Dead Man's Quarry (16 page)

“Did you know, Mrs. Maur, that Sir Morris kept a revolver in one of these drawers?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Which one?”

“That one, sir.”

“Can you tell me when you last saw it there?”

“Yes, sir. It was on the eleventh of August, sir, nearly three weeks ago.” As if she felt that this accuracy needed some explanation, the old woman added: “When I heard that the revolver had been mentioned at the inquest, I remembered I'd seen it in the drawer not long ago. And I've been able to call to mind, sir, just when it was.”

“Good. Only three weeks ago. Did you move the revolver?”

“No, sir. It was like this. Sir Charles wanted some cartridges for his sporting gun and asked me where they was, he having used what he had and wishing to obtain some more, sir. I knew as I had seen some revolver bullets in this drawer, sir, when I turned out the room, and thought there might possibly be some of the kind he wanted here too, sir. So I came down and had a look. The revolver was lying in the drawer then, sir, at about half-past eleven on the morning of August the eleventh, sir.”

“Good. That certainly narrows things down a bit, doesn't it, Miss Price? Do you know, Mrs. Maur, whether any of the footmen or housemaids knew the revolver was here?”

“That I couldn't say, sir,” responded the little woman primly. “I can only say as they would have no business to know. But leave drawers unlocked, and nobody can say they haven't been opened by curious folks as had no business to open them, sir.”

“Quite. Now, Mrs. Maur, can you tell me whether any visitors from outside have been in this room since August the eleventh? Take your time and think it over.” There was a pause, while the old woman looked thoughtfully about the room, as if expecting to see the wraiths of its visitors lined up against its walls.

“We haven't had many visitors in these last weeks, sir, owing to Miss Blodwen having been away. There was many come to call on Sir Charles when he first come, but mostly before the date we're speaking of. And they would all have been shown in the drawing-room. Not many visitors ever come to this room. Mr. Morris was like poor Sir Evan in not wanting anything disturbed. The doctor—Dr. Browning, that is, sir—was here one day about three weeks ago, just before he went to London, Mr. Morris being a bit poorly. He came in here to see Mr.—Sir Morris, for I showed him in here myself, but when it was exactly I couldn't say. I should say it was about then, perhaps the twelfth or thirteenth. Yes, it was the thirteenth, I remember, because it was the day before the fête at Penlow, and the doctor asked me was I going, and said he was going to look after the coco-nut shy. Apart from the doctor, I can only call to mind the policemen who came three days ago to see Sir Morris, and a lady who called last Saturday when Sir Morris was out.”

“Ah!” said John, who had noted the tone of faint but definite disapproval which had crept into the housekeeper's voice. “A lady last Saturday, eh?”

“Yes. August the twenty-fifth, sir.”

“Two days before the murder. Who was this lady?”

“I couldn't say, sir. She give no name. She came at about half-past three in the afternoon. The front door was open, and I happened to be passing through the hall as she come up the terrace, and she asked for Mr. Morris Price. I wasn't sure if Mr. Morris was in or not, but I asked her to come through to the little drawing-room. ‘Oh, it's pleasant out here in the sun,' she says. ‘I'll take this deck-chair, and wait here.' So I went to ascertain. When I come back, the lady's scarf is lying over the deck-chair, but no lady. So I walked round the terrace, thinking she might have stepped away to look at the roses, and I met her coming out through the windows of the library, sir.”

“Ah! Go on.”

“She came out smiling, and I could see when the sunlight fell on her face as she was an older lady than I had took her for. I kept my thoughts to myself and I said: ‘Mr. Price is out, madam, and will not be at home till the evening.' ‘Ah well!' she said. ‘It doesn't signify. I thought he might be out, and I've left him a note,' and she laughs. ‘Will you tell him as there's a note on his desk?' And she took up her scarf and went. But before she went, just as she was turning to go, she turned back again and she said: ‘What's the new baronet like?'”

The housekeeper's pause here was instinct with outraged propriety.

