“That,” said the judge in a curious voice, “will suit me.”
“Well? Delivery?”
The judge reflected. “You are at this house party in Taunton, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“Could you come here tomorrow night about eight o’clock?”
“With pleasure.”
“Have you got a car?”
“Alas, no!”
“No matter. There is a bus between Taunton and Tawnish every hour. The seven o’clock will get you to the Market Square in Tawnish by eight. The last half mile you’ll have to do on foot. Simply walk out of Tawnish and follow the sea-front road until you get here.”
“I know. Connie and I made the trip today.”
“Don’t come before then, because I may not be back from London. And—you’ll have to think up some excuse to give Constance as to why you’re leaving the house party.”
“I’m an adept at that Never fear. Well … ”
He got up, brushing his coat. The room was full of twilight, so it is to be feared that neither of them noticed the expression on the other’s face. Both of them seemed to be listening to the faint, soft thunder of the tide coming in.
From his waistcoat pocket Morell fished out a tiny object which he balanced in his palm. It was too dark for the judge to make out what this was: it was the small-caliber revolver bullet Morell carried as a pocket piece. He fingered it lovingly, as though it had brought him luck.
“It’s your show,” he observed, not without malice; “and I wish you joy of it. But—Connie’s down there now. We’re supposed to be arriving at a decision. What are you going to tell her?”
“I shall tell her that I approve of the marriage.”
“Oh?” Morell stiffened. “Why?”
“What other course do you leave me? If I forbid it she will ask for reasons. If I give those reasons … ”
“Yes, there’s that.” Morell reflected. “And her face will light up—I can imagine it—and for twenty-four hours she’ll be perfectly happy. Then amputation with a smile. Bit cruel, don’t you think?”
“You talk of cruelty?”
“In any case,” said the other, with an unabashed coolness, “it will do my heart good to hear you give us your blessing, and see you shake hands with me. I’m going to insist you shake hands with me. And promise to stump up a fish slice for the nuptials. It seems too bad you’ve got to subject Connie to this; but please yourself. Well, shall I go and call her?”
“Do.”
“Then here goes.” Morell dropped the bullet back in his pocket and put on his rakish hat. He stood framed against the pale light from the windows, in a light gray suit too much pinched in at the waist. “And the next time you see me, mind you call me ‘my dear boy.’ ”
“One moment.” said the judge without moving. “Suppose by some unforeseen chance I couldn’t raise the money?”
“That,” Morell pointed out, “would be just too bad. Good-by.”
He gave a final click of the gum, and went out.
Mr. Justice Ireton sat still as though considering. He stretched out his hand, picked up the untasted double whisky from the table, and drained it. His cigar, put down and forgotten, had gone out. With an effort he pushed himself to his feet, and went slowly across to the desk against the wall. Pushing aside the telephone, he opened the top drawer of the desk and drew out a folded letter.
It was too dark for him to read the letter, but he knew every line of it. It was from the manager of his branch of the City and Provincial Bank. Though framed in terms of the utmost respect, it made plain that the bank could not consent to carry any further Mr. Justice Ireton’s already considerable overdraft. Touching the matter of the mortgages on the houses in South Audley Street and in Frey, Berkshire—
He spread the letter out on the desk. Then he changed his mind and threw it back into the drawer, which he closed.
Night noises whispered up from the sea. Far away, there was the throb of a motor car. To anybody who saw him then (but nobody did see him) the change in Horace Ireton’s behavior would have been almost shocking. His stout body seemed to grow as limp as a laundry bag. He flopped down in the swivel chair, and put his elbows on the desk. Removing his spectacles, he pressed his fingers over his eyes. Once he lifted both fists, as though for a wordless cry which he did not utter.
Then footsteps, the murmur of voices, and Constance’s rather forced laughter, warned him that the two were returning.
He put on his spectacles again, with great deliberation, and turned round in the chair.
