The Mystery at Stowe

by Vernon Loder

  ‘Because Elaine knows him, and says he is it, and more,’ replied Netta, laughing.

  ‘I know. But Elaine has not seen him for years, and it seems to me that no one has thought of enquiring into his doings on that night.’

  Netta stared. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Why not?’ cried the old lady tartly. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, he didn’t know Margery, for one thing, and he wouldn’t try to kill someone he didn’t know.’

  ‘Nonsense! How do you know he thought it was Mrs Tollard? He is supposed to have proposed to Elaine once, and been refused. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he has been brooding over it all these years in Africa, and getting bitter about it. Then he comes home, sees in the paper that Tollard has been backing her, and is in a jealous fury. He thinks that is her window, shoots her with the blow-pipe, and then turns up next morning—no, that very morning, and pretends to be very busy doing detective work!’

  Netta smiled. ‘But they don’t use blow-pipes in Africa. At least, I think not. And why should he try to kill Elaine when he is in love with her?’

  ‘Why did that stable-boy in Elterham kill his sweetheart two months ago?’

  ‘Jealousy. But that was different.’

  ‘No it wasn’t. Why, the police seem to think Miss Gurdon may have killed Mrs Tollard out of jealousy. It’s the same thing.’

  Netta shook her head. ‘The police haven’t said they suspect Elaine. Besides, Mr Carton isn’t a stable-boy with an unregulated mind. He is an intelligent man.’

  ‘And intelligent men lose their intelligence when they fall in love,’ declared Mrs Minever. ‘You ought to know that—being married.’

  ‘Oh, I think my husband showed high intelligence in marrying me,’ said Netta, dimpling. ‘But, really, I can’t believe this. He is very much in love with Elaine, I am sure, and I believe he will propose to Elaine again.’

  ‘Well, why doesn’t he, if he is so much in love with her? Mark my words, my dear: if he doesn’t hurry up, Mr Tollard will cut him out.’

  Netta gasped. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. That would be too horrid! Why, it is only a few days since Margery was killed.’

  ‘When you are as old as I am, you won’t think anything of that! Widowers often have short memories, when there are pretty women about. Why, my dear, Mr Tollard seems to be about with her half the day.’

  ‘I am sure that is only some business they are discussing.’

  ‘Perhaps the sort of urgent business which took Mr Tollard away from here, though it only landed him on a pleasure yacht!’

  Netta protested. ‘First you talk as if Mr Carton had something to do with it, and then you talk as if Elaine and Mr Tollard might have.’

  Mrs Minever looked owlishly wise. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if they all had a hand in it, my dear!’

  ‘Ridiculous! When Ned was quarrelling just now with Mr Carton.’

  ‘Rogues have quarrelled over the loot before now, my dear,’ said Mrs Minever; and there is no knowing what she might not have said next, if Carton himself had not appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Coming out for a little, Mrs Gailey?’ he asked, as composed as if his interview with Tollard had been all amity.

  ‘If you like,’ said Netta; she skipped off the bank, and murmured an apology to Mrs Minever.

  When the two had left the room, the old lady followed angrily. ‘I knew he would be afraid to leave her with me,’ she said to herself. ‘He knows I suspect something!’

  ‘Well, here we are,’ said Carton, when he and Netta Gailey were strolling in the park. ‘I had an idea the old lady was charming your sadness, so I obligingly cut in, like another St George.’

  She laughed. ‘Thank you so much. She really thinks you are the criminal, Mr Carton. She’s frightfully amusing, without knowing it. She thinks you were jealous of Elaine, and came back to revenge yourself!

  He turned to her, reddening, then laughing awkwardly. ‘All of you seem to know the worst about me.’

  ‘It might be worse,’ said Netta. ‘It seems so romantic to me, your coming back so many thousands of miles to—’

  ‘To what?’ he demanded.

  ‘Well, you ought to know,’ cried Netta, hoping she had not gone too far.

  He smiled. ‘Perhaps I ought, but, since you seem to suspect something, I ask you if this is a suitable time for romance, or anything of the kind?’

  ‘You’ve been most unlucky.’

