The Mystery at Stowe

by Vernon Loder

  Tollard nodded. ‘Very well. But you can, perhaps, tell me if you have any clues yet. Surely the number of people capable of using a South American blow-pipe is limited?’

  ‘No doubt it is, sir. When I tell you that your fingerprints are likely to be found on the blow-pipe in the hall here, you will understand why we had to question your whereabouts.’

  ‘I tried to use it once here,’ said Tollard, with a keen look.

  ‘Quite so, sir. But having used it some time ago you will see for yourself what might be reasoned.’

  ‘That is all you want of me, then?’

  ‘That is all, sir. I presume you are ready to attend the inquest. It will be fixed for Monday, I think.’

  ‘I said I should be ready to identify in public.’

  Fisher nodded. ‘I should say that the enquiry will be adjourned, sir. The evidence of toxicological experts will be required, and their reports on the nature of the poison tipping the arrow may take some time to prepare. In any case, we shall not be ready by Monday with sufficient evidence to get a proper verdict.’

  Tollard rose. ‘What I want to satisfy myself about is the way the investigation is being carried on.’

  ‘That you will have to leave to us, sir,’ said the superintendent stiffly.

  ‘Are you going to ask for the assistance of Scotland Yard?’

  ‘We don’t contemplate it yet. We have adequate forces at our disposal, sir.’

  ‘I hope you have,’ said Tollard sombrely.

  He left the room, and went in search of his host. Mr Barley was hovering about the hall, like a distracted foster-mother of chicks, and took him at once to the drawing-room, where Elaine and Jim Carton were talking softly by the window.

  Elaine went up to Tollard with outstretched hands when he came in, her face showing some emotion when she saw how much the tragic news had changed and aged him. She murmured a few words, and then turned to Carton, who had watched their greeting with a thoughtful and not very approving eye.

  ‘You know Jim Carton,’ she said. ‘He heard I was here, and came down to see me.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Tollard, staring for a moment at his old acquaintance. ‘I haven’t heard of you for years, Carton.’

  They shook hands, and Carton spoke his sympathy. Grover came in at that moment, and said the superintendent would like to see Mr Barley and Miss Gurdon before he left. They excused themselves, and went out. Carton sat down, and fixed his eyes on Tollard.

  ‘This is a damned ugly business,’ he said. ‘I’m more sorry for you than I can tell, old man.’

  Tollard sat down. ‘Terrible. I only hope these police here are competent to unravel it. I can’t say that the specimen in the other room impressed me much. He seemed almost inclined to believe that I might have had something to do with it.’

  Carton stretched out his long legs. ‘I know how you feel. I should feel the same, though it is not a very logical attitude.’

  Tollard glanced at him quickly. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you can’t be logical without looking at both sides. You haven’t done anything; therefore you wonder why you are questioned about your movements. But the police don’t know you, they don’t know what you have, or have not, done. They are bound to thrash out—especially in this case.’

  They were men of very diverse temperament and outlook. At this moment Tollard began to feel a sensitiveness about Carton’s attitude that resulted in the faintest shade of hostility.

  ‘Why especially in this case?’

  Carton shrugged. ‘Excuse me, old man, if I sound sententious. But, as I was telling Elaine a little while ago, I had some police work of a kind to do in Africa. It was part of my job. It gave me an insight into the feelings of those whose duty it is to investigate unpleasant things.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question, Carton.’

  ‘I’m coming to that,’ replied Carton bluntly. ‘Being away, I have got out of touch with our set, but, to be quite frank, I can see some people wondered at your backing Elaine financially.’

  ‘I wish they would mind their own business.’

  ‘Quite. It would, be easier for everybody. But I am trying to look at it as the police will. They hear gossip about this, they wonder if—well, perhaps I had better say no more about it.’

  Tollard flushed. ‘You have said enough to tell me what you mean.’

  ‘What the police may mean.’

  ‘The police then, if you prefer it. If they are such lunatics as that, they will suspect Miss Gurdon next.’

  ‘Probably they do,’ said Carton, frowning.

