This was no crime, but a sheer waste of time.
Gerald Park was perfectly frank about the part he had played in the tragedy of his uncle’s death.
He had come out from Stripe to old Stanley Park to borrow money. He hadn’t had much hope of getting it, he admitted, because there was bad blood between him and his uncle – who had kicked him out of this very house for stealing, less than a month ago. He was so desperately hard up, however, he had had to make the try.
He had come out by train to Friars’ Vale Halt and had taken a taxi from there. He had timed himself to arrive about 10.30, because that was the time his uncle always read his papers in this sitting-room. He let himself in with the door-key he had kept when his uncle had turned him out. He did that because he knew that if he rang, Mrs Ferris, his uncle’s housekeeper and only servant, would not let him in. It would have been more than her place was worth, seeing how his uncle had come to hate him.
Anyhow, his idea was to slip in quietly, getting into his uncle’s presence before anything could intervene. But “springing” himself on the old man like that had proved to be a horrible mistake. His uncle saw him even before he could get into the room, and rose from his arm-chair by the fire with such a snarl of rage that Gerald stopped dead in the very doorway.
The old man made furious gestures at him to get out. Gerald spoke, attempting to placate him, but that only made matters worse. At the sound of his nephew’s voice, old Stanley Park took a step forward as though he meant to throw the weedy young man out with his own hands – and then, quite suddenly, he crumpled up and fell to the floor.
Gerald, terrified, sure that the old man had had a stroke at the sight of him, called over his shoulder to Grass, the taxi-man – for the thing had happened so swiftly that he had never even moved inside the sitting-room door. Grass ran in and together they went to the old man. Or, rather, Gerald left that to Grass, who was more competent, while he himself ran back into the hall and called out to Mrs Ferris in the kitchen, before hurrying across the hall into the dining-room to get brandy from the cellarette.
Mrs Ferris was coming up the hall as he came out with the brandy, and they went into the sitting-room together. By then Grass was sure that there was very little hope for old Stanley, though on Gerald’s instructions he drove at once for a doctor, there being no telephone in the house. Mrs Ferris had, meanwhile, taken charge of the old man, Gerald standing by doing anything she ordered. But it was plain there was nothing to be done, and indeed old Stanley was dead before the doctor arrived, about ten minutes later.
Gerald Park, a weedy, rather slick fellow in the early twenties, was clad in smart clothes now gone to seed, rather shamefacedly “supposed” that the sight of him had given his uncle the shock that killed him. He admitted his uncle had good cause for anger against him – he’d behaved like a heartless young fool. Although his uncle had taken him into his home when his father died a few years ago, and had been as kind as his strict nature allowed, he, Gerald, had played fast and loose, got himself into bad company and ways and ended-well, by robbing his uncle on the sly.
He hadn’t any excuse. Of course, he’d hoped to pay the money back sometime, and he probably would have if someone hadn’t sneaked to his uncle and so caused the final explosion. After that he hadn’t a chance. His uncle was terribly down on that sort of thing. He’d been absolutely beside himself with fury and had turned Gerald out of his house then and there. That was his way. Drove his own nephew right out of his life from that moment, warning him never on any account to show his face in Friars’ Vale again.
Perhaps he oughtn’t to have risked coming back, seeing how bitterly the old man felt, but, as he’d said, he was absolutely on the rocks and had to get money somehow – and then, how was he to know that the sight of him would have such a fatal effect?
A straightforward story. Grass, the taxi-driver, not only confirmed it, but strengthened it by several items Gerald Park had left unsaid.
For instance, he had kept his taxi waiting beside the door because Gerald had given him the wink . . . Well, wink was a manner of speaking. Gerald had asked him to wait in a sheepish sort of way, and Grass, knowing how things were between old Stanley and that young blackg— this nephew of his, as all the village did, anticipated a quick return fare with Gerald being booted out.
While Grass waited he watched Gerald. That was easy. Gerald left the front door wide open – for a quick run out, of course, should his uncle turn nasty. As the sitting-room door was just to the left of the hall, Grass naturally saw Gerald open that. Saw him all the time, in fact, for he never really went over the threshold of the sitting-room-never had the chance from the look of it.
