The Crimson Rambler

by John Russell Fearn

  “As for the rest of them with their motives and alibis—we know that Crespin and Bride had a motive, and so perhaps in a lesser kind of way had Sheila and Elaine. With the exception of Bride’s, the alibis are pretty sound. He was two hours and five minutes just waiting. Maybe right—maybe not. Elaine was out, too, of course, but the time wouldn’t allow her to do much between leaving the vet’s and getting back here. Crespin was asleep in bed, to which fact the butler testifies. And Sheila was playing the piano during the fatal time and there doesn’t seem to be a pianola which could perhaps explain it. Or perhaps even a gramophone record…”

  Gossage’s voice trailed off as he thought for a moment. Then: “Well, let’s put Crespin, Bride, Sheila and Elaine as ‘remotely possible.’ That brings us to Andrews. He, as butler, might have the opportunity to do the whole thing without much difficulty since he has the run of the house. Presumably he didn’t like Darnworth. Put him as ‘possible.’ Now where does that get us?”

  Blair considered his notebook and then summed up as though he were in court.

  “Highly probable—Preston. Probable—Mrs. Darnworth. Possible—Louise and Andrews. Remotely possible—Crespin, Bride, Sheila and Elaine.”

  Gossage said: “I think for the moment that is as far as we can get—theoretically. Tomorrow I intend to hunt again for the weapon, and unless Mrs. Darnworth has something to say we’ll investigate in the village. For the moment, let us go upstairs to see if the theory of the tilting electrolier is correct. We’ll use my walking stick as a rifle barrel.”

  Blair switched off the lights and locked the study door behind them, and Gossage picked up his stick from the hall wardrobe. In silence Blair and he ascended the stairs, got a flashlight and entered the boxroom.

  Once the electrolier had been lowered three links Gossage drove his stick into the tube and forced it back easily enough, the balance perfect.

  “Then there’s no doubt about it, sir,” Blair said. “That’s how it was done. If only it were the end of the riddle instead of the beginning!”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  AN AMBITIOUS WOMAN

  Gossage retired at 10:30 and promptly went to sleep. Then he opened his eyes slowly and realized that the bed light had been switched on, that it was shining obliquely on to the anything but prepossessing face of Preston, bending over him. Nor was this all. Preston was gripping a penknife tightly in his right hand and the tip of the blade was pressed against Gossage’s throat.

  “Not a sound, Mr. Inspector, if y’know what’s good for you,” Preston warned, his voice low. “One move the wrong way and I’ll cut your throat.”

  Gossage lay motionless.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “To tell you a few things. I’ve had about all the hanky panky I mean to have from you, inspector. I’ve warned y’plenty of times about pesterin’ the old lady with y’fool questions, and now I’ve run out of warnings. I know what’s in y’mind. inspector. You thinks to y’self—She can walk can the old lady. That means she probably murdered her husband and then said she couldn’t walk just to make an alibi. But y’not going to do anything about it, Mr. Inspector, ’cause I’ll slit’ y’throat first. I won’t have Mrs. Darnworth pestered no more. So I’m saying that—”

  “Preston! Preston! What are you doing?”

  The handyman stiffened. Slowly he straightened up and the knife was withdrawn from Gossage’s throat. Gossage could see that Mrs. Darnworth was by the door, in a negligee. Standing on her own two feet.

  “Preston, put that knife away!” she commanded.

  “Yes, mum,” Preston muttered sullenly, and snapped it shut as he glared sideways at Gossage.

  Mrs. Darnworth turned to the door and twisted the key in the lock. Then she came forward slowly, a smile of cold, bitter amusement on her face.

  “You take too much for granted, Mr. Gossage,” she told him. “You should lock your bedroom door. It’s fortunate for you that I heard Preston prowling in the corridor. I opened my bedroom door just in time to see him entering your room. I rather expected it, so tonight I kept my room door key instead of letting Louise have it.”

  “Thanks for walking in,” Gossage said, sitting erect in his vividly striped pyjama jacket. “Preston, draw up a chair for Mrs. Darnworth.”

