The Guilty Abroad

by Peter J. Heck

  “Only Cedric Villiers had been to any of my previous sittings,” said Martha. “I met him at the spiritualist society, and he did a great deal to help me make my way here in London. He helped me organize my first sitting, and attended another, as well.”

  “What about the others? Did you find them at spiritualist meetings, too?” His stance and tone were belligerent, as if he did not believe her statements.

  “Many of them,” said Martha, shrinking back slightly. “Mr. Villiers introduced me to several of the others at the Spiritualist Society. I must have met twenty or thirty people there, more if I count those to whom I was briefly introduced without any extensive conversation. Of those, Mrs. Parkhurst, Hannah Boulton, Sir Denis and his wife, and of course Cedric were at the sitting last night.”

  “What about the others?” Lestrade pressed her.

  Martha spread her hands, as if showing the detective she was not concealing anything in them. “I met Mr. Clemens and his secretary in America some months ago, and his wife and daughter just the previous night, at their place in Tedworth Square. Dr. Parkhurst and his sister-in-law were the only two I had never met—Mrs. Parkhurst invited both of them.”

  Lestrade had gradually inched his chair even closer to her, and was now no more than two feet away from her face. “Are you absolutely certain you never met the doctor before?” he said, unnecessarily loudly, I thought.

  Martha sent an annoyed look at her interrogator. “You seem to be looking for some motive on my part. I assure you, Mr. Lestrade, I had nothing to gain by killing the doctor.”

  “Mrs. McPhee, I am a police detective,” said Lestrade, with exaggerated patience. “I have to suppose that anyone connected to this case might be guilty—else I’m likely to miss something. I have been noting down what you say, and I’ll read it over at my leisure when I’m back at the station. You can be certain I’ll be speaking to the other witnesses. If their stories jibe with yours, all’s well and good. If they don’t jibe—”

  “If they don’t jibe, I may find myself in jail along with my husband,” said Martha. “I accept that risk, Mr. Lestrade. You may remember that I am cooperating with you, in hopes that I can convince you to free my husband. Now, did you have other questions?”

  “Yes,” said Lestrade, leaning back just a bit. He glanced over at Coleman, who was examining the chairs around the table where the séance had been held, turning them over and looking under their seats. He nodded, evidently pleased at his assistant’s progress, then turned back to Martha and continued.

  “One last thing. We need to reconstruct, as best we can, where everyone was sitting last night. Once we know that, and measure the angle the shot came from, we’ll have a good idea just who could have fired it.”

  “Maybe,” said Mr. Clemens. “That’s assuming the doctor didn’t turn his head to one side or the other just before the shot was fired.”

  “Of course,” said Lestrade, after a slight pause. “Still, I think we need to know who was sitting in what seat. Mrs. McPhee?”

  “Mr. Cabot was to my left, and Cedric Villiers to my right,” said Martha. “I believe—Mr. Cabot can correct me if I’m wrong—that Miss Susy Clemens was on his left, and Mr. Clemens next, followed by Mrs. Clemens.”

  “Very good then, we’ve half the table accounted for already,” said Lestrade. Coleman, who had evidently finished his search of the floor, was busy with his notebook and pencil. “And what was the order of the others?”

  “I think Hannah Boulton was at Cedric’s right hand, followed by Mrs. Parkhurst, and then the doctor,” said Martha.

  “That doesn’t sound right,” said Mr. Clemens. “I remember Mrs. Parkhurst’s sister being next to Villiers, then the doctor and his wife after that.”

  “So you think the doctor was between his wife and her sister?” asked Lestrade. He had been scribbling down notes, stopping to scratch out something as one or another of us changed our minds. He stared at his pad, then said, “That last bit can’t be right—it doesn’t leave any place for Mrs. Boulton.”

  The Scotland Yard man stood up and pointed in the direction of the table. “I’ll tell you what—we’ll go over to the table and see if we can sort this out better.”

