Inspector Moresby Conducts an Interview
Clouston Hall, the home of Sir Henry and Lady Woodthorpe, was a
stolidly built Georgian house, with the usual aspect of square
solidity so happily typical of its period. It stood in its own grounds
of nine or ten acres, and as Roger and the inspector made their way up
the trim drive the setting sun was burnishing the mellow brick of its
front to a deeper red and slanting over the velvety expanse of lawn,
unprofaned by tennis nets or chalk lines, which faced it across the
broad carriage-sweep.
“By Jove!” Roger exclaimed softly. “It’s a fine picture, isn’t it?
There’s something about these big Georgian country houses, you know,
Inspector, that does stir the imagination. Can’t you just see that
carriage-sweep stiff with huntsmen in red coats and jolly red faces,
all engulfing a couple of gallons of home-brew before going off to
give Reynard the run of his life?”
“It’s a tidy bit of property,” the inspector agreed. “But they’re
child’s-play for burglars, these old houses are.” To every man his own
point of view.
“I wonder what it is that always makes one associate Georgian houses
with hunting scenes,” Roger mused. “Must be the red, I suppose. Red
brick, red coats, red faces. Yes, red seems to be the key-colour of
the times. What would Rowlandson have done if there’d been no red on
his palette? He’d have had to draw people without any noses at all.”
They reached the white porch, and the inspector placed a large thumb
over the un-Georgian electric bell-push. “You’ll remember, Mr.
Sheringham, won’t you?” he said half apologetically. “We’re here on
official business, and it’s me who’s got to do all the talking.”
“Did I or did I not give you my solemn word, Inspector?” queried Roger
in hurt tones. “Besides, I would have you know that at school my
nickname was ‘Oyster.’ ‘Oyster Sheringham,’ I was invariably called.”
“There’s often an untrue word spoken in jest,” murmured the inspector
with a face of preternatural innocence.
Before Roger could reply suitably the door was opened by a large and
fish-like butler.
There are few men in this country who can remain their normal selves
in face of a truly fish-like specimen of the English butler. Roger’s
admiration of his companion increased almost visibly as he watched him
confront this monumental dolphin (that was the word which rose
unbidden into Roger’s mind the moment the door opened) without so much
as a blench.
“I want to see Mr. Colin Woodthorpe,” said the inspector heartily, in
a voice free from the slightest tremor. “Is he at home?”
“I will enquire, sir,” returned the dolphin coldly, eyeing their dusty
appearance with obvious pain, and made as if to close the door. “Would
you care to leave your name?”
The inspector placed a large foot in the aperture. “You needn’t put on
any of those frills with me,” he said with the utmost cheerfulness.
“You know whether the gentleman I want to see is at home or not.” He
paused and looked the other in the eye. “_Is he?_” he shot out with
startling abruptness.
Roger watched the dolphin’s reaction to this mode of attack with some
interest. His gills opened and closed rapidly, and a look of distinct
alarm appeared in his pale sandy eyes. Roger had never seen an alarmed
butler before, and he certainly never expected to see one again.
“He—he was in to dinner, sir,” gasped the dolphin, almost before he
knew what he was doing.
“Ha!” observed the inspector, evidently satisfied. “Then you cut
along, my man, and tell him that Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard
would like a word or two with him. And you needn’t shout it out for
all the rest of the world to hear, understand?” It appeared that the
dolphin understood. “Very well. Now show us somewhere where we can
wait.”
The chastened dolphin led them into a small room on the left of the
big hall, the gun-room. As the door closed behind him, Roger seized
the inspector’s hand and wrung it reverently. “Now I see how you can
arrest seventeen armed criminals in the most dangerous dive in
Limehouse with nothing but a walking-stick and a safety-pin,” he said
in awe-struck tones. “‘My man!’ And yet the heavens remain intact!”
“I never stand nonsense from butlers,” remarked the inspector
modestly.
Roger shielded his eyes and groaned.
Colin Woodthorpe, who made his appearance a couple of minutes later,
proved to be a pleasant-looking young man of some five- or
six-and-twenty, with fair hair and a sanguine complexion, big and
sturdy; he was wearing a dinner-jacket, but Roger instinctively saw
him in gaiters and riding-breeches. He was perfectly self-possessed.
“Inspector Moresby?” he asked with a little smile, picking out Roger’s
companion without hesitation.
“That’s me, sir,” assented the inspector in his usual genial tones.
