Envious Casca (31 page)

"I don't set a bit of store by any of the information they thought they were giving. But they told you a lot they didn't set any store by themselves, and that was valuable. What about Joseph hanging up paper-streamers, and bits of holly all over the house, until Nathaniel was fit to murder him?"

"Well, what about it?" asked the Sergeant, staring.

"It all fits in," Hemingway said. "Kind old Uncle Joseph going to a lot of trouble to make things bright and cheerful for a set of people whom even he must have known wouldn't like it any more than Nathaniel did. Kind old Uncle Joseph, in fact, working his brother up into a rare state of bad temper. He got on Nathaniel's nerves. He meant to. He did everything he knew Nathaniel didn't like, from decorating the house to clapping him on the back when he had lumbago."

"Yes, but he's the sort of chap who always does put his loot into it," interposed the Sergeant.

"That's what you were meant to think," said Hemingway. "You wait a bit, because I'm going to show you that kind Uncle Joseph's tactlessness is the predominant feature in this case. Piecing together all the information we've picked up, what do we get?"

Joseph trying to keep the peace," answered the Sergeant promptly.

"Not on your life we don't! Joseph throwing oil on the flames, more like. A man who wants to keep the peace doesn't invite a set of highly incompatible people down to stay with a bad-tempered old curmudgeon who's already got his knife into most of them."

"But everyone says he was always trying to smooth rows over!"

"Thanks, I've heard him doing that for myself, and anything more calculated to make an angry person look round for a hatchet I've yet to see!" retorted Hemingway. "Why, he even got on my nerves! But I haven't finished, not anything like. Having got the whole party into a state when anything might have happened, he does a bit more pseudo-balm-spreading by hinting to Stephen's blonde that Stephen's due to inherit his uncle's fortune, and it's up to her to keep him quiet. Looked at your way, that's more of his peacemaking; looked at my way, it's a nail in Stephen's coffin. No man could be as big a fool as to think that what you said to that girl wouldn't come out at the wrong moment. He was making sure that we should discover that Stephen had reason to think he was the heir."

"Look here, sir, that's going too far!" the Sergeant exclaimed. "The one thing that does stand out a mile is that he fair dotes on his nephew! Why, look at the way he would stick to it the murder had been done from outside! And the way he kept on saying that his brother must have taken Stephen's cigarette-case up to his room himself!"

"I am looking at it," said Hemingway grimly. "Two of the silliest theories I've ever had to listen to. They wouldn't have convinced a child in arms."

"But you can't get away from the fact that he's fond of Stephen!"

"I'm not meant to get away from it," replied Hemingway. "I've had it thrust under my nose at every turn. The only thing I haven't yet been privileged to see is any reason for all this overflowing affection. I've seen a good bit of kind Uncle Joseph and his nephew since I came down here, and I haven't yet heard Stephen do other than treat him like dirt. That young man loathes the very sight of Joseph, and he takes no trouble to hide it. I've met some rude customers in my time, but anything to touch Stephen's rudeness to Joseph I've never seen. But it doesn't matter what he says: Joseph doesn't take a bit of umbrage; he just goes on loving his dear nephew."

"Well, after all, he is his nephew, and when you've known a chap since he was a kid -"

"Now you have gone off the rails!" said Hemingway. "When Stephen was a kid, Joseph was drifting about the world creating a sensation with his masterly portrayal of Mine Host of the Garter Inn, and Snug the joiner, and very likely a First Citizen as well, not to mention a Soothsayer, and William, a Country Fellow. He wasn't within a couple of thousand miles of this country. If he knew that he'd got a nephew, that's about all he did know of Stephen until he planted himself on Nathaniel a couple of years ago. And if you're going to tell me that an affinity sprang up between them, you can spare your breath! Stephen never had a bit of time for kind Uncle Joseph, as you've heard over and over again from the servants. Went out of his way to be rude to him. In return for which, I'm being asked to believe that Joseph fair doted on him. Well, as far as I'm concerned, he overdid his doting. It isn't in human nature to dote on a young chap who does nothing but hand you out offensive remarks on a plate. In fact, that's where all kind Uncle

Joseph's highly organised plans began to come a bit unstuck. Stephen wouldn't co-operate. However, Joseph banked on a lot of half-baked people like you thinking that he was a saint, and letting it go at that. The trouble is, I'm not half-baked, and I don't believe in saints who carry on like Joseph, playing up to the gallery all the time, till you feel you ought to give him a round of applause."

