House in Charlton Crescent

by Annie Haynes

  Wrath dried Dorothy’s tears. She dropped the handkerchief.

  “You! No! You would only make things worse for me. I have been told—”

  “What have you been told?” Bruce stood before her, his arms folded. Instinct told him what was coming.

  “You know!” the girl said scornfully. “I have been told—the—the inspector has told me—you are here to watch, to pry—Oh, it is loathsome—loathsome! I wonder that a man can stoop so low!”

  Bruce Cardyn took rapid counsel with himself. The inspector must have had some motive for giving away the secret he had hitherto guarded so successfully.

  “You have heard that I am a detective,” he said quietly. “Does that seem so terrible a thing to you?”

  Dorothy struck her hands together passionately.

  “It seems horrible, detestable! To spend your time trying to find out other people’s secrets—to be a spy, an informer! Would it be possible for a man to sink lower? And that it should be you—you who have done this vile thing!”

  The hot blood flew to Cardyn’s brow. For a moment he struggled to find words to answer. At last he said, controlling his voice:

  “Does it seem so dreadful a thing to you to put oneself on the side of the law? The innocent— the innocent have nothing to fear from a detective, Miss Fyvert.”

  “Oh, yes, they have!” Dorothy said wrathfully. “You may be quite innocent, but they will go prying and poking about trying to find out things that are no concern of theirs all the same. And you—you who saved me from that terrible fire—whom I have looked upon as a friend—” Tears choked her utterance.

  The anger her words had caused in Bruce Cardyn’s heart died down, to be succeeded by pity and a stronger, simpler emotion, that even to himself he had hardly dared yet to acknowledge.

  “It has been a great joy—a supreme honour for me that you have allowed me to count myself among your friends,” he said quietly. “For the sake of that friendship, will you listen to me for one minute? Your aunt, Lady Anne, sent for me; she told me that she was frightened, that some member of her household was trying to murder her—she did not know who—and she asked me to come here as her secretary and find out which one it could be. It seemed to be then—it seems to me now—a very pitiful case. Here was a woman, old, alone, fearing the death that was lurking near all the time, not knowing from what corner it might come. I promised to do my best for her. Heaven knows I meant to make her safe!”

  “But you didn’t,” Dorothy said scornfully. “You didn’t pry about in the right direction, you see, Mr. Cardyn.”

  “I did not,” Bruce Cardyn acknowledged, a faraway look in his grey eyes. “I shall never forgive myself for having failed her, and yet I do not see what could have done—that I did not do. Now—now I have sworn to avenge her murder. When I have fulfilled my vow, I shall come to you and say, I am a detective no longer. Will you give me a word of hope, Miss Fyvert, will you be my friend again?” He made a slight gesture as though to put out his hand.

  But Dorothy would not take it. She put both hers firmly behind her.

  “I shall say, however much you give it up, the remembrance of what you have done and been in the past will cling to you still,” she said cuttingly. “Friends with a detective—a spy! No. thank you, Mr. Cardyn!”

  CHAPTER X

  The hall at the back of Charlton Crescent where the inquest on Lady Anne Daventry was resumed was crammed to its utmost limit when the inquiry was reopened. Crowds waited outside, unable to get in, but hoping for a glance at those who were to give evidence to-day. The curiosity of the sightseers was not to be gratified this morning, however. A private car with the rector of North Coton, his wife and the two girls came first. They were followed quickly by another car containing Bruce Cardyn, John Daventry, Inspector Furnival and Soames.

  They were both driven through the crowd to a back entrance, and while the sightseers were still watching for “the Five” they were safely inside the court-house.

  The inquest was held in a big room, while there sat at the table near the coroner the counsels who held watching briefs for the five and for the Fyvert and Daventry families, and, much to the surprise of the general public who did not see the connexion, for Messrs. Spagnum and Thirgood. Close behind them again were the solicitors who instructed them, and the seats allotted to the witnesses. Every other seat, every other inch of standing room was quickly filled when the coroner took his place and the doors were opened.

