White Priory Murders shm-2

by John Dickson Carr

  "Quite frankly, I don't want to run my own neck into a halter. But Louise. she's so harmless, man! That's all. I don't want to mention it. When I picked her up, she was wearing a sort of long outdoor coat over a nightgown and dressing-gown, and that hunting-crop was stuffed into the pocket."

  "And Kate knew this?" demanded Bennett. He was beginning to remember things. He remembered the girl's own slip of the tongue, instantly denied and retracted, that Marcia Tait had been killed with a hunting-crop. "She knew it?"

  "Yes. I didn't see the coat when I went into the room this morning, but Kate seemed to regard me as a kind of fellow-conspirator. Anyway, I was telling you that my foot struck the hunting-crop under the bed. I didn't dare risk Wynne's attention-so I kicked it farther under the bed. But, while Wynne was there, Louise called out something to the effect that she had tried to shove Marcia downstairs last night:.. Yes, I know it looks bad. Whereupon Wynne never said a word, but went about giving her some kind of emetic. Afterwards, when she seemed to be resting easier, he said he'd got something to tell me. There was rather a strange look about him. He took me out in the hall. When we came out, by the way. " Willard frowned. He snapped his fingers as after an elusive memory. "Somebody's voice was talking a bit loudly on the telephone down on the stair-landing, now that I remember it. It kept saying, `At the pavilion, at the pavilion, I tell you.' I remember because he was making so much noise I intended to go and tell him to shut up. But Wynne said, `It's that so-and-so Rainger. I left him talking to the inspector in the library, and now I suppose he's got loose again. He's crazy drunk."'

  "When was this?" demanded Bennett. "We left him lying on the couch in the library when we went to the dining-room. I'll swear he'd passed out cold."

  "I don't know. Possibly fifteen minutes or so after Wynne had come up to look at Louise. Anyhow, Wynne said he had something important to tell me. They seem to regard me," said Willard, wrinkling his brow and staring out of the window "as the guardian and father-confessor of everybody. The voice on the telephone stopped then. Wynne took me round to where we're standing now. He had just begun to talk, and was in the preparatory stage of saying nothing in an acute medical way (or so it seemed to me) when we heard the shot…

  "My God, man, that was a horrible feeling! I think we both had Louise on our minds. We looked at each other, and then we both ran to Louise's room. She was all right; she was sitting up in bed as though she'd recovered herself: shaking a bit, perhaps, but very quiet and apologetic as she always is. That fever of sorts she'd had seemed to have gone. She said, `What was that noise?' and then, `What am I doing in this room?' Then was when we heard the rest of you running up the stairs.

  "You know the rest."

  Willard sat down in the embrasure of the window. He seemed shaken, as though he had got through a story he was determined to tell; but he assumed unconsciously a stage gesture with one fist on his hip and his head lowered. Bennett heard his breathing.

  "If," he added after a moment, "the police get suspicious of her — steady!"

  He jerked his head round. Katharine Bohun was coming down the passage.

  "I saw them," she said, "take John out in that — that thing they carry dead bodies in. And I heard them talking. They said, at least from what I could hear at the upstairs window, somebody had said definitely he wouldn't die. Is it true?"

  Bennett took her hands, and saw the fear gradually die out of her eyes as he spoke with slow emphasis. She gave a little shudder, as of one who grows accustomed to warmth after coming in out of cold.

  "It's a funny thing," she said meditatively, "but I'm rather glad of one thing about it. Glad he did it, in a way..:'

  "Glad?" said Willard.

  "Because he'll never try it again. Don't you see?" she demanded. "When he wakes up out of that stupor, he'll begin to realize things. He did it for — for her. And he'll suddenly realize that it wasn't worth it. I don't suppose I can explain what I mean, but just that act of," she struck her hands against her breast, wincing at the thought rather than the movement, "just that, do you see, will have done away with it for good."

  Willard stared through the window at the austerity of the snow. He spoke absently, in a low voice that slowly gathered resonance: `-or cleanse the stuffed bosom of the perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.. " For a moment it rose with terrible power.

  His hand dropped flatly to the window-seat. He turned, smiling.

