Who Pays the Piper?

by Patricia Wentworth

  Abbott’s left eyebrow twitched.

  “Hang it all, man, you’re talking like a book! Did you like Dale? That’s what we want to know—did you like him?”

  A pale, ugly flush suffused Mr. Phipson’s features, particularly the nose which reminded young Abbott so strongly of a rabbit’s. He said in a huffy, stuffy voice,

  “I was with Mr. Dale for three years. The relations between us were of a perfectly satisfactory nature.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  Vincent Bell came into the room with a brisk and jaunty air. His eyes went to and fro, his black hair stood up aggressively. He sat down with an air of assurance and addressed himself to Inspector Lamb.

  “Well, Captain, what can I do for you?”

  “You can answer some questions, Mr. Bell.”

  “That’s all right by me.”

  Inspector Lamb was being careful. He said,

  “You understand that you are not obliged to answer? I’d like to make that clear.”

  “I’m not obliged to talk, but I can if I like?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Bell.”

  “All right, Captain, shoot!”

  “Well then, Mr. Bell, perhaps you’ll give us an idea of what your business was with Mr. Dale.”

  “Well, I don’t know that it was exactly business.”

  “But you had had business relations with him.”

  Vincent Bell’s eyes snapped.

  “Dale’s secretary been talking? Well, I won’t deny it.”

  “Rum running or something of that sort?”

  Vincent Bell laughed.

  “Something of that sort,” he agreed.

  “Well, that’s nothing to do with us over here, but if you and Mr. Dale came to loggerheads about it——” Lamb made a suggestive pause.

  “Well, I won’t say we didn’t. But that’s not to say I’d take the trouble to come over here and shoot him, because if I’d wanted to put him on the spot I could have done it three years ago without travelling three thousand miles.”

  Frank Abbott looked up from his shorthand notes.

  “But you did come three thousand miles. Why?”

  Vincent Bell grinned.

  “I’d a notion it might be worth my while. Look here, boys, I’m not holding up on you. The truth is Dale got away with a helluva lot of money that was half of it mine. I was sick, and he collected and walked out on me—thought I was going to die and there would be no questions asked. Well, I didn’t die, but what with one thing and another I wasn’t in a position to follow him up for a year or two, and then it took a bit of time before I hit his trail.”

  Inspector Lamb put up a hand.

  “You came over here to try and recover a sum of money from Mr. Dale?”

  “You can put it like that.”

  “Did you come over here to threaten him?”

  Vincent laughed.

  “I came to get my money.”

  “How did you expect to get it?”

  “Not by shooting him. That wouldn’t make sense, would it? How much money can you get from a guy with a bullet in his brain? I wanted my money, and the way things are I don’t get a cent. I guess that lets me out.”

  Inspector Lamb leaned forward. He said in a weighty voice,

  “You were heard quarrelling with Mr. Dale at a quarter past six. He was shot some time between then and a quarter to seven when the butler found him dead. What have you got to say about that?”

  For the moment Mr. Bell hadn’t anything to say. There was a noticeable alteration in his colour. He looked here and there, and in the end flung out a hand.

  “That puts me in a spot. But I didn’t shoot him. You don’t shoot a guy because you have a quarrel with him. I wasn’t watching the time, but if someone heard us talking at a quarter past six, it wasn’t much after that when I quit and went upstairs, and Dale was alive then. I left him right here in this room. He’d his back to me and he was going over to that glass door. We’d both got a bit heated, and I guess he meant to open it. It was found open.”

  “It was open when he was found,” said Lamb, varying the order of the words. “Well, Mr. Bell, what did you do next?”

  “I went upstairs to my room, and then I took a bath.”

  “Can you fix the time you were in the bath?”

  Vincent shrugged his shoulders.

  “If I’d known Dale was going to be murdered I’d have kept right on looking at my watch and I wouldn’t have taken a bath. I’d have gone and sat with that secretary guy so I’d have a nice water-tight alibi. That’s the worst of not being the murderer. It’s just too bad. All I can tell you is I was out of my bath and part way dressed when Raby gave the alarm, and that was round about a quarter to seven.”

