The Mystery at Stowe

by Vernon Loder

  ‘So I mustn’t tell him?’

  ‘Or anyone. I’ll see Barley privately just now. Are you willing?’

  ‘Of course, if it helps. I say, Mr Carton, do you mind if I tell my husband; write him, I mean, that I’m going to do this?’

  He grinned. ‘No, write him by all means. We must regularise the dressing-gown incident, if you have any qualms about it. Thanks awfully,’ he added as she nodded assent. ‘You can tell your husband you are going to be a feminine Dr Watson for a little, only with a little more brain than that dull gentleman.’

  They returned to the drawing-room together, and it was bedtime before Carton got an opportunity to speak to Mr Barley.

  Mr Barley was not averse from the experiment, though he foresaw, as Carton had already done, an objection on the part of Ned Tollard.

  ‘He may hate it, since that was his dead wife’s room,’ he observed. ‘I’ll get him out of the house till lunch.’

  ‘Right!’ said Carton. ‘I’ll have Jorkins up here by eleven. If there are any police about at that time, it’s off; postponed anyway.’

  ‘At eleven,’ said Mr Barley.

  CHAPTER XV

  THE EYES OF Mr JORKINS

  FATE assisted Mr Barley to remove Tollard the next morning from the sphere of excitement. A letter came by post from Superintendent Fisher asking Tollard and Miss Gurdon to visit Elterham. A Home Office expert had come down, and was anxious for some details with regard to the darts used.

  So they went off together in the car after breakfast, and Carton prepared a note to send Jorkins.

  ‘I’ll let you know when you come on view,’ he told Netta Gailey, after he had handed the note to one of the servants for transmission to the underkeeper.

  She looked very excited. ‘All right. I’ll go up and get ready about half-past ten.’

  Mr Barley took Carton up to the bedroom where Mrs Tollard had died, and went with him to the window.

  ‘Jorkins must have been walking over there,’ he said. ‘You see, that is the nearest point, and the shrubbery lies between it and us.’

  ‘May I know where Mrs Tollard was lying when you came in?’

  ‘Certainly. Of course you have not been in this room before. She was lying on her back, not quite at right angles to the window, but slanting.’

  ‘Was her head towards the window, or her feet?’

  ‘Certainly not her head.’

  ‘How was it that Miss Gurdon could hear her moving restlessly but not the thud with which she must have fallen?

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Carton frowned. ‘It seems strange. Of course, if she is ever suspected by the police, it will be a point in her favour.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, if I killed someone, and wished to pretend that someone else had killed her, I would say I had heard the fall.’

  ‘Since she had heard the other noises, of course. I hadn’t thought of that.’

  Carton looked thoughtful, ‘Of course, if she was poisoned by the dart, she might have lain down on the floor in her agony. But then one would expect her to cry out and wake the house.’

  Mr Barley shook his head. ‘I am afraid I have no flair for detective work.’

  Jim Carton pursed his lips. ‘Very well. When Jorkins comes, I think I shall walk with him across the park, and see for myself how much can actually be observed of a lady at that window. Will you accompany Mrs Gailey into this room, and show her where she ought to stand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Carton took up a position before the window. ‘Facing this way and at about this angle,’ he said.

  ‘Very well,’ said Mr Barley. ‘Shall we go down again now?’

  Mrs Minever suspected that something was afoot that morning, but was unable to get any satisfactory information. When, however, Jorkins arrived at the house, and Netta Gailey went upstairs to change, the old lady stationed herself in a lower window to see what could be seen. She did not like Tollard, and she had taken a faint dislike to the new guest, who went about so mysteriously, but did not condescend to initiate her into the scope and nature of his investigations.

  Carton took Jorkins out again, after they had had a short consultation with Mr Barley, and they walked across the park for three hundred yards, in the direction of the little gate in the surrounding wall, before turning to go back across the front of the house.

  ‘This about right?’ Jim asked, as they stopped and faced about.

  ‘Yes, sir, I have a regular path when I come this way. It’s a kind of habit with me, and I reckon I could walk him blindfold.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave it to you, and simply tail on. Time now. We’ll go back.’

