“I see,” said Roger. “And the police are still up there? Any idea what they’re doing, Williamson?”
“Oh yes,” said Mr. Williamson cheerfully. “They’re still taking photographs. They’ve been at it all the time, with the inspector popping in and out of the sun-parlour like a jack-in-the-box, trying to do two things at once.”
“Did you say they’re taking photographs?” said Roger, in rather a strained voice.
“That’s it. There’s a professional photographer there from Westerford, I believe, though how they got hold of him on a Sunday morning I don’t know. Anyhow, they’ve got him there, taking photographs of the roof and the gallows and heaven knows what, from every angle they can think of. Seemed a bit unnecessary to me, I must say, but I suppose they think differently. Keen chaps, your police here Ronald.”
“Very,” said Ronald flatly.
“May I suggest,” said Roger elaborately, “that this room is open to the staircase, and Williamson has rather a strong voice?”
As he spoke, the telephone-bell rang. Ronald disappeared into his study to answer it.
Roger and Colin exchanged glances. Colin, peering over his glasses, lifted his eyebrows. In reply, Roger shrugged his shoulders. Both of them looked grave.
“I say,” said Mr. Williamson seriously. “I say, Sheringham.”
“Yes?”
“I say, this is really awfully good sherry of Ronald’s. Have you tried it? You should. I wonder where he gets it. You’ve no idea, Colin, have you? Eh? Have you?”
“Ach, shut up Osbert,” said Colin.
Mr. Williamson looked surprised, but not very hurt.
Ronald appeared at the door of his study.
“Sheringham,” he said, “can I speak to you for a minute in here?”
“Of course,” said Roger, jumping up. He hurried across the hall.
Ronald shut the study door.
Roger did not bother to disguise his anxiety. “More bad news?” he asked.
Ronald nodded. “That was my brother on the telephone. He says the police have just taken Ena’s body away from the house. They are taking her to the mortuary. I say, this is serious, isn’t it?”
“It might be. Look here, Ronald. Get your brother on the telephone again and ask him to lunch here, at once. Never mind if he turns up late. It’s the best excuse for having him up here. And tell him to answer no questions from anyone until I’ve seen him.”
“Yes, I will. Thanks. David’s a bit… What does it mean, Roger? That the police aren’t satisfied, I suppose? Goodness only knows why not, but that must be what it means. That they’ve got some sort of a bee in their bonnets?”
“A bee?” said Roger unhappily. “A hive!”
IV
The lunch-gong brought the women downstairs.
Fortunately the continued presence of the police in the house was looked upon by them as part of the normal procedure, so that while lunch could hardly be called a cheerful meal, there was at any rate no spirit of general apprehension. Half-way through it David arrived, very haggard and curt, and his presence naturally added a further constraint to the gathering.
Immediately the meal was over, Roger made a sign to Ronald, who said a low word to David and carried him off. Coming back at once, he said to Roger:
“He’s in my study. Shall I come along?”
“No,” said Roger, and went off to the study alone.
He had been debating during lunch how exactly to convey his warning to David without appearing to know everything and yet without minimising the danger. The compromise on which he had decided had the weakness of all compromises, but it was the best one he could find.
“Look here, Stratton,” he said, without beating about the bush, “you know what this means, of course, taking your wife’s body off to the mortuary and messing about on the roof, as the police have been doing. It means that they’re not satisfied that your wife’s death was quite so uncomplicated as it looked at first. I’m not in their confidence, so I don’t know what their trouble is; but at a guess, it might be that there was last night some special motive, some particular incident or scene, such as a quarrel, which led to her taking her life and which has not yet been disclosed. Now, whether there was anything of the sort I don’t know, and I don’t want to know, any more than I want to know the exact details of her last moments. But if there was, and it comes to light, there’s bound to be a great deal of mud-slinging over the case; and that I do want to prevent for all our sakes.
“So I’d like to impress on you that it’s essential for you, of all of us, to have a perfectly simple story for the police, which can easily be supported elsewhere, so that they can understand that you didn’t follow your wife up on to the roof when she ran out of the ballroom and quarrel with her there, or anything like that. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Well, that’s perfectly simple,” David said shortly.
“I—”
“Wait a minute. Let me tell you. I know you didn’t go up there, because I was with you myself for at least ten minutes, at the bar. You remember? We were talking about the test matches and the absurd fuss the Australians made because we bowled at their leg-stumps instead of their off-stumps. I’m your alibi for that time. Then Colin Nicolson joined us, and I strolled up on to the roof for a minute or two myself—where, I may say, I saw no sign of your wife, who must have been in the sun-parlour.”
“Why?” asked David curtly.
“Why?” Roger repeated.
“Yes. Why must she have been in the sun-parlour? It was ten minutes, or more. That was plenty of time for her to have done it.”
“Of course,” said Roger hurriedly. He had completely forgotten that his very first theory had exonerated David because of those ten minutes. Of course that was David’s best defence. The doctor’s report as to the time of death must be firmly taken for granted. It had been clever of David to see that.
