Seven Steps to Murder

by Benjamin Ford

  “Might I make a suggestion?” says the Major, raising his hand like a schoolchild asking to be excused.

  Waterfield silences him with a single raised finger. “If you are about to suggest we lock up Mrs Draper too, then please don’t bother. I have known this good lady for more years than I care to recall, and if there’s one person here I’m certain to be innocent of murder, it’s Mrs Draper.”

  The woman in question turns and smiles with relief. “Thank you, Mr Waterfield; that means a great deal to me.”

  “What’s more,” Waterfield adds solemnly, “I can think of no reason for Mrs Draper to kill anyone who’s here at West Cliff House this weekend.”

  Major Simmons arches an eyebrow. “Oh no? Everyone has secrets of one sort or another.” He points at me. “Why, I’m sure even our young friend here has secrets. No offence lad.”

  I shrug nervously. “None taken. I’m sure you’re right. We all have secrets, but do we all have secrets dark enough that we’d kill to maintain them? I’m confident that Mrs Draper here does not.”

  Major Simmons settles back down onto his bed, placing his hands behind his head as he reclines somewhat nonchalantly against the headboard. “Well then, on your own heads be it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you about the viper in the nest!”

  Mrs Draper tugs on my sleeve. “We should check in on Herbert now that we know the Major is all right.”

  I agree, and call to Waterfield, who backs out of the room, apparently unwilling to trust Major Simmons. He locks the door and pockets the key, and then moves along the passage, past the top of the stairs, and stops before the door to the room in which his brother is locked.

  He turns and gives me the key. “Suddenly I have no desire to see my brother. Would you check on him?”

  I nod somewhat reluctantly, and slowly push open the door after unlocking it. Unlike the Major’s room, Herbert’s room is still bathed in the golden glow of the diminishing sunlight through the open curtains, but just as with the Major, Herbert lies on his bed but beneath the eiderdown. Something isn’t quite right though.

  I motion the others to stay in the hallway, and walk softly over to the bed. Herbert’s eyes are closed, but his pale face is waxy and beaded with sweat. “Herbert?” I keep my voice low, to avoid alarming the others. I keep my hands in front of me, in case I have to defend myself. “Herbert, are you awake?”

  The man on the bed doesn’t move, not even when I prod his shoulder.

  I loom over him slightly, pulling the corner of the eiderdown up to reveal his body.

  “Oh my God!” I cry after a moment, dropping the bedding. I back away.

  “What is it?” calls Waterfield from the doorway.

  I turn, moving quickly to the door and motioning for him to remain where he is. I close the door behind me.

  “Wilbur, what’s wrong?” asks Mrs Draper, putting a comforting arm around me as I start shaking.

  “It’s Herbert,” I manage to gasp, fighting for breath. “He’s been stabbed!”

  Waterfield gasps in shocked disbelief. “Stabbed? Is he-?”

  I nod to the unfinished question, whereupon Waterfield pushes past me and rushes over to the bed. He throws back the eiderdown that’s covering his brother’s incumbent body, and lets out a long, low moaning wail, collapsing to his knees.

  I wrap my arm around Mrs Draper’s shoulder as she buries her face in my chest. From the doorway we can see poor old Herbert, lying there waxy faced in death, the handle of a dagger sticking out from his chest and blood soaking through his shirt and onto the crisp white sheet beneath him.

  I gently push Mrs Draper to one side and she leans heavily against the wall as I re-enter the room. Lifting Waterfield to his feet, I propel him across the floor and shove him almost roughly from the room, slamming the door behind me.

  Turning the key in the lock, I take a deep breath and face the other two. Mrs Draper has her face pressed against the wall facing away from me, whilst Waterfield stands in the middle of the hallway, staring at the door to his brother’s room, clutching his sides and sobbing gently.

  Considering what his brother did, I find his sorrow a little perplexing. Never having had any siblings, I cannot fathom how much unhappiness he must be feeling at the loss of his brother, no matter how evil Herbert was.

