Death Comes to Cambers

by E. R. Punshon

  It might be like that, Bobby thought, a tangle not wholly hid, yet leading through arrogance and egotism to a coldblooded murder. He sighed a little, and said presently: ‘This idea of taking on a job with Mr. Tyler as a kind of valet-secretary-maid-of-all-work, did that appeal to him at all?’

  It was a question at which she smiled with a mingled tenderness and sadness, as of one sorry about something that she could yet well understand.

  ‘You can’t think how furious he was,’ she said gently. ‘He was too angry even to show it – it was like being insulted in his most tender spot. He really is very, very clever, and he has worked tremendously, and then to be told all he was fit for was to be a rich man’s servant, and that was what he was to be in the future, upset him terribly. Lady Cambers never quite understood Eddy. I told her Eddy wouldn’t want to go as a valet like that, but she only said, “Why not?” She said it would be such a good opening for him, and Mr. Tyler was interested in the same sort of thing. That made Eddy more cross than ever; he said it was like supposing that playing the violin and playing bridge were the same sort of thing. Going out to Central America would have meant his giving up all work here – all his ambitions, everything – in order to become a rich man’s valet. And he thought Mr. Tyler rather an ignoramus.’

  ‘Lady Cambers didn’t understand that?’

  ‘Oh, no; she thought she was doing it for Eddy’s good; she always thought anything she did was for your good, and she had always been interested in Eddy. When he was leaving school, she offered to pay for him to stop on and perhaps go to the university afterwards. But Uncle and Aunt wanted him to help in the shop. They thought he had all the education necessary, and a university is only waste of time when you’re going to be a grocer. They always hoped he would keep on the shop after them. They are very proud of it. Aunt told him how much they depended on him, and he let her refuse. It meant a lot to him then. It meant more later on, when he came to understand better what he had missed. He didn’t blame Aunt or Uncle; he thought Lady Cambers ought to have insisted.’

  ‘I suppose help offered and withdrawn is worse than no help at all,’ Bobby observed. ‘And there’s a saying, too, that everything can be forgiven – except a too great benefit. That counted afterwards.’

  ‘I think perhaps,’ she mused. ‘Eddy might feel like that.’

  ‘You and he were engaged, weren’t you?’

  ‘Aunt and Uncle wanted us to be.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘I wanted anything that pleased them,’ she answered. She turned again her full gaze upon him with that effect of shock her sudden glance seemed always capable of giving. ‘They took me from the workhouse when I was a child,’ she said. ‘The workhouse,’ she repeated; and, more clearly than ever before, she showed the full force of her rich and passionate nature in the terrible emotion with which she pronounced that word. ‘If they had wanted, I would have married the first tramp passing in the street,’ she said simply; and then, her look intent like fire: ‘And you expected me to tell you things that might have sent their son to be hanged. Why, I would not have said one word if I had known that he had murdered half the village.’

  ‘You would have been wrong,’ he said, ‘wrong legally and morally.’

  With a gesture of her lifted hand, she swept that consideration aside as immaterial.

  ‘But, in spite of that, you married someone else,’ Bobby added.

  She considered the point gravely.

  ‘You do things you never meant to do,’ she said after a time. ‘It is more strong than you. Eddy didn’t want to marry me. I told him he ought to because Uncle and Aunt wanted it so. He said they had let him down once when they did him out of school and university, and he would take care they didn’t again, tying a wife on his back. He said he had no time for women anyhow. I said whenever he had half an hour to spare, if he would let me know beforehand, I would see to the banns and everything; and he said not much, he wouldn’t. But after that it wasn’t very comfortable at home, because Aunt and Uncle thought it was my fault, and I came here to work when Lady Cambers asked me. I thought perhaps I could help about Eddy, because I knew sometimes he was difficult – she thought he ought to be more grateful and he thought she was lucky to have the chance of helping his work. And then I met Mr. Sterling. I don’t mean for the first time. Only it was the first time because it was so different. We had seen each other several times, and I had waited on him at tea and so on. That day a telegram came for him, and I took it to him in the room where he was. It was on a tray, and I held it out to him, and we looked at each other, and it was like a great light shining all around. It was as if all the world were new again. I never even thought of Eddy or of Uncle and Aunt. I was still holding out the tray. I said: “This is for you, sir.” He said: “I am going to marry you.” It sounded quite natural, like, “I want you to put this letter in the post.” He said again: “I shall marry you.” I said: “I shall be ready when you want me. Will you please take your telegram?” He took it and I went away. He didn’t try to stop me and he never opened the telegram. I found it next day, unopened. I have it still, still unopened.’ She paused and flashed her fiery and tremendous glance at Bobby. ‘And do you think,’ she asked, ‘if my man had murdered half the village, I would have said a word to help you?’