  ‘So I think. Like the linen of the Victorian age, there are some things must be stowed away in lavender to a more suitable season.’

  ‘I wish you luck,’ said Netta sentimentally.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Gailey. I’ll need it all. I have to blunder into this affair for someone’s sake, but my blundering is likely to lead to strained relations.’

  ‘I think you have been wonderful, making that discovery about Jorkins. No one else ever thought of it. Have you made any discoveries since?’

  ‘One in a day is enough,’ he remarked. ‘But I must thank you again for your help in that experiment. Tollard may grumble, and feel offended, but it was a valuable find. If no one had objected, I might have asked you to help me again.’

  ‘As I am only responsible to Victor, to my husband,’ she smiled, ‘I can help you if I like.’

  He nodded. ‘Good! I am sure your husband wouldn’t object to my sending you on a mission to Jorkins.’

  ‘You never know,’ said Netta. ‘He was a good-looking young man! But I think, on the whole, it would be safe enough.’

  Carton reflected. ‘Well, it’s too late today, but tomorrow, if you cared to help me, and would let it go no further, you might see if you could look up Jorkins.’

  ‘And ask him questions?’

  ‘Not exactly that. I have arranged a little scheme, and it is something like this. You see Jorkins, and tell him prettily that you want to learn to shoot.’

  ‘But I can; after a fashion. Victor took me partridge shooting last September, and I shot two—and a mole!’

  He laughed. ‘Were you trying to get the nucleus for a fur coat?’

  ‘No, I think the poor mole must have been sitting where the partridge ought to have been.’

  ‘So you shoot sitters!—But never mind. If you haven’t shot here, Jorkins won’t know, and you can ask him if he would show you how to go about it.’

  ‘But what for?’

  ‘You’ll hear later on. The real point is this. You can say the noise of a gun going off might frighten you at first, and wouldn’t it be better if you could learn to aim with an air-gun? If he hasn’t one, you can thank him, and come away?’

  ‘Couldn’t you ask him that?’

  ‘I could, but I want to keep in the background after this last little trouble. When I ask questions now everyone suspects that I have a purpose behind them.’

  ‘While they know I talk at random?’ she queried.

  He shook his head. ‘You are another Solomon! But you will do this for me?’

  ‘Of course I will. But what then? If he has an air-gun, am I to use it?’

  ‘You will have to. But keep your eyes open, and see what sort of air-gun it is. Better, ask Jorkins, and keep a spare pellet, or slug, to show me. If you tip him, you may be sure he’ll explain very nicely.’

  ‘Mayn’t I know yet what you want with all this?’

  ‘Virtue ought to be its own reward, you know,’ he said, his eyes twinkling. ‘But you’ll be doing a jolly good job, and I shall certainly tell you as soon as I can.’

  ‘All right. I’m on. I’ll go out for a walk after breakfast, and say nothing to anybody.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jim Carton. ‘That’s being a pal, and if your husband would ever like to see a testimonial to your behaviour here, Mrs Gailey, I’ll write a dazzling one. But, having been so good already, will you tell me something honestly?’

  ‘If I can be honest about it.’

  ‘Right. Now, in your heart of hearts, you never thought there was anything in thi
s gossip about Elaine and Tollard, did you?’

  He looked at once so eager and so anxious, so much the lover in trouble, that Netta’s sympathetic heart warmed to him. Whatever Elaine might feel about him, it was obvious that only the recent tragedy prevented Carton from pursuing an ardent wooing. It was true that he had no luck. He had come back at the wrong time.

  ‘Truly never,’ she said. ‘I admit I was more on Margery’s side than Elaine’s, but I never believed there was anything in it of a serious nature.’

  ‘I thought not. But why did they take sides?’

  Netta reflected. ‘You aren’t married, Mr Carton, but I’m not ass enough to think only married people know anything about marriage. Still, a married woman knows what another married woman feels, or can feel.’

  ‘For example. What do you think Margery Tollard felt?’

  She shrugged prettily. ‘Let us leave her out of it. But suppose Victor (who is really a perfect lamb, and might be left with a harem without the slightest risk), suppose he wasn’t in love with, let us say Nelly Sayers.’

  ‘Unthinkable for him, as things stand,’ said Jim.