  "The cure is drastic, Kate. What about Louise? Is she better?"

  "She is going downstairs presently. That is what I want to ask you both about." A pause. "I suppose I'd better tell her what the police think?"

  "Yes, in any case. Has she told you anything?" "No!"

  "But don't you think it's possible-"

  She looked at Bennett. "Let's go downstairs again, and speak to Mr. Masters. I–I'd like you to be there. You were there when Thompson told about a woman leaving this house last night; and Mrs. Thompson is probably swearing to it now. I was a fool for not thinking of it before. I can prove it wasn't Louise. Will you come along?"

  She bad turned without waiting for a reply. He felt a shock of fear that kept him there staring until she was out of sight; but he caught up with her at the head of the stairs. There was still a rank scent of powder-smoke in the dim gallery. It lent an even uglier suggestion to the oak and the frayed red carpet. He took hold of the newel-post and barred her way down. Then he asked quietly:

  "It wasn't you, was it?"

  He felt his own arm shaking with a pulse just behind the elbow. He had been staring at the bruises on her throat, only partly concealed by the scarf. She almost cried out the answer.

  "Oh, suppose it had been? What difference would it make?" "None at all, except that we've got to do some high-class lying.."

  "Lie to the police?"

  "If necessary, lie to Je-" He checked himself from talking louder, checked the violence that made him want to shout. She tried to pass him, pulling at his arm on the newel-post. As he bent over to tighten his hold, he felt the soft cheek brush his face: a thing from which they both moved back as though they had been stung. And, as he saw the slight opening of the small full lips, he felt his heart pounding more heavily when he went on: "What the hell difference does it make what you did? All I'm trying to tell you, sensibly, is that we've got to invent a good story and stick to it."

  "I don't mean that I killed her. But I might have!" She shuddered. "I envied her enough to wish somebody would kill her. And that's a nice thing to say, isn't it? That's almost as bad as though I'd done what I thought about. Let me go clown. It makes no difference what-"

  "There's something I've got to tell you first. Downstairs Masters has got a man with him, an uncle of mine, who's got an unholy reputation of being able to see through a brick wall. Masters got him here through me. He used my name, and said it was because I was interested in you…"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "'Interested.' Is that the word they use over here? All right; take it as the word. Say I'm `interested' in you. Say anything you like. Just how `interested' I can't tell you now; because there's murder here, and the whole house is poisoned, and down there's the room where somebody you'd known all your life tried to kill himself in your own home not an hour ago. I can smell that smoke from the gun too, and neither of us would dare talk about Interests here. But the house won't stay poisoned, and then maybe by God you'll know why I think you're the loveliest thing I ever saw in the world! — so if somehow you've got yourself into any false position, and whatever it is you did that never mattered and never would matter, don't do any such fool thing as admitting it."

  "I know," she said, after a long silence. "All I'm glad of is that you said what you did," her eyes brimmed over, "you — you —!”

  "Exactly," he said. "Steady, now. Let's go downstairs."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  H. M. Argues the Case

  A clock in the passage was striking eleven-thirty when they reached the library.

&nb
sp; "— full reports," Inspector Potter was intoning. "Statement of police surgeon, post-mortem order for you to sign. Here's plaster-of-Paris casts of two sets of footprints, Mr. Bohun's and Mr. Bennett's: only tracks before we got there. Plan showing exact line of footprints, measured to scale. I thought that was wise; it's beginning to snow again. Here's the fingerprint reports. Photographs will be developed and sent back this afternoon. The body's still there, but it's been moved up on the bed."

  Potter was laying out articles in an orderly line on the table under the yellow-shaded lamps. It had grown darker outside, and dead tendrils of vine whipped the windows as the wind rose. There was a growling in the chimney, a draught in which one high sheet of flame cracked like thorns and flicked out spurts of fiery embers. Masters, his heavy face showing more wrinkles under the lamp, sat at the table with an open notebook. Maurice Bohun, looking interested and pleased with his bright unwinking eyes fixed on a corner of the fireplace, also sat at the table. Over at one side, in silhouette against the firelight like two Dutch dolls, stood Thompson and a gray-haired sturdy woman in black. Bennett could not see H. M. But there was a big mass of shadow in the far corner of the fireplace, where he thought he could make out a gleam on enormous glasses and a pair of white socks.

