The Crimson Rambler

by John Russell Fearn

  “Which could account for nobody anywhere hearing the sound of the shot which killed Mr. Darnworth?”

  “I would suggest it was a likely possibility, sir.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  USELESS THEORY

  “Well, thanks, Andrews. You’ve been most helpful. I think I’ll take a little stroll around the house. The study, to begin with. Now where’s that key?”

  He fished in his waistcoat pocket and nodded as he brought the key in view. Blair, catching his look, got up and joined him. Andrews directed them across the hall to a closed door not for from the foot of the staircase, and on the same side as the lounge.

  “This, sir, is the music-room,” he said, swinging the door open. “And next to it is the master’s study. Will that be all now?”

  “For the moment,” Gossage assented, and he waddled into the music-room and stood looking about him.

  Predominant among the furniture was a polished black grand piano with the top raised and the keyboard lid closed. Before it was a square stool with a red satin seat. Upon the floor was expensive carpet fitted with exactness

  By the single bay window was a china cabinet. On the opposite wall an old fashioned note was struck in the shape of an antique whatnot. Otherwise the appointments were commonplace—easy chairs, divan, a tall reading lamp, and, gold-painted to make it appear less conspicuous, a steam heating pipe stood where the fireplace had been.

  Gossage strolled over to the piano and raised the keyboard lid, tapped out a few bars of ‘Danny Boy’ on the white keys with one finger and then lowered the lid back again. His thoughtful gaze moved to the wall that divided the room from the study and then travelled back to the window.

  “This window can be opened, sir,” Blair remarked, nodding to it. “I’m not hoping to explain anything away,” he added. “I’m just trying to form a hypothesis. Do you think Miss Sheila might have—well, done something? Connected with the murder?”

  Gossage raised an eyebrow. “How?”

  “As I say, I don’t know—but she was nearest her father when he died. Right next door to him.” Blair, pursuing a thought deeply rooted in his mind, pushed the window open amidst a shower of raindrops and leaned outside. To the right, about fifteen feet away, was the window of the lounge; to the left, about the same distance, was the window of the study. Midway between music-room window and study window was a strong iron rain pipe from the roof. Both windows had fairly broad ledges and the lounge a rather smaller one.

  “I wonder,” said Blair, “if Miss Sheila could, by gripping the rain pipe, perhaps jump from this window to the study window.”

  “Could she now?” Gossage sounded quite tolerant and his smile was beamingly encouraging. Then he blew through his pipe and knocked the bowl gently on the windowsill outside.

  “I repeat, she could....” Blair was becoming heavily emphatic, which was a sure sign he was excited. “That would do away with the need of footprints on the soft flower bed here.” He leaned through the open window again and jabbed a finger downward significantly. “Once at the study window, she opened it or probably had left it unlatched in readiness during the day. We heard from Andrews that the study is unlocked when not in use. Anybody could go into it.”

  “You’re doing fine,” the chief inspector approved, filling his pipe from the pouch. “Then what did she do?”

  “Shot her father, left the way she’d entered, and drew the window catch into place after her. There are plenty of ways of locking a window from the outside.”

  “But, Harry,” the inspector said, “all this assumes that Sheila climbed a ladder to shoot her father, or else hung like a monkey from, say, the electrolier.”

  “Why should she do that?”

  “The shot came from above.”

  “Oh,” Sergeant Blair said, and looked vaguely irritated.

  “Can’t gainsay facts,” Gossage told him. “And in any case Darnwortb would hardly sit motionless while his daughter came through the study window with an air rifle. How’d she carry the air rifle without it hindering her movements? What kept the piano playing while she did the deed?”

  “Sorry, sir. Just a theory, anyway.”

  “And why do you imagine Sheila would wish to kill her father?”

  “I relied on your observation for that, sir—that nobody seems to care much now he’s dead. A girl who’ll shut herself away and write when her father’s been bumped off is—well, pretty callous, if you ask me.”

