“I see,” said Lestrade. “Naturally, we just have to take your word for it—”
“Oh, no,” said Hannah Boulton, “I can recall him asking a similar question at least twice at previous séances I have attended. He’s even brought the same candlestick before, though I never knew what it signified till now.” She shook her head disapprovingly. “I fear Sir Denis has less faith in the spiritual world than many of our members.”
“I can vouch for that, as well,” said Villiers. “It’s silly to go about asking trick questions of the spirits, in my opinion. If a medium is trying to deceive the sitters, the spirits will simply refuse to answer such questions. And there’s no reason to believe the spirits are omniscient, in any case.”
“Still, a positive result would be so interesting, don’t you think?” Sir Denis said, rubbing his hands together. “A diamond hunter doesn’t expect to find a gem in every pebble—but when he finds one, it repays all his unsuccessful tries.”
“Are you saying you don’t think my little lady has the real gift?” said McPhee. “I can’t say I take that very kindly.”
“Don’t be silly, Edward,” said Martha McPhee, before Sir Denis could reply. “Sir Denis is justified in taking a scientific attitude—I’m certain Mr. Clemens was even less inclined to take the events at the sitting at face value. For my part, I’m sorry Sir Denis was prevented from asking his question—I cannot say for certain, but perhaps some of my spirits would have given him his answer. If little Emily had come through, of course she would have known the secret of the candlestick.”
“We’ll never know, now, will we?” said Lestrade dryly. “But let’s move ahead with our little demonstration. Now, Mrs. Boulton, what did you bring for the spirits? And Mrs. Parkhurst, did you and your husband bring anything?”
Quietly, Mrs. Parkhurst opened her handbag and took out a man’s gold pocket watch. She laid it on the table and sat back.
“What’s the significance of that?” said Lestrade, peering at it.
It was her sister, Miss Donning, who answered. “It belonged to our father,” she said. “He was given it as a young man, before he went out to India, and always carried it with him.”
Everyone nodded at this, but Mr. Clemens and I exchanged suspicious glances. The item was small, but I was almost certain it had not been among the objects on the table at the original séance. But before either of us could say anything, Hannah Boulton gave a little sigh and slipped a ring from her finger. “This was Richard’s wedding ring,” she said. “I wore it then, but did not see the need actually to put it on the table.” There was another awkward moment of silence as she added it to the items on the table.
With all the items accounted for, Lestrade took charge again. “Very well, then we’ll get on with it,” said the Scotland Yard man. “Will everyone please take their places at the table, sitting in the same chairs as they were the night of the murder?”
We moved to the large round table, and took our seats in the same order as before. Martha took her place with her back to the corner, facing more or less toward the corner where (as we now knew) there was a peephole allowing Slippery Ed McPhee a view into the room. Cedric Villiers sat to her right, then Miss Donning next to the empty chair where the doctor had sat. On the other side Mrs. Parkhurst took her place, with some show of reluctance. I felt sorry for her, imagining how it must distress her to take part in this reenactment. Next to her sat Hannah Boulton, then Lady Alice and Sir Cedric. Completing the circle were Mrs. Clemens, my employer, Susy Clemens, and I, just to the left of Martha.
“All right,” said Lestrade, looking around the circle. “This is exactly where you all were? And all the things you brought are in the same places as then?”
I could see everyone looking around to verify the details, and there was a general murmur of agreement.
“Who’s going to sit in Oliver’s seat?” asked Miss Donning looking somewhat warily at the chair next to her. From where I sat I could not tell whether it might display bloodstains or other reminders of the grisly events it had seen. For the two ladies’ sake, I hoped not.
“I hardly think we need anyone there,” said Lestrade. “The point is to get everyone seated as they were the night of the crime. Now. Constable Waters—”
“Oh, I think it does matter,” said Susy Clemens. Everyone looked at her, somewhat surprised. “After all,” she continued, “we were all holding hands when the—the murder took place. Shouldn’t we be doing that today?”
“I don’t think—” began Lestrade, but he was interrupted again.
