Lamb was leaning forward, heavily intent.
“And what happened after nine o’clock? He wasn’t murdered for another hour and a half.”
“My suspicions became directed elsewhere. When Mr. Carroll began what he was pleased to call his entertainment I naturally kept a very close watch upon everyone. Let me remind you of my position. I was in the sofa corner next to the fire and therefore very well placed for observation. On my right, sharing the sofa, was Mrs. Tote. In prolongation of the end of it, and rather out of the circle, was Miss Masterman. Mr. Carroll stood in the space between her and the armchair occupied by Mr. Tote. Miss Lane, Mr. Justin Leigh, and Dorinda Brown were on the sofa opposite mine. Miss Brown had the coffee-table in front of her. Mr. Masterman was standing up before the fire-”
“Yes, yes-we’ve had all that!”
Miss Silver continued to knit.
“As you will see, I was most advantageously placed. It is true that I should have had to crane my head rather uncomfortably in order to watch Mr. Masterman’s face, but as it was not necessary for me to do so, this did not signify. Almost at once my attention became fixed upon Miss Masterman.”
Frank Abbott moved so sharply as to suggest protest. The Chief Inspector stiffened, his whole mass seeming to become more solid.
Miss Silver went on placidly.
“I had been a very short time in the house, when I realized that it contained two very unhappy women. Both Mrs. Tote and Miss Masterman were carrying a heavy load of anxiety and grief. In Mrs. Tote’s case, I discovered that she was unhappy about her husband’s sudden rise to wealth and her separation from her much loved only child. She spoke quite frankly on these subjects, but I discerned a deep uneasiness as to the methods by which so large a fortune had been made. I thought that she was not quite sure whether there had been a step farther-into crime. I did not myself consider Mr. Tote very seriously. I think he probably went upstairs after his interview with Mr. Porlock and talked violently to his wife about what he would like to do to him. She made a half-admission to this effect. I did not think that the man who had planned to murder Mr. Porlock would have been so foolish as to threaten him, or to advertize his bad temper as Mr. Tote did on that Saturday evening. I therefore set the Totes on one side. Miss Masterman was unhappy in quite a different way. When I first saw her she seemed to be living within herself-there seemed to be no contact with the outer world. She looked strained and ill, and I received the impression that she was waiting for something. After I had seen and talked with Sergeant Abbott I thought her frame of mind consistent with the supposition that she and her brother had inherited money to which she felt they had no claim. She seemed quite sunk into herself, quite abstracted, as if even a murder could not disturb what had become a habit of thought. When we came into the drawing-room after dinner she drew away from the circle about the fire and took up a newspaper, which screened her face. I do not think she was reading. I watched her, and she never turned a page. But when Mr. Carroll began his so-called entertainment she was, I think, startled out of her apathy. He had a very vivid and dramatic manner-everyone was watching him. I watched Miss Masterman. She did not lay the newspaper down, but she lowered it a little. She did not look at Mr. Carroll. Her right hand tightened on the paper so hard that it tore. She did not notice that I was looking at her. Her attention was wholly fixed upon something else. I followed the direction of her eyes and saw that she was looking at her brother. He had set his coffee-cup down upon the mantelpiece-I was in time to see him do so. As I have already remarked, I could not see his face without making an effort, but it was quite easy to see his hand setting down the coffee-cup-quite easy and, I thought, quite sufficient. Mr. Carroll had been addressing a series of highly provocative remarks to Mr. Tote. I did not take them very seriously. He was, in my opinion, merely baiting the person most likely to respond. After I had intervened with some light remark Mr. Carroll turned his attention to Mr. Masterman. He said much less to him than he had done to Mr. Tote, and there was much less apparent reaction, yet it was at this moment that Miss Masterman’s attention and my own became engaged. Currents flowing beneath the surface are sometimes very strongly felt. Miss Masterman felt something which roused her. I was myself aware of a sudden extreme tension. It might have been difficult to trace this tension to its source if it had not been for one thing, a slight but curious physical reaction. The hand with which Mr. Masterman put down his coffee-cup was perfectly steady. It was his left hand. The cup was put down without the slightest jar. The right hand, which was hanging by his side, was steady too. But both thumbs twitched uncontrollably. It was one of those involuntary movements of which a person may be hardly aware. I am quite sure that Mr. Masterman was not aware of the twitching until he looked down and saw it. He showed great presence of mind, sliding one hand down into his pocket, and putting the other behind him as if spreading it to the fire. It was all very smoothly and naturally done, but instead of allaying my suspicions it heightened them. I found myself believing that Miss Masterman had seen what I had seen, and that she placed the same construction on it. In these circumstances, I thought it probable that she would seek an interview with her brother. I do not know if you remember that her room is opposite mine. The gallery which runs round three sides of the hall gives access to two distinct bedroom wings. Miss Brown, Miss Masterman, and I have rooms in the right wing on this side of the house. The room used by Mr. Porlock is in the left wing, on the same side as the drawing-room and billiard-room, as are also the rooms occupied by the Totes, Mr. Carroll, and Mr. Masterman. I did not undress. I waited with my door a little ajar to see whether Miss Masterman would leave her room and go round the gallery to the other wing. She did so almost immediately. By going to the end of the passage I could see that she went as far as Mr. Masterman’s door. She knocked on it and waited.”
