The Santa Klaus Murder (17 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Jennifer

by Col. Halstock

I thought I would take a look at Jennifer's room and see what hiding-place was suggested by the garden outside the windows. Jenny's own voice invited me in when I knocked. A litter of paper on a table and a waste-paper basket beside it, full of sheets of paper crushed into tight balls, indicated that she had only just finished her “homework” and presumably Kenneth had brought it to me straight from her room. Jennifer herself was sitting in a low basket-chair by the fire and as I came in, her attitude and expression of expectancy relaxed into indifference and she threw herself back listlessly. She looked pale and tired and almost plain. Her prettiness depended so much on her youth and health and her usual vivacity and, perhaps, I thought to myself, on her charming, frivolous, frocks. She was wearing something very severe and of dark colour, which made her look older.

I told her I wanted to know exactly why she had picked up the pistol which had been used to shoot her father and had handled it so lavishly.

She sighed and stared at the fire. I looked at the fire myself. That's another thing that would make this room useful to the murderer, I thought. A fire in which to destroy an incriminating note! I strolled across to the french-window at the end of the room, which opened on to a terrace, below which was the rose garden. Jennifer began to speak, in an artificially cheerful voice.

“It was silly of me but, you see, I thought for a moment that Philip must have shot Father. I had absolutely no
reason
for thinking it.” She turned round in her chair and looked at me anxiously. “He hadn't said anything to me suggesting such a thing, and I hadn't seen anything to make me think he could have done it. But of course—well, you know I want to marry Philip and Father was against it, and it was all so complicated. When I saw Father dead, like that, I couldn't help thinking all at once that I was free. I wish you'd come here and sit in the chair opposite, so that I can see if you believe this!”

I did as she wished, with a glance out of the side windows, at the border beyond them with its dead-looking stumps of plants, and the red-brick wall beyond that, which enclosed the kitchen garden.

She ran a hand over her smooth fair hair and then propped it under her chin and gazed at me steadily from her childish blue eyes.

“
Can
you understand how I could be horrified at seeing Father dead like that and, at the same time, could think that there was nothing now to stop me marrying Philip?”

I agreed that it was possible, if she and Philip had thought of it in that way beforehand.

That seemed to worry her a bit, but she admitted, “We had, in a way. Father himself put it like that. He said he wanted me to stay at Flaxmere as long as he was alive. So the question before us really was, were we to wait, perhaps years and years, or were we to risk it and marry at once? We had actually decided, Colonel Halstock, to get married this spring. Hilda and Carol can tell you that; we discussed it with them both.”

“So you had decided that there wasn't anything to stop you, in any case; or that there wouldn't be anything to stop you, by the spring?”

“That's not a fair way of putting it!” Jenny protested. “There was something to stop us, in the way I meant: Father's ban and the fact that I shouldn't get any money from him. But we decided that we wouldn't let that stop us. But what I felt when I saw Father dead was that—Oh! I'm all muddled; you've tied me up with your beastly questions, but you know what I really mean.” Jenny opened her eyes wide and looked at me appealingly.

I hardened my heart and told myself that I had to get to the bottom of all this and that if—out of kindness to little Jenny—I didn't insist on hard facts, I might be unfair to someone else. So I suggested that what she really felt when she saw Sir Osmond's body was that his opposition to her marriage, and any fear of financial hardship resulting from it, were both removed.

“I suppose that was it, in a way; though I didn't think it in words like that,” Jenny admitted.

“You knew you would inherit a good deal under his latest will?” I asked.

She raised her brows a little in surprise. “I didn't know anything for certain; none of us do. We don't know when he made a will. But it was always understood that he would divide everything, more or less, among us.”

“To return to that pistol. You thought Philip had shot your Father, because you saw that his death made things so much easier for you and Philip, so Philip obviously had a strong motive. Isn't that a bit thin, Jennifer?”

“What do you mean?” she asked indignantly. “It's perfectly true—except that you put everything in such a beastly way.”

“I mean this; that it was rather rushing to conclusions to assume immediately that because Philip would gain by your Father's death, therefore Philip must have shot him. Hadn't you any other reason for thinking so?”

“I was afraid you wouldn't believe me,” Jenny confessed sadly. “But it's perfectly true. I wish I could have made up something that would seem more likely to you. But I always thought the police considered motive very important. You find a murder done and there's nothing at the moment to show who has done it, so you at once try to find out who had a motive for the murder. Isn't that the way you do it?”

“It may be. But even the police take character and other points into account; above all, they consider facts.”

“Oh! I know you're thinking me a beast to suppose that Philip could be a murderer! But—” she stopped short, suppressing something she had been going to say. “But someone obviously was, and apparently someone in the house. And I was horrified; so horrified that I suppose I was a bit off my head. Can't you imagine how frightful it was? I thought that somehow Phil—it had happened. My one idea was to protect Philip somehow. He'd left the pistol there, out of carelessness, I thought, and his finger-prints would be on it and you would find them, so I picked it up and handled it, hoping to rub them out!” Jenny shut her mouth tightly and glared at me defiantly.

“Didn't it occur to you that that was very dangerous? That you might be accused of the murder?”

“I hadn't done it, so I didn't really think anything could happen to me, especially as I didn't know anything at all about it. Besides, I had been in the hall all the time. People must have seen me there.”

“Whereas people hadn't seen where Philip was, and that might tell against him. In fact, you yourself didn't know where Philip had been, and perhaps that made you suspect him?”

“No; it wasn't that!” Jenny cried vehemently. “I know where he was; I'm perfectly sure! He's got an alibi; Carol can tell you. You
must
believe Carol! After that first awful moment I
knew
he couldn't have done it. Oh, you must see that he couldn't possibly!” Her repeated assertions were those of one who tries to convince herself as well as someone else.