  “So,” I say quietly, without malice and without mirth, “now we are four!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I am ravenous, and yet, like the others I have little appetite. Mrs Draper and Waterfield return from the kitchen with, as Waterfield has previously suggested, unopened tins of cold meat and jars of pickles, accompanied by unopened jars of fruit slices. Mrs Draper drops hers unceremoniously upon the dining table, righting the two that topple over, and then with a clatter she drops a couple of tin openers beside them. Waterfield is a little more circumspect in his deposit.

  Mrs Draper moves still with the elegant grace of someone who once spent a great number of years in service. The swift fluid movements are ones you most likely never forget, and before I know it there’s a plate and cutlery before me.

  Waterfield takes his place at the head of the table, whilst Mrs Draper sits opposite to me. We regard one another with silent suspicion, hardly breathing let alone moving. In the end, it’s Waterfield who opens his tin first, emptying the cold meat onto his plate and attacking it with as much enthusiasm as he can muster.

  Mrs Draper also opens a tin of meat, accompanied with pickle.

  I watch as they eat in silence, my own tins and jars remaining untouched.

  “Wilbur, you’re not eating?”

  I look at Waterfield solemnly and shake my head. “I’m afraid I have no appetite.” The gurgling from my stomach would indicate otherwise, however.

  Mrs Draper and Waterfield set down their knives and forks, staring hard at me. I know what’s going through their minds. We are all suspicious of each other to a degree. They think that if I eat nothing then I must have tampered with the food. With a sigh, I open my own tin of meat and empty it onto my plate. It looks so unappetizing on its own that I really don’t relish eating it. Taking up my cutlery, I cut a few slices and begin.

  It’s actually not so bad, and I tuck in with a little more gusto, relieved when the others do the same.

  “So,” I say eventually, “do you think the Major is guilty?”

  Waterfield looks thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t know. If it wasn’t him, that means it’s one of us three, and I really don’t like that idea one little bit.”

  Mrs Draper nods, pickle juice dribbling down her chin. “I agree,” she says, dabbing her mouth, and then her chin as she notices me motioning with my finger to my own chin. She smiles, albeit slightly. It’s the first smile I’ve seen on her face for a while. “Thank you.” She turns to Waterfield. “I’d much rather think it was someone who’s locked up who killed everyone, but there’s a flaw with that idea.”

  “How was the Major able to kill Herbert when he was locked up?”

  Waterfield has asked the question that Mrs Draper has already thought of.

  I say: “Herbert was poisoned earlier, don’t forget, which would have made him weak. When Major Simmons and I brought him back up here after M. Rashid was shot, I didn’t actually go into the room, but the Major did. He could have stabbed Herbert then, and in his weakened state Herbert might not have been able to cry out.”

  “So who killed Dr Runcible?”

  I glance across at Mrs Draper. “Probably whomever poisoned Herbert, I suppose. Everyone assumed it was the shellfish that Herbert ate which made him feel unwell. Perhaps it wasn’t the shellfish after all. Maybe he was the intended victim of the poisoning and Dr Runcible was an accident? They were eating from the same plate of sandwiches after all. The poisoning didn’t kill Herbert, but perhaps given time it would have.”

  “So who poisoned them? The Major?”

  I sigh. “Any one of us could have put poison in those sandwiches, Mrs Draper, and any one of us could have eaten t
hem. It seems that the killer might want each of us dead and doesn’t care in which order he achieves it.”

  “But why?”

  “That, I suspect, we shall only find out when the killer is unmasked,” says Waterfield.

  Mrs Draper looks at him. “You don’t think it was the Major?”

  He shakes his head. “I could understand him wishing Herbert dead after what we learned of their time together in the war, but whatever our opinions on that subject, there can be no denying that the Major loved Ahmed. I really don’t think he had anything to do with the shooting.”

  “No, he couldn’t have. The Major was in the drawing room with us when M. Rashid was shot.”