  Tollard started. ‘You don’t mean that. How could they?’

  ‘Very easily. She can use a blow-pipe. She found Mrs Tollard. She has no witnesses—could not have in the circumstances—to prove that she was in her bedroom from the moment she retired to bed, till she went into that room early in the morning.’

  ‘You are taking a rather brutal line of supposition, Carton.’

  ‘Possibly; murders have a way of being brutal, and the police know it. There’s a good old saying that the man who keeps furthest away from the precipice has the least danger of falling over.’

  ‘You are suggesting that it was injudicious of me to offer to finance Miss Gurdon?’

  ‘To put it plainly, yes. I don’t mean that there was any harm in it, but the most harmless things lead to the greatest trouble sometimes.’

  ‘They would actually go to the length of thinking that I had a guilty passion for Miss Gurdon, and that she, or I, tried to remove my wife!’ Tollard cried hotly.

  Carton shrugged again. ‘They are bound to take every possibility into consideration. You must see that. Don’t think me a cold-blooded fish for talking like this. If a man is going to defend himself, or someone else, the more he knows about the likely line of attack, the better able he will be to meet it. I can assure you that my interest in Elaine more than equals your own.’

  ‘That sounds cryptic.’

  ‘I am sorry if it does. I hope you don’t think I have no sympathy for you, Tollard. The fact is, I once proposed to Elaine. She turned me down. But I came home to try my luck again.’

  ‘Now I see.’

  ‘Good! I have the greatest sympathy for you in your trouble, but, naturally, Elaine stands first in my mind. I can foresee that the police may suspect her, and I can’t forget that they can only suspect her because she and you were arranging this expedition together, and seeing enough of each other to cause gossip—probably malicious.’

  ‘Certainly malicious.’

  ‘But just as damaging when one does not know the rights or wrongs of the case.’

  Tollard bit his lip. ‘Anyone might have heard the whole details. Elaine wanted money for her next trip, I came to her help with a promise. Naturally, since I had offered financial assistance, she consulted me about details. There was nothing more than that in it.’

  ‘I am sure there wasn’t,’ said Carton. ‘But it is like a superstition that there are human beings in Mars; a scientist may deny it, but others will still believe, because there is no means of proving it one way or the other.’

  Tollard nodded. ‘What about this woman in red?’

  Carton was glad they had left the more controversial topic. He looked down thoughtfully. ‘That is really interesting, I mean to see the man Jorkins about that.’

  ‘Are you taking up the case too?’ asked Tollard, rather impatiently.

  ‘In a way I am,’ said Carton, discerning the fact that the other had begun to dislike him on account of the necessary home-truths he had delivered. ‘If I can prove that there was a woman in the room this morning early, I shall have a defence.’

  ‘Unless this superintendent fellow says it was Elaine.’

  ‘It is possible he may.’

  ‘Though, of course,’ said Tollard thoughtfully, ‘Mr Barley says Elaine was wearing a pale blue dressing-gown when she entered his room.’

  ‘That proves nothing, I am afraid.’
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br />   Tollard looked at him sharply. ‘On the contrary, it seems to my infantile mind to prove everything!’

  He felt rather bitter, but his companion made allowance for that and did not resent the implied sarcasm.

  ‘Strictly speaking, no. If we can imagine Elaine to have done such a thing, she would realise the importance of the colour, and purposely show herself to Barley in a blue one.’

  ‘Very elaborate precautions, Carton.’

  His tone stung Carton this time. What the devil was the fellow driving at? Why was he so snappy? Surely there could be nothing in the common gossip after all?

  ‘Considering the provocation I have sometimes received,’ he drawled, ‘I have committed very few murders; but, if I were going to commit one, I think I should take rather elaborate precautions to cover up. But we’ll drop that theory for the moment, if you don’t mind. When I see Jorkins I may get further light on this supposed intruder.’

  Tollard calmed down. ‘I hope you can. I suppose you know more about this sort of thing than I do. But what can you ask the man the police did not ask him?’

