Thirteen Guests

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  She looked at him with a slight frown. Had he meant anything? She decided not to dwell on the possibility.

  “It’s about Mrs. Chater,” she answered. “But, first, have you found her yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You know, your sergeant came here to my room and asked me to look in all the cupboards?”

  “He was acting under my instructions.”

  “Then you think she is in the house?”

  “You’ll forgive me, I’m sure, but at the moment I am listening to theories, not giving them.”

  “Yes, of course. That’s wise.” Miss Fermoy-Jones recalled, with a sense of satisfaction, that she had once made a detective say almost the same thing—though, of course, it had not been to a well-known authoress. “Well, one of my own theories is that Mrs. Chater is not in the house.”

  “And the reason?”

  “That brings me to my other theory. Of course, if she is not in the house, she may be wandering about anywhere, and a description of her should be circulated as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you.”

  “One is only too glad to help, if one can.”

  “The description has already been circulated.”

  “Oh!”

  “We phoned through to the local station the moment the necessity arose.”

  “I see.” Miss Fermoy-Jones managed to conceal her disappointment. “Well, the theory. Naturally, I am speaking in absolute confidence.” Kendall maintained a non-committal silence. It was a pity he was not a little more chatty. “Has it occurred to you, inspector—of course, perhaps it has—that Mrs. Chater may have run away?”

  “I should very much like to know why it has occurred to you?” Kendall answered.

  “No, no, I won’t say any more about it!” Miss Fermoy-Jones recanted. “After all, if we assume the fact, you can probably find a reason just as well as I can!”

  “Probably,” agreed Kendall. “But you may have more information to go upon.” Now it was Miss Fermoy-Jones who maintained the non-committal silence. “Would you answer a question or two?”

  “Certainly.”

  It was a humiliating fact, but the authoress had never spoken to a detective before, although she had written about dozens. She found them easier to deal with on her typewriter. Not that the reality before her was rude or discourteous. Nothing of that sort. But—well, there was something behind his manner that failed to augment an authoress’s superiority complex.

  “When did you last see Mrs. Chater?” asked Kendall.

  “At tea. In the drawing-room.”

  “Who were with you?”

  “Just ourselves and the Rowes—Mr. and Mrs., and their daughter. Oh, and Lady Aveling.”

  “Did anything strike you about her manner?”

  “Something always struck everybody about Mrs. Chater’s manner. She was one of those—I mean, she is one of those neurotic people. Belonging to what I call the Emotionally Suppressed Type. I dare say you have your own technical term for this class of person.”

  “Your own could not be improved on.”

  Miss Fermoy-Jones felt better.

  “Well, we have to study and classify types, just as you do,” she ran on. “I had some one very like Mrs. Chater in my first book, Forty-Nine Stairs. Mr. Buchan rather copied my title a year later, but of course I didn’t do anything about it. These things happen. Everybody thought she had committed the murder, but she hadn’t, that was the red herring. Still, you won’t want me to talk about my work. Mrs. Chater. Well, she hardly said a word. She’d been like that during lunch, and all the way home. Really—since we are speaking in confidence—really a most uncomfortable person to be with. No, I don’t think she said six words before Mr. Bultin came into the drawing-room. But when she heard about her husband’s horse returning without him, and when Mr. Bultin asked whether she could identify the man who was found in the quarry—well, she said enough then, though she got so excited no one could hear exactly what it was she did say! She stormed out of the room into the hall, and—so I heard; I wasn’t actually there—no, perhaps after all I’d better not mention it.” She paused dramatically. “Or shall I?”

  “You know best whether it is important,” answered Kendall.

  “Very well, then, since you put it like that,” she responded. “Sir James Earnshaw had just got home, and she practically accused him of having something to do with her husband’s accident.”

  “Is that true?” demanded Kendall sharply.

  “It wasn’t in words—it was in looks,” replied Miss Fermoy-Jones quickly. “Quite definite looks, though. So I understand.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Lady Aveling. Well, no, I didn’t say anybody told me!” The authoress developed a sudden internal panic as she recalled how often she had brought her own characters low by a trip of the tongue. “What I said was that I heard. I happened to hear Lady Aveling mentioning it to Lord Aveling.”

  Kendall’s expression was not complimentary. It was unfortunate for his opinion of the literary profession—never very high—that he had struck a member who could only be effective in her own study, where she had everything her own way, and where people did and said exactly what she wanted them to.

  “Tell me if I have interpreted you correctly,” said Kendall. “I understand you overheard Lady Aveling telling Lord Aveling that Mrs. Chater had given a look that accused Sir James Earnshaw of causing Mr. Chater’s accident—before the accident had been reported?”

  Miss Fermoy-Jones grew warm.

  “The riderless horse had been reported,” she exclaimed, an indignant note in her voice. “She could have guessed about the accident! But, even if she couldn’t, that would make it all the more ominous that she should act as she did—implying some private knowledge!”

  “Ominous?”

  “Well, don’t guilty people ever try to throw suspicion on other people—and give themselves away by doing so?”

  They frequently did in Miss Fermoy-Jones’s novels.

