III
The court adjourned at fifteen minutes to two. Hastings and a different, softer, more charming than ever Margaret Warren were given lunch by Anthony in his sitting-room at the Bear and Key.
The meal over, Margaret was given the one comfortable chair, Hastings sat on the table, and Anthony leaned against the mantelpiece.
“Now, my children,” he said, “I have congratulated you, I have filled your stomachs. To work. What of the crowner’s quest?”
“Adjourned till three-thirty,” said Hastings, “when, after a quarter of an hour’s cosy talk, they’ll bring in a red-hot verdict of willful murder aganst the hulking private secretary. We needn’t go back, I think. There’s one of our men there. He’ll take the rest of the report; and it’s all over except the shouting.”
Anthony nodded. “No, you needn’t stay.”
“I,” said Margaret, “don’t think the secretary had anything to do with it. Not with those sort of eyes—he couldn’t.”
Hastings guffawed.
“I agree with you, Miss Warren,” Anthony said. “And it was the eyes which made me think that way.”
Hastings exploded. “Oh! I say! But—”
“Quiet, dog!” Anthony waved him to silence. “I am Richard on the Spot. The case is mine, and I say that Archibald Deacon’s a nonstarter. Children, I am about to question you. Make ready.”
Hastings cast his smile. Margaret produced a notebook.
Anthony said: “So far, the case against Deacon is, I assume: one, that in his possession were found banknotes for a hundred pounds proved as having been drawn by Hoode from his bank on the morning of the murder; two, that his explanation that this money was given to him by Hoode as a birthday present was neither regarded as at all probable nor supported by any witness; three, that his explanation as to his whereabouts during the time within which the murder was committed was both unsatisfactory and entirely uncorroborated; four, that he attempted to mislead officers of the law by means of an alibi which he knew to be false; five, that in view of his size, strength, length of leg, and the fact that everyone else for miles round appears to be accounted for, he seems the most likely person; and six, that his fingerprints were found on the wood-rasp with which the deed was done.”
“Look here,” said Hastings, “if you were at the inquest, what’s all the palaver about?”
“I wasn’t, and you’ll see. Some of this I knew already, some I guessed. Wonderful, isn’t it?”
Margaret leaned forward. “But who do you think did do it, Mr. Gethryn? Do you suspect anyone?”
“Everyone in the world,” said Anthony. “Except Deacon, you, James Masterson, and one other. But I look first at the household; just as a matter of interest like.” He ticked off names on his fingers. “The butler Poole, the chauffeur Wright, Martha Forrest the cook, Robert Belford the other manservant; Elsie Syme, Mabel Smith, housemaids; Lily Ingram the kitchenmaid, and one Thomas Diggle, gardener. Also the sister of the corpse, Sir Arthur Digby-Coates, and Mrs. Mainwaring. And there we have the ‘ ’ole ruddy issue, incloodin’ the ’eads.’ ”
“Shades of Pelman!” Hastings was moved to exclaim.
“And,” said Anthony benignantly, “what about ’em all? Their stories, their behaviour?”
Margaret consulted the notebook. “The servants,” she said, “were all right. Most obviously all right—except the man Belford. The girls no one could accuse of murder, they’re too timid and their stories were all connected enough. In most cases they fitted in with each other naturally enough. The cook was in bed before ten-thirty, and slept through the whole thing. The chauffeur was talking to friends outside the lodge. The butler was apparently in his little room all the evening. He can’t prove it by witnesses, but you couldn’t suspect an old man like that. He’s not strong enough for one thing; and he’s obviously dreadfully upset by the death of his master. Mrs. Mainwaring seemed all right. She went to bed early, and was seen there by both Miss Hoode and the maid Smith—the one that was afterwards in the linen-room. After the murder was discovered she was found fast asleep. Sir Arthur Digby-Coates is quite all right. He was in his own sitting-room—it has his bedroom on one side of it and the secretary’s on the other, apparently—from ten-fifteen until the body was found by Miss Hoode and the old butler rushed up and fetched him. During that time he was seen by various people, including Deacon, at very short intervals. As for Miss Hoode, she deposed—that’s the word, isn’t it?—that she was in bed by half-past ten, reading. At about eleven she suddenly remembered something about an invitation to someone—she wasn’t very clear in her evidence—and went downstairs to use the telephone and to speak to her brother. After that, well, you know what happened. That’s all.”
Anthony smiled. “And very good, too. I congratulate you, Miss Warren. ‘So there, in a manner of speaking, they all are.’ Of course, it’s all very untidy, this evidence. Very untidy! Not at all neat!”
“I know, Mr. Gethryn. But then, you see, it wasn’t as if they were all on trial. I mean, all this about where they were and that sort of thing came out mixed up with other things. It wasn’t cross-examination with everything on the point and nowhere else. And if people don’t know there’s going to be a murder, they can’t very well all get up nice, smooth alibis, can they?”
Anthony laughed. “Just what I said, Miss Warren. They can’t. Now, about ferret-face—Belford, I mean. You seem to think his evidence wasn’t as good as the others’. What did he do? Or say?”