“Sorry to bother you, but duty’s duty, as you know. I hope that butler
of yours didn’t make too much pother. I told him not to. Scotland Yard
has a nasty sound in the ears of the old people, I know.”
“Oh, no,” laughed the young man. “As a matter of fact I was alone,
though it was very kind of you to think of warning him. Well, what’s
it all about, Inspector? Sit down, won’t you? Cigarette?”
“Well, thank you, sir,” The inspector helped himself to a cigarette
from the other’s case and disposed his bulk in a comfortable
leather-covered armchair. Roger followed suit.
As the young man sat down, the inspector edged his chair round so as
to be able to look him directly in the face. “As I said, sir, I’m
sorry to bother you, but it’s this matter of Mrs. Vane’s death I’m
looking into.” He paused significantly.
Roger could have sworn that a look of apprehension flitted for an
instant across the young man’s face, but his voice when he spoke after
only a second’s hesitation was perfectly under control.
“Oh, yes?” he said easily (almost _too_ easily, Roger felt). “And why
have you come to me?”
The inspector’s hand shot out toward him, holding the piece of paper
he had already drawn from his pocket. “To ask you to explain this,
sir, if you please,” he said very much more brusquely.
Colin Woodthorpe looked at the paper curiously; then, as his brain
took in the significance of the words written upon it he flushed
deeply. “Where—how did you get hold of this?” he asked in a voice that
was none too steady.
The inspector explained briefly that the original had been found among
the rocks close to where the body was lying. “I want you to explain
it, if you please, sir,” he concluded. “I need not point out to you
its importance as far as we are concerned. You ask the lady to meet
you, and on the very day you arrange she meets her death. If you kept
the appointment, it seems to us that you ought to be able to shed some
light on that death. I need hardly ask you whether you did keep it?”
The young man had recovered himself to some extent. He frowned and
crossed his legs. “Look here, I don’t understand this. I thought Mrs.
Vane’s death was an accident. They’ve had the inquest, and that was
the verdict. Why are you ‘looking into it,’ as you say?”
“Well, sir,” the inspector returned in his usual cheerful tones, “I
came here to ask questions, not to answer them. Still, I don’t mind
answering that one. The fact of the matter is that we’re not at all
sure that Mrs. Vane’s death _was_ an accident.”
There was no doubt that the young man was genuinely startled. “Good
Heavens!” he cried. “What on earth do you mean? What else could it
be?”
The inspector looked at him quizzically. “Well—it might have been
suicide, mightn’t it?” he said slowly.
“Suicide!” Woodthorpe sat up with a jerk and his rosy face paled. “You
don’t—you don’t really mean to say you think it might have been,
Inspector?”
“Have _you_ any particular reason for thinking it might have been,
sir?” the inspector shot out.
The young man sat back in his chair again, moistening his lips with a
quick movement of his tongue. “No, of course not,” he muttered. “I
don’t understand.”
“Oh, yes, you do, sir,” retorted the inspector grimly. “Now look here,
Mr. Woodthorpe,” he went on in a more kindly voice. “I want you to put
down your cards on the table and tell me the whole story. Believe me,
it’s far and away the best thing to do, from your point of view as
well as ours. It’s bound to come out in the end you know. And——”
Woodthorpe had risen to his feet. “Excuse me, Inspector,” he
interrupted stiffly, “I must repeat that I don’t understand you. I
have nothing to tell you. Is that all you wished to see me about?”
He walked toward the door as if inviting the other to rise and take
his departure, but the inspector blandly ignored the hint.
“Of course I know what you’re feeling, sir,” he remarked. “You’re
trying to shield the lady’s reputation, I know that. Well, the best
way you can do so is to answer my questions. I’ve got to get my
information, and if I get it from you we may be able to keep it
between ourselves; if you force me to try other sources, I’m afraid
there’s no hope of keeping it dark. At present (if you haven’t given
yourselves away elsewhere) there’s nobody but you and us who knows
that you were Mrs. Vane’s lover.”
Woodthorpe looked at him steadily. “Inspector,” he said slowly, “may I
say that you are being offensive?”
“Can’t help that, sir, I’m afraid,” replied the inspector cheerily.
“And if you’re not going to be open with me, I daresay you’ll find me
more offensive still. And you can’t bluff me, sir, you know. Not that
I blame you for trying; I’d do the same myself for a lady I’d got into
a mess with.” The inspector’s choice of words may not have been
fortunate, but his sentiment was admirable. “Still, you’ve given
yourself away too much in this note, you know, sir—besides what I’ve
been able to find out elsewhere. For instance, I know that Mrs. Vane
had been your mistress for some little time, that you’d got tired of
her and were trying to break with her, and that she was threatening
you if you did. I know all the essentials, you see. It’s only a few
details I want you to tell me, and I’d much rather have them from you
than from anybody else.”