"When you put it like that -" began the Sergeant slowly.

"You keep quiet, and listen to me. It's my belief Joseph meant to fasten this murder on to Stephen from the start, but just in case anything should go wrong, he first saw to it that his brother's will shouldn't hold water, when it came to be admitted to probate, and next that we should be provided with a few other likely suspects, to fall back on if the case against Stephen fell through. Thus we have Miss Herriard, and that limp playwright of hers, all ready to hand, not to mention Gun-running Mottisfont. And if I'm not much mistaken it was Joseph who egged Roydon on to read his play aloud on Christmas Eve, well knowing that it would drive Nathaniel to a frenzy."

"You've got nothing to go on to make you say that, sir," protested the Sergeant.

"I've got this to go on: that he didn't stop Roydon! I'll bet he could have done so, if he'd wanted to. He let him read it, and the balloon went up with a bang. Nathaniel, having had one row with Mottisfont, had another with Miss Herriard, and threw in a few mean cracks at Stephen, just for good measure. In fact, kind Uncle Joseph had got his stage nicely set, and all he had to do then was to stick a knife into Nathaniel, and sit back while we made fools of ourselves."

"And you don't know how he managed to stick that knife into Nathaniel!" interjected the Sergeant.

"No, I don't; but for the moment I'm leaving that out of the discussion. It's safe to say that he did it damned Irverly, because it's got me baffled up to the present. But lie chose a time when everyone else would be changing l()r dinner, and thus unable to produce alibis; and, neither, he gave himself an alibi by carrying on a conversation with the one person who was obviously out of i I is running as a suspect."

"Might be something in that door," mused the Sergeant, thinking it over.

"What door?"

"The one between his dressing-room and the bathroom he shared with Miss Clare. I mean, she didn't ;ictually see him, did she?"

"If you're thinking that she was listening to a gramophone, it's a possibility, but not a very likely one. What's snore, I haven't so far found a gramophone on the premises."

"Well, if he really was in his dressing-room all the time, how did he do it?"

"Never mind how he did it. We'll come to that presently. Just now I want you to consider his behaviour ever since the murder. He first arranges that Stephen shall be one of the three to discover Nathaniel's body. That gave him the opportunity to tell me, when the proper time came, that Stephen didn't turn a hair at finding his uncle dead."

"He told you that?"

"Not half as crudely as that. He said his dear nephew was not one to show his feelings, which left me with the impression that Master Stephen had been pretty callous. But there! I pick up impressions a lot quicker than Joseph knows, and I'd already picked up the impression that Stephen had been rather fond of his Uncle Nathaniel, and was a good deal more upset by his death than he meant to give away. But of course there was more to getting Stephen into Nathaniel's room than that. Stephen inspected the windows and the bathroom door, just as any man would, while Joseph pretended to be mourning over his brother's body. That made it possible for Stephen to have had the chance to tamper with the fastenings. All Joseph had to do was to tell me that he was sure the windows were shut. When I asked him, as I was bound to, whether he'd actually seen them, he said no, but his dear nephew had, which came to the same thing. He knew it didn't come to the same thing, anything like, but it sounded well: just what a soft old fool would say. Oh, you have to hand it to him!"

"It makes him out to be pretty black," said the Sergeant, awed.

"Well, you don't suppose a man who sticks a knife into his brother's back is a gilded saint, do you?"

"But, sir, I still can't see it altogether your way! I'd swear the one thing Joseph dreaded was that we should bring the murder home to Stephen! I mean, he went out of his way to explain that Stephen's rough manner didn't mean anything, and he was always sticking up for him!"

"Of course he was! That was his role, and very well he played it. But did he convince you that Stephen hadn't had anything to do with it?"

"No, I can't say that he did."