“Yes, I think it would be a very good idea to repeat everything exactly as it was,” said Martha McPhee. “I will do my best to get in touch with the spirit world again. Who knows? Perhaps we will find an answer there when human agencies have failed.”
“If you’re going to do that, you’d better get Ed out where he can pull on the bell ropes,” said Mr. Clemens, in an impatient tone.
“You know that ain’t fair, Sam,” said McPhee. “I had to miss the whole show the last time, and now you say I have to miss it all over again. Why don’t I stay here so’s you can see what Martha can do without any help from me? That way you’ll know there ain’t no tricks being pulled.”
“Really, McPhee, we’re attempting to find the killer, not to test the veracity of your wife’s mediumship,” said Villiers. “I fear that’s already discredited, sorry as I am to say so. I did have hopes for her at first. But I would prefer to bring this little charade to an end and be about my business.” He leaned back in his chair with an expression that suggested he’d just discovered an insect in his drink.
“As would everyone, I’m sure,” said Lestrade. “Especially the killer, I would think. Actually, I believe there might be some merit to an exact reenactment—I’d like to judge how loud the noises were. And for that, Mr. McPhee, you’ll have to go to the other room. Anthony Parkhurst, would you please sit in the seat your father occupied?”
“I suppose so,” said Parkhurst. “I shan’t feel any sillier than I already do.” He walked around the table and pulled back the chair his father had been sitting in.
“Hang on,” said Mr. Clemens, suddenly standing up. “There’s no need for anything more today.”
“What on earth do you mean?” said Lestrade. “We’ve barely begun—”
“No, it’s all over,” said Mr. Clemens, waving his hand. “I know exactly who the murderer is.”
27
“Know who the murderer is?” Chief Inspector Lestrade laughed. It was a dry laugh, not in the least a pleasant sound. “I say, Twain, I know you’ve a reputation as a humorist to uphold, but a police investigation is hardly the place for it. Now, if Mr. Parkhurst and Mr. McPhee will take their places—”
“No, I think this could be diverting,” said Cedric Villiers. “Mr. Clemens has actually solved a few murder cases, or so I’ve heard. Let’s hear his theories—they shouldn’t take long, and they may be amusingly phrased, after all. When he’s done—and I trust he won’t occupy us excessively long—Scotland Yard can proceed with its usual methods.”
“Hear, hear,” said McPhee. “Sam’s got a way with words, and he ain’t half as ignorant as he makes out sometimes. Let him spin his yam so at least I have somethin’ to chaw on when you put me out in the waiting room.”
Three or four other voices chipped in with similar sentiments, with only Mrs. Boulton overtly disdainful. So, putting the best face on things, Lestrade said, “Very well, Mr. Twain, please explain your theory. Mind you, though, British justice works on proven fact, not theories. You may have a very clever notion, but without facts to back it up, it’s all hot air.”
“Hot air’s usually my stock-in-trade,” said Mr. Clemens. “But brass tacks is what’s called for now, so here’s what I’ve got. I realized as we sat down to the table that the key to the murder was how it had to have been done. That was the puzzle all along, of course. There were a dozen people in the room, and another watching the door, and yet th
e killer managed to shoot the doctor without one of us seeing or hearing a thing—or admitting it, if they did.”
“That’s easily explained,” said Lestrade. “McPhee was in league with the killer; he let him into the room after the lights were down—he’d darkened the outer room, too, so none of you would notice the door opening. After the fellow’s eyes got used to the dark, he took his bead, shot the doctor, and escaped.”
“That’s a mighty fine theory, except it didn’t happen,” said McPhee, indignantly. He stepped forward, and the constable put out a hand to restrain him, which McPhee shrugged off, saying, “Say what you want about Ed McPhee, he ain’t never been mixed up in killin’, and that’s the truth.”