The young man had put up a good fight, but it was plain to Roger that
he now accepted defeat. Indeed, it was difficult to see what else he
could do. Dropping back into his chair, he acknowledged the truth of
the inspector’s words by a tacit hiatus. “If I answer your questions,”
he said curtly, “will you treat what I tell you as private and
confidential?”
“As far as I possibly can, sir,” the inspector promised. “It’s no wish
of mine to drag out unnecessary scandals, or make things awkward which
might have been better left undisturbed.”
“I can’t see what you’re driving at, in any case,” Woodthorpe said
wearily, lighting another cigarette. “Mrs. Vane is dead, isn’t she?
What does it matter whether her death was accident or suicide? It
can’t help _her_ to have these things raked over.”
“It’s my duty to look into it, sir,” replied the inspector primly.
“Now, when I mentioned the word ‘suicide’ just now you were startled,
weren’t you? Did it cross your mind that she might have killed herself
because you insisted on breaking with her, and she didn’t want to let
you go?”
Woodthorpe flushed. “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “It did.”
“Ah!” Having succeeded in impressing the young man with his own mental
acuteness, the inspector proceeded to the questions of real
importance. “Did you keep that appointment, sir?”
“No.” Reconciled as he now was to the necessity of being frank,
Woodthorpe spoke with no hesitation or sullenness. “You were wrong
about that note of mine. It’s nearly three weeks old. That appointment
was for a fortnight ago last Tuesday, and I did keep it then.”
“I see.” The inspector’s voice did not show the slightest surprise at
this unexpected piece of news; Roger’s face, on the contrary, betrayed
the liveliest astonishment. “And where was the meeting held, sir?
What, in fact, is ‘the usual place’?”
“A little cave we knew of on that ledge, quite near the place she was
killed. I discovered it about a year ago; and was struck with its
privacy. Anyone who didn’t know of it would never find it. The mouth
is at an angle in the rock, and there’s a big boulder masking it.
We’ve been in there heaps of times when people have passed by outside
without spotting us.”
“How many times have you met Mrs. Vane since then?”
“Not at all. I broke with her finally at that meeting.” He shifted a
little uneasily in his chair, and Roger guessed that the process of
breaking had not been a simple one. “I’d like to add, by the way,” he
went on a little stiffly, “that the fault for the whole thing was
mine. Mrs. Vane was in no way to blame. I——”
“We’ll leave that for the moment, sir, if you don’t mind,” the
inspector interrupted. “It’s facts I’m after, not faults. Why did you
decide to break with Mrs. Vane?”
“For private reasons,” Woodthorpe replied shortly, setting his jaw and
looking very obstinate indeed.
The inspector abandoned that point. “What was Mrs. Vane threatening to
do if you broke with her?” he asked bluntly.
“Tell her husband,” replied the other, no less bluntly.
The inspector whistled. “Whew! The whole story?”
“The whole story.”
“But that would have meant divorce!”
“She said she didn’t mind about that.”
“Humph!” The inspector turned this surprising information over in his
mind. “How long had you been—well, friendly with her?” he continued,
somewhat inadequately, after a short pause.
“For about a year,” replied Woodthorpe, who evidently understood what
the inspector’s delicacy was intended to convey.
“Did you have many quarrels during that time?”
“About as many as other people do, I suppose.”
“Not more than you might expect to have with any other woman?”
“Well—perhaps a few more,” Woodthorpe admitted awkwardly.
Frantic signs from Roger conveyed the information to the inspector
that his companion was anxious to put a question of his own. As the
conversation had taken a psychological turn, the inspector saw no harm
in graciously according permission.
“Did you find that you had cause as time went on very considerably to
modify your original estimate of the lady’s character?” Roger asked,
choosing his words with some care.
Woodthorpe shot him a grateful look. “Yes,” he said instantly. “I
did.”
Roger held him with a thoughtful eye. “Would you call her,” he said
slowly, “an _imprudent_ woman?”
Woodthorpe hesitated. “I don’t know. In some things, damnably! In
others, very much the reverse.”
Roger nodded as if satisfied. “Yes, that’s just what I imagined.—All
right, carry on, Inspector. Sorry to have interrupted you.”