Again she breathed deeply. And she spoke with sudden violence.
“He would have loved being alive this morning,” she said.
The band went on playing in the distance.
Gwyneth dabbed a small handkerchief at one corner of her eye. This was genuine, I think. It was as much grief as she was capable of feeling.
“Anyway,” she went on, “I’ve got to go up to town, if only to get some decent mourning. And I mustn’t think of myself alone, either.” She reflected. “He’s an awfully nice boy, isn’t he?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Hunter.” She spoke with the greatest formality. “Not that I would—good heavens!—not that I would—you know—think about anything like that, with poor Bentley not even buried. But it’s odd. Do you know, I never used to think I liked men of Mr. Hunter’s type at all. I always thought I liked someone more—more—”
“Mature?”
She turned round. “Why do you say that?”
“It’s the obvious idea. You mean someone more like Clarke, for instance.”
“Well, yes.” She considered this, and nodded solemnly. Then doubt flashed into her eyes; she took hold of the lace curtain, pinching it between thumb and forefinger. But, instead of challenging the subject, she slid off at a tangent and calmly approached another.
“I do hope, anyway, that Inspector Elliot can tell us what’s been happening at that house. And whether it was an accident, and all. I should dearly love to know what poor Mr. Hunter was up to last night. He was up to something, right enough. I could have told you that last evening, though I didn’t say anything about it at the time. I knew it when he stole something out of my room.”
“Andy stole something out of your room?”
“Yes, when he thought I didn’t see him,” answered Gwyneth. “He stole a paper of pins.”
There was a silence.
She made this astonishing statement with the simple candor of a child. But there was nothing at all childlike about her face or her manner.
“Did you say a paper of pins?”
“Yes. You think I’m lying.” She pounced on this. “It’s easy enough to prove, though. He wanted them for something last night. The paper of pins was in his left-hand jacket pocket when he—when that dreadful thing happened. If you don’t believe that, just ask the nurse here who undressed him.”
“But what in the name of sanity did he want with a paper of pins?”
“I can’t think. You people are clever; and I’m not at all clever; so I thought you might be able to tell me.” Then she stiffened. Her soft voice grew sharp. “Do be careful what you say! There’s somebody coming.”
It was only Elliot, striding down on us with a grimly sardonic but grimly satisfied air. He wiped his fingers on a soiled handkerchief, which he stowed away and buttoned up in the brief case he was carrying. Then he turned to Gwyneth.
“And now, Mrs. Logan, I’ve finished here. There’s nothing more that you can do either, I’m afraid. I wonder if you’d mind coming along down with me to the Priory Hotel?”
“What for?”
Elliot smiled. “Well, I’d like to offer you a sherry or a lemonade before lunch, for one thing. For another, I’d like you to talk to Dr. Fell. He rebelled at climbing up this street, so I had to leave him there.”
“You only want to ask me more questions!”
“Frankly, Mrs. Logan, we do. And if you’re straight with us this time, as I’m sure you will be, we may be able to nail your husband’s murderer before the end of the day.”
Gwyneth did not move, nor did her color change. But the atmosphere of fear was strong about that lady who conveyed most things by atmospheres.
“I have been—s-straight with you!”
“No, Mrs. Logan, I’m afraid you haven’t. Don’t let it worry you, because I think we can convince you that you’re protecting a fool and a semi-maniac who would cut your throat as soon as look at you.” (Here Gwyneth opened her mouth as though to protest, but thought better of it.) “What’s more, one of the things we want you to tell us probably isn’t a lie on your part at all: it’s just a mistake. This isn’t a trap. I can assure you of that.”
Gwyneth regarded him curiously. She seemed to be speculating.
“Oh? What if I won’t go?”
“Then it will just take a little longer, that’s all. And cause more worry for you.” He turned to me. “We shall want you too, my lad. Very much so.”
“Why me?”
“In the absence of Mr. Enderby—”
“Enderby!” cried Gwyneth, with sudden shrillness.
“—in the absence of Mr. Enderby,” Elliot pursued blandly, “and also Miss Fraser, you’ll do very well to confirm some things that were told you last night.”