“Of course,” he repeated. “I don’t know why I said that she was probably in the sun-parlour. Most likely she had done it already. Still, there’s no harm in your having a margin of safety, so we’ll just get it exact. I left you, and you stayed with Nicolson another three or four minutes. And then,” said Roger with meaning, “you followed him straight into the ballroom, didn’t you, where your brother, no doubt, and other people saw you?”
“Not at once,” said David obtusely. “I went down to the bath-room first.”
“No, you didn’t,” Roger retorted, with some exasperation. “You never went near the bath-room. You followed Nicolson straight into the ballroom. In fact, you both went together. He remembers you did.”
A very faint smile appeared on David’s pale face. “Yes, that’s right. I remember now, too. And if you want to know, I went straight up to Agatha and asked her to dance, because I hadn’t been able to dance with her before. My wife,” said David in an expressionless voice, “didn’t like her. God knows why.”
“Exactly. She’ll remember that, too. And you stayed with her some time, of course, and after that you were never alone until Ronald actually saw you off the premises.”
“Ronald didn’t. I—”
“Yes, he did.”
“Oh, all right. It all seems very unnecessary,” said David wearily, “but I suppose you’re right.” Roger snorted.
V
Leaving the study, Roger hurried off in search of Mrs. Lefroy. He ran her to earth in the drawing-room, detached her from a group, and led her outside the door. Time was short, and he could not mince matters.
“You remember when I took David off to have a drink, after his wife had flung herself out of the ballroom? Well, I didn’t come back with him. Colin Nicolson did. You remember seeing them come in, don’t you?”
“No,” said, Mrs. Lefroy doubtfully. “I remember David coming and sitting by me, but I think that was some time later, wasn’t it?”
“It was exactly thirteen minutes after I took him out, but you don’t know that. What you do know is that yo
u saw him and Colin come into the ballroom together, and David came straight across and joined you.”
Mrs. Lefroy was a rare woman. “Yes,” she said at once. “I remember perfectly.”
“Bless you,” said Roger. “Where’s Ronald?”
Ronald was discovered in the study, with David. They were not talking.
“Go home, David,” said Roger. “You mustn’t be here too much. We don’t want to look like a conspiracy, whether we are one or not. Go home and stick to your story, and you’ll be all right.”
David went.
“The police have gone,” Ronald said. “Shall we——”
“Damn the police,” said Roger. “They’ll be back soon enough.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. By the way, they’ve altered the place of the inquest. It’s to be in Westerford now, not here.”
Roger nodded. “I expected that. Now, listen to me Ronald, because I’m going to speak very carefully.” He repeated the gambit which he had already used on David.
“Yes,” said Ronald. “I understand perfectly. But I don’t think you do.”
“I don’t want to, any more than that,” Roger said quickly. “All I want you to do is to look after your own alibi, because I haven’t the time, and be ready to swear that you went down to the front door with your brother and saw him out of the house.”
“Oh, my alibi’s all right,” Ronald said carelessly. “I never left the ballroom at all from the time Ena went out of it till just before David went, when I was at the bar with you.”
“You didn’t?” said Roger.
So it had been David after all.
“No. Heaps of people can swear to that. But look here, Roger,” said Ronald anxiously, “are you quite sure David’s is all right? Is it really cast-iron?”
“Absolutely. No, not cast-iron. Not so brittle. Wrought iron. I’ve just,” said Roger with a smile, “been forging it.”
“Ah! Well listen, Roger,” Ronald said slowly, “I want to speak carefully to you, too. I haven’t said a word to David, and he hasn’t said a word to me. I quite agree with you that it’s much better not to know anything. I can see that’s your line, and it’s the right one. But I do just want to say this, Roger. That woman utterly deserved—well, anything she got.”
“I know she did,” Roger said, not without emotion. “And that’s just why I’m not knowing anything at all. But I’ll say this, Ronald. Everything will be all right.”
“Sure?”
“Sure. You see, after all, there’s no evidence at all. Not to say, evidence.”
Fleeing any more emotion, Roger hurried off in search of Colin. The police might be back at any moment, and Roger wanted everything nice and simple for them when they came.
Colin was smoking his pipe with Williamson on the lawn in front of the house.
Roger called him aside and began once more.
“Colin, after I’d gone up on the roof last night and left you with David, you didn’t go back to the ballroom alone. David went with you.”
“But I’ve told you already I…”
“Colin, I haven’t got much time. Listen. David went with you. Mrs. Lefroy remembers seeing you both come in together. And,” said Roger with emphasis, “David himself remembers that he went in with you. David himself remembers it, Colin.”
“Oh!” said Colin slowly.
“Yes, you were wrong, I’m afraid. But the lad’s perfectly safe, so long as you remember just that thing.”
“Of course I remember we went in together,” said Colin firmly. “Haven’t I told you so all along?”
“Then thank goodness that’s settled.” Roger mopped his brow and took a breath of relief.
“But Roger, man, what are the police up to? Do you mean to tell me they smell a rat? What were they doing, taking photographs on the roof?”
“I don’t know,” Roger admitted. “But that appears to be my next job, to find out. Little did I think that the Great Detective would ever come down to detecting what the official detectives may have detected already. Well, well.”
“Does it look serious, do you think?”
