“Was Mrs. William Worth particularly fond of the dog?”
“No, not very. It was a present to ’er, so she kept it in the house with her. Fondest of her spaniels, she is. Out-o’-doors woman and does a fair bit o’ shootin’, or did, until the government made us gas all the rabbits for eatin’ the crops.”
In the distance a shrill voice could be heard calling.
“Faaaaather … faaaather … where are you? Oh, there you are. Past eight o’clock and your bedtime.”
“My daughter,” said Matthews as a buxom, apple-cheeked woman appeared walking across the lawn. “I live with ’em at the lodge. Allus sees me to bed. Proper tartar, she is. Treats me like a child.”
The old chap rose stiffly, pocketed the half-crown which Littlejohn gave him, bade the Inspector good night and tottered off like a good boy to his bed. Littlejohn made no effort to detain him. He had given him enough information for one sitting.
The detective strolled on to the Hall, the way leading through a vegetable patch to the back door. A maid, sitting sewing in a deck chair by a small sunken garden, eyed him in friendly fashion. She was apparently a country girl and anxious for someone to talk to.
“Good evening, sir,” she said, laying her sewing in her lap. “You wantin’ to see anyone?”
“Matthews tells me the family aren’t at home.”
“No, sir, but they won’t be long.… Has that old chatterbox been talking to you? Proper old gasbag he is, once he gets started. Since the death of Mr. Henry, he’s never stopped gossiping. Knows all about it, to hear him talk.”
“As a matter of fact, he hasn’t talked much about the murder.…”
The maid’s face assumed a frightened expression, as though she had suddenly remembered the tragedy which hung over the family.
“Terrible, sir, that is. Who would have wanted to kill the master so cruelly? I can’t think about it. I’m sure it was an accident.”
“I hear the mistress’s favourite dog died the other week.… By the way, are you Clara?”
“Yes, sir, that’s me. Suppose that old chattering man has told you that, too.”
“That’s right. Did you see the dog when he was ill?”
“Yes, sir. I was there when he was took bad.”
“What happened?”
“The mistress always let him sleep in her room, and that morning, as usual, she gave him a cup of tea out of her early morning pot. He was sick almost at once and took terrible bad. The mistress wouldn’t touch the tea after that, though it was perfectly good, I’m sure. I made it with my own hands. Most like, the dog had picked up something in the grounds the day before. Old Matthews is always putting things down. If it isn’t rats, it’s slugs, and if it isn’t slugs, it’s weeds. Proper old poisoner he is.”
“You made the tea yourself, you say, Clara?”
“Yes, sir. Clean teapot, clean cup, milk from the bottle we used earlier on for our own cups of tea, and no sugar on account of the mistress slimming. How could it have been the tea? It wasn’t fair to me as made it to say it was.”
“Did you put down the tea tray anywhere on the way?”
“Only for a minute on the table just round the top of the stairs, while I got out the biscuits.”
“You left it unwatched for a minute, Clara?”
“Yes. The biscuits being in the linen room, those we use with early cups, of course.”
“Whose room was the nearest?”
“Oh, it’s hard to say. The table’s between Mr. Henry’s and Mr. Gerald’s. The Count and Miss Alice have had separate rooms on the other side of the landing since they came to the Hall after the old master died. Why, sir, what’s the interest in the death of the dog to you?”
“I was just a bit curious. It’s nothing, Clara. Do all the family get on well together?”
The maid’s lips tightened.
“I’m not one to talk about the family, sir,” she answered testily, in a fashion which gave Littlejohn a reply to his query.
Just then, a dog cart came bowling up the main drive and the maid, with a brief word of excuse and good night, hurried indoors. The vehicle carried what the Inspector judged to be Châteaulœuf and his wife.
Littlejohn met the newcomers on the front steps and, after introducing himself and explaining the purpose of his call, asked if he might have a word with them.