“So Tess Fraser did tell you,” whispered Gwyneth. Her whole aspect changed again; she lifted her dreamy eyes and mouth. “Very well. I’ll go with you. I’ll answer your questions. And, as I hope to go to heaven, I’ll tell you the truth.”
“Ah!” said Elliot.
Groping, but now apparently on the right path, we were approaching the end. In a few minutes more, I knew, we should hear at least a good part of the answer: which may be already apparent to the reader of this narrative, but which still remained a blur to me. The riddle of Andy Hunter’s “accident” merely completed that blur. As we went out into the sunlight, with the bands on the hill beating hymns into our ears, I could think of nothing but four words as meaningless as the accident or the murder.
A paper of pins. A paper of pins. A paper of pins.
XVII
“SIT DOWN HERE, MRS. Logan,” invited Dr. Fell.
Though the Front was crowded and strident, swept with good sea-air, Dr. Fell had managed to choose the gloomiest and most deserted corner of an oak-paneled smoking-room at the hotel.
But perhaps the doctor needed shade and quiet. For he was in a warm condition. Let loose from under Elliot’s watchful eye, he had made off instantly for the amusement fair: where he had spent an absorbed hour at noble games of skill involving pitching pennies, throwing wooden balls, firing rifles, and hammering nails into boards.
As a result of this, he had accumulated a large golden-haired doll, which he gravely presented to Gwyneth; a vile cigar, which he smoked; five small boxes of assorted toffees, which he distributed among us; and a large brass stickpin, value one farthing, which he wore in his tie as proof of victory over a sporting gentleman who gamely but rashly offered to guess his weight. He had also got his fortune told twice, and taken a ride in the Dodgem.
Since I did not know him well at this time, I would not have guessed that he was worried. But just how badly worried he was under those snorts and chuckles, even upset, even Elliot never heard.
“The proprietor of the Ghost Train,” he said, “I consider a dog and a varlet, probably destined for irremediable spiritual ruin. The same, with knobs on, applies to the proprietor of the Witching Water Mill. Neither would let me in. The proprietor of the Royal Alpine Slide, on the other hand—”
“All right, all right,” interposed Elliot. “Though what you find to amuse you in that stuff, sir, for the life of me I can’t—”
“’Ark at ’im,” scoffed Dr. Fell. He adjusted his eyeglasses. “You think that my morning was wasted?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No. Hear my tale. While engaged in tucking in an ambrosial delicacy vulgarly known as a hot dog, I met a clergyman shepherding a troop of Boy Scouts. The parson turned out to be a very good fellow. He also turned out to be the vicar of Prittleton. Waiter!”
Gwyneth Logan put down the doll beside her chair, and said nothing.
It was so dim in our corner that they had turned on a light in the wall over the table, economically leaving dark the rest of the big smoke-room before the pre-lunch rush. Gwyneth had not spoken since our entrance: she had that eternal quality of patience we had noticed before: but she seemed a trifle nervous of Dr. Fell. And this was the curious thing. For you could
have sworn that Dr. Fell was equally nervous of Gwyneth.
Except to give her the doll, he had not looked directly at her; now, as he put down his cigar and rapped on the table to summon the waiter, he turned a fiery and embarrassed face.
“But that, ma’am,” he said apologetically, “is another matter altogether. The vicar can wait. Yours is a sherry and bitters, isn’t it?” He cleared his throat. “The maid, Sonia, says you always take sherry and bitters.”
“Yes. Please.”
It was not until we had received our drinks, and the waiter had gone, that Dr. Fell exploded.
“Elliot, I don’t like it,” he roared. “By thunder and Long John Silver, I don’t like it!”
“Steady, sir.”
“Do you mean you don’t like to question me?” asked Gwyneth quietly. She seemed to know how to deal with men like this. Her expression was grave, sweet, and anxious: the same expression she had worn on Friday night, when Bentley Logan caught her with the key to the triptych. As she had addressed him, so she addressed Dr. Fell. “Please do question me. I don’t mind, really. In fact, I’d rather you did.”
“Then, damme, madam,” said Dr. Fell, “how long has this affair between you and Clarke been going on?”