  Waterfield takes a deep breath. “Instead of jumping to conclusions, let us go through each of the killings. Firstly there was poor Mrs Hardcastle, dead at the bottom of the wrecked steps on the beach. Was she killed deliberately, or was that an accident? Next was M. Rashid, shot with Herbert’s service revolver whilst he discussed Herbert’s secrets with our young friend here” He points at me. “Herbert was at the top of the stairs, whilst everyone else was in the drawing room. The gun was found on the floor by the bottom of the stairs, presumably where Herbert tossed it.

  “Then there was poor old Dr Runcible, who expired in your presence, Mrs Draper, seemingly by a slow acting poison.”

  “And I refute most strongly the allegation that it was I who poisoned him.”

  Waterfield nods. “I concede that at the moment there is no motive for you to have committed the act, although, if it was a quick acting poison then you would have had the opportunity. And finally we have my poor brother, apparently poisoned to some degree, and then stabbed with a single blow, and the only person who could have killed him is the Major.”

  “All of which must bring us to the conclusion that no one person here has motive to kill the rest of us.”

  Mrs Draper and Waterfield look at one another as I speak, and then nod their agreement to my summing up.

  “Which leaves two possibilities: one, that there is more than one killer – which is unlikely; and two, that there were perhaps only one or two intended victims, and the others are either diversions or witnesses who had to also die.”

  “But who?” asks Mrs Draper plaintively.

  I raise a finger. “Ask yourselves this: who amongst us had the most reason to kill?”

  “Well that would be down to two people, I believe,” says Waterfield after a moment of thought. “Or possibly three. I think M. Rashid and the Major had reason to kill my brother because he knew their secret, and feared he might reveal it.”

  Mrs Draper shakes her head. “The only flaw with that, Mr Waterfield, is that most of the men they served with during the war apparently also knew about it. I hardly think it a motive to kill Herbert.”

  “But what about the fact that Herbert stood by and let the men attack poor Ahmed so viciously?”

  Again Mrs Draper shakes her head. “I still don’t believe it. Why bring the rest of us here? If it was to expose that facet of Herbert’s past then they would have done so. They would have had their revenge on him without killing him. No, I don’t believe either of them were guilty of anything other than loving one another.”

  “So we’re left with my brother then, really,” says Waterfield softly.

  It’s as if he doesn’t want to believe his brother capable of killing in cold blood, which we know Herbert has already done once in the past. Once a killer, always a killer. You cover your tracks well enough and stay undiscovered for a while, perhaps most of your life, but eventually someone will stumble across a stray fact that you forgot to hide and your life of lies unravels around you exposing the truth. Before you know it one death leads to another, and then another – and then the next.

  As Waterfield has now discovered.

  “I think you’ve got to accept it, Mr Waterfield,” I say solemnly, avoiding eye contact, “your brother Herbert killed Albert during the war, and perhaps when M. Rashid or Major Simmons tried blackmailing him over it, he realised he had to get rid of them.”

  “So he invited them here to kill them? Why?”

  “Perhaps his intention was to implicate someone else?” Mrs Draper suggests.

  I snap my fingers. “Precisely. He could pin the blame on any one of us.”

  Waterfield shakes his head. “But we know he killed Albert, and now he himself is dead. What you’re suggesting just doesn’t make sense.”

  I sigh deeply. “Obviously the plan went awry. Perhaps the intention was to kill the pair earlier, but then when Mrs Hardcastle died things just started to unravel. M. Rashid confided in me, and Herbert had to act quickly and so shot him. Major Simmons then realised it must have been Herbert who shot his love and so poisoned him, finishing him off with a knife when we took him to his room.”

  Waterfield nods. “Yes,” he says wearily, “yes, that makes perfect sense to me. That must be what happened.”

  Mrs Draper purses her lips thoughtfully. “So, you think the rest of us are safe? Do you think Dr Runcible was poisoned accidentally, and that the Major intends no harm to the rest of us?”

  Waterfield remains calm, though he’s clearly annoyed with Mrs Draper’s questioning. “Of course we’re safe. The Major has no reason to fear us if we repeat to the police the conversation we’ve just had. I shall go up and tell the Major to stick to this story.”

