Death of a Ghost (17 page)

The murder, for he had already made up his mind it was a murder, was going to be subjected to the fullest floodlight of police scrutiny, and Inspector Oates considered that without undue optimism he could count on its success.

As the details sorted themselves out, however, there were born in his mind the faint beginnings of that bewilderment and subsequent irritation which so exasperated him afterwards.

He was compelled to agree with the doctor that Mrs Potter had been asphyxiated without signs of violence, without a foreign body in the throat, and apparently without gas.

For perhaps half an hour, while the photographers and fingerprint experts were at work, things were at a deadlock.

Into the Inspector's optimism crept a note of truculence, and as each ordinary avenue of enquiry proved barren in turn, his expression of hearty self-assurance became more rigidly fixed and less convincing.

Fred Rennie came in for a careful cross-examination as one of the last people to have seen Mrs Potter alive, but beyond a careful and fairly accurate account of the purchase of the flake-white they could get nothing from him.

The first light on what was fast becoming the inexplicable arrived when plain-clothes man Dowling, who had been left on guard outside the studio, caught Lisa in the act of rinsing out the cup from which Mrs Potter had drunk her midday Bovril, after he had observed the old Italian woman retrieve it surreptitiously from a clump of spear-grass in the flower-bed.

He brought the woman and the suspected vessel, now practically clean and of no use whatever as evidence, triumphantly before the Inspector.

Lisa stood just inside the doorway, the light from the hanging bulbs shining on her face. She made an extraordinary, unforgettable picture, the flushed policeman standing at her side. Her bright black eyes glowed from out the network of yellow wrinkles which formed her face and succeeded in giving her the appearance of incalculable guile, whereas acute alarm was probably her only emotion.

The Inspector surveyed her black-clad funereal figure with mistrust. When he spoke, however, his tone was friendly.

‘Miss Capella and I know one another,' he said. ‘We met before – some weeks back.'

Lisa nodded and her misleading black eyes flickered with something which might have been malignant satisfaction, but which was in point of fact mere recognition.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘At the other murder.'

‘Murder?' Oates pounced on the word. But Lisa seemed unaware of any admission. She stood looking at him, helplessness and stupidity alike masked by that baffling exterior.

‘What makes you think Mrs Potter was murdered?'

‘I saw her face. She did not die naturally. Dead people do not look like that when they die naturally.'

‘Oh, you saw her face, did you?' said the Inspector, sighing. ‘That was when you came in for the cup, I suppose? That cup.'

He pointed to the rather ridiculous pottery mug which P.C. Downing still held so confidently, but if he hoped for any dramatic collapse from the old woman, Lisa was a disappointment.

‘Yes, when I got the cup,' she agreed, moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue, her eyes flickering maddeningly.

‘Ah!' The Inspector was almost embarrassed by such a wealth of admission. ‘You don't deny, then, that you took the cup from this room after Mrs Potter was dead and attempted to wash it out?'

The triumphant note in his voice seemed suddenly to warn Lisa that the conversation was not merely an idle chat. She shut her mouth hard and her eyes became dull and completely expressionless.

The Inspector repeated his question.

Lisa threw out her hands expressively.

‘I do not talk any more,' she said.

After several hopeless attempts to make this statement untrue Oates turned to Campion.

‘You know her,' he said. ‘Make her understand she can't go as far as this without explaining more fully.'

But once alarmed, Lisa was not easily soothed, and it was not until fifteen minutes later that she showed any further signs of being able to speak at all.

At last, however, she conceded a few hesitating replies.

‘I came in when Mrs Lafcadio went indoors to phone. It was then I saw Claire Potter's face … yes, I saw the cup too. Yes, it was then I put it in the flower-bed.'

‘Why?' the Inspector demanded.

‘Because I did not wish to go into the house then. Mrs Lafcadio had told me to wait by the studio. I did not want anyone else to go in the studio.'

‘Why?'

‘Because Mrs Potter was dead.'

Inspector Oates sighed. Campion intervened.

