Death-Watch Page 8

  Oh no. It’s this excessive caution on the accuser’s part that bothers me. He might be willing to sneak in and make his accusation confidentially. But now that you’ve broadcast a public appeal, and everybody knows, you’ve created an uproar …”

  Hadley nodded grimly. “An uproar,” he pointed out, “is what we want. If anybody in the house has seen anything suspicious whatever, we shall hear about it. And if what I said doesn’t put the fear of God into whoever made that accusation, I’m no judge of human nature. He’ll have to have a cast-iron caution to keep silent now. Fell, I’ll give you odds that somebody knocks at that door within five minutes with a piece of information for us … Meanwhile, what did you think of what Carver said?”

  Dr. Fell poked moodily at the edge of the table with one cane. “Two things,” he growled. “One that I didn’t understand and one that I did. Imprimis, as Carver said, nobody bothered to steal the hands off that clock when it was in an open place where anyone could have got at it without difficulty. The thief waited until it was locked up, and worst of all, until it was painted. If he intended to use it for murder, why run the unnecessary risk of having his gloves and clothes smeared up with a turpentine-thinned oil varnish that you’d need petrol to efface? Unless, that is … unless …”

  He cleared his throat with a rumbling noise. “Harrumph. Suggestive, hey?” he said, and leered round at Hadley. “But this is the point I do understand. At half-past eleven Carver heard the chain drawn on the front door. At first he said he thought it might be this chap Paull returning unexpectedly. Later, when he heard of Stanley’s presence in the house, he thought it must have been Boscombe admitting Stanley. Boscombe confirmed this …”

  “And lied?”

  “And lied,” Dr. Fell agreed, “if you look at it as I do.”

  Wheezing, he took out his cigar-case again. Melson looked from one to the other of them.

  “But why?” he demanded, finding his voice for the first time. “Because it’s fairly clear that Stanley was already in the house,” said the chief inspector. “I’m afraid Fell’s right. The suggestion about that leather screen in Boscombe’s room has good sound sense to it. What was the state of affairs? There was a gas-ring on a table behind the screen and somebody had newly split a bottle of milk and over-turned a tin of coffee. It wasn’t Boscombe. His tidy soul made him want to rush to clean up as soon as Fell spoke about it. Yes, Stanley had been hiding behind that screen … They had been smoking and drinking, but all the ashtrays were emptied and the glasses cleaned, to give the impression that only one person, Boscombe, was in the room.”

  “Merely to deceive Carver?”

  “Not only to deceive Carver,” said Dr. Fell. “To deceive—” There was a knock at the door.

  “May I come in?” asked a woman’s voice. “I have something rather important to tell you.”

  8

  View Through a Skylight

  LUCIA HANDRETH.

  Without knowing why, Melson felt a shock at seeing her. Within five minutes, Hadley had predicted, there would be an answer to his bomb-throwing. Standing by the table, a smile tightening under his clipped moustache, Hadley had with apparent casualness taken out his watch and exhibited it to the others. Its hands, Melson noted, pointed to five minutes past two. Then he looked round at the woman who stood with her hand on the knob of the door.

  She wore now a grey tailored skirt and jacket, her hands thrust into its pockets. Her heavy black hair was coiled about her head; it had a rich gleam and lustre in the light, and contrasted with the white face. A good face, not altogether beautiful, full of those impulses and sympathies and passions which she seemed trying to repress by thinning her broad humorous mouth and making dull the brown eyes that were fixed on Hadley.

  “Come in, Miss Handreth,” said the chief inspector. “We have been expecting you.”

  This suave lie seemed to startle her. Her fingers rose and fell on the knob of the door, which was still only half open.

  “Expecting me? You’re a bit of a mind-reader, then. I—I’ve been trying to decide whether to come. I know I’m running a risk, but, don’t you see, I’ve got to explain something that he’ll never tell you, and if you don’t hear it you’ll never understand. Legally you’d have a right … and he insists on seeing you.” Her palm beat up and down on the knob. “It’s about the death of that man Ames.”

  Hadley glanced sideways at Dr. Fell.

  “You knew, then, that it was Inspector Ames,” he stated.