  Francis Herbert Soames was the first witness called and there was a sharp stir of expectation through the court.

  Soames looked as urbane and dignified as even as he made his way through the crowd, but it was evident to a keen observer that the tragic events of the past fortnight had left their mark upon him. His shoulders were more bowed, his face was paler, even his lips were white as he kissed the book.

  After the preliminaries were over the coroner bade him tell the story of the afternoon of Lady Anne’s death to the jury, as clearly and as concisely as possible.

  He stated his length of service in the Daventry family and gave his age as fifty-six, to the surprise of the sightseers, who thought he looked more. Then he passed on to what he saw on the afternoon of the 29th.

  “It was getting dark,” he began, “and I took up another relay of hot cakes to my lady’s sitting-room, knowing how fond the young ladies were of them. I had got in the room and was surprised to find how dark it was, it not being my lady’s custom to sit in the gloaming. One of the young ladies began to joke about the cakes,” he went on, a huskiness coming in his voice for the first time. “I was just opposite the window, and as I answered Miss Dorothy something seemed to move across the glass. I looked more closely and saw a white face—a noticeably white face, staring in at us. I was so startled, sir,” looking apologetically at the coroner, “that I am ashamed to say I dropped the plate of cakes in my hand and called out. I often say to myself that if I hadn’t done so my poor lady might have been alive now. For there was such an outcry when Mr. Daventry and the young ladies saw the face at the window that the murderer was able to come in and work his wicked will on my lady. The next thing I heard, while we were all looking out, was that dreadful gasping cry, and when we turned round, there was my lady choking her life-blood away, with that dagger sticking out of her breast.”

  He stopped. The coroner looked at his notes.

  “You say, ‘the murderer was able to come in.’ Why do you say he came in? Did you see him? Did you hear any movement?”

  “No, sir, no.” The witness paused as if to suppress some emotion. “But it stands to reason that some one did come in. It is impossible to suppose—”

  “You are not asked to suppose, witness,” the coroner interposed. “Did you or did you not hear or see anything to show you that another person had entered the room.”

  “No, I did not, sir,” the witness replied unwillingly.

  “Now with regard to this man at the window,” the coroner went on, after another glance at his notes, “will you tell us exactly about the state of these windows—this one and the other? Were they open or closed?”

  “This one was open a few inches from the top, sir. The one nearest her ladyship—not the one the man came to—was a little open. The other was latched. They were just as my lady always gave orders they should be, sir.”

  “I have no doubt of that,” said the coroner. “Now can you conceive it possible that a man could have got through either of them into the room?”

  “Well, I don’t know, sir. I couldn’t. But then I am not a Cat Burglar.”

  In spite of the gravity of the case a ripple of laughter ran through the crowd at the idea of the portly and superior butler posing as a cat burglar. When it had been suppressed by the usher, the coroner said:

  “One more question, please, Mr. Soames. You speak of the last gasping cry her ladyship gave. Did it sound to you as if your lady were trying to call out, to say some words?”

  “Well, no, sir, can’t say
that it did!” the witness said doubtfully. “But then you see there was such a commotion and was that upset by seeing the face at the window that didn’t realize what was happening, or how important it was that should be able to remember all that passed.”

  “I see.” The coroner wrote a few lines on his paper. “You can go, now, witness, but you must hold yourself in readiness, for you may be wanted later.”

  Soames’s place in the witness-box was taken by John Daventry, who looked the model of a healthy young Englishman as he stood up to face the crowded court, though his usually good-tempered expression had been replaced by an air of morose defiance. He took the oath and kissed the book and answered the first few formal questions in a surly fashion that turned the sympathies of most men against him. Asked to give his account of the events of that tragic afternoon he responded curtly that it would be just the same as the last witness’s, except that he did not see the face at the window till after Soames cried out.

  “Nevertheless, put it in your own words, please,” the coroner said with an air of calm authority that even John Daventry dared not disregard.