  “And you didn’t hear the shot?”

  “I wouldn’t have heard twenty shots,” said Vincent Bell. “I guess the plumbing in this house is pretty old. When you’ve got a tap turned on it’s bad enough, but when you turn it off—well, it’s like the Fourth of July.”

  “Noises in the pipes?”

  “I’ll say so.”

  Inspector Lamb’s round brown eyes dwelt upon Vincent Bell. Mr. Bell sustained the look. He even grinned, and said,

  “Try them for yourself, Captain.”

  The Inspector frowned.

  “Everyone in this house has got a reason for not having heard that shot. I can believe one or two of them, but I can’t believe them all.”

  Vincent Bell laughed cheerfully.

  “Mine’s O.K. whatever the others are,” he declared.

  He went out as briskly as he had come in, and at that moment the telephone bell rang.

  Inspector Lamb lifted the receiver and heard an indisputably clerical voice say,

  “Is that King’s Bourne? Is that Raby?”

  “Detective Inspector Lamb speaking.”

  There was a clerical cough.

  “Oh, yes. Good-morning, Inspector. My name is Mickleham—the Reverend Cyril Mickleham—and I am the Vicar of this parish.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  There was another cough.

  “Well, Inspector—er—the fact is my wife, Mrs. Mickleham, has some information which I feel it is her duty to—er—place at your disposal. It is very painful to us both, but private feelings must not be allowed to interfere with public duties.”

  “Well, sir, if Mrs. Mickleham has any information to give us, I shall be glad if she could make it convenient to call here as soon as possible.”

  “Exactly—there is no time like the present. We can be with you in twenty minutes, if that will be all right.”

  Lamb hung up and hunched a shoulder.

  “Vicar’s wife, with evidence—coming along now. We can be trying out Mr. Bell’s water-pipes and Mr. Phipson’s records.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  The pipes amply substantiated Vincent Bell’s account of their activities. As soon as any water had been run off there was such a gurgling, banging and groaning as would have camouflaged a royal salute.

  Raby deposed to having heard the sounds from his pantry.

  “A shocking noise they do make, and no mistake about it, sir. The pipes come down beside my sink, and there are times when they bang so loud you’d think they’d burst. They weren’t as bad as that last night, but round about half past six they were at it for a matter of ten minutes or so. There isn’t anyone can have a bath in this house without its being known. Very put out about it, Mr. Dale was, and meaning to have the old pipes out and a new lot put in. He only spoke of it yesterday, sir, and said if he went abroad on his honeymoon, it could be done very convenient whilst he was away.”

  Tests with the records in Mr. Phipson’s room went to show that a shot fired in the study could not be heard during any of the louder passages, and that with the door and window shut and the curtains drawn it would be extremely likely to pass unnoticed at any time. In the servants’ hall it was quite inaudible, even without a band programme on the wireless.

  Lamb led the
way back to the study, sat down at the table, and said,

  “Carry on, Abbott. What do you make of it?”

  Frank Abbott sat on the corner of the table and swung an elegantly trousered leg.

  “No one has a motive,” he said. “Everyone has lots of opportunity. Nobody has an alibi.”

  Lamb grunted.

  “Bell had it in for him all right.”

  “I don’t fancy Bell, but let’s say he had half a motive. Opportunity and alibi as before.”

  The Inspector grunted again, but this time produced no words. Frank Abbott carried on.

  “Opportunity—Raby said he was in the pantry from just after twenty past six to a quarter to seven. We have only his own word for it that he left Dale alive. He could have shot him when he came to make up the fire, or he could have come back from the pantry and done it, or he could have taken in the cocktail and done it then. Opportunity for Raby practically unlimited. Motive, as already stated, none. Alibi practically non-existent—Mrs. Raby says she called out to him in the pantry somewhere round about half past six and he answered her.

