Who Pays the Piper? (10 page)

“It's
murder
will out,” said the thin woman.

“There's no murder without 'atred,” said Mr. Pipe in a resounding voice.

CHAPTER XV

There is a routine which waits upon murder. It is a matter for the expert—the police surgeon to say how a man has died, the police photographer to fix that last dreadful pose, the finger-print expert. They have their exits and their entrances, they do their part, and go their way. The scene is cleared. The evidence remains to be dealt with.

At ten o'clock next morning Inspector Lamb was engaged in dealing with it. He sat, a massive figure, at Lucas Dale's writing-table. As he flicked over the pages of his notebook, his large, florid face was as nearly expressionless as a face could be. On the opposite side of the table was a slim young man with a pale face and very pale hair worn rather long and slicked very smoothly back. He had a pale blue eye, and an oddly elegant air for a policeman. He was in fact Detective Sergeant Abbott—Christian name Frank, but known among his intimates as Fug, owing to an early passion for hair-oil. It was Inspector Lamb's considered opinion that there were worse young fellows at the Yard, and that in time, and always provided he didn't get above himself, there might be the makings of a good officer in young Abbott. He sat back in his chair and said,

“Get that butler in. I want to take him through his statement.”

He picked up a paper from the desk before him and ran his eye over it whilst Abbott went to the nearer door and gave a message to the constable on duty outside.

Raby came in. A thin man with a worried look, rather hollow in the cheek, rather hollow about the eyes, rather white about the gills.

He said, “Yes, sir?” and was invited to sit down.

“Well now, Raby, we're looking to you to give us all the assistance you can.”

“Anything I can do, I'm sure.”

The man was nervous, but that was only natural.

“Well then, I've got your statement here, and I'd like just to go through it with you. You say that you were crossing the hall at a quarter past six last night, when you heard voices in this room. Now just whereabouts were you when you stood and listened?”

“That's not in my statement. I never said I stood and listened.”

Lamb gazed at him impassively.

“You must have done, or you couldn't have heard what was said. What I want to know is how close to the door you were, and which door it was.”

Raby swallowed.

“Was it the door you came in by just now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How close were you?”

Raby swallowed again.

“I was bringing some logs along for the fire——”

“Do you generally bring the wood for the fire?”

“No, sir, but Robert was out.”

“Oh, yes—Robert is the footman. Just give me that list of the servants, Abbott.… Robert Stack—footman. Where does he go when he's out?”

“Ledcott, sir. His mother lives there.”

“The local people have checked up on him,” said Abbott. “He was there from four to nine.”

Inspector Lamb glanced at the list in his hand.

“The rest of the staff consists of your wife, Mrs. Raby, Esther Coleworthy and Lily Green, housemaids, and Doris Gill, kitchen-maid. None of them were out?”

“No.”

Raby showed some relief at getting away from the study door.

“Yes, I see Mrs. Raby says in her statement that the three girls were under her observation during the time between six o'clock and a quarter to seven—when the body was found. They were, she says, in the servants' hall listening to a band programme on the wireless. Now, Raby, we'll just get back to where you were. Which door were you at—this one here behind me, or the one at the other end of the room?”

“It was this one.”

Relief had come too soon. They were back at the study door.

“And you were how close to it?”

“Well, I'd come right up to it with the wood, and then I heard them quarrelling, and I didn't like to go in.”

“So you stood there and listened. Well now, I'd like you to tell me just what you heard.”

“It's in my statement.”

“I'd like to have you tell me about it all the same. I'm not trying to catch you, but sometimes a thing comes back to you that you've overlooked.”

Raby looked unhappy. Out of the tail of his eye he could see that the young man you would never think was a policeman had got a pencil in his hand and a notebook ready, and the way things were shaping he'd have to stand up in court and swear he had listened at the door. Murder didn't just kill one person, it could kill a man's character too, and where was he going to get another job after being mixed up in a murder case? He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

“The first thing I heard was Mr. Dale using language.”