The Count’s wife was still known as Miss Alice, for the local people, unaccustomed to such titles, could not bring themselves to call her Countess. She was in no way good looking, for though she was dark eyed and vivacious, her nose was too large for her face. She seemed quite happy, however, in spite of being married to one who was generally known as an adventurer. Small of stature, she looked up at Littlejohn with a candid gaze, as though prepared for anything he might ask.
The Count himself was fifty or thereabouts, perhaps ten years older than his wife. He was small and running to fat, but immaculately turned out. He had one eyebrow like a Norman arch; the other was Gothic, for he wore a monocle screwed in. The latter did not improve his looks, because it gave an air of fixed stupidity to one side of his face and he badly needed every appearance of intelligence he could muster. He had the courtly manners of a gigolo towards his wife, who kept a careful eye on him lest he commit any stupid indiscretion. For all that, the pair seemed to get on well together. There appeared to exist between them, in fact, a very rare comradeship. Perhaps community of interests in that strange household had created the relationship.
They invited the Inspector indoors and he took on the pair of them. They reminded him in their behaviour of one person. Each never allowed the other to complete a sentence, but chimed in either in correction, prompting, or corroboration.
The place which they all entered must have at some time been a gun room. Moth eaten heads of deer, foxes, and even a moose, hung round the walls and there were a few sporting guns in cases, too. They seated themselves in ancient cane chairs.
“I don’t want to trouble you for long at this hour, Countess.…”
Here Monsieur Châteaulœuf smiled delightedly, for the infrequently used title pleased him.
“… but I’d like to know as much as you can tell me about your brother Henry’s affairs prior to his death. Can you throw any light on who might have been responsible? Had he any enemies?”
“Plenty, I would say, Inspector …” replied Miss Alice, and her husband, who still spoke with an affected French accent, added, “plenty Inspector, plenty. Family … Bolsheviks, Enemy Agents.”
“He means, Inspector, firstly that there were family quarrels. Secondly, certain hot-heads among the workmen bore him a grudge, especially now, as they’re tied to their jobs by the Ministry of Labour regulations and can’t change when they want. Lastly, my brother had made several discoveries of vital importance to the war effort, which might have caused the enemy to want him out of the way.”
“Were you and Mr. Henry on good terms?”
“On the very best. Ever since childhood we’ve been friends.…”
“Friends. Yes. But for Monsieur Henry, we two would have not been accepted back by his father and family. Henry paved the way for us.”
“Had he any enemies in particular, Countess?”
“Well, he quarrelled with my brother, Gerald, but it was the usual family rows. One day they wouldn’t be speaking.…”
“… the next … how you say?… Okay, eh?”
“I see. And what about the workmen?”
“There, I can’t help you,” said the Countess. “He often spoke of agitators who’d sworn what they’d do to him one day, but he never mentioned names.…”
“We are not much associated with the works, Monsieur.”
“H’m. Where were the two of you at midnight on the night of the crime?”
The curious pair looked at each other understandingly, as though trying to read each other’s thought with a view to being perfectly in accord.
“In bed,” they both said at once.
&nb
sp; “I agree that the hour was late and a poor one for alibis. Can anyone confirm that?”
“You surely don’t think we did it?”
The Countess flushed hotly and spat out the words. This time, her husband said nothing, but his monocle fell from his eye in dismay and converted the Gothic arch into Norman again.
“No. Merely a matter of routine.”
“Well, nobody can confirm it. Miss Rickson, who retired about ten and bade us good night, was the only one, except the servant who gave us supper, who saw us after about nine-thirty. My two brothers were out. Henry was firewatching; Gerald was, as usual, with his cronies.”
“Who’s Miss Rickson?”
“Our old nanny. A pensioner, who lives with us. She’s in at present if you care to see her.”
“Thanks. I’d like to.”
Littlejohn thought that the views of one outside the family, who probably spent her time watching and putting two and two together, would be interesting.
“Well, I thank you for telling me what you know.… By the way, I understand that Mrs. William Worth’s pet dog was poisoned some time ago. Can you give me any information on how it occurred?”
“No, I wasn’t interested.…”
“The dog was a little pest,” interjected the Count. “One day it was alive and barking all over the place, slobbering over us with its beastly wet mouth. The next it was sick and, then, dead.”