Hastings took up the tale. “Nothing very unusual in itself. But his manner was all wrong. Too wrong, I thought, to be merely natural nervousness. Margaret thinks the same. It wasn’t that he said anything one could catch hold of; he was just fishy. He made rather a bad impression on the court too. In fact, I think there’d have been a lot more of him later if the case against your limpid-eyed pet hadn’t come out so strong.
“Damn it all!” he went on, after a moment’s silence, “in any other circumstances I’d be quite willing to bow to your vastly greater experience, Gethryn. And to Margaret’s womanly intuition and all that sort of thing. But this is a bit too much. When you get such a lot of circumstantial and presumptive evidence as there is against this man Deacon and then add to it the fact that his fingerprints were the only ones on the weapon the other feller was killed with, it does seem insane to blither: ‘He couldn’t have done it! Just look at his sweet expression!’ and things like that!”
“I dare say,” Anthony said. “But then Miss Warren and I are so psychic, you see.”
“But the fingerprints, man! They—”
Anthony became sardonic. “Ah, yes! Those eternal fingerprints. Hastings, you’re an incorrigible journalist. Somebody says ‘fingerprint’ to you, you shrug—and the case is over. The blunt instrument bears the thumbmark of Jasper Standish, ergo Jasper’s was the hand which struck down the old squire. It’s so simple! why trouble any more? Hang Jasper! Hang him, damn him, hang him!”
“But look here, that’s not—”
Anthony lifted his hand. “Oh, yes, yes. I know what you’re going to say. And I know I’m talking like a fool. The fingerprint system is wonderful; but its chief use is tracing old-established criminals. If you consider the ingenuity exercised by this murderer in everything else, doesn’t it strike you as queer that he should leave the damning evidence of fingermarks on only one thing, and that the actual weapon? Why, he might as well have stuck his card on Hoode’s shirtfront!”
Hastings looked doubtful. “I see what you’re driving at,” he said, “but I’m not convinced. Not yet, anyhow. And we’ve rather got away from Belford. Not that there’s any more to say, really. He merely struck us as being rather too scared.”
“What you really mean, I think,” said Anthony, “is that in your opinion Belford was very likely in it with Deacon.”
Margaret laughed. “That’s got you, Jack. You shouldn’t funk.”
Anthony said: “Let us leave ferret-face for the moment. Was there no one else you thought behaved suspicious-like?”
Margaret fingered the notebook in her lap. Hastings looked at her.
“You shouldn’t funk, Maggie,” he said.
“Pig!” said Margaret. “And don’t call me Maggie! It’s disgusting!”
“What is all this, my children?” Anthony asked.
Margaret looked up at him. “It’s only that I told this person that Miss Hoode made me uncomfortable.”
“You’ve watered it down a good bit,” Hastings laughed.
“Well, all I meant was that she seemed so contradictory. Not in what she said, you know, but in the way she looked and—and behaved. It was funny, that feeling I had. At first I thought she wasn’t suffering over her brother’s death, but was just worn out with fear and with trying to—to hide something. And then after that I began to think she was sorry after all, and that all the queer things about her were due to grief. And then after that again I sort of half went back to my first ideas. That’s all. You must think I’m mad, Mr. Gethryn.”
“I think,” said Anthony, “that you’re a remarkable young woman. You ought to set up in the street of Baker or Harley, or both.” His tone was more serious than his words; Margaret blushed.
“Did they,” asked Anthony, after a pause, “exhibit the wood-rasp at the ’quest?”
Hastings nodded. “And a nasty weapon it must have made, too.”
“I must get a look at it somehow,” Anthony said. Then added, half-aloud: “Now, why does that mark worry me?”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing, nothing.” Anthony stretched himself. “Enough for today, children. Hastings, there is a lovely lady who wishes to visit your flat, and this tonight. She is the sister of our old friend J. Masterson. I promised she could see him if she went up to town this evening.”
“Of course. J. Masterson, by the way, is all right. Temperature much lower; though he’s very weak still, of course. Does nothing but sleep. Doctor saw him again this morning, and says his trouble is really nothing worse than flu, aggravated by inattention and complicated nervous thingumitights due probably to shell-shock.”
“I see. It’ll be all right about his sister seeing him this evening?”
“Of course.” Hastings’s smile was replaced by a blank sort of look. “Er—by the way, if this lady lives down here, perhaps I had—could drive her up now, what?”
“I was going to ask whether you would,” Anthony said, after a pause, “but I’ve changed my mind. Don’t look too relieved.” His reasons for this sudden change of plan were mixed; it is certain they were not purely philanthropic.
“I gather, then,” said Hastings, “that having left a competent subordinate to take down the dregs of the inquest, the lady Margaret and I may now get back to town.”
They descended to the waiting car. Before it began to move,
“Miss Warren,” said Anthony, “would you be so kind as to have that report of this morning’s proceedings typed by someone and sent down to me here tomorrow; it’ll be so much better than the public ones.”
“I’ll do it myself at once,” said Margaret.
The car moved forward. Anthony waved his thanks, turned on his heel and reentered the inn.