Who Pays the Piper?: An Ernest Lamb Mystery

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Chatty—very chatty. A citizen’s first duty and all that sort of thing, but quite clear that he never saw hair hide or hoof of a banknote. His conversation with Dale was all high moral scruples and such. The sordid question of money never came into it at all.”

  “Where’s that fifty-pound note?” demanded Lamb.

  “He may have posted it to someone.”

  “Well then, he didn’t. There was only one letter for the post last night, and that was Mr. Phipson’s to the sanitary engineers. Just ring and get hold of Raby, will you?”

  Raby looked paler than ever as he came in. He had an unfortunate imagination, and during the time which had elapsed since his previous interrogation he had been engaged with vivid and horrifying pictures of his arrest, trial, and subsequent execution, together with a quite fantastic vision of stout, comfortable Mrs. Raby starving in a garret. It was all terribly plain in his mind, and to say the least of it harrowing. He turned a pale duck’s-egg green when Lamb addressed him.

  “Come along in and shut the door. Just one or two things I’m not quite clear about. What’s the matter with you, man—are you ill?”

  Raby mopped a brow to which the cold sweat clung.

  “It’s the strain, sir. I’m sure anything I can do—”

  “Just a few questions. Mr. Dale came home at four o’clock yesterday?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And then he told you about his intended marriage, and after that you served tea in here. Who else was present?”

  “Mr. Phipson and Mr. Bell.”

  “When did you clear away?”

  “At a quarter past five.”

  “Were Mr. Bell and Mr. Phipson still here?”

  “Yes, sir. They went away whilst I was clearing.”

  Frank Abbott thought, “He wouldn’t have given either of them fifty pounds in the presence of the other. He wouldn’t have given it to Bell in the middle of a quarrel.” He met Lamb’s eyes and saw the same thought there.

  The Inspector said, “And after that, as far as you know, Mr. Dale was alone until his quarrel with Mr. Bell. No one called to see him?”

  “No one except the lady, sir.”

  Lamb’s hand came down with a thud upon his own solid knee. He said, “The lady!” and Frank Abbott said, “The lady!”

  Raby, on the verge of a nervous collapse, echoed them.

  “The lady, sir.”

  “What lady?”

  “A Miss Cora de Lisle, sir.”

  The Inspector flung himself back in his chair.

  “Go on, go on, go on!”

  “A Miss Cora de Lisle, sir.”

  Lamb’s face became quite astonishingly crimson. Frank Abbott said in his quiet, cultured voice,

  “Miss Cora de Lisle—can you tell us anything about her?”

  Raby shook his head.

  “Not a friend of the family?”

  He shook it again.

  “Never seen her before?”

  Raby looked as if he was going to faint.

  “Only Thursday,” he gasped.

  Frank Abbott got up and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Hold up—we’re not going to eat you. You see, any visitor Mr. Dale had yesterday evening may be important. Brace up and tell us all about Miss Cora de Lisle. By the way, how do you come to know her Christian name? She didn’t say ‘Call me Cora’ when you answered the door, I take it?”

  Raby revived a little.

  “Oh, no, sir—it was on her card. Thursday morning Miss O’Hara rang the bell in here, and when I answered it she was up in the window at her table, and this Miss de Lisle, she was outside leaning in over the window-sill. A very odd-looking person, if I may say so.”

  “In what way?”

  “Wild, sir, and in my opinion a bit under the influence.”

  “Drunk?” said Lamb.

  “Oh, no, sir, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that—but she smelled of spirits and had a wild kind of look. Miss O’Hara seemed right down afraid of her, and no wonder. She took out a card and gave it to Miss Cathy, and Miss Cathy gave it to me and asked me to see if Mr. Dale was in.”

  “And was he?”

  “Not to her,” said Raby with returning animation. “He took the card and he looked at it very ugly indeed, and he tore it up and said, ‘Say I’ve gone out and you don’t know when I’ll be back.’ Not half vexed she was either.”

  “And she came back last night?” said Lamb.