‘Why did you take the cup away, Lisa?'

The old woman hesitated. Her eyes were alive again, darting painfully from side to side.

‘I saw it there,' she said unexpectedly, pointing to the occasional table beneath the window on the lower shelf of which Claire had thrust her cup when Miss Cunninghame arrived. ‘And I took it to clean.'

‘But why, Lisa? You must have had a reason for doing such a thing at such an extraordinary time.'

The old woman turned upon him.

‘I had,' she said with totally unexpected vigour. ‘I thought perhaps there was poison in the cup and that she had died from it and that there would be trouble. So I washed the cup that there might not be any more unhappiness in the house.'

The Inspector was regarding her with fascinated eyes, while upon the face of P.C. Downing there was something approaching wonderment and joy.

Mr Campion persisted anxiously.

‘You must explain.'

‘I do not talk any more.'

‘But you must. Don't you see, if you don't explain these gentlemen will naturally think it was you who put the poison in the cup if any was there.'

‘I?' Lisa was plainly horrified. ‘Why should I?'

Oates took a step forward.

‘That's what we want to know.'

Lisa began to cry. She sank down on the nearest chair and wept unrestrainedly. It was all very uncomfortable.

The task of persuading the truth out of her seemed to have devolved upon Campion and he tried again.

‘Who do you think would poison Mrs Potter, Lisa?'

‘No one. No one. I only washed out the cup in case.'

‘Oh, but come, Lisa, that's not true. You were fond of Mrs Potter …'

‘I was not.' The tearful vehemence was alarming. ‘She was a fool. A domineering woman. A great fool.'

‘Well, then,' Mr Campion mopped his forehead, ‘you liked her, you knew her well. If any – any outsider had poisoned her you would like them to be caught. Is that true?'

‘Yes' – grudgingly.

‘Well, then, you must tell us who you thought had poisoned the cup.'

‘I didn't think he had done it … I didn't … I didn't … I only washed out the cup in case. When I saw her dead I remembered him coming in and I thought …' Her sobs increased and she became speechless.

Campion and Oates exchanged glances and the Inspector snorted with relief. It was coming at last, then.

‘There, there,' he said foolishly, patting her shoulder. ‘You'd better tell us the truth, you know. There's no use hiding anything in a business like this. Whom did you see coming in?'

Lisa's sobbing became hysterical.

‘I don't know. I didn't see anyone. I won't speak.'

Oates's grip on her shoulder tightened and he shook her gently.

‘You pull yourself together. Come on, out with it. Whom did you see coming into this studio?'

The voice of authority had its effect. Lisa began to mutter tearfully.

‘I don't know anything. I only saw him come in and go out again, and afterwards when I saw her dead I wondered …'

‘Yes, yes, we know.' The Inspector spoke impatiently. ‘But who?'

Lisa raised her drowned eyes to his.

‘Mr – Mr Potter,' she said. ‘Her husband. For six years now he's caught the five-thirty from Chelmsford, arrived at Liverpool Street at a little before half past six and come home by seven, and so when today I saw him come in at five and go out again in a minute or two I guessed something was going to happen.'

The Inspector, who had been jotting down facts in a small untidy notebook, nodded to his subordinate.

‘Get on to Enquiries, find out the number of the school at Chelmsford, and ask if Mr Potter left early today. Don't say who you are, of course.'

While this operation was in progress Lisa was questioned closely in the matter of times. She was inclined to be sullen and unhelpful at first, but Oates revealed himself the soul of tact and patience and presently almost succeeded in pinning her down.

‘It was a quarter to five by the kitchen clock when I saw Miss Cunninghame go,' she said slowly. ‘The clock is fifteen minutes fast, so that would be half past four. Then I heard the gate go again and I looked out to see if it was the fishmonger, and I saw that it was Mr Potter. It was five o'clock then, because I looked at the clock. I was afraid for a moment, you see, that it was seven o'clock and I had got muddled with the time.'

‘Then if the clock said five it was really a quarter to, since the clock was fast?' said Oates, writing.

