‘Made a bit of a fool of myself,’ he said with a hopeless attempt at lightness. ‘Always was a believer in iodine – army training, I suppose. If you hurt yourself, stick on a wad of iodine. It stings, but it’s worth it. Saves no end of trouble afterwards. Unluckily my hand was a bit unsteady – being half asleep, don’t you know – and I spilt the bottle over myself. I may be getting old – I don’t know.’
Campion looked at the wound again. ‘You ought to have a bandage on it,’ he remarked. ‘It’s pretty deep. Is there such a thing in the house?’
‘There’s one in the first-aid box where I got the iodine.’ Uncle William was blinking at his wounded hand, from which the blood was beginning to ooze again. ‘It’s in that oak corner cupboard in the hall. But don’t go and get it and wake the house again, just as I did. There’s a handkerchief in that top drawer; that’ll do. Unlucky beggar I am! That girl’s a long time with that drink. Just my luck if there isn’t any. What’s the use of living in a non-prohibition country if you don’t keep anything in the house? When I get my money I shall go to America. It’ll be a funny thing to have to go to America to get a drink.’
Mr Campion returned with the handkerchief and was still looking curiously at the wound, which seemed as though it might be the better for a few stitches, when Joyce came in, a glass in one hand and a decanter in the other. Uncle William rose immediately she appeared.
‘That’s a good girl,’ he said. ‘That’s the only medicine that ever did me any good. Pour it out for me, will you, my dear? Can’t trust this hand of mine.’
As she gave him the glass she noticed the real extent of the damage for the first time, and an involuntary exclamation escaped her.
‘Oh, how did it happen? Who did it?’ she burst out.
Uncle William drained his glass and sat down again on the edge of the bed. The spirit made him cough, and a healthier colour returned to his face. As Joyce repeated her question he blinked at her.
‘Yes,’ he echoed, ‘how did it happen? Most extraordinary thing. I’ve never liked cats. Filthy, dangerous animals. Great black beast got into my room. I went to put it out and it scratched me.’
Having got over what he evidently considered to be the hump of his story, he continued with returning confidence.
‘Must have got in from some place outside. I can’t think how it managed it. But it’s gone now.’
He glanced about him as if to assure himself that this indeed was the case. The girl shot an incredulous glance at Campion, who showed no sign either of conviction or disbelief.
‘I said to myself,’ Uncle William continued with terrific gusto, ‘cat scratches are poisonous. So I went along to the first-aid box in the hall, and the rest you know.’
He seemed to consider that this was the end of the matter, but Joyce was frankly dissatisfied.
‘A cat?’ she demanded. ‘Are you sure?’
In spite of his unsteady hand, Uncle William was helping himself to another brandy.
‘I said a cat, and I mean a cat,’ he said with an attempt at dignity.
‘But, Uncle William, you can’t ask us to believe you if you say things like that,’ Joyce protested. ‘How could there be a cat in here?’
‘I don’t know.’ The old man spoke with his back to her. ‘I’m only telling you what I saw. I had my window open at the bottom – there it is, you can see for yourself. I woke to hear the thing – to hear the thing – well, to hear the thing. And I hate the creatures. I’m like old Roberts in that respect. He couldn’t bear ’em and I can’t bear ’em. I picked the creature up and I pushed it through the window and it scratched me. There you are. Isn’t that clear? I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about.’
The girl reddened. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you’ll give me that handkerchief, Mr Campion, I’ll tie his hand up. You’ll have to see the doctor in the morning, Uncle.’
‘You leave me alone, my dear. I’ll be all right. I’ve had plenty of cuts before now.’
Uncle William was still on his dignity, but there was yet a furtive uneasiness in his eyes. The bandaging complete, a certain embarrassing argument followed as to whether the brandy should remain or no. A compromise having been reached, the young people left the old man in bed with a small tot at his side. In the corridor Joyce turned to Campion.
‘What happened?’ she whispered.
The young man seemed troubled. ‘Look here,’ he murmured, ‘don’t go downstairs with that stuff. Take it into your room or leave it in the hall, or something. And when you shut your door behind you, turn the key.’
