one to the other, Sir Clinton saved her from awkwardness by taking the initiative.

  “I hope we haven’t interrupted you in anything,” he said in a pleasantly apologetic tone. “I ought, perhaps, to have let you know beforehand of this visit.”

  Miss Lindfield made a gesture inviting them to sit down, and chose a chair for herself.

  “You haven’t interrupted me,” she assured him. “I’ve nothing whatever to do, nowadays. Miss Castleford has taken the running of everything into her own hands—quite rightly, since things are different now.”

  If there was any tinge of bitterness in her tone, it was so faint as to be almost undetectable. Quite clearly, Miss Lindfield had no intention of making a song about her grievances. It would have been easy enough for her to angle for sympathy; but evidently she had no desire to do so. “Things are as they are” seemed to be the aphorism she had chosen as her guide; and she was doing her best to live up to it. Wendover, who had not expected such an effort at detachment, glanced at her with quickened interest.