“I answered: ‘Sir Charles is also out, madam.' And she laughed again, and she said:‘Well, this is a decent little place he's come into. It ought to have a mistress.' And off she went, leaving me wondering whether I oughtn't to go after her and ask what she'd been doing in the library. But although she was a strange lady, she
was
a lady, sir, by her looks and the way she spoke, though what she said was queer. So I told Mr. Morris when he come back. Not all she'd said, but just that she'd been in the library and written a note. He said nothing, but he didn't look pleased, and he asked no questions.”

“Can you describe this lady?”

Mrs. Maur looked a little dubious.

“Well, I don't know that I can, sir, not to help much. She was a tallish lady that looked about thirty-five in the shadow and fifty in the sun. Dressed in black, with one of these small hats with a little lace veil over her eyes. Dark eyes, she had, grey, with black eyelashes, and long ear-rings and—and—” The old woman hesitated, at a loss for words to describe some peculiar quality of the visitor. She said slowly at last:

“She had a way with her as if she meant to have her way, and didn't care how things looked. And a clear, loud voice. That's all,” added Mrs. Maur, after a pause to ransack the corners of her memory. She went on, anxious to leave no false impression: “When I say she looked thirty-five in the shadow, that's only to show the tall, well-set-up, smart lady that she was, sir. She'll never see forty again. Nor fifty, I shouldn't wonder.”

“Did she come on foot, this lady?”

“No, sir. She came on a bicycle. I saw her walk a little way down the drive and then take to a bicycle she'd left standing against the railings. It give me quite a surprise, for by her shoes and dress and that she looked more as if she had come in a car. And she rode off as quick and easy as anything, as if she was a girl and used to exercise and that.”

John smiled and glanced at Blodwen, who had been listening with a puzzled air to this recital.

“We ought to be able to find out who this person was,” she now said eagerly. “Why, of course Uncle Morris must know who she was, if she left a note for him!”

“Your Uncle Morris isn't exactly a mine of information, though, is he?” murmured John. “However, we ought to be able to discover the lady's identity without troubling him. It isn't difficult to make a guess at it.”

“Why!” exclaimed Blodwen. “But I haven't the slightest idea—” She broke off abruptly, with a sudden surmise. “Why, do you think? Never mind now. Is there anything else we can ask Mrs. Maur?”

“I should like to ask, if I may, whether the housemaid, Lethe's daughter, is still working here?”

Mrs. Maur glanced at Blodwen, as if to seek her approval before she touched on a subject so painful to the family. Blodwen gave a faint smile and nod, and the old woman answered immediately:

“No, sir. She left directly after the trouble between Sir Charles and Letbe. The trouble was about her, of course. You'll have heard that, sir.”

“Yes. Has she taken a new situation, do you know?”

“No, sir. She's at home, with her father and mother. She's to be married to Waters, the second footman here, and they've got a situation in London to go to, where a married couple is wanted.”

“Oh, then Waters is leaving, is he?”

“He gave in his notice at the time Ellie Letbe left, sir.”

“Is he a good servant?”

“Fairly satisfactory, sir. But it isn't satisfactory when two of the servants gets engaged, sir. It doesn't answer, I find.”

“Must happen fairly often, I should think.”

“We usually try to engage men-servants with previous attachments, sir, preferably local ones. We find it answers better.”

“I see,” said John, smiling. “And your maids—do you prefer them with previous local attachments, too?”

“No, sir,” answered Mrs. Maur with perfect gravity. We prefer our maids unattached. We prefer our maids to be without matrimonial tendencies, sir!”

“Dear me, Mrs. Maur! Are there any such?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Some young women take naturally to a single life, though there aren't very many of them.” Her tone added: “Unfortunately.” She went on rather apologetically, as if to excuse an error of judgment: “I should never have engaged Ellie Letbe if it hadn't been for her father, sir. I could see at a glance as she was one of the marrying kind. They never answer for long.”

“Cold-blooded old person, isn't she?” remarked Blodwen with a faint smile when Mrs. Maur had left the room. “But the housekeeper par excellence.”

“Devoted to the family, I suppose, and been here all her life?”