  “Suppose,” Gossage said, smiling, “we stop jumping to conclusions and get things a bit more in focus first? Let’s take a look at the study.”

  Taking the study key from his pocket, he turned it in the lock and swung the door open. The first things that became evident were the smell of stale cigar smoke and heavy darkness.

  Gossage switched on the electrolier. “No curtains drawn back. Hop over and draw them aside, Harry.”

  Blair did so and the pallid November daylight came into the room. Gossage switched the lights off again and then for a while stood on the threshold.

  Blair, from the opposite end of the study, looked about him, too. Near to him, by the window, was the desk, average-sized, its leather-topped surface littered with financial papers, market reports and correspondence. There were inkwells, red and black, in a mahogany stand, a telephone, and a desk light.

  From Gossage’s point of view by the door, the desk was at the other end of the room, a distance of about twenty feet. On his left was the bureau, then came the floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with books; then the window behind Blair, and the desk. On the other wall were the hard-backed chairs, two-easy chairs and a big Jacobean bookcase filled carelessly with manuals and periodicals.

  Gossage sniffed the air again. Despite the fact that he was smoking himself, he could still detect the odour of cigar fumes. When be reached the desk he looked at the ashtray. A little heap of ash lay in it and the end of a cigar.

  “Evidently the old man smoked a good deal, sir,” Blair commented, coming round the desk. “You know how a room gets to hold the smell of tobacco fumes no matter how much you try and freshen it up.”

  Gossage nodded. “Not that it matters. Smoker or non-smoker he was shot dead: that’s our problem. Let’s have a look at the window.”

  They moved over to the window and promptly received their first punch in the nose. In particular did Sergeant Blair look discomfited, and with good reason. The window was of the non-opening variety, a solid frame of mullioned panes.

  “Blast!” Blair murmured. “No wonder Craddock said the window was one of the type you can’t tamper with! I never thought of a solid one.’

  “I did,” Gossage grinned. “It was in his report which I read over to myself. Sorry, Harry; I should have told you when you were waltzing away with your masterly theory regarding Sheila.”

  “This kicks the bottom out of that theory, sir. She couldn’t have got in here.”

  “No, by gosh, and neither could anybody else!” Gossage tapped his teeth edge with his pipe. “This rules the window right out, Harry. Puts a blue pencil clean through it. All it does do is explain the stale air in here. Lack of adequate ventilation.”

  Gossage began to prowl round the room, taking his time, examining everything with an intense thoroughness.

  Finally, he stood contemplating the oak paneled ceiling with the electrolier depending from the centre, about ten feet away from the desk. It was fitted with a copper rosette flush with the ceiling; then it came down in a single copper tube, and where the branching occurred, was a second rosette of a lighter-hued copper than the one in the ceiling.

  “I’ll be hanged if I can understand it, sir….”

  Gossage gave a little start and looked at the sergeant.

  “What did you say, Harry?”

  “I said I can’t understand it, sir. This business doesn’t make sense. There’s no position from which anybody could have shot Darnworth, and even less explanation of how anybody could have got in and out of the room and left
the only key on the inside.

  Gossage smiled good-humouredly. “Harry, don’t let it throw you. Fit the parts into place and the solution will be self-evident. We’re not going to batter out what few brains we’ve got trying to solve how somebody got in and out of here. We’re going to fit the parts.”

  “Yes, sir. In what way?”

  “First of all,” the chief inspector said, “let’s grab hold of something we do know. That is: Darnworth died from a slug from a B.S.A. air rifle. No getting round that. But we can’t find the rifle—or at any rate Craddock couldn’t. And Craddock is intensely thorough. If he says he had this place searched from top to bottom—which Mrs. Darnworth verifies—and couldn’t find the weapon, we can be pretty sure it isn’t in the house.”

  “Well...yes,” Blair agreed slowly. “Even Craddock isn’t infallible though, sir. It might have been hidden so neatly that it would be hard to find. Might take weeks.”