That was Friday evening, the twenty-seventh of April. On the following night, Mr. Anthony Morell reached Tawnish not by bus, but by the eight o’clock train from London. In the Market Square he inquired his way to the coast road. Another witness testified that he reached the judge’s bungalow at twenty-five minutes past eight. At half past eight (clocked by the telephone exchange) somebody fired a shot. Mr. Morell died there of a bullet through the brain; and, until it was too late, the murderer never knew what was in his victim’s pocket.
V
The girl at the telephone exchange was reading True Sex-Life Stories.
Florence sometimes wondered whether these stories were really true. But of course the magazine wouldn’t dare print them unless they were; and they sounded true, too. With a sigh of envy, Florence thought that the girls in the stories, no matter how irretrievably ruined, always managed to have such a good time. Nobody had ever offered to ruin her in so many interesting ways. And this white-slave business, though no doubt it was all very terrible, still …
The switchboard buzzed, and the red light came on.
Florence plugged in, with another sigh. She hoped it wasn’t like that call a few minutes ago, when a woman had rung up from a public call box and wanted to put through a toll call without any money. Florence didn’t like women anyway. But the girls in those stories certainly did see life, even though of course they repented afterwards. They went to fashionable gambling houses. They met gangsters, and got mixed up in murders …
“Number, please?” said Florence.
There was no reply.
In the little room, a loud-ticking clock said that it was eight-thirty. Florence found it soothing. Its ticking went on during a long silence, while Florence dreamed and the line remained open.
“Number, please,” repeated Florence, waking up.
Then it happened.
A man’s voice, speaking very low but with desperate hurry, whispered, “The Dunes. Ireton’s cottage. Help!” And these gabbling words were followed by the revolver shot.
Florence did not at the moment identify it as a revolver shot. She only knew that, in the earphones, the carbon cracked against her ears with a physical pain which made her feel that steel needles were being driven into her brain. As she jumped up from the switchboard, she heard a moan, a scuffle, and a rattling thud.
Then silence, while the clock ticked.
Though Florence felt sheer panic, she kept her head. For a short time she held to the desk and looked at the clock as though for inspiration. She nodded to herself. Her fingers flew to plug in another number.
“Tawnish police station,” answered a young but rather self-important voice. “P. C. Weems speaking.”
“Albert—”
The voice changed. “Didn’t I tell you,” it said, in an urgent mutter, “never to ring up here when—”
“But, Albert, it’s not that! It’s horrible things!” Florence told him, what she had heard. “I thought I’d better—”
“Very good, miss. Thank you. We’ll attend to it.”
At the other end of the line, P. C. Weems hung up the receiver in consternation mingled with doubt. He repeated the story to his sergeant, who scratched a heavy chin and hesitated.
“The judge!” he said. “Probably nothing in it But if somebody has tried to kill the old boy: crumbs, we’re for it! Hop on your bike, Bert, and get out there as fast as you can. Hurry!”
&nbs
p; P. C. Weems hopped. From Tawnish police station to the judge’s cottage was about three-quarters of a mile. Weems would have made it in four minutes if he had not met with an interruption.
It was well after dark. There had been rain earlier in the evening; and, though it had now cleared up, the warm spring night was moonless and damp. Ahead of Weems’s bicycle lamp the asphalt road gleamed black along the sea front. Street lamps at a distance of two hundred yards only intensified and distorted the darkness. They looked wind-blown, like sea-front trees; the tang of the sea was pungent, and Weems’s ears were full of the shaky thunder of breakers at high tide.
He could discern the lights of the judge’s cottage, some distance down on his right when he became aware of the lights of a motorcar blazing at him from close at hand. The car was parked on the wrong side of the road.
“Constable!” called a man’s voice. “I say, constable!”
Weems instinctively pulled up, sliding one foot to the ground to steady himself.
