A Christmas Party: A Seasonal Murder Mystery/Envious Casca
A Christmas Party: Chapter 10

By the time that Maud, dressed in her outdoor clothes, had come downstairs into the hall, Mrs Dean had drawn from Joseph an account of Nathaniel’s murder, and was looking considerably startled. It was plain that she had not, from Valerie’s agitated telephone communication, grasped to what an extent Stephen might be implicated in the crime. She heard Joseph out with the proper expression of horror and sympathy on her face, but behind the conventionality of her speech and bearing a very busy brain was working fast.

‘I’m prepared to go to the stake on my conviction that Stephen had nothing whatsoever to do with it!’ Joseph told her.

‘Of course not,’ she said mechanically. ‘What an idea! Still, it’s all very dreadful. Really, I had no suspicion! We must just wait and see, mustn’t we?’

At this moment Maud appeared from above, descending the stairs in her unhurried way. No greater contrast to Mrs Dean’s somewhat flamboyant smartness could have been found than in Maud’s plump, neat figure. She might, in the days of her youth, have adorned the second row of the chorus, but in her sedate middle-age she presented the appearance of a Victorian lady of strict upbringing. There was nothing skittish either in the style or the angle of the high-crowned hat she wore on her head. She carried a Prayer-book in one hand, and an umbrella in the other; and on her feet were a pair of serviceable black walking-shoes, with laces. Mrs Dean, running experienced eyes over her correctly deduced that the frumpish fur coat, which made her look shorter and fatter than ever, was made of rabbit, dyed to resemble musquash.

‘Ah!’ cried Joseph, jumping up. ‘Here is my wife! Maud, this is dear little Valerie’s mother!’

Maud tucked her umbrella under one arm, and extended a nerveless hand. ‘How-do-you-do?’ she said, politely unenthusiastic. ‘I am just on my way to church, but Joseph will see to everything.’

Joseph, Mathilda, and Paula had all assumed, on Mrs Dean’s arrival, that Maud would abandon her expedition to church, but Maud, although she listened to their representations, had no such intention. To Joseph’s plea that she should bear in mind her duties as hostess, she replied that she did not consider herself to be a hostess.

‘But, my dear!’ expostulated Joseph. ‘In your position – you are the only married lady here, besides its being your home –’

‘I have never thought of Lexham as home, Joseph,’ said Maud matter-of-factly.

Joseph had given it up. Mathilda put the affair on another basis by saying that Maud, as doyenne, could not leave the rest of the party to cope with Mrs Dean. Maud said that she did not know what a doyenne was, but she had always made a point of non-interference at Lexham.

‘Darling Maud, this isn’t a case of interference! Who’s going to look after the woman? Show her to her room, and all that sort of thing?’

‘I expect Joseph will manage very well,’ said Maud placidly. ‘It occurred to me last night that I might have left my book in the morning-room, but when I looked today it wasn’t there. So tiresome!’

Mathilda too had given it up, and since, like Maud, she did not consider herself a hostess, she did not volunteer to deputise in the part.

So here was Maud, dressed for church, allowing Mrs Dean to clasp her unresponsive hand, and saying: ‘You see, I always go to church on Christmas Day.’

‘You mustn’t dream of letting me upset any of your plans! That I couldn’t bear!’ said Mrs Dean.

‘Oh no!’ replied Maud, taking this for granted.

‘I ought to apologise for thrusting myself upon you at such a time,’ pursued Mrs Dean. ‘But I know that you will understand a mother’s feelings, dear Mrs Herriard.’

‘I haven’t any children,’ Maud said. ‘I am sure no one minds your being here in the least. It is such a large house: there is always room.’

‘Ah!’ said Mrs Dean, struggling against the odds. ‘The joy of always having a room for a friend! How I envy you, living in such a beautiful place!’

‘I believe the house is generally very much admired,’ said Maud. ‘I do not care for old houses myself.’

There did not seem to be anything to say to this, so Mrs Dean tried a new form of attack. Lowering her voice, she said: ‘You must let me tell you how very, very deeply I feel for you in your tragic loss.’

The defences remained intact. ‘It has all been very shocking,’ said Maud, ‘but I never cared for my brother-in-law, so I do not feel much sense of loss.’

Joseph fidgeted uncomfortably, and darted an anguished look of appeal at Mathilda, who had by this time joined Maud. But it was Sturry, entering the hall from the back of the house, who came to the rescue. ‘The car, madam, is At the Door,’ he announced.