  The handyman did so, ungracefully. Then he stood at the back of the chair as Mrs. Darnworth sat down.

  “I observe,” Gossage remarked, “that I was not mistaken in saying you can walk.”

  “No, you were not mistaken…. I had intended admitting the fact in the morning, but this incident has hurried it. I realize that it would be foolish of me to try to cross the law. It might also give rise to other entirely groundless suspicions. You could have found out the truth, anyway, and so it is better that the truth should come from me.”

  Mrs. Darnworth turned her head to look at Preston.

  “And if I ever catch you playing about with that knife again, Preston, I’ll give you in charge,” she snapped.

  “It was only to protect you, mum,” he retorted.

  “Protect me? By committing murder? Man, where is your common sense? And that is what you intended, isn’t it?”

  Preston said nothing.

  “Preston is under the impression—whether rightly or wrongly I do not know—that you think I murdered my husband and that I invented this paralysis story to create an alibi. The story I told you about the accident was the truth and my husband was responsible for it. Specialists who examined me all returned the same verdict—prognosis negative. I would never walk again. However, determination can do many things, Mr. Gossage.

  “For three years I was paralyzed. Then gradually I began to discover that the use of my legs was returning. I consulted my own doctor in the village and he told me that a million-to-one chance had come off and that complete recovery was possible. For reasons of my own I forbade him to mention my prospects of recovery to anybody. Of the members of the household only Preston knew my secret. I knew I could trust him; he has been in my employ for fifteen years. One other person, outside of the doctor and Preston, has known the facts all the time—Clinton Brown.”

  Gossage nodded. “You mentioned him at dinner last night and I mentioned him to you this evening. Honest, kind, and unambitious, I think you called him? I gather he lives in that cottage you visited?”

  “Yes, he does,” Mrs. Darnworth admitted. Then she continued: “Ambition, Mr. Gossage, has been my downfall. I was born in Bexley, and though I loved Clinton, he couldn’t give me the money and position I wanted. Then Mr. Darnworzh, at that time a fairly prosperous young financier, bought a house near Bexley. I married him, and ten years ago we came here. Clinton never married. When things became too intolerable with my husband I used to seek solace with Clinton. When he heard of my accident he vowed he’d kill my husband and I had a struggle to dissuade him. I could only do it by letters because I was bedridden at that time…. I really think it was because of him that I struggled back to health. But I took care that nobody in this house knew I had recovered.”

  “What reason had you for concealing it?” Gossage asked.

  Mrs. Darnworth smiled rather wistfully. “I had the idea that by flinging my incapacitation in my husband’s face day and night I’d bring about a sense of remorse—and I also thought I’d cause him to leave me everything when he died.”

  “And he didn’t leave anything to you? According to Miss Sheila?”

  “No. He left everything to Sheila—on certain conditions, the exact details of which I don’t yet know. I know these facts because my husband left a letter with the family solicitor, to be opened by me when my husband died. I have now had that letter. In it my husband says he doesn’t intend to leave anything to his ‘miserable wife’ as he calls me, or his ‘cowgirl’ daughter, meaning Elaine. He says he is leaving everything to Sheila if she can live up to her reputation. The meaning of that escapes me. If she doesn’t there are other dispositions that don’t touch the family and cheat me o
ut of my legal third as his widow. The will is to be proven tomorrow or Tuesday—or rather today since we are now in the early hours of Monday—and then we shall know the facts. The letter merely gives me advance warning not to expect anything….”

  Mrs. Darnworth paused and then went on again.

  “I tried desperately hard to swing them in my favour, Mr. Gossage. I even took sides with my husband against my own daughters in the belief that agreeing with his viewpoint would cause him to leave things to me at his demise. Ambition, you see—the crazy longing to have everything. I deserve to lose for my deception. It has not been easy for me to maintain a frigid, uncompromising attitude with my own children, and particularly Sheila, who is a highly talented girl.”

  “I know it hasn’t,” Gossage said, and the woman gave him a sharp look.

