A Case of Suicide in St. James's

by Clara Benson

  Chapter Twelve

  On Monday morning, Freddy arrived at the Clarion’s offices at about a quarter to ten—a not unusual time for him—and sat down at his desk. Jolliffe was sitting nearby, frowning over his notebook.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, without looking up. ‘How was the air show? Bickerstaffe’s given me this story about traffic management and congestion, and too many cars trying to leave the show at once on Saturday—you know, after that woman was knocked down and killed. I don’t suppose you saw anything of it and can offer an opinion?’

  ‘No,’ said Freddy. Jolliffe looked up and gave a start at the sight of him.

  ‘Good Lord! What on earth have you done to yourself? Have you been fighting again?’

  Freddy winced. His bruises were in full bloom now, and he was quite a sight.

  ‘No—as a matter of fact I was hit by a car.’

  ‘You too? There seems to have been quite an epidemic of it at this air show. I’m rather glad I missed it.’

  ‘It wasn’t at the air show. It was at about half past eleven on Saturday night when I was on my way home.’

  ‘Ah, Saturday night, was it?’ said Jolliffe, a look of comprehension crossing his face, for he knew Freddy’s habits only too well. ‘I expect you’d had one over the eight, had you? Still, there’s no reason for anyone to go mowing a chap down with a motor just because he’s had a drink or two.’

  ‘I was perfectly sober, as it happens—well, near enough. I was fully compos at any rate.’

  He related the bare facts to Jolliffe, who commiserated and went back to his work, leaving Freddy to ponder. He had been in too much pain for most of Sunday to think clearly or come to any conclusions, but things were easing somewhat (here he touched the graze on his face, which was crusting over nicely), and it was time to do some reasoning. First: could he be sure the incident on Saturday night had been deliberate? Might it not have been an unfortunate accident? To this the answer was surely no. For one thing he had heard the car following him for some way before it happened. He had not thought anything of it at the time, but now it looked as though the driver had been waiting for his chance, which had come when Freddy turned into Fleet Street. For another thing, the mysterious driver had switched on his lights only at the last minute, presumably to dazzle and confuse his quarry. Furthermore, he had speeded up as he approached, and then afterwards had driven off without even stopping to make sure Freddy was not injured. No, it had certainly been deliberate. That led to the second question: why? Freddy could think of only one reason, and that was the fact that he had asked all the people who had been at both Tatty’s ball and the air show whether they knew anything of Douglas Westray’s shoes. Had anybody’s reaction to the question been suspicious? Freddy thought back, trying to picture the faces of the people to whom he had spoken, but was forced to admit that they had all looked completely blank. He had no idea what it all meant, but one thing of which he was becoming increasingly sure was that he had frightened someone into trying to kill him because he had been asking questions about Douglas’s death—and the only logical conclusion to draw from that was that Gertie and Tatty were right, and his death had been murder.

  He was still pondering the question when his editor, Mr. Bickerstaffe, came in and regarded him with horror, and he was once more required to give assurances that he had not been fighting. Mr. Bickerstaffe looked unconvinced, but let the matter drop and gave him a story which took up all his concentration for the next few hours, so he was forced to abandon the question of his attempted murder for the present. By three o’clock he had completed the assignment to his and Mr. Bickerstaffe’s satisfaction, and was able once more to turn his attention to the cause of his bruises. After some reflection he called Gertie and hinted that he had something to tell her. She was most put out that he refused to explain himself over the telephone, but her curiosity was piqued, and she agreed to meet him for tea at the Lyons’.

  ‘Good gracious! What have you done to yourself?’ was her first remark when she arrived and found him nursing a cup of tea and an indifferent-looking slice of cake. ‘Have you been fighting again?’

  ‘Why does everybody seem to think I like nothing better than to hurl myself gaily into any wild free-for-all I happen to stroll past?’

  ‘Because you do,’ she said.

  ‘You wound me, child. At any rate, it’s not true—especially this time.’

  He explained what had happened, and she forgot her tea and listened, enthralled.