  Now for the secretary. There’s no motive so far as we know, and he loses his job. There’s no alibi of any sort, kind or description. He says he was playing gramophone records and writing letters. Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn’t. The discs were lying about in his room, and the last one was still on the gramophone—he was playing it when Raby came up. He did write letters. There was one for the post addressed to a firm of sanitary engineers in Ledlington, and there were torn-up pieces of something discreetly affectionate in his waste paper basket. He gets so tangled up when he’s trying to be accurate that it’s no good trying to trip him—he keeps on doing it himself. I don’t know whether you could make head or tail of his times, but I couldn’t, and I don’t believe he could either. I was left with the feeling that he might have disentangled himself from the Ninth Symphony and his correspondence, hared downstairs shot Dale, and got back in time to listen to the final panegyric of joy. Only why in heaven’s name should he shoot him?”

  There was no answer.

  At this moment the young constable on duty outside the door opened it and ushered in the Vicar, his cheerful rosy face composed as for a funeral, and Mrs. Mickleham who looked as if she had been crying for hours. She still most incredibly resembled a hen, but a hen with dejected and ruffled feathers. Her long neck poked, her hair was in wisps under a crooked hat, her eyelids were red and swollen, the ridge of her bony nose scarlet. She held a pocket handkerchief tightly clasped in a black gloved hand. As she sank into the chair recently vacated by Vincent Bell she pressed the linen to her lips and heaved a heart-broken sigh.

  Frank Abbott, having provided the Vicar with a chair, sat down at the far side of the table and opened his notebook. The Vicar cleared his throat.

  “My wife is very much distressed, but I have told her that her duty is clear. Perhaps you will allow me to explain. Does the name of Miss Susan Lenox convey anything to you?”

  Inspector Lamb picked up a sheet of paper from the table.

  “Niece of the late owner of King’s Bourne, now resident with her aunt, Mrs. O’Hara, at the Little House, Netherbourne.”

  “Exactly, Inspector. Miss Lenox is a very charming girl whom I have known since she was quite a child. For the past two years she has been engaged to William Carrick, the son of our late doctor—a very great loss and much respected. William Carrick is an architect by profession, and I have looked forward very pleasantly to marrying these young people as soon as William’s circumstances became such as to enable him to support a wife. Imagine my surprise and consternation when I received a visit yesterday afternoon from Mr. Dale, in the course of which he informed me that he and Susan Lenox intended to be married on Thursday, and that he had just been making the necessary arrangements for a licence. His call was for the purpose of asking me to perform the ceremony. I could hardly believe my cars, and I felt that I must communicate as soon as possible with Miss Lenox. I really found it impossible to believe her capable of terminating a two years engagement for the purpose of entering so precipitately into marriage with a stranger. I was deeply concerned, not only as her parish priest but as an old friend.”

  Inspector Lamb said, “Quite so.”

  The Vicar put up a hand.

  “Permit me to continue. I thought it inadvisable to use the telephone to discuss so confidential a matter. The amount of gossip in a village is deplorable—quite deplorable. I made it the subject of my Lenten sermons last year under such headings as Evil Speaking, Lying, Slandering, etcetera——But I must not digress. I was about to sally forth to the Little House, when I received a very urgent call to a dying parishioner at Ledcott. I therefore asked my wife to go and see Miss Lenox and ascertain the real facts from her. In a way, I felt perhaps that a woman’s intuition——”

  A smothered sob from Mrs. Mickleham broke the thread of what had begun to sound ominously like a sermon.

  Inspector Lamb turned to the afflicted lady.

  “Perhaps you would tell us the rest yourself, Mrs. Mickleham.”

  The hand with the crumpled handkerchief returned to her lap, where it was tightly clasped by its fellow. In the wretched voice of one who has got a most repugnant lesson by heart, she said,

  “I went to the Little House and I walked in—we know them so very well that I usually just walk in. There was a light upstairs, but it was dark in the hall. The drawing-room door was ajar, and I knew there was no one there because the room was dark, so I opened the dining-room door and went through to go to the kitchen. Susan does all the cooking, so I thought she might be there——”

  “One moment, Mrs. Mickleham—what time was this?”

