The March Hare Murders (12 page)

David, still on the porch, was opening the umbrella. Screened by it from the man in the garden, he whispered to Stella, “A very polite man—for a policeman.” Then he walked out into the rain.

Stella watched them go. She had not taken it in at once. She closed the door. She wandered into the sitting-room and started looking for cigarettes. But the box on the mantelpiece was empty. She wondered if Ferdie had any in his study.

For some reason, at that instant, David’s words re-echoed in her mind. For a policeman. Very polite for a policeman. A policeman.

So Mark had done as he had threatened. In fact he must have done so before their talk that morning. So much for all his understanding, all his tolerance. … He had already sent for the police.

A
T TWENTY MINUTES
to two that afternoon, a telephone message reached the police station in Wellford. A woman’s voice, shrill and out of control, said, “Will you please send someone at once to Mrs. Masson’s house—it’s called Cliff House, out beyond the Three Huntsmen crossroads—at once—please send someone at once. There’s been an accident—I think there’s been an accident.”

The message was from Stella Pratt. She would add nothing more to what she had said, but would only repeat it with increasing incoherence.

Ten minutes later a second message came. A man’s voice spoke flatly and precisely. “Will you please send a doctor, an ambulance and some responsible member of the police force to Cliff House, Wellstead Common, the home of Mrs. Deirdre Masson? There is one dead person in the house, and one, so far as I can judge, who is nearly dead. The dead person is Professor Mark Verinder. He appears to me to have been shot. I will remain here till you arrive.”

Asked who was speaking, the voice replied, “My name is Samuel Fortis.”

When these two messages reached Inspector Upjohn, who was having lunch in the saloon bar of the Railway Hotel with a colleague of his from London, a big, grey-haired man who had come into the bar wearing a very wet mackintosh and a sodden felt hat, Upjohn looked at his companion and said, “Verinder—Fortis—Masson. Looks as if you got here a bit late, Tom. Were you expecting anything like this?”

“No,” the other man said, finishing his beer and getting off his stool, “I wasn’t. And in weather like this I can’t say I like it, either.”

“Can’t say I like it exactly,” Upjohn said “however you look at it. … You coming?”

“If I may.”

“Looks as if you’d better, doesn’t it?”

They shouldered on their coats and went out into the rain. Driven by a heavy wind, it lashed into their faces with bitter force. The gutters were swirling with grey water, and no breaks showed in the sky, but only a few darker ridges that edged new cloud-banks, dimly changing shape. It was a few minutes after two o’clock when the police cars arrived at the house of Deirdre Masson.

Another car, empty, was already in the road before the house. It was a small, grey stone building, only one story high. On the side of the sea, a long veranda was built on to its side. Pine trees grew close about it. In the grip of the wind their boughs made a creaking sound of an eerie wildness. A glass door on to the veranda stood wide open. Sam Fortis, smoking a cigarette, was in the doorway.

His greeting to Inspector Upjohn was in the same flat, precise and slightly too voluble manner as his telephone message. “I have kept carefully to the rules, I believe, Inspector,” he said. “I have touched nothing, with the exception of the telephone, which was unavoidable, and of a bottle of sherry and a glass, which came nearly into the category of the unavoidable. Perhaps I should add I also touched the victims, but very gingerly, realising at once that I might do more harm than good. Is the doctor here?”

Upjohn did not reply. He walked past Sam Fortis into the long, low-ceilinged sitting-room and looked at the scene before him.

It was easy to see how it had happened. Someone had stood outside on the veranda, or perhaps among the pine trees, and had fired through the open doorway at the two people in the room. Perhaps Mark Verinder had seen his murderer. He had been sitting on a low chair near the fireplace, facing the window, with a small table beside him on which was the telephone, and he had been shot between the eyes. His body had collapsed sideways on to the floor, with blood spurting from the hole in his forehead on to the light grey carpet. But Deirdre Masson had been sitting with her back to the man with the gun. She had seen nothing, perhaps heard nothing. She was lying now on a couch with a blood-stained cushion under her head. A pad of cotton-wool, dark with blood, was pressed against her neck, while another pad, already soaked, lay on the floor beside her. Her face looked hollow and grey-white. Her small body was in a limp yet curiously awkward position, with her dress caught uncomfortably under her, and with the blonde plaits across the top of her head seeming incongruously neat and well arranged. She looked no more alive than the man sprawled on the ground near her.

