“Oh yes, easily.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Williamson. That is all.”
Roger was clutching Colin’s arm in a frenzied hold.
“Colin! Do you realise? It was suicide. She did do it, after all,” he whispered excitedly, under the hum which accompanied Mrs. Williamson back to her seat. “We’ve had all our trouble for nothing.”
“I never did believe it was that poor wee David,” returned Colin stolidly.
VII
The verdict never actually had been in question.
The coroner’s summing-up was brief and kind. Missing an opportunity which would have brought joy to many of his tribe, he did not find it his duty to deliver a lecture to Ronald Stratton on the morbid compliment which that gentleman had thought fit to pay his distinguished guest, though he did feel bound to point out that the matter of suggestion on an unbalanced, impressionable mind could not be disregarded. Having got that off his chest, he proceeded to sum up the evidence in such a way as to indicate his own opinion quite unmistakably and suggest that, in such a simple case, any other opinion was impossible; as indeed, on the evidence that had been heard, it was. The mentality of the dead woman only underlined the obvious conclusion.
“After all, gentlemen,” the coroner concluded, “all you have to do is to satisfy yourselves first as to whether Mrs. Stratton died from the effects of strangulation, and if so whether that was brought about entirely by her own unaided effort. If you are satisfied on those two points there is, practically speaking, only one verdict you can return.”
The jury returned it.
CHAPTER XV
LAST GLIMPSES
Roger and Colin were walking back from Westerford to Sedge Park for lunch. There would have been room for them in the Williamsons’ car, but after a short but fervent conversation outside the court-room, Roger had decided that he had a great deal of emotion to walk off. He had also decided that Colin should help him to walk it off.
“She told the police yesterday morning!” Roger was declaiming. “Happened to go up on the roof to see what that husband of hers had been up to, and told the superintendent himself. But did she think of saying a word about it to me? Oh, dear no.”
“Why the dickens should she?” Colin asked reasonably.
Roger, however, was in no mood for reason. “Well, she might at least have mentioned it to Ronald, or somebody. ‘Didn’t think it was of the slightest importance!’ My religious aunt!”
“Come now, Roger, don’t take it to heart.”
“Yes, but think what terrible bloomers we might have made. It was only by the grace of heaven that I didn’t speak up this morning and burst out with the chair being under the gallows all the time we were cutting the body down. I should certainly have said so if I’d been asked.”
“Then you’d have committed perjury,” Colin pointed out with equanimity.
“No, I shouldn’t.”
“How’s that?”
“Because I didn’t take any oath—as you or anyone else could have seen if you’d been using your eyes. Nor, it may interest you to know, did Mrs. Lefroy.”
“Ach, don’t quibble, man.”
“It isn’t a quibble. Still, we needn’t go into that now. The point is that if Lilian Williamson had only mentioned that one enormous fact, Ronald wouldn’t have thought his brother a murderer, I should have been spared a great deal of unnecessary work, and many consciences would have been saved some nasty hard knocks.”
“Not yours at any rate, Roger. You can’t knock something that isn’t there.”
“And it was suicide after all. Well, I’m glad really.”
“And what’s more, the police have known it perfectly well ever since yesterday morning.”
“Yes, and all their fuss was simply due to your wiping of that chair, which we see now to have been as unnecessary as it was officious.”
“The less you say about my reason for wiping the chair, the better. I did catch you napping that time at any rate, Roger.”
“Yes, you did,” Roger admitted handsomely. “Almost as badly as I thought I’d caught my supposed murderer. But my goodness, for real officiousness commend me to that inspector. Fancy wanting to play about with insufflators in such a proved case of suicide. Just like a child with a toy. I see now, by the way, that when Ronald and I were on the roof the next morning and he was pretending to be so worried about the position of the chair, that was just a blind. He’d put the insufflator over it already and, of course, had gone all excited about the result and wanted to hold us off till he’d told the grim news to his superintendent.”
“Who realised that, though the cause of death might not be really in doubt, there’d been some hanky-panky, and meant to get to the bottom of it.”
“Exactly. And proceeded to give us all a man-size dose of alarm and despondency. Well, I suppose he thought it was his duty, so he did.”
“It’s lucky,” said Colin thoughtfully, “that I didn’t listen to you when you wanted me to say the chair was under the gallows from the beginning.”
“As it turns out,” Roger said coldly, “it is.”
“And it’s lucky that all that rigmarole you made up about Agatha coming over queer and Osbert doing the Sir Walter Raleigh act with his handkerchief, didn’t lead to something pretty serious, Roger.”
“No doubt, now,” said Roger, still more coldly, “it is.”