  ‘Well!’ she breathed at last. ‘I knew it! There’s a killer on the loose! Are you quite sure you didn’t see who it was?’

  ‘No—the head-lamps were shining in my eyes and I couldn’t see a thing. I couldn’t even tell you whether it was a man or a woman.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea what kind of car it was?’

  ‘No. It all happened far too quickly, and it had disappeared before I could collect my thoughts together.’

  She thought.

  ‘How can we find out who it was? I suppose the quickest and most efficient way would be for you to do exactly the same thing again—you know, go around asking questions and hinting that you think it was murder, so as to try and draw him out and have another shot at killing you.’

  ‘Kind of you to volunteer me as bait for a murderer’s trap, but I’ll stay out of it if it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘But we must do something! Don’t you see? This is the first real evidence we have that Douglas didn’t kill himself. Have you reported it to the police?’

  ‘Of course not. What could I say? That I’d been weaving my way gently home after one or two stiff ones and almost came a cropper while crossing Fleet Street, but I can’t tell them what sort of car it was or who was driving, or even be sure it was deliberate?’

  ‘When you put it like that it doesn’t sound exactly convincing,’ she admitted. ‘Well, then, we must look into it ourselves. Give me your notebook and a pencil. How shall we start?’ She thought a minute, then began writing busily. ‘I’m just putting down a short description of the circumstances of Doug’s death. There! Now, let’s make a list of suspects.’

  ‘But how do we know who to suspect when we don’t know how it was done?’

  ‘I thought we’d decided the murderer got out through the window. I showed you, remember? The catch closes by itself if you give it a bit of a rattle.’

  ‘Ye-es,’ said Freddy. ‘But if you recall that’s only because I loosened it when I went in. And it doesn’t close all the way.’

  ‘Do you have a better idea?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then let’s assume for now that that’s what happened. Very well, taking as read that the murderer escaped by means of the window and the fire escape, who are our suspects, and what are their motives? First, Leslie Penbrigg. He has the most obvious motive—at least that we know of. Douglas lost him the Woodville Prize and he wanted revenge.’

  ‘But he’s mooning around Alida,’ said Freddy. ‘Killing her brother is hardly going to endear him to her, is it?’

  ‘Of course he didn’t think he would be found out. But leaving motive aside, could he have done it? Did you see him up on the balcony that night?’

  ‘He was up there for a while earlier in the evening,’ said Freddy, thinking. ‘But that was when Douglas was still tottering around the garden making a nuisance of himself. The time we’re interested in is after supper, when it was dark and the lights were switched on. Unfortunately, once that happened it was almost impossible to see who was up there.’ He told her Lois’s observation about the terrace lights. ‘So you see, after about ten o’clock nobody could have seen what was happening on the balcony. Anyone going up or down the stairs would have been visible, but once they were up there they might have done anything and nobody would have known, as long as they were alone up there.’

  ‘Then we must find out whether anybody saw Penbrigg go up there after supper,’ said Gertie, looking at her notes. ‘But how do we do that? There were hundr
eds of people milling about and we can’t go around questioning all the guests.’

  ‘What about the servants who were standing at the table? As I recall some of them were there for most of the evening, facing the balcony. Perhaps they’d remember who went up the stairs.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Gertie. ‘I shall put that down under the heading “Actions.” Very well, who’s next? Now it gets more difficult. Who else had a motive? I mean to say, I know Doug could be an ass at times, but he wasn’t the sort of person people hated.’

  ‘Tom Chetwynd.’

  ‘Not the Chetwynd boy! I won’t believe it. He’s dim, but a darling. Why have you fixed on him? He had no motive at all for it.’

  ‘He did have a motive—he was worried his girl was going to leave him for Douglas, and so he put a stop to it before she could do it.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘Not at all—don’t you remember what Tatty said? Someone overheard her in the smoking-room, telling Douglas that she would consider going back to him, and Tom was standing outside in the hall when she came out. And he was carrying a penknife big enough to take the whole window out, let alone lever the catch up. He might easily have done it. And Alida saw him go up on the balcony with Tatty after supper.’

