The hand which held the judge’s cigar shook. Shifting the cigar to his left hand, he again took his spectacles out of his breast pocket and began to swing them. It had been a long, long evening. What Barlow feared was that they would now be treated to an exhibition of pure childish temper, which occurred seldom but which formed the other side of Horace Ireton’s unemotional nature.
“I refuse to have my daughter mixed up in this,” he said.
“Excuse me,” interposed Graham heavily, “but maybe I’m the best judge of that I’ve got to remind you that I’m in charge here.”
“I refuse to have my daughter questioned.”
“And I say that if Miss Ireton’s got anything to tell me, it’s her duty to come here and tell it.”
“You insist on that?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
The judge’s eyes opened wide.
‘Take care, Inspector.”
“I’ll take care all right, sir! Mr. Barlow, will you … ?”
What might have developed then, if there had not been an interruption, would not have done credit to anybody. It was a skidding of the wheel, a brief outlet for tempers, cut short by the entrance of P. C. Weems from the hall.
“Dr. Fell’s here, Inspector,” he reported. “The gentleman you phoned for.”
Graham pulled himself up, bulging under his blue tunic.
His face wore a faint mechanical smile which seemed to indicate that everything would be all right if only he had half a second to think.
“And there’s a young lady with him,” Weems continued, “the young lady who drove him over here. She’d like to come in too, sir, if you’ve got no objection. Her name’s Tennant— Miss Jane Tennant.”
X
The momentary danger drained away and was gone. “Inspector,” said Mr. Justice Ireton, “I beg your pardon. That was very foolish of me. You have, of course, a perfect right to question anyone whose evidence you think may be relevant. Pray forgive my lapse of manners.”
‘That’s all right, sir!” Graham assured him, swelling with relief and heavily jovial. “I expect I spoke a bit short myself. No offense.” His glance at Weems was ominous. ‘Tennant? Tennant? Who is she?”
“She’s a friend of Miss Ireton’s,” Barlow answered for him. “Lives in Taunton.”
Graham kept his eyes on Weems.
“Oh? What does she want? I mean, has she got any evidence to give us, or is she just here socially, like?”
“She didn’t say, Inspector.”
Graham crushed the unfortunate constable with a look, and turned to Barlow.
“Do you know her personally, sir?”
“Yes; quite well.”
“Then do me a favor, will you? Go out and see her. Find out what she wants. If she’s got anything to tell us, bring her in. If not—well, you know. Just be tactful, and send her away. We can’t have people running about the house at a time like this. You, Bert: ask Dr. Fell to come in.”
Carrying the brandy, Barlow hurried across to the bedroom. He found Constance standing by the rocking chair as though she had just returned from listening at the door.
“How do you feel? Up to facing it?”
“Yes, if I’ve got to.”
“Then drink this; No, don’t sip it: gulp it down. The great Dr. Fell is here, to have a whack at things. It’ll take a little while to haul him up and settle him down, which is all to the good. I’ve got to leave you for a moment, but I’ll be back in time to stand by.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back in a moment!”
He opened the catch of the middle window, and slipped out.
Weems, treading pontifically, was nearly to the gate. Barlow waited until the sound of voices had died away. A series of excruciating wheezes, and a thud, told him that Dr. Fell had wormed out of the car and set foot on the ground.
Fred stood on one side until Dr. Fell, in cape and shovel hat, had followed Weems up the path. Then he opened the gate. A big two-seater Cadillac, engine throbbing, was drawn up on the far side of the road. Its head lamps shone out across the edge of earth, scrub grass, and sand. From the sea a great soft wind swept across the road. When he felt it stir his hair and deaden his eyelids, Fred Barlow thought: I’m damned tired.
“Hullo, Jane.”
“Hullo, Fred.”
These two had always been very bright and cheerful with each other. That seemed to have been the keynote of their acquaintance. Both were now very much subdued.
“The constable told me,” observed Jane, “that ‘Mr. Barlow would see me.’ It’s all right I don’t really want to go up there. Unless I can help Connie in any way?”