“You've nothing against Philip, nothing whatever!” she went on. “Except that one thing, that we haven't tried to deny, because it's perfectly obvious, that he would benefit by Father's death. But so would all of us! We all expect to get some of Father's money! You
can't
think Philip did it! You can't! Oh, what can I say?” Tears blurred her eyes and she fumbled for a handkerchief.

Her distress seemed genuine, though one always suspects a woman's tears on an occasion of this sort because they give her a convenient breathing space and may put her opponent off his guard. I tried to preserve an attitude of moderate sympathy which only took the edge off a stern desire to get on with the business. After a good deal of sobbing and sniffing and mopping, she responded to my exhortation that she should pull herself together and explain how she had become convinced of Philip's innocence.

“When you asked us all those questions on the evening of Christmas Day,” Jenny continued, “I didn't know what to say because I hadn't had a chance of talking to Philip. But after you'd gone, he explained it all; how he had seen a chance of getting hold of Carol to have a talk alone with her and arrange how she should help us. Carol had rather a way with Father, if she took the trouble and he was in a good mood, and she always manages to get a thing done when she sets out to do it. I was sure that if she helped us with all the plans for Philip and me getting married and Hilda coming to live at Flaxmere instead of me, they would be sure to work out all right. That's what Philip was doing all the afternoon. It's perfectly simple.”

I reminded her that in her first interview with me she had left out another item, apparently unconnected with Philip—her visit to the servants' hall to speak to Ashmore.

She cheered up at that, relieved, I think, at getting away from the subject of Philip. “I'd forgotten that. Yes, it happened while Oliver was talking to Father in the study. I ran out immediately the Christmas-tree business was over and I only stayed a minute or two talking to Ashmore because I imagined that as soon as Father had told Oliver exactly what he had to do, Father would appear on the scene again and probably want me to organize games or something for the children and would be fed-up if I wasn't at hand.”

I asked her when she got back to the hall.

“Just before Oliver came out of the library—at least, I suppose it was Oliver? I'm so muddled now about who was who. But anyway, a Santa Klaus came out of the library just after I got back to the hall.”

“And what about Ashmore? Why had he come and why was there a conspiracy to deny that he was ever here?”

“It wasn't a conspiracy! You do make everything sound so much worse than it is! I'm sorry about it, but when you began questioning us all I thought how awful it would be if you went and questioned Ashmore, just because he had happened to be here. He didn't know a thing and he's terrified of the police ‘getting their hands on him,' as he says. They got their hands on him once when he was a boy, for something frightfully trivial, like robbing an orchard, and he nearly lost his job here because of it and he always thinks that if they should get their hands on him again, even for parking his car in the wrong place, and that old business should come out, he'd be finished. So I thought it better not to say anything about him and I passed the word to Carol not to and we asked Parkins not to. We'd already kept it rather secret, because we particularly didn't want Father to know he was here. Father might have been furious, because he had some idea that Ashmore wasn't properly grateful and hadn't behaved well. Father always took any kindness we showed to Ashmore as a criticism of his own behaviour—which I suppose it was in a way.”

I asked again why Ashmore had come to Flaxmere, which Jenny had omitted from her flood of explanation.

“Carol was most frightfully sorry for him when he drove her and Hilda up from the station,” Jenny explained. “He looked ill and seemed so worried. So we decided to send him a big Christmas hamper and Carol went into Bristol with Patricia on Monday and ordered the things. He was awfully pleased and came all the way out here to thank us. Parkins told me he was here, so I just rushed out and said
Happy Christmas
to him and all that and told him to stay to tea. I suppose that if you can't believe a thing I say and you must ask him, then you must. But do—please—do it kindly. He really is a poor old thing.”

I promised we would be tactful with Ashmore and told her—what was worrying me a bit—that he could not be found. Bristol police had telephoned to say that they had called twice at his house but his wife would only say he had gone out that morning without saying where he was going or when he would return. His car was in its garage. His wife seemed worried, they thought.

“I suppose he's gone off on affairs of his own,” Jenny conjectured. “His wife is a whining sort of woman and I don't wonder if he wants to get away from her sometimes. He's sure to be back to-night. I'll swear he has absolutely nothing to do with this affair and I don't suppose he even knew my father was dead until he read the papers this morning. Why don't you ask Carol about him? She doesn't muddle things up like I do and perhaps you'll believe her!”

I had decided that I wanted to talk to both Carol and Philip before Jenny had a chance to tell them of her interview with me, and perhaps it might be a good plan to question Carol in front of Jenny.

Jenny watched my hesitation and suggested, “Shall I go and find Carol? I think she's doing something to her new black frock. Oh! I suppose you think I might give her some private instructions on the way! You needn't worry about that. We're quite ready to tell you the truth about Ashmore.”

Jenny rang the bell and gave instructions to the maid who answered it. To ease the situation I walked over to the side windows and looked at the bare garden and brick wall and made some aimless remarks about spring flowers. Jenny carried out some hasty repairs to her face. I was thinking that Jenny still suspected Philip. She didn't quite trust his explanations and she was jealous of Carol. But she would stand by Philip to the last, protesting her belief in him in the face of the blackest evidence.

When Carol appeared I was struck again by the fact that this girl seemed much less affected by the general anxiety and distress than anyone else in the house. There was a resilience in her, the resilience of self-confidence and youth. Or was it of callousness and grim determination? The latter seemed absurd when you looked at Carol's fine—one might have said sensitive—features and candid eyes.

As soon as she sailed into the room Jennifer exclaimed:

“Carol! Ashmore's gone away—disappeared! What can have happened?”

Jenny was evidently more disturbed by the man's disappearance than she had admitted to me. Carol looked startled and very grave. She turned to me accusingly.