Dr. Fell brought his hand slowly down on the table. “Is it—”
“Yes,” Hadley answered, nodding. “That’s it. Lester Bitton has shot himself.”
XVII
Death at Bitton House
DURING THE ride in Hadley’s car to Berkeley Square, the only words spoken were brief questions and answers on the little Hadley had been told about the tragedy.
“It happened about ten minutes before they phoned,” he explained. “That was the butler talking. The household had been up late, and the butler was still sitting up; he’d been ordered to wait for Sheila Bitton’s return. He was in his pantry when he heard the shot, and he ran upstairs. The door of Lester Bitton’s room was open; he smelled the smoke. Bitton was lying across the bed in his room, with the gun in his hand.”
“What happened then?” Dr. Fell demanded.
“Hobbes—that’s the butler—tried to wake up Sir William. But he’d taken a sleeping-draught and the door of his room was locked; Hobbes couldn’t rouse him. Then Hobbes remembered Miss Bitton’s talking to us, and where we were, so he phoned on the chance of getting me. He didn’t know what else to do.”
“What about Mrs. Bitton?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“H’m,” muttered the other. “H’m, yes. I suppose it really was suicide.”
Rampole, wedged between them in the front seat, scarcely heard them. Inanely, all he could think of in connection with Lester Bitton was that foolish remark of Sheila’s, “He brought me chocolates.”
The moist, chill air whipped through the open windscreen; the tires of the car sang, and above the roofs there were stars. It had been very quiet, Hadley’s handling of the situation. Sheila Bitton had not been told of her uncle’s death. They had left her there, with Dalrye to break the news when they were gone.
“I’d better not take her back to the house,” Dalrye had said. “She’d only be in the way and she’d get hysterical. He was her favorite. I know a great friend of hers, a girl who lives in Park Lane. I’ll drive her over there and get Margaret to put her up for the night. Then I’ll join you.”
The only thing that had surprised Rampole was the doctor’s insistence that Hadley should see Arbor.
“Or, on second thought,” the doctor had added, with a curious expression, “you’d better let me see him. He still thinks I’m Chief Inspector Hadley, you know. And if we try to explain matters at this stage, when he’s in terror of his life, he may suspect all kinds of a put-up job.”
“I don’t care who sees him, so long as he talks,” the chief inspector replied, testily. “You can stay here and wait for him, if you like. But I’d much prefer that you came along with me. We can leave Mr. Rampole to talk to him until we get back.”
“I have a better idea. Tell them to bring him to Bitton’s.”
“To Bitton’s? But, good God, man! You don’t want—”
“I have rather a fancy,” said the doctor, “to see how he acts there. The idea has been in my mind for some time. Let poor Marks stay in the flat and direct them over when they get here.”
It had been arranged that way. Hadley’s Daimler flashed through the quiet streets, and the hands of the illuminated clock on the dashboard pointed to nearly one o’clock when they reached Berkeley Square.
The old houses were heavy and somber against the stars. A thin piping of night traffic drifted up from Piccadilly, and the footfalls of a late passer-by were uncannily loud. A taxi honked its way out of Charles Street. What faint mist was left from the day seemed to have gathered round the high street-lamps and in the thin branches of the trees. When they went up the shallow steps of the Bitton house, Hadley paused with his hand on the bell.
“I know only two quotations,” he said, quietly, “but I’m going to tell you one of them now. Do you know what it is?”
Dr. Fell dropped the ferrule of his cane on the step with a hollow thock which had its echo. He stared out at the glow along the roofs towards the south.
“‘It must be confessed,’” he repeated, “‘it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession.’”
Hadley rang the bell.
There was no sign of confusion in the house when the heavy door was opened. All the blinds had been drawn and the curtains closed, but every light was on. It was the absolute hush which was sinister. An old, grave-faced man ushered them into a massive blue entrance hall with a crystal chandelier. He closed the door again and fastened a chain across it.