“What sort of language?”

Raby told him.

“And then I heard the American gentleman say——”

Inspector Lamb took a look at his list.

“Mr. Vincent C. Bell—been stopping here since Thursday. Ever stopped here before?”

“No, sir.”

“Ever seen him before?”

“Not before Thursday.”

“All right, go on with what you heard him say.”

Raby looked apologetic.

“I wouldn't listen in an ordinary way, sir, but the fact is I didn't know whether to go in or not. What with Mr. Dale using language like that, and the American gentleman——”

“Did he use language too?”

“Not exactly. He called Mr. Dale a double-crossing, two-timing skunk.”

Abbott's hand came up across his mouth.

“A nice distinction between language and epithet,” he murmured.

Inspector Lamb settled himself in his chair.

“And what did Mr. Dale say to that?”

“He swore, sir. And then I thought I'd better not stay, so I came away.”

“Now look here, Raby—you say they were swearing and flinging names. We all know there are ways and ways of doing such things. It's not the words that count so much, it's the way a man says them. All this that you say you heard, well, it might have been said chaffing, as you might say, or it might have been said in the way of two people having a difference of opinion and not much in it—if a man's got a habit of using language, it mayn't amount to much—or it might have been said in real deadly earnest, and I want you to tell me which of these three describes what you heard between Mr. Dale and Mr. Bell.”

Raby wiped his forehead.

“It was deadly earnest and not a doubt about it.”

“You're sure of that?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Both gentlemen were very angry indeed—not a doubt about it.”

“Well, go on. What did you do after you left the study door?”

“I went away, but I didn't go farther than the other side of the hall, because I didn't like what I'd heard.”

“How long were you on the other side of the hall?”

“A minute or two. And then the study door opened and Mr. Bell came out quick and slammed it behind him, and on through the hall and up the stairs. I don't think he saw me, sir.”

“Did you go in and attend to the fire?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Dale was standing over by the glass door with his back to me. He'd got the door a little bit open. He didn't move or look round. I made up the fire and came out.”

“If you came in by this door behind me here, you'd pass the writing-table on your way to the fire. Did you see Mr. Dale's revolver?”

“No, sir.”

“You knew he had a revolver, and where he kept it?”

The sweat came out on Raby's forehead. He turned his handkerchief between clammy hands.

“There wasn't any secret about where he kept it. Everyone knew, sir. It was in that drawer on your right—the second drawer.”

“Did he keep the drawer locked?”

Raby hesitated, and said,

“Sometimes.”

“You've seen it open?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“Was it open last night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You mean the drawer was open?”

“Yes, sir—it was pulled out.”

“Did you see the revolver?”

“No, sir—I wasn't noticing.”

“You mean you don't know whether it was there or not?”

“I didn't take any notice one way or the other—I wasn't thinking about it.”

Abbott wrote.

Inspector Lamb shifted heavily in his chair. He said in his expressionless voice,

“Are you sure you saw Mr. Dale, and that he was alive when you went in?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“And when you came out?” Raby looked blank. “He was alive when you came out again? You left him alive in the study?”

Raby looked completely horrified.

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“Did you notice what time it was?”

“It was nineteen minutes past six.”

“How do you know?”

“By the clock on the study mantelpiece, sir. I noticed it when I had made up the fire.”

“And what did you do after that?”

“I went to my pantry until a quarter to seven, when I returned to the study and found that Mr. Dale had been shot. Mr. Dale liked a cocktail at that hour, and I was taking it to him.”

Lamb let him go. When the door had closed behind the butler he said,

“What d'you make of him?”

Abbott's pale eyebrows rose.

“He's nervous.”

The round brown eyes of Inspector Lamb had a faintly reproachful look.

“That's natural,” he said. “You'd be nervous if you'd found your employer murdered and weren't sure whether the police were thinking of putting it on you, let alone having to own up you'd been listening at doors, which isn't the best of manners for a butler.”