  Mrs. Mickleham sniffed miserably.

  “I left the Vicarage at six o’clock, and it takes about twenty minutes.”

  “And what time was Mr. Dale’s visit?”

  “He was with me from half past three until ten minutes to four,” said the Vicar. “We were expecting a guest to tea, or I would have gone to see Miss Lenox immediately. By the time our guest had gone I had received the urgent summons I told you of. It was then, I think, about a quarter to six.”

  Inspector Lamb returned to Mrs. Mickleham.

  “So you reached the Little House at about twenty past six?”

  Mrs. Mickleham caught her breath.

  “Oh, I think so—but then I stopped for a moment to ask Mrs. Stock about her little boy with the whooping cough, so it must have been later than that.”

  “Very well, will you go on? You went through the dining-room to go to the kitchen because you thought Miss Lenox might be there.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Mickleham. “There was a light under the door and I could hear them talking. I really did not know what to do—whether to go back—but then the Vicar had expressly charged me——”

  “What did you do, Mrs. Mickleham?”

  “I stood still and tried to make up my mind——”

  “One moment—do you know who it was in the kitchen?”

  “Oh, yes—it was Susan Lenox and Bill Carrick. And I could not help hearing what he said—he was speaking so loudly. And of course one couldn’t be surprised—after being engaged for two years, and the change so dreadfully sudden.”

  The Inspector leaned forward.

  “Do you mean that Mr. Carrick and Miss Lenox were quarrelling?”

  “Oh, no, no—I don’t think so—it wasn’t like that at all. Poor Susan kept saying things like ‘I must’ and ‘I’ve promised’, and Bill was saying he wouldn’t let her, and things about going up to King’s Bourne and—and having it out with Mr. Dale. And I thought how dreadful if he went up there in the state of mind he was in, so I opened the door and—and——” The tears began to well from Mrs. Mickleham’s eyes and her voice failed.

  “Come, come, Lucy.” The Vicar laid an admonitory hand on her shoulder. “My dear, control yourself. You must tell the Inspector what you heard William say.”

 
; “I can’t.”

  “You can do your duty, my dear, and I am sure that you will.”

  Mrs. Mickleham leaned back and closed her reddened eyelids upon the welling tears. She spoke in an exhausted voice.

  “He said—oh dear, I heard him say—oh dear, I wish I hadn’t, but he said—he said——‘Do you want me to kill him, Susan?’ Oh dear! And then he said, ‘I’m think I’m going to.’ And I pushed open the door, and as soon as he saw me he pulled away from Susan and rushed out through the scullery.”

  “Did you see where he went?”

  “Oh, no—it was quite dark. But I could hear him running up the garden.”

  “Would that be the way to King’s Bourne?”

  “It would be the nearest way,” said the Vicar.

  “Oh dear!” said Mrs. Mickleham.

  “What happened after that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Poor Susan looked as if she was going to faint. I tried to explain to her why I had come, but I don’t think she was listening to me—she seemed too much distressed. And all at once she ran out through the scullery after Bill, and there didn’t seem to be anything to stay for then, so I came away.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Mickleham. I suppose you didn’t notice the time whilst you were in the kitchen? I should like it a little more exact than we’ve got it yet.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Mickleham. “And I always notice a clock. One does if one leads a very busy life. I’m sure I don’t know where I should be if I let myself get behind. And the clock is on the dresser—just opposite the door.”

  “Then you noticed the time as you came in?”

  “Oh, yes—it was three minutes to the half hour.”

  “Good,” said the Inspector. “Then Mr. Carrick started up the hill to King’s Bourne at twenty-seven minutes past six. And how long would it take him to get there? What’s the distance?”

  “Four hundred yards to the front door,” said Mr. Mickleham with a faint air of superiority. “I carry a pedometer—a hobby of mine. I believe I could tell you the exact distance between any two points in my parish.”

  Lamb’s gaze dwelt upon him for a moment and then withdrew.