He flung the words at her. She replied without either hesitation or excitement.
“There never has been anything between Martin and me. Never in the world. I don’t see how you could think that.”
Dr. Fell and Elliot exchanged glances.
“In that case, Mrs. Logan,” Elliot took up the query, “who was the man you’ve been meeting at the Victoria and Albert Museum?”
“Tess Fraser told you that.”
“Information received, Mrs. Logan. Like to tell us who the man was?”
Gwyneth looked bewildered. “But I don’t s-see what that has to do with it. You’re not interested in my morals, are you? Not that it was ever anything but a harmless flirtation! It has nothing to do with Bentley’s death. If you must know, the man was nobody you’ve ever even heard of.”
Dr. Fell shook his head.
“No, ma’am. D’ye see, the conclusion is almost inescapable that your squire of the Victoria and Albert Museum was at Longwood House yesterday, and that he was the person who shot your husband.”
“Oh!” said Gwyneth.
“Yes, ma’am. Exactly.”
“But that’s im—what makes you think so?”
Inspector Elliot intervened.
“Mrs. Logan,” he said, “the first job we had was to identify the revolver. Yes, I know both you and Bob Morrison thought it was your husband’s. But that wasn’t good enough: we had to have positive identification before we could get anywhere. Last night we checked up. The revolver belonged to Mr. Logan, right enough. And that gave us a straight lead.”
Elliot paused, moving his pewter tankard round on the table. He peered up.
“The next question was: Who knew Mr. Logan had taken a gun to Longwood House? It seemed to be generally agreed that he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. The only persons who came to know about it, from that little scene late Friday night, were yourself, Bob Morrison, and Miss Fraser.
“Of course, Mr. Logan might have dropped a sly side hint to someone else. Or someone may have seen him carrying the gun on Friday night: though we know that the house was dark when he went downstairs, and he had the gun in his pocket when he went upstairs again. Take any of those possibilities you like.
“But look at what comes after that! At one-thirty in the morning, you and Mr. Logan went back up to your bedroom. He put away his revolver in a Gladstone bag, in a cupboard of the bedroom; and you turned in. Correct?”
“I’ve told you all that,” moaned Gwyneth wearily.
“Mr. Logan always kept the bedroom door locked at night? He locked it that night?”
“Yes. I’ve told you that too!”
“Good! Now, at just before half past eight the next morning, Mr. Logan got up; dressed; went downstairs; had his breakfast, and was out for his walk by nine. He left you asleep, since you didn’t get up until nearly ten?”
Gwyneth shrugged her shoulders.
“I was dozing,” she answered. “He woke me when he got up, and then I drifted off to sleep again. I’m a very light sleeper.”
Elliot pushed the pewter tankard to one side. He nodded as though well satisfied.
“So you see, Mrs. Logan, the revolver must have been taken out of that bedroom between half past eight and ten o’clock in the morning.” He paused. “I just want you to think for a second what that means. The murderer had to get this revolver, and hang it on the wall for his death trap. So the murderer had to walk openly into your bedroom—where you were, as you say, ‘dozing,’ at a time in the morning when it’s easy to awaken anybody—he had to rummage all over the place after the revolver, and get out again without being seen or heard by you. Mrs. Logan, he ran an awful risk. He ran a senseless risk. He ran an almost incredible risk. Unless …”
“Unless what?” cried Gwyneth.
Elliot smiled without any amusement at all.
“You see how it is. I’m forced to the conclusion either that you were an accomplice—” Gwyneth cried out at this, getting to her feet and jarring the table so that the small glass spilled; but Elliot made her sit down again.
“Or,” he said, “that the murderer was desperate and didn’t much care whether he woke you or not. In other words, the murderer was your lover, who meant to kill Mr. Logan, and thought you would protect him if you did happen to wake up.
“The likeliest person to have known about the revolver was your lover. Why? Because you’d have told him, of course! You’d have warned him. Hang it, Mrs. Logan, people don’t take .45 army revolvers to the country for a week end as a general thing. If your husband carried a gun, you knew why he carried it; and it couldn’t have made you feel very easy. So you tipped off your lover. He probably even knew where to find the revolver. You must have known all about it when you unpacked the bags on Friday afternoon. And so, next morning, he took a chance and nipped in to get it.”