“And it’s lucky,” Colin meditated further, “that Osbert had the sense to mention it to Lilian in their bedroom last night, and get the muddle straightened out, and speak of it to Mrs. Lefroy this morning so that she was able to make her version square with theirs. Agatha’s a grand woman. She saw the point at once.”
“And I suppose it’s lucky,” said Roger, quite frigidly, “that none of them thought of mentioning it to me?”
Colin considered this.
“Well, that did prevent any further complications, didn’t it, Roger?”
He looked hopefully at his companion.
But Roger had frozen himself into an arctic silence.
In any case, there was not much that he could say.
II
In the drawing-room Celia Stratton, Agatha Lefroy, and Lilian Williamson were twittering excitedly.
“My dear, I could simply never face it again. It was too dreadful. Came over quite queer, I did, as soon as I sat down again.”
“My dear, you were marvellous. My dear, was my hat really straight? It felt as if it slipped all down over one ear.”
“My dear, you looked perfectly all right. And so terribly composed. Anyhow, that’s where your hat ought to have been. My dear, did I sound the most ghastly idiot?”
“My dear, you were wonderful. Did I …?”
“My dear, you …”
“My dear …”
III
In the study Ronald and David Stratton were lapping up a much-needed glass of sherry.
“Well, cheer-oh, David.”
“Cheer-oh.”
“Thank goodness that’s over.”
“Yes.”
“Feeling O.K.?”
“Top-hole.”
“Everything in the garden lovely?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, thank heaven it’s all settled. And no doubt about suicide after all.”
“After all?”
“I believe Sheringham had some kind of cock-eyed idea at one time that you’d done it.”
“Done what?”
“Strung Ena up. I wondered if you’d gathered.”
“Oh, that’s what he was driving at. I did wonder.”
“He was going all out to do the noble and save you from the gallows.”
“Decent of him, if he really thought that.”
“Dam’ silly idea, though.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’d often thought of something like that. But I should never have had the guts.”
“Well, she saved you the trouble. Have another spot?”
“Thanks, I will.�
�
“Cheer-oh! ”
“Three cheers! ”
IV
In the garden Mr. Williamson wrestled with a problem in ethics. Could a fellow be said to have committed perjury when he had sworn, in perfect good faith, to a thing which he couldn’t remember but which someone else had remembered for him?
Or couldn’t he?
Mr. Williamson was quite worried about it.
V
In his surgery Dr. Chalmers took down the jar of chloroform-water and filled up the medicine-bottle in his hand. It was annoying that the coroner should have kept them hanging about so long on just the day that his dispenser was away with a bad cold; it had put him badly behind-hand with his list.
Well, the inquest had all gone off very nicely. Dr. Chalmers had never anticipated that it might not, but it was pleasant to have got it over.
The post-mortem had been rather horrible, but that could not be helped.
Well, it had been a good job, neatly done. Dr. Chalmers had never for one moment regretted it. But he was a little surprised that he should not have had a single qualm, either of conscience or alarm. He had always understood that murderers went slinking about the place, starting violently when anyone addressed them. Dr. Chalmers, on the other hand, had only felt rather pleased with himself; he would never have thought himself capable of such an admirable deed, and found some satisfaction in the knowledge that he had been.
But of course there had never been the faintest risk.
He replaced the stopper in the chloroform-water jar, and put the jar back on the shelf, corked and labelled the medicine-bottle, and wrapped it up neatly in a piece of white paper.
“Phil!” came a long-suffering voice from down the passage.
“Hullo?”
“Aren’t you coming in to lunch today at all?”
“Coming, dear.”
Dr. Chalmers went in to lunch, of which he proceeded to partake with a hearty appetite.
Dr. Chalmers was not an imaginative man.
VI
At half-past six that evening Mike Armstrong presented himself in the tiny sitting-room of Margot Stratton’s tiny flat in Bloomsbury.
“Hullo, darling,” said Margot with enthusiasm.
“Hullo.”
“Had a good day?”
“Not bad. I brought an evening paper. There’s a paragraph about the inquest on Ena.”
“Oh! Let me see it. Where?”
Mike Armstrong indicated the paragraph. Margot read it quickly through.
‘“Suicide during temporary insanity.’ Well, that’s all right,” she said with obvious relief.
“Not so much of the ‘temporary.’”
“No.”
Margot dropped the paper on to her knees and stared at her fiancé.
“That means it’s all finished?”
“Yes.”
“They’re quite satisfied? I mean, they’re sure it was suicide?”
“Well, obviously.”
“You’re certain they wont be making any further inquiries?”
“Shouldn’t think so. Why should they?”
Margot did not answer directly. Instead, she said:
“Darling, I didn’t tell you, but I nearly died when that man came round here last night.”
