Black Widow

by S. Fowler Wright

  With these thoughts he fell asleep at last, and waked to see, by the pattern of pale October sunshine upon the wall of his room, that it was somewhat after the usual hour at which he was accustomed to rise.

  He dressed in some haste, and descended to find Lady Denton already seated at the breakfast table.

  She greeted him with a serene cordiality, seeming oblivious, as she always would, of the sinister cause which had brought him there; and he had a passing thought of admiration, akin to wonder, at the pose and self-control of her attitude, which he was able to contrast with that of others whom he had met under more or less similar circumstances. Courage—nerve—breeding—mens sana in corpore sano (he was rather fond of Latin proverbs)—came to his mind. He saw qualities that he could recognize and admire. But the vital question—were they signs of a serene innocence, or of such character as would not shrink from an act of crime?—was beyond decision, leaving him in no more than an equal doubt.

  Yet he saw that the foundations of this attitude, whatever else they might be, were not mental obtuseness, nor were they the product of a strong-willed effort to put her husband’s death, with all its attendant circumstances, out of her mind. He remembered that she had introduced it as a subject of conversation before, as she was to do now, when, with a smile of disarming pleasantness, as she passed his coffee, she made the surprising remark: “I’m afraid, Inspector Pinkey, you’re not making yourself very popular in this house.”

  The Inspector, like most men whose hair is of the colour which Gerard Denton disliked, was not easily abashed or discomfited, but he felt a moment’s uncertainty of how to take this remark, or in what tone to reply. He had never been quite sure that he should have accepted Lady Denton’s invitation, and though his decision had been justified by results, for his discoveries of yesterday might not otherwise have been made at all, yet that very success was productive of its own embarrassments, which might increase as the hours passed. And now he had the feelings of one who has been politely told that his manners are not good enough for the table at which he sits.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I suppose I shouldn’t have come. But after what I learned yesterday, which, of course, I couldn’t have foreseen, it was in Mr. Denton’s own interest to ask him to give any explanation he could. I have to thank you for the hospitality you have shown to one whose presence cannot have been entirely pleasant. I shall be going within an hour.”

  Lady Denton listened to this apology with no more expression than a slight amusement in her eyes, but at the last statement she paused in the act of sugaring her coffee, with the tongs in her hand, as she asked: “You are going back to London today?”

  “No,” he said. “I thought it might be best if I moved to the inn.”

  “Because of what I said now? Of course you won’t. I shouldn’t have spoken at all if I’d meant that.”

  The Inspector had no difficulty in following the meaning of this somewhat enigmatical sentence, but he did not feel disposed to alter his decision.

  “It’s very kind of you,” he replied, “but I still think that I’d better go.”

  “But you’re quite wrong as to what I mean. I wasn’t thinking of Gerard at all. Of course, he was rather sulky when he came back, having been kept away from his dinner till nearly nine. He got worse when he found that I hadn’t waited. But it was silly to think I should. You might have kept him all night, for anything I could tell. But there’s nothing fresh about that. He’s been all sulks from the day you came. He won’t see that it’s best to get the thing cleared up properly. And as to last night, I told him he brought it on himself, if ever a man did. When I first heard of that pound, I told him that any lunatic asylum would put him up by himself, so that he shouldn’t make the other patients worse than they were before.”

  “It was an exceptionally silly thing to do.”

  “Yes, that’s what Gerard is. That’s why his father left his money in Daniel’s charge.”

  “And I suppose that naturally led to friction?”

  “Yes. Daniel rubbed it in more than he need. I think he enjoyed seeing Gerard squirm. Did he tell you of the quarrel they had just before—before Sir Daniel was shot?”

  “Yes, he told us about that.”

  “Then he took good advice for about the first time since he came to live with us here.”

  “You mean it was what you had advised him to do?”

  “Yes, it was common sense. You never know where you end if you get tangled up in a lot of silly lies, and keeping back things that are best said. And this matter’s too serious for such muddles.

  “Whatever the truth is, Sir Daniel didn’t shoot himself, or get shot, because he’d quarrelled with Gerard about his money half an hour before, as they did once a fortnight, more or less, so long as I’ve known them together. But if Gerard were silly enough to make a mystery about it, people might think anything. It’d be asking for trouble that he’d be most likely to get.”

  “Yes, you may be right about that. But if my unpopularity extends beyond Mr. Denton, I’m afraid I must have caused offence of which I was unaware. Have I been annoying the cook?”

  “No, it’s not quite that serious. The cook’s sacred in this house!” The lightness of Lady Denton’s tone faltered a moment as the words brought back to her mind the quarrel the woman and Sir Daniel had had just before his death, but she quickly recovered herself as she went on: “It isn’t even Tommy, though I dare say his opinions of you wouldn’t place you among the saints. But I can’t say anything about that. He wasn’t seen here yesterday after you walked him off between you, without even telling Bulger that he wouldn’t finish his job. It’s Tommy’s master who’s got his knife into you.”

  “Because I interrupted the cabbage planting?”

  “So Bulger reports. His language can be forcible when he’s really moved. And no one can enjoy answering back, because he’ll only hear what he wants.”