‘Oh!’ cried Mrs Dean. ‘I wonder what has happened to my car? There is just a suitcase in it, and my hat-box, and dressing-case. Could someone bring them in, do you think?’

‘The chauffeur, madam,’ replied Sturry, contemptuous of overdressed women who expected to see their luggage carried in at the front-door, ‘drove round to the Back Entrance. Walter has taken up the luggage to the Blue Room, sir,’ he added, addressing this last remark to Joseph.

Sturry’s grand manner, followed so hard upon Maud’s damping calm, quite cowed Mrs Dean. She said Thank you, in a meek voice.

Sturry then moved with a measured tread to the front door, which he opened for Maud and Mathilda, and Joseph unwisely asked him if he had seen Mr Stephen anywhere.

‘Mr Stephen, sir,’ said Sturry, in an expressionless voice, ‘is Knocking the Balls About in the billiard-room.’

‘Oh tut, tut, tut!’ said Joseph involuntarily, and with an apologetic glance towards Mrs Dean. ‘These young people are so – so thoughtless! He doesn’t mean any harm, you know. He just doesn’t always think!’

‘Oh, I never mind a little unconventionality!’ declared Mrs Dean, with a wide smile. ‘I know what an odd, wayward creature Stephen is. Let’s go and rout him out, shall we?’

Joseph looked a little dubious, but presumably he thought that Stephen must be accustomed to his future mother-in-law’s breezy tactics, for he made no demur, but led the way to the billiard-room.

The Christmas tree, still decked with tinsel, at once caught Mrs Dean’s eye, and she exclaimed at it admiringly before sailing forward to greet Stephen. ‘My dear boy!’ she uttered. ‘I came as soon as I could!’

Stephen, who was practising nursery-cannons in his shirtsleeves, carefully inspected the disposition of the balls before replying. Having assured himself that they were still lying well, he straightened his back, and said: ‘So I see. How-do-you-do?’

‘Oh, I am perfectly well!’ she said. ‘But you, my poor boy! What you must be going through! Don’t think I don’t understand!’

‘Yes, it has been a greater shock to Stephen than he perhaps realises,’ agreed Joseph. ‘But billiards on this day, old fellow? Do you think you should? It isn’t that I mind, but you don’t want to give people a wrong impression, do you?’

Beyond casting an exasperated glance in Joseph’s direction, Stephen took no notice of this. He asked Mrs Dean if she had seen Valerie.

‘My poor girlie! Yes, she ran straight into my arms when I arrived. This has been a dreadful shock to her. You know what a sensitive little puss she is, Stevie! We must do our best to spare her any more unpleasantness.’

‘That oughtn’t to be difficult,’ he replied. ‘The police aren’t likely to suspect her of having killed my uncle.’

Mrs Dean gave a shudder. ‘Don’t! The very thought of it – ! I must say, Stephen, that if I had had any idea what was going to happen I should never, never, have allowed her to come here!’

‘If,’ said Stephen, with an edge to his voice, ‘you mean to convey by that air of reproach a suggestion that I ought to have warned you, I must point out to you that my uncle’s murder was not one of the planned entertainments for the party!’

‘Naughty boy!’ Mrs Dean scolded, giving his hand a playful slap. ‘If I didn’t know that wicked tongue of yours, I should be very cross with you! But I understand. I’ve always said that you’re one of those shy people who hide their real feelings under a sort of bravado. Aren’t I right, Mr Herriard?’

‘Quite right!’ Joseph said, trying to slip a friendly hand in Stephen’s arm, and being frustrated. ‘Stephen loves to try to shock us all, only his old uncle won’t be shocked!’

‘Ah, that’s the way with so many of the young people today,’ said Mrs Dean, shaking her head.

‘Let me point out to you that there is no fire in this room, and that you could both discuss me in greater comfort elsewhere!’ snapped Stephen.

Mrs Dean’s eyes might acquire a steely look, but her smile remained. She said: ‘You conceited boy, to think I should waste my time discussing you! I have much more important things to do! Indeed, I must unpack the few bits and pieces I brought with me, and just tidy myself a little after the journey.’

Joseph at once offered to escort her to her room, and led her away before Stephen could say something even more outrageous. In the hall, Valerie, now clad in the navy-blue suit which her mother thought more proper to the occasion than primrose-yellow, was flirting mildly with Roydon. As Roydon’s mind was preoccupied with the possible consequences of Nathaniel’s murder, the flirtation was a desultory affair, but the sight of her daughter, tête-à-tête with a young man whom one glance assured her was ineligible, made Mrs Dean intervene at once. She said that she wanted her girlie to come up and help her to unpack.

