But Sir Charles found the safety - valve of speech just in time. "Mr. President," he exploded through it "if I am not right in assuming this to be a jest on this lady's part, even though a jest in the worst possible taste, am I to be expected to take this preposterous nonsense seriously?"
Roger glanced at Mrs. Fielder - Flemming's face, now set in flinty masses, and gulped. However, preposterous though Sir Charles might term it, his antagonist had certainly made out a case, and not a flimsy, unsupported case either. "I think," he said, as carefully as he could, "that if it had been any one but yourself in question. Sir Charles, you would agree that a charge of this kind, when there is real evidence to support it, does at least require to be taken seriously so far as to need refuting."
Sir Charles snorted and Mrs. Fielder - Flemming nodded her head several times with vehemence.
"If refuting is possible," observed Mr. Bradley. "But I must admit that, personally, I am impressed. Mrs. Fielder - Flemming seems to me to have made out her case. Would you like me to go and telephone for the police, Mr. President?" He spoke with an air of earnest endeavour to do his duty as a citizen, however distasteful it might be.
Sir Charles glared, but once more seemed bereft of words.
"Not yet, I think," Roger said gently. "We haven't heard yet what Sir Charles has to answer."
"Well, I suppose we may as well hear him," conceded Mr. Bradley.
Five pairs of eyes glued themselves on Sir Charles, five pairs of ears were strained. But Sir Charles, struggling mightily with himself, was silent.
"As I expected," murmured Mr. Bradley. "There is no defence. Even Sir Charles, who has snatched so many murderers from the rope, can find nothing to say in such a glaring case. It's very sad."
From the look he flashed at his tormentor it was to be deduced that Sir Charles might have found plenty to say had the two of them been alone together. As it was, he could only rumble.
"Mr. President," said Alicia Dammers, with her usual brisk efficiency, "I have a proposal to make. Sir Charles appears to be admitting his guilt by default, and Mr. Bradley, as a good citizen, wishes to hand him over to the police."
"Hear, hear!" observed the good citizen.
"Personally I should be sorry to do that. I think there is a good deal to be said for Sir Charles. Murder, we are taught, is invariably anti - social. But is it? I am of the opinion that Sir Charles's intention, that of ridding the world (and incidentally his own daughter) of Sir Eustace Pennefather, was quite in the world's best interests. That his intention miscarried and an innocent victim was killed is quite beside the point. Even Mrs. Fielder - Flemming seemed to be doubtful whether Sir Charles ought to be condemned, as a jury would certainly condemn him, though she added in conclusion that she did not feel competent to judge him.
"I differ from her. Being a person of, I hope, reasonable intelligence, I feel perfectly competent to judge him. And I consider further that all five of us are competent to judge him. I therefore suggest that we do in fact judge him ourselves. Mrs. Fielder - Flemming could act as prosecutor; somebody (I propose Mr. Bradley) could defend him; and all five of us constitute a jury, the finding to be by majority in favour or against. We would bind ourselves to abide by the result, and if it is against him we send for the police; if it is in his favour we agree never to breathe a word of his guilt outside this room. May this be put to the meeting?"
Roger smiled at her reprovingly. He knew quite well that Miss Dammers no more believed in Sir Charles's guilt than he, Roger, did himself, and he knew that she was only pulling that eminent counsel's leg; a little cruelly, but no doubt she thought it was good for him. Miss Dammers professed herself a strong believer in seeing the other side, and held that it would be a very good thing for the cat occasionally to find itself chased by the mouse; certainly therefore it was most salutary for a man who had prosecuted other men for their lives to find himself for once in the dock on just such a terrifying charge. Mr. Bradley, on the other hand, though he, too, obviously did not believe that Sir Charles was the murderer, mocked not out of conviction but because only so could he get a little of his own back against Sir Charles for having made more of a success of his life than Mr. Bradley was likely to do.
