Who Pays the Piper?: An Ernest Lamb Mystery

by Patricia Wentworth

  Susan was to look back afterwards and think how strange it was that with Bill’s life, and her life, and all their happiness in the balance, she and Mrs. Green should have sat there for the best part of an hour by the clock talking about William Cole, and Lily’s chances of happiness as his wife.

  Chapter Forty

  Up at King’s Bourne Inspector Lamb continued his interrogation of the household. Mrs. Raby, Esther the other housemaid, and Doris the between-maid, had each assured him that they had neither seen Robert go out nor heard his motor-bicycle—“but then of course we wouldn’t—we had the wireless on.”

  Old Lamb lost his temper. His red face turned plum-coloured and he brought his fist down with a bang upon Lucas Dale’s blotting-pad.

  “Don’t anyone in this house ever stop playing gramophone records, or having baths, or listening to the wireless?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.” That was Doris, with a sniff. But Esther Coleworthy, small, dark-eyed, and uppish, flickered her eyelashes and said with a toss of the head, “Oh, well—once in a while—when there’s something better to do.” Mrs. Raby, stout and shapeless, opined in a good-natured voice that a bit of music kept things going and didn’t do no harm to nobody.

  Lamb dismissed them curtly.

  “Well, that brings us back to Raby, who told Robert he could go out about six o’clock.”

  Frank Abbott nodded.

  “It was just on six when I came out of the study and Raby told me he’d let Robert go.”

  “And that’s all we’ve got. Raby no more than anyone else heard the motor-bicycle. They were all listening to that infernal wireless, and when Robert came in about seven I suppose it was still going on, and the water-pipes drumming into the bargain. Seems to me they could have a machine-gun going in this house and nobody’d hear it. Not that I think it was Robert. It might have been, but I don’t think it was. After all, you’ve got to have a motive, and where’s anything that begins to look like a motive for Robert?”

  “You never can tell.”

  “No, but you can make a pretty good guess and see what comes of it. Take Carrick—he’s got an overwhelming motive. He’s overheard threatening to do what I believe he did do, and by his own admission and that of Miss Lenox he was on the spot when the shot was fired, or as near as makes no difference. As to this second business, if he hasn’t got a cast-iron alibi, I’ll say what I said before, it’s ten thousand pounds to a halfpenny he knew Robert had a motor-bicycle and where he kept it, and with all those women sitting with their heads in a loudspeaker there was nothing to stop him running the bike out, and running it over to Ledlington, and running it back again. So you’ll just step down to the Little House and ask Lane what comings and goings there’ve been. And then you will tell Mr. Carrick I’d like a word with him, but you needn’t tell him why.”

  Frank Abbott strolled down the garden. Just across the village street from the Little House he came upon Constable Lane in an apologetic frame of mind.

  “Come down the hill not five minutes ago, Mr. Bill did, and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘I’m one up on you, Lane,’ he says. ‘We’ve had some nice outings, but I’ve a fancy for my own company tonight’, he says. Then he laughs and off into the house, and I give you my word I didn’t know he was out.”

  “Mrs. Green been here?”

  “An hour and a bit over—only just gone.”

  Frank Abbott gave his Inspector marks. If Mrs. Green had been here for an hour, then the Little House knew as much as Lily did. He went across the road and used the knocker.

  The talk in the drawing-room broke suddenly at the sound. They were all there—Mrs. O’Hara on her sofa, Bill and Susan standing together in front of the fire. Cathy in a low chair, leaning forward with her chin in her hand, eyes wide and lips parted. Susan had just finished repeating Mrs. Green’s account of what Lily had seen.

  “But that means—oh, Susan, if Lily really saw Miss de Lisle there—” Cathy’s voice shook and trailed away.

  “It might mean she shot him, or—” Susan hesitated—“or it might mean that she saw who shot him. I should think they would arrest her. Anyhow they’re bound to find her—to find out what she knows.”

  Cathy’s eyelids fell. Her lips moved stiffly.

  “Arrest her?” she said.

