And so would everyone else in the party.
Roger never had been troubled by the smallest doubt that the addition of the chair to the picture would be noticed by a single person.
“And you think,” Colin pursued, “that if the chair hadn’t been there, the case would have smelt of murder?”
“I’d put it a little more strongly than that. I should say that murder would have been perfectly obvious.” Roger was enjoying the irony of discussing fact as if it was wild hypothesis. It was a pity Colin could not appreciate the irony.
“Because she couldn’t possibly have got her neck into the noose without either being lifted up, or standing on something high enough?”
“Exactly. Do you agree?”
“Yes, I certainly do. This is very interesting, Roger.”
“It’s good exercise, to appreciate the importance of trifles,” Roger said cautiously.
“And that’s why you were so interested in my scratch?”
Roger laughed. If Colin only knew how near the wind he was sailing. …
“Well, we can say that it amused me, by way of exercise, to pretend to myself that the chair never had been there at all, and therefore it was a case of murder; and there were you with a nice scratch on your hand, just such as I might have been looking for on one of the party in that event.”
“Well, well. But what motive could I have had for making away with the unfortunate woman? There’s motive enough going about, I’ll grant you, but not in my case. I’d never met her before this evening.”
“But don’t you see, that’s precisely what would make the perfect murder,” Roger said with enthusiasm. “It’s motive, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that really pins a murder on a certain individual. Without a motive, suspicion might never be directed towards him at all.”
“Without a motive there’d be no murder.” Colin was entering into the discussion with nearly as much interest as Roger himself, although to him it must have seemed almost preposterously academic.
“When I say without a motive, of course I mean without an apparent motive. But take this very instance. You apparently had no motive at all for Mrs. Stratton’s death. That is to say, no material motive. But need a motive always be material? What about a spiritual one?”
“Well, what about a spiritual one?” said Colin, rather aggressively.
“De mortuis nil nisi verum. I see no reason why one shouldn’t speak the truth about the dead. The woman was a pest. She was making a nuisance of herself to almost everyone she came in contact with, she was a real menace to the happiness of at least two people here tonight, and she was making her husband’s life a misery to him. There were only two things that could be done to stop her: shut her up in a mad-house, or polish her off. Unfortunately she wasn’t quite insane enough to be certifiable; therefore only the second alternative remains. But not one of the people who had a material motive for her removal had the moral guts to effect it.
“Along comes Colin Nicolson, judicial, sympathetic, strong-minded, clear-sighted enough to see right through shibboleths, and courageous enough to act on his own judgment. He knows that laws were made for man, but he knows too that some people put themselves outside those laws. He is socialistic enough to believe that the security of the majority demands the sacrifice of the individual. He is intelligent enough to realise that it is hardly possible that suspicion can ever fall on him, and that he is taking very little risk. He is sorry, of course, that what he conceives to be his duty should require of him anything so drastic, and he is sorry too for Mrs. Stratton; but he is a great deal more sorry for the people whose lives might be ruined if Mrs. Stratton is allowed to go on living. And so …”
“Well, well,” said Colin calmly. “But I’m not sure you’ve got my character so well. I’m afraid I’m not so noble as all that, Roger. It all sounded to me much more like you.”
“It did rather, didn’t it?” said Roger, not without surprise. “Anyhow, you see what I mean?”
“Oh, yes,” said Colin slowly. “I see that.”
He sat for a moment in thoughtful silence, and then lifted his stocky bulk to its feet.
“Going down again?” Roger asked.
“No, back in a minute.”
Colin went out of the sun-parlour and up on to the roof. Through the glass wall Roger saw him walk across the roof and come to a halt under the gallows. With his hands in his pockets, he seemed to be staring at the chair which had been the cause of all the talk. Then Roger saw him take a large white silk handkerchief out of his breast-pocket and thoroughly wipe over the back, rails and seat of the chair. After that he walked, in his unhurried way, back to the sun-parlour.
“What on earth…?” said Roger, in bewilderment not unmixed with apprehension.
Colin looked at him with some severity. “The trouble with you, Roger,” he said, “is that you talk a jolly sight too much.”
“Talk?”
“Yes. In the circumstances I should keep my mouth shut, if I were you. How on earth did you know I was safe? I might not have been.”
“My dear Colin, what on earth are you talking about? And what were you doing with that chair?”
“Wiping your finger-prints off,” Colin said calmly, “just in case you’d forgotten to do so yourself.”
“Wiping my …”
“Yes. You see, I happen to know that chair wasn’t under the gallows at all when we first came up on the roof. It was in the middle somewhere. I know, because I almost fell over it, and barked my shin rather nastily. If I were you, I wouldn’t tell anyone else you moved it. It might look fishy.”
“But I didn’t …”
“Yes you did, in so many words. I tell you, Roger, you talk too much. If I were you, I wouldn’t sound anyone else about suicide or murder. In fact, I wouldn’t say a word about the case at all. It’s too dangerous, man. Of course, I know you’ve probably got an urge to talk about it, but you must just shut it down. I won’t give you away, of course, and I suppose really it was a pretty good thing for you to have done; but you can’t bank on everyone else, you know.”
