Seven Dead

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  Figures moved outside the window. One came and stayed. The back of a constable made a sinister blot on the view. Footsteps sounded in the hall, and low voices. The incredible tragedy of seven dead people was being revealed to new eyes. Neither the footsteps nor the voices interfered with the brooding silence of the place. They seemed in a queer way to accentuate it, to develop it into a conscious thing… Hazeldean turned suddenly, as the doctor entered the room.

  “Well, have you got your headline?” inquired Doctor Saunders rather acidly.

  “I’m always open to suggestions,” replied Hazeldean. “Have you one?”

  “How about ‘Mass Suicide’? That ought to draw the pennies.”

  “Yes, but the coroner’s jury might not agree. I think I’ll wait for the inquest.”

  They heard Kendall’s voice in the hall. He was telephoning to the local station. A couple of minutes later he joined them, followed by Sergeant Wade and a portly inspector from Millingham.

  “Inspector Black,” Kendall introduced the latter, and then turned to the Millingham officer. “This is the Mr. Hazeldean I’ve mentioned.”

  Black stared at Hazeldean without much favour and then gazed round the room.

  “Looks like a bit of a rough-house,” he commented, when his eyes rested on the overturned chair.

  “That’s what I thought when I first came in here,” answered Kendall, “but that chair was knocked over by our burglar.”

  “How do you know that?” exclaimed Hazeldean.

  “Just learned it from the station,” replied Kendall. “The fellow’s begun to talk. It’s that picture we’re more interested in, Black. See it? I want you to tell me why seven people about to commit suicide in a stranger’s house should begin by shooting a painting?”

  On the point of answering, Black turned again to Hazeldean, and Kendall quickly interpreted his confrere’s dubious expression.

  “You needn’t worry about him,” said Kendall.

  “Aren’t you taking me very much for granted?” asked Hazeldean.

  “Tell me if I’m wrong?” suggested Kendall.

  “If you were wrong, I obviously wouldn’t tell you.”

  “If I were wrong, you wouldn’t indicate any flaw in my logic.”

  “Suppose I were subtle?”

  “Suppose I am? Carry on, Black. This man may turn out a thundering nuisance before we’re through, but meanwhile he may be useful to us, and we can take it he hasn’t killed seven people. Besides,” he added dryly, “haven’t these seven people committed suicide?”

  “You don’t think so,” retorted Black.

  “But you do?”

  “How do you get away from that written message?”

  “Ever heard of a red herring?”

  “Well—yes—there’s always that possibility,” admitted Black slowly. “Yes, certainly. Only somehow it doesn’t seem quite logical—”

  “Whereas it is perfectly logical,” interrupted Kendall, “for seven people—emaciated, filthily clothed, ill assorted, and with nothing on any of them to identify any one of them—to walk through country lanes unseen—”

  “How do you know they walked?”

  “I’m guessing they didn’t arrive in the Lord Mayor’s coach.”

  “And how do you know they’ve not been seen?”

  “We can check up on that, anyway. But, whether they were seen or not, and whether they arrived on roller-skates or stilts, they end their journey at a conveniently unoccupied house—”

  “May I interrupt?” asked Hazeldean.

  “I want you to interrupt,” replied Kendall. “I’m making statements to annoy you into offering better ones.”

  “Well—since I’ve got to justify your hope that I may be useful—I think I’ve hit upon two flaws in your reasoning already.”

  “Number one?”

  “If seven people set out to commit suicide, they wouldn’t march with drums, flags and banners.”

  “You mean, they would try not to attract attention. Objection allowed. If they set out to commit suicide. Number two?”

  “You used the phrase ‘conveniently unoccupied house.’ Plenty of houses are unoccupied.”

  “Probably a house-agent would corroborate you. Nevertheless, Mr. Hazeldean, this time it’s objection overruled. You set out, as one of a party of seven, and march through a district of which you have no previous knowledge, and see whether you can find an unoccupied house so convenient that you can enter it—have you wondered, by the way, how they entered it?—and make use of it for wholesale self-destruction. Of course, your party may be lucky, but the odds are that you’ll be wandering about all day and all night.”