  “All right,” said Martha. She stood up and followed Lestrade to the large round table, which was still surrounded by a dozen chairs. “This is where I sat,” she said, placing her hand on the back of one of the seats.

  “Are you quite certain?” said Detective Coleman, who had rejoined the group. “I’m trying to draw a chart of the seating arrangements, and a mistake at the outset could throw the whole thing off.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly be mistaken,” said Martha. “I always sit here, in case I need to signal to Edward in the other room.”

  “I knew there was some kind of trickery going on last night!” said Mr. Clemens, slapping the palm of his hand on the tabletop. “I should have taken that chair when I had the chance, but you bluffed me out of it. But that’s not the worst of it. Twenty minutes ago, you told me you were in a trance the whole time, and now you say you were sending signals to Slippery Ed. Which is the truth?”

  “Yes, I find that very interesting,” said Lestrade. “Exactly what sort of information were you conveying to him?”

  Martha sat down at the table and looked up at us with a perfectly calm expression. “My goodness, gentlemen, you are very quick to seize upon a quibble. I did not say I was sending my husband signals last night; I said I sat here in case I needed to. Surely you can see the distinction.”

  “I can see it all right, but I’ll be damned if I can see how it makes any difference,” said Mr. Clemens. “Were you in a trance last night, or not?”

  “Yes, exactly as I told you,” said Martha, looking at my employer with an expression of perfect innocence. “A very deep trance, in fact—so deep that I have no memory of anything that transpired between the beginning of the sitting and my being awakened by bright lights and frightened voices. But the trance is not always so deep, and sometimes it does not come very quickly, or last very long—and then I need to cue my husband to increase the sounds and other effects. I am sorry to say that most of my visitors are far more impressed by a rattling chain or a distant violin than by what the spirits have to say to them.”

  “Well they might be,” muttered Mr. Clemens. I thought he was about to go on, but Lestrade stepped forward and took charge again.

  “You were in this chair, then,” he said. “And the young gentleman was to your left? Would you sit there, sir? And Mr. Twain, would you please go to where you sat last night.”

  I sat down next to Martha, followed by Mr. Clemens, who took a seat two places to my left and put his corncob pipe (still unlit) on the table in front of him. While I had not paid close attention to the exact seating arrangements the night before, I was sure the three of us were now in the same places.

  “Very good,” said Lestrade. “Now, we’ll write the names of the rest of the party on slips of paper, and Coleman will match them to their seats.”

  This process took only a short time. Martha wrote out the names—I was somehow pleased to note that her handwriting was legible as well as graceful—and handed them to Sergeant Coleman to place around the table. It was only a matter of minutes before there were slips of paper in front of the remaining chairs.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Lestrade. “But are you certain where the doctor sat? His body had already been moved when I got here.”

  “He was second or third to my left, I think,” said Martha, though she didn’t sound entirely certain.

  “That sounds right,” said Mr. Clemens. “He was pretty much straight across from me.”

  “Let’s see, then,” said Lestrade, moving to the side of the table they’d suggested. He looked down and said, “This is about right. There’s a bloodstain on the carpet between these two chairs, so he must have been in one of them.”

  “It depends on which direction he was shot from,” Sergeant Cole
man pointed out. “If we could determine exactly where he was, that would give us a better idea which of the others shot him.”

  “Good thinking, Sergeant, but you’ve missed the main point,” said Lestrade, with a smug expression. Coleman bowed his head, looking chastened.

  “I reckon you’re going to tell us what that is,” said Mr. Clemens. “Of are you going to keep it up your sleeve to spring on the suspect when you get to court?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind telling you at all,” said Lestrade. He pointed toward the door. “Whichever of these chairs the doctor sat in, he was directly facing that spy hole over there, and the door to the outer room. Any decent marksman could have potted him from that distance.”

  “What, in pitch darkness?” said Mr. Clemens, turning to look over his shoulder at where Lestrade had pointed. “If Annie Oakley’s in town, maybe she could have hit him from there, but I’d bet against anybody else pulling off that shot.”