Her eyes met his questioningly, but he said no more and she went off, switching out the light in the hall as she passed into her room.
Campion stood where he was for some moments before he turned and went back to his bed. As he passed Uncle William’s room he heard a faint sound from within and paused to listen. When he moved on again his face was very grave and his pale eyes were narrowed.
The sound he had heard was Uncle William quietly locking his door.
CHAPTER 12
COMMITTEE STAGE
MR CAMPION LIT a cigarette and sank down in a protesting basket-chair before the fire in the small sitting-room at ‘The Three Keys’, which Inspector Oates had engaged for himself to ensure a little privacy: a personal extravagance which he felt was justified in view of the sensation which the case was making in the town.
Like all guest-rooms furnished by unimaginative hosts, it presented an atmosphere of aloof, if not downright grudging, hospitality. Even the fire kept itself a trifle too much to itself behind the narrow bars of the little grate.
Campion glanced at the small clock with the loud voice on the mantelpiece. At any moment now Mr Oates should return from the inquest on Andrew Seeley. It would be the most formal of formal affairs, probably little more than a mere notice of adjournment. It was the first time Campion had felt really alone since his arrival, and he permitted himself the leisure to reflect that active adventure, however strenuous, was apt to be less harrowing than taking part in this slow nemesis which was so obviously engulfing Socrates Close and its occupants.
He was glad to sit back and consider the matter coldly in these neutral surroundings, for he had felt the atmosphere of the house settling down upon him, robbing him of his impartiality, drawing him into itself, forcing him to see life confined within its own tiny boundaries.
Murder had been committed on two occasions. That seemed to be the only fact that emerged concrete and clear from the hotchpotch of unrelated incidents, tendencies and motives into which he had plunged. Uncle William, the obvious culprit, became less and less obvious the longer he knew him.
The incident of the night before returned to him vividly. Quite plainly Uncle William had been the victim of an attack. He had also been ill. The fact that he had refused so obstinately to give any reasonable account of his assailant was out of character. William was not the sort of man to shield anyone, nor was he likely to manufacture any incident so dramatic or so subtle as a faked attack upon himself. Mr Campion shuddered to think of the kind of ambuscade Uncle William might have arranged had he ever conceived the idea of such a method of shelving the suspicion against him. Certainly he would have emerged scatheless, without the wound in which Doctor Lavrock had put three stitches that morning.
With the elimination of Uncle William’s guilt there remained his fear, his locked door and that furtive element in the old house which had made Campion advise Joyce to lock herself in her room and had caused him to leave his own door half open and to lie awake listening for soft footsteps in the corridor.
If Uncle William was out of it, whose was the mind behind these lunatic crimes? The same mind which had conceived the idea of binding a man hand and foot before shooting the top of his head off?
It was at this point in his meditations that the thought which he had been resisting subconsciously all the morning forced itself upon him. Alice: not the red-eyed, pleasant-faced woman who had opened th
e door to the police, but the herculean elemental creature in the white calico nightgown, the being whose fanatical love for her mistress had been so strikingly displayed during the scene on the landing the night before. Here was sufficient strength to account for Andrew. Here was the necessary intimate knowledge of the household, and here also, he felt unpleasantly sure, was the requisite courage. But, and it was at this point that his mind jibbed, here was not the madness, the intellectual cunning. For that he knew he must look to an accomplice, an instigator, rather.
In the sanctuary of the Inspector’s sitting-room he considered Mrs Caroline Faraday.
Here was a remarkable personality, a woman who at an advanced age retained her intellect, while possessing no longer any vestige of emotion.
From a purely altruistic point of view there were several reasons why the community at Socrates Close, the little world which she governed so completely, would be better off without Andrew Seeley. When he reflected upon certain phases of the dead man’s character as it had emerged, Campion was seized by the uncomfortable impression that there were, almost certainly, many other reasons not quite so obvious. The motive for Julia’s murder was as yet to be found. But she had not been a pleasant woman. She had been petty, bad-tempered, dogmatic; all important anti-social crimes in so small and so self-contained a community.