  They sauntered off, and when they were almost in a line with the shrubbery, Carton saw Mr Barley’s face for a moment at the upper window. It was withdrawn again, and Mrs Gailey took his place.

  Carton could see the figure in the yellow dressing-gown fairly plainly, and was able to notice that Mrs Gailey’s hair was short, though her features were not recognisable at that distance. Jorkins, who understood his job very well, did not stare hard but just glanced up and away again, as he had done on the morning of the murder.

  Then they were past, and Carton touched him on the shoulder.

  ‘That’ll do, Jorkins. We’ll go in now, and see Mr Barley.’

  ‘It looked much the same,’ said Jorkins, as they walked towards the house, ‘but I could see it was another lady on account of the hair.’

  ‘I saw that too,’ said Carton.

  Mr Barley met them in the hall. Mrs Minever had realised what was afoot, and hurried upstairs to see what part Netta Gailey was playing in the act. Netta herself was feverishly changing again to get downstairs and join the conference there.

  The three men filed into the library, and Jorkins was told to sit down. Mr Barley took up his old position by the mantelpiece, his face eager and interested.

  ‘Well, Jorkins, you saw the lady?’

  ‘Very well, sir. I might a’most have taken her to be the other lady, only for her short hair.’

  ‘And, of course, the colour of her dressing-gown,’ said Carton. ‘The police have the one that was actually worn by Mrs Tollard on the morning of the murder, so we couldn’t get that.’

  Jorkins looked at him hard.

  ‘Seemed much the same to me, sir,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ cried Carton, jumping out of the chair into which he had relapsed.

  ‘Seemed much the same to me, sir.’

  ‘I understand, Carton,’ said Mr Barley. ‘He means it was much the same shape.’

  Carton did not appear even to have heard his host’s remark. He stood in front of Jorkins, glaring, so that that young man nervously rose.

  ‘Why, you idiot!’ he cried. ‘At the inquest you swore it was red.’

  ‘So it was, sir,’ persisted Jorkins.

  Carton looked at Mr Barley. ‘He’s colour-blind!’ he said, sat down limply in his chair, and bit his lip.

  ‘Colour-blind?’ repeated Mr Barley. ‘Are you, Jorkins? But surely not. Wait a moment! Come to the window, Jorkins. Look out at the grass there, what colour is it?’

  ‘Green, of course, sir,’ said the man.

  ‘And the bricks of the house?’

  ‘Red, sir.’

  Mr Barley turned again to Carton, who had fallen into a reverie. ‘You’re mistaken. He knows colours; grass, bricks—’

  ‘Nothing to do with it,’ said Carton. ‘Colour-blind people know the colours of well-known and familiar objects. They hear grass always spoken of as green grass, and bricks mostly as red. That is well authenticated. If they did not, their visual defect would be discovered early in life. Fellows have lived a good many years without it being known, but when they came to be tested (for signalmen, say), it was found out.’

  Jorkins stared. Mr Barley gasped.

  ‘He could mistake yellow for red?’

  ‘He would. If he suffers from red-blindness he would mistake orange, yello
w, and green for red. Jorkins, didn’t you mean that the colour of the gown worn by that lady today was red?’

  Jorkins stammered. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, it was maize, a kind of yellow.’

  ‘Perhaps; but I suppose blue—’ began Mr Barley.

  He was thinking of Elaine’s dressing-gown, and Carton knew it. ‘No, that is not one of the colours in the red-blindness range that are mistaken for red.’

  ‘Then who could have been in the room?’

  Carton shrugged. ‘It is possible he saw Mrs Tollard only. She wore green, one of the colours Jorkins is liable to confound with red. It is possible she got up, and looked out of the window. There may have been no one else in the room.’

  ‘Then?’

  Carton frowned significantly at his host. ‘Better leave that over until we are alone. I want to test Jorkins more closely. I wonder if Mrs Minever has skeins of coloured silks.’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Right. Will you ask her to let me have some?’

  Mr Barley went out. Carton turned to Jorkins.

  ‘Look here, Jorkins, this won’t go any further. But, are you sure you didn’t know before that you were colour-blind?’