  “I thought of taking a stroll round the gardens this morning. I’ve got one or two things that I need a quiet time to think out. I’d better take the opportunity of apologizing for the trouble I’ve caused.”

  “Well, it’s at your own risk. You’ve been warned.” She added, in a more serious tone: “But you understand that there is no reason for you to move to the inn, if you’re comfortable here.”

  “Yes, thank you. I’m sorry I misunderstood.”

  He was not sure that he ought to have come to that house, but, being there, he had realized, while he talked, that he ought not to withdraw unless he had more evidence against one or other of its inmates than he had yet been able to obtain. To do so now would have an evident implication to the minds of all who were aware of the errand that brought him there. He could not tell whether Lady Denton had the same thought, or that, if he went to the inn, it might bring him into closer contact with Redwin, which she might not desire; but he saw that she could not have spoken with any considered purpose of causing him to withdraw from the house.

  The thought of Redwin reminded him that he had a half-formed purpose in his mind of asking a sudden question, the reply to which might possibly give him some key to the nature of the secret which he professed to hold; but, from a confusion of disinclinations, he felt that he could not spring a trap of that kind immediately after the conversation that had just closed.

  As he strolled out to the garden and considered the conversation, he was led to observe that Lady Denton’s conduct toward himself had been beyond criticism, under conditions of more than ordinary difficulty. She had treated him with a friendly politeness, but had made no attempt to influence or cajole. She had given him the hospitality of the house, but had taken no advantage of that position, even to probe him with questions such as might be prompted by natural curiosity, even apart from the suspicion which she knew to be pointed against herself. He concluded that, if she were a murderess, she was also a singularly astute woman, and to murder a husband, unless under most exceptional circumstances, is something which an astute wo
man would be most unlikely to do.

  CHAPTER XXI.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Bulger, I had to take Tommy away from his work yesterday afternoon.”

  For once, the ancient gardener appeared to hear without difficulty. “What you has to do, sir, you has; and I don’t say but that’ll take you through at the last day, if so be you can make it good.

  “There’s some maybe as thinks Tommy’s worth harking to when he speaks, and there’s some have known him a bit longer than you who’d give him a clout over the jaw, and tell him to mind his job. Even a fool is accounted wise when he openeth not his mouth.”

  This somewhat surprising quotation, which is never likely to be popular at police headquarters, nor enscrolled over the entrances of judicial courts, must be attributed to the fact that Mr. Bulger combined his gardening activities with the position of local preacher for the Primitive Methodist denomination. In this office, his deafness was of no particular disadvantage, his habit of sometimes singing the wrong hymn (the number of which had been announced by an attendant deacon) only producing acute difficulty when he selected one of longer stanzas than that upon which his congregation had previously concentrated.

  He was actually a preacher of considerable power, with a vein of humorous shrewdness which his hearers appreciated no less because it was an infrequent ingredient in the discourses on which they relied to save their souls from eternal fire. He was accustomed to mature these addresses during the long mental leisures allowed by the drilling of seeds, and the unhurried guidance of an electric mower. Long years of use had reduced most of his occupations to a mechanical though expert routine, leaving his mind free for the abstract verities, in the expounding of which his duty and pleasure met; and he may have been the only human creature in Beacon’s Cross whose life fulfilled its own capacity and was entirely enviable.

  The text of his sermon would be most commonly suggested by some experience or incident of the week, and the one he now quoted had been appropriately selected, even before Tommy’s abduction had enriched the subject under at least four additional headings. There was an amount of inevitable gossip in the village, concerning both Redwin’s departure and Sir Daniel’s death, mostly of a fictitious, and some of a malicious, character, which was naturally resented by those who ate the bread of Bywater Grange, and the purveyors of scandal were to be chastised with vigour from the rostrum of the Primitive Methodist Chapel.

  Inspector Pinkey was less able to appreciate the position than the Superintendent would have been, having less knowledge of local politics; but he observed that Mr. Bulger resented the fact that he had lost Tommy’s help for the afternoon, and, more doubtfully, that he might be hinting that any statement the boy might make would be too unreliable to be worth the trouble it took to get. He answered amiably: “Well, we didn’t get overmuch when he opened his.”

  Mr. Bulger again permitted himself to hear, and condescended to reply: “There’s them as is that innocent they’d sup a puddle, and look to be drinking beer.” He turned his eyes directly upon the Inspector, and there was a look in them almost of rebuke as he asked: “Why don’t you give him a couple of pounds, and tell him what you want him to say?”

  Inspector Pinkey felt confirmed in his conclusion of the night before that he had gone as far as wise, if not a step further than that, in endeavouring to persuade the boy to amend a tale, in the truth of which he had not believed. For, if Gerard Denton had come out of the study window before the shot was fired, why should he have bribed the boy to conceal a circumstance which relieved him from suspicion rather than cast it upon him? Even his own explanation, that it had been occasioned by his reluctance to mention the preceding row, or that it had been the folly of a flustered man, hardly seemed adequate in excuse.