When one is so near death oneself life loses much of its importance. Mrs Faraday had said as much only the day before. Was it possible that it was she who had done these things, using Alice’s strength, courage and blind trust in her mistress as a means?
Campion rose to his feet and threw his cigarette into the fire. Now was not the time for speculation, he reflected. Conjecture profiteth man little, and it was with a species of relief that he swung round to face the doorway as the Inspector came in.
‘Hullo, Campion.’ Mr Oates’s habitual gloom momentarily dispersed. He folded his raincoat neatly and placed it on the table with his hat on top of it. ‘Adjourned till Tuesday,’ he said. ‘That old fellow William Faraday gave evidence of identification. I saw he’d got his hand in a sling. Anything up?’
‘In a way, yes, and in a way, no,’ said Mr Campion. ‘Do take one of your own chairs. The wicker contraption is a snare and a delusion. Try the one with the brass studs.’
The Inspector seated himself and took out his pipe. ‘I hope you’re not going to be long unless you’ve got something important to say,’ he said. ‘I want to go down and have another look at that stream. I only gave it the once-over yesterday. It’s quite evident to me, if we’re going to make a case of this business, that we’ve got to get the gun. The first inquest on the woman is fixed for Monday. I don’t see why these coroner fellows can’t do two in a day. I don’t suppose they’ll adjourn that longer than Wednesday, unless we offer them a prospect of a trial and a conviction. I see the newspapers are comparatively quiet. I suppose they smell an unsatisfactory case.’
‘I told a man I know on the Comet in confidence that I didn’t think it’d come to anything,’ said Campion.
Stanislaus looked at him sharply. ‘Have you found out anything?’ he said.
‘Fair do’s,’ said Mr Campion. ‘You know exactly how I stand in this business. I’m not the clever amateur helping the important policeman. I’ve just been asked down for the murder. If it wasn’t for Joyce and Marcus, and possibly Uncle William, I think I should go home.’
Stanislaus put down his pipe. ‘Show us it,’ he said.
Mr Campion put his hand in his pocket and drew out a small paper bag. From this he extracted a handkerchief, which he placed upon the table. Stanislaus rose and stood beside him and bent forward watching, while Campion unfolded the white cambric handkerchief and exposed the little wooden cylinder.
‘I’ve opened it,’ he said, ‘but I used a handkerchief. Any finger-prints will still be intact, though I’m afraid even in this old-fashioned household they’ve all heard about using gloves. If you want to see what it’s like and you don’t want to touch it,’ he went on, ‘here is a replica. I went to the chemist whose name you will see on the label and bought myself a packet of Thyro-Tissue Reducer from the gentleman in charge, who seemed to think I was mad. I didn’t make inquiries about previous purchasers, not wishing to poach, but I ascertained that in his opinion the stuff is principally an aperient with a large percentage of starch to give bulk.’
As he spoke he produced a second cylinder from his pocket exactly like the first.
The Inspector opened it and drew out the zig-zag strip of pellets.
‘Where did you find this?’ he inquired, pointing to the package in the handkerchief.
With becoming modesty Mr Campion related his adventure of the night before. The Inspector frowned when he found that Joyce had been a party to the discovery, but was quite frankly surprised and delighted when he heard of the hiding-place.
‘No finger-prints on the knob?’ he inquired. ‘No, I know there weren’t. That place was kept as shiny as a new motor-car. We got all the prints there were yesterday. How did you hit on it, though? Did the girl put you up to it?’
Campion shook his head. ‘No, you’re on the wrong track there. I found it out all by myself. It was the one place I could think you might not have looked.’
Stanislaus regarded him with mild surprise. ‘Do you often hide things in bed knobs?’ he said.
‘Not since I was a child,’ said Mr Campion, with dignity. ‘There were brass knobs on my crib. I remember the taste of them still.’