“Well, Ed, that’s the way I see things,” said Mr. Clemens. “But these people can’t just take you at your word. In fact, Lestrade’s right about one thing—the killer can’t have been in this alone, because it’s too hard for one person to pull off. The killer needed help to get to the doctor without any of us seeing him. Now, Ed could’ve let him in the place before the séance even started. After all, none of us went in the bedroom until after the doctor was killed. So the fellow could’ve been hiding there all along.”
“I don’t like the way all these theories keep pointin’ the finger at me, Sam,” said McPhee. “Jokes is one thing, but this feller here wants to put a noose around my neck.”
“Relax, Ed,” said Mr. Clemens. “I’m not pointing any fingers yet—just listing possibilities. The problem with that theory is that Martha would’ve had to know in advance what was going to happen. That young lady’s poker face is near as good as yours, but I swear she was caught off her guard when the doctor was killed, and I don’t think she could’ve pulled that off if she’d known. Besides, I’ve got better cards to play.”
“I hope they’re better than what you’ve shown so far,” said Tony Parkhurst. “These two needn’t have known the fellow they let in meant to kill my father. They might have thought it was all for a prank—or perhaps that he meant to rob the party.”
“Good thinking, Tony, but still not the whole story,” said Mr. Clemens. He stood up and leaned his hands on the table. “There are problems with the idea that McPhee let in some outsider to kill the doctor, or just to play a prank. When Wentworth and I first started working on this case, we thought maybe somebody had come in the back window and shot him from there—either coming along a ledge from one of the other apartments, or coming up a ladder from the ground.”
“We looked into that,” said Lestrade. “The other flat on this floor is occupied by a vicar and his wife. They were at home the entire evening. I think we can be quite certain nobody used their windows to gain entry here. As for climbing up from the ground, we’ve checked the back garden. There was no sign of a ladder being used, and the ground was soft—a ladder would have left marks.”
“What about the front window?” asked Sir Denis. “A ladder wouldn’t have left marks on the paving.”
“That would’ve been noticed,” said Lestrade. “This is a busy street, you know. A person climbing a ladder up to a front window is irregular enough for one of the neighbors to have noted it—not to mention a passing constable. We’ve looked into those possibilities, and we’re satisfied it had to be an inside job.”
“Good, I’m glad you did something sensible,” said Mr. Clemens. There was an appreciative chuckle from Villiers, along with a malicious grin. For his part, Lestrade gave my employer a nasty look but held his tongue when Mr. Clemens hastened to add, “Actually, that’s not fair. You’ve done a lot of sensible things, and they’ve narrowed down the field a good bit. You just haven’t taken the next step, which is to see what’s left after you’ve eliminated all the impossibilities.”
“That’s the problem with you amateurs,” said Lestrade. “You always want to discount common sense in favor of some notion so esoteric it needs an Oxford don to puzzle it out. Well, your criminal mastermind is a creature of bad fiction. The real article is usually an ill-bred fellow whose main thought is for his next tot of gin and a girl of his own sort. That lot’s not going to devise some complicated way to kill a man.”
“True enough,” said Mr. Clemens. “But there are murderers who don’t fit your image. And I think we’ve got one here. Just the choice of setting shows that this killer was more resourceful than the average. In fact, that’s one of the things that exonerates Ed and Martha, in my mind.”
“I’m not certain we should take that as a compliment, Mr. Clemens,” said Martha. “But if it leads to my husband’s release, I will take no offense at it.”
“Take it however you want,” said Mr. Clemens. “My point is, whoever killed Dr. Parkhurst had a long-standing grudge against him, and time to cook up a remarkably complex plot. How long have you been in the country, Mrs. McPhee? Not even long enough to meet the doctor—it was the first time he’d even gone to a séance, and that was at his wife’s urging. Am I right, Mrs. Parkhurst? Did your husband ever even meet Ed or Martha before that night?”
“Certainly not to my knowledge,” said the widow. “Of course, I did mention the new medium, Mrs. McPhee, to him when Ophelia and I were urging him to come. And it is possible that one of them visited his surgery, of course.”
“If they did, his partner didn’t know about it,” said Mr. Clemens. “My point is, they hardly knew him well enough to have any grudge against him—or even to sympathize with somebody else’s grudge. They’re both too mercenary to get tied up in somebody else’s problems with no profit to themselves.”
