Dead Mrs Stratton (Jumping Jenny) rs-9

by Anthony Berkeley

  Colin looked at him with some severity. "The trouble with you, Roger," he said, "is that you talk a jolly sight too much."

  "Talk?"

  "Yes. In the circumstances, I should keep my mouth shut, if I were you. How on earth did you know I was safe? I might not have been."

  "My dear Colin, what on earth are you talking about? And what were you doing with that chair?"

  "Wiping your fingerprints off," Colin said calmly, "just in case you'd forgotten to do so yourself."

  "Wiping my . . ."

  "Yes. You see, I happen to know that chair wasn't under the gallows at all when we first came up on the roof. It was in the middle somewhere. I know, because I almost fell over it and barked my shin rather nastily. If I were you, I wouldn't tell anyone else you moved it. It might look fishy."

  "But I didn't . . ."

  "Yes, you did, in so many words. I tell you, Roger, you talk too much. If I were you, I wouldn't sound anyone else about suicide or murder. In fact, I wouldn't say a word about the case at all. It's too dangerous, man. Of course I know you've probably got an urge to talk about it, but you must just shut it down. I won't give you away, of course, and I suppose really it was a pretty good thing for you to have done; but you can't bank on everyone else, you know."

  "I don't think there was any risk, really," Roger said feebly, somewhat taken aback by this severity and cursing himself for having underestimated Colin's shrewdness.

  "No risk!" Colin snorted. "It's all very well to talk of spiritual motives and no suspicion and all that, but if you think you can get away with murder without any risk, and then go boasting about it, you'll soon find your own neck in the same place as you put Mrs. Stratton's."

  "Is it the least good," Roger said desperately, "for me to go on telling you that I did not murder Mrs. Stratton?"

  "I'll believe you, of course," Colin said, without the least trace of credulity in his voice.

  "Thank you, Colin," Roger said bitterly.

  "And in any case," Colin added, "I told you I wouldn't give you away."

  Roger began all over again.

  "Well, anyhow," Colin said judicially, "someone murdered her."

  "I know someone did! My goodness, I wish I'd never moved that blessed chair. This is what comes of trying to do someone a good turn."

  "Even in that case," said Colin smugly, "it's a pretty serious thing, you know, monkeying about with evidence."

  "But dash it all, man, the woman deserved murdering! I know that in theory it's a shocking thing to shield a murderer. But this case is exceptional. Whoever did such a good deed deserves shielding. You'd have done the same yourself."

  "I would not," said Colin with decision. "I've told you I'll hold my tongue, but that's as far as I'd go. I wouldn't fake the evidence. The game wouldn't be worth the candle. I wouldn't risk my neck to get other people out of their own troubles."

  "Risk your neck?"

  "It would make me an accessory after the fact, wouldn't it? And the legal penalty for that is the same as for murder. I suppose, by the way," Colin added uneasily, "that I'm an accessory after some sort of fact now. Why on earth couldn't you hold your tongue, Roger? I should never have guessed if you hadn't given yourself away. I was a fool, though, too, to let you know I had guessed."

  "But I keep on telling you I didn't murder the woman!"

  "I know you do," said Colin. "And I keep on telling you that I won't give you away."

  "Oh, hell!" said Roger.

  There was an unhappy little silence.

  "My dear Colin, you can't possibly pretend there's a case against me," Roger said, almost plaintively.

  "Do you want me to show you the case against you?"

  "I'd love you to," Roger said bitterly.

  "Well, man, you told me the motive yourself. It was silly to pretend it was a motive for me, because it isn't. I'm not nearly high - minded enough to take a risk like that for someone I hardly know. And I might add that I'm not officious enough, either, to meddle in other people's affairs to such an extent as that. But you are, Roger, if you want me to be candid. You're the most officious person I know, and the most self - confident. If anyone in this world could commit an entirely spiritual, altruistic, infernally officious murder, it's you."

  "Thank you, Colin," said Roger, without gratitude.

  "Well, I'm just applying your own methods."