  “All right, but why shouldn’t they have had a previous knowledge of the district?” inquired Black, “and of the house itself, for that matter? There’s nothing in their message to preclude it.”

  “I agree. That’s one point I’m getting at,” answered Kendall, “because to me it makes the whole suicide theory less feasible. Seven people calling on a person they know, to die in his house while he’s out, eh? A queer sort of a joke! And, if there were any point in the joke, it should be self-evident without a message. Listen. I’m not putting the suicide theory out of court. There’s some mighty queer story behind all this, and maybe, when we’ve unearthed it—as we’re going to—suicide will fit the climax. But I’m not going to accept that theory until it’s explained to me how they got into the house, why they nailed up the shutters, why they stuffed two weeks’ papers up the chimney, how they destroyed themselves—that’s your job, doctor, and it’s going to mean Westminster Abbey or professional extinction for you!—who used the revolver, why he or she shot a picture in another room, where the Fenners are, why they left in a hurry, and how the devil—here’s another little tit-bit I’ve just had from the station, Mr. Hazeldean—how the devil these seven people, before settling down to their final job, locked themselves in the drawing-room with the key on the outside.”

  Chapter V

  Miss Fenner’s Time-Table

  About an hour and a half later Detective-Inspector Kendall walked slowly through the little wood at the back of Haven House—it was not the first time he had done so—crossed a small open space to the edge of a muddy cliff, paused for an instant to gaze at a trim auxiliary yacht in the creek mouth below, and then descended to it by a slippery, tortuous path. Tom Hazeldean saw him coming, and had rowed the dinghy to the rotting landing-stage by the time he arrived.

  “Can I come on board?” asked Kendall.

  “’Course,” replied Hazeldean. “I’ve been expecting you. Do you like Bristol Cream?”

  The inspector smiled. About to step into the dinghy, he stopped for a few moments to scrutinise a mooring-post.

  “Have you used this?” he inquired.

  “No,” answered Hazeldean. “My man rowed me over this morning and then took the dinghy back.”

  “And came for you in the dinghy when you returned?”

  “That’s right. Same as I’ve done for you.”

  “I shouldn’t say this landing-stage is used by many people, from the look of it,” commented the inspector.

  “One would hardly select it, if there was any choice,” agreed Hazeldean.

  “And there isn’t any choice. Well, let’s make for that sherry.”

  In three minutes they were on board the Spray. Their arrival was watched by the crew—an old man and a small boy—in respectful silence. The bottle of Bristol Cream was already on the long, narrow table of the saloon cabin when Kendall entered it.

  “A good wine to fit a good boat,” commented the inspector.

  “The boat’s even better than the wine,” responded Hazeldean. “One day, when you want a holiday, I’ll take you round the world in her.”

  “What can she do?”

  “In the wind, all
that’s going. Under power, twenty. But I warn you not to get me on this subject, if you want to talk business. Help yourself, will you? And then give me the latest low-down.”

  “I’d like your low-down first,” suggested Kendall, as he filled his glass. “What have you been doing with yourself since I let you off the lead?”

  Hazeldean grinned.

  “I’ve been a fairly good boy,” he said. “Better anyway than Bultin would have been in my place, though I make no promise to keep it up. After you removed my dog-collar with a warning, I returned to the village, called at the post office for letters—there weren’t any—inquired whether the Fenners of Haven House had left any forwarding address—”

  “Oh, you did that?”

  “It seemed a bright idea.”

  “But it drew a blank.”

  “I see you also had the bright idea! Then I telephoned my favourite editor, who is going to publish what I told him in the afternoon editions.”

  “And what did you tell him?” asked Kendall.

  “This,” replied Hazeldean. “Any complaints?”

  He handed his guest a copy of the conversation. Kendall read it rapidly, then said:

  “Thank you. That satisfies me. Did it satisfy your editor?”

