Hobby of Murder

by E. X. Ferrars

  ‘I know what you mean, I know what you’re going to say!’ she cried. ‘You’re going to say that when Brian reached out to get that flower for me, he was really doing it to cover his somehow putting the cyanide into Luke’s coffee. Isn’t that it?’

  ‘It’s something we’ve got to consider,’ Roland said.

  ‘Well, it’s nonsense, utter nonsense!’ she went on vehemently. ‘If he’d done anything like that I’d have seen it. Of course I would. Or do you think I did see it and that I’m in it with him? That’s possible, isn’t it? We’re very good friends, and of course, if I’d seen anything like that I’d keep quiet about it, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Mollie, shut up,’ Ian said quietly. ‘Let the Inspector do the talking.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Davidge,’ Roland said, ‘but there’s really not much else I want to say at the moment. There’s the question, of course, of where the cyanide came from. Have you any useful ideas about that?’

  No one answered him.

  He went on, ‘I’m not sure if it’s still in use, I’ve an idea that it isn’t, but it was once used in all photographic work, and Miss Clancy, I’ve learned, is a very keen photographer, with a special interest in the kind of work that was done in her grandfather’s, or was it her great-grandfather’s day? She might have a supply of the stuff. Then Mr Audley has a collection of butterflies in his house, made by his father, and in his day killing bottles containing cyanide were a normal part of any entomologist’s equipment. Surprisingly easy they were to get, too, at least if your chemist happened to know you and just let you sign his poison register and get away with enough cyanide to kill a regiment. Then Mr Singleton works in a scientific institute, and I’m sure cyanide’s likely to be available there—’

  ‘I knew it, I knew it!’ Mollie broke in. ‘I knew you’d get around to him sooner or later. You’ve made up your mind he’s guilty.’

  ‘My dear Mrs Davidge,’ Roland said peaceably, ‘I hadn’t even got to the end of the possible sources of cyanide that I was going to mention. For one more than I have already, there’s Dr Mace. I don’t know if the people who supply her with drugs would be a little surprised if she ordered cyanide, but no doubt they’d assume she had a good use for it and would send it to her. And altogether there were about twenty people at the dinner-party. So far we’ve been concentrating on the people who live in Lower Milfrey, we’ve even been questioning the vicar, to find out if he has any hobby that requires a supply of cyanide, but he seems to need all his time for his job. But we’ll be going on to the people who came out from Rockford next. And I assure you we haven’t made up our minds about anything. In fact, I can’t remember a case of murder in which I’ve been involved—luckily there haven’t been many—in which my mind has so completely failed to be made up about any aspect of it this number of hours after it happened. And with me sitting next to the victim! By the way, have you been troubled by the press yet?’

  ‘No,’ Ian replied.

  ‘You will be, if I’m not mistaken. Everyone who was at that dinner is likely to be approached, and some of them will actually enjoy it. Now, good morning, and thank you for your help.’

  He turned to the door and Ian went with him to show him out of the house.

  Coming back, Ian said, ‘I’m going for a walk.’

  What struck Andrew as strange about him was that he looked astonishingly angry. There was almost a scowl on his face. He did not invite either Mollie or Andrew to accompany him, but without giving either of them a direct look, went out after the detective. When he closed the front door it was with a slight slam.

  Looking at Mollie to see what she made of this, Andrew saw to his surprise that she was crying. She was trying to control her sobs, but tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  When she saw Andrew looking at her, she simply muttered, ‘Hell!’ gulped, and started to rub fiercely at her eyes with her handkerchief.

  Andrew sat down and waited.

  After a minute or two, she said huskily, ‘It’s obvious to everyone, isn’t it?’

  ‘That you and Brian are in love with each other?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you wanted to conceal it, you could have made a better job of it.’

  ‘I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what Brian wants.’

  ‘Do you want to leave Ian?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m awfully fond of him, you see, and I hate to hurt him. But I don’t think I was ever in love with anyone till I met Brian. And yet I was perfectly happy, isn’t that strange?’