“You’ve heard about it, then?”
“Yes, the inspector gave Dr. Fell the gist of it over the phone.”
He leaned on the door of the car and put his head inside. Jane sat on the far side, behind the wheel, with a big expanse of red leather cushion between them. Her face was turned sideways, partly lighted by the glow of the dashboard lamp. It was warm inside the bonnet of the car. He could fed the engine throb as he leaned his elbows on the door.
Tight little nerves, symbols of weariness, ached in the calves of his legs. End of assizes. Five tough briefs. Four wins and a loss—Lypiatt.
(Taken hence to the place whence you came, and thence to the place of execution, there to be hanged by the neck until you are dead; and may God have mercy upon your soul.)
He flung away this thought. He was glad to see Jane Tennant. Not with the ordinary passive acceptance which that term usually implies; but with a warm and active rush of pleasure which ran through his whole mind.
She was a grand person. By gad, she was! Her very quietness was soothing. He noticed the slim hands on the steering wheel, the tapering fingers and nails without varnish. He noticed the gray, wide-set eyes looking at him.
“How bad is it?” Her tone was guarded. “Dr. Fell thought the judge might be—involved. More than involved.”
“Oh, it’s not as bad as that. Do you mind if I climb in and sit down for a moment?”
Jane hesitated.
“Please do,” she said.
He noted that hesitation. It damped his pleasure. She was always like this. It was not that she avoided him; or had ever been anything except perfectly friendly. Yet she always seemed to be moving away from him; to be putting a space between them, both figuratively and literally. If they were taking tea together (for instance), and there was room for two to sit on a sofa, she always moved across and sat in another chair. He reflected on this, thinking what a rotten judge of character Constance Ireton must be.
“There’s plenty of room,” she remarked. “There was almost room for Dr. Fell, and heaven knows that’s recommendation enough.” She laughed nervously, and checked herself. “I always say that these Cadillacs are spacious enough inside, but I can’t get used to these American cars with the left-hand drive. They—”
He sat back on the red leather cushions.
“Jane,” he said, “can you help us?”
“Help you?”
“Tell us anything in the way of evidence.”
She was silent for a long time. She had not even, he reflected, turned off the engine. Its throbbing animated the feeling of loneliness and remoteness which had closed round this car. He had never been so conscious of Jane’s physical presence.
“I want to be fair, Fred,” she said at length. “I did know something about his history. That business—five years ago—”
“Yes.” His head ached. “That’s true, is it? If it’s the case I read about, I can remember the details. It’s true? It’s the same Morell?”
“It couldn’t be any other. And yet I can’t understand it! Dr. Fell says, at least by what Mr. Graham told him, that Morell isn’t the impecunious you-know-what. Graham says he’s a well-to-do man with a flourishing business. It couldn’t be a brother or something, could it?”
“No, it’s the same man.”
“But do you understand it
?”
“Yes, I think I do.” He stared at the dials on the dashboard. “It’s Latin logic, that’s all. Morell, or Morelli, thought he had a perfect right to capitalize his fascination powers over women. Not crookedness: logic. Then he got a jolt. Society caught him and made a fool of him in open court. So he made his resolve; he applied the same logic and the same hard work to building up another kind of business. It all hangs together. It’s possible to follow every move he made.”
“How well,” said Jane, not without faint irony, “how well you judge people!”
He caught that irony, and it angered him.
“Thanks. Joking aside, though, he wasn’t any better because he’d made good financially. Do you know, Jane, I hate him even after he’s dead.”
“Poor Fred.”
“Why do you say ‘Poor Fred’?”
“Just a way of speaking. Sympathizing with you, if you like. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Jane, what have I done to offend you?”
“You haven’t done anything to offend me. May I have a cigarette?”
He fumbled in his pocket and produced the packet. She was sitting close against the other door, her arm along it and her breast rising and falling.