‘Oh, Mummy, why on earth?’ said Valerie petulantly. ‘The housemaid will do all that.’

‘No, my pet; you know Mummy never likes the servants to meddle with her things,’ said Mrs Dean. ‘Come along!’

‘Oh, all right!’ said Valerie sulkily. ‘See you later, Willoughby!’

Once in the seclusion of the Blue Room, which was a spacious if somewhat sombre apartment over the library, Mrs Dean wasted no time in beating about the bush, but asked abruptly: ‘Who is that young man, Val?’

‘Willoughby? He’s a playwright. He’s written the most marvellous play called Wormwood. He read it to us yesterday.’

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ said Mrs Dean.

‘Well, he hasn’t actually had anything put on yet, but he’s frightfully brilliant, and I expect Wormwood will run for simply years!’

‘I’m sure I hope it may,’ responded Mrs Dean. ‘But you know you can’t afford to waste your time on penniless young writers, my pet, and I didn’t quite like to see you being so friendly with him.’

‘Oh, Mummy, what absolute rot! As though I couldn’t be friends with other men just because I’m engaged!’

‘You must let Mother know best, my pet. You don’t want to make Stephen jealous, now, do you?’

‘I don’t care,’ said Valerie sullenly. ‘Besides, I don’t believe he would be. He simply pays no attention to me. The only person he’s more or less decent to is that sickening Clare-woman. And she isn’t even moderately good-looking, Mummy!’

‘Is she the one who went off to church with Mrs Herriard? Such manners! I wonder what Mrs Herriard was before she was married? I’m sure my little girl has nothing to fear from anyone as plain as Miss Clare. You mustn’t be silly, childie. I can see it’s high time Mother came to keep an eye on you. I’ve no doubt you’ve been getting on the wrong side of Stephen. He isn’t the sort you can play tricks with.’

‘Well, if it wasn’t for being frightfully rich, I don’t think I would marry Stephen,’ said Valerie, in a burst of frankness.

‘Hush, dear! I suppose there’s no doubt that Stephen will inherit all this?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, except that Uncle Joe practically told me he would! Only I simply couldn’t live here all the year round, Mummy: I should go mad!’

‘Time enough to think of that later.’ Mrs Dean glanced round the room. ‘His uncle must have been worth a fortune. You don’t run a place like this on twopence-ha’penny a year. But I don’t like the sound of this murder, Val. Of course, we don’t know, and very likely everything will turn out satisfactorily, but I couldn’t let my girlie marry a murderer.’

‘I wouldn’t be able to, would I?’ asked Valerie, opening her lovely eyes very wide.

‘Of course not, my pet, but it was the engagement I was thinking of. Only one doesn’t wish to do anything in haste. Mother has to think of Mavis too, you know.’

‘I don’t see what Mavis has got to do with my marrying Stephen.’

‘Now, don’t be silly, childie!’ said Mrs Dean, somewhat tartly. ‘Heaven knows it isn’t easy to replace an eligible husband for one daughter, let alone two! Your meeting Stephen at the Crewes’ was a piece of very good luck – not that I would want either of my chicks to marry without love, naturally – and young men who are heirs to fortunes don’t crop up every day of the week by any means. We shall just have to wait.’

‘I don’t believe Stephen ever would have proposed to me if you hadn’t sort of made him,’ said Valerie discontentedly. ‘In fact, in a way I rather wish he hadn’t.’

‘You know Mother doesn’t like her girlies to talk in that vulgar way. And she doesn’t like to see that sulky look, either. You must just trust her to do what’s best, and be your own bright self, my pet.’

‘I don’t see how anyone could possibly be bright in this house. It’s a ghastly place. Paula says it’s evil.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Mrs Dean. ‘Now, run along, and don’t let Mother hear any more of that kind of rubbish!’

Valerie departed with something very like a flounce, but reappeared a minute later with whitened cheeks, and quickened breath. ‘Mummy!’ she gasped. ‘The most frightful thing! Someone has arrived! Two of them! I saw them from the top of the stairs!’

‘Good gracious, Val, why shouldn’t people arrive? Who are they?’

‘It’s an Inspector from Scotland Yard! I heard him say so to Sturry! Oh, Mummy, can’t we go home? Can’t you get me out of this?’