  ‘You rather force that happiness of yours down one’s throat, you know. From the first I found it a bit unconvincing.’

  She was silent for a moment, then said, ‘I wonder why I’m talking to you like this. I’ve never talked about it to anyone.’

  ‘Not even to Brian?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes, to Brian, but we always end up with everything undecided. We’ve never been lovers, you know. I mean, we haven’t slept together.’

  ‘Perhaps you need that to clear the atmosphere.’

  She gave him a look of surprise. ‘I’d never have expected you to say that.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I expected it of myself. How much does Ian know?’

  ‘Everything, I think, though he’s never said a word about it. But you saw how angry he got when I defended Brian to that policeman, and now going out for a walk by himself is just the sort of thing he always does when the truth looks like coming out.’

  ‘He probably thinks that if he gives you time, you’ll get over it. He must be very afraid of losing you. He may feel he’d never get over it.’

  ‘But I’m a second wife and he got over losing his first wife, didn’t he?’

  ‘Perhaps he never has, and that’s the trouble.’

  This seemed to be a new thought for her and she sat staring before her, giving it some consideration. Then she shook her head.

  ‘If I left him,’ she said, ‘he’d be very angry, and I suppose very hurt, but he wouldn’t live alone for long. He might take up with Felicity. I’ve often wished he would, because that would solve everything.’

  ‘Have there ever been any signs that he might do such a thing?’

  She gave a troubled little laugh. ‘None that I’ve ever noticed. It’s just wish fulfilment on my part. Meanwhile, his bird-watching keeps him busy. But what do you think I ought to do, Andrew? Now that I’ve told you so much, can’t you give me some advice?’

  He shook his head. ‘That’s something I’d never dream of doing.’

  ‘Do you think I ought to talk to Ian about it, bring it all out into the open, so to speak?’

  ‘If that’s what you want to do. All I can say is that I feel very sorry for all of you. Somebody’s got to be hurt, whichever one of you it is. You’ll have to face that. There are no magic remedies for this kind of thing. Now I think I’m going to go for a walk myself. Do you mind?’

  ‘Not so long as it isn’t because I’m driving you out by this outpouring of my emotions. I really don’t know why it happened.’

  ‘You had to talk to someone after you’d been so scared by Roland. But I shouldn’t brood too much on that, Mollie. Brian would have to be a very brilliant magician to be able to lob poison across the table into his brother’s cup without anyone seeing him.’

  ‘But did that man believe I didn’t see him?’ She had been growing calmer, which was partly what had made Andrew decide to leave her, but now a note of hysteria was back in her voice. ‘And anyway, if Brian didn’t do it, who could have? Who did?’

  ‘Mollie, you aren’t implying that you yourself believe he did it, are you?’ Andrew demanded, more deeply worried now than he had been by anything that had gone before.

  ‘No, no, of course not. And go off for your walk, and try to forget everything I’ve been saying to you!’

  She ran out of the room and Andrew heard her dart into the kitchen and start banging crockery and saucepans about with an unnecessary amount of no
ise. Reflecting sadly that he had not done her much good, and that no one would recommend him as a marriage counsellor, he started out on his walk.

  In the road he hesitated, uncertain whether to go towards the village, or in the opposite direction, and his hesitation, in the mood that he was in at the moment, was fatal, for at that moment Eleanor Clancy came out of her cottage, saw him standing there and descended on him.

  ‘Oh, Professor, just the person I want to see!’ she cried, hurrying up to him. ‘I was thinking of calling in at the Davidges’, hoping I’d have a chance to talk to you, but this is ever so much better. You’ll come in for a cup of coffee, won’t you?’

  ‘Are the photographs ready then?’ he asked, finding himself walking towards her cottage with her.

  ‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t even started on them,’ she answered. ‘I was hoping, you see, that I might get a few of Luke Singleton—oh, doesn’t that sound awful now?—and I was going to have a big day, working on them all. But I’ll let you have proofs in a day or two. You’ll still be here, won’t you, you aren’t thinking of going home because of what’s happened?’

  ‘I’m afraid, even if I wanted to, Inspector Roland might be against it,’ Andrew said.

  ‘But he’s got no right to keep you here, if you want to leave, has he?’

  ‘Technically, I believe not, but I don’t want to make myself too unpopular.’

  They had reached the cottage and gone in. Eleanor did not suggest that they have their coffee in the garden this morning, for the sky was overcast and there was a chilly little breeze blowing. She saw Andrew settled in an easy chair, thrust a Sunday paper at him and asked him if he had seen the notice in it of the murder, then went out to her kitchen to make the coffee. The paper was a different one from the Davidges’, but the paragraph in it about the murder was more or less the same as the one that he had already read. There would be more than a paragraph tomorrow, he thought, and when Eleanor came in with the coffee tray he asked her if she had yet been troubled by the press.

  ‘I’ve had one or two telephone calls,’ she said, pouring out the coffee and sitting down. ‘And that’s one of the things I wanted your advice about. You see, someone’s told them that I used to know Luke Singleton in the old days, and they wanted me to tell them about our relationship. Our relationship—I ask you! I simply told them there wasn’t one, but I don’t think they believed me, and I think they’ll be round presently, badgering me about it. Well, what do you think I ought to do? I mean, do I stick to it that I didn’t know him, or that I only knew him a little, or do I simply refuse to say anything at all? I’ve never had any dealing with the press and I’m rather scared of them in case they get me to say something wholly inappropriate. That’s one thing I thought you might be able to advise me about.’

  Andrew shook his head. ‘I’ve had occasional dealings with them, but not enough to be able to advise you. And unless you’ve a strong feeling that you don’t want to say anything at all, I’m inclined to think the only thing for you to do is to stick very carefully to the truth and to tell exactly the same story to all of them. Don’t let any of them put words in your mouth. But you did know Singleton, didn’t you? I remember hearing you say something of the kind.’

  She gave an uneasy little smile.

  ‘I did, yes, but I may have—well, exaggerated a little how well we knew each other. We belonged to the same tennis club, and sometimes after a game we’d have a drink together. But we never even went out together, and I can’t remember a single thing we ever talked about. I think we used to discuss the game, and criticize one or two other players, and perhaps arrange to play again sometime, but you couldn’t call that a relationship, now could you?’

  Andrew remembered that Ian had said that you could not always believe what Eleanor said and he wondered now if what she was telling him was the truth, or whether what she had implied before was the more accurate.

  ‘You recognized him when you saw him yesterday evening, didn’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes, immediately!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’d changed very little. Those sharp features, and the thin cheeks—I’d have known them anywhere. But then I’ve rather a trick of recognizing people. Look at the way I knew Suzie at once.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that you seem very observant,’ Andrew said. ‘You’ve a way of looking at people as if you were really working at committing them to memory.’

  ‘Have I? I didn’t realize …’ She paused and her expression changed. A curiously wary look came over it, as if she suddenly felt that she should be careful what she said. But then, as if with an effort, she smiled again. ‘I remember when I was a child people used to tell me not to stare at them so. Of course I only did it because I was interested in them, but people sometimes didn’t like it. But I’ve always been very interested in people. That’s a good thing for a teacher, of course.’

  ‘You retired rather early, didn’t you?’ Andrew said.

  ‘Well, a games mistress can’t keep going too long,’ she answered. ‘And then I came into a little inheritance from an aunt, so I thought I’d go while I was still young enough to start a new life. Now may I ask you something more?’

  ‘If you think I can help you.’

  ‘Oh, it isn’t a case of helping me, it’s someone else. Someone I’ve grown very fond of in the short time I’ve been here. Do you think Mollie’s in love with Brian Singleton?’