He handed her a cigarette, moved along toward her to light it, and struck a match. The light of the dashboard lamps was on her face, and they looked each other straight in the eyes. He held the match level until it had burned halfway down. Then he blew it out, and took the cigarette out of her mouth. He saw her eyes begin to close.
A clear voice said: “I do hope I’m not interrupting anything.” And Constance Ireton appeared on the running board.
There was a pause.
“He promised to come back,” Constance went on, “and stand by me. I couldn’t understand what was delaying him.”
Fred Barlow did not look at Jane. He felt one complete seething mass of guilt, through every vein of him. Nor did Jane look at him. She lifted one foot to the clutch, and began revving the motor with the other; its roar beat out against emptiness, above the wash of the sea.
“I must get along home,” said Jane, when she could make herself heard. “I’m a bad enough hostess as it is, leaving those people there. But—I heard about it, Connie. I’m terribly sorry about everything.”
“I’m sure you are,” agreed Constance. She waited a second or two. “You don’t mind if I’m a little late in getting back to Taunton, dear? The police want to see me.”
“No, of course not. Will you be all right?”
“Yes. I borrowed your Bentley.”
“I know you did,” said Jane, engaging low gear. “You’ll find a spare petrol tin under the back seat. Good night.”
“Good night dear. Fred, they want to see you in the house.”
The villain of the piece crawled out of the car. They all said good night again, and the car moved away. Constance and Fred waited until the red taillight had dwindled away down the road toward Horseshoe Bay; then he held open the gate. Not a word was spoken until they had nearly reached the bungalow.
“Well,” said Constance, “aren’t you going to explain yourself?”
(No, he was damned if he would!)
“Explain what?”
“You know what I thought I could depend on you.”
“You’re well aware that you can depend on me, Connie.”
“What were you two doing out there?”
He wanted to reply, “Nothing. You didn’t give us a chance.” Remembering what she had been through that night, he checked himself, and said:
“Nothing.”
“You’re going to her swimming party tomorrow night, I suppose?”
“What swimming party?”
“At the Esplanade Hotel. Dinner, and dancing, and drinks, and then a late swim in that big indoor pool. Don’t say she didn’t invite you? She looks rather wonderful in a bathing suit.”
He stopped short.
In the living room, through the gauze net curtains on the windows, he could see Dr. Fell bending over Morell’s body. P. C. Weems, kneeling beside it was engaged in taking out the contents of the dead man’s pockets. Graham watched him. So did Mr. Justice Ireton, who puffed at the stump of a cigar.
“Look in there,” he said. “I’m not going to any swimming party. Neither are you. Neither, Lord help us, is your old man. There’s the reason why. For the love of Mike stop talking about Jane Tennant, and—.” He drew in his breath. “Besides, what difference does it make? You’re not interested in me.”
“No. Not like that. But I’m used to having you about, Fred. I’m used to depending on you. I can’t give that up. I can’t!—especially now.” Her voice grew hysterical. “It’s been pretty awful, you know. You won’t desert me, will you?”
“All right.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. Now in you go, and don’t show yourself till they call you.”
Yet a vision of Jane Tennant’s face flicked through his mind as he sent Constance into the hall, and himself entered the living room by the window. He caught Inspector Graham at the end of a patient summary.
“And that, Doctor, is every bit of evidence we’ve got to date. Would you like to give any opinion—offhand?”
Dr. Fell’s cape and shovel hat lay on the sofa beside Mr. Justice Ireton. Dr. Fell himself turned slowly round on his stick, like a liner easing into port, and surveyed each part of the room in turn. His expression was vague and almost halfwitted. The ribbon on his eyeglasses drooped. Yet Barlow, who had heard him testify many times in court, was not deceived.
“What bothers me most, sir, is the red sand,” Graham confessed.
“Oh, ah? Why?”
“Why?” demanded the inspector. “What’s it doing there? What’s the meaning of it? Where did it come from? I’d lay you a bob you can’t think of any reasonable explanation for keeping an ounce or so of red sand in anybody’s house.”
