The March Hare Murders (15 page)

“They must have been very important things,” Upjohn said.

“Reasonably important. I don’t like to leave things in a mess, even if there’s been a murder,” Winnfrieda said. “If I could have been of any assistance here, naturally I should have come sooner. But as a matter of fact, I was even in some doubt as to whether I should come at all. I was afraid I might be accused of mere sensation-mongering.”

“In that case, why
did
you come, Mrs. Fortis?”

“To give my husband the moral support he’s just told you he requires.”

Upjohn turned on his heel and went back into the study.

Stella was still there, waiting anxiously by the window, as if she were listening for more footsteps on the gravel which this time really might be her brother’s.

“May I see your husband next, Mrs. Pratt?” Upjohn said.

Turning silently without looking at him, she went out, and a moment later Ferdie came in, again closing the door too loudly.

Ferdie had the appearance of a man eager to talk. With his hands on his knees, he leant forward, his Adam’s apple jerking up and down above his collar as he swallowed. He seemed to be waiting for Upjohn to begin, yet the moment he started to speak, Ferdie’s words came rushing in.

“Look, Inspector, I don’t know anything about this—I mean about what happened this afternoon—but I think you ought to know that I’ve been expecting something—I don’t mean murder—of course I didn’t think of murder—but I’ve been expecting something to happen to that man sooner or later. People like that always run into trouble in the end.”

“Like what, Mr. Pratt?” Upjohn asked.

“That kind of womaniser. You know his reputation, don’t you? I don’t say that’s why he was murdered. Most likely it was intended robbery or something, wasn’t it …? Wasn’t it?”

“We don’t know, I’m afraid,” Upjohn said.

Ferdie plunged on. “I expect it was one of those deserters. Lots of people have arms now. D’you know, once I was nearly shot at myself on a country walk. Fellow was shooting at a bird with a revolver. Imagine it—shooting straight across a high road with a revolver, and only just missed me. He stood there laughing like hell when he saw me. I suppose I ought to have reported it.”

“That’s just what I was coming to,” Upjohn said. “A revolver. It seems your brother-in-law told Mrs. Verinder about a revolver he had here. Mrs. Pratt says you’d once seen this revolver. Is that so?”

Ferdie’s Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively. “Yes, that’s so. Yes, I did,” he said.

“When was that?”

“The day my brother-in-law got here. I went into his room when he was unpacking and saw him handling the revolver.”

“Handling it?”

“Well, he was taking it out of his suitcase, you know.”

“What did he do with it?”

“Put it in a drawer of the dressing-table, I think.”

“Did you think that was a particularly safe place for it?”

“Well, no. …”

“Mr. Pratt——” Upjohn picked up the pencil and tapped it against his front teeth—“I’ve been getting hints that your brother-in-law wasn’t in quite a normal mental condition. Is there anything you can tell me about that?”

“Oh, I think he’s perfectly normal,” Ferdie said. “Been through a bit of a bad time, poor chap, and took a good while getting over it, but he’s perfectly normal now, perfectly. He’s been here several weeks and he’s behaved perfectly normally in every way.”

“Were he and Professor Verinder on good terms?”

“Oh, I should think so. They didn’t see much of each other—David’s a reserved sort of chap, likes his own company—but I’m sure they never quarrelled or anything. And when Verinder’s summer-house caught fire, David was the first one over there, helping to put it out.”

“Wait a bit,” Upjohn said sharply. “What’s this about a fire?”

In a muddling rush of words, Ferdie told him the story of the evening of the fire. Frowning while he listened, Upjohn suddenly jotted down a few notes on a piece of paper, then dropped the subject dead, as if, after all, it had no interest for him.

“Now about yourself, Mr. Pratt,” he said. “You came home this afternoon because your wife telephoned and told you what had happened. What time was that?”

“When I got home? Oh, ten minutes or so before you got here, I think.”

“Then your wife didn’t ring you up until some time after she’d rung up the police station, or else you didn’t come straight away.”

Ferdie shifted in his chair before he answered. His eyes dropped. “Well, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t in the office when she telephoned first. I was out having lunch. I did come immediately I got her message.”

“You were out having lunch?” Upjohn repeated questioningly, watching Ferdie’s nervous fidgeting.