‘Come inside, and shut the door!’ commanded Mrs Dean. ‘Now, just you drink this glass of water, and stop being silly! I’m not at all surprised that Scotland Yard has been called in. There’s nothing for you to worry about. No one thinks you had anything to do with the murder.’

‘Yes, they do, because of that foul cigarette-case!’

‘What cigarette-case?’

‘Stephen’s. He sort of threw it to me in the drawing-room, and later it was found in Mr Herriard’s bedroom. But I never put it there!’

‘Of course you didn’t, and the police will realise that just as Mother does. You must just tell them all you know, and stop worrying. Remember, Mother is here to take care of you!’

‘I know I shall die if I have to answer any more questions! That policeman yesterday was utterly brutal, and this one’s bound to be worse!’ said Valerie fatalistically.

Her bugbear, at this moment, was taking stock of Joseph and of Stephen, both of whom had emerged from the billiard-room to receive him. Joseph had a piece of tinsel in his hand, and explained that he was engaged in dismantling the Christmas tree. ‘We have no heart for it now!’ he said.

‘You ought to send it to your local hospital,’ said Hemingway helpfully. ‘They’d very likely be glad of it.’

‘There!’ cried Joseph. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? It’s just what my brother would have wished, too! It shall be done! What say you, Stephen?’

‘Do what you like with the damned thing!’ said Stephen shortly.

The Inspector looked at him with quick interest. ‘Mr Stephen Herriard?’ he asked.

Stephen nodded. ‘Yes. What do you want to do? Visit the scene of the crime, or interrogate us all again?’

‘If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d like to visit the scene of the crime first. Perhaps you’d take me up? I understand it was you who discovered Mr Herriard’s body?’

‘Go with my uncle,’ said Stephen. ‘He discovered it too, and can tell you quite as much as I can.’

‘Stephen!’ begged Joseph.

‘Oh, that’s all right with me, sir!’ said Hemingway cheerfully. ‘Very understandable that the gentleman shouldn’t wish to go into the room again.’

Joseph sighed. ‘Very well, Inspector, I’ll take you.’

Joseph followed him to the staircase. He cast a knowledgeable eye over this noble erection, and remarked that he didn’t know when he’d seen a finer one.

‘No; it is supposed to be a perfect example of the Cromwellian,’ said Joseph, with an effort. ‘I’m afraid I’m a vandal in these matters. My brother was very proud of the house.’

‘Went in for antiques, did he?’

‘Yes, it was quite a hobby of his.’ Joseph glanced over his shoulder, summoning up a brave smile. ‘I used to tease him about it! And now this has happened!’

‘I daresay you feel it more than most,’ sympathised the Inspector.

‘Perhaps I do. One doesn’t like to be egotistical, but the younger generation have all their lives before them. I feel very much alone now.’

They had mounted the stairs by now, and while the constable who had been left in charge at the Manor cut the tapes that sealed the door of Nathaniel’s room, the Inspector took stock of his surroundings. He wanted to know who occupied the various rooms opening on to the main hall, and he asked to be shown the backstairs and the sewing-room. By the time he had looked at these, the door into Nathaniel’s room had been opened, and the constable was waiting for him to enter.

The room had not been touched since the removal of Nathaniel’s body, and Joseph winced perceptibly at the sight of his dress-clothes, still laid out upon a chair. He turned away, shading his eyes with his hand, while the Inspector’s trained gaze absorbed every detail of the room.

The Inspector had studied the photographs taken of the corpse, but when Joseph seemed to have recovered a little from his emotion, he asked him to describe the position in which he had found his brother. He asked more questions, and Joseph soon warmed to his narrative, and might even, by unkind persons, have been thought to have been enjoying himself considerably. His own and Stephen’s shock lost nothing in the telling; he had a good memory, and was able with very little prompting to reconstruct the scene of the crime for Hemingway. He even presented him with two separate theories to account for the position in which Stephen’s cigarette-case had been found, which, as Hemingway afterwards remarked to his Sergeant, was excessive.

‘Nice old chap,’ said the Sergeant.

‘He’s nice enough, but he’ll very likely drive me mad before I’m through with this,’ returned Hemingway. ‘If I get a line on any of his blessed relatives, he’ll lie awake all night, thinking up a set of highly unconvincing reasons to account for their doings. Anything strike you about this case?’

The Sergeant stroked his chin. ‘I’d say it was a fair stinker,’ he volunteered.

‘Stinker!’ ejaculated Hemingway. ‘It couldn’t have happened!’