Yes, Gerald stopped dead in the doorway. He seemed scared to go in. Grass heard him call out loud something like, “But, Uncle, give me a chance . . .” After that there was a crash inside the room, and Gerald turned a frightened face over his shoulder, yelling that his uncle had had a fit or something.
Gerald was so paralysed with surprise that Grass had to push him out of the sitting-room doorway to get at the old man. He found Stanley Park in a heap beside his arm-chair-yes, right across the room, by the fire – and, from the look of him, there wasn’t much chance. Oh, he was still alive, but it was plain his heart had burst or something, at the sight of Gerald, and it was all u.p.
No, Gerald hadn’t gone near him. He stood hovering away off by the door like a frightened puppy, until, suddenly, he thought of the brandy and Mrs Ferris. Grass had heard him yelling for Mrs Ferris. She came in ahead of Gerald, who handed her the brandy and glass; he was still that scared and helpless. In fact, the only thing the feller did try to do was to take off his coat and hand it to him to put under his uncle’s head. Even then Mrs Ferris had stopped him and made him fetch a cushion instead.
Mrs Ferris, a rabbit-mouthed, but plump and motherly sort of woman, bore all this out. She had been at the scullery sink washing the breakfast things when she heard Master Gerald call. She had come at once, after drying her hands. Master Gerald was coming from the dining-room with the brandy and glass in his hands as she reached the sitting-room door. He shouted that his uncle had been taken ill, and she ran into the sitting-room. She didn’t like the look of the old gentleman at all, and sent Grass for the doctor.
No, it was she who gave that order; maybe Master Gerald repeated it to Grass, but the poor boy was so terribly upset he did not know what he was doing. Yes, he stood about helpless the other side of the room, so flummoxed at what had happened that he seemed terrified of coming near his uncle. Yes, he did take off his coat for his uncle’s head, which only showed how struck all-of-a-heap the poor boy was, seeing he could have reached for any of three cushions from the settee.
Mrs Ferris’s manner made it plain that she had a warm corner in her heart for Gerald. She agreed that he’d been wild and reckless, and that his uncle had been terribly set against him because of his theft. But she held he’d been led away by his kind heart. Also, though she didn’t want to cast no aspersions, there was those who had worked against him, too. Yes, Miss Barbara Tabard, if they must have it. All she would say was that if Miss Barbara had only let well alone, poor old Mr Stanley would be alive and happy now.
Miss Barbara Tabard was the reason why we were in the case. She was the daughter of Stanley Park’s sister, and she and Gerald were the only living relatives of the dead man. She lived in Stripe, where she taught in an elementary school, for she was an independent, pretty, and vehement girl in the middle twenties.
For these reasons she had an enmity for Gerald, whom she considered a slimy, unscrupulous little sponger who had wormed his way into their uncle’s good graces solely to feather his own nest. She had already told us quite frankly that it was she who had discovered his thefts and so caused the break between him and his uncle.
Barbara had made the twenty minutes’ journey from Stripe immediately on receiving the wire about her uncle’s death. Finding Gerald on the scene, she had become suspicious at onc
e. Also she found Stanley Park’s doctor puzzled. He could not understand how the old man had come to die from heart failure-as it seemed. Only a few months before, he had given Stanley Park a thorough overhaul, and his heart had then been as sound as a bell. Of course, a shock might have made a difference, but he was perplexed.
Barbara had seized on that (“She would,” Grimes had snarled). She at once became sure there had been foul play. She declared that Gerald would stop at nothing when it was a question of money. And there was a question of money. Stanley Park had been a rich man. He had meant the bulk of his fortune to go to Gerald, as his natural heir, with a smaller sum for her, Barbara. But after Gerald’s exposure and disgrace he had decided to make a fresh will, cutting Gerald out entirely and leaving everything to her.
