Half-Mast Murder Read online

  The Admirable Crichton seemed to be wearing threadbare under the stress of the man’s emotion. The Superintendent found himself looking at him with a feeling of something like respect.

  “All right,” he said, in a kindly tone. “Don’t you worry. At all events, I gather you’re anxious to help.”

  The butler nodded.

  “Good ! And as you must have known a good bit about the household, well—to put it bluntly, d’you know if anyone had a down on the Professor ?”

  Again Richards hesitated.

  “You see, it’s like this,” he explained at last. “The Professor’s books make him very unpopular with some people—he was what they call outspoken in them. But of course you know that yourself, from the papers and reviews and that.”

  The Superintendent hoped that his casual nod concealed his extensive ignorance.

  “But that’s a bit general,” he said, “and I doubt if a book is a reason for—murder. What about this household ?”

  Richards had nothing but good to relate of his feminine colleagues : not, of course, that they had as much cause as he himself had to know and work for the Professor. But—well, there was nothing there.

  The Superintendent began to think that the man was evading the full answer to his question. He pressed him again.

  “What about the family here and the guests ? No quarrels ?” Richards drew a deep breath.

  “I don’t say there’s not been words now and again. There has, but nothing more than is normal, as you might say, in any household. Brother and sister, and niece ; you know what I mean.”

  “And nephew ?”

  “Oh !” The man was slightly taken aback, but rapidly recovered. “That certainly was a quarrel in a manner of speaking, but, of course, Mr. Julian doesn’t live with us, and hasn’t these three years.”

  The Superintendent nodded, but made no comment. There might be a line to investigate here, but Richards was not the right source to try first.

  “And that’s all ? No one else ?” he asked instead. “Mr. Shipman, now. He got on all right with the Professor ?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. At least, so far as I could judge.”

  “Then there seems no one left. Oh, Richards, Mr. Trent is a very old friend, isn’t he ?”

  “Mr. Trent ? Oh, yes, a very——Very old friend.”

  At the curious break in the sentence Guest, who had turned and was glancing out of the window, looked sharply at the butler.

  “Yes ?” he asked, sharply and sternly. “Come now, out with it.”

  “It’s—nothing,” Richardsprotested. “At least—no, nothing.” “That’ll do. I’ll judge if it was something or nothing. What was it ?”

  “It just came into my mind,” the man said slowly and reluctantly, “that I did hear rather hot words between the Professor and Mr. Trent.”

  “When ?”

  “Last night. In here, they were.”

  “And where were you ?”

  “In my pantry. When the windows are all open and it’s all quiet—well, I couldn’t help but hear a little.”

  Guest hammered away hard at him. He continued to protest that he had only half heard, now and again. But he was sure that it was Professor Paley and Mr. Trent and he was equally sure that they were quarrelling. And two phrases had stuck in his memory.

  “But, good God, Bertie,” he had heard the Professor say, “I can’t believe that you would do such a thing. We’ve been friends—I couldn’t have been so wrong in my judgment.”

  “Damn you and your judgment,” Trent had answered. “Who made you a judge of my motives ? You’re only fit for heaven, and the sooner you’re there the happier for mere men and women.”

  The Superintendent was tantalised by the fragments, but the butler could not materially supplement them. He had not deliberately listened, he protested, and he had been very sleepy ; it was past eleven o’clock when the incident occurred. He could not even say what the subject of the dispute had been, though he thought it certainly was connected with the Professor’s writing.

  “Mr. Trent always professed to have a great respect for the Professor’s work,” he said, “but, if you ask me, he was deadly jealous of it.”

  The Superintendent finally gave it up. He adjured Richards not to breathe a word about it to another soul, and despatched him to his duties.