“I was coming to tell you,” the voice went on. “There’s a tramp—drunk—Dr. Fellows and I … ”
Now Weems recognized the voice. It belonged to Mr. Fred Barlow, who himself owned a cottage farther along in the direction of Horseshoe Bay. For Mr. Barlow young Weems had a vast if puzzled respect, a respect eclipsed only by the awe he felt for the judge.
“Can’t stop now, sir,” he gasped, between excitement and loss of breath. His self-importance led him to impart a confidence to Mr. Barlow, as being worthy of it “There’s been trouble at Mr. Justice Ireton’s place.”
The voice came sharply out of the darkness.
“Trouble?”
“A shooting,” said Weems, “the telephone operator thinks. Somebody’s been shot.”
As he raised himself on pedal and handlebars, Weems saw Mr. Barlow move round the car into the glow of the lamps. He was afterwards to remember the expression of Mr. Barlow’s lean face, illuminated down one side; with the mouth half open and the eyelids pinched. Mr. Barlow wore a sports jacket, soiled flannels, and no hat.
“Go on!” Barlow said grimly. “Go like the devil! I’m right behind you.”
Pedaling hard, Weems saw that his companion was keeping up with him at a long, effortless stride. It seemed to Weems rather undignified that anybody should be running along beside the law like this. It shocked him. He pedaled harder to get away, but still the figure kept up. Weems was panting when he tumbled off the bicycle at Mr. Justice Ireton’s gate—to meet with another encounter.
Constance Ireton, dim and white in the darkness, stood just inside the gate. Her figure twisted and untwisted round the wooden palings; the wind ruffled her hair and blew her frock against her body. By the light of the bicycle lamp, Weems could see that she was crying.
Barlow merely stood and stared at her; it was the constable who spoke.
“Miss,” he said, “what is it?”
“I don’t know,” answered Constance. “I don’t know! You’d better go up there. No, don’t go up there!”
She stretched out her hand, ineffectually, as Weems opened the gate. The living room of the bungalow was a blaze of light; all three French windows were uncurtained, and one stood partly open. They could see the sparse grass and damp ground outside. With Barlow following him, Weems ran to the open window.
P. C. Albert Weems was conscientious, he was hard-working: he was even, at times, clumsily imaginative. On the way out he had been picturing what might have happened here. These images chiefly consisted of murderous attempts on the life of the judge, in which he might arrive in time to be the hero of the occasion by nabbing the criminal, overpowering him in a stand-up fight, and grasping the hand of a victim who should at least live long enough to express gratitude in the proper quarters.
But it was not what he saw.
A dead man—dead as mutton—lay face downwards on the floor in front of the desk across the room. It was not Mr. Justice Ireton. It was a black-haired man in a gray suit. He had been shot through the back of the head, just behind the right ear.
The light of the desk lamp, yellow and clear, showed the clean-punctured hole by the hair line, with a little sluggish blood. The dead man’s fingers were spread out on the carpet like talons, the skin wrinkling along the backs of the hands. The desk chair had been overturned. The telephone had been knocked off the desk: it lay beside the victim, its receiver still off the hook and clicking angrily beside the dead man’s ear.
But this was not what froze P. C. Weems with horror, so that he could not believe his eyes. It was the sight of Mr. Justice Ireton sitting in an easy chair, some half a dozen feet from the dead man, with a revolver in his hand.
Mr. Justice Ireton breathed slowly and heavily. His face was the color of dough, though his little eyes were calm and seemed to be turned inwards. The revolver, a small one, was of polished steel with a black hard-rubber grip; it glittered under the desk lamp and the central chandelier. As though conscious for the first time that he was holding the revolver, Mr. Justice Ireton stretched out his hand and dropped it with a small rattle on the chess table beside him.
P. C. Weems heard that noise, as he heard the drag and thunder of the surf beyond the windows. But both noises were meaningless. Both occurred in a void. His first words— blurted and instinctive—were remembered by the others long afterwards.
“Sir, what have you gone and done?”
The judge drew a deep breath. He fixed his little eyes on Weems, and cleared his throat.