  Gossage shrugged heavy shoulders. “Ask yourself a question. If you’d murdered a man with a fairly cumbersome thing like a B.S.A. air rifle, a difficult weapon to keep right, would you keep it in the house, knowing the house would be searched. And remember that after the murder nobody left the house until Craddock had searched it, and two policemen have been on guard during the night. You can’t walk out of the house with a bulky thing like an air rifle without showing some sign of it.”

  “You might, sir, carrying it under a long mackintosh like that one worn by Preston. It might have been got out that way.”

  “Yes, but not until this morning. Nobody went out until then. Which brings me back to my first belief, Harry. Assuming that somebody in the house did it—which seems more than likely—I’d say the best way to be rid of the rifle would be to throw it from the house as far as possible. Then, after leaving the house, reclaim it.”

  Gossage seemed to make up his mind suddenly.

  “I’m going for a ramble and while I’m about it I’ll have a word with Craddock, too. I’d suggest you have a word with those two constables and find out from them what each person leaving here this morning was wearing. Then dismiss them: they don’t need to stay on any longer. In that way you can perhaps clear up your own theory and I’ll see what I can do with mine.”

  “Right, sir. I believe it’s a good ten miles to Inspector Craddock’s headquarters.”

  “Who cares? Nothing like exercise.”

  * * * * * * *

  The Chief Inspector set off, his mackintosh over his shoulder and his snake-headed stick gripped firmly in his hand.

  As he walked down the drive, he stopped, turned, and studied the front of the manor.

  To the left of the front door were the bay windows of the dining room; to the right of it were the single bay windows of lounge, music room, and study. Above, there were six windows, mullioned, the first on the left he identified as belonging to Blair’s bedroom, and the next—to the right and nearly over the front door—as his own. The others he had yet to place.

  His gaze travelled above the bedroom windows to the long iron gutter and its three down pipes—then upward to the lofty, sloping-roof, slated in the modern style, with an old fashioned and now disused massive chimney in the centre.

  “Hello! Looking the old place over?”

  Gossage twirled round. He had been so absorbed in his study of the manor’s façade he had not heard the footfalls along the gravel. He faced a young woman in dark maroon slacks and a canary-coloured woolen jumper with a polo collar.

  “Did I startle you?” she asked, smiling.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ELAINE ASKED TO EXPLAIN

  Gossage took off his cap, assessing the girl quickly.

  “Matter of fact, you did,” he admitted. His eyes wandered to the bulky file she was carrying under her arm. “You’ll be Miss Darnworth, I take it? Miss Sheila Darnworth?”

  She nodded. She was good looking in a sensitive way, her nose spoiling the effect somewhat by being a trifle too long. She had a well-shaped, generous mouth, a pointed chin, and smoky grey eyes that looked tired because of heavy lids. She was hatless, her blonde hair blowing a little in the damp breeze.

  “Yes, I’m Sheila Darnworth,” she assented, having appraised the red face. cropped head, and gold-rimmed glasses. “Let me make a guess. You’re the chief inspector. Frankly, I forget the name.”

  “Gossage.”

  “That’s it. I had just heard about your phone call when I left the house this morning. You won’t think me awfully rude for not having come into the house to meet you, will you?”

  Gossage smiled a little. “To be quite truthful, young lady, I don’t blame you. I never heard of anybody being anxious to meet an Inspector from Scotland Yard.”

  She considered him, head a trifle on one side.

  “You know, you don’t look a bit like what I expected. I’d sort of anticipated a square-jawed man in a bowler hat—keeping it on in the house, too! You’re so—different! More like an uncle, or something, or a squire.”

  She looked suddenly guilty. “I say—don’t stand bareheaded because of me, please. I appreciate it, but there’s really no need. I’m used to being without a hat and it makes me forget some people aren’t.”

  “Very considerate of you, Miss.”

  Gossage put his cap back on again and pulled it low over his eyes. Raising his stick, he considered the snake’s head, then his gaze went back to the sharply revealed lines of Sheila Darnworth’s twenty-two-year-old figure. Andrews had said she had been twelve ten years ago…. Yes—twenty-two.