  ‘You have your own notion of morality,’ Bobby mumbled.

  She did not answer this. She had flung, as it were, her whole personality open to him in the reaction from the secret doubts and fears she had experienced, and already he fancied he could see her beginning again to fold her reserve once more about her. She went to the window, and over her shoulder she said to him: ‘Sergeant Jordan and Mr. Norris are coming up the drive. What for? Have they come to take Sir Albert away?’

  ‘If they have, you can do nothing,’ Bobby warned her,

  for her tone had seemed to suggest she contemplated some sort of action. He added: ‘I don’t suppose so; it may be nothing. Or they may be here to make sure he doesn’t try to get away.’

  ‘Well, he’s in bed, isn’t he?’ she said with impatience. ‘Most likely Colonel Lawson will come himself when he’s ready,’ Bobby said. ‘I must thank you for what you’ve told me. You’ve helped a good deal to making things clear. I’m afraid poor Lady Cambers was playing with fire between the two of you – the three of you, rather.’

  ‘It was when I heard about Eddy’s pen being found near her body, I was most troubled,’ she said. ‘But I suppose Sir Albert might easily have picked it up and kept it. He was angry over her giving him such a present. I hope he didn’t leave it there to make people think it was Eddy.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Bobby said. ‘The important thing about that pen is not the pen but the ink it was filled with.’

  ‘Why? What does the ink matter?’ she asked.

  ‘All details have their importance,’ Bobby explained. ‘Details of fact and details of character, they all confirm or contradict each other. If they contradict, you know there’s something wrong. If they confirm, you may be right – or not. Did Mr. Dene know you were communicating with Mr. Sterling in cipher through the Announcer?’

  ‘Yes, I told him.’

  ‘Could he read the cipher?’

  ‘No; he told me he had tried and couldn’t. He asked me what it was, but I didn’t tell him. I said he must ask Mr. Sterling.’

  ‘If Mr. Sterling had inherited all Lady Cambers’s money by the will she made after the breach with her husband, you would have been a rich man’s wife. You would have been the mistress here. And you would have asked your husband to continue the help Lady Cambers had been giving Mr. Dene?’

  ‘I suppose so. Yes. Why?’ she asked hesitatingly.

  ‘Only an idea,’ he answered. ‘The statement Jones made about what he says he saw on Sunday left a good many points a bit doubtful. I think after what you’ve told me I see my way to clear them up.’

  He rose to his feet as he spoke, and she came back from the window and faced h
im. Without speaking, she bent on him the full force of her fiery and challenging gaze, and he met it with one as deep and strange as her own. For an appreciable moment they remained so, staring, silent, gazing into each other’s eyes, matching their wills like two duellists of the old days trying and measuring their swords.

  ‘I think I’m afraid of you,’ she said at last.

  ‘There has been the life of a man between us,’ he said, and went away quickly.

  CHAPTER 32

  AN ANALYSIS

  As speedily as he might, Bobby, leaving Cambers, made his way to the headquarters of the county police in Hirlpool, where, when he entered, he found himself the centre of interested, excited, and somewhat scared glances.