  “Is that wise?” gasps Mrs Draper. “If he is the killer, he might have designs on the rest of us, and if he’s not he won’t appreciate being accused and then asked to admit his guilt when he is in fact innocent.”

  “Well, I shall take him some food and have a talk with him. Perhaps we might come to some agreement, be it of guilt or innocence.”

  “Well, just mind you don’t let him loose.”

  Waterfield smiles in a rather supercilious manner. “Mrs Draper, I am no fool!”

  “You should take him something to eat,” I say, passing a knife and some of my canned meat to him. I’m slightly careless, and Waterfield nicks his thumb with the sharp end of the knife.

  He sucks the tiny wound as I apologise, and he waves his hand. “Don’t worry, lad. Accidents happen.” He slices the meat and places the knife down on the table, and as he disappears from the room carrying the plate of chopped up cold meat, Mrs Draper sidles over to me.

  She casts a glance over her shoulder to make sure Waterfield hasn’t returned. “There is a flaw with his solution.”

  “Oh – and what would that be?”

  “Herbert had already been poisoned when M. Rashid was shot. Don’t you remember? You had both gone outside, and Dr Runcible took Herbert upstairs after he’d eaten something disagreeable. Therefore the Major couldn’t have poisoned Herbert in retaliation for shooting M. Rashid.”

  “So what do you think happened, Mrs Draper?”

  The woman glances over her shoulder once more, and then whispers: “I think our host is the killer. I think he really did invite us all here this weekend, with the intention of exposing his brother’s guilt and then executing him with the rest of us here as witnesses.”

  “But why kill the others? Why shoot M. Rashid? Why poison Dr Runcible?”

  “Oh I don’t know,” sighs Mrs Draper resignedly. “Perhaps he wanted proof that his brother was a killer. Maybe he wanted Herbert to kill again in front of witnesses so as to justify his execution.”

  I nod. “That’s plausible. And I suppose poor Dr Runcible was just collateral damage? He just ate from the wrong plate – which any one of us could have!”

  Mrs Draper clutches a hand to her chest as though realising she could have been poisoned too.

  “Of course there is another possibility, Mrs Draper,” I add quietly.

  “And what’s that young man?” She emits a sigh as she slumps down onto one of the chairs.

  My face remains inscrutable as I look down at her. “That the killer is me!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Waterfield seems to have been
gone an inordinately long time. He might be cooking up some scheme or other, and I cannot allow that. I turn to Mrs Draper, who’s sat at the head of the table staring blankly into the distance. She and I have come to an understanding, and there will be no trouble between us.

  “I’m just going to see what’s keeping our host,” I say. “Better make sure he’s not dead!”

  Mrs Draper doesn’t laugh, but then, perhaps my joke isn’t in the best taste.

  I leave the dining room and enter the hallway. The house seems suddenly deathly quiet. It’s like the calm before the storm. Darkness is descending outside, and although the rain has at long last abated, there is still a strong wind blowing. It rustles the leaves of the shrubs outside, and from far below I can hear the crashing waves as they pound the base of the rock upon which this isolated house sits.

  This house, it has to be said, is the perfect venue for a killer to strike: so readily cut off from the outside world that he might go about his business without fear of being interrupted. Even so, a killer must very clever to evade from within.

  There’s none cleverer than the killer within this house, that’s for sure. He’s had everyone bamboozled into thinking everyone else is guilty except him, and he’s been able to go about his killing spree unimpeded, because no one knows his true identity.

  And the clues have been there all along for them all to see – yet none has opened their eyes to this truth.

  All save me, perhaps. I know the truth. It’s not difficult to work out when you have all the facts. Truth and lies – that’s what it boils down to; the differences between the two, and working out which is which. Once you eliminate the deception, whatever remains must be true – or something along those lines, according to Sherlock Holmes.

  Oh, but he’s fiction isn’t he! Here at West Cliff House we must concern ourselves only with fact, not fiction: work out what is fiction and what is left must be fact.