Sam Fortis said uncertainly, “I did what I could. I was afraid of moving her too much.”

“That’s right,” Upjohn muttered. He was stooping over her. “She’s breathing. Where did this come from?” He flicked at the cotton-wool with his finger.

“I found it in a cupboard in the bathroom,” Sam Fortis said.

“How long ago did you get here?”

“About a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes ago. I telephoned at once.”

The Inspector straightened up. He looked at his companion, who was peeling off his wet mackintosh, and said, “Well, Tom?”

The other man replied, “Four glasses.”

“Glasses?”

The other man pointed.

On a small round table, between the couch where Deirdre Masson lay and the body of Mark Verinder, was a silver tray with a bottle of sherry on it and four glasses. All four glasses had been used.

“Who was here?” the big man said.

They both looked at Sam Fortis.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Outside on the veranda a constable called out, “Here’s the doctor, sir.”

A small man in a long white waterproof with the collar turned up, came hurrying in out of the rain.

“Good God!” he said more than once, when he saw what was in the room. “Little Mrs. Masson. … Good God …! And Verinder, the famous Verinder. … Good God!” He looked frightened. “All right,” he said a minute or two later to the two men who had come in with a stretcher, and got out of their way, standing back and breathing hard while they lifted Deirdre Masson on to the stretcher. “Good God, it is a thing, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Upjohn said, “it is a thing.”

“Can’t do anything about this one,” the doctor said, bending over Mark Verinder. “Dead as mutton. Died at once. Not long ago—half an hour—three quarters.”

Upjohn moved up close to Sam Fortis. Sam was standing with his back to a high book-case, watching the doctor with fascination. A faintly sickly pallor had spread over Sam’s face, while red patches had appeared on the sides of his neck.

“You say you drank some of the sherry when you got here?” Upjohn said to him.

Sam Fortis nodded. “After I telephoned.”

“D’you remember out of which glass?”

Sam frowned nervously. Undecidedly, he looked at the four glasses. “That one, I think. Anyway, it’ll have my fingerprints on it, won’t it? Of course you’ll be looking for fingerprints.”

“Quite so,” Upjohn said.

“Very interesting.”

“Had it been used—the glass you drank out of?”

“Come to think of it, yes,” Sam said. “Have I done something seriously out of order? I apologise if I have, but I needed that drink.”

“But then,” Upjohn said, “there’d been four people here.”

“So one would suppose. Unless perhaps a sort of Mad Hatter’s party …” Sam gave a nervous giggle, then looked annoyed with himself for having done so.

Upjohn went on quietly. “You’ve no idea who the other two people were?”

“None at all.”

“And you yourself got here about a quarter to two?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you see any one near the place?”

“No.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“As nearly sure as I ever succeed in being about anything. Absolute certainty is not a thing I go in for a great deal. Human fallibility——”

“Is that your car out there?”

“Yes,” Sam Fortis said.

“D’you mind if I ask you what you were doing here?”

There was a pause before Sam answered. Still absorbedly watching what was going on at the other side of the room, he fingered his tie.

“No,” he said after a moment, “I do not mind.” It was spoken with careful precision.

“Well then?”

“I came because Mrs. Masson asked me to come,” Sam said.

“When did she do that?”

“Oh, around a quarter to one, I should say.”

“To-day?”

“Yes, to-day. I’d just started lunch, I remember.”

“Then it was a quite sudden invitation?”

“Very sudden.”

“And why did she want to see you so suddenly?”

A wave of wrinkles eddied up Sam’s forehead. Shifting his eyes from the face of the dead man, he turned to look at Upjohn.

“She didn’t tell me, and I have not the faintest idea,” he said.

“Yet she made it appear urgent?”

“Very urgent. She was almost indignant with me when I told her that I thought I owed it to myself to finish my cottage pie.”

“What did she say exactly?”

“I am no good at remembering people’s exact words,” Sam said.

“As nearly as you can remember, then,” Upjohn said patiently.

