Murder under the Christmas Tree

by Cecily Gayford

  ‘What has killed him?’ asked Guy.

  ‘It’s extraordinary,’ burbled Hislop. ‘Extraordinary. He looks as if he’d been –’

  ‘Galvanised,’ said Guy.

  ‘We ought to send for a doctor,’ suggested Hislop timidly.

  ‘Of course. Will you, Mr Hislop? Dr Meadows.’

  Hislop went to the telephone and Guy returned to his family. Dr Meadows lived on the other side of the square and arrived in five minutes. He examined the body without moving it. He questioned Chase and Hislop. Chase was very voluble about the burns on the hand. He uttered the word ‘electrocution’ over and over again.

  ‘I had a cousin, sir, that was struck by lightning. As soon as I saw the hand –’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Dr Meadows. ‘So you said. I can see the burns for myself.’

  ‘Electrocution,’ repeated Chase. ‘There’ll have to be an inquest.’

  Dr Meadows snapped at him, summoned Emily, and then saw the rest of the family – Guy, Arthur, Phillipa, and their mother. They were clustered round a cold grate in the drawing-room. Phillipa was on her knees, trying to light the fire.

  ‘What was it?’ asked Arthur as soon as the doctor came in.

  ‘Looks like electric shock. Guy, I’ll have a word with you if you please. Phillipa, look after your mother, there’s a good child. Coffee with a dash of brandy. Where are those damn maids? Come on, Guy.’

  Alone with Guy, he said they’d have to send for the police.

  ‘The police!’ Guy’s dark face turned very pale. ‘Why? What’s it got to do with them?’

  ‘Nothing, as like as not, but they’ll have to be notified. I can’t give a certificate as things are. If it’s electrocution, how did it happen?’

  ‘But the police!’ said Guy. ‘That’s simply ghastly. Dr Meadows, for God’s sake couldn’t you?’

  ‘No,’ said Dr Meadows, ‘I couldn’t. Sorry, Guy, but there it is.’

  ‘But can’t we wait a moment? Look at him again. You haven’t examined him properly.’

  ‘I don’t want to move him, that’s why. Pull yourself together, boy. Look here. I’ve got a pal in the CID – Alleyn. He’s a gentleman and all that. He’ll curse me like a fury, but he’ll come if he’s in London, and he’ll make things easier for you. Go back to your mother. I’ll ring Alleyn up.’

  That was how it came about that Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn spent his Christmas Day in harness. As a matter of fact he was on duty, and as he pointed out to Dr Meadows, would have had to turn out and visit his miserable Tonkses in any case. When he did arrive it was with his usual air of remote courtesy. He was accompanied by a tall, thick-set officer – Inspector Fox – and by the divisional police-surgeon. Dr Meadows took them into the study. Alleyn, in his turn, looked at the horror that had been Septimus.

  ‘Was he like this when he was found?’

  ‘No. I understand he was leaning forward with his hands on the ledge of the cabinet. He must have slumped forward and been propped up by the chair arms and the cabinet.’

  ‘Who moved him?’

  ‘Chase, the butler. He said he only meant to raise the arm. Rigor is well established.’

  Alleyn put his hand behind the rigid neck and pushed. The body fell forward into its original position.

  ‘There you are, Curtis,’ said Alleyn to the divisional surgeon. He turned to Fox. ‘Get the camera man, will you, Fox?’

  The photographer took four shots and departed. Alleyn marked the position of the hands and feet with chalk, made a careful plan of the room and turned to the doctors.

  ‘Is it electrocution, do you think?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Curtis. ‘Have to be a PM, of course.’

  ‘Of course. Still, look at the hands. Burns. Thumb and two fingers bunched together and exactly the distance between the two knobs apart. He’d been tuning his hurdygurdy.’

  ‘By gum,’ said Inspector Fox, speaking for the first time.

  ‘D’you mean he got a lethal shock from his radio?’ asked Dr Meadows.

  ‘I don’t know. I merely conclude he had his hands on the knobs when he died.’

  ‘It was still going when the housemaid found him. Chase turned it off and got no shock.’

  ‘Yours, partner,’ said Alleyn, turning to Fox. Fox stooped down to the wall switch.

  ‘Careful,’ said Alleyn.

  ‘I’ve got rubber soles,’ said Fox, and switched it on. The radio hummed, gathered volume, and found itself.