“Chief Inspector Hadley, sir?” the old man asked. “I am Hobbes, sir; I telephoned you. Shall I take you upstairs?” He hesitated as Hadley nodded. “Under such circumstances, sir, I have always heard that it is customary to summon a doctor. But Mr. Bitton was obviously dead, and unless you wish it—”
“It will not be necessary for the moment. Is Sir William up yet?”
“I have not been able to rouse him, sir.”
“Where is Mrs. Bitton?”
“In her room, sir. This way, if you please.”
Rampole thought he heard a whispering at the back of the hall, near a staircase going down; but still there was that massive calmness and order. The butler took them up a heavily carpeted stair, with bronze figures in the niches, and along a passage at the top. It was stuffy up here, and Rampole could distinctly smell the stale reek of cordite.
A bright light streamed out against the gloom of this upper hall. At the door Hobbes stood aside for them to enter.
Here the odor of burnt powder was stronger, but nothing seemed disturbed. It was a high room, with cornices and another long chandelier, severely furnished against a background of dull brown and yellow-threaded walls. A reading desk, the shade taken off its bright lamp, stood against the foot of the bed, and the drawer was slightly open. But that was all the disturbance. The electric heater was on in the fireplace.
Lester Bitton lay sideways across the bed; they could see his feet from the door. Closer, they could see that he was fully dressed. The bullet had gone through the right temple and emerged about an inch above the left ear; following Hadley’s glance, Rampole could discern the splintered place where it had lodged in the ceiling. The dead man’s face was curiously peaceful, and there was very little blood. His outflung right hand, turned under at the wrist, held a Webley-Scott service automatic of the standard forty-five caliber army pattern. The only really horrible thing, Rampole thought, was the smell of singed hair.
Hadley did not immediately examine him. He spoke in a low voice to Hobbes.
“I think you told me you were in your pantry and heard the shot. You ran up here immediately, and found him just as he is. Did anybody else hear it?”
“Mrs. Bitton, sir, I believe. She came in a moment later.”
“Where is Mrs. Bitton’s room?”
Hobbes indicated a door near the fireplace. “A dressing room, sir, which communicates with her own room.”
“What did Mrs. Bitton do?”
The butler was very guarded, at the same time as he conveyed an impression of disinterest. “Nothing, sir. She stood looking at him for a long time, and then suggested that I wake Sir William.”
“And then?”
“Then, sir, she returned to her room.”
Hadley went over to the writing table, looked at the chair beside it, and turned. “Mr. Bitton was out this evening. He must have returned here before eleven o’clock. Did you see him?”
“Yes, sir. He returned just before eleven, and went directly to the library. He asked me to bring him a cup of cocoa, and when I brought it he was sitting in front of the library fire. When I passed by the door of the library, about an hour later, I went in and asked him if he wished anything more. He was still sitting in the same chair. When I spoke he said, ‘No, nothing more.’ Then he rose and walked past me and up the stairs—” For the first time Hobbes faltered a trifle; the man’s self-control was amazing. “That was the last I saw of him, sir, before—before this.”
“How
long afterwards did you hear the shot?”
“I am not positive, sir. Not more than five minutes, I should say, and probably less.”
“Did his manner seem strange?”
A slight pause before the answer. “I am afraid so, sir. Mr. Bitton has not been exactly himself for the past month. But there was nothing—well, sir, excited about him. He seemed unlike himself; that’s all.”
Hadley glanced down at the floor. The carpet was of so thick and smooth a nap that it was almost possible to trace the path a man had taken, as though by footprints. They were standing near the door, and as Rampole followed the chief inspector’s glance he could see with terrible clarity what Lester Bitton must have done. For Lester Bitton was a heavy and gigantic man; his footfalls were there where a lighter person’s might not have been visible. First he had gone to the fireplace. Then he had walked to the reading table facing the fireplace, the open drawer telling where the gun had come from. From there he had gone to the bureau, whose mirror was now tilted so that a tall man could look at himself clearly. The impress of his feet, together, was heavy there; he must have stood for some time. Lastly he had walked straight to the bed, stood with his back to it so that he should fall there, and raised the automatic.