  There followed a rapid and entirely fruitless questioning of the rest of the staff. All the women were overwhelmed by what had happened. None could throw any light upon it, and none said anything to lend colour to the idea in Guest’s mind that the house-party had been an “uncomfortable” one. But that idea, he reflected, had come from his talk with Trent : had the essayist tried to create the impression that the Professor had quarrelled with everyone, just in case news of his own quarrel leaked out ? At all events, Mr. Trent must be considered attentively, and his position of “family friend” must not take an exaggerated place in the picture. The Superintendent even caught himself wondering whether that untidiness was merely a literary effect, to conceal a very different character ; but that sort of speculation was promptly and properly dismissed without more ado.

  Richards again was summoned.

  “I’m off now,” Guest informed him. “I don’t want to disturb anyone. The constable will stay up here ; there’ll be a man to patrol the garden. But they won’t worry you or the household. Just tell Mrs. Arkwright that, and say that I’ll be up first thing in the morning, to talk to her and Miss Paley—and Mr. Shipman. That clear ? Right. Now, where’s the constable ? Fetch him to see me at the front door.”

  Richards led. the way into the hall and departed ; the Superintendent, waiting for his subordinate to appear, glanced idly about. A fishing-line, similar to the one which the Sergeant had found on the sofa in the summer-house, caught his eye. It lay on a large oak chest, close to the drawing-room door.

  When the butler and constable came into the hall, Guest asked the former casually, “Who’s the fisherman ?”

  Richards looked blank at the sudden question. He followed the direction of the Superintendent’s glance.

  “Oh, that,” he said. “The Professor bought a couple of those a few weeks ago. He talked about a night-line, but I don’t think he knew much about such things.” Then a puzzled expression came over his face.

  “I wonder how it got here, though,” he said. “I am pretty sure the Professor took those lines down to the summer-house. And that certainly wasn’t there before lunch to-day.”

  “Well, never mind it now,” said Guest impatiently. “Leave it there ; it does no harm. And let me have a word with Kirby here.”

  Richards retired hastily. The Superintendent rapidly gave the constable his instructions—in brief, to remain until relieved, in an hour or so. Had Kirby anything to report ? No. Very well. While he was speaking, the Superintendent half absent-mindedly picked up the reel of line. Something in its feel and appearance startled him. He examined it, and was about to speak, but changed his mind and without further words walked briskly out of the house and down to the terrace. Sergeant Caiger was patiently waiting, together with the constable, Bryant, and expressed himself as quite prepared to take charge of the local situation.

  “Right,” said Guest. “Then you, Bryant, can come down with me in my car. And I’ll send you up your reliefs right away, Sergeant.”

  The evening was drawing in, as the Superintendent remarked without originality but plenty of truth, as he drove out into the road. Well, he would see how things were going at the station and what they had made of the exhibits he had sent down, and after that he thought he would have deserved a bit of a meal. “Hungry work, all this talking,” he murmured.

  CHAPTER VI

  NOTICES A NEPHEW

  Arrangements were soon made at the station in Torgate for the patrolling of Cliff’s End during the night. Guest enquired what progress had been made with the examination of the articles brought down from the summer-house, and found that he could not usefully turn to this part o
f the investigation that evening. He added to the collection the line which he had found in the hall : in particular he wanted to know what was the substance which seemed to have glued the end of the line to the coil. He had a shrewd idea, perhaps an intuition, that it was human blood ; what he needed was certainty.

  Before he departed homewards he had a brief conversation with the surgeon, who indeed was waiting to see him, in a state bordering on excitement.

  “It looks to me, Super,” he said, “as if the man had taken a stiffish narcotic a short time before he was killed. We shan’t know for certain until the post-mortem’s made, of course, but I thought perhaps you might be glad of the hint. The signs are that the man was killed instantaneously by that dagger ; more than an hour and less than six hours before the body was found ; and, secondly, that half an hour or so before he was killed he took the narcotic.”

  The Superintendent listened with some bewilderment.

  “Narcotic !” he exclaimed. “The story at the house is that he was going to do some work.”

  “Of course it’s only a guess at present,” the surgeon hastened to repeat.