  ‘It’s about all the old man could do,’ the station-sergeant told Bobby confidentially, ‘not to have you put on the wanted list. Hopping he’s been about you stopping away so long – fair hopping.’ He paused, and a vision rose before Bobby’s eyes of the stout and dignified Colonel Lawson hopping up and down, to and fro, hopping endlessly, persistently, tirelessly. Gratified to observe how impressed the young Londoner looked, the station-sergeant went on: ‘Rang up London to ask if you had gone back there, and spoke sarcastic about our discipline in the country being no doubt different from London ideas. Hope you’ve got something to smooth him down with, because at the moment he’s – well, hopping.’

  ‘I think I’ve got my case complete at last, if that’ll do,’ Bobby said.

  ‘Well, we all know that already, don’t we?’ asked the station-sergeant. ‘When a bird comes along and says he saw it all – well, there you are, aren’t you? They’ve been putting him through it good and hard and he hasn’t varied his story one scrap. Didn’t you see the cars waiting out in front? The old man’s just starting to take in Sir Albert Cambers, Esq., Baronet. Something for the papers, eh? “Baronet Arrested on Murder Charge. Sensation of the Century”. Some headlines, heh?’

  ‘Colonel Lawson must let me see him first.’ Bobby said, speaking with authority. ‘I have some facts to put before him.’

  The station-sergeant stared, hesitated, and then said: ‘Well, they’re just off, but he’s certainly been wanting to see you pretty bad all afternoon – ever since he brought Jones back from London.’

  He got up from his desk as he spoke, disappeared, and then came back.

  ‘Says he’ll give you just two minutes,’ he announced, grinning. ‘I’ll warn you – when the old man gets going, he can say a lot in two minutes.’

  To the chief constable’s private office Bobby was now accordingly conducted, and there was greeted by Colonel Lawson with a restrained and ominous politeness.

  ‘I understood you were instructed to keep in touch,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ answered Bobby. ‘There are some points I’m anxious to put before you, before you proceed to the arrest of Sir Albert. It does look so bad, sir, doesn’t it, when a man is arrested and then has to be released again immediately?’

  ‘Released?’ thundered the colonel. ‘What do you mean? You reported Jones’s statement yourself. It’s been thoroughly tested. Why, there’s hardly ever yet been a murder case when an eyewitness could be produced.’

  ‘No, sir, and this isn’t one,’ Bobby answered. ‘Jones’s statement won’t hold water for a moment.’

  ‘You mean he’s lying?’

  ‘It’s a nice point,’ said Bobby. ‘I should put it he is letting his imagination convince him he saw something he is quite certain actually happened – he’s so sure of it he now almost feels as if he did see it. But he didn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean he thoroughly and sincerely and honestly believes, and has done from the first, that Sir Albert is guilty. The moment he heard what had happened he felt certain it was Sir Albert; he got into a panic and ran for it for fear of being brought in as an accomplice. That’s why he disappeared in such a hurry. Back in London he began to wonder what he ought to do. Probably his first idea was to lie low. I dare say he thought of coming to us. And then he had the idea of blackmailing Sir Albert. Remember, he was quite sure Sir Albert was guilty. But to make it sound more convincing, and Sir Albert more willing to pay up, he put in that bit about having seen it all. What he really meant was that he would have been an eyewitness if he had been there to see what he was so sure had happened. Very likely by now he has thought about it so long, and imagined every detail so vividly, he has almost convinced himself he did see it. Imagination. He has,’ said Bobby musingly, ‘the making of a first-class novelist in him – he can imagine things so clearly he can persuade himself he saw them and describe them as if he had.’

  ‘First-class lying I should call that,’ said the colonel distrustfully, and paused, and Bobby went on: ‘Jones states he climbed out of his window that night after he had got back to the inn without anyone seeing him.’

  ‘He explains how in detail, all correct,’ interposed the colonel. ‘I checked them with him on the spot. He showed me just how. Quite practicable, though it doesn’t look so at first.’