  “Thank you—I will make a note of your theory,” said Kendall; “but I suggest that, for the time being, we keep it strictly to ourselves.”

  “Of course! I’ve made a special point of not mentioning it to any one else,” retorted Miss Fermoy-Jones. “And now, if you don’t mind, I really must get on with my dressing.”

  Kendall did not mind in the least. He did not even mind the reflection, as he left the room and mounted to the second floor, that in her next book Edyth Fermoy-Jones would probably give him a thorough trouncing.

  Sergeant Price met him in the doorway of the Chaters’ room.

  “Well?” asked Kendall.

  “Settled the point,” answered Price. “The fingerprints on the drawer are Mrs. Chater’s. She took that knife all right.”

  “What did you compare them with?”

  “Hairbrush.” He turned and pointed to a silver-backed hairbrush on the dressing-table. “Same prints on both.”

  Kendall nodded, then asked:

  “Anything else?”

  “Mr. Bultin came out of the next room and popped his head in.”

  “What happened?”

  “I sent him back again. And Taverley went into his room. Door opposite.”

  “I thought Taverley was in his room?”

  “So did I. The Rowes are on the other side here. They’ve nothing to do with it.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I can listen through a wall when I want to. Conversation quite innocent. Guessing right and left like new-born babes.”

  “Two tips about that, Price. New-born babes don’t guess, and they’re not always innocent.”

  “That’s right, sir,” agreed Price, with a grin; “but I’m not a new-born babe myself. You can learn more from hearing people talk than from asking them questions, and if t
he Rowes have ever murdered more than sausages, I’m an Italian!”

  “And one point about that. How do you know the Rowes weren’t aware that you were on the other side of the wall and talking for your special benefit?”

  “Because one of the things she said to him was, ‘And do be sure to-night, dear, not to make a noise over your soup.’’’

  “You’re improving, Price,” smiled Kendall.

  The sergeant concealed his pleasure at the compliment.

  “Have you got anywhere, sir?” he asked.

  “All sorts of places, but that’s not saying I’ve got to the right one. It’s Mrs. Chater who’s worrying me at the moment—especially as it’s clear now that she took that knife.”

  “She’s not in the house.”

  “You feel sure of that?”

  “Not a spot we haven’t looked in.”

  “Bold assertion, Price. Still, you’re probably right. She got out of the house before we came, and relocked the door to gain more time.”

  “I suppose you’ve got your ideas why she went?”

  “And plenty of other people’s. If she went. What’s yours?”

  “Wind up.”

  “Does that explain the knife?”

  “It might, sir,” said Price solemnly.

  “Yes—it might. This is a worrying business. I wish we’d hear something from outside.”

  “I’m banking we’ll hear from the railway.”

  “That’s a possibility, though I’m not banking on anything. Well, there’s enough people searching and watching for her now, anyway—good thing, Price, we phoned through so quickly—so I’ll go along and see Taverley. No news, of course, about the bicycle and the bag?”

  “Not yet, sir. They’ve orders to report the moment they have any luck.”

  “Doctor gone?”

  “To make tests.”

  “Right. Ring up the Rising Sun, Holm; speak to the innkeeper and find out all you can about a lunch that was served there soon after two o’clock. According to Earnshaw, he and Chater arrived at the inn at about two, ordered lunch for both of them, quarrelled, and then Earnshaw left. So two lunches will have been ordered, but only one eaten. See if the innkeeper’s story fits Earnshaw’s. Check the items. Find out exactly what Chater ate, if you can, and what happened to the remains. If they are still available—they’re probably not—have them set aside and kept under lock and key. Then send a man over to cart the stuff to Pudrow for analysis. I don’t think we’re going to find the trouble there, but I want you to take care of all that for me.”

  “Right, sir,” answered Price. “By the way, there’s one bit of conversation I heard through the wall I might mention.”

  “What?”

  “About the Chaters. They had a quarrel last night.”

  “Oh! Did they?”

  “The Rowes heard the fuss—though not, I gathered, what it was about. Rowe said, ‘If they’d gone on much longer I’d have banged on the wall!’’’

  “Any idea of the time?”

  “Got that, too. At least, approximately. ‘Getting on for two, it was,’ he said. ‘Damned inconsiderate, I call it, damned inconsiderate.’’’

  “Well, that’s interesting,” replied Kendall. “When you die, your ears ought to be framed.”

  He turned towards the two single beds. Their heads were against the wall next to the Rowes’ room. He moved to the wall and listened.

  “Anything?” asked Price.

  “Yes,” answered Kendall. “Soap in his eye!” He glanced towards the opposite wall.

  “Nothing from there,” said Price. “They’re just thinking hard!”

  “So am I,” returned Kendall, and left the room.

  Chapter XXIV

  Taverley’s Version

  “Have you had time to copy out those notes for me yet?” asked Kendall, popping his head in at the door.

  “Here they are,” answered Bultin. “I’m only giving you the police rights.”

  “All I want—I don’t intend to publish them,” replied Kendall, as he took the sheets. “Oh, by the way, I don’t suppose either of you gentlemen heard any conversation through the wall last night?”