“I don’t think there was any risk, really,” Roger said feebly, somewhat taken aback by this severity and cursing himself for having under-estimated Colin’s shrewdness.
“No risk!” Colin snorted. “It’s all very well to talk of spiritual motives and no suspicion and all that, but if you think you can get away with murder without any risk, and then go boasting about it, you’ll soon find your own neck in the same place as you put Mrs. Stratton’s.”
II
“Is it the least good,” Roger said desperately, “for me to go on telling you that I did not murder Mrs. Stratton?”
“I’ll believe you, of course,” Colin said, without the least trace of credulity in his voice.
“Thank you, Colin,” Roger said bitterly.
“And in any case,” Colin added, “I told you I wouldn’t give you away.”
Roger began all over again.
“Well, anyhow,” Colin said judicially, “someone murdered her.”
“I know someone did! My goodness, I wish I’d never moved that blessed chair. This is what comes of trying to do someone a good turn.”
“Even in that case,” said Colin smugly, “it’s a pretty serious thing, you know, monkeying about with evidence.”
“But, dash it all, man, the woman deserved murdering! I know that in theory it’s a shocking thing to shield a murderer. But this case is exceptional. Who ever did such a good deed deserves shielding. You’d have done the same yourself.”
“I would not,” said Colin with decision. “I’ve told you I’ll hold my tongue, but that’s as far as I’d go. I wouldn’t fake the evidence. The game wouldn’t be worth the candle. I wouldn’t risk my neck to get other people out of their own troubles.”
“Risk your neck?”
“It would make me an accessory after the fact, wouldn’t it? And the legal penalty for that is the same as for murder. I suppose, by the way
,” Colin added uneasily, “that I’m an accessory after some sort of fact now. Why on earth couldn’t you hold your tongue, Roger? I should never have guessed if you hadn’t given yourself away. I was a fool though, too, to let you know I had guessed.”
“But I keep on telling you I didn’t murder the woman!”
“I know you do,” said Colin. “And I keep on telling you that I won’t give you away.”
“Oh, hell!” said Roger.
There was an unhappy little silence.
“My dear Colin, you can’t possibly pretend there’s a case against me,” Roger said, almost plaintively.
“Do you want me to show you the case against you?”
“I’d love you to,” Roger said bitterly.
“Well, man, you told me the motive yourself. It was silly to pretend it was a motive for me, because it isn’t. I’m not nearly high-minded enough to take a risk like that for someone I hardly know. And I might add that I’m not officious enough, either, to meddle in other people’s affairs to such an extent as that. But you are, Roger, if you want me to be candid. You’re the most officious person I know, and the most self-confident. If anyone in this world could commit an entirely spiritual, altruistic, infernally officious murder, it’s you.”
“Thank you, Colin,” said Roger, without gratitude.
“Well, I’m just applying your own methods.”
“And all you’ve proved is that I might possibly be said to have a motive, out of having no motive at all. What sort of proof do you call that? The small fact that I had no opportunity at all just doesn’t concern you, I suppose.”
“Opportunity!” Colin exclaimed. “Well, if you hadn’t the opportunity, I don’t know who had.”
“When did I have an opportunity?” Roger demanded, astonished.
“Mrs. Stratton was found on the roof, wasn’t she? So it’s a reasonable inference that she was on the roof, or in here, all the time after she left the ballroom. In fact, as no one saw her again, it’s more than a reasonable inference that she was up here. It’s almost a dead certainty. You’ll agree with that, I suppose.”
“Yes, I do,” Roger said defiantly. “Well?”
“Well, so far as I know, you were the only person, during the time she was missing, who was up here too,”
“What!”
“After you’d been consoling poor wee David at the bar, didn’t you come straight up here when I joined the two of you?” asked Colin calmly.
“Good—good lord!” exclaimed Roger, thunderstruck.
It was perfectly true. The advent of Colin had given Roger the excuse to slip away. The conversation with David had, in the circumstances, been somewhat forced; and Roger felt that the enormous log-fire was making the room not only uncomfortably hot but much too smoky. He had gone up on to the roof and stood for a few minutes just outside the door, smoking a cigarette, and allowing the smoke from the room below to pour out through the open doorway. He had forgotten all about it, but Colin was perfectly right.
He had seen no one on the roof, but he must have been there at least four or five minutes; and during that time there could be no doubt now that Ena Stratton must have been in the sun-parlour, alone—or with her murderer.
This was infernally awkward.
“And of course,” Colin pursued, “after that poor David had been telling you all his troubles, you’d have been feeling nasty and worked-up.”
Roger turned a distressed face on his accuser.
“David didn’t tell me all his troubles,” he could only say feebly. “He didn’t even mention his wife at all. We talked about the test matches, and the leg-theory. You can ask him.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” said Colin primly.
Roger said nothing.
“It was you who asked me for the case,” said Colin.
