Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (3 page)

“Ah, sare,” she exclaimed, taking a look at them out of the corners of her eyes, “my poor Mademoiselle, dat somesing 'orrible 'as 'appened to her.”

“Rot! My good girl, I expect either that your mistress had gone out for an early walk or else she has taken something to make her sleep, and cannot hear us.” Dicky turned to his brother. “Best keep all the women back, old chap, in case – But we will soon have this door in. Now what sort of stuff would your mistress take if she could not sleep?” he demanded of the maid.

She spread out her hands. “Me! I do not know. Nevare – nevare have I seen my Mademoiselle take anysing. Nevare I see anysing zat she can take.”

“H'm! Well, she may keep it out of sight. Stand out of the way, please, mademoiselle. Now, Larpent!” At a word from Sir Arthur, Brook had gone back to keep Lady Moreton and the other women back.

Now the men surveyed the door a minute, then Dicky, his brother and Mr. Larpent put their shoulders to it. It cracked at first, but it did not give and it took the best efforts of all of them, using a flat board one of the footmen brought as a lever, before they were able to force it open. Then Dicky Moreton drew back, his fair face white.

“I am afraid there is something very wrong, Arthur. The room is all upset, as far as I can see.”

“And I don't know how you did see,” said John Larpent. “I was just beside you and I didn't. Don't be a fool, Dicky! The room is in a deuce of a mess, that's all. The girl's on the bed.” But his voice stopped and he drew back with an exclamation of horror.

The most cursory glance was enough to show that something was terribly wrong. The room was in confusion, the furniture was tossed about everywhere, and Charmian Karslake lay on the bed, looking almost as if she had been flung there. Her white face was turned towards the door, the mouth wide open, and the blue, starry eyes, dull now and glazed, stared sightlessly at the men in the doorway. Quite evidently she had not finished undressing, though she was lying across the bed.

The bed-clothes were trailing on the floor, and she was wearing soft silk underclothing of the same fabric and colour as the wonderful gold frock she had worn at the ball the night before. Over them she had apparently thrown carelessly a white silk kimona. Right in the front, over the left breast, an ugly red stain disfigured both the kimona and the gold tissue. It needed no second glance to see that life had been extinct for some hours.

Sir Arthur went nearer and bent over the quiet form. He took one of the cold hands in his and let it fall again.

“Dead!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Dead, and cold! Poor soul! Poor soul! What could have made her do it?”

“Made her do it!” echoed one of the men who had followed him in. “Man alive! Don't you see” – pointing to two tiny burnt holes in the midst of the red stain, and then waving his hands round the disordered room – “how she has struggled and fought for her life? Charmian Karslake has been foully, brutally murdered.”

The Golden Theatre was often said to be appropriately so named, for not only were its furniture plenishings golden, but it was the property of a syndicate, every member of which was popularly reputed to be a millionaire. The salaries given to the actors and actresses were enormous, and the box-office takings were in accordance. Night after night, when other theatres were not half-filled, the legend “House Full” hung outside the Golden.

Of late the great attraction there had been the famous American actress, Charmian Karslake, renowned no less for her brilliant, exquisite beauty than for her musical voice – the “golden voice” her admirers called it. A brief season had been arranged for her in town, and there were rumours that her salary was a fabulous sum per week. It had been publicly stated beforehand that Miss Karslake disliked society, and that all her time was spent in study.

There was general surprise therefore when it became known that Miss Karslake would not be in the cast for a couple of nights, and that she had accepted an invitation to be present at the Penn-Moretons, ball at Hepton Abbey.

“Why the Penn-Moretons?” people asked one another. Invitations had been showered upon Charmian Karslake from people far higher, far more important in the social world than the Penn-Moretons, only to be refused.

But neither Miss Karslake nor the Moretons were communicative, and public curiosity went unsatisfied.