  “Well, my aunt had been telling us all about her pearls and showing us her other bits of jewellery and—and—the dagger. And we had been turning them all over and then it was getting dusk and we had tea up. We had so much to talk about that we didn’t ring for lights. At last Soames brought us some more hot cakes and dropped them and yelled like mad, and stood pointing at the window. Then I saw some joker looking in—a fellow with an ugly white face. We all ran to the window, but the chap seemed to have got away somehow. And while we were all looking for him there was that cry from Lady Anne and we turned to find her dead or dying with that dagger sticking in her.” During this bald recital Daventry’s ruddy cheeks had faded almost to the sickly green colour of the evening of the murder. After that first glance at the lookers-on in the well of the court, however, he did not turn that way again, but faced the coroner with shoulders thrown back and squared, and defiant eyes. He seemed in some way to sense the hostile feeling of the waiting crowd.

  The coroner held out a plan of the sitting-room to him.

  “Will you mark the chair in which you sat, if you please, Mr. Daventry?”

  The witness took the plan, scowled at it and finally scored one of the seats with a big black cross.

  The coroner scrutinized it. “You were the nearest to the escritoire, to Lady Anne, I see.”

  “Yes, I was, on that side,” John Daventry said gloomily. “But—” a sudden passion springing into his tone—“that doesn’t say that I jumped up and stuck a dagger into the poor old lady. Oh, I know what you are driving at, Mr. Coroner! I can see as far through a stone wall as anyone.”

  “That is a most improper observation to make, Mr. Daventry,” the coroner said severely. “Please to confine yourself to the matter in hand. You speak of Lady Anne’s last cry—did it sound to you as if she were trying to say something, or only like a cry for help?”

  “Well, a bit of both!” John Daventry said sullenly, still smarting under his rebuke. “It was like a gasping choke—and then she tried to say: ‘It was—it was—’ twice like that, and then she was gone.”

  “Had you any knowledge of the fact that Lady Anne had some reason to fear that an attempt was likely to be made on her life—had been made unsuccessfully several times in fact?”

  John Daventry opened his eyes. “No, I hadn’t. And I don’t believe it now. The old lady would have been sure to have told me, and I should have taken care to safeguard her.”

  The coroner coughed. “Not quite so easy as it sounds, perhaps, Mr. Daventry. Now, did this face at the window bear any resemblance to that of anyone you know?”

  “Good Lord, no! I should think not!” John Daventry burst out energetically. “A chap with a face like chalk, like a clown’s or a mask or something of that sort and a mass of black hair.”

  There was a pause. The coroner was consulting his notes. At last John Daventry moved as if to leave the box. The coroner stopped him.

  “Another question, Mr. Daventry. Is it not a fact that every one in the room benefited by Lady Anne’s death?”

  “I suppose so,” Daventry assented sulkily. “Every one that is to say but the secretary—Cardyn. She didn’t leave him anything. He hadn’t been there long enough.”

  “You and Miss Balmaine, I understand, come into a large sum of money between you?”

  Daventry nodded. “Yes. Under my uncle’s will. He left his large private fortune to his wife for her life, and then to his sons who were killed in the war. Then it was to be divided between me and the heirs of his daughter if any of them were ever discovered. Lady Anne’s money went back to her own family, naturally.”

  It was a long speech for John Daventry, usually one of the most inarticulate of men. At its conclusion he wiped the little beads of perspiration from his brow.

  “Now, Mr. Daventry, I understand that you have on several occasions tried to anticipate this reversion,” the coroner said, watching him closely.

  Daventry stared back at him. “How do you know that? I am not here to answer questions about my private affairs.”

  “You are here to answer any questions that may throw any light on the death of Lady Anne Daventry,” the coroner rejoined severely. “This sort of thing will do you no good, Mr. Daventry. Answer the question, please.”

  “Well, then, I have,” John Daventry said sullenly. “Expenses have gone up and—and the estate doesn’t bring in any more. Every fellow flies a few kites nowadays.”