“Well, that’s to say, no, I wasn’t, actually,” Ferdie said. “I went out to get lunch, but then I changed my mind.”

“Changed your mind about having lunch?”

“Yes, I found I didn’t feel like eating. I wasn’t feeling too good—worried or something—touch of indigestion perhaps. And I never care much for eating in restaurants and places. You never can tell how many flies and so on have been getting at the food. There’s a terrific amount of contamination of food by flies, you know, Inspector. In these days of shortage, it’s positively wicked the way people leave food lying around with out adequate protection. In my opinion, a law should be passed——”

“Then where did you go, Mr. Pratt, during the time when you were away from your office?” Upjohn interrupted.

A look of extreme irritability came suddenly to Ferdie’s lean face, the look that always came there when he was interrupted in an excursion on his hobby-horse. Then the look faded into one of confusion.

“You’re asking me for an alibi,” he said, almost accusingly.

“As a pure formality, yes.”

“An alibi,” Ferdie said thoughtfully. “Then you think that I …”

“Not necessarily, Mr. Pratt. But I should be glad to establish your whereabouts between the times, say, of one and one-thirty.”

Ferdie nodded, his eyes gleaming faintly, as if he found a curious fascination in the question he was being asked. “Yes, yes, naturally. I understand. So you don’t think it was a deserter. You think it was someone who knew him, had a motive, wanted revenge, perhaps, had been injured, hated him …” It was almost as if he found a sudden sharp pleasure in this thought. “Well, I was walking about, Inspector. I told you, I was worried and not feeling too well. I thought some fresh air, and a little exercise might do me good. I don’t remember exactly where I walked. My office is at the bottom of the High Street, you know. I started up the High Street and then went round and about a bit in the by-streets. I dare say someone who knew me saw me. I can’t remember any one special myself, because, as I said, I was worried, I was thinking, I wasn’t looking around me.”

Upjohn stood up. “Well, thank you, Mr. Pratt,” he said. “And now, if you don’t mind, I should like to telephone.”

It was to the hospital that he wanted to telephone. He did so in the sitting-room, with the two Pratts, Sam and Winnfrieda Fortis and Ingrid Verinder and her brother watching him with set faces and intent, anxious eyes. Upjohn was told that Deirdre Masson’s injury was only a flesh wound in the neck and was not serious, but that she would not be fit for questioning for some time. He passed on the information to the others in the room. In the odd silence that followed his words, Sam Fortis suddenly said loudly, “Thank God for that!” and then there were murmurs of relief from every one. Upjohn turned to Ingrid Verinder.

“D’you feel able now to tell me a few things, Mrs. Verinder?” he asked.

She rose and walked with listless steps into the study.

•   •   •   •   •

Lassitude had followed on Ingrid’s hysteria. She seemed quite composed, but her face was empty, dull and almost stupid-looking. Her eyelids were purplish and swollen, and her mouth was puffy, with a small smear of blood below her lower lip, showing where she had bitten it. She sat with her hands looking blue and cold and nerveless hanging over the arms of her chair.

Upjohn cleared his throat and said that he was sorry to trouble her at such a moment.

At first she gave no sign of having heard him, then she nodded without answering. There was a look of delayed action about the movement, as if something had impeded her response.

“Very sorry,” Upjohn repeated, “very sorry indeed. But if you can tell me anything to help us, I shall be very grateful.”

Again he paused and again had to wait for the slight nod of acquiescence.

“Then first,” he said, “can you tell me if your husband had any enemies?”

She waited and then vaguely said, “Enemies?” The purple-lidded eyes did not seem to take in the question.

He amplified it. “Can you think of any person who might have had some particular reason to murder your husband?”

The same pause happened as before, and then came a similar vague repetition. “Any person?” But this time, after another pause, she went on. “I thought my brother told you …”

“He told me something, yes. But I should like you to tell me what you can in your own words,” Upjohn replied.

“…about Mr. Obeney,” she went on as if he had not spoken. Her voice was very soft and colourless. “But it doesn’t seem possible, does it? I know David so well; he’s so nice. He had an old grudge against my husband, yet I’d never have thought he was the kind of person to …” She stopped, as if she had grown tired of talking.

“Did he tell you himself about this grudge?” Upjohn asked.

