Miss Silver Deals With Death (13 page)

Upstairs Lamb frowned over Sergeant Abbott’s notes.

“Fishy story,” he said. “And she was frightened—badly frightened. Wonder what she was being blackmailed about. It might be that—she might be afraid of its coming out—there’s always that.”

Frank Abbott said without any expression at all,

“The letter was in the bag where she said she had seen it. If she killed Carola Roland to get it back, why did she leave it there?”

Lamb nodded. Frank was sharp—there was a time when he had thought he was going to be too sharp—but he was shaping well—a good boy, if a little inclined to think a step ahead of his superiors. Wind in the head—that’s what he had to watch out against—wind in the head, and being too clever. He’d seen a lot of good men spoilt that way—up with the rocket and down with the stick. When necessary, he did not hesitate to point the moral. At the moment he was too busy.

“Oh, I don’t think she did it. But there’s no denying that she’d motive and opportunity—not a great deal of either, but some. To my mind Major Armitage is the more likely of the two.”

“She was alive fifty minutes after Armitage left. Of course he may have come back.”

“Bell saw a man going away from the house at eight-thirty. Those were a man’s prints on the larger of the two glasses—the one with the whisky and soda in it. She had a man here some time before she was killed, and it may have been the man Bell saw going away—it probably was. Someone else may have seen him come in or go out. He may have been the murderer, and he may have been Major Armitage—he’s engaged to Miss Underwood. Carola Roland was trying to blackmail him, and it looks as though she had been blackmailing Mrs. Underwood. That brings the Underwood family right into the case, doesn’t it?”

Frank Abbott nodded.

“That address Mrs. Underwood gave—the one to which she sent the money, sir—I saw you noticed that.”

Lamb nodded again.

“It’s the one that was being used in the Mayfair blackmail case. Accommodation address of course. We only got Smithson, worse luck, and I’ll eat my hat if he was alone on the job. He hadn’t the education for it, or the brains. No, to my mind the principal got away and left him to take the rap. Let me see— that would be about six months ago, which corresponds very nicely with the date when Mrs. Underwood sent her fifty pounds. Of course two separate blackmailers may have been using the same address, but I’d want good jury-proof evidence to make me believe it. Now I wonder whether Miss Roland was the principal who slipped through our fingers. Looks as if she might have been.”

Frank Abbott looked over his Chief Inspector’s head.

“In which case a good many people may have had a motive for murdering her,” he observed.

At this point there was a knock on the door and Sergeant Curtis came in—a dark young man with horn-rimmed spectacles and an air of polite efficiency. He had seen everyone in the flats he had been sent to cover, and proceeded to detail the results.

“Flat No. 1, sir:—Mrs. Meredith—very old lady—deaf—partially helpless. Companion, Miss Crane. Maid, Ellen Packer. Both middle-aged. They say none of them went out all day, except Miss Crane to the pillarbox at the corner. She puts this at between 8:30 and 8:45. Says she saw no one except Miss Garside, tenant of No. 4, who was coming up from the basement. Did not speak to her.

“Flat No. 2:—Mrs. and Miss Lemming. Mrs. Lemming out with friends until just after 7:00. Miss Lemming out until about 6:20, when she returned to flat, but left it again at 6:35 to pay a short call on Miss Underwood in No. 3.

“Flat No. 3:—Covered by Sergeant Abbott.

“Flat No. 4:—Miss Garside. I could get no reply on my first visit, but returned after covering 5 and 6. Miss Garside had then come in. Said she had been out shopping. I thought this strange, as she appeared to be having breakfast. Said she had not been out all the previous day and could shed no light on Miss Roland’s movements or those of anybody else. When I mentioned Miss Crane having seen her come up from the basement between 8:30 and 8:45 p.m. she said, ‘Oh, that? I didn’t see Miss Crane or anyone else. I went down to tell Bell that there was a faulty washer on one of my taps.’

“Flat No. 5:—Mr. Drake. He waited in to see me, and has now gone to business. Says he was out as usual all day yesterday. Returned about 9:15. Says he met no one.

“Flat No. 6:—Mr. and Mrs. Willard. Some disturbance going on there—possibly a quarrel. Mr. Willard left flat at a little after 7:00. p.m. and did not return until about 9:30 this morning. Says he went to see his brother at Ealing and stayed the night. Agitated—signs of tears. Mrs. Willard—face puffed with crying— eyes red. Looked as if she had been up all night. Crumpled handkerchief in corner of sofa. Says she didn’t leave flat and saw no one. Considerable evidence of strain.”

“She had a row with her husband, and he stayed out all night. She kept hoping he’d come home, and he didn’t, so she cried her eyes out and forgot to go to bed. That’s about the size of it, my boy.”