  ‘No-o-el, No-o-el,’ it roared. Fox cut it off and pulled out the wall plug.

  ‘I’d like to have a look inside this set,’ he said.

  ‘So you shall, old boy, so you shall,’ rejoined Alleyn. ‘Before you begin, I think we’d better move the body. Will you see to that, Meadows? Fox, get Bailey, will you? He’s out in the car.’

  Curtis, Hislop, and Meadows carried Septimus Tonks into a spare downstairs room. It was a difficult and horrible business with that contorted body. Dr Meadows came back alone, mopping his brow, to find Detective-Sergeant Bailey, a fingerprint expert, at work on the wireless cabinet.

  ‘What’s all this?’ asked Dr Meadows. ‘Do you want to find out if he’d been fooling round with the innards?’

  ‘He,’ said Alleyn, ‘or – somebody else.’

  ‘Umph!’ Dr Meadows looked at the Inspector. ‘You agree with me, it seems. Do you suspect –?’

  ‘Suspect? I’m the least suspicious man alive. I’m merely being tidy. Well, Bailey?’

  ‘I’ve got a good one off the chair arm. That’ll be the deceased’s, won’t it, sir?’

  ‘No doubt. We’ll check up later. What about the wireless?’

  Fox, wearing a glove, pulled off the knob of the volume control.

  ‘Seems to be OK,’ said Bailey. ‘It’s a sweet bit of work. Not too bad at all, sir.’ He turned his torch into the back of the radio, undid a couple of screws underneath the set, lifted out the works.

  ‘What’s the little hole for?’ asked Alleyn.

  ‘What’s that, sir?’ said Fox.

  ‘There’s a hole bored through the panel above the knob. About an eighth of an inch in diameter. The rim of the knob hides it. One might easily miss it. Move your torch, Bailey. Yes. There, do you see?’

  Fox bent down and uttered a bass growl. A fine needle of light came through the front of the radio.

  ‘That’s peculiar, sir,’ said Bailey from the other side. ‘I don’t get the idea at all.’

  Alleyn pulled out the tuning knob.

  ‘There’s another one there,’ he murmured. ‘Yes. Nice clean little holes. Newly bored. Unusual, I take it?’

  ‘Unusual’s the word, sir,’ said Fox.

  ‘Run away, Meadows,’ said Alleyn.

  ‘Why the devil?’ asked Dr Meadows indignantly. ‘What are you driving at? Why shouldn’t I be here?’

  ‘You ought to be with the sorrowing relatives. Where’s your corpseside manner?’

  ‘I’ve settled them. What are you up to?’

  ‘Who’s being suspicious now?’ asked Alleyn mildly. ‘You may stay for a moment. Tell me about the Tonkses. Who are they? What are they? What sort of a man was Septimus?’

  ‘If you must know, he was a damned unpleasant sort of a man.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  Dr Meadows sat down and lit a cigarette.

  ‘He was a self-made bloke,’ he said, ‘as hard as nails and – well, coarse rather than vulgar.’

  ‘Like Dr Johnson perhaps?’

  ‘Not in the least. Don’t interrupt. I’ve known him for twenty-five years. His wife was a neighbour of ours in Dorset. Isabel Foreston. I brought the children into this vale of tears and, by jove, in many ways it’s been one for them. It’s an extraordinary household. For the last ten years Isabel’s condition has been the sort that sends these psycho-jokers dizzy with rapture. I’m only an out-of-date GP, and I’d just say she is in an advanced stage of hysterical neurosis. Frightened into fits of
her husband.’

  ‘I can’t understand these holes,’ grumbled Fox to Bailey.

  ‘Go on, Meadows,’ said Alleyn.

  ‘I tackled Sep about her eighteen months ago. Told him the trouble was in her mind. He eyed me with a sort of grin on his face and said: “I’m surprised to learn that my wife has enough mentality to –” But look here, Alleyn, I can’t talk about my patients like this. What the devil am I thinking about.’

  ‘You know perfectly well it’ll go no further unless –’

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Unless it has to. Do go on.’

  But Dr Meadows hurriedly withdrew behind his professional rectitude. All he would say was that Mr Tonks had suffered from high blood pressure and a weak heart, that Guy was in his father’s city office, that Arthur had wanted to study art and had been told to read for law, and that Phillipa wanted to go on to the stage and had been told to do nothing of the sort.