  Jim Carton raised his eyebrows. ‘I didn’t ask him, I mean the superintendent, but I haven’t heard from anyone if Jorkins was questioned about the position of the woman, if she was facing inwards or outwards.’

  ‘How does that affect the issue?’

  ‘In several ways. For example, if he saw a woman’s hair, he might be sure it was a woman. Men nowadays do wear silk dressing-gowns, and light ones too.’

  ‘By Jove!’ cried Tollard, studying his companion with more interest. ‘That never occurred to me.’

  CHAPTER X

  DID TOLLARD LOVE HIS WIFE?

  THE superintendent had gone, and dinner was served. It was a gloomy meal, for no one cared to trench on the subject of the tragedy, and the circumstances precluded conversation from proceeding in a lighter vein. Only Carton saved the dinner from disaster, by telling some of his experiences in Africa, which were neither criminal nor amusing, but sufficiently interesting to fill a gap.

  Mr Barley had rather unwisely put Tollard at some distance from Elaine Gurdon, a blundering exercise in what he thought tact, that provoked comment in the minds of Ortho Haine and Mrs Gailey. The former had his own opinions about Tollard, and they were not very flattering ones.

  The next morning Tollard sat writing letters until lunch time. Mr Barley went over to Elterham with Haine and Miss Sayers. Netta Gailey sat up in Mrs Minever’s sitting-room, and Carton, finding himself alone after breakfast with Elaine, suggested a walk.

  ‘I don’t feel much inclined for it,’ she said.

  ‘I wish you would come,’ he replied. ‘As a matter of fact, I am going on a little errand that may interest you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I want to see Jorkins. So far as we know, the police have not turned up today. I should like to get in before them if I can.’

  ‘He’s an under-keeper,’ said Elaine. ‘I think he has an outlying cottage near that big fox-cover.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Carton, rising leisurely, and pushing his coffee-cup aside, ‘you haven’t a red dressing-gown, have you?’

  She started. ‘No.’

  ‘Never had one?’

  ‘Of course not. Do you think I should have been silly enough not to say so, if I had? Why, I insisted on the superintendent going through all my trunks when you were talking to Ned yesterday evening.’

  ‘Good! Well, we’ll get on the track of Jorkins now. Run up and get on your things. I don’t want to let it out where I am going. And Elaine.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t be shirty if I face facts. Tollard got his wattles up when I suggested that the police might suspect him or you. The ostrich doesn’t stick its head in the sand, but, if it did, it would show what an ass it was.’

  ‘Ned is upset,’ she remarked.

  ‘All the more reason for us to keep our heads. This is going to be a jolly awkward enquiry, and sneering at the police methods doesn’t do anyone a ha’p’orth of good. They’re only human, you see. Tollard’s naturally shocked and upset, but what I can’t understand is this—’

  He paused awkwardly, and studied her face. She did not look at him, and he went on with more determination.

  ‘His friends here talk as if he hadn’t been frightfully enamoured with his wife.’

  ‘I’ll run up now and get ready,’ said Elaine, as if she had not heard him. ‘I shan’t be long.’

  When she had gone he went, out into the hall, got his hat and stick, and waited for her under the porch.

  ‘Rum,’ he said to himself doubtfully. ‘What’s the game, I wonder? Perhaps they were all mistaken. You never can tell with a man and his wife.’

  A minute later Elaine came down, and they set off across the park to a little gate that broke the wall on the east side.

  ‘You can see the big cover on that little hill over there,’ Elaine said, pointing. ‘I believe Jorkins is a single man, and does for himself.’

  Carton nodded. ‘If someone was hiding in the shrubbery near the window, the fellow ought to have seen him. Keepers have good eyes.’

  ‘But there would hardly be a woman in the room, and a man outside,’ she objected.

  ‘No. One does away with the other. But we have to prove who was there.’

  She reflected. ‘Surely the coroner’s jury will think it—must think it was a woman?’

  ‘Coroners’ juries don’t settle things. They are there to find the cause of death. If the police are not satisfied, they will go on enquiring. Besides, as I told Tollard, it may have been a man. Apparently this Jorkins based his supposition on a long flowing garment. That may mean a dressing-gown. A man may wear one.’