Lamb said, “The two passages are directly opposite one another. You were looking right across the hall into the passage which runs over the drawing-room. I suppose it was lighted?”
“There was a light at the end, opposite Mr. Carroll’s room. I could see the whole of the passage. Miss Masterman knocked again, then she turned the handle and went in. She left the door open behind her. I went to the end of my own passage and turned out the light so that I could continue to watch without being seen. I had hardly done this before Miss Masterman came out again, still leaving the door open. She stood there in a very undecided manner, and I formed the opinion that Mr. Masterman was not in his room. After a little while she went back into the room, coming to the door every now and then and looking out. It was obvious that she intended to wait for her brother’s return. There did not then seem to be any reason for me to continue my watch. I went back to my room, and a few minutes later Pearson came to report Mr. Carroll’s telephone conversation with Mr. Oakley. I did not see Miss Masterman again till after the alarm had been given, when she came out of her room in her dressing-gown.”
“You think she may have seen something?”
Miss Silver coughed.
“I think she must have done so. Consider, Chief Inspector. She was there in her brother’s room, watching for him and very much on the alert. The door of the room was open. If anyone came out of Mr. Porlock’s room, she could scarcely avoid knowing who it was. A back stair comes up between Mr. Masterman’s room and that occupied by Mr. Carroll. If Mr. Masterman went down that stair, she must have seen him go. If Mr. Carroll used it, she probably saw him too. She was, in my opinion, almost at breaking-point after a long period of strain. She was desperately anxious to see her brother-perhaps desperately hoping that he would be able to reassure her. In these circumstances, do you think that anything would escape her?”
Lamb grunted.
“What’s she doing now?”
“When I went in to fetch Mrs. Tote she was sitting shivering by the fire. The room is very hot and she is warmly dressed, but she cannot stop shivering. If you question her, I think she will break down. The man is her brother, but he has m
urdered two men who stood in his way. When you come to inquire into the death of the old cousin from whom he inherited, it may be found that there is a third murder on his conscience. Miss Masterman’s trouble lies deep and is of long standing. She may have suspected what she did not dare to let herself believe. Now, I think, she knows, and if she knows she must speak, for everyone’s sake-even for her own. If Mr. Masterman suspected her knowledge, I believe that she would be in great danger. The man is a killer. He is crafty and skilful. No one who threatens his safety is safe. I believe that you will find his fingerprints on the telephone extension and on the billiard-room window below. I believe that they will correspond with those taken in the hall from the mantelpiece and staircase.”
Frank Abbott said, “She was right about those, sir. Hughes told me just now-they’re Masterman’s.”
Lamb turned a stolid gaze in his direction.
“And they don’t prove a thing,” he said.
Chapter XXXV
The Chief Inspector shifted his gaze to Miss Silver, who continued to knit. After a moment he repeated his last remark.
“They don’t prove a thing, and you know it. Anyone staying in the house could have left those prints without having anything more to do with the murder than you-or me. Think of trying them on a jury-” he gave a short bark of laughter- “well, I see myself! I’ll go a step further. Say we find his prints on the extension in Porlock’s room-what does it prove? That he went in there and put through a call. Most likely everyone in the house telephoned some time today or yesterday. Masterman will say he used the nearest instrument. Say we find his prints on the billiard-room window-by all accounts he’s spent most of his time in that room since he came-he’ll say he opened the window to get a breath of air.”
Frank Abbott said, “It accumulates-doesn’t it, Chief? Even a jury might begin to think that there was rather too much Masterman.”
The gaze came back to him and became a repressive stare.
“If you’re going to count on a jury thinking, you’ll be heading for trouble. I’ve told you before, and I suppose I shall have to tell you again, that what a jury wants is facts-plain solid facts, with plain solid witnesses to swear to them. Juries don’t want to think, because they know just as well as you and me that they’re liable to think wrong. They don’t want to wake up in the night and wonder whether they were right or wrong when they voted guilty in a murder case-it’s the sort of thing that gets a man down. Juries want facts, so they can go home and say, ‘Well, he did it all right-there’s no doubt about that.’ ” He pushed back his chair. “Now what I’m going to do is this. There’s evidence enough against Oakley to justify taking him down to the station and charging him-”
“But, Chief, you said he couldn’t have done it.”
Lamb got to his feet.
“Never you mind what I said-I’m saying different now.”
Afterwards Frank Abbott was to wonder how much difference there had really been. Lamb could be deep when he liked. Frank came to the conclusion that he might, in retrospect, regard his Chief and Maudie as two minds with but a single thought.
Meanwhile the Chief Inspector was staring at Miss Silver, who responded with a faint, intelligent smile.
“It is considered a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, but I have never been able to see why a gentleman should not have the same privilege.”
She was putting away her knitting as she spoke, in the flowered chintz bag which had been a birthday gift from her niece Ethel. Ignoring Frank Abbott’s raised eyebrow, she followed the Chief Inspector from the room and across the hall.