  "And all you've proved is that I might possibly be said to have a motive, out of having no motive at all. What sort of proof do you call that? The small fact that I had no opportunity at all just doesn't concern you, I suppose?"

  "Opportunity!" Colin exclaimed. "Well, if you hadn't the opportunity, I don't know who had."

  "When did I have an opportunity?" Roger demanded, astonished.

  "Mrs. Stratton was found on the roof, wasn't she? So it's a reasonable inference that she was on the roof, or in here, all the time after she left the ballroom. In fact, as no one saw her again, it's more than a reasonable inference that she was up here. It's almost a dead certainty. You'll agree with that, I suppose?"

  "Yes, I do," Roger said defiantly. "Well?"

  "Well, so far as I know, you were the only person, during the time she was missing, who was up here too."

  "What!"

  "After you'd been consoling poor wee David at the bar, didn't you come straight up here when I joined the two of you?" asked Colin calmly.

  "Good - good lord!" exclaimed Roger, thunder - struck.

  It was perfectly true. The advent of Colin had given Roger the excuse to slip away. The conversation with David had, in the circumstances, been somewhat forced; and Roger felt that the enormous log fire was making the room not only uncomfortably hot but much too smoky. He had gone up onto the roof and stood for a few minutes just outside the door, smoking a cigarette, and allowing the smoke from the room below to pour out through the open doorway. He had forgotten all about it, but Colin was perfectly right.

  He had seen no one on the roof, but he must have been there at least four or five minutes; and during that time there could be no doubt now that Ena Stratton must have been in the sun parlour, alone - or with her murderer. This was infernally awkward.

  "And of course," Colin pursued, "after that poor David had been telling you all his troubles, you'd have been feeling nasty and worked up."

  Roger turned a distressed face on his accuser. "David didn't tell me all his troubles," he could only say feebly. "He didn't even mention his wife at all. We talked about the test matches, and the leg theory. You can ask him."

  "I wouldn't think of it," said Colin primly.

  Roger said nothing.

  "It was you who asked me for the case," said Colin.

  "And you think," Roger said with emotion, "that during those few minutes I was up here, I carried Mrs. Stratton to the gallows and hanged her there?"

  "Someone did. If it wasn't you, Roger, who was it?"

  "You might at least give me the credit of not being such a bungler as to have forgotten the essential chair."

  "Someone forgot it. It was a bad mistake, of course. But the murderer who's found out always has made a bad mistake. I suppose," said Colin, regarding the end of his cigarette, "that having been mixed up with murder so much, you didn't regard it quite so seriously as some of us do; and that may have made you a bit careless about the details."

  Roger choked.

  "And of course it was your talking about the chair that gave the whole thing away," Colin went on, with complete imperturbability. "I wondered what you were driving at. Then I understood. You were worried about that chair. You knew you'd forgotten to put it there at the time; and though you'd seen your mistake and put it right afterwards, you were a bit frightened that somebody might have noticed it wasn't there before. So you tried to suggest it on me, in order to have a witness that it had been there all the time, just in case of trouble. That was jolly clever of you, Roger."

  "But it didn't come off, did it?"

  "No, you overdid it," said C
olin frankly. "Still, it was a bright idea, after you'd given yourself away, to pretend you'd moved it to shield someone else. Very bright. But unfortunately not very probable."

  "It just happens to be the truth, that's all."

  "And as you'd made so many bloomers already," Colin went on, just as if Roger had not spoken at all, "I thought you might quite well have been ass enough to have left your fingerprints on it, too, and I'd better wipe them off first and hear what you'd got to say afterwards. Did you leave your prints on it, by the way?" Colin asked with interest.

  "Yes," said Roger wrathfully.

  "I thought you would have done," said Colin, with insufferable complacence.

  "I do seem to have been a clumsy murderer, don't I?"

  "I expect it takes practice," Colin soothed him. Again there was a little pause.

  "Well, any more?"

  "Isn't that enough?" asked Colin.

  "And are you going to the police with this fool of a story?"

  "I told you, I won't give you away. But you'd better watch out that you don't give yourself away again."