  “If he could have kissed me over the telephone, he’d have done so.”

  “I suppose you’ll be handling the story for him?”

  “He asked me to, but my terms were too high.”

  “May I know what they were?”

  “A hundred pounds a word. As that was too stiff, I told him to send one of his own men along to carry on. He’s doing it.”

  “What was your idea?”

  “I thought you were good at guessing.”

  “You wanted a free hand?”

  “That’s it. If I get a scoop for publication, he shall have it before any one else; but I’m not going to be tied.”

  Kendall regarded his glass thoughtfully, then asked, “Aren’t all journalists tied?”

  “If they’re inside men, certainly. Then they do what their editor tells them. But I’m an outside man.”

  “I see. Yes, of course. Have you any special reason for wanting a free hand in this particular case?”

  “Inspector, I’ve told you a lot,” responded Hazeldean, smiling, “and now I think it’s your turn.”

  Kendall nodded.

  “Right! I’ve been busy, too,” he said. “You deserved your glimpse of the inside of Haven House, because you brought us the bad news and you haven’t taken advantage of the situation; but you couldn’t get in there now even with the incentive of a hundred pounds a word—”

  “Couldn’t I?” murmured Hazeldean.

  “You can judge by the reception your brother journalists will receive when they turn up—and, incidentally, we’ve had one nosing round already. Ill winds blow fastest. He found constables at every gate and door, and they were disappointingly mum. Just the same, Mr. Hazeldean—”

  “You can cut out the Mr., if you like.”

  “Thank you. Just the same, you needn’t think your editor is going to get a monopoly. You can’t keep seven dead bodies quiet—so to speak. This afternoon’s placards will just shout. But there’ll be more noise than information.”

  “Don’t you want publicity?” asked Hazeldean.

  “Not more than I’ve got to have,” replied Kendall. “These next few hours are going to be damned important, and if I could have had six of ’em start of the press and the public I’d have been glad. Maybe it’ll all work out the same in the end, only—” He gave a little shrug. “Well, when you’re setting off on a chase, it helps to begin before the hare knows you’re on the track.”

  “You’re convinced this isn’t a case of mass suicide, then?”

  “I’m not convinced of anything, but I’m certainly not banking on suicide. Put it that way and draw your own conclusions. We’ve got a lot to do yet, both inside and outside the house. Photographs, fingerprints—” He paused. “We’ve found a key.”

  “What sort?”

  “Latch-key. It was found under a little grating just outside the front door. As if it had been dropped. We had to prise the grating up to get it.”

  “Was it a latch-key to the house?”

  “Are you going to phone my replies to your editor?”

  “I haven’t made any promises to my editor, and I’m not making any to you, so don’t tell me anything that seems to you like a risk.”

  “You’ve two qualities that appeal to me, Hazeldean,” said the inspector. “You’re independent, and you’re frank about it. I’m taking the risk. It was a latch-key to the house. Yale pattern, with a nice smooth portion where you hold it. I’ve taken a fingerprint. And I’ve found some more prints exactly like it inside.”

  “In the shuttered room?”

  “No, though I’m getting plenty of prints from there, too. These were in the bedroom that had been left in a hurry.”

  “Miss Fenner’s!”

  “That is the assumption. You remember the sergeant making a big point of the fact that there were no brush and comb on the dressing-table, but there were several other things. A clothes-brush, a hand-mirror, and so forth. We found the similar prints on these.”

  “I—see,” answered Hazeldean slowly. “And, of course, the inference is—”

  “That Miss Fenner had the key, and either dropped it or hid it. Of course.”

  “Not a very clever place to hide a key, was it?”

  “An idiotic place,” agreed Kendall, “which suggests that, if she did hide it, and if she possesses average intelligence, she hid it in a great hurry caused by some urgency of the moment. Unless—yes—unless she believed the key would fall right out of sight, and was unable to get at it again on finding that it remained in view. I told you that we had to wrench the grating up.”

  “I can’t see why she should hide the key,” said Hazeldean.