“You don’t know that,” said Lestrade. “They may have been promised money when the whole affair blows over. Except we’re here to make certain it won’t.”
“Well, Martha’s staying in the place where a man was killed because she’d lose the month’s rent if she moved out,” said my employer. “That isn’t how somebody acts when she expects a lot of money to be coming in. But let’s get back to how the murder was committed.”
“Yes, by all means,” said Cedric Villiers, in his usual bored tone. “And could you try to make it more amusing than you’ve been so far? I’m having to forgo a very promising art opening, you know.”
“Don’t worry, there’s a stinger at the end of it,” said Mr. Clemens. “Let’s get rid of the outsider theory once and for all. The biggest problem for an outsider coming in here after the lights were off is that they wouldn’t know where the doctor was sitting. Even if their eyes were adapted to the dark, it would take a long time to figure out where he was—especially when he didn’t say anything to give away his position.”
“What if the doctor was tricked into taking a prearranged seat?” asked Lestrade. “Then the assassin could simply fire at a known position. Trick shooters can hit a target blindfold.”
“Sure, I’ve seen Annie Oakley do that,” said Mr. Clemens. “But she knows exactly where those targets are before she puts the blindfold on. We sat down pretty much at random that night—I even offered to trade chairs with Martha, to see if she might have had anything special rigged to her seat, and she was willing to let me sit anywhere I wanted. So that idea’s got a couple of strikes against it.”
“I see where you’re going,” said Mrs. Parkhurst. “Only those of us who were in the room when the lights were still on could know for certain who occupied which seat. So the killer must have been one of us here—how dreadful!” She looked around at the others at the table with genuine worry.
“McPhee was here when the lights were on,” growled Lestrade. “He could have told somebody in the other room.”
“You’re still barking up the wrong tree,” said Mr. Clemens. “There’s still another wrinkle to the story, one I didn’t figure out until just a few minutes ago. You see, knowing where the target is is only the first step to hitting it. You still have to aim the gun and pull the trigger.”
“Now, that’s instructive,” said Lestrade, with a sneer. “I thought you were going to tell us that your clever murderer had somehow concocted a weapo
n that aims and fires itself.”
“That might work in Jules Verne’s books,” said Mr. Clemens. “But we don’t have to worry about that here. No, what I’m saying is that the killer had to have both hands free.”
“But that’s impossible,” said his daughter Susy. “All of us were holding hands with our neighbors on either side . . .” Then she paused, and looked around the table and said, “Oh, my!”
“Yes, I think you see it,” said Mr. Clemens.
“Well, I don’t,” said Lestrade. “Either the killer was holding hands or he wasn’t. I don’t see what you can make from that.”
“My father means that the killer had not one but two accomplices,” said Susy Clemens, looking around the room. “One person on each side who wouldn’t say anything about the circle being broken right before the doctor died. So now we have to find three people . . . but how are we going to do that?”
I saw what the problem was. The killer had to trust the people on both sides of him not to reveal him to the rest of us. I knew who had held both my hands at the séance, and certainly Mr. Clemens knew whose hands he held—and could trust both of them to notice and report any such irregularity. That meant that Martha McPhee, who held my hand, was not the shooter, nor was Sir Denis, who held Mrs. Clemens’s other hand. Presumably the dead man had not shot himself . . .
I snapped out of these thoughts as I noticed the others at the table looking around and making similar calculations of guilt, drawing from knowledge I did not possess. If my employer was correct, three of them had been in league to murder the doctor. But which three?
Cedric Villiers was the first to break the silence. “Damned brilliant of you, Clemens,” he said. He leaned forward and peered ’round the circle at the others. “Thus begins a delicious game of Whom Do You Trust? It will be amusing to watch everyone writhe in anticipation. Of course, both my neighbors will testify that I held their hands the entire time, so I won’t bother to offer that defense for myself.”
The Guilty Abroad Page 30
