“And be at liberty to drop hints for the rest of your life, I suppose, that I did it? No, Colin, I’m afraid that’s not good enough for me. And in any case, I can’t quite see what your trouble is. Are you afraid of knowing that a friend of yours has committed murder, just like the ostrich husband who’d much rather not know that his wife has kicked over the traces? Where ignorance is bliss. Is that your idea? And yet it didn’t seem to shatter you when you jumped to the conclusion that I had.”
“That was different,” Colin growled. “You can look after yourself. David can’t.”
“Oh, stop being an old hen,” Roger said impatiently, “and discuss it reasonably. I didn’t say we were bound to act on anything we discovered. In any case I doubt very much whether we could prove it, as the police consider proof, since I moved that chair. You needn’t be so frightened on behalf of your poor wee David. I’m quite prepared to shield him, if it does turn out that he made away with her. I’ll even shake his hand and congratulate him, if you like. But I must know.”
“Why must you know?” Colin asked plaintively.
“Because, dash it,” Roger shouted, “you’ve accused me, and I didn’t do it. You’ve nibbled at the roots of my self-respect, you—you wireworm, and I’ve got to restore them.”
“Oh, well,” Colin grumbled. “All right, then. Get on with it.”
IV
Roger moved himself along to another patch of sun-warmed brickwork and, thus comforted, took up his crede.
“It’s quite plain, Colin, that you’re going to disagree with every single thing I say this morning, so you’d better take up the position of counsel for the defence at once, and I’ll prosecute. First of all, then, I’d like to hear from you why you thought David behaved in that very strange manner last night, after we’d found the body? Or didn’t you consider his manner strange?”
“It was a terrible shock to the man, naturally. What do you expect?”
“Not quite what I saw, I think,” Roger said meditatively. “It would have been a shock, of course. On the other hand David must have detested his wife; and it can’t be such a shock to lose a wife you detest as to lose a wife you love. Though I’ll grant you that the first reaction, for an innocent man of course, would probably be horror. After all, a wife is a wife, even if you do detest her; and there must be times and moments to which one instinctively looks back with emotion. Even with Ena Stratton there must have been such times, or David would never have married her. And why the deuce he ever wanted to do so is more than I can say. Nevertheless, he evidently did.
“But David’s manner last night didn’t strike me quite as a result of that natural and innocent feeling. There was shock, but somehow I shouldn’t have said that it was the shock of loss. Am I unconsciously influencing myself now if I think that it was much more like the shock of fear?” demanded Roger oratorically. “Quite possibly. But there was no doubt about Ronald. He was clucking round David just like an old hen. What, I wonder, is there about David that causes perfectly strong men to cluck like hens? I don’t know. Ronald, anyhow, was much concerned about David. Why, Colin?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nor do I. But would you jump down my throat if I suggested that it was because Ronald knew what David had done, and was frightened out of his wits that David might give himself away to the police? Would you be extremely angry if I put that forward as the reason why Ronald should have nipped in and answered the questions addressed by the inspector to David almost before his brother could open his own mouth? Would you, Colin?”
“Oh, so we’ve got a brand-new accessory after the fact, as well as a new murderer, have we?” Colin asked sarcastically.
“It looks as if we might have,” Roger admitted. “I hope so, for David’s sake. Well, there’s the question of David’s reactions, as expressed in his manner. As a matter of fact, David might be said to have had two manners, an early and a late. In his early manner he appeared to be dazed, no doubt by shock; possibly by the shock of loss, possibly not. His late manner was exactly the opposite. When he was allowed by Ronald to answer the inspector’s questions, he almost barked out his replies. They were curt to the point of rudeness.
“Now I actually did have during that interview two rather interesting thoughts. It seemed to me that David had been rehearsed in what he was to say to the inspector, and perhaps hurriedly and sketchily rehearsed at that; and it seemed too that he was concealing an emotion of some kind. Both these suppositions fit in very well with David’s guilt.”
“But great snakes, man, it’s all so vague. It’s only possibly this, and perhaps that. Not a fact in the lot of it,” vigorously complained Colin.
“Yes, I know. We haven’t got on to the facts yet. I’m just dealing first with the tiny straws. We’ll come on to the trusses in a minute.
“So far, then, we’ve established that David had an overwhelming motive beforehand, and an uneasy manner afterwards. And now, if you want facts, here’s a very big fact indeed, and I’d like to hear you explain it away if you can. Why did David ring up the police about his wife before it was ever known that anything had happened to her at all?”
“Ach, come now, Roger. You know why he did that.”
“I know what he gives as his reason for doing it.”
“To warn them that an irresponsible woman was loose in the country-side.”
“Yes, that’s what he said at the time: in case of suicide. And yet David Stratton, as an intelligent man, must have known that the chances of his wife committing suicide were extremely remote. He must know as well as I do that the people who chat impressively about committing suicide aren’t the people who do it. That was the very first thing that made me really suspicious about the death. But doesn’t it strike you as a very cunning move, if Mrs. Stratton were (as indeed she was) actually dead and the stage set for suicide, to suggest to the police the fear of suicide in advance?”