‘But it did happen,’ the Sergeant pointed out.

‘Yes, that’s what makes me wish I’d never joined the Force,’ said Hemingway. He walked into the bathroom, and gazed up at the ventilator. ‘If that was the only thing open, and they’re all agreed it was, it looks as though it has a very important bearing on the case. Hand me that stool, will you?’

The Sergeant brought the cork-topped stool to him, and he climbed onto it, to inspect the ventilator more closely.

‘If anyone got in that way, he’d have had to be a small man,’ said Ware. ‘The young fellow we saw downstairs couldn’t have done it.’

‘No one could have got in without scratching the paint with his shoes.’

‘Rubber soles,’ suggested the Sergeant.

‘You may be right. Assume someone did get in this way. How?’

‘I was thinking he might have climbed up by a ladder. There’s bound to be one in the gardener’s shed, for pruning the fruit trees.’

‘That doesn’t interest me. What I want to know is, how did he set about oozing through this highly improbable aperture once he had climbed up the ladder?’

The Sergeant considered the ventilator, and sighed. ‘I see what you mean, sir.’

‘Well, that’s something, anyway. Head first, that’s how he must have got in, and nothing to catch hold of inside. The inference is he squirmed in, dropped on to his head on the floor, picked himself up, not a penny the worse for wear, and walked in to murder the old man, who hadn’t heard a sound.’

‘The door may have been shut. He may have been deaf.’

‘He’d need to be stone-deaf. Talk sense!’

‘I don’t see how anyone got in by that ventilator, sir,’ said the Sergeant, after thinking it over. ‘Looks as though he must have come in through the door after all.’

Hemingway got down from the stool, and returned to the bedroom. ‘Very well. We’ll take it that he did. For what it’s worth, the body was found lying with its back to the door.’

The Sergeant frowned. ‘Well, sir, what is it worth?’

‘Nothing at all,’ replied Hemingway. ‘You can say that someone stole into Nathaniel’s room without his knowing it, and stabbed him in the back; and you can just as easily say that he was facing the other way when he was stabbed, and staggered round before collapsing. May have been trying to get to that bell by the fireplace. I had a talk with the police-surgeon, and he tells me that a stab to the right of the spine, in the lumbar region, wouldn’t kill a man instantaneously. So the position of the body doesn’t help us much.’

‘Was the door locked before the murder, sir?’

‘Nobody knows, seeing that nobody knows when he was murdered. If I was one to let my imagination run away with me, which I’m not, I should say Nathaniel locked the door himself.’

‘Why, sir?’

‘On the evidence. You should always listen to evidence. Half the time it’s a pack of lies, but you never know. In this case, all the witnesses say that Nathaniel was in a raging temper; and Brother Joseph admits that he was trying to smooth the old boy down, and getting ticked off for his pains. Followed him half-way up the stairs, he did. Now, if you were Nathaniel in a temper, being followed about by Joseph, what would you do?’

‘I don’t rightly know,’ said the Sergeant, staring.

‘Then all I can say is you’ve taken more of a fancy to Joseph than I have. If I had a wind-bag like that on my tail, I’d lock my door, and very likely shove a heavy piece of furniture against it as well.’

The Sergeant smiled, but ventured to say: ‘That’s guess-work, sir.’

‘It is, which is why we won’t treat it as more than a possibility,’ responded Hemingway, moving over to the door. ‘If I’m right, and Nathaniel locked this door himself, we haven’t got to consider whether the murderer used a pencil and a bit of string to lock the door behind him, because he couldn’t have unlocked it that way. What’s more, they did have the sense to examine the door for signs of rubbing.’

‘Wouldn’t hardly notice on these oak doors, would it?’ suggested the Sergeant. ‘Not like soft paintwork which the string would cut into.’

‘No; but you’d be bound to see some trace under a magnifying-glass. Which would lead one to suppose that the murderer found the door locked, and turned the key from the outside.’

‘With an oustiti,’ nodded the Sergeant. ‘That’s what I was thinking. Only there aren’t any scratches on the key. If it weren’t for that, I’d say an oustiti must have been used.’

‘That, and about half a dozen other reasons,’ interrupted his superior scathingly. ‘You aren’t dealing with a professional burglary, my lad: this is an amateur-job; and whoever heard of an amateur having a tool out of a professional’s kit?’

‘I thought of that, but I don’t know but what he might have come by it,’ argued the Sergeant.

