Murder in the Museum, A British Library Crime Classic (3 page)

Chapter IV

Miss Violet Arnell

“Now, Cunningham,” said Shelley, with a smile. “What's the next move? Any suggestions?”

Cunningham ponderously considered the matter, frowning deeply.

“I should think, sir,” he said, “that an interview with the old man's daughter would be the best thing.”

“Capital idea,” Shelley announced. “It's now—let me see—seven o'clock. Wonder if they're on the 'phone.” He picked up a directory, ran his fingers rapidly down the columns, and found the number.

“Better ring her up,” he added, “and more or less prepare her for the shock. After all, she's an only daughter, according to the reference books, and this will be a bit of a blow for her, I should think.”

He asked for the number, and was soon in communication with Miss Violet Arnell.

“I'm afraid I have some bad news for you, Miss Arnell,” Cunningham heard him say, when the preliminaries of identification had been got over.

“Yes,” he went on. “Your father. He has met with a serious accident, and I shall have to come around and get some particulars about his work, and so forth. Will you be in for the evening? You will? Good. I will be around in three-quarters of an hour or less.”

It was actually only about half an hour before they were driving along the main street of Pinner—a forlorn relic of the past, the village street of old-world charm, now surrounded by a wilderness of typically suburban red-brick and stucco, hideous in its unutilitarian sham-Gothic.

Professor Arnell had lived in a delightful old cottage, however, tucked away in a little side street off this main thoroughfare. It boasted a pleasant little flower garden and a fresh green lawn, and Shelley and Cunningham breathed in the fragrant scent of the stocks before they went to the front door.

Miss Violet Arnell was a kindly looking woman in the early thirties, her face and figure a modified and feminised version of her father's aggressiveness. What in him had become flaming red hair was in her a delightful shade of auburn. She was tall, lithe, and upright, and she greeted her visitors with a quiet smile, not unmingled with the sadness appropriate to the occasion.

There was no heart-broken grief or zealous anxiety in her voice, however, as she asked Shelley and Cunningham if they would each like to have a glass of sherry.

“Thank you, Miss Arnell,” said Shelley; “I think I will. And I know that the Sergeant here never refuses a kindly offer of that sort.”

Cunningham grinned somewhat sheepishly, and accepted the glass of excellent sherry which was placed in his hand.

“Now,” she said, when these preliminaries were over, “what is all this about, Mr. Shelley? What has my father been up to? He's caused me plenty of worry with his absent-mindedness and his funny ways.”

“You are quite prepared for a shock, then, Miss Arnell?” Shelley asked.

She nodded calmly. “Quite prepared for anything where my father is concerned,” she replied.

“Your father,” said Shelley bluntly, seeing that this girl was possessed of strong nerves, not likely to relapse into hysteria, “is dead.”

Again she nodded, almost phlegmatically. “I feared as much when you warned me to be prepared for a shock,” she said in quiet, unemotional tones.

“You are not surprised?”

“Why should I be?”

“Well, your father was by no means an old man. He was, I should think, almost in the prime of life. One does not feel surprise when a man of eighty years dies, but a man of your father's age…”

She interrupted swiftly. “My father has been in bad health for years,” she said. “That was why he gave up his job at Portavon. He could not stand the strain of working regular hours. His heart was in a very groggy state, and there were days when he would stay in bed, just lying still and not daring to move, for fear the awful pain would come on again. Where did he die?”

“I think that this will probably be a worse shock than the news that he is dead,” said Shelley. “He died in the Reading Room of the British Museum, and he was murdered.”

Miss Arnell went white as a ghost. All the blood seemed to drain from her face, and she gripped the arms of the chair in which she sat. The veins on the back of her hands stood out in vivid relief against the sudden whiteness of her skin.

“Murdered? That can't be. Harry would never…” Her murmuring voice died away into sudden silence.

Swiftly Shelley seized on the point. “Harry would never do what?” he asked.