Nor, Roger thought, had Mr. Chitterwick any serious doubts as to the possibility of Sir Charles being guilty, though he was still looking so alarmed at Mrs. Fielder - Flemming's temerity in suggesting such a thing that it was not altogether possible to say what he did think. Indeed Roger was quite sure that nobody entertained the least suspicion of Sir Charles's innocence except Mrs. Fielder - Flemming - and perhaps, from the look of him. Sir Charles himself. As that outraged gentleman had pointed out, such an idea, looked at in sober reflection, was plainly the most preposterous nonsense. Sir Charles could not be guilty because - well, because he was Sir Charles, and because such things don't happen, and because he obviously couldn't be.
On the other hand Mrs. Fielder - Flemming had very neatly proved that he was. And Sir Charles had not even attempted yet to prove that he wasn't.
Not for the first time Roger wished, very sincerely, that anybody were sitting in the presidential chair but himself.
"I think," he now repeated, "that before we take any steps at all we ought to hear what Sir Charles has to say. I am sure," added the President kindly, remembering the right phrase, "that he will have a complete answer to all charges." He looked expectantly towards the criminal.
Sir Charles appeared to jerk himself out of the haze of his wrath. "I am really expected to defend myself against this - this hysteria?" he barked. "Very well. I admit I am a criminologist, which Mrs. Fielder - Flemming appears to think so damning. I admit that I attended a dinner at the Hotel Cecil on that night, which it seems is enough to put the rope round my neck. I admit, since it appears that my private affairs are to be dragged into public, regardless of taste or decency, that I would rather have strangled Sir Eustace with my own hands than see him married to my daughter."
He paused, and passed his hand rather wearily over his high forehead. He was no longer formidable but only a rather bewildered old man. Roger felt intensely sorry for him. But Mrs. Fielder - Flemming had stated her case too well for it to be possible to spare him.
"I admit all this, but none of it is evidence that would have very much weight in a court of law. If you want me to prove that I did not actually send those chocolates, what am I to say? I could bring my two neighbours at the dinner, who would swear that I never left my seat till - well, it must have been after ten o'clock. I can prove by means of other witnesses that my daughter finally consented, on my representations, to give up the idea of marriage with Sir Eustace and has gone voluntarily to stay with relations of ours in Devonshire for a considerable time. But there again I have to admit that this has happened since the date of posting the chocolates.
"In short, Mrs. Fielder - Flemming has managed, with considerable skill, to put together a prima facie case against me, though it was based on a mistaken assumption (I would point out to her that counsel is never constantly in and out of his client's premises, but meets him usually only in the presence of his solicitor, either at the former's place of business or in his own chambers), and I am quite ready, if this meeting thinks it advisable, for the matter to be investigated officially. More, I welcome such investigation in view of the slur that has been cast upon my name. Mr. President, I ask you, as representing the members as a whole, to take such action as you think fit."
Roger steered a wary course. "Speaking for myself, Sir Charles, I am quite sure that Mrs. Fielder - Flemming's reasoning, exceedingly clever though it was, has been based as you say upon an error, and really, as a matter of mere probability, I cannot see a father sending poisoned chocolates to the would - be fiance of his own daughter. A moment's thought would show him the practical inevitability of the chocolates reaching eventually the daughter herself. I have my own opinion about this crime, but even apart from that I feel quite certain in my own mind that the case against Sir Cha
rles has not really been proved."
"Mr. President," cut in Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, not without heat, "you may say what you like, but in the interests of - - "
"I agree, Mr. President," Miss Dammers interrupted incisively. "It is unthinkable that Sir Charles could have sent those chocolates."
"Humph!" said Mr. Bradley, unwilling to have his sport spoiled quite so soon.
"Hear, hear!" Mr. Chitterwick, with surprising decision.
"On the other hand," Roger pursued, "I quite see that Mrs. Fielder - Flemming is entitled to the official investigation which Sir Charles asks for, no less than is Sir Charles himself on behalf of his good name. And I agree with Sir Charles that she has certainly made out a prima facie case for investigation. But what I should like to stress is that so far only two members out of six have spoken, and it is not outside possibility that such startling developments may have been traced out by the time we have all had our turn, that the one we are discussing now may (I do not say that it will, but it may) have faded into insignificance."