  ‘Bullied his children,’ commented Alleyn.

  ‘Find out for yourself. I’m off.’ Dr Meadows got as far as the door and came back.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you one thing. There was a row here last night. I’d asked Hislop, who’s a sensible little beggar, to let me know if anything happened to upset Mrs Sep. Upset her badly, you know. To be indiscreet again, I said he’d better let me know if Sep cut up rough, because Isabel and the young had had about as much of that as they could stand. He was drinking pretty heavily. Hislop rang me up at ten-twenty last night to say there’d been a hell of a row; Sep bullying Phips – Phillipa, you know; always call her Phips – in her room. He said Isabel – Mrs Sep – had gone to bed. I’d had a big day and I didn’t want to turn out. I told him to ring again in half an hour if things hadn’t quieted down. I told him to keep out of Sep’s way and stay in his own room, which is next to Phips’s, and see if she was all right when Sep cleared out. Hislop was involved. I won’t tell you how. The servants were all out. I said that if I didn’t hear from him in half an hour I’d ring again and if there was no answer I’d know they were all in bed and quiet. I did ring, got no answer, and went to bed myself. That’s all. I’m off. Curtis knows where to find me. You’ll want me for the inquest, I suppose. Goodbye.’

  When he had gone Alleyn embarked on a systematic prowl round the room. Fox and Bailey were still deeply engrossed with the wireless.

  ‘I don’t see how the gentleman could have got a bump-off from the instrument,’ grumbled Fox. ‘These control knobs are quite in order. Everything’s as it should be. Look here, sir.’

  He turned on the wall switch and tuned in. There was a prolonged humming.

  ‘… concludes the programme of Christmas carols,’ said the radio.

  ‘A very nice tone,’ said Fox approvingly.

  ‘Here’s something, sir,’ announced Bailey suddenly.

  ‘Found the sawdust, have you?’ said Alleyn.

  ‘Got it in one,’ said the startled Bailey.

  Alleyn peered into the instrument, using the torch. He scooped up two tiny traces of sawdust from under the holes.

  ‘Vantage number one,’ said Alleyn. He bent down to the wall plug. ‘Hullo! A two-way adapter. Serves the radio and the radiator. Thought they were illegal. This is a rum business. Let’s have another look at those knobs.’

  He had his look. They were the usual wireless fitments, Bakelite knobs fitting snugly to the steel shafts that projected from the front panel.

  ‘As you say,’ he murmured, ‘quite in order. Wait a bit.’ He produced a pocket lens and squinted at one of the shafts. ‘Ye-es. Do they ever wrap blotting-paper round these objects, Fox?’

  ‘Blotting-paper!’ ejaculated Fox. ‘They do not.’

  Alleyn scraped at both the shafts with his penknife, holding an envelope underneath. He rose, groaning, and crossed to the desk. ‘A corner torn off the bottom bit of blotch,’ he said presently. ‘No prints on the wireless, I think you said, Bailey?’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Bailey morosely.

  ‘There’ll be none, or too many, on the blotter, but try, Bailey, try,’ said Alleyn. He wandered about the room, his eyes on the floor; got as far as the window and stopped.

  ‘Fox!’ he said. ‘A clue. A very palpable clue.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Fox.

  ‘The odd wisp of blotting-paper, no less.’ Alleyn’s gaze travelled up the side of the window curtain. ‘Can I believe my eyes?’

  He got a chair, stood on the seat, and with his gloved hand pulled the buttons from the ends of the curtain-rod.

  ‘Look at this.’ He turned to the radio, detached the control knobs, and laid them beside the ones he had removed from the curtain-rod.

  Ten minutes later Inspector Fox knocked on the drawing-room door and was admitted by Guy Tonks. Phillipa had got the fire going and the family was gathered round it. They looked as though they had not moved or spoken to one another for a long time.

  It was Phillipa who spoke first to Fox. ‘Do you want one of us?’

  ‘If you please, miss,’ said Fox. ‘Inspector Alleyn would like to see Mr Guy Tonks for a moment, if convenient.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Guy, and led the way to the study. At the door he paused. ‘Is he – my father – still –?’

  ‘No, no, sir,’ said Fox comfortably. ‘It’s all ship-shape in there again.’

  With a lift of his chin Guy opened the door and went in, followed by Fox. Alleyn was alone, seated at the desk. He rose to his feet.