“That inspector bloke? Why? He said it was only a routine inquiry. They’re bound to interview all the people who were there.”
“I know. But I was afraid he’d want me to give evidence today.”
“Well, there wasn’t any evidence you could give that wasn’t covered already by other people’s.”
“Wasn’t there!”
“What do you mean?”
“Darling, if I don’t tell someone, I’ll burst. You can keep a secret, can’t you?”
“I hope so.”
“Yes, I know you can. Well—Ena didn’t commit suicide at all!”
“What?”
“You see, I know she didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Will you swear never to breathe a word of this to anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Well—Phil Chalmers tried to kill her.”
“What?
“I happen to know he did.”
“How? Why?”
“Because she was going to split to the K.P. about Ronald and Agatha, and because she’s been giving David such a hell of a time lately.”
“But how do you know all this, darling?”
“Darling, I’ll tell you. You know when I was looking for you just before the Chalmers went last night? Well, I went up on the roof.”
“Yes?”
“Darling, you will keep quiet about this, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I stood just outside the door and called. At first I thought there was no one there. Then I heard someone saying ‘Margot!’ in a choky sort of voice. I looked round, and still couldn’t see anyone. And then I saw Ena. At least, I didn’t recognise her at first, but it was Ena. My dear, where do you think she was?”
“Can’t imagine.”
“My dear, hanging on the rope! Actually hanging there!”
“What?” said Mike incredulously. “My dear girl, she couldn’t possibly have spoken if she’d been hanging.”
“But she wasn’t hanging on her neck. She’d got hold of the rope above her head, and pulled herself up, to take the weight off her neck. She was clinging on the rope—my dear, it sounds awful to say it, but she really was—just like a monkey on a string.”
“Good lord!”
“I started running towards her, of course, but she called out to me, still in the choky voice, to bring the chair. I looked round, and there was a chair lying on the roof close to the door, so I took that with me and put it underneath her, and she let herself down on to it.”
“Well, I’m blessed.”
“That’s what I was nearly dying about when that man was here, you see. I thought someone must remember how she was able to pull herself up on to that beam in the drawing-room, and see that of course she could pull herself up on the rope too. But luckily no one seems to have thought of it.”
“Good lord. Well, what happened?”
“Well, she stood there, with the rope still round her neck, puffing and panting for a bit—and then she began to let fly!”
“Let fly?”
“My dear, she was simply livid. With rage, I mean. I suppose she was frightened, too, but mostly it was rage. The things she was going to do! Apparently we were all in it— Ronald, David, Agatha, Celia, everyone, quite apart from Phil. She seemed to think there’d been a regular conspiracy to kill her, and Phil had been sent up to do it. Anyhow, she was going to ring up the police that instant and give Phil in charge for attempted murder, and stop Ronald and Agatha getting married, and make David wish he’d never been born (as I should think he’d done ever since he married her, poor devil!), and heaven only knew what not else.
“My dear, in a way of course it was terribly funny, though she wouldn’t have seen that, of course. I mean, the way she was standing there, breathing out fire and slaughter, with the rope still round her neck. She was far too frenzied to do more than loosen it a bit, or else she thought she made a fine impressive picture like that. The lamb and the slaughter, you know.”
“But I can’t think how she hadn’t choked already, before she could catch hold of the rope at all?”
“Oh, well you see, it was rather thick and stiff. She said something about that—something about her fine brother-in-law having made a miscalculation, and if the rope hadn’t been too thick to make a quickly-running noose she’d have been a dead woman already.”
“Well, what happened then?”
“Well, I stood it for a bit, till I began to feel damned sorry I’d come along at all. David had been rather pouring his heart out to me, you see, during the charades, and heaven knows I hated the woman enough before that for myself. Besides, I’d like to do Ronald a good turn, and it would have been a jo
lly good turn if I’d gone straight down again instead of giving her that chair to stand on. She said herself she couldn’t have lasted for another half-minute.”
“So…?”
“So I cut into the tirade and said she must be talking nonsense. Phil would never have done such a thing. That made her more angry still, and she said that Phil jolly well had done such a thing. She’d been talking to him, and he’d dared her to stand on the chair and put her head in the noose, and when she did it he just pulled the chair away from underneath her; and now she was going to ring up the police and give him in charge for attempted murder, and that would be that. So …”
“Yes?”
Margot hesitated. “I like Phil, don’t you?”
“Yes, he’s a good sort.”
“Yes. And … Darling, you would love me whatever you knew I’d done, wouldn’t you?”
“I expect so.”
“Sure you would?”
“Positive. What did you do?”
Margot coughed in a rather deprecatory way.
“Well, darling,” she said simply, “I pulled the chair away again.”
THE END
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