  “You know it hasn’t? How?”

  “I fathomed this alter ego of yours, Mrs. Darnworth, when my sergeant stumbled on certain things in the boxroom deed boxes. He acted without my authority, but of course I couldn’t help hearing the details of his findings. The hair of Sheila and Elaine in satin-lined boxes; Sheila’s first efforts with the alphabet; later, her manuscripts. Those are your treasures. They didn’t fit in with the general aspect of you deriding Sheila for everything she wrote.”

  “I played a cruel, bitter role for something I didn’t get.” Mrs. Darnworth sighed, reflecting. “I don’t blame Sergeant Blair for finding those mementoes. I had the idea he might—or that you would. The manuscripts do belong to Sheila. Her father laughed them to scorn. I joined in to show that I agreed with his viewpoint. Sheila threw the manuscripts away, but I had Preston recover them and I read them for myself. At that time I was really disabled and had no safe place to keep them. I dare not let my husband know that I was in any way sympathetic toward either girl. I could not get up and down stairs, so I chose a sealed deed box in which to keep things, knowing my husband would never look there. In there I also kept the letters Clinton had written me many years ago.”

  “Why did your husband so deride Sheila’s efforts?”

  “Because he hated girls and never gave them credit for being able to do anything intelligent. He wanted sons. That was another reason why he had no time for me....” Jessica Darnworth pondered through an interval, then:

  “However, to return to facts. I had the letter from the solicitors on the evening of the day you came, after they had been notified of my husband’s death. I knew then that I had lost my battle, but the shock was not so very terrible because I had had advance warning of it by Sheila’s remarks during dinner. I had to decide what I must do. I must let Clinton know. So yesterday afternoon I went to see him. I always have chosen Sunday because Bexley is so deserted on that day. In case anybody might see me, however, I always wear a veil to conceal my identity. I saw Clinton, Mr. Gossage, and…we are going to try and catch up on the wasted years. I fought a battle and lost it. I intend to make every fact known to my daughters and the household and then withdraw and leave Sheila to control matters as she sees best.”

  “That, of course, is entirely up to you, madam,” Gossage said. “I think you should know that in spite of everything your daughter has made good with her writing. She calls herself ‘D. J. Harper.’ Mr. Crespin told me in the strictest confidence.”

  A slow smile spread over Mrs. Darnworth’s face. “That is wonderful news to me, Mr. Gossage—but by no means surprising. Sheila gets a lot of her determination from me, you know…. D. J. Harper, eh? Good for Sheila—and thank you, Mr. Gossage.”

  She rose to her feet with a certain air of quiet dignity.

  “When the will has been read I shall make everything clear,” she said. “And I’m glad you have been so understanding.”

  “There’s one thing more. Do you give your solemn word, Mrs. Darnworth, that you have not entered the boxroom recently—before your husband died?”

  Something that looked like surprise crossed the woman’s face.

  “Of course I do, inspector. I haven’t been in that room for years, when I last put Sheila’s manuscript away.”

  “Very well, madam. I believe you,” Gossage said. “It makes things tougher for me, I’m afraid, but I still believe you. Tell me, did anybody besides you know that your husband was liable to drop dead from heart trouble?”

  “Only Preston.” And Preston nodded slowly.

  “As I understand it,” Mrs. Darnworth went on, “you seemed to have some sort of theory about the study electrolier being connected with the death of my husband. Is that still your belief?”

  “It is. I shouldn’t tell you so, really, but I will. The electrolier definitely is connected with your husband’s death, and somebody went in that boxroom before he died. Now you see why my suspicions swung toward you when I knew you could walk and also possessed the boxroom key.”

  “Yes. I see.” She shrugged and looked genuinely mystified. “I can only repeat what I’ve said. I’ve not been in that room for a long time.”

  Gossages’s eyes strayed to Preston.

  “I haven’t either,” he said, and his voice was, for him, surprisingly quiet. He added contritely: “I’d 1ike to say that I’m sorry for the way I carried on, Mr. Inspector, and I’d like to make it up to you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  INVENTOR OF WIDE RANGE

  Mrs. Darnworth used her wheelchair at breakfast, but she cast a significant look towards Gossage as he took his place, Blair beside him.