  "Thanks, Potter," said Masters. "Here's your notebook back. I've been reading Sir Henry all, the testimony we've accumulated to date. And now… any instructions, sir?'

  "Uh?"

  Masters moved a little to one side, so that some faint light penetrated towards the corner of the fireplace. Now Bennett could see H. M. start a little and open his eyes. The corners of his broad mouth were turned down, as though he were smelling a bad breakfast-egg, and he was ruffling the two tufts of hair on either side of his big bald head.

  "Any instructions, sir?"

  "I wasn't asleep, damn you," said H. M. He put a dead pipe into his mouth and puffed at it. He added querulously: "I was concentratin'. Now don't rush me! Don't rush me, will you? You fire a lot of undigested stuff at me and expect me to make sense of it straight off. Also, I see I got to go out to that pavilion before it snows again; and that's more work. I don't like this a little bit, Masters. It's ugly — devilish ugly. What were you askin'? Oh. Reports. No, save 'em for a minute until I get something straight. Stand over a little bit, son," he gestured to Potter, "and lemme talk to Mr. and Mrs. Thompson."

  There was something in H. M.'s presence, despite his efforts to glare, which seemed to put the Thompsons at their ease.

  "Howdy, folks," said H." M., lifting his pipe. "I've heard what you told the chief inspector, and I'm goin' to use both of you as a check on the others in this place. If any of 'em lied, you tell the old man. Now then." He squinted at Thompson. "Were you on this little party that went explorin' the house by candlelight last night?"

  "No, sir. My wife and I were preparing the pavilion for Miss Tait. Bedclothing, seeing the chimneys were clear and the fires lit, water-taps working; all that sort of thing. My wife had charge of Miss Tait's clothes — "

  "Such lovely clothes!" said Mrs. Thompson, holding up her hands and looking at the ceiling. "She wouldn't 'ave one of the 'ousemaids do it. Only me."

  "Uh-huh. What time d'you leave the pavilion?"

  "At just a little past twelve, sir, when Mr. Maurice and the two other gentlemen brought Miss Tait out there."

  "Sure you didn't leave any matches there, hey?"

  Bennett, from where he stood unnoticed with Katharine in the shadows by the doorway, could only see Thompson's back. But he thought that there was nervousness for the first time in the man's manner. Thompson glanced at Maurice, who sat impassive and pleasant-faced, a complete host.

  "I'm sorry, sir. It was an oversight."

  "And after you came back to the house, what did you do?"

  "That," said Mrs. Thompson, with an air of excited remembrance, "was when I went to bed, Mr. T."

  "That, sir, as my wife says, was when she went to bed. I polished some silver, according to Mr. Maurice's orders, and waited for the others to return from the pavilion. They returned about a quarter past twelve, so I locked up the house then."

  "And they didn't go out afterwards?"

  "Well, sir, Mr. Willard went out after Mr. Maurice and the other-person had gone to the library. But Mr. Willard stayed only about ten or fifteen minutes. He asked me if I would be up and would let him in; he said he would go out the back door of the house, which is near my pantry, and tap on the window when he returned. That's what he did, sir."

  H. M. looked down his nose, as though he were-bothered by an invisible fly. He growled to himself.

  "Uh-huh. It's a funny thing about that, a question nobody seems to have bothered to ask. And, bum me, it's important! Look here. Between midnight and half-past, all kinds of people were wanderin' up and down, down and back, all over the place from the house to the pavilion — and that dog Tempest never barked. But one person left the house at half-past one, and the dog kicked up such a row that they hadda put him inside. Now how did that happen, hey?"

  Masters swore softly. He looked at his notebook, at H. M., and back to his notebook again.