  Mrs. O’Hara gave a little cough.

  “The thought of an innocent person being arrested is naturally disturbing, but nothing of that sort will happen, my dear.”

  Cathy looked up with a startled expression, and it was at this moment that the knocking came upon the door. Before anyone else could move she ran out of the room. Through the half open door they heard Frank Abbott’s voice. A cold breath from the outer air blew in. Mrs. O’Hara pulled her shawl about her, and Bill put his arm round Susan for a moment and held her close. Then he turned with a jerk and went out into the hall, and she after him. There was a low, brief interchange of words, and the sound of the front door falling to.

  Mrs. O’Hara shivered slightly. She pushed the rug off her feet. As Cathy came back into the room, she was putting her knitting away.

  “Mummy—oh, Mummy!”

  “Darling, what is it? You look very much upset. Have they really arrested that Miss de Lisle?”

  “I don’t know—I don’t think so. I think something dreadful has happened. He—he looked like that.”

  “Darling, who?”

  “That Mr. Abbott. He wanted to know where Bill had been since six o’clock and—and—why should he want to know that?”

  “I can’t imagine,” said Mrs. O’Hara.

  Cathy came quite close and stared at her.

  “I know it’s something dreadful. He’s taken Bill up to King’s Bourne, and Susan’s gone too. I think they’re going to arrest Bill.”

  “Oh, no, my dear, they won’t do that.”

  Cathy put out her hands, and drew them back again without touching her mother.

  “They will unless you stop them. Perhaps they’ll arrest Miss de Lisle. Oh, Mummy, you can’t let them do that—you can’t let them arrest anyone!”

  Mrs. O’Hara sat up and put her feet down.

  “Darling, why not?”

  “I saw you,” said Cathy in a breaking voice.

  “Dear me!”

  “You came along to my room and looked at me, but I didn’t open my eyes—I didn’t feel as if I could talk to anyone. And then you went into Susan’s room, and you put on the light there. Both the doors were open, and I could see right through. I saw you take her shoes and put them on.” She paused and said with a sob, “Susan thinks it was me—and I let her—I didn’t tell. There was a footprint inside the study—you must have stepped in the clay—and I let Susan think it was me—she thinks I wore those shoes.”

  “They were most uncomfortable,” said Mrs. O’Hara. “So much too large. But I thought I should feel the damp in my house shoes—all mine are so thin. Of course yours would be a much better fit, darling, but I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  Cathy gave a dry sob.

  “I saw you pick up Susan’s handkerchief from the dressing-table and tuck it into your sleeve.”

  “I am always dropping handkerchiefs,” said Mrs. O’Hara—“and the interview might have been a very emotional one.”

  “What interview?”

  “Darling, I thought you would guess. I was going to tell Mr. Dale that I couldn’t possibly dream of letting Susan marry him. She was obviously very unhappy about it, and I was going to tell him so.”

  Cathy stood still and trembled.

  “And did you?”

  “No, darling,” said Mrs. O’Hara in a practical voice. “I didn’t get the chance.”

  “Mummy!”

  Mrs. O’Hara removed her shawl and patted her hair.

  “I think, darling, if you will get me my fur coat and those shoes of Susan’s, I had better just go up to King’s Bourne and talk to the Inspector. I felt no ill effects at all the other night. And I don’t think I need trouble about a ha
t—this light shawl will do very well to put over my head. But I should like my gloves—the loose washing ones I took the other night will do. They are in my left-hand drawer.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Mrs. O’Hara seemed quite to enjoy the walk, up hill though it was.

  “I used to be very fond of walking when I was a girl, but of course it is many years now since I have done anything in that way—just down to church and back in summer. James was always so particular about not taking the car out on Sundays. But I don’t know when I was out walking after dark until the other night, and really, darling, I had forgotten it was so pleasant. Quite a mild air if a little damp, but I had on my fur coat, and it doesn’t seem to have done me any harm—in fact I really feel all the better for it.”

  Cathy listened in a sort of horrified astonishment. She said, “Oh, Mummy!” in a choked, protesting voice.