  She bowed. ‘Thank you so much—but I suppose you meant it the other way—that he couldn’t be in love with Nelly? At any rate, if Nelly was making some plans, I should hate it if Victor bothered about them, and was always consulting her.’

  ‘Even if you knew he was not in love with her?’

  ‘Even then. But Margery couldn’t know, or wouldn’t. In some ways she was backboneless, in other ways she was the most obstinate woman I ever met.’

  He nodded. ‘So you think it was real jealousy, if baseless?’

  ‘I do. There is only one thing that I could never explain about it. She did not like Elaine. That stuck out a yard whenever they were together; but her maid didn’t seem to think that she and Tollard had rows. Would it strike you that Ned was a quiet-tempered man?’

  ‘It wouldn’t strike me very hard,’ said Jim. ‘If I were asked, on the strength of his conduct the last day or two, I should say dragons had mild tempers in comparison. But perhaps I misjudge him. I forget that this tragedy influences him.’

  ‘I don’t think he was ever very meek and mild,’ she said. ‘That makes it all the stranger. It is hard to keep rows out of servants’ hearing.’

  ‘It must be,’ he observed. ‘But you relieve my mind a little. However, Tollard goes to town tomorrow, so I may have a slight hope of seeing Elaine once in a while.’

  ‘You aren’t jealous, are you?’ she asked ingenuously.

  He frowned, then smiled. ‘Mrs Gailey has a Peter Pan to look after, that is quite evident,’ he said. ‘I envy him in that. But what do you expect me to say?’

  ‘Nothing. I can see you are!’ she said confidently.

  ‘I am,’ he admitted. ‘I am in the position of poor Mrs Tollard; jealous without a cause, but can’t help myself.’

  ‘Would you like me to fish a bit with Elaine?’ she asked helpfully. ‘I might find out something.’

  This time he laughed out. ‘No, Mrs Peter Pan, you mustn’t do anything of the kind! It’s jolly good of you to suggest it, all the same. But, if you see Jorkins tomorrow, and pump him about the air-gun, you shall have all my thanks.’

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE LADDER

  DINNER that evening was the gloomiest meal of all. The latent hostility of the two men darkened conversation, and reduced the temperature of the atmosphere below zero. Mr Barley did his best, and gave up. Mrs Minever tried to be garrulous, and failed. Mrs Gailey nervously tried to sparkle, or encourage someone else to coruscate, and the spark was promptly quenched by the cold waters of silence.

  Jim Carton disappeared after dinner, and was not seen on the lower floor of the house again until the others had carried the clouds of gloom with them into the drawing-room, and settled down to pretend that all was well with the world.

  Then he emerged from his bedroom, and descending the stairs, went in search of Grover, the butler.

  Fortunately, he found Grover doing something in the library, and buttonholed him confidentially.

  ‘I want to know if there isn’t a pair of steps somewhere?’ he said. ‘A step-ladder, you know.’

  ‘There is, sir.’

  ‘‘Where are they kept?’

  ‘Usually in a cupboard under the stairs, sir.’

  ‘Why usually? Are they not always kept there?’

  ‘The other day, sir, someone put them in the kitchen. I blamed one of the maids for it, but she said Mr Barley had put them there.’

  ‘Oh, I see, and I think I can explain,’ said Carton. ‘The day Mrs Tollard was found dead, Mr Barley brought the pair of steps for Miss Gurdon to take down the trophy in the hall.’

  ‘I see, sir.’

  ‘So you can acquit the maids of any carelessness.’

  ‘They denied it, sir.’

  Carton felt in his pocket for some emollient, found one, and conveyed it to Grover tactfully. ‘Do you think, Grover, that you could convey the step-ladder here without anyone knowing? I want to have a look at it.’

  The ingenious Grover looked about him. ‘There is a ring in one of the high curtains seems likely to slip over, sir,’ he said gravely. ‘I could attend to that now.’

  ‘Do,’ said Carton. ‘The look of it rather worries me!’

  ‘I’ll get the ladder, sir, at once,’ said the butler, and left the room.

  Jim Carton looked round as Grover had done, but with his gaze on a lower level.’