The efficient Curtis disciplined a sensation of annoyance and returned to the charge.

“It might have been like that, sir. But there was more than an ordinary quarrel would account for—definitely. If there was a quarrel, it must have been a very bad one.”

Lamb gave his deep chuckle. He liked getting a rise out of Ted.

“Wait till you’re married, my boy!” he said, and heard Frank Abbott murmur,

“I wonder what they quarrelled about.”

Lamb chuckled again.

“What do husbands and wives quarrel about? Perhaps you’d like to ask ’em.”

“I wonder if it was about Miss Roland,” said Frank Abbott in the gentle voice which Curtis found irritating.

Lamb looked up sharply.

“Any grounds for that?”

Curtis said, “No, sir.”

Frank Abbott slid a hand over his already immaculate hair.

“First-class row between husband and wife suggests other man or woman. The lady in this case, is, I gather, middle-aged.”

“They’re never too old to get into mischief,” said Lamb a little grimly.

“Not if they’re that sort, sir. I took the opportunity of asking Miss Underwood about the people in the other flats, and she described Mrs. Willard to me as a perfect pet—rather like a hen without any chickens.”

Lamb chuckled.

“Well, I don’t like hens myself and shouldn’t want to make a pet of one. But it doesn’t sound as if Mrs. W. was one of the gay deceiving kind—I grant you that. What about it, Ted?”

Sergeant Curtis agreed, a thought stiffly.

“Not that sort at all, sir. Good housewife and all that. Everything as clean as a new pin—polished up to the nines. She only has Mrs. Smollett twice a week, so she must do most of it herself. That sort hasn’t got time for carrying on.”

“A world-beating cook according to Miss Underwood,” said Frank Abbott. “Lucky Willard! You wouldn’t think he’d risk all that—would you? Did he strike you as a gay deceiver, Ted?”

Curtis frowned.

“He struck me as a man who had just had a pretty bad shock. I don’t really think a quarrel would account for the state he was in. He’d been crying—actually crying, and he was as nervous as a cat on hot bricks.”

Lamb swung round in his chair.

“Well, if he’d been flirting with her a bit he’d be bound to be upset. That’s the worst of police work—it makes you forget about people being human. If you come to think of it, Ted— there’s a pretty girl living next door to you, and you see her going up and down. Perhaps you pass the time of day, perhaps you flirt with her a bit, perhaps you only think you’d like to. Perhaps you have a row with your wife about her, perhaps you don’t. I don’t know. But if you’ve got any human feelings, what are you going to feel like when you hear that girl has been murdered? It’s bound to be a shock, isn’t it? Human feelings are things you’re bound to take into consideration. That’s where a lot of these detective novels go wrong—there aren’t any human feelings in them. They’re clever the same way a game of chess is clever, or a problem in mathematics, and nobody with any more feeling than one of the chessmen or the plus and minus signs. It isn’t natural, and it don’t do to go jumping to the conclusion that a man’s a criminal because he’s got his feelings and they’ve been too much for him. All the same you’d better see if you can dig up anything about Willard and Miss Roland. Find out where he goes to lunch and dine. See what you can get. And now I’d better see Mrs. Jackson.”

In the Willards’ flat husband and wife looked at each other. Sergeant Curtis had come and gone. His brisk, efficient manner, his notebook with its carefully sharpened pencil, his dark tweed suit and horn-rimmed glasses, were interposed between the moment when Mr. Willard had seen the blood on Mrs. Willard’s sleeve and the moment when the door had been briskly and efficiently shut and they were alone again.

Alone with the width of the room between them. Mr. Willard had receded until he stood against the sitting-room door. Mrs. Willard sat by the writing-table with her hands in her lap. In this position the stain on her sleeve was hidden, but Alfred Willard knew that it was there. He was shaking from head to foot as he leaned against the door and said,

“Take off that dress, Amelia!”

Mrs. Willard said, “Why?”

“Don’t you know why?”

“No, Alfred.”

His shaking increased. How she could sit there and look at him—how she could sit there at all! That the stained sleeve had been touching him when he knelt before her with his head in her lap made him feel actually and physically sick. He said in a desperate whisper,

“It’s stained, Amelia—it’s stained—it’s got blood on it— didn’t you know?”

Mrs. Willard didn’t speak or move for a moment. Then she turned her arm and looked at the stain with an expression of distaste. After about half a minute had gone by she got up and began to walk slowly in the direction of the bedroom.

Still in that whispering voice, Mr. Willard said,

“Where are you going?”

“To change my dress.”

“Is that all—you’ve got to say?”

There was a door between the bedroom and the sitting-room. Mrs. Willard stopped on the threshold and said without turning round,

“Yes, I think so. I’m too tired to talk.”