  “I’ve known it,” she answered, wearily, “ever since he began to hang about the pub. I was only thirteen when I saw him first, but I wasn’t likely to forget. Oh no! He wasn’t much different, except that he’d lost some teeth and hadn’t shaved.” She shivered. “I think he—felt something, too, although, of course, he wouldn’t know me. Anyway, he jolly well kept away from me.”

  “And you know who killed him.”

  “Good Lord, no! That’s what I wanted to tell you … I only know who didn’t kill him. Although I wish they had killed him, and then we could have disposed of the lot. Still, as Don is my first client”— suddenly a harsh smile flashed across her face—“I may be able to institute proceedings for him …” She stepped inside the door, threw it open, and spoke outside. “Come in, Mr. Boscombe. This will interest you.”

  “What the devil—!” shouted a bewildered Hadley.

  “It’s funny enough,” said the girl, “and low enough, and mean enough, to be a fit end for Ames. It has a nasty sort of simplicity about it. Mr. Boscombe here, and that man Stanley, intended to kill Ames. At least, Calvin Boscombe was to kill him, with Stanley looking on. Don Hastings saw the whole thing through the skylight. They intended to be—oh, so cool and detached and scientific, and show up the police for such bunglers when the perfect murder was committed! They had the stage all set. Only somebody beat them to it. And when that happened the two perfect murderers nearly fainted with fright and haven’t been able to talk sense yet.”

  She stood back from the door, and they saw Boscombe.

  He was bending forward near the door, restrained by Sergeant Betts’s arm, and his face wore a sly and witless look as he tried to peer into the room. It was a queer little tableau: Boscombe with his mouse-coloured hair and his sharp face and his dark-grey dressing-gown against the white panelling, the gold chain of his pince-nez dangling down from one ear as he tried to fight his way into the room past Betts. The sergeant set him back on his heels with ajar. Then, at a sign from Hadley, he shoved him forward; and Boscombe, imperturbable, came softly into the room.

  “Am I to understand,” he said, jerkily, and shook himself to settle his clothes, “that that man upstairs was a police officer?”

  “Didn’t you know it?” asked Hadley, with silky quietness. “You offered him a suit of clothes, you know. Yes, he was a police officer.”

  “Good God!” said Boscombe. He turned round and began to swab at the beads of sweat on his upper lip.

  “And I’m sure, old boy,” said Miss Handreth, studying him with an air of detached interest, “that you and Stanley would have swung for him if the business had gone through as you planned it. The perfect murder …” She turned to Hadley. The flood of words had brought a tinge of colour to her cheeks. “That’s what I meant by the funny part of it; that’s why the plan ought to have gone through, Don says. Boscombe didn’t know Ames was a policeman. And Stanley didn’t know who the victim was to be.” She began to laugh, her arms folded, and a strange beauty suddenly glowing through her face. “And you preaching on coolness to that nervous wreck upstairs, and him swilling brandy, and your hand shaking so you could hardly hold the gun—!”

  Boscombe was a trifle dazed, as though he found himself surrounded and penned in by unexpected enemies. He turned round helplessly.

  “I hardly expected,” he said, “from you, Lucia … I—you don’t understand! I only meant to give that overgrown braggart a scare, with all his talk of his own nerve …”

  “Don’t
lie. Don,” she retorted, “followed every move you made, through that skylight, and a jolly lucky thing he did. He knew about the idea a month ago, when you were first talking to Stanley about ‘the psychology of murder,’ and ‘the reactions of the human brain when its owner is face to face with death,’ and all the rest of that poisonous bilge … to prove what a superman you were …”

  Hadley hammered on the table. Lucia Handreth, who was breathing hard, backed away, and Hadley glared round the circle.

  “I will have some sense out of this!” said Hadley, with an effort. “Now,” he added, after a pause and in a voice of shaky ease, “suppose we make some sort of effort to get this straight. You, Miss Handreth, accuse this man and old Pete Stanley of a conspiracy to murder. You say this Hastings was not only on the roof and followed it, but knew about it beforehand?”

  “Yes. Not who the victim was to be—they didn’t know that themselves. But that they would probably have a shot at it.”

  Hadley sat down again and looked at her curiously.

  “This is something new in my experience. By God! I thought I knew all the tricks, too! Hastings was on that roof, saw preparation for a murder, and didn’t make the slightest effort to prevent it?”