  ‘You want to speak to me?’ asked Guy.

  ‘Yes, if I may. This has all been a great shock to you, of course. Won’t you sit down?’

  Guy sat in the chair farthest away from the radio.

  ‘What killed my father? Was it a stroke?’

  ‘The doctors are not quite certain. There will have to be a post-mortem.’

  ‘Good God! And an inquest?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Horrible!’ said Guy violently. ‘What do you think was the matter? Why the devil do these quacks have to be so mysterious? What killed him?’

  ‘They think an electric shock.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘We don’t know. It looks as if he got it from the wireless.’

  ‘Surely that’s impossible. I thought they were foolproof.’

  ‘I believe they are, if left to themselves.’

  For a second undoubtedly Guy was startled. Then a look of relief came into his eyes. He seemed to relax all over.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘he was always monkeying about with it. What had he done?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘But you said – if it killed him he must have done something to it.’

  ‘If anyone interfered with the set it was put right afterwards.’

  Guy’s lips parted but he did not speak. He had gone very white.

  ‘So you see,’ said Alleyn, ‘your father could not have done anything.’

  ‘Then it was not the radio that killed him.’

  ‘That we hope will be determined by the post-mortem.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about wireless,’ said Guy suddenly. ‘I don’t understand. This doesn’t seem to make sense. Nobody ever touched the thing except my father. He was most particular about it. Nobody went near the wireless.’

  ‘I see. He was an enthusiast?’

  ‘Yes, it was his only enthusiasm except – except his business.’

  ‘One of my men is a bit of an expert,’ Alleyn said. ‘He says this is a remarkably good set. You are not an expert, you say. Is there anyone in the house who is?’

  ‘My young brother was interested at one time. He’s given it up. My father wouldn’t allow another radio in the house.’

  ‘Perhaps he may be able to suggest something.’

  ‘But if the thing’s all right now –’

  ‘We’ve got to explore every possibility.’

  ‘You speak as if – as – if –’

  ‘I speak as I am
bound to speak before there has been an inquest,’ said Alleyn. ‘Had anyone a grudge against your father, Mr Tonks?’

  Up went Guy’s chin again. He looked Alleyn squarely in the eyes.

  ‘Almost everyone who knew him,’ said Guy.

  ‘Is that an exaggeration?’

  ‘No. You think he was murdered, don’t you?’

  Alleyn suddenly pointed to the desk beside him.

  ‘Have you ever seen those before?’ he asked abruptly. Guy stared at two black knobs that lay side by side on an ashtray.

  ‘Those?’ he said. ‘No. What are they?’

  ‘I believe they are the agents of your father’s death.’

  The study door opened and Arthur Tonks came in.

  ‘Guy,’ he said, ‘what’s happening? We can’t stay cooped up together all day. I can’t stand it. For God’s sake what happened to him?’

  ‘They think those things killed him,’ said Guy.

  ‘Those?’ For a split second Arthur’s glance slewed to the curtain-rods. Then, with a characteristic flicker of his eyelids, he looked away again.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked Alleyn.

  ‘Will you try one of those knobs on the shaft of the volume control?’

  ‘But,’ said Arthur, ‘they’re metal.’

  ‘It’s disconnected,’ said Alleyn.

  Arthur picked one of the knobs from the tray, turned to the radio, and fitted the knob over one of the exposed shafts.

  ‘It’s too loose,’ he said quickly, ‘it would fall off.’

  ‘Not if it was packed – with blotting-paper, for instance.’

  ‘Where did you find these things?’ demanded Arthur.

  ‘I think you recognised them, didn’t you? I saw you glance at the curtain-rod.’

  ‘Of course I recognised them. I did a portrait of Phillipa against those curtains when – he – was away last year. I’ve painted the damn things.’

  ‘Look here,’ interrupted Guy, ‘exactly what are you driving at, Mr Alleyn? If you mean to suggest that my brother –’

  ‘I!’ cried Arthur. ‘What’s it got to do with me? Why should you suppose –’

  ‘I found traces of blotting-paper on the shafts and inside the metal knobs,’ said Alleyn. ‘It suggested a substitution of the metal knobs for the Bakelite ones. It is remarkable, don’t you think, that they should so closely resemble one another? If you examine them, of course, you find they are not identical. Still, the difference is scarcely perceptible.’