  “Well,” said Mrs. O’Hara equably, “one just goes on doing the same things every day because there isn’t anything else to do, and when anything really happens, even if it’s something dreadful, one can’t help feeling as if it made a break, if you know what I mean.”

  They came out of the little orchard, skirted the tennis court, and after crossing the lower terrace came up the left-hand steps.

  “This is the way I came up on Monday,” said Mrs. O’Hara. “But when I was coming away I went down by the farther steps, because I thought I heard someone coming up this way, and I think from what I have heard since that it must have been Susan. I didn’t want to meet anyone just then of course, so I went the other way. I see there is a light in the study, darling, so we will just knock on the glass door and go in that way.”

  At the sound of that knocking Inspector Lamb stopped short in the middle of a sentence. It was the sentence with which a police officer is bound to caution the person whom he is arresting. The hand he had stretched out fell from Bill Carrick’s shoulder. He said in a tone of sharp annoyance,

  “What’s that?”

  It was as if the knocking had broken something. Not a silence, for there had been no silence to break—the Inspector had been speaking. But something did break—the tension which held Bill with his shoulders squared facing arrest, which fixed Susan where she stood, one hand at her throat, the other leaning upon the writing-table, her eyes on Bill as if she was looking her last at him and could not look away.

  Frank Abbott could not look away either. But it was Susan Lenox at whom he was looking—Susan with all the colour and beauty drained from her face and nothing left but pain. For a moment the pain was his own. Then the knocking fell and the tension broke. The Inspector spoke his sharp “What’s that?” Susan’s breast lifted with a long breath, and as Abbott went to open the door he was aware that she and Bill were moving, drawing together, and turning to see who was coming in.

  Mrs. O’Hara came in in her fur coat with a small fleecy shawl over her head and Cathy behind her, a little exhausted ghost, bare-headed, her fine colourless hair all blown about. In spite of Susan’s shoes, which were a size too large for her, Milly O’Hara moved with grace. She brought a social manner with her. As she came up to the writing-table, it became impossible to forget that the house, this very room, had been the heritage of her family for many generations. By the far door hung the portrait, a doubtful Lely, of the Millicent Bourne who had been one of Catherine of Braganza’s maids of honour. From over the mantelpiece she herself looked down from Lazlo’s canvas, young and lovely, with Laura at her side. She looked up at the picture for a moment, because she could never come into this room without that silent greeting for Laura. Then, as her eyes dropped, she seemed to become aware of something strange. She had been speaking, but no one else had spoken, until now as she moved towards a chair the Inspector said in a harsher tone than was usual with him,

  “Mrs. O’Hara, I must ask you to leave us.” He turned to Cathy. “Please take your mother away.”

  A look of gentle surprise crossed Milly O’Hara’s face. Having reached the chair, she seated herself, removed the shawl from her head, opened her fur coat, unwound a long grey chiffon scarf from about her neck, and said,

  “But, Inspector, I have something to say. I have come here on purpose to say it.”

  “You had really better go, Aunt Milly,” said Bill.

  He and Susan were standing together now, and Susan’s hands were locked about his arm. Really Susan looked very pale—very pale indeed. Mrs. O’Hara shook her head slightly at Bill and turned graciously to the Inspector.

  “I must apologize for interrupting you, but I really have something to say. Perhaps before we go any further you will tell me whether it is true that you are thinking of arresting someone.”

  “Perfectly true,” said Inspector Lamb rather grimly.

  “Then if that is the case, I am afraid I have no choice, because of course I couldn’t let you arrest an innocent person, whether it was Miss de Lisle or anyone else, much as I dislike the idea of the publicity involved—and really the press seem to me to go into the most unnecessary details nowadays, though of course it is all quite interesting if you can look at it from the standpoint of an outsider, which in this case I most unfortunately cannot do.”

  Cathy said “Mummy!” in an agonized voice. She went down on her knees by the chair.

  Mrs. O’Hara put out a hand and patted her.