“And you think,” Roger said with emotion, “that during those few minutes I was up here, I carried Mrs. Stratton to the gallows and hanged her there?”
“Someone did. If it wasn’t you, Roger, who was it?”
“You might at least give me the credit of not being such a bungler as to have forgotten the essential chair.”
“Someone forgot it. It was a bad mistake, of course. But the murderer who’s found out always has made a bad mistake. I suppose,” said Colin, regarding the end of his cigarette, “that having been mixed up with murder so much, you didn’t regard it quite so seriously as some of us do; and that may have made you a bit careless about the details.”
Roger choked.
“And, of course, it was your talking about the chair that gave the whole thing away,” Colin went on, with complete imperturbability. “I wondered what you were driving at. Then I understood. You were worried about that chair. You knew you’d forgotten to put it there at the time; and though you’d seen your mistake and put it right afterwards, you were a bit frightened that somebody might have noticed it wasn’t there before. So you tried to suggest it on me, in order to have a witness that it had been there all the time, just in case of trouble. That was jolly clever of you, Roger.”
“But it didn’t come off, did it?”
“No, you overdid it,” said Colin frankly. “Still, it was a bright idea, after you’d given yourself away, to pretend you’d moved it to shield someone else. Very bright. But unfortunately, not very probable.”
“It just happens to be the truth, that’s all.”
“And as you’d made so many bloomers already,” Colin went on, just as if Roger had not spoken at all, “I thought you might quite well have been ass enough to have left your finger-prints on it too, and I’d better wipe them off first and hear what you’d got to say afterwards. Did you leave your prints on it, by the way?” Colin asked with interest.
“Yes,” said Roger wrathfully.
“I thought you would have done,” said Colin, with insufferable complacence.
“I do seem to have been a clumsy murderer, don’t I?”
“I expect it takes practice,” Colin soothed him.
Again there was a little pause.
“Well, any more?”
“Isn’t that enough?” asked Colin.
“And are you going to the police with this fool of a story?”
‘‘I told you, I won’t give, you away. But you’d better watch out that you don’t give yourself away, again.”
“I wish you would go to the police,” Roger yammered.
“Thanks, I don’t want to be mixed up in it at all.”
“Then I’ll go to them myself, and tell them exactly what you’ve said!”
“You’re a fool if you do,” Colin said coolly.
In spite of his indignation Roger still had enough sense left to see that he would, indeed, be a very great fool if he did.
Once more there was a raging silence.
Then there was the sound of footsteps outside, and Ronald Stratton appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, here you are, Roger. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. The inspector’s here and wants to see you in the dining-room.”
Roger rose, not unthankful to escape.
He caught Colin’s eye.
Colin nodded reassuringly.
CHAPTER IX
THE CASE AGAINST
DR. CHALMERS
I
Inspector Crane, of the Westerford police, was a tall, loosely-built man, not in the least like the usual drill-sergeant type of police-inspector. He had a pleasant face and, in this house at any rate, almost an apologetic manner; certainly there was none of the snapping self-importance about him which some police officials adopt. Ronald Stratton already knew him fairly well, and so had been able to explain the circumstances to him without the uneasy constraint which the presence of a stranger might have induced.
On learning that Roger Sheringham had been among the guests, the inspector had named that gentleman as the first of the party whom he would like to interview.
“Very pleased to meet you, sir,” he greeted Roger. “Heard about you b
efore now, of course. A terrible business this, sir, though fortunately not in your line, we hope.”
“No,” said Roger firmly. “Of course not.”
“No. Well, sir, if you’ll sit down, I should very much like to hear from you anything which you think may throw light on the tragedy, or assist the coroner.”
It was the dining-room which had been offered to the inspector for the conduct of his interviews, and both men seated themselves at one end of the long table, the inspector with his notebook expectantly open before him. Roger saw at once that the proceedings were not going to be unduly formal, for both the Stratton brothers were present, too, Ronald perched on the edge of the table with his foot on a chair’s seat, and David leaning silently back against the mantelpiece.
“You must understand, inspector, that I scarcely knew Mrs. Stratton,” Roger began, and went on to give an account of his own dealings with her that evening.
“Ah!” The inspector pricked up his ears and licked his pencil hopefully. “Mrs. Stratton actually mentioned to you her intention of taking her own life?”
“The possibility, rather than the intention.” Roger corrected. “Still, yes, she did.”
“But in spite of that, you did nothing?” said the inspector, somewhat apologetically.
“What could I have done? She merely referred to the possibility in the future. She said nothing about carrying out any such intention tonight.”
“So you took no steps, sir?”
“None.”
“I ought to ask you,” said the inspector still more apologetically, “why you did not consider it necessary to take steps?”
“Because I didn’t believe a word of what she’d been saying. I’m bound to tell you that I thought she was talking just for effect.”
“I did not consider her intentions serious,” said the inspector, writing busily. “Does that express what you felt, Mr. Sheringham?”
“I think so,” Roger agreed, avoiding Ronald Stratton’s eye.
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