"Oho!" murmured Mr. Bradley. "What has our worthy President got up his sleeve?"
"I therefore propose, as a formal motion," Roger concluded, disregarding the somewhat sour looks cast on him by Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, "that we shelve the question regarding Sir Charles entirely, for discussion or report either inside or outside this room, for one week from today, when any member who wishes may bring it up again for decision, failing which it passes into oblivion for good and all. Shall we vote on that? Those in favour?"
The motion was carried unanimously. Mrs. Fielder - Flemming would have liked to vote against it, but she had never yet belonged to any committee where all motions were not carried unanimously and habit was too strong for her.
The meeting then adjourned, rather oppressed.
CHAPTER IX
ROGER sat on the table in Moresby's room at Scotland Yard and swung his legs moodily. Moresby was being no help at all.
"I've told you, Mr. Sheringham," said the Chief Inspector, with a patient air. "It's not a bit of good you trying to pump me. I've told you all we know here. I'd help you if I could, as you know" - Roger snorted incredulously - "but we're simply at a dead end."
"So am I," Roger grunted. "And I don't like it."
"You'll soon get used to it, Mr. Sheringham," consoled Moresby, "if you take on this sort of job often."
" I simply can't get any further," Roger lamented. "In fact I don't think I want to. I'm practically sure I've been working on the wrong tack altogether. If the clue really does lie in Sir Eustace's private life, he's shielding it like the very devil. But I don't think it does."
"Humph!" said Moresby, who did.
"I've cross - examined his friends, till they're tired of the sight of me. I've cadged introductions to the friends of his friends, and the friends of his friends of his friends, and cross - examined them too. I've haunted his club. And what have I discovered? That Sir Eustace was not only a daisy, as you'd told me already, but a perfectly indiscreet daisy at that; the quite unpleasant type, fortunately very much rarer than women suppose, that talks of his feminine successes, with names - though I think that in Sir Eustace's case this was simply through lack of imagination and not any natural caddishness. But you see what I mean. I've collected the names of scores of women, and they all lead - nowhere! If there is a woman at the bottom of it, I should have been sure to have heard of her by this time. And I haven't."
"And what about that American case, which we thought such an extraordinary parallel, Mr. Sheringham?"
"That was cited last night by one of our members," said Roger gloomily. "And a very pretty little deduction she drew from it."
"Ah, yes," nodded the chief inspector. "That would be Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, I suppose. She thinks Sir Charles Wildman is the guilty party, doesn't she?"
Roger stared at him. "How the devil did you know that? Oh! The unscrupulous old hag. She passed you the wink, did she?"
"Certainly not, sir," retorted Moresby with a virtuous air, as if half the difficult cases Scotland Yard solves are not edged in the first place along the right path by means of 'information received.' "She hasn't said a word to us, though I'm not saying it wouldn't have been her duty to do so. But there isn't much that your members are doing which we don't know about, and thinking too for that matter."
"We're being shadowed," said Roger, pleased. "Yes, you told me at the beginning that we were to have an eye kept on us. Well, well. So in that case, are you going to arrest Sir Charles?"
"Not yet, I think, Mr. Sheringham," Moresby returned gravely.
"What do you think of the theory, then? She made out a very striking case for it."
"I should be very surprised," said Moresby, with care, "to be convinced that Sir Charles Wildman had taken to murdering people himself instead of preventing us from hanging other murderers."
"Less paying, certainly," Roger agreed. "Yes, of course there can't be anything in it really, but it's a nice idea."
"And what theory are you going to put forward, Mr. Sheringham?"
"Moresby, I haven't the faintest idea. And I've got to speak tomorrow night, too. I suppose I can fake up something to pass muster, but it's a disappointment." Roger reflected for a moment. "I think the real trouble is that my interest in this case is simply academic. In all the others it has been personal, and that not only gives one such a much bigger incentive to get to the bottom of a case but somehow actually helps one to do so. Bigger gleanings in the way of information, I suppose. And more intimate sidelights on the people concerned."