“Did I say Harry?” she asked in return, getting control of herself with obvious difficulty. “I don't know what I was talking about, Mr. Shelley. Honestly I think that the sudden shock must have sent my mind wandering along some strange bypaths of thought.” The obvious artificiality of the phrase set Shelley pondering. What on earth, he asked himself, was the girl thinking of? There must be some reasonable explanation of this sudden change of face. Who was Harry? That was the obvious line of investigation.

“Had your father any friends who could give us information about him?” he asked, dissembling his interest in the hope that, if he could set her talking again, she might give herself away somehow.

“Not many,” she said. “My father was rather a strange person. He made friends with great difficulty. I think that Professor Wilkinson of Northfield University and Dr. Crocker of Oxford were the only people who were really in his confidence over things—and they were really more acquaintances than friends, interested in the same subjects.”

“I see,” said Shelley thoughtfully. “And did they often visit him here?”

“Never.” She was very emphatic. “No one ever came here except friends of mine.”

“Friends of yours?” Here was his chance, Shelley thought, and grasped the opportunity without delay. “Could you mention any friends of yours who were in any way regular visitors to this house, Miss Arnell? You see, in a case like this it is important to get hold of anyone who knew your father, as we may be able to get some sort of pointer on his ways of thought—and a comparative stranger often notices more than an intimate relative like yourself.”

There was a distinct pause before she replied. Then she said, slowly: “Miss Elizabeth Atkins. She's my closest friend. She was often here. But she didn't see much of father, I'm afraid. You see, he was the sort of man who keeps himself very much to himself, and he usually appeared only at meal-times if a visitor was here.”

“What would he do at other times—other times than meal-times, I mean?”

“Just shut himself up in his study. He was a curious person, really, and I often thought it queer that a man like that should have a daughter like myself, fond of brightness and company.” She showed every sign of going on with this line of thought, but Shelley was determined not to be led from the point, as he thought the conversation was just becoming of interest.

“Any other visitors?” he asked sharply.

“Well…” She appeared unwilling to answer this, and paused with an air of irresolution.

“Any men, for instance?” Shelley was intent on getting the information he required. “A man will often see something about other men which a woman will miss.”

“There is Mr. Baker,” she conceded.

“Who is he?”

“He is the teacher of science at the school around the corner here.”

Shelley smiled gently. “And does he come here very often?” he asked.

“Very often,” she replied, and paused again. “You see…you see…I am going to marry him.”

“And did your father approve of the engagement?”

Miss Arnell paused for a moment, and then burst into tears. Her whole body shook with great sobs. She was convulsed with sorrow, and wept as if her heart would break.

“I think,” she managed to blurt out between great bursts of tears, “that you are most unfair. The way that you worm things out of people. It may be your idea of doing a gentleman's job in life, Mr. Shelley, but it's not mine.”

Shelley looked at her sternly. “You seem to forget, Miss Arnell,” he said, “that your father was murdered. My job is not to deal with things in any kid-glove fashion, but to obtain all the information which seems to me at all likely to help in the investigation. I have no desire to hurt anyone, but one must occasionally be brutal in order to find out what is necessary in solving a very difficult problem.”

She dried her eyes on a microscopic handkerchief. “I understand, Mr. Shelley,” she said, gulping back her sobs. “If you want to ask any more questions I shall be pleased to answer them as well as I can.”

“I presume,” said Shelley, without further comment, “that your father did
not
approve of your engagement to Mr. Harry Baker.” The “Harry” was a shot in the dark, and Shelley was pleased to observe that she apparently did not notice the assumption.

“No,” she said. “He thought that Harry was just a fortune-hunter, after my money, and that I should get someone much better and richer for a husband.”

“I suppose,” said Shelley, “that there is a good deal of money in your family.”

“Oh yes,” she replied more cheerfully. “Father was a very rich man, you know. I don't know where his money will be left, but there must be a will somewhere.”

“Who are his lawyers?”

“Samuel, Grant, and Samuel, of Chancery Lane.”

“Make a note of that, Cunningham,” said Shelley. “We shall have to see them tomorrow.”

“And anything else?” she asked.

“Your fiancé's name and address.”

“Henry Baker, Manor School.”

“That's close to here, I think you said.”