The door shut behind her. Mr. Willard sat down on the couch and burst into tears.

Presently when he went into the bathroom to wash his face he saw that Mrs. Willard had left her dress soaking in the basin. The water was horribly tinged. With an extreme effort he overcame the nausea which threatened him and pulled out the plug. The stained water ran away, the dress settled in a sodden mass.

He ran in more water, and rinsed the dress. When the water ran clear he wrung it out and folded it in the small cupboard through which the hot water pipe ran, removing his own and his wife’s towels in order to make room for it.

When he had finished he opened the bedroom door and looked in. The pink curtains were drawn. By the light that came in through the door he could see that Mrs. Willard was lying on her bed. She had pulled back the coverlet, which lay trailing on the floor, but she had not troubled to turn down the bedclothes or to undress herself. She lay outside the bed, covered by the rosy eiderdown, her grey hair tumbled on the pillow, her hands tucked together under her chin, her eyelids closed, her breathing deep and natural.

Mr. Willard stood and looked at her with an extraordinary mixture of feelings, trivial and profound. She had done murder for him. Few husbands are as dearly loved as that. She shouldn’t let the coverlet trail on the floor. It was careless, very careless. Pink was a delicate colour. Recollection of the tinged water flooded his mind and sickened it. She was a murderess—Amelia. He had never been in a room with a murderess before. He had been married to Amelia for twenty years. Suppose the police found out and took her away… Suppose… Mrs. Willard slept peacefully.

Mrs. Jackson was a young woman of decision. Rejecting the tubular chair, she had picked one out for herself and set it at the angle which she preferred. Old Lamb contemplated her with relief. He never got over his dislike of interviewing the near relations of what his report would presently call the deceased. Mrs. Jackson had obviously been crying, but she wasn’t crying now, and she had a businesslike air. He judged her to be the elder sister, and thought she might easily be a mine of information. One- or two-and-thirty, and a plain likeness of the murdered girl, was what he put her at.

He began by being sorry for having kept her waiting. And then,

“I’m afraid, Mrs. Jackson, I must ask you some questions about your sister’s private life. She was on the stage?”

Ella Jackson sniffed. It might have been the aftermath of the tears, or it might not.

“Chorus parts, pantomime, and now and again a travelling company,” she said.

“And her last engagement?”

“Six months ago, at the Trivia Theatre. She was in the chorus there.”

“And since then?”

“Resting,” said Mrs. Jackson laconically.

Sergeant Abbott bent over his notebook. This was the sort of witness who didn’t give anything away. If you thought of the right question you’d get the right answer—perhaps.

Lamb went on.

“Was your sister married or single?”

“She was a widow.”

“Can you tell me her married name?”

Ella Jackson hesitated. Then she said,

“Well, she wasn’t using it, but I suppose it doesn’t matter now. It was Armitage.”

Lamb’s voice was at its pleasantest as he leaned towards her and said,

“Will you tell us a little more about your sister’s marriage, Mrs. Jackson? It has a definite bearing on the case.”

She looked startled, but she answered at once.

“Oh, there’s nothing to hide. She wasn’t married to him for very long. He was a nice young fellow a good bit younger than her, and I don’t know how it would have turned out. Let me see—they were married in March last year, and he got killed at Dunkirk in May.”

“Did he leave your sister provided for?”

She had that startled look again.

“Well no—he didn’t. Carrie thought there was money, that’s a fact, but it turned out he only got an allowance from his brother.”

“Major Giles Armitage?”

“That’s right.”

“Did Major Armitage continue the allowance after his brother’s death?”

“He gave her four hundred a year.”

“Did you know that he was supposed to have been drowned, but that he recently turned up again, and that he had an interview with your sister yesterday?”

Mrs. Jackson coloured and said,

“Yes.”

Lamb went on.

“He was suffering from loss of memory—I suppose your sister told you that?”

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you that she took advantage of this fact to try and make him believe that she was his wife?”

Ella Jackson looked distressed.

“Yes, she told me. And I told her it was right down wicked and she’d be getting herself into trouble if she didn’t look out.”

“And what did she say to that?”

“She laughed and said it was only a joke. And when I said that sort of joke could make a lot of trouble, she said she’d been wanting to score him off and it was much too good a chance to be missed.”

“She didn’t give you the impression that it was a serious attempt to get money out of Major Armitage?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that, or she wouldn’t have told me about it—she knew what I’d say. It was nothing in the world but a joke.”

Lamb said, “I see—” and then, “You came to see your sister last night, didn’t you? Bell saw you come in. What time would you say that was?”

“Seven o’clock,” said Mrs. Jackson. “I looked at my watch because I’d got a bus to catch.”

“Yes—that agrees with Bell. And when did you leave?”