She waited expressionlessly as before, then said, “Oh no, my husband told me about it. It was about a girl, you know, that David had been in love with once. He thought my husband had been the cause of her suicide. And he had been, I expect. He was a very cruel man to most women, if they didn’t understand him.”

Upjohn showed no surprise at this statement. He said, “Yes?”

“Yes,” she said evenly, “very cruel. He needed to hurt them. He needed to make them love him so that he could hurt them. He couldn’t be clever or successful without that to keep him going. He needed it to ease his mind, to give him peace. That’s why I didn’t mind about it much. I understood why he did it. He only needed them to hurt them. And it was only fools who didn’t see through him.”

“Forgive the question, Mrs. Verinder,” Upjohn said, “but—did you love your husband?”

“Oh yes,” she said.

“Wasn’t he cruel to you?”

“No, he was always very kind to me, very kind indeed. You see, he was altogether a very gentle person, not passionate or violent, and very understanding. You could tell him anything; he would always understand it.”

“Was he—was he in love with you?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. But he liked me much better than most people, of course.”

Upjohn abandoned his investigation into this marital relationship. “What happened to-day when Mr. Obeney came to see you?” he asked.

This produced another blank moment before she answered. Her understanding seemed to have to struggle before it could cope with the question.

“Well,” she said at last uncertainly, “I suppose I shall have to tell you. But a good deal may have been my fault, because I gave him a drink, and then he helped himself to several more, and I suppose he’d got rather drunk, really, without my realising it. It wasn’t the kind of getting drunk that showed in any obvious way. He’s been drinking a good deal, you see, since he’s been here, and he hardly ever really shows it. … What was it you asked me?”

“Only what happened this morning.”

“Oh yes, when David came to lunch. And you asked me before about that grudge, and I said he’d never mentioned it. Only to-day he did mention it, and that was what I meant when I said it was my fault. It was the drinks, I suppose, that made him do it. And once he started, he wouldn’t stop. He went on talking and talking about this woman Lizbeth, who’d thrown herself in the river. … That was all that happened.”

“All? Wasn’t there something about a revolver?”

“Oh yes, I was forgetting. … Of course, he told me he had a revolver and said he was going to shoot my husband.”

“And what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Nothing at all?”

She gave a slow shake of her head.

“Didn’t you even say anything?” Upjohn asked.

“Oh yes, I told him not to say silly things like that, but it’s never any use, saying that sort of thing; I don’t know why one does it. Besides, you see, I didn’t take him seriously.”

“In spite of knowing something, as I suppose you did, of his mental trouble.”

“Because of that.”

“I see. … What time did he leave you?”

The time-lag before her answer was even longer than usual. Finally she said, “I think it was about ten to one. Quarter to one, ten to one, something like that.”

“And you did nothing until your brother arrived?”

“No,” she said, “I was worrying and getting a bit scared, but still feeling that that was my own silliness, mostly. I didn’t get really scared till Giles arrived.”

“What time was that?”

“I think it was about twenty or twenty-five minutes later.”

“Why did you get scared then?”

“Hasn’t he told you? He’d seen David, you see, near Mrs. Masson’s house, and Giles had thought he looked in a very wild, queer state. So then I ran over here and telephoned. And we heard the shots—that’s to say Mrs. Pratt heard the shots. But all the same, I think …”

“Yes, Mrs. Verinder?”

There was another long pause, broken again with the odd casualness which suggested that she did not even know that she had been hesitating. “I don’t know what I think,” she said, “but something’s wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“With the idea that David Obeney killed my husband—and nearly killed Mrs. Masson.”

“Why?”

“I think he’s in love with Mrs. Masson.”

Upjohn gave the pencil on the desk a little push with his fingernail and sent it rolling into a pile of papers. He reached for it. “Yes?” he said.

As if it did not seem to her that there was any more to be said, she did not reply.

He had to prompt her. “This is the first I’ve heard of this.”

She nodded. “I don’t expect many people know about it. David had the feeling that everything he did was watched and discussed and worried over by his sister and her husband, so he used to tell them he was going swimming and go down to the beach, and then he’d go along the cliff-path to Mrs. Masson’s house. I think they thought he was falling in love with me, because he’s talked to me a good deal recently. But that wasn’t so; he wasn’t at all in love with me.”