“Oh, quite—quite.”

“Well?”

“Well, that leaves from nineteen minutes past six till a quarter to seven for someone to have come into the study and shot Dale with the revolver which he kept in his writing-table drawer. Everyone in the house seems to have known about it. It doesn't take twenty minutes to shoot a man, wipe the revolver, and melt from the scene. There was plenty of time for our Mr. Vincent Bell to come back and finish his quarrel. I wonder if he did. Are you going to have him in and ask him?”

“I think I'll have the secretary first,” said Inspector Lamb.

CHAPTER XVI

Monty Phipson gazed earnestly, first at Inspector Lamb and then at Frank Abbott. He wore an air of horrified interest blended with a desire to be helpful, yet tinged—yes, quite definitely tinged with nervousness. Abbott, staring coolly back, was reminded of a rabbit eyeing a specially delectable piece of lettuce. The nose twitched with appetite, the whiskers twitched with terror. Monty Phipson had in fact no whiskers, but the illusion persisted.

Lamb took him through his statement. He had been upstairs in his room from six o'clock till a quarter to seven. He had seen no one, and he had heard nothing. His room was on the other side of the house. He had written some letters, and then he had played some records over on his gramophone. Just after a quarter to seven the butler came and told him that Mr. Dale had been shot. He at once rang up the police.

“This matter of your not hearing the shot, Mr. Phipson—it seems to me somebody ought to have heard it. Mrs. Raby and the maids had the wireless on. Raby's pantry is next door to the servants' hall. He says there was a band programme and they were getting it pretty loud. There's a baize door and a lot of hall and passage between this and the kitchen wing. And you were playing over gramophone records. When did you start?”

Mr. Phipson removed his glasses, polished them, and replaced them on his nose. A rabbit in pince-nez.

“Oh, well now, Inspector, I shall do my best to be accurate, but I wasn't looking at the time. It was six o'clock when I went to my room—I do know that, because the grandfather clock in the hall was striking as I went upstairs. And then—let me see—I wrote two letters—let us say about ten minutes to each—and addressed the envelopes and stamped them—so that would bring us to between twenty and twenty-five past six. And then I got out a case of records and put on—now, let me see—it was the finale of the Ninth Symphony.”

“A loud piece?”

Abbott cocked a pale eyebrow.

“A very loud piece, sir. Orchestra, chorus, four soloists—all going full split.
Joie de vivre
with the lid off—fully choral and
fortissimo
. In fact, very loud. It really might drown the sound of a shot.”

“We'll try it out,” said Inspector Lamb.

“How many discs did you play?” said Frank Abbott.

Mr. Phipson looked nervously helpful.

“Well, I am not quite sure. There are three discs of the finale, and I put on the first one, and then my mind rather wandered to one of the letters I had written, so I let the record stop. In the end I re-wrote the letter, and I can't really say whether I turned the disc over or put on the next one. I know this must sound very foolish and absent-minded, but I was thinking about my letter, and I am afraid I did not notice what I was doing. In fact, I was not really attending to the music—my mind was on something else.”

“On Mr. Dale?” said the Inspector.

“Oh, no, no—not at all.”

“Would you care to tell us what you had on your mind?”

Mr. Phipson dropped his glasses and picked them up again.

“Well, really, Inspector, it was a private matter—a very private matter—but if you will regard it as confidential——”

Inspector Lamb gazed at him with a kind of ponderous patience.

“As to that I can't give any undertaking, Mr. Phipson. But a private matter that hadn't anything to do with Mr. Dale's death—well, neither Abbott nor me would mention it.”

Mr. Phipson drew an agitated breath.

“It is naturally painful to me to have to take strangers into my confidence, but of course in a murder case I understand nothing is sacred. The letter I have alluded to was to a young lady, and my mind was a good deal disturbed over it. After re-writing it as I have told you I was still not satisfied, and in the end I decided to destroy it. You will now perhaps understand why I have no very accurate recollection of the order in which I played those records.”