Gerald, Barbara insisted, must have learnt that he was altering his will and so taken a desperate step to prevent his own disinheritance. The doctor and even the local sergeant thought her suspicions too wild in the face of the evidence, but the impetuous girl promptly tackled the indulgent Mrs Ferris and forced from her an admission that, not only had she been in correspondence with Gerald, but that she had told him that his uncle had actually made an appointment with his lawyer for the next week in order do put the alteration of his will finally in hand.
On learning that, Miss Barbara went off the deep end, as the local sergeant put it, telling him that if he did not move she herself would go to headquarters at Stripe and force the police to take action. As she was plainly the sort to keep her word-with interest – the harassed sergeant decided that the best way out would be to let Stripe hold the baby, so to speak; so he had ‘phoned headquarters. That was why Inspector Grimes and Paul Toft had picked me up at my consulting-room on the way to Friars’ Vale. As Medical Officer I might find something that Stanley Park’s doctor had missed. But they hadn’t much hope. As Grimes said when we’d finished with the witnesses.
“Sheer waste of time an’ tissue. On the face of it, this Gerald Park never had a chance o’ doing anything to his uncle, even if he wanted to. There never was a case in it . . .”
“I don’t know . . . I feel . . .” Paul Toft muttered, and at that ominous “Kill,” we swung on him – and gaped. He had not uncoiled his lank limbs, but his left hand was churning away at a soft piece of india-rubber, that unmistakable sign that his queer mind had sensed crime.
“But – but you can’t feel,” Grimes protested. “Everything’s against foul play. There’s no hint of wound or bruise on the body, for instance, an’ there couldn’t be. Gerald never went within fifteen feet of his uncle. An’ that taxi-driver, who was watching him all the time, saw nothing suspicious.”
“Yes, that taxi-odd,” Paul Toft’s great domed forehead frowned. “Less than ten minutes’ walk from the station – yet this youngster, though he’s financially on the rocks, took a taxi . . . Queer extravagance, eh?”
“No! Just the sort o’ fool thing his sort does,” Grimes was curtly brushing the suggestion away, when I found myself blurting with that strange impulse that is so often helpful to Toft’s curious gift:
“That driver made a very useful witness, though. Only one who could, with those trees screening the carriage-way. That might be a reason for taking a taxi . . . And doesn’t he seem to have made the most of it? I mean leaving the front door open and so forth.”
“That’s been explained,” Grimes began, but Toft flashed at me the smile that always tells I have given him a lead, and nodded.
“Ah, Doctor, you always touch the point . . . You’re right. There’s a certain overemphasis . . . His strange keeping away from his uncle, for instance . . . He let the taxi-driver and Mrs Ferris do everything while he stood afar off. Seems a bit over-done-pointed . . .”
“Yes,” I agreed, “as though he was definitely trying to create the impression that he could not possibly have had anything to do with his uncle’s death.”
“What – you mean you think he had?” Grimes cried.
“I feel – yes, I feel that murder was done here,” Paul Toft said with his most dreamy conviction.
We stared at him. When Paul Toft talked like that we no longer scoffed, he’d proved those extraordinary “feelings” of his too often. But even I could not feel quite convinced. If ever there was a case when the whole mass of the evidence made murder seem quite impossible, this was it. In fact, Grimes all but bellowed:
“How in the name o’ Job did he do it then? Look, the old man was in this chair, by the fireplace. Gerald stood in the door there, fifteen feet away. He was under observation all the time. He simply couldn’t ha’ done a thing, or raised a hand without the taxi-man knowing all about it. How then? Did he mesmerise the old chap to death-or what?”
Even Toft had no answer to that. On the face of it, it was quite impossible for Gerald Park to have struck his uncle down. Unless, as I said: “He shot him from the doorway.”
Directly I spoke I knew I’d said a foolish thing. Though Toft looked at me sharply, Grimes let go a savage bark. “Funny how we’ve all overlooked the loud report of a pistol. A darn loud report, get me, seeing it was fired inside the house. I wonder why the taxi-driver forgot to mention hearing a little thing like that . . . aye, an’ seeing Gerald using his pistol.”