Today, however, there was no cheerful “House Full” placard hung out at the Golden Theatre. Instead, all inside was darkness and gloom. In front of the box-office there were posters with black borders, men were propping up similar ones outside the theatre – all bore the same inscription:

“Owing to the sudden death of Miss Charmian Karslake this theatre is closed until further notice. Money for tickets already booked will be refunded, and should be applied for at the box-office.”

“The sudden death of Miss Charmian Karslake.” People stared, rubbed their eyes and stared again.

It was only this morning that those of them who took in the “Morning Crier,” or who looked at society paragraphs in the other papers, had read of her being present at the ball at Hepton Abbey, had revelled in the description of her gown of gold tissue, her wonderful jewel, the great sapphire ball – her mascot. And now it was impossible that she, brilliant, vivid Charmian Karslake should be dead!

People gathered in groups, the groups coalesced, became one great crowd that blocked the pavement in front of the Golden Theatre, and collected again as soon as it was disposed of by the police.

At last a slim, slight man, quite easily recognizable by the force as a detective in plain clothes, unobtrusively passed through the crowd.

Nearly opposite the Golden Theatre he knocked up against a man coming from the opposite direction, and stopped in surprise.

“Harbord! I was going to wire you. I thought you were in Derbyshire.”

“So I was this morning,” Harbord answered, “but matters have petered out there and I was anxious to report as soon as I could.”

“Good for you!” Inspector Stoddart said approvingly. “Now have you any arrangement to make? I leave St. Pancras by the 5.15.”

Harbord shook his head. “My people do not expect me back to-day as a matter of fact. So I am an absolutely free lance.”

“So much the better,” Stoddart said heartily, pushing his way out of the crowd.

He hailed a passing taxi, telling the man to drive to New Scotland Yard and directed Harbord to get in with him. Then, when they had settled themselves, he looked at the young man.

“You saw that crowd before the Golden Theatre. Do you know what has brought them together?”

Harbord shook his head. “Something about Charmian Karslake, I suppose. She seems to have put it over the man in the street. There is always some new excitement.”

“Yes,” the inspector said grimly. “This time it is her death; that's all!”

“Her death!” Harbord stared at him. “Why, just now in the train I heard two women talking of some grand ball Charmian Karslake was at last night, and the wonderful gown she was wearing. And some sapphire mascot!”

“Quite!” The inspector nodded. “She danced through the evening and exhibited her gold gown and her mascot and then – she went up to her room to meet her death.”

“But how?” Harbord asked.

“She was shot through the heart; at close quarters too,” the inspector told him.

Hardened though he was to the ways of criminals, Harbord turned distinctly paler. “By whom?”

“Ah! That,” the inspector said gloomily, “is what you and I are going to catch the next train to Hepton in Meadshire to find out.”

Harbord gave a slight start. “You mean –?”

“The local police have appealed to Scotland Yard and I have been placed in charge of the case, and, as, I told you, I am off at once. You will come with me. I would rather have you than any three other members of the C.I.D. Now we have just half an hour before we start. I can tell you the main facts of the case. I dare say the evening papers will enlighten us further as we go down.”

“Who on earth should want to hurt Charmian Karslake?” Harbord debated. “I have always understood that she had made no friends in London, and kept herself very much to herself. I wonder – is there any reason to suppose she had been followed from America?”

“I know nothing about that,” Inspector Stoddart answered. “The first thing we have to do is to ascertain the names of every man, woman and child who slept in Hepton Abbey last night, and then to see if we can discover any connexion between any of them and Charmian Karslake.”

“Sounds rather a tall order,” Harbord observed. “The ball was an extraordinarily large one, I understand.”

“The ball was, but the house-party was not,” Inspector Stoddart corrected. “Most of the guests came by car. All the neighbouring houses had parties for the occasion; so that, although the house was full, it was not abnormally so.”

“I suppose there is no doubt that the murder was committed by some one in the house,” Harbord hazarded.