  “This morning,” she said, “I want all of you to assemble in the lounge to hear the will read. Mr. Brakestone will be here at ten o’clock for that purpose. Naturally, inspector—and you, Sergeant Blair—I do not include you.”

  “Naturally,” Gossage conceded.

  “Bit awkward for me,” Crespin said, rubbing his jaw reflectively. “I’d planned to get down to the city immediately after breakfast. Work to be done, you know: for me the weekend is over.”

  “I would much prefer you to stay,” Jessica Darnworth told him firmly. “Not particularly because of the proving of the will, but because of a statement I shall make afterward. I shall also wish you to be present, Andrews,” she added, glancing at him. “And the staff. I will ring for you when I require you to enter.”

  “Very good, madam,” Andrews assented.

  “I suppose I’m included, too?” Gregory Bride inquired.

  “Certainly. I said ‘all of you,’ did I not?”

  “You gentlemen are assuming, I take it, that I have no objection to you going?” Gossage asked, glancing at them. “I don’t seem to remember that either of you asked my permission to leave.”

  Both men looked surprised, and Barry Crespin put his mystification into words.

  “But I understood that we were free to come and go as we chose. Or did I get the idea wrong?”

  “You are free to come and go as long as you are staying at the manor here, because I do not wish to cause you any inconvenience—but I’d take it as a favour if you’d make arrangements to remain here until this matter of Mr. Darnworth’s murder has been cleared up. I may wish to refer to one or other of you at any time upon some point of interest and I do not intend to have to chase either to Godalming or London after you.”

  The two men looked at each other and then back at Gossage.

  “Very well,” Crespin said. “You’re the boss, inspector. I’ll ring up London and tell them to ring me back here if anything important turns up.”

  “Thank you,” Gossage said, and looked at Bride. The scientist merely nodded; then he added: “I can do my sort of work anywhere, if it comes to that. A piece of paper and my brains, plus a pencil, are all I need to work anything out.”

  “After breakfast, Mr. Bride, there will be time for a short chat, I think, before you go into the lounge,” the inspector said. “I’ve a point or two I’d like to clear up with you.”

  “With pleasure,” Bride agreed.

  Immediately the meal was over he gave a nod to Gregory Bride and they went to the music-room.


  “Since the others will be assembling in the lounge and the study is closed for the time being, this is our quietest spot, Mr. Bride,” Gossage explained, as he closed the door. “And don’t look so bothered,” he added, smiling. “Nothing serious, you know—just that old bugbear known as routine. It is your association with Mr. Darnworth that I wish to ask about. I understand that he financed several of your inventions?”

  “That’s right,” Bride agreed.

  “What were these inventions? Any objections to telling me?”

  “Not in the least: there’s no secret about them. There were five inventions that Mr. Darnworth financed for me. A new type of can opener; a self-changing clockwork calendar: a new style of combination lock for safes; an electric bulb which burns continuously for several years without the filament breaking: and a magnetic device for motor cars to pick up tacks and steel filings before they get under the tires.”

  “You managed to interest Mr. Darnworth in your inventions without the help of Miss Darnworth?”

  “Elaine,” Bride said, “never had anything to do with my interesting Darnworth in my inventions. I know that she said she became engaged to me so that she could ‘press my wares’ with the old man, so to speak—but that wasn’t quite the truth.”

  “I believe you came here this weekend for the purpose of interesting Mr. Darnworth in a new invention? Something so important that it necessitated your making a change of plan the moment you knew he had been murdered. What was this invention?”

  “It’s a new helicopter.”

  “Can you describe it to me without becoming too technical?”

  Bride nodded obligingly. “Yes, I think so. This one-man helicopter I’ve designed has rotary propeller blades much narrower than the machine itself, which makes it capable of approaching closely to the side of a building or a ship. And it isn’t anything like as noisy as the average helicopter.”