The Inspector grunted. ‘My crib hadn’t got knobs on,’ he said. ‘You had all the advantages. Well, now we’re getting somewhere. It struck me at once that someone must have tampered with some patent flimmery-flammery the old lady was taking. They say every woman of over forty takes something. That’s why these fellows keep on advertising. You’d be surprised at the offers I get to say I derive my sparkle from pills and ointments and whatnot. This is much better,’ he repeated, brightening visibly. ‘I think I’ll have a look at the exhibit all the same. The deceased’s own finger-prints’ll be all over it, of course.’
Holding the cylinder carefully in one handkerchief and unscrewing the top, his hand protected by another, he peered into the box.
‘About half gone,’ he announced. ‘And she didn’t tear off the paper. That’s a bit of luck. If morphine or conium was substituted for the last one of these pellets there may be some traces of it left. We used to be rather down on the Home Office chemists at one time, I believe, but they’re very hot fellows now. You’d be surprised. I’ll take these, if you please.’
He gathered the corners of the handkerchief which held the half-empty cylinder and replaced it carefully in the paper bag.
‘Anything else?’ he inquired, looking up.
Before speaking, Campion returned to his chair, where he sat blinking amicably behind his spectacles.
‘A fair swap,’ he murmured. ‘What was the bullet like?’
‘Point four five,’ said Stanislaus grudgingly. ‘And much good may that do you. The number of unregistered Army Webleys in the country must be colossal. When we find the actual gun we may be able to spot some slight irregularity in it which will have shown on the bullet – but what a hope! As soon as I heard of that coincidence on Thursday I knew I was in for trouble. If I get a conviction on this case,’ he added bitterly, ‘I’ll eat my hat – the old brown one I wore when I arrested Summers.’
Campion made no comment, and the Inspector returned to the case.
‘What about old Faraday’s hand?’ he demanded. ‘How did that happen? I don’t know if you know it, my lad, but that fellow has twenty-five minutes to account for, twenty-five mighty important minutes. Not all the statements about the exact time of that Sunday lunch tally.’
Mr Campion leant back in his chair and considered Uncle William’s position, and, incidentally, his own. At length he stated Uncle William’s case simply, without exaggeration or elimination. When he had finished the Inspector sat staring at him.
/> ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Not at all. It’s not enough to take to a jury, though.’
‘I should think not,’ said Mr Campion in horror. ‘My dear fellow, consider the situation. There’s Sir Gordon Woodthorpe’s evidence. He’s bound to remember the case of the man who gave him a false name. Bound to recognize him, too. Then there’s the gun. You’ve got to find that, you know. Finally we come to the question of the rope. I suppose you’ll have that window cord compared with the stuff taken off the body?’
‘You bet I will.’ The Inspector spoke grimly. ‘It’s a great idea having you in the house, Campion,’ he went on consideringly, ‘in spite of your funny position. However, to return to this chap William. I haven’t examined this story of yours, but the impression with which it leaves me is not very favourable towards the man. Still, let’s have it all. You know more about him than I do. And after all,’ he went on lugubriously, ‘if there was ever a case in the world that gave a fellow like myself a magnificent chance of making a fool of himself, this is it.’
‘Well, there’s one thing,’ said Campion. He was speaking slowly now, choosing his words with care. ‘I told you I saw him putting the iodine on his hand. After that he practically fainted, or collapsed, anyhow. It struck me as being extraordinary. The seizure only lasted a minute and I took it for granted that his heart was not too good. But when I made tactful inquiries this morning from the doctor who came to stitch up the cut, I discovered Uncle William’s heart was as sound as a bell. So the question remains – why the collapse?’
‘It might have been anything,’ said the Inspector, clearly unimpressed by this line of reasoning. ‘If he had staged the whole thing it might have been part of his verisimilitude.’
The younger man shook his head. ‘I haven’t made myself clear,’ he said. ‘I know what I’m telling you is not evidence, but it’s a strong impression and it might be useful. I believe the old boy was frightened last night, and I also believe that he was slightly – very slightly – poisoned.’
Police at the Funeral Page 15