In the drawing-room there was one of those silences. It must have been a quarter of an hour since anyone had spoken. Mr. Tote was in the armchair which he had occupied after dinner. He had a newspaper across his knees, but it was a long time since he had looked at it. Moira and Dorinda were on the sofa to the right of the fire, with Justin Leigh half sitting, half leaning, on the end next to Dorinda. On the opposite sofa Miss Masterman was in the place formerly occupied by Miss Silver, her thick duffle dressing-gown clutched about her. She held it to her in a straining clasp, as if to steady herself against a strong recurrent shudder.
In the other corner Mrs. Tote leaned back with her eyes shut.
There was no colour in her face except in the reddened eyelids. She kept thinking of Mrs. Oakley screaming out about Glen. It wouldn’t be hard to break her. If the police arrested Mr. Oakley and he was tried and hanged, she’d break all to bits- “And I’d have to stand up and swear to what I heard.” It was worse than the worst bad dream she had ever had. She kept her eyes tight shut so as not to look at Martin Oakley, who walked continually to and fro in the room like a creature in a cage.
Mr. Masterman was in the chair where his sister had sat after dinner shielding her face and thinking her thoughts. He sat easily and smoked one cigarette after another but without haste.
Moira Lane was smoking too. A little pile of cigarette stubs lay in the ash-tray balanced beside her on the padded sofa arm. Her colour was bright and high. Dorinda was very pale. She leaned into the corner, and was glad when Justin dropped his hand to her shoulder and left it there. It was warm, and it felt strong.
Police Constable Jackson, on a stiff upright chair by the door, was thinking about his sweet peas. He had sown them in the autumn in a sunk trench and they were all of four inches high, very hearty and promising. He was going to train each plant up a single string, and he aimed at taking a prize at the flower-show in July. Five on a stem, you got them that way-great strong stalks as thick as whipcord and twelve to fourteen inches long-whacking great flowers too. His imagination toyed with a gargantuan growth.
It was when he was wondering what the record number of flowers to a stem might be that the door opened and Chief Inspector Lamb came in followed by the little lady who had fetched Mrs. Tote, and by Sergeant Abbott who you could pick out anywhere for a Londoner and la-di-da at that. Pretty well see your face in his hair, you could, and a pretty penny it must run him in for hair-oil-posh stuff too… His thoughts broke off. He got to his feet automatically as the Chief Inspector came in.
Everyone had started to attention. Mrs. Tote had opened her eyes. Mr. Oakley had just reached the far end of the room and turned. He stood where he was like a stock. Everyone waited.
Lamb walked straight across the room and tapped Martin Oakley on the shoulder.
“I must ask you to accompany me to the station. I have a witness to the fact that subsequent to your telephone conversation with Mr. Carroll, in the course of which you said you were coming over to see him, someone came into the courtyard and threw gravel up at Carroll’s bedroom window. He opened it and called out, ‘Is that you, Oakley?’ The reply was, ‘It might be worth your while to keep a still tongue. Suppose you come down and talk it over.’ You can make a statement if you like, but I’m warning you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.”
Martin Oakley stared at him. In the past three days he had become a haggard caricature of his former self. He stared, and said, “Are you arresting me? My God-you can’t! I didn’t do it!. It will kill my wife!”
With everyone else in the room Miss Masterman had turned and was looking at the two men, leaning with her right arm upon the back of the sofa, clutching at the neck of her dressing-gown with her other hand. At the word arrest Miss Silver saw her start. When Martin Oakley said, ‘It will kill my wife!’ she said something under her breath and stood up, jerking herself to her feet all in one piece like a figure made of wood.
Miss Silver thought that the murmured words were “Oh, no -I can’t!” If this was so, she repeated them-before Lamb had time to speak, and this time in so loud and harsh a voice as to divert everyone’s attention to herself.
“Oh, no! Oh, no! I can’t!”
She had taken a step forward, the arm which had lain along the back of the sofa outstretched as if she were feeling her way in the dark.
Geoffrey M
asterman said, “She’s ill!”
He got to his feet, but before he could take a forward step there was someone in his way-Frank Abbott, with a hand on his arm and a quiet, drawled “Do you think so?”
Miss Masterman walked past them. She looked once at her brother and said,
“It’s no good.”
If he made a movement, the hand on his arm checked it. He said,
“She’s always been a bit unbalanced, you know. I’ve been afraid of this for years. You’d better let me get her up to her room quietly.”
No one took any notice. It came home to him then that he was separated from the people round him-not as yet by bolts and bars, by prison walls, or by the sentence of the law, but by the intangible barriers which have separated the murderer from his kind ever since the mark was set on Cain. Nobody listened to him or regarded his words. Only Jackson, catching Sergeant Abbott’s eye, moved up on his other side.
Miss Masterman came to a standstill midway between the fireplace and the window. In that harsh, strained voice she spoke to Lamb.
“You mustn’t arrest him! He didn’t do it!”
He seemed very solid and safe, standing there. Law and order. Thou shalt not kill. All the barriers that have been built up through slow ages to keep out the unnameable things of the jungle. If you let them in, too many people pay the price.
Wicked Uncle Page 23