“I’m not sure that it does. Wouldn’t it be just as likely to make the police more suspicious?”
“I don’t think so, with all the evidence for suicide that was waiting for them to collect. The police, you see, don’t bother about psychological probabilities. Like you, it’s facts they want. And the fact is that Mrs. Stratton had been braying her intention of committing suicide all the evening. Very nice.”
“It seems to me,” said Colin, “that for David to go and do a thing like that when all the time he’d really murdered her would be just like those detective stories where the murderer himself goes rushing off for the Great Detective and begs him to take up the case, which only proves that he was daft as well as a murderer.”
“That’s a point,” Roger said thoughtfully. “But not, I think, in this instance, a sound one. The police are bound to investigate in any case, you see; the Great Detective isn’t. Though you’re right to the extent that the inspector himself did appear a little curious as to why David should have rung up the police station on this particular occasion, and never before. Ronald jumped in and explained it all away, by the way. Another confirmation of collusion between those two.” Roger had spoken a little mechanically. He was thinking of someone else who had voiced to him a fear that the police might suspect “something absolutely preposterous.” And that was before he himself had proved murder at all. But he had suspected it and probably he had shown that he suspected it. Had this remark been by way of a feeler? Was there, by any chance, a second accessory after the fact? Roger would have to secure a few tactful words with Mrs. Lefroy some time during the day.
“What? Say that again, Colin. Sorry, I was thinking.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” Colin repeated robustly. “There was no reason why David shouldn’t have rung up the police as an innocent man, with a daft woman about the place like that. No reason at all. And every reason why he should.”
“Well, I disagree, that’s all. I think, with the inspector, that it was, to say the least, curious. Now, what else have we got against David?”
; “Ach!”
“Supposing him innocent, was it really quite natural for him to come back to the house and search?” Roger asked argumentatively. “Could he really have thought that she actually was hiding there? I don’t know. It seems a little odd. Much more likely that she’d have rushed off to the house of some friend, or hidden herself outside—anywhere rather than in the house of the hated Ronald, wouldn’t you think?”
“You’re just twisting things.”
“No, I’m not. That’s a perfectly sound point. And so is its corollary. In fact, more interesting still.”
“What?”
“Why, don’t you see, if David knew she was dead—and Ronald too, we might say, knew she was dead, either then or later—then they’d have to organise that search just exactly as they did in fact organise it; because neither of them must find the body, or it would look better if neither did, and so we had to be kept at it till one of us did. Don’t you think that’s rather interesting, Colin?”
“But these are nothings, man—just nothings.”
“No, they’re not nothings. I grant you they’re not very big somethings, but they are somethings: just tiny little pointers, which all seem to me to indicate guilt more than innocence. Not much separately, of course, but in the mass just a bit formidable, don’t you think? And another one is David’s anxiety to have the body in his own keeping at the first possible moment. Quite natural, no doubt, if he’s innocent; but still more explicable, I should have said, if he’s not.”
Colin made a Scotch noise of exasperation, which Roger ignored.
“That’s interesting, by the way,” he resumed. “It shows that the police have no suspicion at all. Otherwise, of course, they’d have taken the body off to the mortuary. Well, I can’t say I’m sorry.”
“I believe you,” said Colin meaningly.
Roger laughed. “So I’m still under suspicion, am I?”
“More than that wee David, at any rate,” Colin muttered. “Why, man, you said yourself last night that he and Chalmers were the only two who were definitely cleared.”
“Yes, but that was before I’d fully realised that the time of death might not be so accurate as Chalmers suggested.”
“You can’t have it both ways, Roger,” Colin pointed out. “It wasn’t till you were trying to prove that Chalmers was the man that you decided the time of death might be half an hour later than he fixed it, because he might have been deliberately misleading us. It’s only if Chalmers is guilty that the time of death might be late enough for David to have done it; and if Chalmers were guilty, David couldn’t be. If Chalmers isn’t guilty, then the time of death must be as he said; and that lets wee David out again. You’ve no case at all.”
“Time of death is never so rigid as that,” Roger retorted. “Within two hours, as this was, and in the cold outside also complicate things, the doctors may well have made a perfectly genuine error of half an hour. Anyhow, you don’t agree that I’m building up against David a case quite worth answering?”
“No, I don’t,” Colin maintained stoutly. “I think you’ve exaggerated all the points against him out of all proportion, and not even considered the ones in his favour.”
“That’s quite true; I haven’t. I’m not concerned with them. I just wanted to see whether there was a case for him to answer. And there is.”
“Ach, you could make out as good a case as that against any of us.”
“Well, it’s as good at least as the case you made out against me,” Roger retorted. “Would you like to lay both of them before the inspector? I’m quite willing.”
“You’re not really thinking of stirring up the mud like that, Roger, are you?” Colin asked, in some alarm.
“No, I’m not. But your answer shows what you won’t admit: that there is a case against David.” Roger rose and stretched himself. “Well, I’m quite willing to leave it at that, if you are.”
“Great guns, yes. I don’t want to have anything more to do with the business at all.”
“Then that’s all right.” Roger bent over his pipe, which had been unable to stand up to this oratory.