“A most improper question,” he said.
Relief flooded Weems.
“I know!” Weems said, noting the color and contour of the face that was pressed against the carpet, and the exaggerated clothes. He struggled forward. “Underworld. Gangsters. Well, you know what I mean! He tried to kill you. And you—well, naturally, sir—!”
The judge considered this.
“An inference,” he replied, “both unwarranted and improper. Mr. Morell was my daughter’s fiancé.”
“Did you kill him, sir?”
“No.”
The monosyllable was fashioned with care, and with finality. It almost finished Weems, who quite frankly did not know what to do. If it had been anyone except Mr. Justice Ireton, Weems would have cautioned him and taken him along to the station. But taking Mr. Justice Ireton to the police station would be like violating the law itself. You didn’t do that to high court judges, especially one whose eye froze you even now. Weems had begun to sweat He wished to God the inspector were here: he wished it wasn’t his responsibility.
In taking out his notebook, he fumbled it and dropped it on the floor. He told the judge about the interrupted phone call, while the judge looked dazed.
“Would you care to make a statement, sir? Tell me what happened, like?”
“No.”
“You mean you won’t?”
“Presently. Not now.”
Weems seized at a hope. “Would you like to tell Inspector Graham, sir, if I ask you to come along to the police station and see him?”
“There,” said Mr. Justice Ireton, making a slight gesture without unlacing the hands he had folded over his stomach, “is the telephone. Be good enough to phone Inspector Graham and ask him if he can come out here.”
“But I can’t touch that phone, sir! It’s—”
“There is an extension in the kitchen out at the back. Use that.”
“But, sir—!”
“Use it, please.”
Weems felt as though someone had given him a push under the shoulder blade. Mr. Justice Ireton did not move. His hands remained folded over his paunch. Yet he was as much master of the situation as though some other person had been found, pistol in hand, over a dead body; and Mr. Justice Ireton surveyed it, dispassionately, from the bench. Weems did not argue: he went.
Frederick Barlow came into the room through the French window, his fists on his hips. If the judge was surprised to see him, he gave no sign; he merely watched while Barlow closed the door after W
eems.
There were small, fine wrinkles round Barlow’s eyes. The set of his jaw was aggressive when he looked steadily back to Mr. Justice Ireton, holding to the lapels of his old sports jacket and squaring himself as though for battle.
“You can get away with that sort of thing,” Barlow observed, as dispassionately as the judge, “with Weems. But not, I think, with Inspector Graham. Or with the Chief Constable.”
“Perhaps not.”
Barlow jerked his thumb toward the body of Anthony Morell, ugly in death. “Did you do it?”
“No.”
“You’re in a bad position. You realize that?”
“Am I? We shall see.”
It was a flash of sheer vanity, all the more surprising because it came from Horace Ireton. Barlow was brought up with a bump against that calm arrogance; but it unnerved him, because he knew the dangers of it.
“What happened? You can tell me, at least.”
“I don’t know what happened.”
“Oh, look here!”
“Kindly,” said the judge, shielding his eyes with his hand, “moderate your tone when you speak to me. I do not know what happened. I did not even know the fellow was in the house.”
He spoke without emotion, but his vivid little eyes moved round toward the closed door, and the palms of his hands moved slowly and softly on the arms of the chairs: a gesture which told Barlow that his wits were very much awake.
“I expected Mr. Morell tonight,” he went on, “on a matter of business.”
“Yes?”
“But I was not aware that he had arrived. This is Saturday, Mrs. Drew’s night off. I was in the kitchen, preparing my own dinner.” His mouth moved with distaste. “It was at half past eight precisely. I was just opening a tin of asparagus—yes: the matter is funny, though you don’t smile— when I heard a pistol shot and a sound presumably caused by the fall of the telephone. I came in here and found Mr. Morell as you see him. That’s all.”
Death Turns the Tables_aka The Seat of the Scornful Page 4