“No, oh no! Only three years. And as for devotion —well, I don't know. Her devotion is to her duty, not to us. Housekeeping is her life, and as you have just heard, anything that doesn't conduce to good housekeeping has her strong disapproval. A marvellous servant, but not devoted in the—the emotional sense. Oh, no! Poor old Letbe was devoted in that way to Uncle Morris and the place.” She sighed. “He must come back, poor old man. But not just yet, I suppose, for the look of the thing. When Uncle Morris comes back will be time enough.” She broke off abruptly, and asked slowly, after a pause during which John looked inside the drawer: “It isn't possible, is it, that an innocent man could be judged guilty?”

“Not if he behaves sensibly.”

“But he won't!”

“Don't let's think about that,” said John gently, closing the drawer, which, as he had expected, disclosed nothing which could be regarded as a clue. We'll need all our energies to find the guilty person. We must leave Sir Morris's affairs to himself and his lawyers.”

“If only there were something I could
do
—now, this moment.”

“There is,” said John cheerfully. “Go and interview Mr. Clino, and find out all you can about your Uncle Morris's wife. He's sure to know something about her, being a contemporary.”

“You think this woman who called last Saturday was Uncle Morris's wife?”

“Why not?”

“It was twenty years ago, and we've heard nothing of her since.”

“If your uncle had heard of her, would you have known of it?”

“No. That's true. But she's never been here before, I'm certain.”

“Come, Miss Price. Last Saturday a strange woman called here, and had every opportunity of abstracting your uncle's revolver, and, what is rather significant, no opportunity of putting it back again. Isn't it obvious that we must find out who she was? She may have been anybody or nobody—a traveller in vacuum-cleaners, or an eccentric district visitor. But it is more probable that she was your Aunt Clytie—delightful name! Remember what she said to Mrs. Maur: ‘Well, this is a decent little place. It ought to have a mistress.' Significant words, if you think them over.”

“You mean,” said Blodwen slowly, “that when my father died, and they were such a long time tracing Charles, she thought—”

“That a title would become her, and that Rhyllan Hall would be a delightful home. Yes. But remember this is the merest surmise.”

“I'll go and find Cousin Jim at once,” said Blodwen. “He's asleep in the arbour, I believe.” She gave an impatient little laugh. “Nothing would keep Cousin Jim from his afternoon siesta. He doesn't seem to realize at all how terribly serious things are for us. I like the old silly, but I try to avoid him when there's anything the matter. His ‘Dear, dear, how tiresome, well, it can't be helped, let's go to sleep' attitude gets on my nerves.”

“Who
is
your cousin Jim, exactly?” asked John thoughtfully. “I want to get everybody clear in my mind.”

Oh, he's second cousin of my father's. They were great friends when they were young men, and Cousin Jim was supposed to be very clever. But his parents made him a solicitor, which he was no use at at all, and he was naturally as lazy as could be, I imagine, and when my father came here he took him oh as secretary and librarian, finding him at a loose end and practically without the means to live. And he's been here ever since. Of course his work was really a sinecure. But my father liked him. And Uncle Morris likes him too, we all do, really, though we get rather impatient with him sometimes.”

John nodded.

“Mr. Christmas,” said Blodwen, after a moment's hesitation. “Have you thought? If it were Aunt Clytie—there's a motive, isn't there?”

John shook his head, but not in contradiction.

“Don't let's go too fast. It's fatal, because it means one's always either elated or disappointed. And one can't think clearly in either of those states.”

“All very well for you,” said Blodwen oh a faint sigh. “You're not—involved. But I'll try to keep my feelings out of it, or at least not to give tongue to them. If you'll promise to tell me what you're doing, and not keep me in the dark.”

She looked up at him appealingly, and John found himself thinking how attractive a plain face could be, when it was lit by a pair of fine, clear eyes. He hesitated.

I can't promise that,” he said gently. “But I'll be reasonable. When I am keeping you in the dark, I'll tell you so, if you ask me. And I'll never be mysterious just for the fun of the thing.”

Blodwen looked a little disappointed and seemed about to protest, but agreed without enthusiasm and held out her hand.

“It's a bargain. Shake hands on it. Hullo, Felix! I told you you were to rest till tea-time.”