"Well, Mr. Sheringham," remarked Moresby, a little maliciously, "perhaps you'll admit now that we people here, whose interest is never personal (if you mean by that looking at a case from the inside instead of from the outside), have a bit of an excuse when we do come to grief over a case. Which, by the way," Moresby added with professional pride, "is precious seldom."
"I certainly do," Roger agreed feelingly. "Well, Moresby, I've got to go through the distressing business of buying a new hat before lunch. Do you feel like shadowing me to Bond Street? I might afterwards walk into a neighbouring hostelry, and it would be nice for you to be able to shadow me in there too."
"Sorry, Mr. Sheringham," said Chief Inspector Moresby pointedly, "but I have some work to do." Roger removed himself. He was feeling so depressed that he took a taxi to Bond Street instead of a 'bus, to cheer himself up.
Roger, having been in London occasionally during the war - years and remembering the interesting habits cultivated by taxi - drivers during that period, had never taken one since when a 'bus would do as well. The public memory is notoriously short, but the public prejudices are equally notoriously long.
Roger had reason for his depression. He was, as he had told Moresby, not only at a dead end, but the conviction was beginning to grow in him that he had actually been working completely on the wrong lines; and the possibility that all the labour he had put into the case had simply been time wasted was a sad one. His initial interest in the affair, though great, had been as he had just realised only an academic one, such as he would feel in any cleverly planned murder; and in spite of the contacts established with persons who were acquainted with various of the protagonists he still felt himself awkwardly outside the case. There was no personal connection somehow to enable him really to get to grips with it. He was beginning to suspect that it was the sort of case, necessitating endless inquiries such as a private individual has neither the skill, the patience nor the time to prosecute, which can really only be handled by the official police.
It was hazard, two chance encounters that same day and almost within an hour, which put an entirely different complexion on the case to Roger's eyes, and translated at last his interest in it from the academic into the personal.
The first was in Bond Street. Emerging from his hat - shop, the new hat at just the right angle on his head, he saw bearing down on him Mrs. Verreker - le - Mesurer. Mrs. Verreker - le - Mesurer was small, ex
quisite, rich, comparatively young, and a widow, and she coveted Roger. Why, even Roger, who had his share of proper conceit, could not understand, but whenever he gave her the opportunity she would sit at his feet (metaphorically of course; he had no intention of giving her the opportunity to do so literally) and gaze up at him with her big brown eyes melting in earnest uplift. But she talked. She talked, in short, and talked, and talked. And Roger, who rather liked talking himself, could not bear it.
He tried to dart across the road, but there was no opening in the traffic stream. He was cornered. With a gay smile that masked a vituperative mind he spoilt the angle of his beautiful new hat.
Mrs. Verreker - le - Mesurer fastened on him gladly. "Oh, Mr. Sheringham! Just the very person I wanted to see. Mr. Sheringham, do tell me. In the strictest confidence of course. Are you taking up this dreadful business of poor Joan Bendix's death? Oh, don't - don't tell me you're not." Roger tried to tell her that he had hoped to do so, but she gave him no chance. "Oh, aren't you really? But it's too dreadful. You ought, you know, you really ought to try and find out who sent those chocolates to Sir Eustace Pennefather. I do think it's naughty of you not to."
Roger, the frozen grin of civilised intercourse on his face, again tried to edge a word in; without result.
"I was horrified when I heard of it. Simply horrified." Mrs. Verreker - le - Mesurer registered horror. "You see, Joan and I were such very close friends. Quite intimate. In fact we were at school together. - Did you say anything, Mr. Sheringham?" Roger, who had allowed a faintly incredulous groan to escape him, hastily shook his head. "And the awful thing, the truly terrible thing is that Joan brought the whole thing on herself. Isn't that appalling, Mr. Sheringham?"
Roger no longer wanted to escape. "What did you say?" he managed to insert, again incredulously.
The Poisoned Chocolates Case rs-5 Page 9