“That’s all we know. We didn’t bother,” said the Countess, as though drawing a final line to terminate the incident.
“Do you mind telling me where I can find Miss Rickson, then?” said Littlejohn.
The Count sprang promptly to the Inspector’s assistance and led him to the door. On the way, they passed a glass fronted gun cabinet before which Littlejohn halted. He was a good shot with a sporting gun himself and could never resist a well turned-out weapon.
“By jove!” he said to the Count, pointing to one in the rack. “That’s had bad treatment.…”
“Ah yes. That’s Vera’s. Mrs. William Worth’s gun. She had a mishap with it the other week,” smiled the Count, a feat which, in view of his monocle, resembled an effort to prevent a sneeze, for one side of his face remained rigid whilst the other became alarmingly contorted.
“Looks as if the barrel’s burst.”
“Ah, yes?”
“May I see it a minute, sir?”
The Count looked over his shoulder at his wife and shrugged as if dissociating himself from the eccentricities of the English police.
The Countess turned the key of the cabinet and Littlejohn took out the gun.
It was a wonder someone had not been killed. Only a flaw in the barrel could have prevented a burst in the breach, which would have gravely injured, if not put paid to someone altogether.
There was hardened earth adhering to both barrels, one of which was split for at least a foot of its length from the sighting bead.
“How did this happen, I wonder? You’ll forgive the curiosity, but I’m a bit of a shot myself and I’m very fond of a good gun.”
“Vera’s a bit careless,” said the Countess. “She was shooting pigeons just over by the wood and we heard the awful report. Then, she arrived home with a badly bruised cheek and shoulder. Lucky it was nothing worse.…”
“She said she must have absent-mindedly put it in the clay wrong way up,” interposed the Count somewhat inanely.
“Funny. Does she usually do that? I take it she’s been brought up to handle a gun.”
“Oh yes. Practically since she was a kid. She was very upset and hasn’t done any shooting since.”
“I’m sorry to waste your time with irrelevancies. Perhaps you’ll show me the way to your old nanny’s room.”
The two Châteaulœufs indicated a room at the end of a passage and left the detective to his own devices.
CHAPTER IV
THE MEN WHO THRIVED ON SQUABBLES
LITTLEJOHN tapped on the door of the room.
“Come in,” said a voice, aged, and rather surprised that anyone should be visiting at that hour.
Miss Rickson was a frail little thing with a thin face and bright beady eyes. She was sitting before a gas fire in a comfortable old fashioned armchair, with a bound volume of some magazine or other on her lap and a knitted shawl round her shoulders.
“Good evening,” said Miss Rickson.
“Good evening, madam,” replied Littlejohn and they smiled at each other as do people of good will when they meet.
Talk of crime in this peaceful sanctuary of a place seemed incongruous, but Littlejohn stuck to his guns and told Miss Rickson why he had called.
“Dear me,” said the old lady, her eyes fixed dimly ahead as though looking far into the past. “It seems strange to think of Henry being dead, and so violently, too. He was always such a good little boy when I had charge of him. Always did his lessons and always did as he was bidden. Different from his brother, Gerald, who was wilful, albeit he had a kind heart and repented his rashness for long after he’d misbehaved. I hope Gerald hadn’t a hand in killing his brother.”
She might have been discussing a work of fiction.
“Had he reason for doing so, Miss Rickson?”
“I dare say. People who always do right are so tantalizing to those who are weaker. And Gerald was so short of money, too, ever since his father died leaving such a preposterous Will. Marrying such a young and good looking wife and bringing her here with two unmarried men in the house! It wasn’t right of him, Inspector. He was always very headstrong and rash, was William. Now if either of them had killed Vera, I could well have understood it. Money’s the root of all evil, Inspector. But Henry to be murdered. I can’t understand it.”
“Did the two men get on well with their stepmother, Miss Rickson?”
The old lady looked up at Littlejohn and her eyes snapped.