I wanted to kick myself for blurting without thinking. Not only would it have been impossible for the taxi-man to miss such pistol play, Mrs Ferris must have heard the report too. Crestfallen, then, I was surprised when Toft unlimbered his reedy limbs, and, ignoring Grimes’ “What the devil – ?” crossed to the door to call the taxi-man into the room again.
But even the suggestion of hope that brought proved vain. The taxi-man was as contemptuous of the pistol idea as Grimes.
“A pistol? Not a chance,” he said emphatically. “I tell you I had my eyes on Gerald all the time . . . Expecting fireworks when his uncle saw him, you see. He couldn’t ha’ used a pistol without my seeing-let alone me hearing.”
“That’s sure-you heard nothing?” Grimes insisted.
“Not a thing-an’ I know what pistols sound like, too.”
“He might have been using one with a silencer,” I put in. “You say he called out loudly to his uncle . . .”
“He did, sir. But that made no manner o’ difference. I mean, I’m ready to swear there wasn’t even the ghost of another noise.”
“Your engine was still running though,” Toft put in.
“Maybe,” the man shrugged. “But that wouldn’t make any difference. We get so used to it we hear other sounds agin it – and I’d have heard even a silencer. . . . An’ then, as I say, I was watching him close. He didn’t make the motions like shooting. Just stood still an’ stiff all the time.”
“How can you be so sure?” I objected. “Can you remember exactly how he stood?”
“Well, I can then,” the man snapped. “He stood practically half out o’ that sitting-room door all the time. His hand was holding it open by the knob all the time . . . the nearest hand that’d be, the left. His right hand was in his pocket. His arm never lifted or moved or anything-no, not even up to when I shoved him aside to go in to his uncle.”
“But that means his right hand was hidden from you by his body,” I fill muttered. “I’ve heard of people shooting from their pockets . . .”
Grimes cut in: “You say Gerald took off his coat to put under his uncle’s head – were you able to see if there was a pistol in its pocket, or anywhere on him?”
“There wasn’t, sir,” the taxi-man declared. “I’m certain of that. I’ll tell you why: I noticed how ragged the lining of that coat was, thinking what a come-down it was for a chap like him. It was so ragged that I couldn’t ha’ missed seeing a pistol poking out or bulging. Another thing. It was me he handed the coat to before Mrs Ferris told him to get a cushion-an’ from the weight o’ that coat, there couldn’t have been a pistol in it.”
That seemed conclusive enough, yet Paul Toft muttered: “Odd bit of by-play, that coat business . . . as though it
were part of a thought-up alibi . . .”
We did not pay much attention to him. The pistol theory was destroyed, especially as the taxi-man went on:
“An’ it’s all stuff, anyhow. As if I didn’t know what bullets do to people . . . I saw plenty enough in the War. An’ there was no sign o’ wound on poor old Mr Stanley.”
That clinched the matter, as it were, but it also reminded me that it was about time I took a look at the dead man. The body had been taken into the sitting-room behind the one we were in, and as I examined it the thought of foul play receded farther and farther from my mind. There was simply no sign of wound or violence. I pointed this out to Paul Toft, who stood brooding over me as I worked.
“Eh? Nothing there, Doctor?” he muttered, coming out of his medium’s trance . . . “Nothing that would show, no . . . I feel that’s it . . . Something that was sure not to show . . . How?” He examined the body. “Hair, maybe . . . Hair still thick and black . . .”
“It couldn’t hide a bullet wound,” I said.
“No . . . no, not a bullet wound, but . . . How would he have stood as Gerald came into the door? Left front to Gerald, eh . . . ? Shave the head on the left side, please, Doctor . . .”
I did this, not with much hope, but rather because I was always peculiarly under the spell of this strange, lank man’s strange powers. The more of the surface of the skull I uncovered the more pessimistic I became-until Toft’s bony finger prodded forward and he muttered:
“What do you make of that, Doctor?”
It was a tiny puncture in the skin well above the left ear, a little red speck so small that it might have been anything from a flea-bite to the prick of a needle-point. I said as much.
The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes & Impossible Mysteries Page 17