  “There’s a great deal we can’t see,” returned Kendall. “Still, I incline myself to the theory that she dropped it. Some time between 8.30 and 9 last night.” While Hazeldean stared at him he went on: “According to Dr. Saunders, our seven dead persons may have died round about that time.”

  “You’re—you’re not concluding—!” began Hazeldean.

  “I’m not concluding anything,” interrupted the inspector. “I’m not even concluding that the seven victims did die round about that time. I am merely implying that they could have. Unlike you, Hazeldean, I did not confine my inquiries about the Fenners to the post office. I also inquired at railway stations, police stations, and ports. I haven’t been able to trace anything about Mr. Fenner—rather curious, that—but I have quite a lot of information regarding the niece. Some of it came from the world’s oldest porter at Benwick.”

  “May I hear the information?” asked Hazeldean as Kendall paused. “It won’t be passed on to my editor without your permission.”

  “No—I am giving this to you on that understanding,” answered Kendall. “We’ve already assumed that Miss Fenner left Haven House in a hurry. We can now assume that she was in a hurry to catch the 9.50 a.m. train yesterday morning for Liverpool Street—”

  “But I thought you said—” interrupted Hazeldean.

  “Wait a moment. She took that train, and travelled to London on a monthly ticket. After that we lose sight of her for a while, but we may note the facts that the 9.50 from Benwick reaches London at midday, and that the abortive phone call from London to Haven House—you remember about that—?”

  “Yes,” nodded Hazeldean, following the inspector’s details intently. “The caller couldn’t get on, because the receiver was off, and there was no response to the howler.”

  “You’ve got it exactly,” answered Kendall. “Now add this. The call was made from a public call-box at Victoria Station at 4.42—th
at is, at eighteen minutes to five yesterday afternoon—and the caller was a woman with, to quote my informant’s words, ‘a pleasant, youngish voice.’ Let us assume, just to see where it leads, that the owner of this voice was Miss Fenner. Let us also assume that a young woman answering Miss Fenner’s description, who bought a third-class return ticket to Boulogne at Victoria some half-hour earlier, was Miss Fenner. Now, then. She leaves Benwick in a hurry, without troubling to tidy her room. My information is that she is normally quite tidy. She reaches Liverpool Street at midday. She vanishes till, roughly, a quarter-past four. Reappearing at Victoria, she buys a return ticket to Boulogne. Assumedly she intends to catch the 4.30 boat train. She does not do so, for at 4.42 she is telephoning back to her house. She gets no response. No one is at the house, or else someone is there who has decided not to answer telephone calls. The latter may be unlikely, but seven dead people are unlikely—”

  “They weren’t dead then,” interposed Hazeldean.

  “We do not believe they were dead then,” corrected Kendall. “Having failed to speak to the person she wanted to speak to, Miss Fenner returns to Liverpool Street Station, catches the 5.57 train back to Benwick—where she is seen by the aforementioned ancient porter—”

  “Whose eyesight mightn’t be good.”

  “I admit that. This porter’s evidence is not conclusive.”

  “Did she speak to him?”

  “No. ‘She went by me quick as a rabbit,’ were his words. He could not even remember whether she carried a suitcase. The time was 8.16, so bad light was added to bad sight. Still, let me continue with these assumptions. Miss Fenner passes the old porter as quick as a rabbit and hastens—we assume—to Haven House. Our only evidence of this is the key; and, of course, that may have been dropped earlier. We know nothing more about her—nothing definite—until she is back at Benwick Station, buying another monthly ticket to London—the clerk has better sight than the porter—and leaping into the last train to town—the 9.12. She catches it by a matter of seconds. She is in London once more by 11.15.”

  “And that’s all you know?” inquired Hazeldean.

  “Not quite all,” answered Kendall. “I made an obvious inquiry, and found that she slept at Liverpool Street Station Hotel. Next morning—this morning—she got up early and took the nine o’clock boat train for Folkestone.” Kendall glanced at the cabin clock. “Her passport was examined in Boulogne about forty minutes ago.”