  “Now, darling, you mustn’t upset yourself. You wouldn’t want any innocent person to get into trouble, would you? And I am sure the Inspector will do all he can to keep your name out of it.” She smiled faintly at Lamb, who had turned a really alarming colour. He put a finger inside his collar as if to loosen it, replied to the smile with a portentous frown, and said with as much restraint as he could manage,

  “What are you talking about, madam?”

  Mrs. O’Hara’s eyes opened widely. She said in a tone of surprise,

  “But, Inspector—I was talking about Mr. Dale—I thought we all were.”

  He said firmly, “If you know anything about the murder of Mr. Dale, madam, I must ask you to say so plainly, and if you do not, I must ask you to leave us.”

  “But, Inspector—”

  “Mrs. O’Hara, do you, or do you not know anything about this murder?”

  This time he got his plain answer. With her hands lightly folded in her lap and in a gently practical tone she replied,

  “Of course I do—I was there.”

  There was a moment of profound silence. Probably no one breathed. Looking round with a kind of pleased surprise, Mrs. O’Hara encountered the apoplectic stare of Inspector Lamb, Frank Abbott’s fixed pale gaze, Bill’s frozen incredulity, Susan’s horror, and the clouded anguish in Cathy’s eyes. Incredibly, she appeared gratified by the effect she had produced. She nodded slightly and said in a conversational tone,

  “Perhaps I had better explain.”

  Frank Abbott alone found voice.

  “It might be a good plan,” he said, and heard his Inspector snort.

  Mrs. O’Hara smiled upon him. He really had quite a look of the Francis Abbott with whom she had danced through that brief season before the war. She must remember to ask him if he was a relation. The smile was a gracious one. She said,

  “The only reason I didn’t speak of it before was because of Cathy. So disagreeable for a young girl to have her name in the papers—though I must say a good many of them don’t seem to mind that nowadays.”

  The Inspector broke in rather loudly.

  “You say you were present when Mr. Dale was shot?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And you wish to make a statement?”

  “I am quite willing to do so. You see, I couldn’t let an innocent person—”

  “Quite so. Abbott!”

  Addressed in this peremptory voice, Frank Abbott produced notebook and fountain pen. Mrs. O’Hara watched him with interest.

  “I suppose I had better begin from the beginning?”

  “If you will.”

  She settle
d herself comfortably and smiled at Susan, then began.

  “Of course, Inspector, you will understand that I don’t want what I am saying to get into the papers. Family matters—well, perhaps you have a family yourself. But so much has been in the papers already that perhaps it doesn’t matter, and I must just rely on you to do what you can. You see, when my niece told me that she had broken off her engagement to Mr. Carrick and was going to marry Mr. Dale, I saw at once that it wouldn’t do at all. She didn’t even pretend to be happy, and I could see that it would never do. I made up my mind that I must have a talk with Mr. Dale and tell him so, and as there is no time like the present, I thought I would just walk up through the garden. It was a very mild evening—”

  “What evening are you referring to?”

  “Oh, Monday—the day Mr. Dale was shot. That is what I am telling you about. I just went in to see if Cathy was asleep, and I thought she was. And then I went into Susan’s room, which is just opposite, to get some shoes because all mine are so thin. And it seems Cathy wasn’t asleep, because she saw me.”

  Susan leaned forward.

  “You took the shoes, Aunt Milly—you?”

  “Oh, yes, my dear.”

  Susan began to tremble.

  “Did you take one of my handkerchiefs too?”

  “I believe I did—Cathy says so. But I couldn’t find it afterwards, so I am afraid I must have dropped it.”

  Susan leaned back hard against Bill’s arm.

  “Fibs picked it up. He’s been trying to blackmail me. He picked it up by Mr. Dale’s body.”

  “What’s this?” said Lamb. “Who’s Fibs?”

  Susan said, “Mr. Phipson.”

  “A very rude nickname,” said Mrs. O’Hara reprovingly. “But blackmail—oh, he really shouldn’t have done that!”

  In a firm official voice Inspector Lamb said,

  “Will you kindly proceed with your statement, madam.”