“If you’re wanting me to talk scandal, Inspector, you’ve chosen the wrong person. Henry and Gerald got on with their stepmother, as you call her, as well as two men could do with the barrier between them and two hundred thousand pounds!”
“Dear me! So much?”
“Yes. So much; and both of them kept from it by a stupid old man, just like two naughty boys forbidden their pocket money. All because they didn’t throw their hats in the air for joy when their father married again and even said he hoped he’d have another son to whom to leave his fortune, by the second marriage.”
Miss Rickson was thereupon seized by a fit of coughing, which convulsed her whole frame and held up the interview whilst she recovered herself and mopped the tears from her eyes.
“About the brothers, Miss Rickson. Did they quarrel often?”
“They were always quarrelling. They were like the proverbial Irishman. They thrived on squabbles, which seemed to let off steam for them and clear the air. No murder could have resulted from their schoolboy nonsense, for deep down, although few think it, Henry and Gerald were fond of each other. They fought like Kilkenny cats in the nursery, but let anyone else dare to try conclusions with one of them. The other was always at his side. But now that Henry’s dead, I don’t know what’s going to happen to Gerald. You see, Gerald depended so. much on his brother. The last man on earth he’d kill in cold blood, although in rage he might hit him with the nearest heavy object he could lay hands on. Do you know, Gerald once struck Henry with a meat chopper. They’d been …”
“I suppose the works and responsibility for their success lay heavily on Mr. Henry?”
“Oh yes. Henry was always an engineer. Never happy unless among the machines and tools, even when a boy. He took a degree in engineering at Trentshire University. Gerald went to Oxford and took history honours.”
“Gerald’s the dreamer, eh, and Henry was the man of action?”
“That’s it, Inspector. They were parts of a whole, so to speak.”
“To change the topic, Miss Rickson, do you get on with Mrs. Wiliam?”
“Of course, else I wouldn’t be h
ere. She’s a decent girl, although she ought never to have taken William, you know. But she’d had a hard time. Came of a county family, impoverished by those dreadful death duties, Inspector, and I suppose sacrificed herself for the sake of her family. William paid off some mortgages for her father. In fact, William bought her.”
Tears sprang suddenly in Miss Rickson’s eyes as though she had suddenly realized the truth of what had happened, or perhaps it was from one of those quick flashes of memory which come unbiddden, seemingly from nowhere, and vanish after saddening the heart.
“They were my two boys always, Inspector. I’d willingly have given my own life, such as remains of it, to have spared Henry such a fate.…”
When she had composed herself again, Littlejohn asked Miss Rickson about the death of Mrs. William Worth’s toy dog. The old lady’s face underwent a sudden change, her lips tightened and she put up her hand as if to ward off a blow.
“I know all about that and the tale Matthews has been spreading.… Perfectly scandalous. I’m sure the dog died from distemper or something.”
But the old nurse’s tale was unconvincing this time. She seemed to be shielding one or both of her boys.
Littlejohn mentioned the gun accident, but whereas Miss Rickson knew of its occurrence, she seemed to have forgotten it already.
“And now if you’ll excuse me, Inspector, it’s time for my chocolate after which I shall go to bed. I’m getting old, you know, and can’t stay up o’ nights like you young ones. So I’ll bid you good-bye.”
And with that they parted.
Littlejohn, finding himself once more outside Trentvale Hall, stood for a minute wondering if there were anything more he could do that night before returning to his lodgings. An answer came quickly for, with a clatter of hooves, Mrs. William Worth rode into the cobbled stable yard.
Vera Worth was a buxom woman of medium build and seemed full of energy in spite of the tragedy overhanging her home. She was dressed in riding habit and carried a hunting crop. Her attire showed her figure to full advantage. As she approached, Littlejohn saw that she was handsome, too. Only tiny lines round her eyes, a spot where time first lays his hand, told that she was past forty. The hair escaping from under her felt hat was raven black still, her complexion was a rich brown, but the skin was in no way coarsened by exposure and open-air life. Her full lips and dark eyes marked a passionate and generous nature. A dangerous woman of whom to make an enemy.
Death in the Night Watches Page 3