  ‘But that would make Tatty an accomplice.’

  ‘Well, isn’t it possible? Perhaps after they talked in the smoking-room she decided Douglas was too much of a nuisance, and so she and Tom put their heads together and cooked up a daring plot to get him out of their hair.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Gertie, although she was considering as she spoke. ‘She can’t have been in on it, or she wouldn’t have been so keen to insist it was murder. She was still sweet on Doug, I’m sure she was.’

  ‘So she says. But she knew where the guns were kept.’

  ‘Everybody knew where the guns were kept. There was a big piece in the Tatler a few months ago about Lord Browncliffe and his dratted gun collection, with a photograph of him next to his gun cabinet. Anybody could have gone in and helped themselves. I don’t know why he didn’t keep the thing locked.’

  ‘I expect he will from now on,’ said Freddy dryly. ‘As a matter of fact, I agree with you. I don’t think Chetwynd and Tatty did it between them, but Chetwynd is hiding something, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Oh? Explain.’

  Freddy told her about Tom Chetwynd’s agitated manner on the night of the dance, and about Colonel Lomas’s story.

  ‘And I’ve just remembered something else,’ he said. ‘He dropped a letter and I picked it up for him. He was pretty keen to shove it back in his pocket, but I shouldn’t have thought anything of it had he not said it was from his mother.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘I got a good look at the envelope when I was handing it back, and saw it had been posted in Henley.’

  ‘Of course it had,’ said Gertie. ‘That’s where his people live.’

  ‘But he said it was from his mother in France. His parents were abroad at the time and couldn’t come, don’t you remember?’

  ‘So they were.’

  ‘The letter was in a woman’s handwriting, but it wasn’t from his mother, that much I’m sure of,’ said Freddy.

  ‘That doesn’t mean he was up to something. I dare say it was something quite innocent,’ said Gertie.

  ‘Then why lie about it?’

  ‘There you have me.’

  ‘I don’t know how it all fits into this case, but I should very much like to know what Tom Chetwynd is concealing, and whether Douglas knew about it.’

  ‘All right, I’ll put him down,’ said Gertie reluctantly. ‘Although I don’t know how we’re supposed to find out this secret of his, short of wrestling him to the ground and stealing that letter off him.’ She scribbled a note. ‘Now, who else?’

  ‘What do you think about Browncliffe himself?’

  ‘As the murderer? Why?’

  ‘If we assume he was the one who overheard Tatty and Douglas in the smoking-room—remember, Tatty said she saw Tom talking to her father when she came out, so it might just as easily have been he who was listening—then he might have taken fright at the idea of Tatty’s taking Douglas back, and decided to take matters into his own hands.’

  ‘To the extent of murder? Do you think he was so keen for Tatty to marry Tom that he was prepared to kill someone?’

  ‘It doesn’t seem likely, does it? But I suppose one never knows. If Tatty marries Tom Chetwynd, who’s the son of the Chief of the Air Staff, then there are very valuable government contracts to be had from the connection. If she’d married Douglas there would probably have been a merger between Nugent and Westray sooner or later, but that wouldn’t have been nearly so lucrative as the business they could get from the Air Ministry—or so satisfying from Lord Browncliffe’s point of view, given his personal rivalry with Sir Stanley. I expect Browncliffe was much keener to have a leg-up with the Ministry than he was to form a partnership with Westray.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Gertie, and made a few notes. ‘Is that everybody? What about Alida and Sir Stanley and Lois?’

  ‘Alida and Sir Stanley did go up on the balcony for a while, Alida says, but that was before supper, and we don’t have enough evidence or a strong enough motive for either of them to have done the murder. Sir Stanley wasn’t too pleased with his son, but I can’t see why he’d want to murder him.’

  ‘No, I can’t either. All right, I’ll put their names down with a question mark, until we find out more. Who else?’

  ‘What about Dauncey?’ said Freddy tentatively.

  ‘What? Why in heaven’s name would Captain Dauncey want to kill Doug?’ said Gertie.