  Of all the questions that she could have thought of asking him, it was the one that he would least have wanted to have to answer. But he knew that he must answer quickly, or she would become suspicious.

  ‘That’s an extraordinary question,’ he said. ‘Whatever made you think it?’

  ‘Perhaps just that observant way I have of looking at people,’ she said, and there was irony in her tone, as if she recognized that he had dodged her question.

  He left as soon after that as he could and set out on the walk that she had interrupted.

  He had gone only a little way along the pleasant country road, noticing that here and there among the trees the first copper tints of autumn were beginning to appear, when the verse that he had been keeping at bay all the morning gained possession of his mind and insisted on filling it.

  ‘And now I’m as sure as I’m sure that my name

  Is not Willow, titwillow, titwillow,

  That ’twas blighted affection that made him exclaim

  Oh Willow, titwillow, titwillow …’

  He strode faster, hoping to defeat the rhyme by action. But apart from the lines, the thought of blighted affection was strongly present in his mind. But whose? Mollie’s? Brians? Or most all, perhaps, Ian’s?

  Then a quite different thought, without his even noticing that it had happened, took over his attention. It was the question of why, momentarily, Eleanor Clancy had seemed to be almost frightened when he told her that she had a way of looking at people as if she were committing them to memory. Why should she have minded it? She must know that she did it. There was something odd about the way that she had looked at him. Something rather odd too about the woman herself, though he did not know why he felt this.

  CHAPTER 5

  When Andrew returned to the Davidges’ house he found that Ian had returned before him, and that he had Sam Waldron with him in the sitting-room. Mollie was in the kitchen, busy with the lunch. Sam Waldron had the tiredness in his face that afflicted everyone whom Andrew had seen that morning. He thought it likely that neither of the Waldrons had been to bed at all the night before. The police had probably been in their home all night.

  Sitting down, more tired himself than he had realized that he would be when he set out, he asked, ‘Has anything at all been discovered yet about what happened last night?’

  Sam made a grimace in answer.

  ‘I think they’ve come to the conclusion that neither of the Bartletts had anything to do with it. And I think they believe the Bartletts that neither Mollie nor I gave them any special instructions about putting any p
articular cup down in front of Singleton. That was one of the bright ideas they had, you see—that we put cyanide into a cup in the kitchen, then instructed one of the Bartletts that that cup was to be given to Singleton. That would have made things nice and simple, wouldn’t it? I think they’ve given it up now. They’ve found nothing useful in the way of fingerprints on Singleton’s cup, or anywhere else, and all they’ve got is a small crop of motives, of which, of course, Audley’s is the best. Only they don’t pretend to be able to guess how someone sitting at the far end of the table, as Audley was, could have dropped anything into Singleton’s coffee. It would have had to be done by magic. And talking of magic, they’re fairly interested in Brian, because they know in a small way he’s a so-called magician, and he did reach out across the table, I’m told, to pick a flower out of that arrangement on it, and might have done something tricky in the way of sleight of hand. If Brian had known the hours Anna took creating that arrangement, he might not have done anything so thoughtless, and would be saving himself some trouble now. But what I’d particularly like to know about that is whether Miss Clancy saw anything. If she did, she’s keeping very quiet about it.’

  ‘You know where she was sitting, then,’ Ian said.

  ‘Oh yes, the police have made a map of where everyone was sitting and I was given a copy of it, to see if it stimulated any ideas in my head. But I’ve really only one idea, you know, and that is that I’ll never be able to look Parson Woodforde in the face again. To have tried to lay on a dinner in his honour, and have it turn out as it did! I think his diary will go back on to my bookshelf and stay there for a long time to come.’

  Andrew was wondering if anything special had brought Sam Waldron to visit the Davidges that morning, or if it was something that might happen at any time without any special reason.

  ‘I’m interested in why you should particularly want to know what Miss Clancy may have seen,’ he said, ‘rather than Dr Mace. She was actually sitting next to Singleton, Miss Clancy had the Inspector between her and him.’