Gwyneth clenched her fists.
“I was asleep,” she said piteously. Her face was full of a tragic earnestness which shone like that of a saint on canvas. “I tell you I was asleep. I didn’t wake up. I didn’t see anybody come in. I didn’t even know the revolver was gone.”
“Agreed. We believe you.”
“You—?”
Elliot grinned in a twisted but more human way. His tone was dry.
“That’s right, Mrs. Logan. It’s not very likely (is it?) that, if you’d known what was going to happen, you would have gone and planted yourself smack in the room where it did happen?”
“No. No, of course not.”
“So, if you could make up your mind to tell us who the man is, you’d be helping us a lot.”
“What else do you want to know?” asked Gwyneth quietly.
Dr. Fell, either from worry or perplexity or some other cause, now wore an expression which would have been considered hideous even by Mr. Harpo Marx. He puffed out his bandit’s mustache; he shook his head, so that the big mop of gray-streaked hair tumbled over one ear. Once, by internal evidence, he seemed about to protest. But he did not speak.
For my own part, though I meant to remain neutral in this, it struck me that Elliot had better stick closely to her if he wanted any reply. Otherwise she would ease her slippery body away, as the nymph escapes in the story. And again, if several contradictory similes seem to have been used in describing Gwyneth, that is only natural. She was not a woman, but a dozen women; and at least ten of them desirable.
“What else do you want to know?” she repeated.
“I’m sorry you don’t choose to answer, Mrs. Logan.”
“It isn’t that.” She shook her head firmly. “You may think I’m evading, but I’m not. Are you telling me there aren’t any—any ghosts?”
“Oh, Lord,” groaned Elliot.
“Don’t laugh. I believe in
ghosts. Still, if I say that you’ll think I’m evading you again. Just tell me if there’s anything more you want to ask me, and we can clear it all up at once.”
Again Elliot exchanged a glance with Dr. Fell. Some indecipherable signal passed between them.
“Very well,” agreed Elliot. His tone was so casual that I had all my ears alert. “Just for the sake of clearing things up, I want you to think back to the exact moment your husband was shot.”
Gwyneth shivered.
“Got that? Good! You saw the man in the brown suit, of course?”
“The man …?”
“The man who was standing outside the north window. The one who gave you an alibi.”
“You mean Mr. … oh, dear, I never can think of his name! The one with the fair hair. Wait! Mr. Enderby. That’s it.” Having evidently got this established, Gwyneth frowned and ruminated. “I sort of saw him vaguely,” she admitted, “after poor Bentley was hit. That is, I’d got an idea someone had looked in to see what had happened after the shot. I hadn’t known he was there beforehand, naturally. I hadn’t known there was anybody there. Otherwise I shouldn’t have spoken out so frankly about—you know—what Bentley did to me the night before.”
“You recognized Mr. Enderby, did you?”
“Yes, I—No, I didn’t recognize him in the way you mean,” Gwyneth corrected herself, with another pretty frown followed by a smile. “I’d never met him before. I knew him afterwards.”
Elliot nodded thoughtfully.
“You’re quite sure it was Mr. Enderby, Mrs. Logan?”
“Pardon?”
“I said: you’re quite sure it was Mr. Enderby?”
It was already warm in that corner of the dim smoking room, with the one light beating down on our faces from a glass shade; but now the temperature seemed to go up several degrees. Elliot waited. Dr. Fell waited. I waited, staring at a garish sign extolling the merits of Bass. Even my neckband felt warm.
“Oh!” murmured Gwyneth, with a soft start. “But it must have been Mr. Enderby,” she protested, after more reflection. “He said he was, didn’t he? You said he was? Why should he say he was, if he wasn’t? This is becoming terribly mixed up, but you know what I mean. And, anyway, how could he have known what I said and what happened in there, unless he was?”
The Man Who Could Not Shudder (Dr. Gideon Fell series Book 12) Page 16