‘He might, but the odds are he didn’t,’ retorted Hemingway. ‘Not one layman out of a hundred would know there was a tool for turning keys from the wrong side, let alone the name of it.’

‘Most people know there is a tool for doing that,’ persisted the Sergeant. ‘I don’t say they’d know the name, but –’

‘No; they’d just walk into the nearest ironmonger’s and ask for a pair of forceps shaped a bit like eyebrow-pluckers to open locked doors with, I suppose,’ said Hemingway, with awful sarcasm.

The Sergeant reddened, but said: ‘Well, that’s an idea, anyway. Suppose the key was turned with a pair of eyebrow-pluckers?’

‘I’m not going to suppose anything of the sort,’ replied Hemingway. ‘For one thing, they wouldn’t be anywhere near strong enough, nor pliable enough; and for another, the grooving on them would be horizontal, instead of vertical, and wouldn’t give them any grip on the key. Try again!’

‘Well, sir, it’s all very well, but if an oustiti wasn’t used, what was? The murderer got into the room somehow. That we do know. Or if the door wasn’t locked before the murder, it was after, and there’s no sign the key was turned by the old pencil-and-string trick. It beats me.’

‘You’re a great help,’ said Hemingway. ‘Ever asked yourself why the murderer took such precious care to lock the door after him?’

The Sergeant considered this. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ he admitted. ‘Now you put it to me, sir, it does seem queer. Doesn’t seem to be any point to it at all, unless it was just done to bamboozle us.’

‘Which it probably was,’ said Hemingway. ‘And I’m bound to say it’s succeeding up to the present.’

‘Bit of a risk to take, wasn’t it? Fiddling about with a door-lock when anyone might have seen him?’

‘Whoever committed this murder took the hell of a lot of risks, if you ask me. If I remember rightly, Miss Herriard was seen outside the door in her dressing-gown.’

‘You don’t think this was a woman’s job, sir, do you?’ asked the Sergeant incredulously.

‘Might have been. Don’t you go getting a lot of silly ideas into your head about women! I’ve known some who’d have put a cageful of tigers to shame. One thing seems pretty certain: Nathaniel wasn’t expecting to be stabbed. There are no signs of any struggle, not even a chair pushed out of place. He was taken unawares, and he didn’t suspect the murderer of meaning to injure him.’

‘Come to think of it,’ objected the Sergeant, ‘that doesn’t point particularly to Miss Herriard. He wouldn’t suspect any of the people in the house, would he?’

‘He’d suspect them fast enough if they started tampering with the lock of his door,’ said Hemingway. ‘No, it looks as though the murderer came in in the natural way, all aboveboard and open, stabbed the old man, and went out again, locking the door behind him by some means which we haven’t yet discovered. And somehow I don’t believe it.’

The Sergeant saw the frown on his superior’s brow, and asked: ‘Why not, sir?’

‘I’ve got a feeling it didn’t happen that way. What did the murderer lock the door for at all? It’s no use saying, to bamboozle the police, because it isn’t good enough. If you replace a corpse in a locked room, what’s the inference?’

‘Suicide,’ replied the Sergeant promptly.

‘Exactly. And if you want a murder to look like suicide you don’t first stab the victim in the back, and next remove the knife. There was no idea of making this look like suicide, so the locked door doesn’t add up at all.’ He looked carefully at the plate in the jamb, which had been torn away. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘I’m beginning to wonder whether the door ever was locked.’

The Sergeant weighed this suggestion on its merits. ‘Three of them said that it was.’

‘Four, counting Miss Herriard,’ agreed Hemingway.

‘Four’s too many to be in a conspiracy,’ said the Sergeant positively.

‘The valet said that he couldn’t get any answer to his knock. I don’t recall that he said he had tried the door.’

‘You mean,’ said the Sergeant slowly, ‘that you think maybe he only knocked, and when Stephen Herriard came up it was he who forced the latch, and turned the key quickly afterwards, when no one was looking?’

‘I don’t think anything of the kind,’ said Hemingway. ‘I have got an open mind.’

‘What did you make of the cigarette-case, sir?’

‘It doesn’t look too good for Master Stephen, on the face of it.’

‘No; but that’s complicated too, isn’t it, sir? I mean, there seems to be plenty of evidence to show that the last person known to be in possession of the case was Miss Dean.’

‘Look here!’ said Hemingway. ‘I can accept the theory that Stephen walked in here to have a quiet chat with his uncle over a cigarette (though, mark you, on the evidence it doesn’t seem likely), but what I can’t swallow is the suggestion that Miss Dean did. Get hold of the valet for me, will you?’

