Mr. Brading's Collection

by Patricia Wentworth

  ‘Will you show me just how he was when you found him?’

  The thought went through his mind, ‘This is ghastly.’ She noticed that his dark skin showed a change of colour. Without speaking he did as she had asked, sitting down in the chair, leaning forward until his head rested over that ominous stain, letting his right arm hang down until the hand was only a few inches from the floor. When it was over she broke the silence in which this dumb show had been acted.

  ‘Where was the weapon?’

  He said shortly,

  ‘Just under where his hand was. As if he had dropped it.’

  ‘It was his own revolver?’

  ‘Well — yes —’

  There was enough hesitation to make her press the point.

  ‘That has an ambiguous sound, Major Forrest.’

  He lifted a hand and let it fall again.

  ‘You don’t miss much. It’s this way. I had two — a pair. I let Lewis have one of them.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Some time last year. He had something pretty antiquated. I saw it one day when he had that drawer open, and told him he’d better have something a little more up-to-date. That’s how it happened.’

  ‘And he kept it — in which drawer?’

  He said, ‘The second on the right.’ Then, as she pulled it out, ‘It isn’t there now. The police have got it.’

  She said,

  ‘How many people knew that Mr. Brading kept a revolver in this drawer?’

  He gave a short laugh.

  ‘I did, James did — anyone might have done. He was rather proud of it, you know — made a bit of a flourish about being armed. He still had his own museum-piece in his bedroom.’

  She pushed the drawer in, took another look at the table, and said,

  ‘That metal ash-tray — is that where the will-form was burned?’

  He nodded and said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just where was it when you found Mr. Brading dead?’

  He moved to indicate the far side of the table.

  ‘Over here at the edge, a few inches from this corner.’

  ‘Out of Mr. Brading’s reach?’

  ‘As he sat at the table, yes. At least, I suppose he could have touched it if he had leaned forward. But he wouldn’t have burned a paper that way.’

  ‘And the matches — where were they?’

  ‘Just clear of the ash-tray.’

  ‘To the left, or right?’

  He was facing her across the table now,

  ‘To your left — to my right.’

  She said soberly,

  ‘You do not need me to underline that, do you? Whoever burned that will-form was standing at the back of the table as you are standing now. If it was Mr. Brading, it seems difficult to find a reason for this. It is quite certain that it was not done by him whilst he was sitting at the table in his normal position.’

  Charles said, ‘No.’

  There was a little pause. Then she seated herself, drawing up the chair until it was comfortably placed, taking the scribbling-block, selecting a pencil. Having done all this, she turned a bright enquiring glance upon Charles and said very composedly,

  ‘Will you not sit down, Major Forrest? I should like to take a few notes. You say Mr. Brading appeared at lunch, and then returned to the annexe. Did anyone see him alive after that?’

  Charles had reached for a high wooden stool. He leaned rather than sat on it, his long legs stretched out before him, his manner as casual as his attitude.

  ‘Oh, quite a number. According to Edna Snagge — that’s the girl in the office — Lewis had a procession of visitors. They all had to come through the hall, as I told you.’

  ‘Can you tell me who they were, and at what times they came?’

  He fished in his pocket.

  ‘Here you are, straight from the horse’s mouth — Edna is very methodical. Lewis came off here after lunch at half past one, and James Moberly followed him a few minutes later. Now James says he only came over to fetch a book, and he went straight back to the study and stayed there. Lewis had given him the afternoon off. That, I gather, is not in dispute — people in the dining-room heard Lewis tell him he wouldn’t be wanting him again. Well, that's James. Then at half past two Maida Robinson, Lewis’s red-head, came along with a chap called Constable. He served in the Commandos with me, and he blew in the other day for a long week-end. He and Maida were going to play tennis and then bathe. I gather Maida wanted to see Lewis to break it to him that she was off for the afternoon with another boy friend, but of course she would be dining with him and he mustn’t think that she would ever love anyone else.’ He smiled engagingly. ‘I’m just giving you the gist of what Maida handed me, you know. I’m not going bail for anything a red-head says, but it all seems quite likely. Now listen. Maida goes off to see Lewis alone while Constable kicks his heels in the hall. In about ten minutes Maida comes back. She says she’s left her bag out here and sends Constable for it. And whilst he’s going she steps into the office and rather annoys Edna by using the house-telephone to tell Lewis that Jack Constable is on his way. Edna can hear them talking, but she can’t hear what Lewis says, only his voice. But it seems he was annoyed because Maida hadn’t shut the steel door when she went out and Jack Constable had just walked in. Now that’s important, because someone could have slipped in that way — from the billiard-room for instance. It’s not very likely, but it’s possible.’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘You say from the billiard-room? Not from the study?’