“Yes. In the next street.”

“Well,” Shelley went on, “I think that is about all for the moment, Miss Arnell. Oh, there is one thing more. Do you happen to know if your father was fond of almonds? The sugar-coated ones, I mean.”

She smiled. “His one vice, I called it,” she said. “He would chew sugared almonds all day long. He was not a heavy smoker, and he drank very little, so he used to say that he was entitled to his one little bit of dissipation.”

“Did he always buy them at one particular shop? A man with the habit of eating some particular kind of sweetmeat often does, you know,” Shelley explained.

“Yes, he did. He always bought them from a shop in the High Street here—a Mr. Martin sold them. I think they were some special brand that weren't obtainable elsewhere. Father always said that he couldn't get almonds from anywhere else that tasted half as nice.”

“Mr. Martin, High Street,” murmured Cunningham, writing the address down in his notebook.

“Did every one know that your father had this little peculiarity—this fancy for sugared almonds?” asked Shelley.

“He didn't make any secret of it, if that's what you mean,” she replied. “I should imagine that anyone who knew him at all well would be aware of it.”

“Anyone such as Dr. Wilkinson, for instance, or Mr. Baker,” Shelley suggested.

“Why, yes…But I don't understand. Why all this interest in father's taste in sweets?” She looked puzzled at the trend of the conversation.

Shelley thought that this was another occasion when brutal frankness was indicated. A little shock might make her give away further facts. And that she was hiding things which were better revealed he felt very certain. So he said: “Because those sugared almonds brought your father to his death, Miss Arnell. He was poisoned by an almond containing potassium cyanide.” This was mere guesswork, but Shelley thought he was quite safe in anticipating the findings of the medical men.

“Poisoned. How dreadful!” In despite of the words, however, she did not seem more shocked than she had been before. Her tongue seemed now to be uttering the correct sentiments unconsciously, while her mind was far away.

“Yes, poisoned, Miss Arnell,” said Shelley. “And my job—unpleasant though it may be—is to find out who poisoned him. That's a job that you may be sure I shall carry out to the end, no matter where it may lead.”

Precisely how this conversation might have proceeded it would be difficult to say, for at this moment the telephone bell rang, and, with a brief “Excuse me,” Violet Arnell lifted the receiver.

“Hullo,” she said. “Yes. Who is that, please? Yes; I will tell him.”

She turned to Shelley, and held the receiver towards him. “It's for you, Mr. Shelley,” she explained. “A message from Scotland Yard.”

“Thanks,” he said briefly, and spoke into the receiver. “Shelley speaking,” he snapped. “What is it? Who?” Then he paused for a moment, obviously listening to a long piece of conversation from the other end. Cunningham strained his ears, but was unable to understand a word, being able only to hear a subdued buzz.

“Yes,” said Shelley again. “Fairhurst. Yes. What? The devil he has? Who? Wilkinson? Right. I'll be back right away.”

Cunningham and Miss Arnell sat in silence while Shelley banged down the receiver, and turned towards them, an air of almost desperate eagerness about him.

“Important information has just come through from the Yard, Miss Arnell,” he said. “I shall have to get back to London right away. I hope that if I want any more information from you I shall be able to get hold of you at any time. Shall I? Good. Then come along, Cunningham. We've no time to waste. Must get on without delay.”

In the High Street again, Shelley grasped Cunningham's arm tightly. “Listen,” he said. “Wilkinson is dead. Fairhurst found it out.”

“Fairhurst?” Cunningham was amazed. “That little worm couldn't be a murderer, surely.”

“He's been dead for months, apparently,” said Shelley. “I couldn't get much sense out of them, though. I must get back to the Yard to sift this information, and I want you to get hold of this man Baker. Grill him all you can, and see if he has any sort of alibi for yesterday. That's not vitally important, as anyone might have put the poisoned sweet in Arnell s packet at any time, knowing that he'd be certain to eat it sooner or later. Still, it's a point worth investigating. Hope to God he isn't on the 'phone. Still, you must try to get him before the fair Violet has had time to warn him.”