Ford, when he presently appeared in the Sergeant’s wake, showed a slight reluctance to enter the room, and seemed a little nervous. Detectives from Scotland Yard were outside the range of his experience, and although he could look Inspector Hemingway in the eye, he was unable to keep a tremor out of his voice.

When Hemingway asked him if he had tried to open the door into his master’s room, he had to think for a moment before replying that he had just turned the handle.

‘What do you mean, “just turned the handle”?’ asked Hemingway.

‘Sort of gently, Inspector, in case Mr Herriard didn’t want to be disturbed. The door wouldn’t open.’

‘So then what did you do?’

‘Nothing. I mean, I just waited by the backstairs, like I told the other Inspector.’

‘Oh, you did, did you? Well, it seems a funny thing that a man’s valet, expecting to help his master to dress, and getting no answer to his knock on the door, and replaceing the door locked, should walk off without so much as thinking that the business was a bit odd.’

Ford stammered: ‘I did think it was unusual. Well, not as much as that, but it hadn’t ever happened quite like that before. But Mr Herriard didn’t always have me in to help him to dress. Only when his lumbago was troubling him, so to speak.’

‘Which I’m told it was,’ said Hemingway swiftly.

Ford swallowed. ‘Yes, sir, but –’

‘So you might have thought you’d be wanted for a certainty, mightn’t you? A man with lumbago, for instance, isn’t going to bend down to tie up his shoe-laces.’

‘No,’ admitted Ford sulkily. ‘But it’s my belief Mr Herriard put it on.’

‘Never had lumbago at all?’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as to say that. He did have it sometimes pretty bad, but it wasn’t always as bad as he liked to make out. If he was put out over anything, he’d carry on as though he was a cripple.’

‘Did he have you in to help him to dress yesterday morning?’

‘Yes, he did, but –’

‘But what?’

‘Nothing, sir, only I didn’t think he had it badly. It was mostly temper.’

‘Bad-tempered man, wasn’t he?’

‘Well, that’s it, Inspector. He was a fair Tartar when anyone had got his dander up. You never knew how to take him,’ Ford explained eagerly. ‘I know it sounds funny, me not liking to go into his room last night until he rang for me, but I give you my word this is a funny kind of a house, and you had to watch your step with Mr Herriard. If he was in a good mood you could go in and out as anyone would expect to in my position; but if he had one of his black fits on him you couldn’t do right, and that’s a fact.’

Hemingway said sympathetically: ‘I get it. Violent kind of man, was he?’

The valet grinned. ‘I believe you!’

The Inspector, who had once read Ford’s original testimony, had a disconcertingly good memory, and, having lured the valet into making this admission, pounced on it. ‘Oh! Then how is it that you told Inspector Colwall that he wasn’t a hard master, but that you got on well with him, and liked the place?’

Ford changed colour, but said staunchly: ‘Well, it was true enough. I wouldn’t call him hard exactly. He was all right when no one had upset him. I’ve been here nine months, anyway, and not given in my notice, which is more than any of his other valets did, by all accounts. He liked me, you see. I never had any unpleasantness. Not to say real unpleasantness.’

‘He never threw his boots at you, I suppose?’

‘I don’t mind that,’ Ford said. ‘I mean, it didn’t happen often. Just a bit of temper. I could generally manage him.’

‘You could generally manage him, but you were scared to go into his room without his sending for you?’

‘Well, he wouldn’t have liked that. I didn’t set out to get on the wrong side of him, naturally. I knew he was in one of his bad moods. He didn’t like Miss Paula bringing Mr Roydon down here.’

‘Was that what had put him out?’

‘That, and something Mr Mottisfont had done. He was grumbling on about it yesterday morning, while I was helping him to get dressed.’

‘Grumbling to you?’

‘Well, not so much to me as to himself, if you take my meaning, sir. It was quite a habit with him to let off steam to me when any of the family had annoyed him.’

‘Seems to me all the family had annoyed him this time.’

The valet hesitated. ‘Well, of course, Mr Joseph had properly got under his skin, inviting a party down here for Christmas, and he took a regular dislike to Miss Dean, and he was angry with Miss Paula for making a fool of herself over a long-haired playwright – that’s the way he put it, you understand – but it would not be fair to say that he was hot-up against Mr Stephen. He used to hit it off very well with him.’