  “And did this particular kite of yours succeed?” the coroner asked blandly. “Were you able to borrow the money you wanted?”

  “No, I wasn’t. The blighter wouldn’t advance me anything.”

  The beads of perspiration were plainly visible on Daventry’s brow now. Every now and then he dashed his handkerchief across them. “You see, if I died before Lady Anne, they would not have got a penny, it would have gone to Miss Balmaine or failing her to my cousin, Alan Daventry. And Lady Anne was a game old lady—might have lived to be a hundred if it had not been for this scandalous affair. One of the fellows had the cheek to tell me her life was better than mine.”

  “Quite so!” the coroner said politely. “I think that is all, Mr. Daventry.”

  John Daventry opened his mouth as if to make some rejoinder, then changed his mind, and, with an awkward bow to the coroner, stepped down from the box and made his way back to his seat next Margaret Balmaine. People looked askance at him as he passed. One or two drew themselves out of his way. There could be no doubt that upon the general public John Daventry had made a most unfavourable impression. He was, as Inspector Furnival had once remarked, the obvious suspect, but the obvious was not always the right.

  The inspector’s face was inscrutable as ever as he stood up and asked that the inquest might be further adjourned for a fortnight, as the police were making certain inquiries which he hoped by that time might have some definite result.

  The coroner shuffled about his papers and consulted the foreman of the jury for a moment. Then, just as he turned to the inspector, one of the jurymen rose.

  “Might I put a question to Inspector Furnival on behalf of myself and my colleagues, sir?”

  “Oh, certainly,” the coroner said at once. “There can be no objection, can there, inspector?”

  “Decidedly not, sir.” But though the inspector’s face was as imperturbable as ever as he turned to face the jury, in his heart he was cursing his interlocutor. None knew better than he how very awkward and inapt these questions of the jurymen often were, of how frequently a criminal had taken fright just at the most critical moment.

  “What we want to know is this, sir,” the inquisitive juryman persisted. “We have heard a good deal about finger-prints, all of us, one way and another, and we should like to know why Inspector Furnival has not had the handle of the dagger examined for finger-prints, if he has not. And, if he has, why he has not communicated the resul
ts of the examination to us.”

  The suspicion of a smile flitted across the inspector’s face. Nothing that was done in all the wonderful artistic and scientific methods of detecting crime employed by the Criminal Investigation Department had so captured the public imagination as this one of finger-prints, he was well aware. Also no one was aware how fallacious such a test might be.

  “The usual steps to secure the finger-prints on the dagger handle were taken at once naturally.”

  “And the result?” the juror questioned breathlessly.

  “We found the finger-prints more or less distinct of all the people in the room, and of Lady Anne Daventry herself.”

  “No one else? No sixth man?” Another juror burst out.

  “Not at this examination. The handle is at present being put under other tests by Sir William Forrester Sanders, the expert. But I may say at once that I do not anticipate any different result.”

  “Then—the murder must have been committed by one of the five people in the room?”

  A shiver of horror passed through his hearers. The witnesses sitting near together in the front of the court drew a little apart and glanced at one another sideways as they waited for the answer.

  The inspector bent his head. “So it would seem.”

  The coroner passed out. The crowd waited, their eyes fixed upon that little group of people in the front. They wanted to see them get up—these five very ordinary-looking men and women, one of whom must be a murderer. Moreover, a murderer of the most cruel and brutal kind, one who had killed a defenceless old woman bound to every one of them by ties of gratitude and duty.

  But the ushers began to clear the court. The curious would not be allowed to stare any longer. As they were turning unwillingly to the door, the Five got up. The rector of North Coton with his wife preceded them to the door the courtesy of the coroner had allowed them to use, the two girls came next looking white and frightened in their new mourning. John Daventry and Bruce Cardyn followed, most unwilling companions in adversity. Inspector Furnival brought up the rear, chatting amiably with Soames.