  "I wish you would go to the police," Roger yammered.

  "Thanks, I don't want to be mixed up in it at all."

  "Then I'll go to them myself and tell them exactly what you've said!"

  "You're a fool if you do," Colin said coolly.

  In spite of his indignation Roger still had enough sense left to see that he would indeed be a very great fool if he did. Once more there was a raging silence.

  Then there was the sound of footsteps outside, and Ronald Stratton appeared in the doorway. "Oh, here you are, Roger. I've been looking for you everywhere. The inspector's here and wants to see you. In the dining room." Roger rose, not unthankful to escape. He caught Colin's eye. Colin nodded reassuringly.

  CHAPTER IX THE CASE AGAINST DR. CHALMERS

  INSPECTOR CRANE, of the Westerford police, was a tall, loosely built man, not in the least like the usual drill - sergeant type of police inspector. He had a pleasant face and, in this house at any rate, almost an apologetic manner; certainly there was none of the snapping self - importance about him which some police officials adopt. Ronald Stratton already knew him fairly well, and so had been able to explain the circumstances to him without the uneasy constraint which the presence of a stranger might have induced.

  On learning that Roger Sheringham had been among the guests, the inspector had named that gentleman as the first of the party whom he would like to interview.

  "Very pleased to meet you, sir," he greeted Roger. "Heard about you before now, of course. A terrible business this, sir, though fortunately not in your line, we hope."

  "No," said Roger firmly. "Of course not."

  "No. Well, sir, if you'll sit down, I should very much like to hear from you anything which you think may throw light on the tragedy or assist the coroner." It was the dining room which had been offered to the inspector for the conduct of his interviews, and both men seated themselves at one end of the long table, the inspector with his notebook expectantly open before him. Roger saw at once that the proceedings were not going to be unduly formal, for both the Stratton brothers were present too, Ronald perched on the edge of the table with his foot on a chair's seat, and David leaning silently back against the mantelpiece.

  "You must understand, Inspector, that I scarcely knew Mrs. Stratton," Roger began, and went on to give an account of his own dealings with her that evening.

  "Ah!" The inspector pricked up his ears and licked his pencil hopefully. "Mrs. Stratton actually mentioned to you her intention of taking her own life?"

  "The possibility, rather than the intention," Roger corrected. "Still, yes, she did."

  "But in spite of that, you did nothing?" said the inspector, somewhat apologetically.

  "What could I have done? She merely referred to the possibility in the future. She said nothing about carrying out any such intention tonight."

  "So you took no steps, sir?"

  "None."

  "I ought to ask you," said the inspector still more apologetically, "why you did not consider it necessary to take steps?"

  "Because I didn't believe a word of what she'd been saying. I'm bound to tell you that I thought she was talking just for effect."

  "' - - I did not consider her intentions serious,'" said the inspector, writing busily. "Does that express what you felt, Mr. Sheringham?"

  "I think so," Roger agreed, avoiding Ronald Stratton's eye.

  "You didn't mention her words to anyone else? To Mr. Stratton, for instance?"

  "No; as you say, I didn't take them seriously enough. But somebody else mentioned them to me."

  "Sir?"

  "Someone else asked me if she had spoken to me about doing away with herself. I gather," Roger said drily, "that she had touched on this possibility to other people besides myself."

  "Is that the case? That's very interesting. Will you be good enough to tell me who asked you that?"

  "Certainly. It was Mr. Williamson."

  "'Mr. Williamson asked me at one period whether ...'"

  "Mr. Williamson had already asked me, in Mr. Sheringham's hearing," put in Ronald Stratton, "whether my sister - in - law was mad. You remember, Sheringham? Quite early."

  "Yes," Roger nodded. "I remember quite well. It made me wonder at the time."

  "What did it make you wonder, sir?"

  "Whether Mrs. Stratton might be a little unbalanced."

  "And am I right in thinking that your subsequent conversation with Mrs. Stratton did lead you to that conclusion?" asked the inspector, with an uneasy glance at David Stratton.