  Jorkins fidgeted. ‘I wasn’t sure sometimes, sir. I sometimes wondered if there weren’t something wrong. But it isn’t easy to get a job nowadays if you have some defect, and I’m not one of the learned folk who know these things.’

  ‘No. I think you could not be sure. It’s odd how positive some colour-blind fellows are that their sight is as good as anyone else’s. I met one in the War. But I’ll keep that dark. You needn’t volunteer a statement about it to the police just yet. Mr Barley and I’ll talk it over.’

  ‘Very well, sir. I don’t want to lose my job.’

  ‘I’ll see you don’t. As a matter of fact, you have been doing what you have to do all right, I hear. But Mr Barley is in the hall. You don’t mind my testing your sight in a crude way?’

  ‘Oh no, sir. Only I hope I haven’t muddled the police with my evidence.’

  ‘You may have helped to clear up a difficult point, Jorkins.’

  Mr Barley came in with many skeins of coloured silk, which he laid out on the table.

  ‘Will that do, Carton?’

  ‘Excellently.’

  ‘Do you mind if I stay to watch?’

  ‘Not at all, sir.’

  Mr Barley sat down.

  The experiment took some little time, but Carton was patient, and Jorkins willing. It proved, however, beyond question that the latter was affected with red-blindness. He persistently identified the colours of that range with each other, and Mr Barley saw him rise, and prepare to go, with a feeling that was not altogether relief.

  ‘You have done very well, Jorkins,’ he said kindly. ‘This won’t affect your job with me.’

  ‘Thank, you, sir. I hoped it wouldn’t,’ said the man gratefully.

  When he had gone, Mr Barley took a deep breath. ‘That disposes of the theory that there was a stranger in the room?’

  ‘I am afraid so,’ said Carton, drumming with his fingers on the table. ‘Her presence was only assumed on Jorkins’s evidence. He said she wore red. Otherwise that hare would never have been started.’

  ‘But where does it leave us? Only the idea that someone with a blow-pipe outside shot Mrs Tollard.’

  ‘Or someone inside.’

  ‘I don’t see that.’

  ‘I don’t quite either, but we can’t say it was not so.’

  ‘Are you going to tell the police now?’

  ‘Not at the moment. I should like to see Dr Browne first. Do you think he would see me?’

  ‘If I gave you a note, no doubt. He’s a breezy sort of fellow, and rather curt, but you can try.’

  ‘Will you write a few lines to him?’

  Mr Barley nodded, sat down and scribbled a short note, which he handed to Carton. ‘He lives in a white house about half a mile the other side of the village. Will you have the car?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Carton, ‘I’ll walk over at once.’

  Mrs Minever had been greatly intrigued by the borrowing of her coloured silks, and when Jorkins emerged from the library, and was going out, she cunningly waylaid him.

  ‘Did it turn out all right?’ she asked mildly.

  ‘Yes, mum, it did, in a way,’ said Jorkins. ‘Seems I’m colour-blind right enough.’

  ‘What a pity,’ said the old lady, wise enough to say no more. ‘I am sorry, Jorkins.’

  It is to be feared that her pity was not very sincere, for she hurried away at once to Mrs Gailey, and plunged into the middle of her disclosure.

  ‘Isn’t it odd, my dear! Mr Carton has been making tests and he says Jorkins is colour-blind! Jorkins admits it too. Then, you see, there may have been no woman in red at all.’

  ‘No woman in red?’

  ‘No. That must be Mr Carton’s point. It was clever of him, though I am sure Mr Tollard will be furious if he hears that that young man had someone put in his wife’s room to represent her.’

  ‘But he didn’t. It was in order to appear like the stranger who was supposed to be in the room, Mrs Minever. There was no harm in that. Only, it is odd now. If there was no other woman, perhaps the keeper saw Mrs Tollard herself?’

  ‘Or Miss Gurdon.’

  ‘Good gracious! But how awful! She never said she went to the window, only that she went in, tried to lift Margery, and let her drop again.’

  ‘I didn’t say she was there, my dear. I said they might—or Jorkins might, have seen her there.’

  ‘But, if she had been there, she would have said so to the police when they told her what Jorkins said. She would say: “Oh, I went to the window myself for a moment.”’