‘Are you telling me he hadn’t quarrelled with Mr Stephen?’

‘No, I’m not. He was the kind who’d quarrel with his own mother. All I say is that he and Mr Stephen understood one another and there wasn’t a bit of ill-will between them.’

‘Oh!’ said Hemingway, eyeing him strangely. ‘So you hadn’t any reason to suppose that there was any kind of break between them on account of Miss Dean?’

‘It would have blown over,’ Ford said, giving him back stare for stare.

‘All right, that’s all,’ said Hemingway curtly.

The Sergeant, who had listened silently to the whole of this interchange, said as soon as Ford had withdrawn: ‘I thought you were riding him a bit hard, Chief.’

‘If it wasn’t for the laws of this country I’d have ridden him harder,’ responded Hemingway. ‘I don’t like his story.’

‘Seems a funny kind of a house altogether,’ pondered the Sergeant. ‘It struck me, remembering what he said to Inspector Colwall, that he’s about the only person, barring Mr Joseph Herriard, who’s anxious to give Stephen Herriard a good character.’

‘Well, I’m glad something strikes you,’ said Hemingway testily. ‘What’s been striking me from the start is that the only finger-prints found on the windows or on the bathroom key are Ford’s.’

‘It’s reasonable, though, that his finger-prints should be found, isn’t it, sir?’

‘When I come up against a queer case, I don’t like reasonable evidence,’ said Hemingway.

‘If he’s only been here a matter of nine months, I don’t see what he’s got to gain by murdering his master.’

‘Who said he had murdered him? He might have had plenty to gain by lending young Stephen a hand,’ said Hemingway. ‘What I want to know is who inherits the old man’s money. Let’s go downstairs.’

Joseph met them in the hall, and was able to explain that Nathaniel’s solicitor was on the way to Lexham. He said that the study had been locked up by the local police, and Hemingway replied at once that he should not have the room opened until the solicitor was present.

He had not long to wait. At about half-past twelve, the car which had taken Maud and Mathilda to church drew up outside the door, and the two ladies came in, followed by a short, stout man who looked cold, and rather disgruntled. When introduced to Hemingway, he nodded, and said good morning, but his first thought was to get as near to the fire as possible, and to warm his chilled hands.

The noise of his arrival attracted most of the house-party to the hall, so while Mr Blyth thawed before the fire Hemingway had an opportunity to observe Roydon, Paula, Valerie, and Mrs Dean. Neither Stephen nor Edgar Mottisfont emerged from the billiard-room, whence the click of the ivory balls could faintly be heard, and Maud went upstairs to take off her coat and hat.

Joseph gave Blyth a glass of sherry, and fell into low-voiced conversation with him. Paula, suddenly becoming aware of Hemingway’s presence, stared at him for a moment, and then strode over to him, saying abruptly: ‘Are you the Inspector from Scotland Yard?’

‘Yes, miss, I am.’

‘I thought so. I’m Paula Herriard. I wish you luck!’ she said with a short laugh.

‘That’s very good of you, miss, I’m sure. I daresay I’ll need it,’ said Hemingway equably.

‘You will! What do you think of us?’

‘Well, I haven’t had much time to make up my mind.’

‘I may as well warn you that you are now speaking to one of the chief suspects.’

‘Fancy that!’ he said.

‘Oh yes!’ she said, tapping a cigarette on her thumbnail. ‘My uncle accused me of being ready to murder him for two thousand pounds. Haven’t you been told that?’

‘And were you?’ enquired Hemingway, in an interested tone.

‘Of course not! Besides, how could I possibly have done it?’

‘That’s what I was wondering.’

Joseph’s attention had by this time been caught by his niece’s unguarded voice, and he came over to her side, looking rather anxious, but saying with an assumption of lightness! ‘Now, what nonsense do I hear our naughty Paula talking? You mustn’t take this young woman too seriously, Inspector. I’m afraid she’s been trying to shock you.’

‘That’s all right, sir: I’m very broadminded.’

‘That’s just as well,’ said Paula, disengaging herself from the avuncular arm about her waist, and walking away.

‘My niece is a good deal upset by this appalling business,’ Joseph confided. ‘She was very fond of my brother. Now, Inspector, since Mr Blyth is here I’m sure you would like to go through all the papers and things as soon as possible. Mr Blyth is quite ready. You won’t mind if my nephew is present? I think he has a right to be there.’

‘No objection at all,’ said Hemingway. ‘In fact, I’d like him to be present.’