“You would lose your bob,” said Dr. Fell. “What about an hourglass?”
There was a silence.
Mr. Justice Ireton had closed weary eyelids.
“Like the man in the Punch story,” he said snappily, “I find it much simpler to carry a watch. There are no hourglasses here.”
“Are you sure?” asked Dr. Fell. “Many housewives use ’em—they’re minute glasses, really—for boiling eggs. They usually contain reddish sand; first because it’s very finegrained and second because it’s easy to see. What about your housekeeper here?”
Inspector Graham whistled.
“That might be it! Come to think of it, I’ve seen those things, too. You think that’s it?”
“I have not the remotest idea,” admitted Dr. Fell. “I only said you would lose your bob if you wagered nobody could explain it.” He mused. “Besides, that’s paler sand than you see in most glasses. To my scatterbrain it vaguely suggests a name. Lake Something. Lake—No, it’s gone.” His big face smoothed itself out. “But if you asked me what bothered me most, Inspector, I should say the telephone.”
“The telephone? What about it?”
While Mr. Justice Ireton watched him, Dr. Fell went across and blinked at it. It was some time before he answered.
“You observe that there’s a piece knocked off the edge of the mouthpiece, and a crack along the side as well. Hey?”
“It fell off on the floor.”
“Yes. Granted. And this is not a very thick carpet.” He tested it with his foot “Still, I have my doubts. I myself have sometimes knocked the telephone off my own desk. In fact, while gesturing during moments of eloquence, I have once or twice sent the blighter flying. But I never remotely managed to do the damage that seems to have been done to this one.”
“All the same, it was done.”
“Yes: it was done. Let us see.”
Stepping over Morell’s body, he propped his stick against the desk, picked up the telephone, and began clumsily to unscrew the mouthpiece. It came away after some difficulty with the threads.
>
Dr. Fell held it up to the light peered through the perforations of the inside, and sniffed at it He frowned. But when he picked up the phone itself, where the delicate sounding drum was now exposed by the removal of the mouthpiece, he uttered an exclamation.
“Cracked,” he pointed out “This microphone part— cracked. That surely suggests something to us. No wonder the later sounds heard by the girl at the exchange were confused and meaningless.”
“I knew it was out of kilter,” Graham admitted. “When I tried to phone you at the hotel, I had such trouble with this one that I finally used the extension in the kitchen. But how does it help us even if the telephone is smashed?”
Dr. Fell was not listening. He set down the telephone after an unsuccessful attempt to screw the mouthpiece back in again. He seemed more startled and worried.
“No, no, no, no!” he observed, as though skeptically, to nobody in particular. “No, no, no, no!”
Inspector Graham exchanged an exasperated glance with Mr. Justice Ireton. The latter consulted his watch.
“The hour,” he said, “is late.”
“It is, sir,” agreed Graham. “And we haven’t even had Miss Ireton in yet. Got the stuff out of Morell’s pockets, Bert?”
“All here, Inspector,” replied P. C. Weems, who had been arranging articles in a neat line on the carpet.
“Well?”
“First, these three packets of bank notes … ”
“Yes, yes, we’ve seen ’em! Well?”
“Note case with four pound ten in it, and some business cards. Nine and elevenpence in silver and coppers. Bunch of keys on ring. Address book. Pencil and fountain pen. Pocket comb. Packet of Toni-Sweet Peppermint Chewing Gum, one or two sticks gone. That’s the lot.”
Dr. Fell, though he listened, did not appear interested. He picked up the cushion of the swivel desk chair, and blinked at it. While Weems droned on, he wandered over to the chess table, where he picked up the revolver. Holding it sideways to the light, so that he could see the tiny cross cut into the steel under the magazine chamber, he glanced at Mr. Justice Ireton.
Not until he had put down the gun again did the judge speak.
“You’re still a bad chess player,” he said.
Death Turns the Tables_aka The Seat of the Scornful Page 9