“She simply said that she must see me immediately, and when I advanced the claims of my appetite, she said, ‘Oh, don’t talk such a lot’—or words to that effect—‘I must see you immediately; it’s very important.’”

“And you have no idea at all as to why she wanted to see you like that?”

“Absolutely none at all.”

“I see,” Upjohn replied, rubbing his chin. He added abruptly, “Please don’t go, Mr. Fortis; there are a few more questions I’d like to ask you in a moment.” Crossing the room, he started giving orders to the other men there.

Left alone, Sam drew a finger round the inside of his collar and then, suddenly, he shivered. The red patches still showed on the sides of his neck.

•   •   •   •   •

The big man who had come in with Upjohn seemed to be taking very little interest in what was going on. Instead, he was looking at Deirdre Masson’s book-cases, now and again taking a volume from the shelves, glancing at it and replacing it. Muttering an excuse, he edged past Sam and reached for a book beyond him. It was a small book, beautifully bound in dark blue leather, a piece of Deirdre Masson’s own work. Sam saw him look at it critically.

“Nice work—eh?” the man said. “Too nice for a cookery book, one might say. Get soiled in the kitchen.”

“Some ladies like to read cookery books for pleasure, I believe,” Sam said.

“Is that so? Dear me,” the big man said tranquilly and moved on.

Upjohn returned.

“I think we’ll go next door, if you don’t mind, Mr. Fortis,” he said. “Quieter there.”

The room next door was a dining-room, a small room with white walls, an oval mahogany table in it and a set of Regency chairs. A meal for two people had been laid on the table, but had not been touched. Like the sitting-room, it had windows and a door opening on to the veranda. The sea could be seen from the windows, though to-day it was almost invisible behind the leaden screen of the rain.

Sitting down at the table, Upjohn gestured to Sam Fortis to do the same, but Sam, crossing to the window, remained standing, leaning against the window-sill. A constable, who had followed them in, sat down near the door, closing it quietly.

“You’ll understand, Mr. Fortis,” Upjohn said, “there are a lot of questions I’d like to ask you, and I’ll be grateful for any help you can give, but that’s up to you.”

“I assure you,” Sam answered, folding his arms, “I’ll be glad to give you any information I can. It isn’t a great deal, however.”

“What can you tell me about Professor Verinder and Mrs. Masson?”

“Meaning precisely?”

“What were their relations with one another?”

“Normal, I believe.”

“Is that all you can tell me? I believe Professor Verinder’s reputation with women was not of the best.”

“There are some women who can resist even a man’s evil reputation, Inspector,” Sam answered.

“And was Mrs. Masson one of them?”

Sam gave a smile with thinly compressed lips. “I would never at any time make an affidavit on such a subject, and since in the present instance my uninstructed opinion is certainly valueless, suppose I do not answer that question?”

A slight frown gathered between Upjohn’s eyes.

Sam went on, “I may say, however, I was surprised at finding the Professor here, with signs of his having been invited to lunch. Mrs. Masson’s apparent attitude to him was not of the friendliest.”

“Were they on bad terms?”

“Oh no, I shouldn’t say that. But she was not one of his ardent admirers. She’s a level-headed woman, with a vigorous intelligence and a profound interest in her own work—not the type, if you understand me, to find Professor Verinder a necessity in her life.”

“In that case,” Upjohn said, “would you say that jealousy is not a likely motive for this crime?”

Unfolding his arms, Sam let them hang by his sides, then abruptly folded them again. “On the contrary,” he said, “I should say it is the likeliest.”

“But their relationship was not intimate——”

“When was jealousy a reasoned emotion, Inspector? And it seems to me that if a woman and a man together are involved in a murderous attack, the likeliest explanation is jealousy.”

“Was Mrs. Verinder jealous of her husband?”

With a short laugh, Sam replied, “An utterly impossible question to answer. You may find this hard to believe, but I should be inclined to say that Mrs. Verinder actually took great pleasure in her husband’s successes with other women. There are such wives.”

Thoughtfully, Upjohn said, “Of course, we have no certainty as yet that this murderous attack, as you call it, was intended against them both. It may be that the murderer wanted to kill only one of them, but was forced to shoot the other to save himself from detection. It may even be that if Mrs. Masson recovers, she will be able to tell us who the murderer is.”