  “Quite so,” the other rejoined. “Still, it’s quite possible he didn’t take the narcotic of his own accord. Let me see.”

  He reflected a moment, and then remembered the jug of lemonade which had been on the writing-table. He gave rapid instructions for its contents, as well as the traces left in the glass, to be analysed. And with that he departed in search of a latish supper.

  To ponder the case at this stage was clearly useless ; all the elementary facts were not yet in his possession, and the new but still unconfirmed suggestion of a narcotic added nothing but confusion. His task must be, on the one hand, to narrow down the period within which the Professor must have died, whether by his own hand or someone else’s, and, on the other, to discover who had been inside the summer-house that afternoon. If indeed the theory of the narcotic was confirmed by the post-mortem, the suggestion of suicide would be put out of court. On the other hand, if that were so, the first step seemed to be to discover how many keys there were to the summer-house door and who had access to them.

  Finding it difficult to refrain from such reflections, random and unhelpful, the Superintendent decided on a stroll after supper. The night was hot and still—or at least windless ; for, though Torgate does not profess to offer the popular attractions of Margate or Blackpool, its seafront on a warm summer night is full of sound and life. The Superintendent walked leisurely along it, happy in the company of a large cigar and the comfort of mufti. As be reached the Grand Hotel, with its discreet blaze of lights, he decided, on a sudden impulse, to call on the American.

  He entered on the heels of a young man of medium height, dressed in a grey flannel suit which did credit to its wearer and its creator. He followed, indeed, beyond the entrance ; for the young man walked to the porter’s sanctum and demanded the key of number 325. Guest waited, intending to ask for Mr. Quirk ; it was a shock to hear the porter say :

  “Mr. Paley ? There’s a telephone message for you. Came this evening.”

  “Is there ?” the young man asked, rather excitedly. “I’ve been out in my car—— Good God !”

  He had torn, open the flimsy envelope and was staring aghast at the note inside.

  Guest acted on the impulse of the moment.

  “Bad news, I’m afraid, Mr. Paley,” he said. “Perhaps I can tell you about it. Come over here.”

  And he drew the young man, who seemed thoroughly dazed, to a sofa in a quiet corner of the lounge.

  “Your uncle, I’m afraid,” he said quietly.

  “Yes. How did you—who are you ?”

  “Superintendent Guest.”

  “You mean—police ?”

  Guest nodded. The young man lost yet another shade of colour—or perhaps gained one, turning a sickly green.

  “But—I don’t understand. What does it mean ? This”—he held out the telephone message—“and now the police.”

  Guest took the slip and read it. It was an almost curt message from Cynthia Paley, that their uncle had been found dead in the summer-house.

  “Is it true ?” the young Paley asked.

  “I’m afraid it is,” the other answered gravely.

  “But how did it happen ? I must go up to Cliff’s End at once——”

  In a few words Guest told him how the discovery had been made. The young man was aghast.

  “You mean—my uncle killed himself? But why?” he muttered.

  “That remains to be seen.”

  The grim tone in which the words were spoken had the effect of further upsetting Paley, but he made a determined effort to recover his composure.

  “I must go up at once,” he said again, more firmly.

  “I don’t think a little farther delay will matter,” Guest commented rather unkindly. “And I presume your sister is the only one who knows you’re down here ?”

  “Er—yes. Though I expect my aunt—Mrs. Arkwright, that is—knows by now. Poor things. How awful for them.”

  He made as if to get up, but Guest gently restrained him.

  “Before you go, Mr. Paley, you might just tell me when you got down here, and why. I mean, I understand you weren’t on good terms with the Professor.”

  “No, that’s true. But—well, I came down here, on a bit of a holiday, to catch a glimpse of Cynthia—my sister, I mean.”

  “And when did you arrive ?”

  “Oh, the day before yesterday.”

  “You’ve not been to Cliff’s End ?”