  ‘I think his details apply to other occasions,’ Bobby said. ‘I think there’s no doubt he did get out that way sometimes without the people of the inn knowing anything about it. But not that night. On Sunday night the landlord was sitting up with a sick cow in the shed just opposite Jones’s window. He is prepared to swear Jones could not possibly have got out that night without his seeing him. Again, Jones says in his statement he changed his clothes. I have evidence he had no spare suit with him to change into. Thirdly, the times don’t agree. Lady Cambers was murdered before midnight – probably somewhere about half-past eleven. The rain started about a quarter to eleven and lasted about half an hour. There is a small margin of error in all these times, of course, since no one used a stopwatch. Jones was back at the inn somewhere about eleven – after the rain had started, for he was wet through, and before it stopped. He went straight to bed and asked for a glass of hot whisky-and-water, which was served him about half-past eleven, and for his wet things to be put in the kitchen to dry. But his statement says that he was suspicious of Sir Albert’s intentions, waited for his arrival, followed him, and that that is how he came to see the murder committed. Obviously he can’t have been watching Sir Albert from before eleven till after midnight and yet been back at the Cambers Arms about eleven and drinking hot whisky – and-water in bed at the half-hour. Treasury counsel wouldn’t even put him in the box to tell a tale so full of holes. I think Sir Albert is telling the truth when he says he told Jones to keep out of the way. I think Jones didn’t intend to at first, but when the rain came on – he has had a bout of rheumatic fever and is scared of another attack – he gave up his first idea of watching to see what happened, scuttled back to the inn, and had no idea there was anything wrong till morning. And when he heard he got into a panic and ran for it, quite convinced Sir Albert was guilty and afraid of being thought an accomplice.’

  Colonel Lawson was thinking deeply, breathing more deeply still. Presently he said: ‘Well, even if you’re right about all that and Jones’s story can’t stand, there’s plenty more to suggest he was right in his guess.’

  ‘May I go over the case with you, sir?’ Bobby asked. ‘I’ve come to a conclusion I would like to put to you, if I may. Even if you don’t agree, and still decide to arrest Sir Albert, I shan’t keep you long and he can’t get away. He is still in bed for one thing, and then your two men are on watch.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Lawson, surprised.

  ‘Thought it best, sir,’ explained Moulland, lifting his blue, puzzled eyes from the papers he was diligently examining at a desk behind, ‘to take all precautions. The officers have strict instructions not to say what they are there for.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the colonel, a little doubtfully. ‘Go on,’ he said to Bobby.

  ‘I think we can all agree,’ Bobby went on, consulting his notes now, ‘the murder must have been committed by one of the people connected with Lady Cambers. The b
urglar idea is consistent with the disappearance of the jewellery but quite inconsistent with the murder having happened a mile or so from the house. All our investigations have failed to show any sign of any unknown person being concerned. Those we know of surrounding her, one of whom is certainly the murderer, include her husband, Sir Albert; her nephew, Tim Sterling; her butler, Farman; her maid, Amy Emmers; her protégé, Eddy Dene; her tenant’s son, Ray Hardy; the vicar, Mr. Andrews; her neighbours, Mr. Bowman and his sister, Miss Bowman; and her rival jewellery-connoisseur, Mr. Tyler. As it happens, there seems adequate motive for murder in nearly each case. She had managed to make a good many enemies. The picture I have built up of her in my mind is that of a strong-willed, not very intelligent woman, very fond of interfering in other people’s lives, confident that she always knew what was best for everyone else, not too scrupulous how she used the power her wealth gave her to enforce her will on others. And thoroughly well-meaning with it all. She was fond of her husband, anxious to keep him with her, and had behaved very generously to him in money matters when he got into some sort of financial tangle. But she probably meant to use her generosity to give her still more completely the upper hand. There was also a dispute about the ownership of the jewellery.

  ‘I think we must remember her personality, strong and narrow, as both the background and the explanation of the tragedy.

  ‘With Sir Albert, then, it stands that he wanted a divorce to marry Miss Bowman and that there was a good deal of feeling between him and his wife, especially over money matters.

  ‘Tim Sterling was her heir and her debtor, and stood in danger of being disinherited and of having his loan called in, if she found out that he could not marry the girl she had chosen for him as he was already married to her maid, Amy Emmers.’