  ‘Not if she was wearing a blue dressing-gown, and Jorkins talked of a woman wearing a red one.’

  Here Netta stopped, and her eyes opened wide. ‘But if there was no red one at all—’

  ‘The less we say about that the better,’ Mrs Minever remarked gloomily.

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE SCRATCH

  THAT curt, blunt man Dr Browne took strange dislikes at times. But, with others of his temperament, he also liked some people at sight, and Carton happened to be one of them.

  He had just come in from his round when Carton turned up at the house, and after he had read Mr Barley’s note, he offered his visitor a cigarette, and took him into a pleasant sitting room.

  ‘Well, young man,’ he began. ‘You’re a nice character, coming all the way from Africa to upset the police theories, and set us all by the ears. What’s this about Jorkins? Is it true?’

  ‘Quite,’ said Carton, smiling when he saw that he would have no trouble with the doctor. ‘I am sure he suffers from red-blindness.’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said the other, and reached down a book from a shelf. ‘I’ll look that up, and, later on, I must see the fellow. I haven’t come across a case before.’

  ‘At any rate, apart from objects that are very familiar, he mistakes other colours for red,’ observed Jim Carton, as the doctor fluttered the leaves of his book. ‘And that being so, his evidence about the stranger at the window goes by the board.’

  ‘The stranger, yes,’ said Browne, beginning to study a column of close print. ‘But not everyone.’

  Carton looked out of the window, and kept silence for a few minutes, then Browne closed his book, and looked at him very thoughtfully.

  ‘Done any detective work before?’

  ‘Among the natives; though it was part of my work as Assistant Commissioner, and was not called that.’

  ‘Anyway, you’ve made a hit here. Jorkins saw a woman. The evidence only speaks to two women in the room that morning—Mrs Tollard and Miss Gurdon.’

  ‘I am sure he saw Mrs Tollard. It’s true Miss Gurdon is not shingled, but, whatever Jorkins’s shortcomings in the matter of definite colours, he apparently does not mistake dark or brown hair for fair.’

  �
�Then he saw Mrs Tollard. The lady he saw was standing up. When Miss Gurdon saw her, she was lying down. Mr Barley heard a thud. Miss Gurdon did not; except the slight thud made by Mrs Tollard’s head falling back when she let her go.’

  ‘That is what puzzles me.’

  ‘The missing thud, in fact! But we will leave that for the moment. You have disposed of a theory, and you must tell the police. But you came to tell me something, or ask me something. Don’t be nervous. I bite fools, but not sensible people.’

  Jim Carton grinned broadly. ‘Thank you.’

  Browne smiled. ‘What are you doing in this galley? You soared home from Africa for some purpose, eh? It wasn’t simply to convict Jorkins of a lacking sense.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Jim.

  ‘I hope you were not one of Mrs Tollard’s artistic worshippers, like that fool fellow, Haine?’

  ‘No. I am a friend of Miss Gurdon’s.’

  Browne pursed his lips, and raised his eyebrows sardonically. ‘That it, eh? A masterful woman, and a clever one.’

  ‘I think so, you may be sure.’

  ‘Very well. Now what do you want to know?’

  Carton put down his cigarette. ‘You examined the body. I don’t know if you were quite as explicit in giving evidence as you might have been.’

  ‘You cheeky young rascal! I said all that was necessary.’

  ‘No doubt you did. I don’t mean that you kept back anything that seemed really important. But could you tell me if there were any injuries on the body, however slight, that you did not mention?’

  Browne reflected. ‘There were, besides the slight bruise on the back of the head (caused by the head falling back), the wound made by the dart, a slight scratch on the scalp, obviously made by a sharp comb; and a tiny scratch, dry, not open, on the lower forearm—left side.’

  ‘Near the wrist, or higher up?’

  ‘Just above the wrist.’

  ‘Do you think that bruise on the head came just after death?’

  ‘No, I don’t. It’s my impression that Mrs Tollard was breathing her last when Miss Gurdon tried to lift her a little. I think she was alarmed, and imagined her dead. But she must have died a few seconds after that at the latest.’