"The point is," said Hemingway, "that the excuses he made for Stephen were so weak that they made us more suspicious than ever about him, which was all according to plan. The most damaging things I found out about Swphen I found out either from his uncle, by way of countless conversation, or through his uncle, like when it came out he'd hinted to Miss Dean that Stephen was the heir. He'd even taken care to hint the same to Mottisfont, knowing Mottisfont would spill it the instant he got the wind up on his own account."

"There was never anything you could actually take hold of, though."

"No; I told you we were up against a very clever customer."

"Yes, but - Look here, sir, what about the will? If he was as clever as you make out, he must have known how the money would be divided up once the will was found be no good! And he doesn't get the lot: he only gets half."

"You're developing some very large ideas, aren't you?" said Hemingway. "If you think eighty thousand pounds is a fortune to be sneezed at, I'll bet Joseph doesn't! Why, He's been sponging on his brother for the last two years, which means he's broke, or as near to it as makes no odds! Eighty thousand pounds would be as good a reason to murder to him as one hundred and sixty thousand pounds."

"Well, I don't know. I'd have expected him to have got his brother to have made the will out in his favour, somehow."

"Don't you ever take to crime, my lad, because it's easy to see you wouldn't make a do of it! If he'd come in for the whole fortune, instead of only half, it would have looked suspicious. I don't suppose he even thought of trying for the lot. He's far too downy a bird."

The Sergeant appeared to consider the matter, fixing his superior with a grave, unblinking stare. After a prolonged and ruminative silence, he said: "I don't deny it sounds convincing, the way you put it, sir. And you do have a knack of spotting your man."

"Flair," corrected Hemingway coldly.

"All right, flair. And I don't deny that I never fancied Miss Herriard, nor Mottisfont, nor that young Roydon. But what I do say, Chief, is that there isn't a bit of real evidence against Joseph, because you don't know how he did it, or when he found the time to do it."

"That," said Hemingway, "is what we are now going to discover."

"Well, I hope you're right, sir; but we've been at it the best part of two days now, and we're no nearer discovery, not as far as I know. Every line we had, or thought we had, broke down. The door-key hadn't been tampered with; the ladder couldn't have been got at; and there isn't a secret way into the room. I'm blessed if I know how we're ever going to make any headway."

"That's right," said Hemingway cheerfully. "And all the time I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the clue to the whole mystery has been under our noses from the outset. Probably something so simple that a child could have spotted it. Life's like that."

"If it's as simple an all that it's a wonder you haven't spotted it," said the Sergeant sceptically.

"It's very likely too simple for me," Hemingway explained. "I was hoping you'd hit on it."

The Sergeant ignored this. "If only we had some finger-prints to help us!" he said. "But everything was gone over so carefully, it doesn't seem to be any use prying that line again. I did think we might have got something from the dagger, but the hilt was as clean as a whistle. And it was plain the other dagger hadn't been toniched, nor the sheath of the one he used. Well, we saw how easily it slipped in and out of the sheath, didn't we? I could have drawn the blade out without touching the sheath, if I'd wanted to, when I took the whole thing down. In fact, now I come to think of it, I never used my Ieft hand at all, and I'll bet he didn't either."

"Just a moment!" said Hemingway, frowning. "I believe you've got something!"

"Got what, sir?"

"Your left hand. Do you remember just what you did do with it when you were up on that chair?"

"I didn't do anything with it, barring -"The Sergeant stopped, and his jaw fell. "Good lord!"

"When you stretched up your right hand, to take the knife down, you steadied yourself with your left hand against the wall. And that, my lad, is ten to one what kind Uncle Joseph did too, without thinking about it any more than you did! Come on, we've got to get hold of the finger-print boys!"

The Sergeant rose, but he had been thinking deeply, and he said: "Hold on a minute, sir! That's raised a point in my mind. I had to stretch up a good bit to reach that knife. Joseph couldn't have got near it, not on a chair."

"Then he didn't use a chair," replied Hemingway impatiently. "I never met anyone like you for trying to throw a spanner in the works!"

"What did he use, then?"

Behind Inspector Hemingway's bright gaze his brain moved swiftly. Once more his excellent memory stood him in good stead. "Christmas decorations: step-ladder!" he said. "Same one Nathaniel fell over on his way up to dinner. Come on!"