  Charles let his eyes meet hers directly.

  ‘James Moberly was in the study, and he wouldn’t need to slip in that way — he had his key.’

  She inclined her head,

  ‘Pray continue.’

  ‘Constable wasn’t away five minutes. He came back with the bag, and he and Maida went off. They didn’t play tennis, because they decided it was too hot, but they went down and bathed. That brings us to a quarter to three. A little before three o’clock Lilias Grey arrived to see Lewis. She is my adopted sister. My father and mother adopted her when she was three years old because they hadn’t any children. Then I arrived — what you might call bad timing. She isn’t married, she has a flat at Saltings. She says she wanted to consult Lewis on a matter of business. Well, this is her story, and you’ll see how it narrows things down. She says she went along to the annexe, and like Jack Constable she says she found the steel door open. Now Jack swears he shut it — he’d be likely to, you know, after Lewis cutting up rough over Maida leaving it open. But ten minutes later Lilias finds it open again. She says she thought Lewis had left it ajar for her, and I suppose he had, because he doesn’t seem to have said anything about it when she walked in. She says they talked for about ten minutes about business. Some shares my mother left her were falling in, and she wanted to know what Lewis thought about re-investment. He told her to stick to government securities, and she said she’d think about it, and came away. She can’t remember whether she shut the door or not — she’s rather a vague person. She was out of the club by ten minutes past three, and just as she was leaving, Hester Constantine came down the stairs and went along the passage in this direction. She is Myra’s unmarried daughter, a gawky female in the late thirties, and no one has been able to think of any reason why she should want to murder Lewis. She says she went along to the study. James was there like he says, and she stayed talking. About ten minutes later I came on the scene and found Lewis dead.’

  Miss Silver looked down at the scribbling-pad with her neat writing.

  ‘Your friend, is he — Major Constable?’

  Charles nodded.

  ‘He and Mrs. Robinson left the club at a quarter to three. At twenty past three you found Mr. Brading dead. You will not give an opinion as to how long he had been dead, though I think that you must have formed such an opinion. Miss Grey says that he was alive when she left him. If that is the case, he could not, when you found him, have been dead for more tha
n a few minutes. The murderer would naturally have allowed Miss Grey to get well away before risking the use of firearms. Did anyone hear the shot?’

  Charles shook his head.

  ‘They wouldn’t. The place is sound-proof — especially this room, which is built into the hill.’

  Miss Silver said,

  ‘Then, Major Forrest, there are these possibilities. If everyone is telling the truth, Mr. Brading was shot between the time of Miss Grey’s departure and your arrival — a bare ten minutes. During that time nobody came through the hall except Miss Constantine. She would have had time to reach this room, shoot Mr. Brading, and return to the study. What is Mr. Moberly’s evidence upon this point?’

  ‘He says she came to the study at ten past three, and was there till I gave the alarm.’

  Miss Silver looked at him very directly.

  ‘And what does she say?’

  ‘Oh, she says they were there together. They both say that.’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘Are they friends?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘Hester doesn’t run to friends much. Myra keeps her family busy.’

  ‘The clever, brilliant mother and the repressed daughter. A not uncommon situation, and one with dangerous possibilities.’

  Charles gave a short laugh.