“The gun is his own?” Hadley asked.
“Yes, sir. I have seen it before. He kept it in that table drawer.”
Softly Hadley punched his fist into his palm, softly and steadily as he looked about.
“There will be little more, Hobbes. I want you to give me a complete account of everything Mr. Bitton did today, so far as you know.”
Hobbes’s hands plucked at the sides of his trousers. His old, square, bony face was still impassive.
“Yes, sir. I observed him, sir, because I was a trifle concerned about his welfare. I feared he had been overworking. You see, sir”—his eyes shifted slightly—“I have been with Major Bitton for a long time. He left the house this morning at about half-past ten, sir, and returned at noon. I believe he had been to Mr. Philip’s flat.”
“Was he carrying anything when he returned?”
“Carrying anything, sir? I believe”—a hesitation —“I believe he had a package of some sort, wrapped in brown paper. He left the house again early in the afternoon. I know that he ate no lunch, sir, because on this Monday of the month luncheon is at noon instead of one o’clock, so that Sir William can go out early; I reminded him of this when he returned, and he said he merely wanted a cup of cocoa sent to his room. He left before the—unfortunate occurrence at Sir William’s car; the thief, sir.”
“He left for the City?”
“N-no, sir, I believe not. As he was leaving, Sir William, who intended to go to the City himself later, offered him a lift in the car. Major Bitton said he did not intend to go to his office. He—he mentioned that he was going for a walk.”
“What was his manner then, nervous, upset?”
“Well, sir, say restless; as though he wanted fresh air.”
“When did he return?”
“I’m afraid I don’t remember, sir. Mrs. Bitton had brought back the horrible news about Mr. Philip, and—” Hobbes shook his head. He was biting at his lips now, trying to keep calm; trying to stop his voice from shaking and his eyes from wandering to the bed.
“That’s all, thank you. Please wait downstairs. I suggest that you make another effort to wake Sir William before you go.”
Hobbes bowed and closed the door behind him as he went out.
“I think,” Hadley said, toning to his companions, “you two had better go downstairs also. I’ve got to make an examination—just in case—and I warn you it won’t be pretty. There’s no good you can do. I want you to be there for Arbor when he arrives. I wish to God we hadn’t got him on our hands. So?”
Dr. Fell grunted. He went over, bent across the body, and held his eyeglasses on while he had a brief look at it. Then he signaled to Rampole and waddled towards the door without a word.
In silence they descended the stairs. Rampole thought he heard behind them somewhere the click of a closing latch. He thought he saw a figure somewhere in the upper hall; but his thoughts were so warped with stealth and murder, and the ghostliness of this ancient house, that he paid scant attention. Of all the districts in London, he had thought, this Mayfair was the place of echoes and of shadows. He liked walking in a strange city by night; and once, he remembered, he had prowled through Mayfair in gray twilight, with a scent of rain in the air, and he had not believed that anybody really lived there. There were gaps in these little streets; unexpected houses, a sudden curve that showed a chimney stack against the sky, and, in the midst of great shuttered houses, lanes full of lighted shops like a country town. All around was the weird realm where people had lived, once, when Becky Sharp rode in her coach and news of Waterloo was fresh, but did not live now. A plane tree rustled. A delivery boy on a bicycle careened past, whistling. Through an opening off Mount Street you could see the rails of the Park, and a few stolid taxicabs burnt patient lamps in the square. Then, presently, the rain began to fall.
You could imagine red buses plunging down past the grenadier pillars of Regent Street; and Ares aiming an arrow at a wall of electric signs; and the crowds spilling out from every byway into the roulette wheel of Piccadilly Circus. But you could not think of this Mayfair as real. It was something out of Thackeray, which Thackeray had got in turn from Addison and Steele.