  “He did not,” she replied, in a very clear voice. “And he never would have. That’s what I wanted to explain to you. You see—”

  A voice through the half open door said: “Let me explain it myself.

  “I’ve got a statement to make,” pursued the voice, “and I want to make it before I go off my onion again. Help me through, me hearties.”

  He came in unsteadily, watching the progress of his own feet in some surprise. He was a lean young man with a powerful pair of shoulders, large hands and feet, and a good-looking but rather absent-minded sort of face which must ordinarily have worn an expression of deadly seriousness. Now—to counteract the fact that he looked shamefaced—he was trying to grin casually, with a man-of-the-world’s air. Eleanor Carver was on one side of him, and Betts on the other.

  “But you shouldn’t!” she was protesting, wildly, even while she helped him. “That doctor said—”

  “Now, now,” he said, paternally. His eyes, as he peered round the group, were affable but hazy. The abrasions on his face were brown with iodine, and a padding of bandages ran up the back of his head. They got him into a chair, where he slid back with a grunt of relief while his colour took on a less greyish tinge.

  “Listen,” he said, earnestly. “The fat’s in the fire now, and I’m afraid I made a mess of the whole business by falling on my neck; but there’s one thing I want understood. I didn’t, believe it or not, I didn’t fall out of that tree because I’d got the wind up, or anything like it! I could go up or down there with my eyes bandaged and one hand tried. I don’t know how it happened. I was rushing to get down and round to the front door; and somehow—whack …!”

  Hadley swung round his chair to study the newcomer.

  “If you feel well enough to come in here,” he said, “you probably feel well enough to talk. I am Chief Inspector Hadley, in charge here. And you’re the young man who sees a murder ready to be committed and says nothing?”

  “Yes,” Hastings said, calmly, “in this case I am.”

  But it was a harsh calmness, an abrupt change in the young man’s demeanour as though from a kind of monomania, which nearly made the blood gush again. He twitched out a handkerchief, threw back his head, and pressed the handkerchief hard to his upper lip. When it was under control, he said, shakily:

  “Near thing, that. Aunt Millie wouldn’t have liked it. Sorry. I’m ready to talk, sir. But I want you to go out, Eleanor; and you too, Lucia. Mr. Boscombe had better stay.”

  “I won’t go!” Eleanor cried, and jumped up from where she had been sitting beside his chair. Her pale-blue eyes were struggling with tears, and the voluptuously pretty face had hardened. She looked from Lucia to Hastings. “You f-fool,” she added, as though she could not keep back the words. “I think you might have told me; I think you might have come to me, or done something or said something, and not to her!”

  “Oh, stop it,” Lucia said, sharply. “Go out, do, and don’t bring a family quarrel into a murder case.”

  “While you stay?” enquired Eleanor, and laughed.

  Lucia said, “I happen to be his legal adviser—” and stopped short, flushing, as Eleanor laughed again. The words, Melson thought, undoubtedly did sound foolish at that time, however correct they happened to be. He renewed his belief that the only time women lawyers seemed impressive was before they had graduated from law school. Brilliant Lucia Handreth might be, capable she certainly looked; but in this particular rough-and-tumble you thought only of a good-looking brunette stung to anger by a feminine gibe. Hadley took an even shorter view of the matter.

  “I don’t propose,” he said, “ to turn this place into a nursery or a playground. You will please go, Miss Carver. If Miss Handreth insists on her legal rights, I suppose she must stay.” His voice became harsh as he saw Boscombe move out softly to take Eleanor’s arm.

  “You’re not leaving, my friend? Doesn’t this interest you at all?”

  “No,” returned Boscombe, coolly. “I am seeing to Miss Carver’s rights. I will escort her out as another member of the nursery should, and return presently. Nor am I interested in the testimony of—of copper’s narks who listen at skylights. This way, Eleanor. Now, now! Don’t you know who I am? Gently! …”

  When, after they had gone, quiet was restored amid vast chucklings from Dr. Fell, Hastings settled back in his chair.