  "It did. I think Mrs. Stratton was undoubtedly a little unbalanced. But not, I thought then, to the point of suicide." Roger did not add that he did not think that now, either.

  The inspector turned, with awkward sympathy, to David Stratton. "That did not coincide with your own opinion, Mr. Stratton?"

  "No," David said shortly. "That's why I rang you people up. I considered my wife totally irresponsible for her actions."

  "Yes, yes." The inspector was a little flustered. "I have our man's report. Very curious that should have happened on the very same evening when . . . The coroner's bound to ask something about that."

  "But it all fits in, Inspector, doesn't it?" Ronald put in smoothly. "I mean, it's a rather remarkable piece of corroborative evidence about Mrs. Stratton's state of mind. Why should the coroner ask about it particularly?"

  "Well, you see, Mr. Stratton hadn't ever rung us up like that before; had you, Mr. Stratton?"

  "No."

  "There'd never been any occasion to do so,' Ronald amplified.

  "It struck you this evening that Mrs. Stratton was behaving - how shall I put it? - in a more irresponsible way than usual?" the inspector asked David.

  "Yes, I think she was." David Stratton had spoken all the time in a curiously sharp voice, as if he wanted to get his words out and be done with them.

  "After all," Ronald put in again, "my brother didn't ring up until Mrs. Stratton had been missing from her home for some time, and not until we'd looked everywhere here first, as I told you. He was naturally alarmed; and I don't suppose Mrs. Stratton had ever behaved in that way before. Had she, David?"

  "Never."

  "So in view of the irresponsibility she had shown during the evening, and which other people had noticed besides ourselves, he thought that you people ought to be warned, just in case; though I don't think he anticipated anything really serious. Did you, David?"

  "Not really. I thought it better to be on the safe side, that's all."

  "You didn't anticipate that Mrs. Stratton might do away with herself, sir?"

  "No; I said, not really. My wife had often talked about suicide. She had moods of great depression. But like Mr. Sheringham, I'm afraid I didn't take it very seriously."

  "I see. What was it that Mrs. Stratton was depressed about?"

  "Nothing."

  "Mrs. Stratton suffered from melancholi
a to some extent," Ronald supplied, as smoothly as before. "She had nothing to worry about really; her life should have been a very happy one; but you know how that kind of person magnifies trifles and twists the smallest things into big ones. It was all part of her complaint. It's no good trying to hide the fact, Inspector," said Ronald, with an air of frankness. "My sister - in - law was really not quite normal. I think the doctors will be able to give you some useful information on that point, if they haven't done so already."

  "No, sir, we haven't got on to that yet, but no doubt they will. Now, Mr. Sheringham, let me see, you were telling me . . ." Roger resumed his story.

  He had been listening with considerable interest to the three - cornered conversation which had just taken place. It was the attitude of David Stratton which had been puzzling him. That of Ronald was plain enough; he had been trying to take as much of the burden off David's thinner shoulders as he possibly could, even to the risk of getting rapped over the knuckles for answering David's questions for him.

  But why this sharp, almost aggressive manner of David's when he did speak? And why did he answer sometimes just as if he were repeating a lesson, and a lesson not too intelligently learned at that? He did not seem to Roger to be suffering still from shock. But he did seem to be concealing by this attitude some emotion which he did not care to show; though whether that emotion was joy or sorrow, fear or relief, it was impossible to guess.

  The laborious interrogatory was resumed. Roger corroborated the account Ronald Stratton had already given of the scene in the ballroom and Mrs. Stratton's exit, and provided his own version of the return of David and the subsequent search. Everything was written down by the careful inspector, and though Roger made his story as brief as possible, it seemed as if the thing never would be finished.

  "Yes, Mr. Sheringham? And after Mr. Williamson made his communication to you?"

  "I called Mr. Stratton, and we ran up on the roof. Mr. Stratton held Mrs. Stratton up," Roger dictated slowly, "while I made a quick examination which convinced me that she was already dead. I then held her up while Mr. Stratton went to fetch a knife, on my instructions. When he returned, I told him to cut the cord, and I would take full responsibility for the fact that she was cut down."