  ‘Well, I can’t think up any reason why Hester should have it in for Lewis, and nor can anyone else.’

  Miss Silver glanced at her scribbling-block.

  ‘Leaving Miss Constantine on one side, and still assuming that everyone has told the truth — a circumstance very unusual in a murder case — the most striking evidence is that which concerns the annexe door. It was not, I imagine, Mr. Brading’s habit to leave it open.’

  ‘The inner door might be open if he was there. The outer door never.’

  ‘I received that impression from the way he spoke of it on the occasion of his visit a fortnight ago.’

  Charles nodded.

  ‘There were only two keys. He had one, and James had the other. If anything happened to Lewis, James was going to be in the soup, so James could be trusted with a key. Nobody else was. In my opinion Lewis would no more have left that door open than he would have flown.’

  ‘Yet it was left open.’

  ‘By Maida, coming away in a hurry for her bathe.’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘That is the first evidence we have of its being left open, but it is not the last. After Mrs. Robinson came out Major Constable went back to fetch her bag. He says he left the steel door shut at a quarter to three, but Miss Grey found it open ten minutes later. You say that she cannot be depended on to have shut it when she came away at ten minutes past three, and you yourself found it open when you arrived at twenty past. The door is therefore known to have been open for a minute or two between Mrs. Robinson leaving the annexe and Major Constable arriving there to fetch her bag. No one passed through the hall at that time except Major Constable himself, but it would have been just possible for someone to reach the annexe from the billiard-room and conceal himself there — in Mr. Moberly’s room, the bathroom, or one of the other rooms. A far more likely time for someone to have concealed himself on the premises would be during one of the later periods when we know that the door was open. Miss Grey found it open just before three, and you found it open at three-twenty. We do not know who opened it, which means that we do not know how long it was open. Major Constable may be mistaken in thinking that he had shut it. It closes, I notice, with a spring. He was in a hurry. It may have stood open for the whole ten minutes before Miss Grey arrived, and then for a further ten minutes between her departure and your own arrival. We have no means of knowing. All we do know is that no one passed through the hall during either of those times except Miss Constantine.’

  Charles frowned.

  ‘There could have been someone in the billiard-room—’

  ‘Could there, Major Forrest? When we passed the door just now I tried it, and it was locked.’

  Charles said nothing for a moment. His face hardened. His lids came down until they almost covered his eyes. All at once he stood up, drove his hands deep into his pockets, and said abruptly,

  ‘That puts the lid on.’

  Miss Silver looked at him, her head a little tilted on one side, her expression that of an inconspicuous but intelligent bird which has just perceived a worm.

  ‘The door was locked yesterday?’

  He said, not looking at her,

  ‘The room is being done up. There’s a hitch about some of the materials — a hold-up over the week-end. The men have left their stuff there.’

  ‘Then the windows would have been shut and the door locked yesterday?’

  ‘They may have been.’

  ‘It is a point which can be verified.’

  She tore off the sheet upon which she had made her notes, laid the pencil back in the tray, straightened the blotting-pad, and rose to her feet.

  ‘Thank you, Major Forrest.’

  TWENTY

  STACY TOOK THE BUS to the Saltings corner. She had really only a step to go from there, but the sun beat upon the shadeless road, and she was glad of the umbrella which Myra Constantine had pressed upon her — a big old-fashioned thing, dust-coloured, with a bright green lining.

  The trees about Saltings came into view. She turned in at the gate. Rather like being a ghost this coming back. Ghost stories always took the wrong point of view. It was all how dreadful for the living to be haunted, how the flesh crept and the hair rose and the courage failed. But what about the poor haunting disembodied thing come back to walk where it had loved and been loved, and now was no more than a shuddering and an amazement? She felt very much like a ghost as she came out in front of the big house and walked up the steps.

  The front door stood wide. The hall had been stripped, altered. The rugs were gone from the floor, the display of arms from the chimney-breast. There was a lift running up through the well of the stairs, rather cleverly fitted in. Some of the old portraits remained to gloom upon the scene.