  But while the Inspector had sought only to get the truth from a difficult witness, who had admittedly lied before, he saw that his action might be construed in an opposite way. He had seen the danger already that a position might arise in which the boy would be a most vital witness, and yet in which he would be so disparaged that his evidence would be of little value to either side. He was glad again that he had deferred taking a second statement from him, till he were more assured that it would be a final one also.

  He saw that Tommy must now have given his own version of yesterday’s experience to Mr. Bulger, and the impression which it had made was expressed in that sarcastic query: “Why don’t you give him a couple of pounds, and tell him what you want him to say?”

  He saw also that there was an implication, whether deliberate or not, that Tommy’s witness, having been bought once, could be bought again. He had to ask himself how far that might be true. So far, he had thought less of the question of Tommy’s actual veracity than of how it might be made to appear in a court of law. But if he were fundamentally mendacious, it followed that there was no reliable witness as to who might or might not have come out of the study window before or after the fatal shot.

  And the latter impression was not lessened as Mr. Bulger, appearing oblivious of the manner and deaf to the wording of this rebuke, went on, as though he talked to the raffle of the marrow bed that he was clearing away: “There’s some as does their own work, as the Lord ordered they should. In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread. And there’s others as does naught. They toil not, neither do they spin. And if the Lord sees they’re not burdened with any brains, I won’t say but He’ll pass them through. But there’s them as does naught worth doing themselves, and stops others that might, and what their end is most like to be is a thing we may think, if we don’t say.”

  The Inspector had no difficulty in connecting this ominous reflection with his own responsibility for removing Tommy from the cabbage-planting activities of the previous afternoon, but he was less certain that Mr. Bulger’s moody forecast of his own probable end was solely due to that delay.

  Feeling that nothing would be gained by further attempts at conversation, but that he had some additional subject for reflection, though it might be no more than an added doubt, he left the precincts of the frost-spoiled marrows, and found a more comfortable location where a lawn-side seat was sheltered from the cool autumnal wind, and took the warmth of the mounting sun.

  Sitting here, he considered how far it might alter the problem he had to solve if he should reach the conclusion that Tommy’s evidence, whatever tale he might now tell, was entirely worthless, as Mr. Bulger clearly wished him to think.

  It introduced the possibility that Tommy might have seen someone other than Gerard Denton leave the study window after the shot was fired. In that case, the key to the whole problem lay in the boy’s mind; and, whether he could be persuaded to speak or not, it followed that enquiries should be made on a wider basis than he had yet commenced. He saw—he had, of course, seen from the first—that the baffling limitation of the problem had always depended upon Tommy’s statement that no one had left by the window after the shot was fired, until Gerard Denton came out. Had he not been there, it would have been a major probability that the murderer had escaped in that direction before Lady Denton entered the room.

  But to consider that the boy was now guilty of such concealment introduced almost insuperable difficulties, which might not have been present had the presumption occurred at an earlier stage of the investigation.

  Mr. Bulger was clearly loyal to his employers, on whom he could not fail to see that suspicion concen­trated. If he should suspect the boy of concealing knowledge which would clear them, why should he discourage his examination, and suggest in advance that anything he might say should be disregarded? It was not probable that he was so greatly concerned to protect some outside individual, that he preferred that Gerard or Lady Denton should be accused of the crime.

  And even if that possibility be allowed, it did not explain why Gerard should have bribed the boy—the one certain admitted fact—to the same end. Had he been bribed to say that some mythical murderer had run from the window after the shot had caused him—as it must ha
ve done—to look up toward it, it would have been a more rational procedure, however foolish.

  No. Always putting aside the possibility of suicide, the bribery of the boy, and the present attitude of Bulger pointed the same way, and that was toward the wife and half-brother of the murdered man. One or other or the two in possible collusion?—must be responsible for the crime.

  Coming to this commonsense, but somewhat reluctant, conclusion, he saw that suspicion was directed upon them in an exasperatingly almost equal degree. Previously, the logical deductions had seemed to be that Lady Denton had fired the shot, and, to the mind of Superin­tendent Trackfield, her arrest had been an inevitable consequence, from which only her reputed character and social position had precariously saved her, at least for a sufficient time for him to confirm the unwilling judgment of the local police. Now, the fact that Gerard Denton had bribed the boy had appeared for a moment fundamentally to alter the problem, and brought him under a strong suspicion, from which Lady Denton’s own account of the matter had seemed to relieve him before. If that account were true, it had appeared clear that he could not have been on the scene of the crime; if it were false, its falsehood proclaimed her guilt. But if the boy’s first account could not be believed, and as he had been bribed by Gerard to lie, the possibility that Gerard had left the window after committing the murder became an alternative solution which it was impossible to ignore. And, if that were so, and Bulger suspected it, if he did not know, it might account more plausibly for his willingness to discourage further pressure upon the stubborn reticence of the boy. But, if that were admitted to be the larger probability, how could it be established while the boy persisted in his present tale?

  He saw at last that his conclusion led no further than this: the shadow of suspicion was almost wholly upon Lady Denton and Gerard, and in almost equal degree. Very slightly, it had shifted from her to him. But in the establishment of a legal case against him, he could not see that he had much progress to boast. The suspicion against either remained a measure of protection to the other which he saw no way to remove.