  ‘I don’t know, exactly, but I gather from Tatty that they were friends at one time.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Yes. Tatty said Dauncey runs with a fast set, and had lured Douglas into playing cards and drinking heavily, and all that sort of thing. I’ve also heard one or two things about Dauncey’s money, and suggestions that his funds are not gained entirely honestly, let’s say.’

  ‘No!’ said Gertie. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘I have my sources,’ said Freddy mysteriously. He was not about to give Corky the credit if he could help it.

  ‘Do you think Doug had found out something about him and so Dauncey put him out of the way?’

  ‘It’s a flimsy theory, I know, but it’s all I can think of.’

  ‘We do rather seem to be clutching at straws on some of these motives,’ she said. ‘Still, we must do what we can. Let’s look at the facts. Might Captain Dauncey have killed Doug? Did he go up on the balcony that evening?’

  ‘Yes, he did. I saw him myself, coming down the stairs some time after supper.’ He did not mention that Lois had been there at the same time, for he was at a loss to explain that matter. It might easily have been perfectly innocent, except that Lois had denied seeing Dauncey up there. Gertie was no fool, however. She narrowed her eyes.

  ‘You’ve got that funny look you get when you’re not telling me everything,’ she said. ‘Come on, out with it.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ he said, and told her about Lois coming down from the balcony shortly before Captain Dauncey. ‘She’s told me twice now that she didn’t see anyone up there, but she must be lying. It wasn’t possible to see who was up there from the ground, but one couldn’t stand on the balcony without noticing someone else was there.’

  ‘But this is important! Why didn’t you mention it before?’

  ‘Well, you know, it was none of my business, and I do have my gentlemanly moments.’

  ‘But what if she was telling the truth?’ said Gertie excitedly. ‘What if she was up there and didn’t see Dauncey because he wasn’t on the balcony at all? What if he was in Lady Browncliffe’s dressing-room killing Doug, then came out of the window after she’d gone and followed her down the steps a few minutes later?’

  Freddy considered the theory. It certainly had pos
sibilities.

  ‘He did have a penknife on him,’ he said. ‘But as you so rightly point out, that might not be relevant. He could have gone into the dressing-room through the house, after going into the library to get one of Lord Browncliffe’s guns.’

  ‘Yes, then he locked the door, shot Doug, and got out through the window just after Lois had gone. I expect he waited for her to go away before he came out.’

  ‘It makes sense as far as it goes,’ he said. ‘But if Lois was up there while Dauncey was in the dressing-room, then why didn’t she hear the shot? And what about the shoes and the other things? Where do they come in?’

  ‘What other things?’

  ‘The bent pen nib and the broken comb.’

  ‘Oh, those,’ she said dismissively. ‘They’re not important, are they? Anyone might have done that. It was probably the servants, as Lady Browncliffe said.’

  Freddy was not convinced. He was almost sure there was some reason for the pen and the comb that he had not yet understood.

  ‘I’d like to have another scout around Lady Browncliffe’s dressing-room,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t help thinking I must have missed something the first time I looked around. I should like to absorb the atmosphere and let it inspire me to genius.’

  ‘Oughtn’t we to be investigating Captain Dauncey instead? Shall I tackle him? Perhaps I can persuade Father to invite him to dinner,’ she said hopefully.

  ‘No, leave him alone—there’s not much use in your talking to him. I’d better speak to him myself.’

  ‘What do you mean there’s not much use in my talking to him? I can be every bit as charming as you when I like, and I’m much prettier, too. I could smile winningly at him and ask him all sorts of pertinent questions.’

  ‘About what, exactly? His financial affairs, and where he gets his money? How do you propose to introduce that subject? “Oh, Captain Dauncey, is it true you made your fortune in stocks? If so, I wonder whether I could tap you for advice. Canadian Pacifics were down five-eighths yesterday and I was wondering whether I ought to get out and dive into Molasses instead.” He’ll think you’re one of these female intellectuals who reads the newspapers and can discourse knowledgeably on the ins and outs of the Anglo-Afghan Treaty.’