  She looked about her. Charles had one of the ground-floor flats. She found his name, and then came back in a hurry to climb the stairs. The lift was an automatic one, and she didn’t like them very much. Besides, she was in no hurry to arrive. She had three years to bridge over. This was to have been her home — no, Stacy Forrest’s home. And she wasn’t Stacy Forrest any more. She was Stacy Mainwaring again. It made her feel a little giddy — as if time had been telescoped — as if she was in two places at once — as if today wasn’t today but something strange and out of time.

  She came to the top of the stairs and found a door with Lilias Grey’s name on it. She was lifting her hand to ring when it opened, and Lilias was saying,

  ‘But you’re late. Do come in. It’s terribly hot, isn’t it?’

  Stacy had wondered what she would say, and what Lilias would say, but it was all quite easy. She didn’t have to say anything — unless you count the sort of things you say when somebody else hardly stops to take a breath. Lilias wanted to show her the flat, to talk about the flat, to say how clever Charles had been, how clever the architect had been.

  ‘You see, this was my mother’s bedroom — divided to make bedroom and sitting-room. And quite big enough. I don’t care about very big rooms — do you? It was such a huge room before — but of course you remember it. And I get the view over the sea from both these windows. Then, through here, the dressing-room has been divided to make a kitchenette and a bathroom. I’m sure you wouldn’t recognise it, would you?’

  No, she wouldn’t have recognised it. In the room which was Lilias’ sitting-room she and Charles had slept. Out here in the chopped-up dressing-room there was a kitchen sink where his bureau had been. She had watched in the night and seen him stand there with Damaris Forrest’s necklace in his hand. She felt an intolerable revulsion. Tragedy with the kitchen sink imposed upon it!

  ‘It’s nice, isn’t it?’ said Lil
ias Grey.

  This kind of conversation continued whilst Lilias made tea, offered cucumber sandwiches, and played the charming hostess. Stacy could only tell herself that she had asked for it. It was her own fault, she should never have come, but now that she was here she had no choice but to appear the willing guest. As she set herself to the task, it did just cross her mind to wonder why Lilias had asked her, and just what lay behind this almost febrile flow of talk. There was too much of it — too much nervous energy. It was overdone, in the same way that Lilias Grey’s make-up had been overdone. The blue eyes were brilliant, there was colour in the cheeks, the lipstick was deftly applied, but it was all just a little too much of a good thing, and in spite of it Lilias looked her age.

  That was the first thing that made Stacy think. The second was that after nearly half an hour there had still been no mention of Lewis Brading. In the end when she had put down her cup and said, ‘No, thank you,’ to a quick, ‘Won’t you have some more tea?’ she brought in the name herself. She wasn’t going to sit here and let Lilias get away with pretending that nothing had happened. She waited for the first momentary pause and said,

  ‘It’s a dreadful thing about Lewis.’

  Lilias lost colour. The rouge stood out upon a suddenly whitened skin. She said with a shudder,

  ‘Don’t let’s talk about it. You don’t know what it’s been like — having to see the police — and make a statement!’

  She had said, ‘Don’t let’s talk about it,’ but now all that nervous energy flowed into the new channel. Her hands twisted in her lap. Her fair hair shone like a nimbus.

  ‘I always said something dreadful would happen. All that jewellery was too valuable.’

  ‘But was anything taken?’ Stacy’s surprise showed in her voice.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. The police don’t tell you anything. They just go on asking their stupid questions. And I was hardly there any time at all. I just walked in — the door was open, you know. I was going to ask Lewis about investing some money my mother left me. It was a mortgage that had been paid off, and I thought that he might know of something good. But all he would say was, “Put it into government securities.” You know, he was like that. He was really almost disagreeable, and I wished I hadn’t come, so I didn’t stay any time at all.’ Her hands twisted. ‘Just because he’s dead it’s no use pretending he was all the things we know he wasn’t. I really came away feeling quite upset.’