  “Yes, and the bullet would have had to pass directly between two other people at the table,” I said, looking in the same direction. “Your marksman would have had to be completely confident of his aim—or not care at all whether he hit the wrong person. I frankly don’t believe it.”

  Lestrade scoffed at our objections. “It doesn’t matter whether you believe it. If the fellow had been standing, he’d have a clean line of sight over the heads of the people on this side of the table,” he said, pointing to the spy hole again.

  “That’s assuming he knew where his target was going to sit,” said Mr. Clemens, pointing to the far side of the table where the doctor had sat. “Nobody told any of us what place to take, so there’s no way he could have known it in advance. Hell, we can’t even figure it out right now, and we saw the whole thing less than twenty-four hours ago.”

  “That’s where Mr. McPhee took a hand in the proceedings,” said Lestrade, walking around to our side of the table. “He saw everyone seated before he turned out the lights and left the room, so he could point out exactly where the victim was. And if the shooter had time earlier that day to inspect the room, he’d have had a very good idea where to aim to hit a person in any given seat.”

  “Surely you can’t believe that!” said Martha McPhee. “Edward and I were together the entire day.”

  “Perhaps it was the day before, then,” Lestrade said. “Or the day before that. Can you swear you were with your husband every minute of every day since you rented the flat? I thought not,” he said as Martha silently shook her head. There was fear in her eyes, now.

  Lestrade turned to Coleman. The chief inspector was all but crowing, now. “I think this erases any doubt that McPhee was an accomplice to the murderer. He let the killer in, he helped him spot his victim, and he aided his getaway. We’ll keep after McPhee until he fingers the man who pulled the trigger.”

  “Yes, Chief Inspector,” said Coleman, who had been hanging on to his superior’s words. “But I wonder—how come none of the others heard the report, or saw the flash of the muzzle?”

  Lestrade waved away the question. “They’ve all said there was enough racket to drown out a shot. McPhee most likely made some extra noises to cover up the sound of the weapon—he had the noisemakers right at hand. As for the flash, it’s probably just our bad luck that nobody was looking directly that way—half of them had their backs to it, in any case. The others likely had their eyes closed or their heads turned the wrong direction—probably toward Mrs. McPhee. And that reminds me.” He turned and pointed a finger toward Martha.

  “I haven’t enough evidence to arrest you, Mrs. McPhee—not enough yet, that is,” he said. “But I promise you will be watched very closely. Any attempt to leave the city will force me to place you under detention.”

  “On what grounds, sir?” Martha held her chin straight up. There was a spark of defiance in her eye, but I thought I saw a quiver in her lip as she spoke.

  “Suspicion of being an accessory to murder, before and during the fact,” said Lestrade. He went over to the chair where he had placed his coat and hat, and picked them up. “Perhaps your husband acted without your knowledge, but I think it unlikely. If you had anything to do with this atrocity, Scotland Yard will find you out—have no doubt about that. And then you will learn how British justice treats a murderess. I believe we are finished here, for today; come along, Coleman.”

  “One moment, sir,” said Martha, rising to her feet. “You promised I could speak to my husband. Are you reneging on that?”

  “I said I might let you speak with him if I was satisfied with your answers—and with his,” said Lestrade, doing up the bottom button on his coat. “But neither of you has yet given me wholehearted cooperation. Until you and your husband change your tune, he can continue to cool his heels.” And with that, the two Scotland Yard detectives swept out of the room, leaving the three of us staring after them.

  12

  There was a long moment of silence after Inspector Lestrade left the room, and then Martha sighed. “That man hasn’t the slightest intention of looking at other suspects. He’s got it fixed in his mind that Edward is guilty, and he’s not going to budge from that.” She turned a pleading look toward Mr. Clemens. To my surprise, a tear was running down her face. All her poise had completely vanished; I knew this was no act.