  “A little before half past five. And the minute I opened the door she walked past me into the hall, and she said, ‘It’s no good your saying Mr. Dale’s not at home, because I know he is. I’ve come here to see him and I’m going to see him, so it’ll save me a whole lot of trouble if you just take me along, because if you don’t, I’m going into every room, and if you try and put me out I’ll scream the house down—and Lucas won’t like that’. She called him by his name to me just like that, as bold as you please.”

  “And was she still under the influence?”

  “Rather more so, I should say. So I went along to the study, and I’d hardly said her name before she came pushing past me and as good as shut the door in my face. I waited about in the hall in case I was wanted, and I could hear them going at it hammer and tongs. And then presently they quieted down a bit, and Mr. Dale rang the bell for me to show her out. She looked a deal better pleased than when she came in, which was something. I showed her out of the front door and locked up after her, and Mr. Dale came out to me in the hall and said, ‘If that lady ever comes here again, I’m not at home, and you won’t be either if you let her in’—meaning, as I took it, that I’d get the sack if she ever got past me again.”

  “And why didn’t you mention this before?”

  Raby paled again.

  “Mr. Dale told me not to. He said, ‘You keep your mouth shut about all this’. And I didn’t think it could have anything to do with the murder, seeing I locked up after her well before six o’clock.”

  “She gave you her card,” said Frank Abbott. “Was there any address on it?”

  “Theatre Royal, Ledlington,” said Raby with relief at being asked anything so easy.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “That’s Cathy’s tray,” said Susan. “I’m taking it up. Aunt Milly’s coming down. Just keep an eye on that saucepan and don’t let it boil over.”

  Bill put his arms round her, pulled her up close, and kissed her hard.

  “You’re fagged to death. Someone ought to be carrying trays up for you.”

  “Oh, Bill!” Susan actually laughed.

  “It’s nothing to laugh about. I’m worried sick about you, and if you go about looking like that, old what’s-his-name Lamb will feel quite sure you’re consumed with inward guilt.”

  “I’ll put on some colour. Do you think that will really convince him that I’m innocent?”

  “I should think it would make him quite sure you’re not. What you’ve got to do is go and lie down directly after lunch and get a spot of sleep.”

  The sleepless hours of three dreadful nights rose up before Susan’s eyes. He felt her shudder.

  “I couldn’t. Take me out in Ted’s car. I suppose they’ll let us go.”

  “The last ride together.”

  “Don’t! It might be. I can’t laugh about it. I want to have it.”

  “All right, you shall.”

  She stepped back and went to take up the tray.

  “It’s lovely Cathy being so much better, isn’t it? She’s eating a proper meal, and she’s going to get up to tea.” She came back to him and dropped her voice. “Bill—when I told her—she said, ‘Then I shall get well’. That was strange—wasn’t it? And I was so afraid of telling her.”

  Bill frowned.

  “I don’t think it was strange at all. He threatened her—he blackmailed you—she collapsed. Wouldn’t you expect her to be relieved at hearing he was out of the way for good?”

  Susan shook her head.

  “No, I wouldn�
�t—not Cathy.”

  She went up with the tray.

  Mrs. O’Hara came down to lunch and talked with a kind of plaintive brightness about how nice it was to see the sun, and if it went on being so mild she might begin to think about going out, only of course spring weather was very, very treacherous, and perhaps it would be wiser not to run any risks. “You see, if I were to be ill, it would throw altogether too much upon Susan, my dear Bill. I sometimes think she has too much to do as it is— Really, my dear, you are very pale to-day, and you are eating nothing, positively nothing. It is just what I have been saying—this unfortunate turn of Cathy’s—the minute anyone cannot come down to meals it means trays—and every tray means twice up and down these very awkward stairs—really quite incessant. So we can’t be too thankful that Cathy is so much better. She says she is getting up as soon as she has had her lunch, but I told her she had much better rest quietly until tea-time, as I intend to do. And I think you should do so too, Susan. There is nothing like a little rest in the afternoon for helping to pass the day.”

  Susan got up and began to change the plates.

  “Bill and I are going out,” she said.