  “There’s a chance missed, Lionel!” exclaimed Pratt. “You never thought of listening!”

  “Our beds are on the wrong side of the room,” remarked Bultin. “Otherwise I should have been delighted.”

  “Then I take it you heard nothing?”

  “You take it right.”

  “Thanks.”

  He closed the door, crossed the corridor, and knocked on the door opposite. Harold Taverley, reading in an arm-chair, raised his head, and a look of anxiety shot into his eyes; but he quickly dismissed it as he called, “Come in!”

  Kendall had already sized Taverley up as a useful type of man from a police point of view. Simple, direct, truthful—you could see it at a glance. Wasn’t diseased with the bug of egotism. Wasn’t always trying to say clever things. Looked you straight in the eyes. Exactly what a county cricketer who played the game should be. But as soon as the inspector entered the room his sensitive perception became vaguely uneasy. He couldn’t have explained why. There it was. The secretive atmosphere of the house appeared to have worked into the systems of many of its inmates, and just as Kendall had been worried by Lord Aveling’s semi-frank attitude at the gate, so he wondered now whether Taverley was going to give him the complete assistance he had a right to expect.

  “Maybe I’m getting over-suspicious,” he pondered, as he sat down. “It’s an easy mood to fall into.”

  This possible explanation did not satisfy him.

  “Well, I suppose you want me to tell you my story?” asked Taverley.

  “That’s the idea, sir,” answered Kendall. “And you can make it as brief as you like, so long as you don’t miss out anything. By the way, sir, may I first congratulate you on your 103 not out last week at Leeds?”

  “If Tunnicliffe had held a catch in the first over, it would have been the three without the hundred,” smiled Taverley. “Where shall I begin?”

  “Where it matters.”

  “I suppose that’s where we find Chater?”

  “You and Miss Aveling, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right. We were returning—”

  “No, wait a moment,” interrupted the inspector.

  “Can we start a little further back? When did you get separated from your party? And how did it happen?”

  “That’s inevitable at a meet.”

  “Quite so. Only you weren’t following the stag then, were you?”

  “Yes, in a sense. It was in the morning, soon after the thing had begun, and Miss Aveling suggested a short cut to somewhere or other.”

  “Remember where?”

  “Yes. Holm.”

  “Ah! Did you get there?”

  “To Holm? No—we changed our minds again, and tried another route.”

  “I see. But you passed through Holm later?”

  “No,” replied Taverley. “Should we have?”

  Kendall smiled.

  “No necessity, sir,” he answered, “but I’ve got the habit of maps and time-tables. I like to visualise as much as I can, with one eye on the clock. Now I needn’t visualise you in Holm. You missed a beauty spot.”

  “I’ve heard it’s charming.”

  “Picturesque inn called the Setting Sun.”

  “Inspector,” said Taverley, “are you trying to catch me?”

  “What makes you think that?” inquired Kendall.

  “Just your manner.”

  “Then I must change my manner. I’m trying to catch everybody, but I shouldn’t show it. No good as a bowler, eh? Action not deceptive enough? Still, I bowl ’em sometimes. After I’ve caught ’em. There’s no inn at Holm called the Settin
g Sun. It’s the Rising Sun. Now be equally honest and let me know who did visit Holm?”

  “I can only make a guess at it,” replied Taverley.

  “The guess being?”

  “Chater and Sir James Earnshaw.”

  “That’s such a good guess, I’d like to know how you made it?”

  “Earnshaw might have told me.”

  “Then it wouldn’t have been a guess.”

  “That evens the score,” laughed Taverley. “I guessed because Chater and Earnshaw were with us when we began making for Holm. They had fallen behind when we changed our route. The assumption was that they did not change theirs.”

  “Nothing wrong with that, sir,” answered Kendall. “Will you carry on from there?”

  “You mean, where did Miss Aveling and I go?”

  “Yes.”

  “We gave up the Hunt, and rode to a place called West Melling.”

  “May I know why you gave up the Hunt?”

  “Certainly. Our original plan didn’t seem to be working out, so we thought we’d stop swotting and just enjoy the ride.”

  “That’s where the amateur hunter has a pull over us,” commented Kendall. “I’m on the hunt, too, but I’m not allowed to give it up. Well, sir?”

  “We got to West Melling at about one o’clock—mention that for your time-table—and stayed for lunch. The Valley Inn. And I mention that because it’s about the last definite fact I can mention till we got to Mile Bottom on our way back. After lunch we rode all over the place—anywhere and everywhere. We got to Mile Bottom at about a quarter to five—”

  “Can you fix that?”

  “Approximately. I looked at my watch a little later, so know it can’t be far out. It was the merest chance that we found Chater. I happened to see his hat lying on the stubble some way off the road. Of course, I didn’t know whose hat it was, but we thought it would be a joke to return it if we could identify the owner. As you know, we found the owner a little way off.”

  “Beyond the need of his hat,” nodded Kendall.

  “Yes, there was no doubt about that. While we were examining him, Mrs. Leveridge came along—also on her way back. She and Miss Aveling went off to phone, and it was while I was waiting that I looked at my watch. Seven minutes to five.”