Rampole, catching up images like cards drawn from a pack, found himself following Dr. Fell down the lower hallway. The doctor had found the library, apparently by instinct. It was another high room at the rear, done in white. Three walls, even around the window spaces, were built entirely of books; the white-painted lines of the shelves showed up startlingly against the dark old volumes. The fourth wall was cream-paneled, with a white marble fireplace above which hung a full-length portrait of Sir William Bitton in a massive gilt frame. Flanking the fireplace, two long windows looked out on a garden.
Dr. Fell stood in the middle of the dusky room, peering about curiously. A low fire flickered on the brass and irons; a pink-shaded lamp burned on a table amid the heavy upholstered furniture round the fireplace. Otherwise the library was so dark that they could see stars through the blue windows, and the dead shrubbery of the garden.
“There’s only one thing now,” the doctor said in a low voice, “that I’ve got to be profoundly thankful for. Arbor still thinks I’m Hadley. I may be able to keep him away from Hadley altogether.”
“Thankful? Why?”
“Look behind you,” the other said, nodding.
Rampole switched round. He had not heard Laura Bitton come in over the thick carpet. And for a moment he scarcely recognized her.
She seemed much older and much quieter. Nor was she the vigorous young woman with the firm step and the level brown eyes who had walked so confidently into the Warders’ Hall that afternoon. The eyes were a trifle red; the face fixed and dull, so that freckles showed against its muddy pallor.
“I followed you down,” she said, evenly. “I heard you in the other room.” The voice was queer, as though she could not quite understand yet that her husband was dead. Then she added, abruptly, “You know all about it, don’t you?”
“All about what, Mrs. Bitton?”
Her gesture recalled some of the determination, the imperiousness; some of the poise and light cynicism.
“Oh, don’t quibble. About Phil and me. I knew you would find out.”
Dr. Fell inclined his head. “You should not have broken into his flat this afternoon, Mrs. Bitton. You were seen.”
She was not interested. “I suppose so. I had a key, but I broke the lock of the door with a chisel I found there to pretend it was a burglar; but it didn’t go down. Never mind. I just want to tell you one thing—” But she could not go on with it. She looked from one to the other of them, and shut her lips.
There was a silence.
“Ma’am,” said the doctor, leaning on his cane, “I kn
ow what you were going to say. You only realized just then how it would sound if you said it. You were going to say you never loved Driscoll. Ma’am, isn’t it rather late for that?”
His rumbling voice was colorless; it did not lift or vary, but he studied her curiously.
“Did you see what he had in his hand?”
“Yes,” he replied, as she closed her eyes. “Yes ma’am, I did.”
“Not the gun! The other hand, I mean. He got it out of the drawer. It was a snapshot of me.”
She spoke steadily, the brown eyes level and glazed, the jaw firm. “I looked at it, and went back to my room. I have been sitting at the window in the dark, looking out. If you think I’m trying to excuse myself, you’re a fool. But since I saw him lying on that bed, I think I’ve seen a thousand, million, God knows how many images; and they’re all his. I’ve seen all my life with him. I can’t cry now. I cried today, about Phil’s death, but I can’t cry now. I know I loved Lester. It was only because his ideas were so different from mine that I had to hurt him. I’m not the first woman who’s made a fool of herself. But I loved Lester. I don’t care whether you believe me or not, but I wanted to tell you that. Now I’ll go. And maybe I can cry.”
She paused in the doorway, a hand unsteadily on her rumpled brown hair.
“There was only one other thing,” she said, in a quiet voice. “Did Lester kill Phil?”
For a long space the doctor remained motionless, a big silhouette against the lamp, bulked over his cane. Then he nodded his head.
“Keep that thought with you, ma’am,” he said.
The door closed behind her.
“You see?” Dr. Fell asked. “Or don’t you? There’s been enough tragedy in this house. I won’t add another. Lester Bitton is dead and the Driscoll case is closed. If Hadley is satisfied, there needn’t be any publicity. It can go down as ‘unsolved’; and Lester Bitton shot himself over money troubles, real or imaginary. And yet—”
He was still standing there brooding, under the vast walls of books, when Hobbes knocked at the door.
The Mad Hatter Mystery Page 23