  As she went through into the kitchen, Mrs. O’Hara’s voice followed her.

  “Oh, my dear—do you think you should? Villages do notice everything so much.”

  Susan came back with the pudding.

  “What is there to notice, Aunt Milly?”

  “Bill and you, my dear.”

  Susan’s colour burned, and faded. Bill said,

  “The village ought to be accustomed to us by now.”

  Mrs. O’Hara looked from one to the other in a deprecating manner.

  “Well, it all depends whether they think you are still engaged, or whether they think that Susan was engaged to Mr. Dale, because if they do they wouldn’t expect to see you going about together before the funeral.”

  Bill set his jaw.

  “Look here, Aunt Milly, Susan and I have been engaged for two years. If there’s any stupid nonsense going round about her being engaged to Dale it’s got to be contradicted, and the best way of contradicting it will be for us to go about together just as we’ve always done.”

  Mrs. O’Hara ate her pudding thoughtfully.

  “I don’t know if you are right—but the village will be sure to talk whatever you do, so perhaps it doesn’t matter. Old Nurse used to say—the one Laura and I had when we were children—she used to say, ‘Don’t you worry about what folks say. It’s all emptiness anyway, and when they’re talking about you they’re giving another poor soul a rest’. A little more pudding, dear. You make this very well. Now I do hope the police haven’t got hold of any idea that you were engaged to Mr. Dale, because of course if they have they must think it most strange that he should have committed suicide.”

  Susan pushed her chair back, and Bill said “Suicide!” in a loud, surprised voice.

  Mrs. O’Hara removed an orange pip from her mouth in a perfectly ladylike manner.

  “Is there a hole in your strainer, my dear? The flavour is excellent, but there ought not to be pips—I might have swallowed one.”

  “Dale didn’t commit suicide,” said Bill Carrick.

  Mrs. O’Hara looked pained.

  “My dear Bill, of course he did.”

  “I’m afraid he didn’t. He was murdered.”

  Mrs. O’Hara shook her head.

  “The Press is so dreadfully sensational nowadays. I shall open the door to no one while you are out. In fact I should not do so in any case, as I shall be resting.”

  Susan sat back in her chair and took no part. Bill said with restrained violence,

  “It isn’t the Press—it’s the police. It’s the medical evidence. He couldn’t possibly have committed suicide.”

  “My dear Bill, spare me! I prefer to think that he committed suicide. That is quite bad enough without having to believe that we have a murderer in our midst. And now I think I will go up and sit with Cathy for half an hour before I have my rest.”

  Bill picked up the handkerchief she had dropped, shut the door after her, and groaned.

  “She prefers to think he committed suicide, so he did. What a mind! No, that’s wrong—she hasn’t got a mind. If she wants anything, it’s that way as far as she’s concerned. Last, lingering, horrible results of the feudal system. You see, in their heyday, if they wanted anything they could just make it so. And it went to their heads. When the power was gone they put up a social camouflage and pretended they’d still got it. Would your Uncle James have admitted to a living soul that he was broke to the wide, and that he’d nothing to leave but debts and mortgages? Did he tell his own sister? You know he didn’t. He preferred to believe that it wasn’t true, just as Aunt Milly prefers to believe there hasn’t been a murder. They just can’t bring themselves to believe that they haven’t the power to control events.”

  Susan raised her eyes with a lost look.

  “I wish I could pretend, Bill,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Frank Abbott opened the rusty iron gate of 17 Gladstone Villas and walked up a narrow path whose red and blue tiles were in the last stages of dirt and dilapidation. The little square patch of front garden contained a decayed-looking holly tree and half a dozen bushes of golden privet. These had perhaps been intended to form a hedge, but it was obviously years since they had been clipped.

  Gladstone Villas lie on the lower side of Ledlington Market Square, a neighbourhood not highly esteemed. No. 17 was inhabited by Mrs. Clancy, who let to the less affluent members of theatrical touring companies. Enquiries at the Theatre Royal had brought Abbott to her door. He rang a bell whose brass had long forgotten how to shine, and had to ring it again. He was just going to try his luck at the back door, when the sound of slow advancing footsteps halted him and the door swung in. Mrs. Clancy stood revealed, a vast and shapeless person with a sacking apron tied on over an old red flannel dressing-gown. Her face streamed with heat, and her wild grey hair stood out all round it in tangles which rather reminded him of the privet. Out of all this wreck a pair of very bright blue eyes twinkled at him.