  "Why, sir," said Thompson, "that's easily explained. I know, because I spoke to Locker on the telephone to the stable. Sorry, sir; I almost forgot to tell you. Miss Tait had asked me to see that two horses were ready in the morning for her and Mr. John. It slipped my own mind until Mr. Willard came back from the pavilion; and that made me wonder (excuse me) why Tempest hadn't barked. So I thought Tempest must be inside with Locker — Locker likes him, and often keeps him in the house until late. And that made me remember I hadn't phoned Locker about the horses. So I did, about twenty minutes past twelve, and he told me he was just taking Tempest out to the kennel. "

  He was an old man, and he seemed bewildered now; but always his eye moved furtively towards Maurice. He had half turned about now, the better to look at his employer.

  "I fear you forget many things," said Maurice, still vaguely pleasant. Then Maurice literally showed his teeth. But he looked at H. M., because in his elephantine way H. M. seemed almost excited.

  "Now take it easy, son," H. M. urged blandly. "Take all the time you want about it, but be certain. Are you tellin' me that the dog wasn't loose all last evening, up until maybe half-past twelve?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, strike me pink!" muttered H. M. He put the pipe back in his mouth and drew at it almost admiringly. "Ho ho. That's the best news I've heard in this nightmare yet. I had a sort of hazy idea workin' about in the back of my mind; nothing serious, d'ye see, or any symptom of acute thought; but I thought I might as well have-somebody quash it straight off. And they didn't. And I am cheerin'."

  Masters hammered his fist on the table.

  "I admit we overlooked it, sir!" he said. "But what's the importance of it? I don't see it's necessarily important just because we overlooked it. The important thing is that the dog was locked up after one-thirty."

  "Uh-huh. We're goin' on to examine the possibilities of that. Well, let's take it rapidly, Comrade Thompson. Now you went to bed — when?"

  "After I had finished polishing the silver, sir. About one o'clock. Mr. Maurice gave me permission. I left the sandwiches for Mr. John, as I told the inspector; and I did not come downstairs again until one-thirty when Tempest barked and Mr. Maurice rang." He swallowed suddenly, as though he had made a slip of speech, and peered again at his employer.

  "More of Thompson's associations-of-ideas, I fancy," Maurice observed. "And this is when your good lady saw the mysterious figure leaving the house? Either my niece Katharine or the Honorable Louise Carewe?"

  Thompson swiftly touched his wife's arm. But she refused to be checked. She fluttered like a black chicken, and verbal gravel flew.

  She cried: "Sir, and you too, sir, and you, I cannot, as I keep telling you, be pinned down and hanged by that statement! Sir, I do not know if it was a lady. That was a Impression, sir, and I will not be 'anged and pinned down by a Impres
sion. Which as for saying it were Miss Kate, I would die sooner, and that is all I 'ave to say."

  "Quite right, ma'am, quite right, rumbled H. M., with a voice and stolid bearing which somehow suggested the elder Weller. He sniffed. "Um, yes. You told us all that, didn't you? Well, I think that's all. You can go."

  When they had gone out, treading softly, H. M. sat for som time ruffling his hands across his head.

  "Now, sir-r, prompted Masters.

  "You," said H. M., peering over towards Maurice and extending one finger with a malevolent expression. "Suppose you do some talkin' now, hey?"

  "I am entirely at your service, Sir Henry. And I feel sure you will have no reason to complain of my frankness."

  H. M. blinked. "Uh-huh. I was afraid of that. Son, frankness is a virtue only when you're talkin' about yourself, and then it's a nuisance. Besides, it's an impossibility. There's only one kind of person who's ever really willing to tell the truth about himself, and that's the kind they certify and shove in the bug-house. And when a person says he intends to be frank about other people, all it means is that he's goin' to give 'em a kick in the eye… Lemme see now. After you and Willard and Rainger came back from the pavilion last night, you and Rainger sat here in the library. How long did you stay here?"

  "Until just after I summoned Thompson and told him to have them lock up the dog."

  "I see. Half-past one. Why did you break up then?"

  Maurice was watching him warily, like a duellist, but H. M. seemed uninterested. Maurice went on: "It was Mr. Rainger's wish. I thought it was my brother John returning then, and said so. I confess I was curious to see the effect of a meeting between Mr. Rainger and John, who did not know (I think you were told that?) of Mr. Rainger's presence. They had been having trouble, shall I say?"