  “No, oh, no. Of course I meant to see my sister—well, on the sly, is the proper phrase I suppose.”

  “Quite so, sir. And where have you been to-day, may I ask ?”

  “Oh, out in a boat. Along the coast, as a matter of fact. Had a bathe in a quiet cove. Then went out in the car” (and he described roughly the route which he had taken).

  “H’m, you’ll understand that—just for form’s sake—I may have to check that, sir.”

  “Well——” the young man began dubiously.

  “Oh, not this moment,” the Superintendent assured him.

  The fingers which had been drumming nervously on the arm of the sofa were suddenly still: the Superintendent noted the fact, as also that those same fingers, when Paley drew out a cigarette-case, selected a cigarette, and held a match to it, were trembling violently. He wondered whether the shock of the news was alone responsible, or whether his questioning was the cause.

  Paley perhaps was conscious of the other’s regard, for he said abruptly :

  “You mustn’t think that, because my uncle and I fell out a few years back, I wasn’t fond of him. He did everything in the world for me. It was just that I couldn’t carry his idealism into everyday life. It’s a terrible shock, this.”

  Guest was caught by a qualm of sympathy ; a pleasant young fellow, he thought to himself, even if he looks a man of action rather than of sensibility.

  “Well, sir,” he said, more gently, “I mustn’t keep you. But I suggest that you should ring up Cliff’s End first: when I left, your sister and aunt were neither of them up to seeing people. Of course you’re different from the police, but——”

  Paley muttered a word of thanks, and, taking the advice, walked over to a telephone-box and disappeared within. A couple of min utes later he emerged, and told Guest that he was going up at once.

  “I’ll be back within the hour,” he said, with a rather wan smile. “You can put me on parole if you like.”

  “Right, sir,” He spoke in a tone which left his hearer uncertain whether he was serious or not. “And I’ll stroll round with you to the garage, if I may.”

  “Oh, I think I’ll take a taxi,” Paley replied. “My car’s in the hotel garage, but I don’t think I’ll waste time getting it out.”

  Guest raised no objection. He accompanied Paley to the taxi rank and heard him direct the driver to Cliff’s End. He bade him good night, and warned him that probably
he would want to see him in the morning.

  As the taxi drove off, the Superintendent wondered whether he had been indiscreet to allow the young fellow so much latitude. Still, as the case stood, he had no grounds on which to do otherwise, he considered.

  He strolled round to the garage, where he was shown Mr. Paley’s car—a new-looking Riley. Not an uncommon car, he reflected, but, all the same, its contrast of blue and white paint made it pretty conspicuous. It should not be hard to trace its movements that afternoon.

  Then he went back to the hotel again, and asked for the manager. The latter, who received him in his sanctum, evidently knew him by sight, and was palpably anxious to know his errand.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Judson,” Guest reassured him with a smile, “I’ve no complaints about the way you run your hotel. I just want one or two scraps of information, and I don’t want it talked about.”

  “Why, of course, Superintendent,” said the manager, whose appearance was hardly as common or Saxon as his name, and pressed him to have a drink and another cigar. Guest accepted the invitation, being aware that his own cigar had come in for rough treatment during the excitement of the encounter with the prodigal nephew.

  “Now, Superintendent, what can I do for you ?” asked Mr. Judson, when they were comfortably settled in two arm-chairs, with a small table placed conveniently to hand.

  “A mere trifle. First of all you’ve got a Mr. Quirk, an American, staying here. Oh, of course, I don’t suppose you know him—small build, thin, scraggy neck, horn-rimmed spectacles.”

  Mr. Judson permitted himself to smile, and made a deprecatory gesture with two eloquent hands.

  “I’m afraid the description is rather general—it would fit plenty of our visitors, and not only the American ones either.”

  “I know. But what I want is the register, just to tell me when he came. And I expect the porter knows how he came—by train or by car.”

  “Certainly I’ll go at once and—or, better still, I’ll get the book and the porter.”