‘No. It was five then, because when Miss Cunninghame went I knew it must be half past four, so I altered the clock. It was then I might have got muddled in the time.'

‘Quite,' said Oates dryly and altered his notes. ‘How long was Mr Potter in the studio here?'

‘I don't know. I didn't look at the clock again, but I think about ten minutes.'

‘Ten minutes. How did he go out? Was he in a hurry?'

Lisa began to weep again. Finally, however, she nodded.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘That was what I noticed. He crept like he was afraid of being seen. That's why I washed the cup.'

Downing returned from the telephone, his manner betraying respectfully suppressed excitement.

‘Mr Potter has not been at Blakenham all today, sir,' he said. ‘They received a telegram at ten o'clock this morning to say he was confined to his bed.'

The Inspector grimaced.

‘I see,' he said slowly. ‘I see.'

There was a silence after he had spoken and it was in that silence that Mr Potter opened the garden gate and, striving to step naturally and with carefree decision, crossed the path and entered the studio.

He stood in the doorway and blinked at the astonishing sight of so many people in his home, as yet not distinguishing the separate personalities and the possible significance of their presence.

He looked much as Mr Campion first remembered seeing him. His thin red face with its enormous nose and watery eyes were melancholy even in its surprise. Also he was quite startlingly untidy. His tufty hair burst from beneath his hat, his hastily gathered papers were in painful imminence of descending to his feet in chaos, and one long refractory shoelace straggled behind him dangerously.

Yet, Campion noticed with growing concern, there was a new note in the general air of frustration and despair which was his general atmosphere; the high thin note of alarm.

It became more and more insistent as he looked from one face to another: the weeping Lisa, staring at him like a dog beseeching forgiveness, the stolid doctor, the excited plain-clothes man, Campion, and the curious Inspector.

They waited for him to make the first movement and when it came it was so natural, so utterly typical and in character, but at the same time so horrible in the circumstances, that they all felt the chill.

Mr Potter, having taken in each face, looked beyond them to the scullery.

‘Claire,' he called, ‘Claire, we have visitors.' He returned to the stricken company. ‘Sorry, no one here,' he said, relapsing into his habitual helpless mumble. ‘Very awkward for you … awkward all round. I suppose you want to see my wife? She'll be here in a moment …'

The plain-clothes man shifted his position and, as his bulk moved, the sheet-covered form on the bed came into view. Mr Potter stared at it. All the watery redness of his face seemed to rush into his huge nose, making it grotesque and absurd. His small eyes, which were set so closely beside the pinched bridge, grew round and foolish like a frightened child's.

He started across the room towards it and Campion caught his arm.

‘No,' he said. ‘No, not yet. Wait.'

Mr Potter turned to him, the incredulity in his eyes growing until it seemed they must become blank.

‘Is that my wife?'

The words were whispered. Campion felt some of the choking horror of nightmare.

‘Is that my wife?'

He had not repeated the question, but the piteous affected little room seemed to vibrate with it.

Campion nodded.

Mr Potter glanced at the others. Lisa's unbridled weeping was the only sound.

‘Claire?' said Mr Potter in a voice in which amazement, disbelief, and despair were all inextricably mingled. ‘Claire?'

He broke away from Campion and went to the divan. To their unutterable relief he did not try to pull back the sheet. He bent down and felt the cold arm through the linen.

‘Dead,' he said suddenly, and stepped back. ‘Claire dead.'

He moved round the room and stood with his back to them. They saw him tall and oddly held in the yellow light.

‘Dead,' he said again in the most matter-of-fact tone they had ever heard him use.

Then the mass of papers and his battered hat slipped to the ground and Doctor Fettes leapt forward to catch the man as he toppled over.

‘It's the shock,' said the young doctor, tugging at the limp collar. ‘It's the shock.'

–

‘I
REALLY
don't know when I've been so upset.'

Miss Cunninghame, pink with excitement and an underlying sense of outrage at tragedy treading so near, made the announcement as though it were an important confidence.