  “Is it Miss de Lisle? Well then, she’ll be in her dishabill like meself, and neither of us expecting a foine young man. Wait you a minute.” She stepped back to a dark ascending stair and called up it in a rich, sonorous voice, “Miss de Lisle me dear, here’s a visitor for ye. Will you be after seeing him?”

  There was some faint response which Abbott did not catch. He thought a door had opened. Mrs. Clancy swung round on him.

  “Up with ye—and it’s the second door on the left.”

  The second door on the left was standing open. Abbott came to it, and was aware of Miss de Lisle in the middle of the room. He said, “May I come in?” and saw her big black eyes change from apprehension to surprise. She nodded.

  “Who are you? What do you want?”

  Abbott shut the door. The room was a bed-sitting-room, ill furnished, ill kept, and at the moment littered with Miss de Lisle’s possessions—stockings and an old pair of tights on the bed rail; a crushed mass of crimson satin slipping to the floor; across the bed the old black cloth coat and the hat with the scarlet feather in which she had come to King’s Bourne—as described by Raby; on the pillow shoes very down at heel, a spangled scarf, a disintegrating pair of stays, a moulting feather wrap.

  His eyes came back to the owner of this sordid hotchpotch. Like Mrs. Clancy she wore a dressing-gown. It had once been costly. The silk was frayed and stained. Something dark had been spilt all down the front. The vivid orange colour still flattered the dark skin, the great eyes, and the falling masses of black hair. On the road Cora de Lisle might come very near to looking like a tramp, but in this strange garish garment she was a handsome, haggard creature who must once have been beautiful. She stood clutching her wrap about her and swaying on her feet. The chair from which she had risen was drawn up to a small, hot fire. On a gimcrack table in the angle stood a bottle of b
randy and a tumbler.

  “What do you want?” said Miss de Lisle.

  Frank Abbott came forward.

  She looked at the card he offered her and said in a stumbling voice,

  “What’s all this? I’ve not done anything.” Then, with a sudden flare of anger, “I haven’t done anything! He can’t put the police on me! I tell you he gave it to me! And what’s that got to do with the police? I don’t wonder you’re called busies—busy with everybody else’s business, and no more use than a sick headache if you lose your purse or have your pocket picked! I tell you he—” She broke off suddenly and said in a different tone, “What do you want?”

  Frank Abbott used his pleasantest voice.

  “I just want to ask you a few questions. Even if you did lose a purse and we were too stupid to find it for you, I’m quite sure you would do all you could to help the police. We do our best, you know, and people are mostly very kind about helping us. But won’t you sit down? I don’t want to keep you standing.”

  She went back to her chair, arranging her draperies, thrusting out a foot in an old tinsel slipper, laying her left hand along the arm of the chair to display a large gaudy ring which caught the light and turned it ruby-red. She threw back her head against a crimson cushion and said,

  “If you’ve come from Lucas, I haven’t got anything to say to you. He gave me the money freely, and there’s an end of it.”

  “The fifty-pound note, Miss de Lisle?”

  She laughed.

  “Is he going to say I stole it? He’d better not try that on with me! He gave it me, I tell you, and wrote on the back so I could change it. And why shouldn’t he? Isn’t he rolling in money—and don’t I deserve something for putting up with him for five years?” She laughed on a deep, harsh note. “I could tell his Miss Susan Lenox a thing or two, and see if she’d marry him then.”

  Abbott was leaning against the mantelpiece. His elbow had to find room between a broken china candlestick and a bright blue vase encrusted with gilding. He said quietly,

  “When did you see Mr. Dale last?”

  She threw him an exasperated look.

  “What are you trying to do—trip me up and then make out I’ve said a lot of things that never entered my head?”