“Twenty past. Carrie came to the corner with me and saw me on my bus. I only just caught it.”

“How was she dressed, Mrs. Jackson?”

For the first time Ella Jackson faltered. She dropped her voice to keep it steady.

“A white dress and a fur coat—a long white dress.”

“She had changed for the evening?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know if she was expecting anyone?”

“I don’t know—she didn’t tell me.”

“Would she have changed if she hadn’t been expecting someone?”

“She might have done. She had pretty clothes and she liked wearing them.”

Lamb shifted in his chair.

“Did your sister offer you any refreshment?”

Mrs. Jackson looked surprised.

“Oh, no. She knew I couldn’t stay.”

“You didn’t have drinks together?”

“Oh no.”

“Mrs. Jackson—was there a tray set out with drinks in the room whilst you were here?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, no.”

“Quite sure about that? It’s important.”

“Oh, yes, I’m quite sure. There wasn’t any tray.”

Frank Abbott wrote. Lamb shifted again.

“Because that tray was here on the stool in front of the fire when she was found. She’d been drinking with someone—both glasses had been used.”

Ella Jackson coloured up. Just for a moment she was very like her sister.

“Carrie didn’t drink.”

Lamb hastened to pacify her.

“Well, I didn’t mean that in the way you’ve taken it—only that she’d been having a drink with a friend. There was a little red wine in the glass she had used—port wine.”

Ella nodded.

“Yes, it would be port if it was anything. But it wouldn’t be more than a thimbleful. I wouldn’t like you to think she was one of those drinking girls, because she wasn’t.”

“That’s all right, Mrs. Jackson. Now would you mind taking a look at this letter? It was in your sister’s blotter, and as you will see, it was written on Tuesday and left unfinished.”

Ella ran her eyes over the lines in which Carola Roland had told the gentleman whom she addressed as Toots how much she missed him, and what a nun-like existence she was leading at Vandeleur House. “Missing my Toots so dreadfully.” The words swam for a moment before Ella’s eyes, but she blinked them back into focus.

“Do you know the name of this gentleman she was writing to?”

Ella blinked again.

“She was going to marry him,” she said.

“After he’d got his divorce—that’s what the letter implies, doesn’t it?”

Ella nodded.

“That’s the reason she came down here—to be quiet.”

“Whilst the divorce was going through?”

She nodded.

“What brought her to Vandeleur House?”

“Mr. Bell told me there was a flat to let. Carrie wanted to be near me.”

“I see. And now, Mrs. Jackson, what about the gentleman’s name? I think you know it.”

She looked distressed.

“Yes, I do, but—”

Lamb shook his head.

“That won’t do, I’m afraid. We’ve got to have it. Things can’t be kept private in a murder case, Mrs. Jackson. You’ll have to give it to us.”

“Well, it’s Mr. Maundersley-Smith—the Mr. Maundersley-Smith.”

Frank Abbott’s eyebrows went up as far as they would go. Old Lamb stared and frowned. Maundersley-Smith! By gum! No wonder the girl thought it was worth while to bury herself in Vandeleur House and live like a nun, for Mr. Maundersley-Smith was a hub of the Empire, a prince of the shipping world, a household word for success and wealth. Miss Carola Roland had played high, and if the fingerprints on the larger glass proved to be his, Mr. Maundersley-Smith might be called on to foot a heavier bill than even he could afford. Well, well, that was as might be. Meanwhile—

He addressed himself again to Ella Jackson.

“Did you see anyone besides Bell, either coming or going?”

There were signs of definite relief at the change of subject. For the first time information was volunteered.

“Well, not exactly coming or going, because it was while I was up here with Carrie. He came and rang the bell, and she sent him away—laughed at him, and called him a silly little man, and said she hadn’t got time for him.”

“Who was it?”

“Oh, just Mr. Willard from the flat downstairs. There wasn’t anything in it, you know—she only laughed at him. But I told her she oughtn’t to encourage him because of his wife—even if it didn’t mean anything at all, his wife would have her feelings.”

Over her head Frank Abbott looked at Lamb and Lamb looked back. So the Willards’ row probably had been about Carola Roland. And Alfred Willard had come straight from it up the stair to try and see her, for it was soon after seven that he had left his flat, and he had not returned to it until this morning.

After a minute Lamb spoke.

“Was Mr. Willard the only other person you saw besides Bell?”

Ella Jackson hesitated.

“Well, I don’t know about saw,” she said, “but when we were going down in the lift the door of one of the flats opened and someone looked out. I couldn’t see who it was myself, but Carrie laughed and said, ‘Hope she’ll know me again—she had a good look at me.’ And I said, ‘Who?’ and she said, ‘Miss Garside— prying old maid.’