  Mr. Clemens understood that, too. He stood up and walked over to her chair, placing a hand softly on her shoulder. “Now, now,” he said, awkwardly. “We’ll get this straightened out somehow, don’t you worry.” Then he signaled to me with a movement of his head toward the window at the far corner of the apartment. I understood that he meant me to follow him there, giving the poor woman time to collect herself. I quickly followed him there, where we stood looking out at the building across from us. There was a small garden below us, with a fence at the back, but for the moment my thoughts were elsewhere. Behind us I could hear Martha quietly sobbing, and I was completely at a loss for words.

  “Well, Cabot,” said my employer in a near whisper, “this is enough to convince me that the young lady couldn’t have known what was going to happen to the doctor. Even if Ed was mixed up in it, I don’t think she had any part in it.”

  This conclusion dovetailed with my own. “Do you still think McPhee himself was involved?” I whispered back.

  “It doesn’t look good for him,” said my employer, shaking his head. “Martha must know that, too. Lestrade may be on the wrong track, but it’s a plausible track, and that may be enough to convince a judge that Ed let the killer in—or even that he pulled the trigger himself.” He turned and looked back at McPhee’s wife, and I followed his gaze. Martha was sitting up straight again, wiping her eyes with a lace handkerchief. It looked as if she had regained control of herself.

  Mr. Clemens gripped my elbow and continued. “It looks bad for Slippery Ed, but damn it, I know that old rascal thirty years. Make no mistake about Ed. He’s a skunk for sure—but that’s not the same as a killer, or a man who’d knowingly help one. That’s the thing Lestrade don’t know, and I do.”

  My employer strode back over to the table where Martha McPhee still sat. He pulled out the chair next to her—the one in which I had been sitting—and sat down next to her, saying, “Well, Mrs. McPhee, we’ve got to put our heads together if we’re going to get that husband of yours out of jail.”

  “You surprise me, Mr. Clemens,” said Martha McPhee. “Until a moment ago, I was under the distinct impression that you considered my husband’s guilt an even-money proposition at best. Now you talk as if you’re convinced of his innocence. Do you mind telling me what led you to change your mind? Or are you merely annoyed at Chief Inspector Lestrade, and taking your position contrary to whatever he currently espouses?”

  “Oh, I’m annoyed at the smug little weasel, all right,” said my employer. He fished in his pocket for a match, which he struck and picked up his pipe to try lighting it again.

  Martha pressed him. “And if your annoyance with the inspector passes, will you again decide tha
t Edward might be guilty? Or do you genuinely believe that he played no part in this murder?”

  “I see what you’re worried about,” said Mr. Clemens. He shook out the burning match, his pipe still unlit. “You need to know for certain I’m on your side, so if you have some piece of evidence that might make Ed look bad, you can tell me about it without my running to the police and blabbing. Is that it?”

  She nodded. “I might not have put it quite so baldly, but in a nutshell, yes, that is my concern. If I were to retain a lawyer, I would expect as much of him.”

  “I guess I don’t have to tell you I’m not a lawyer,” said Mr. Clemens, frowning. “That’s to your advantage—for one thing, I’m not going to start spouting a lot of Latin words you don’t understand; and for another, I’m not going to charge you a red cent for my time.”

  “You underestimate me, Mr. Clemens. I do know some Latin, and a fair amount of law as well,” said Martha, smiling now.

  “I should have known,” said my employer. “Next you’ll tell me you can play the trombone, ride circus elephants, and pilot a balloon, too. Maybe all three at once.” Martha laughed at this incongruous listing of her possible accomplishments, and Mr. Clemens’s eyes twinkled.

  Then he held up a hand and said, “But let’s not get too far from your question—you do deserve a straight answer, even if you won’t necessarily like it. Young lady, I’ve known your husband since before the Civil War—more than thirty years, in fact. He was a young swindler when I first met him, and he was still a swindler—although a good bit longer in the tooth—when we parted company in Memphis early this summer.”

  “Yes, that describes Edward more or less accurately,” said our hostess. “I can’t see any benefit in trying to deny something you know as well as I. Nonetheless, I think it is a long step from that to murder.”