  “I’ve often wanted,” he said, rather wistfully, “to land that blighter one under the jaw, but it would be too much like infanticide. So he calls me a nark, does he?” demanded Hastings, flaring up again. “I hadn’t any particular grudge against him, and I was going to let him down easily, but if that poisonous little—”

  “What I like about this house,” observed Dr. Fell, in sleepy admiration, “is the spirit of love and trust and wholesome jollity which animates everybody. Ah, the solid joys of English home life! Carry on with your story, my boy.”

  “—and I’ve got a dashed good idea he’s been trying to paw Eleanor …” Hastings went on broodingly. He stopped. After a pause he grinned at Dr. Fell, as most people did in the latter’s comfortable presence. “Right you are, sir.

  “The—the first part of it’s the hardest to explain,” he went on, uneasily. “You see, I’m reading in chambers with old Fuzzy Parker here at Lincoln’s Inn. I’m supposed to be rather good at chin-wagging, and everybody said I should make a first-rate barrister; but it isn’t as easy as that. You have to learn a hell of a lot of bilge, it seems. I’m beginning to think I should have gone into the Church, instead. Anyway, I don’t seem to be making much progress, you see; and after I’ve paid the fees, and Fuzzy’s hundred guineas on top of it, there isn’t much left. I’m telling you this because then was when I met Eleanor, and—you see—well, in short”— his neck squirmed— “sometimes we began seeing each other up on the roof. Of course nobody knew about it …”

  “Rot!” interposed Lucia, with judicial directness. “Nearly everybody in the house must have known it, except maybe Grandma Steffins. Chris Paull and I both knew about it. We knew you were up there reciting poetry …”

  Hastings’ iodine-blotched face turned dull pink.

  “I was not reciting poetry! You little dev—don’t lie about it! O good God! I wish I’d never …”

  “I was merely trying to be charitable, old boy,” she informed him, with a slight sniff. “Very well, if you like. Doing whatever you were doing, then, although I should fancy it was rather an uncomfortable spot.” She folded her arms. Despite her pallor and nerves, a faint smile twitched the full lips. “And you needn’t be nasty about it. Chris Paull wanted to go up and stick his head through the trapdoor, and groan a couple of times, and say, ‘This is Your Conscience. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ But I prevented him.”

  Cur
iously enough, this did not seem to stir his anger. He stared at her.

  “Look here,” he said, in a low voice, “do you mean it was Paull who’s been up on that roof?”

  Hadley, who had been patiently waiting, leaned forward. There had been an indefinable note like horror in Hastings’ words. It did not sound like the echo of a joke; it conjured up a vision of dark chimneys above the town, and something moving there with soft, deadly purpose.

  “You’ve had enough latitude,” Hadley said, sharply. His words rang in the white room. “Explain what you mean.”

  “Every once in a while I’ve thought I heard it walking,” said Hastings, “or thought I saw it slip round the corner of a chimney. I supposed it was somebody spying on us, but nothing ever happened, you see; so naturally I thought I must have been mistaken. And I didn’t mention it to Eleanor. No good alarming her.

  “Our first rule, you see, was that I should take my books up there and Eleanor should help me study. Don’t smile!” He glared round the circle. “That’s true, and why not? There’s a flat space up there, with the chimneys shutting it in all around. Eleanor had some pillows and a lantern that she kept in a chest in that little attic just before you get to the roof; and the chimneys kept the light from being seen anywhere about … Sometimes, when the light was on, I thought I could hear something scraping and rustling; and once something I thought was a chimney-pot suddenly moved to one side, so that I could see starlight through a gap in the houses. Up there at night in the quiet, as though you were shut off from everything sane in the world, you get crazy fancies and a feeling of somebody watching you even when there’s no one there. So I never really saw anything—until tonight.”

  He paused, uncertainly. The handsome face, decked out in iodine as though for a wild masquerade, looked dull and weak. He peered over his shoulder; he lifted a bandaged hand to straighten his necktie in the masquerade wreckage of his clothes, winced as though it hurt him, and dropped it again.

  “Now, then … about that skylight. I only noticed it at all, or thought of fooling about there, because of this: I was usually to meet Eleanor at a quarter past twelve. The house was locked up at half-past eleven, and that gave everybody time to settle down for the night. But I was always ahead of time. Half an hour ahead of time. Oh, damn it!” he fidgeted, “you know how it is. So I’d poke about softly; I always wore tennis shoes. I noticed that skylight over at one side …”