The inspector raised his eyebrows. “No reasonable doubt one would think. There is no sign of the house being broken into, and, yet, there is just this chance which we must not overlook. I hear that the servants testify that all the doors and windows on the ground floor were fastened after the dance and were found in the same state on the morning after the murder. But to my mind that does not rule out one possibility. A stranger to the Penn-Moretons who had some enmity towards Miss Karslake, or who intended to steal her jewels, might have managed to secrete himself in the house while the ball was going on. Then, finding Miss Karslake was awake – for there is ample evidence to prove that she was killed soon after going to her room – and, very probably, attempted to rouse the household, he may have shot her in the scuffle which certainly took place, and managed to get out of the window. On the other hand, Charmian Karslake may have been in somebody's way and may have been murdered to get rid of her. But why on earth –?”

“In whose way?” Harbord questioned.

“How can I tell?” the inspector continued. “There is a snag or two in any theory that I can evolve as yet. However, we shall know more about it in an hour or two.”

Hepton Abbey was a little more than an hour's run from town. As the inspector had prophesied, the first edition of the evening papers was procurable at St. Pancras.

“The murder of Charmian Karslake” in big, black type occupied the front page of most of them. But of details, evidently little was known, nothing was there that the inspector had not already heard, the papers had to content themselves with reprinting the little that had reached them of Charmian Karslake's career in the States, and giving long accounts of the play in which she had been taking part in London.

It was already dark when they reached the station for Hepton. Here Sir Arthur Moreton's car met them, and a run of a very few minutes brought them to the Abbey. They were taken at once to Sir Arthur's study.

He greeted Stoddart with outstretched hand. “This is very good of you, Stoddart. I remembered your work in the Craston Diamond Case last year – Lord Craston was a friend of mine, you know – and then there was the Barstow murder. You tracked Skrine down when there did not seem to be the ghost of a clue pointing to him, and I made up my mind to ask specially that you might be sent to us. This affair has got to be probed to the very bottom. That a woman should be murdered in my house and the assassin go unpunished is unthinkable.”

The inspector permitted himself a slight smile.

“It has not happened yet, Sir Arthur. And it is early days to think of failure in connexion with Miss Karslake's death. Now, you are anxious that we should set to work as soon as we can, I know. I gather that the local superintendent has set a guard over the house and its inmates, so that no one who was known to have slept in the house last night has been allowed to leave.”

Sir Arthur nodded. “That was done at once. But I cannot believe –”

Stoddart held up his hand. “Belief does not enter into these cases, Sir Arthur. Now, I must ask you to give me particulars of as many of these said inmates as you can. First, your immediate circle.”

Sir Arthur drew his brows together. It was obvious that the task was not to his taste.

“Our immediate circle,” he repeated. “Well, first, there is, of course, the young couple for whom last night's ball was given – my younger brother and his American bride.”

“American?” The inspector, who had taken out his notebook, held his pencil poised for a moment. “The States, I suppose?”

“California,” Sir Arthur assented. “But I do not imagine my young sister-in-law has spent much time in her native country. She was educated at a convent near Paris; when she left there she went for a long Continental tour with her father, Silas Juggs – the canned soup magnate, you know. Then she probably went home for a time, I am not sure. Later, she had one season in London when my brother fell a victim to her charms; result a violent love-affair, a short engagement, and a speedy marriage. No, as I see my sister-in-law's life there is no point in which it could have touched that of Charmian Karslake. Besides, she would have told us if she had known anything of Miss Karslake.”

“Ah, of course,” the inspector murmured, as he made an entry in his notebook. “Now, Sir Arthur, the other members of the house-party – I have heard a Mr. Larpent's name.”

“Yes, Mr. John Larpent, a distant connexion, and my friend from boyhood,” Sir Arthur assented. “We were at Eton and at Christ Church together. But of course you have heard of him before, inspector. He is doing extraordinarily well at the Bar.”

The inspector brought his hands together sharply. “Of course; I knew the name was familiar. It was he who defended Mrs. Gatwick last year.”

Sir Arthur nodded. “He did not get her off, but it was a narrow shave. Quite possibly he may be able to help you, inspector. I fancy he has been making a few inquiries on his own.”