  On an occasional table near the window there was a book of photographs, and upon it lay a large magnifying glass, with a handle. He went over, took it up, and satisfied himself that it was fairly powerful.

  He put it in his pocket, and returned to stand under the big, hanging, bowl lamp, where the light was good. He had been there no more than a minute, when the door was opened softly, and Grover appeared carrying the step-ladder.

  ‘Put it here, please,’ said Carton. ‘And I think I had better pretend to be fetching a volume from a high shelf. But, if you will loiter about in the hall outside, and cough loudly if anyone comes out of the drawing-room, it will be a help to me.’

  ‘I will do so, sir,’ said Grover, who was growing interested in detective work.

  He placed the step-ladder where Carton wanted it, tried a small, preliminary cough, and went out, closing the door behind him.

  Carton switched on another light or two, pulled back his cuffs, and slowly ascended the steps, his ears alert for a cough from Grover, which would be the signal to carry the ladder to a bookcase.

  Then he came down again, and, with the aid of the magnifying glass, examined every inch of the ladder on both sides of the uprights, finishing with the cross-pieces which formed the steps.

  He seemed pleased with his find, for he went over all the surface again with the greatest care, and finally made a mark, a tiny cross, with his fountain-pen, on an upright about eighteen inches from the top.

  ‘This is a brain-wave,’ he said to himself. ‘I must go into this. I only wonder if Mr Barley is discreet enough to confide in? He could help, and, if he is not too much afraid of Tollard, he will.’

  He surveyed the steps from every angle, and was still busy in this absorbing pursuit, when a loud cough from the hall apprised him that someone had left the drawing-room and its ungenial company.

  His programme had been to pretend that a high volume attracted him, but on hearing Mr Barley’s voice come faintly from the hall, he changed his mind, and went to the door to open it.

  ‘Mr Barley,’ he said softly.

  Mr Barley saw him and came over. Carton drew him into the room, closed the door behind them, and locked it.

  ‘Sorry to imprison you,’ he said, as Barley started and frowned. ‘No offence meant, as they say in certain circles. But I don’t want anyone else butting in, until I have had your excellent judgment on a very important matter.’

  Mr Barley smiled, then stared at the step-ladder, standing in
mid-room under the lamp.

  ‘What are you doing with that?’

  ‘Trying to settle a very vexed question. But that will keep. I really wanted to know why you fetched this ladder on the day of Mrs Tollard’s death from the kitchen.’

  ‘Miss Gurdon wanted it.’

  ‘I’m afraid I put my question rather clumsily. What I wanted to know was this: why did you fetch it from the kitchen, or look for it there, rather?’

  ‘Because I thought it was usually kept there,’ said Mr Barley, with a puzzled air.

  ‘Grover tells me it is usually kept in a cupboard under the stairs.’

  ‘Really? I was not aware of that. I certainly found it in the kitchen. It seemed to me the proper place for it, and I replaced it there when Miss Gurdon had done with it.’

  ‘Don’t think me rude asking these questions,’ said Jim Carton. ‘They are rather important to my mind.’

  ‘In what way, may I ask?’ said Mr Barley, looking at sea.

  ‘Well, if a dart comes into this case at all, and it undoubtedly does, sir, it must have been taken from that quiver in the hall. To get it, one would need a ladder. An outsider might not know—’ he paused, frowned, and added: ‘I must see that cupboard later on.’

  ‘You mean to say that the ladder was used to mount to the trophy before Miss Gurdon used it for that purpose?’

  ‘Exactly. Someone must have got up there, and down again.’

  ‘But, if the ladder was kept in a cupboard, why not replace it there, and not take it to the kitchen, which is farther off?’

  ‘I can’t tell till I see the servants.’

  ‘Or the cupboard, you said, though I don’t know that it will prove much.’

  ‘Perhaps not. The point I am trying to make about the servants is this: anyone, unless it happened to be one of the servants himself, wishing to return the ladder without being observed, would certainly not take it to the kitchen. You can walk about the hall, or passages, without seeing anyone at certain times, but not the kitchen. The cook would be there, if no one else.’

  ‘That’s true; perhaps it was one of the servants.’