“What are you going to do now?” Colin asked.
“Me? Oh, I think I shall stroll back to the house, to see if there’s anything doing. I rather liked that inspector fellow. I think I’ll have a chat with him. By the way, I suppose you’re staying till tomorrow? Ronald seems to want us to.”
“No,” said Colin. “I don’t care about the idea at all. I’ve told him I’ll be pushing off after lunch.”
“Oh. Well, I think I shall stay. But what about the inquest?”
“Ach,” said Colin confidently, “they won’t want me for that. Why should they?”
Roger walked back to the house.
If he had not succeeded in convincing Colin, he had convinced himself. He was quite sure now that either David Stratton or Ronald had been responsible for Ena’s death, with the other brother as accomplice either before or after. In any case, they were both in it.
On the whole Roger fancied Ronald as the more probable candidate for the actual deed. Ronald was a man of more decision than David, and he was a man, Roger fancied, who could be fairly ruthless if he had decided that ruthlessness was necessary. Besides, he had the double motive; solicitude for his brother, of whom he was obviously very fond, and the silencing of Ena on his own behalf.
For that matter, however, David had a double motive too, as a husband and as a lover.
“I should like to know where David went when Colin left him,” Roger thought to himself. “Did he go up on to the roof then, or didn’t he? The time of death does give us that amount of latitude, whatever the doctors say. Now I wonder how I can possibly find that out?”
The more closely he looked at his new solution, the more certain Roger became that it was the right one. He had been led away before, by the pretty will-of-the-wisp of Chalmers. But examining the situation with an unprejudiced eye, he saw now that a simple elimination left no one at all but one of the Stratton brothers as the guilty man. Colin, Williamson and himself were out of the question; Dr. Mitchell, he was sure, had not left the ballroom or his wife’s side during that hour; Mike Armstrong equally had been constant in his attendance on Margot; the women were all ruled out as not possessing the necessary physical strength; Chalmers was cleared for the same reason—only David and Ronald remained. And still further against these two, David’s alibi was not sound and Ronald’s had not even been examined.
Well, good luck to both of them.
By the time he reached the house Roger had decided that he no longer wanted to find out where David had gone when Colin left him. Whether it were he or Ronald who had done the actual deed, Roger had not the least intention of interfering. Murder could seldom be justified, but it was difficult to look on the elimination of a piece of blight like Ena Stratton as murder. And the best thing for Roger was simply not to know who had done it, or anything about it.
But as he passed through the front door Roger could not help smiling.
Did any lingering suspicion still really remain with Colin that he of all people, Roger Sheringham, had taken it upon himself to string up Ena Stratton? Or was that merely a retort on the part of that obstinate young man to Roger’s charges against David?
In either case, Roger could not help feeling amused at the idea of Roger Sheringham being suspected of murder.
CHAPTER XI
A HIVE IN THE HELMETS
I
Roger found Inspector Crane on the roof, talking to Ronald Stratton. A uniformed constable hovered in the background.
“Good morning, Inspector,” Roger said cheerfully.
“Good morning, sir. Funny, I was just saying to Mr. Stratton, could I have a word with you up here.”
“Were you? A lucky arrival then.”
Roger glanced round with interest. He had not seen the roof in daylight before, and it did not look quite as he had imagined it in the dark. Much smaller, for one thing, and the arbour was alm
ost at the end instead of nearly in the middle, as he had thought. The gallows were exactly in the middle, and from them still hung the two remaining straw effigies. In the sunlight these looked merely ludicrous, and no longer in the least grisly.
The inspector and Ronald were standing close to the gallows, and Roger intercepted a surreptitious wink from the latter which puzzled him slightly.
“It’s about this chair, Mr. Sheringham,” the inspector explained, in a somewhat apologetic voice, and pointed at the chair lying on its side underneath the gallows.
A tiny stab of alarm pierced Roger’s chest, but he answered easily enough.
“Oh, yes? What about it?”
“Well, sir, you see how it’s lying, right underneath the rope. Now, I’ve taken measurements, and it appears that the poor lady would have been able to stand on it quite easily if it had been like that. These rungs support me, as I’ve tried, so they would quite easily have supported her.”
“Yes, I see what you mean. But perhaps it’s been moved.”
“That’s just what I wanted to ask you, Mr. Sheringham. Was it, to your knowledge, moved last night, while you and Mr. Stratton were cutting the poor lady down?”
Roger looked, as meaningly as he dared, at Ronald. He did not want his reply to clash with any story that Ronald might have told.
“Well, that’s rather difficult to say,” he answered cautiously. “Do you remember if it got moved, Ronald?”
To Roger’s horror, Ronald said brightly:
“No, I can’t say. As a matter of fact, I was just telling the inspector that I don’t remember it being there at all when we were cutting her down.”
After a moment’s stupefaction before this stupidity, Roger regained control of himself. “Don’t you? Oh, I think I do. It was rather in the way. Yes, I expect someone must have kicked it aside, inspector.”
“Yes, I can understand that, sir,” agreed the inspector, in a worried voice, “but why was it put back again?”
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