  ‘But what men were there in the house? Only Mr Barley, Mr Haine, and Mr Head.’

  ‘And Grover. What of that? If we are going to except anyone, we may as well give up. Of course I had to know it, but it seems strange to me that neither you nor Tollard seem to have any idea of the necessity of keeping an open mind. You’re like some people during the War. They had met a decent German, or Hungarian, or Turk, and couldn’t believe that people they thought nice might be very nasty indeed.’

  ‘No, I suppose you’re right. I would never suspect Mr Barley or Mr Haine.’

  Carton cut the head off a thistle with his stick. ‘Look here, Elaine, let me hear about these collogues you had with Tollard. I’m on your side every time, but I ought to get a line on that.’

  Without turning to look at her, he felt that she had stiffened.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, when you started to talk it over. Where did you meet?’

  She considered for a moment, her colour rising. For a moment her lips took a mutinous turn, then she replied rather coldly.

  ‘At his house, of course.’

  ‘Thanks. What about his wife?’

  ‘Margery? Oh, she was there.’

  ‘Did she take any interest—join in, eh?’

  ‘No, not often.’

  ‘But she wasn’t very keen on it?’

  Elaine frowned. ‘Don’t you think I may have enough of this sort of thing at the enquiry?’

  He looked at her earnestly. ‘There! That’s what I feared. That is what I meant when I told you not to fly off the handle when I wanted to hear things. I tell you this is serious. You may be as innocent as a babe unborn. I have no doubt you are, but I wouldn’t like to bet that the police don’t try to mix you up in it.’

  ‘I am afraid of that,’ said Elaine.

  ‘Naturally. There are such things as miscarriages of justice, even in this country. I’m jolly well going to see that you get clear of it. But I can’t do that unless I know exactly how things stand.’

  ‘Go on then,’ said Elaine composedly.

  He looked relieved. ‘I may take it that Mrs Tollard wasn’t very keen on the thing?’

  ‘No, she wasn’t.’

  ‘She never told you so?’

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nbsp; ‘Not directly. I believe she hinted to Ned that the talk bored her. She wasn’t interested in travel.’

  ‘Right. You met elsewhere to talk the thing over? It was only if there was a deficit in the proceeds from your book and your lectures that he was to weigh in with extra funds?’

  ‘Yes. But it was very likely he would be called upon. He is a director of a company in Paraguay. He was on the board of a new company that thinks of running a railway in lower Brazil.’

  They had come to the little gate in the park wall. Carton let her out, and followed her across a narrow road to a stile giving on a field-path.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said tentatively, when they were on the path, ‘Tollard was in love with his wife?’

  She stood still, and looked at him. ‘Why ask me that? He married her. I suppose he was in love with her.’

  ‘When he married. No doubt. But I gather that they were not much together.’

  ‘They had different tastes.’

  ‘You don’t know if they quarrelled?’

  Elaine walked on. ‘I really must refuse to say any more, Jim. I don’t know anything about it. Ned is not the sort of man to talk about his wife.’

  ‘Then I take it he didn’t,’ said Carton. ‘Sorry if I worry you, old thing, but I don’t want to move in a fog.’

  ‘You had better leave it to the police,’ she said.

  ‘Hanged if I do!’ he said obstinately.

  They walked on in silence. With all his zeal for her cause, perhaps because of it, Carton felt that his position was an awkward one. If either Ned Tollard or Elaine had been able to appreciate the situation properly, things might have been easier. As it was, he must appear to them inquisitive and officious above the normal.

  He had an impulse to abandon any part in the investigation, and apply himself to his wooing. That would be easy. He would not be disliked, or parried when he asked questions. But he was not the kind of man to take the easy road in preference to any other.

  He fell to studying Ned Tollard’s character as he tramped on by Elaine’s side. At school Ned had been a sporting boy, as he was now a sporting man. With it, he had been frank, generous, easy to get on with. He seemed different now. Was that change a recent one; the result of the tragedy which had just taken place? Or was it of old standing, a deterioration since his marriage?