  “Do you think you could spare a few moments for a chat, Miss Darnworth?” Gossage asked. “I’m going for a stroll, but since I’ve met you I might as well

  talk now as later—unless you’re busy?”

  “Busy? No, not now.”

  Gossage began walking slowly and she kept in step beside him. She had lithe, easy strides, he noticed—and rather long legs for her approximate five-feet-five of height.

  “I believe you write?” he said. “Over in the brick summer house yonder?”

  “Yes, I write murder thrillers,” she said.

  Gossage’s eyes widened.

  “Do you, by gosh? Now that does intrigue me!”

  “You’re very polite,” she said, smiling seriously. “You can laugh outright if you want, you know. Most people do. My mother, my sister—and my father laughed more than anybody. I suppose there is something funny about a girl like me writing murders. But, Mr. Gossage, you said you wanted a chat with me. About my father, do you mean? And—and the dreadful thing that happened to him?”

  “Yes. I’d like your side of it.”

  “I told everything to the divisional inspector last night. There isn’t anything more.”

  “Oh, you never can tell.” Gossage smiled at her encouragingly. “You were playing the piano for an hour last evening from seven to eight?”

  “I was, yes. But there was nothing unusual in that. I’ve done it for years every evening between seven and eight. I call it my practice hour.”

  “Did you during that time hear anything unusual? Say, a shot—or a cry from your father? Anything at all. Not while you were playing you wouldn’t, of course, but you might have during the rests.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” she said, shrugging.

  “Do you know if your father had any enemies?”

  “Not to my knowledge. He may have had some in business, of course. As you probably know by now, he was a pretty influential man in the financial world. It is an unfortunate fact that he was not greatly liked.”

  “Any more than he was at home, apparently,” Gossage said.

  “I don’t think I quite understand what you mean by that, Mr. Gossage,” the girl said.

  He smiled. “Not one of you, as far as I can make out, has deviated from normal pursuits. Of course I do not expect you to go about in sackcloth and ashes, but somehow I’m old-fashioned enough to expect, perhaps, dark clothes, a brief cessation of work in respect to the dead. Only yo
ur mother is wearing black.”

  “She always wears black,” the girl said; then she looked down at herself quickly in her canary yellow jumper and maroon slacks.

  “Do you know…?” She paused awkwardly. “I never thought of it! I always wear these duds to work in—after all, Mr. Gossage, work goes on.”

  “I agree that ordinary employment goes on, but….” The chief inspector spread his hands. “You are your own mistress in this—this writing you do; your sister, I understand, only helps the local vet because it pleases her to do it. I exclude Mr. Crespin and Mr. Bride because they are not of the family, Look, Miss Darnworth,” he broke off seriously, “I get the perfectly obvious impression that it doesn’t much matter to you or your sister—or maybe your mother—whether your father is dead. Am I right?”

  Sheila Darnworth hesitated for a long moment then she gave a firm little nod.

  “Yes. You’re right,” she assented. “It makes it a good deal easier now my father’s gone. He was not the kind of man with whom one could get along. I respected him as a daughter should, but I have the right to say that he didn’t conform to my idea of what a father should be. For instance, if he were not dead I wouldn’t be carrying this file of mine into the house, in case he should find it. As it is, I can. Understand?”

  Gossage filled his pipe slowly from his pouch as he regarded her. Then gradually the smile came back on his red face.

  “I’m not going to poke my nose in, Miss Darnworth,” Gossage told her. They were at the gates, and he added: “Oh, before we part. This young man you’re engaged to—”

  “You mean Barry Crespin?”

  “Yes. When can I see him? I believe he went off to the city on business.”

  “That, the girl said, “was quite unexpected. He’s a radio engineer—has two stores of his own in London. They rang up this morning to say there was something urgent that only he could attend to. So off he went in his car. You’ll like Barry, inspector. I’d do anything to help him because I’m sure he deserves it. He’s one of those sort of boys who gets what he wants.”