“No, I don’t think so really,” Roger said as they walked back towards the house. “It’s alarming, of course, but I don’t see how it can possibly be serious. They can’t have anything more than the vaguest suspicions; and suspicion never even arrested anyone without some kind of evidence too, let alone hanged him. Anyhow, if the coast’s clear, we’ll see if we can make out what they’ve been up to.”
The coast was clear, and the roof unguarded. Even the large constable had been withdrawn.
“Ah!” said Roger, and looked round.
At a first glance everything seemed exactly the same.
“Well, I don’t know what the deuce they were at, unless they really were still worried about that chair,” said Roger, and walked towards the gallows.
“Hullo!” he exclaimed in surprise. “It’s gone!”
He looked round again. Undoubtedly the chair had gone. Three chairs still stood on the roof, but exactly as they had stood before. The fourth, under the gallows, had disappeared.
“Let’s see if it’s in the sun-parlour,” said Roger.
It was not in the sun-parlour.
“Well, what on earth would they want to take it away for?” asked Colin, no less puzzled.
“Heaven only knows.” Roger was beginning to feel worried, in the way that the inexplicable does worry. “I can’t make it out at all. The only importance in the chair to them was its position with regard to the gallows. As an object apart from its position, I can’t see how it could possibly interest them.” Already such a simple act as the carrying away of the chair was beginning to look sinister. Roger felt perfectly equal to combating the known moves of an opponent, but this was an unknown one, and how can one combat that?
“Ach,” Colin tried to be reassuring, “they’re just daft. Trying to be too clever, that’s all.”
“No,” Roger worried. “No, I don’t think that can be it. They must have had some reason.”
He stared at the roof where the chair had lain.
Suddenly he uttered an exclamation and dropped on his hands and knees, to peer intently at that same bit of roof.
“Have you found something?” Colin asked eagerly.
Roger blew gently at the ground, and then again. Then he got up and faced Colin.
“I know why they took that chair away,” he said slowly. “Colin, I’m afraid we’re rather up against it.”
“What do you mean, man?”
“I was wrong when I said they were working just on suspicion, with no evidence to back it. They have got evidence. Can you see faint traces of grey powder there? That’s insufflator powder. They’ve been trying to take fingerprints off that chair, and they’ve found that there aren’t any at all—not even Ena’s.”
CHAPTER XII
UNSCRUPULOUS BEHAVIOUR OF A GREAT DETECTIVE
I
“We must keep calm,” said Roger, not at all calmly. “We mustn’t lose our heads. We’re in a nasty jam, but we must keep calm, Colin.”
“It’s the devil,” muttered Colin, in a distressed voice.
“We must try to work out their moves,” Roger continued, a little less wildly, “so that we can forestall them. You’re the only person I can talk to freely, so you’ve got to help me.”
“I’m with you all the way, Roger.”
“You’d better be,” said Roger grimly. “Because we’re both of us for it if the truth comes out. In a moment of lunacy I put myself in the position of accessory after the fact, to shield someone else (I suppose one can be an accessory after the fact to a crime, by the way, without having the least knowledge of the criminal’s identity? It’s an interesting point); and you did the same by shielding me. I hope you realise that?”
“I’m afraid you’re right. I’m an accessory to an accessory, at any rate, if there is such a position. But let’s look on the bright side, Roger. Things might have been worse if
I hadn’t wiped those prints of yours off the chair. Worse for you, I mean.”
“And possibly worse still for someone else besides me,” Roger retorted.
The two were sitting in the sun-parlour, whither they had retired in some alarm after Roger’s discovery on the roof, to talk the thing over. Roger had spent another five minutes, crawling about on his hands and knees round the gallows, to see whether anything else was to be read from the surface of the roof, but beyond one or two burnt match-stalks had found nothing. He had explained to Colin that the police would have done exactly the same thing and equally, it was to be presumed, found no scratches or other marks on the surface of the asphalt to indicate that anything in the nature of a struggle had taken place there; though whether they might have found anything else of a removable nature could not be said.
Roger relit his pipe and continued, considerably calmer. Unlike many people, Roger found argument soothing.
“Yes, that’s quite true, Colin. If you hadn’t wiped off my prints, what would they have found? That officious inspector was going to test the chair for prints in any case. He’d have found mine, and presumably those of the person who carried all the chairs on to the roof, and probably several others as well. But he wouldn’t have found Ena Stratton’s, which he was looking for; and that might have made things more awkward even than they are now. I wonder, by the way,” Roger added vaguely, “how the particular chair of the four which I chose happened to get where it was, right in the middle of the fairway. It was the one, of course, which you knocked over.”
“I didn’t knock it over,” Colin contradicted. “It nearly knocked me over. It was lying on its side. That’s why I didn’t see it.”
“Lying on its side, just about half-way between the gallows and the door into the house,” Roger meditated. “It might have been there, of course, when I was standing just outside the door earlier, but if so I don’t remember noticing it. And it certainly wasn’t there at the beginning of the evening, when Ronald took me up to show me his gallows, because we walked abreast straight across from the door. Somebody must have put it there later. I wonder if that has any significance?”
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