Inspector Moresby Is Humorous
It is not an easy exercise in hospitality to entertain a guest who has
just announced that he is a double murderer. Small talk about the
weather and the latest books seems something of an anticlimax, while
to display a polite interest in his hobby and question him as to
details might be misconstrued as mere indecent curiosity. On the whole
it is difficult to see how the situation (should it ever occur to the
reader) could be better handled than it was by Roger.
“Did you really?” observed that gentleman politely, pulling himself
together with an effort as the three tankards preceded the landlord
into the room. “Well, well!—er—cheerio!”
“Cheerio!” echoed the self-confessed murderer gloomily, and extracted
what comfort he could from his tankard.
“Won’t you sit down?” mumbled Roger, still mechanically polite.
“Thanks.”
The trio seated themselves and looked at one another in silence.
“The—the inspector ought to be here soon, I should think,” volunteered
Roger helpfully.
“Will he?”
“Yes, I should think so.”
“I see.”
There was another pause. Roger frowned at Anthony. Anthony continued
to preserve unbroken silence; the situation was evidently beyond him.
It was rather beyond Roger too, but he flung himself valiantly into
the breach once more. “Have you been waiting long?” he enquired
desperately.
“Not very.”
“Oh!—Well—he ought to be in any minute now.”
“I see.”
There was another pause.
“Look here,” said Roger still more desperately, “what are we to talk
about?”
Woodthorpe smiled faintly. “I suppose it is a bit awkward for you
fellows,” he remarked.
“Infernally awkward,” Roger agreed warmly. “I don’t know what the
etiquette is on these occasions at all. Besides, they’ll be coming in
to lay the supper in a minute. Shall I tell them to lay a place for
you, by the way?”
“I don’t know. That rather depends on the inspector, doesn’t it?”
“Well, I should think he’ll allow you to have some food at any rate,
whatever he does with you afterward. I’ll tell the girl when she comes
up. In the meantime, if you don’t care for talking here’s the morning
paper.”
Colin Woodthorpe smiled again. “Thanks,” he said and began to read it
diligently, upside-down.
“Well, I suppose I’d better go along and wash,” Roger observed very
airily. “Coming, Anthony?”
They escaped from the room.
“Was this your solution, Roger?” Anthony asked, when they had gained
the privacy of one of their four bedrooms.
“Don’t rub it in!” Roger groaned. “And I’d got it all worked out so
beautifully. Dash it, I can’t believe I was wrong! I wonder if the
chap can be making a mistake?”
“Fellow ought to know whether he’s murdered somebody or not, surely,”
Anthony stated judicially.
“Yes, I suppose he ought. It would be a difficult thing to overlook,
wouldn’t it? Well, all I can say is, dash the chap! This is the second
time I’ve solved this mystery wrong.—Anthony, I don’t want to go back
to that room a bit. Let’s sit down and smoke and talk about Ibsen.”
“I’ll go down and tell them about that extra place first,” said
Anthony, and extricated himself with neatness and despatch.
Twenty minutes later the maid knocked on the door and informed them
that supper was ready. With reluctance they returned to the
sitting-room.
Their guest was by this time a little more composed, and a scrappy
conversation upon various subjects of no interest at all was
determinedly maintained. Nevertheless it was with considerable relief
that Roger hailed the arrival of Inspector Moresby ten minutes later.
He did not wish to see young Woodthorpe, to whom he had taken a
liking, being bundled off to prison, but the situation really was a
very difficult one.
Woodthorpe jumped to his feet immediately the door opened.
“Inspector,” he said, with a return to his former abrupt manner, “I’ve
been waiting to see you. I want to give myself up for the murders of
Mrs. Vane and Meadows.”
The inspector gazed at him coolly for a moment. Then he closed the
door behind him. “Oh, you do, do you?” he said without emotion. “So it
was you who did it after all, was it, Mr. Woodthorpe?”
“Yes.”
“Well, well,” said the inspector tolerantly, “boys will be boys, I
suppose. What’s for supper, eh, Mr. Sheringham?”
“C-cold veal and salad,” stammered Roger, somewhat taken aback. He had
never seen an experienced policeman arresting a murderer before, but
this certainly did not coincide with his ideas of how it should be
done.
“Well, let’s hope the salad’s better than it was last night,” observed
the inspector with some severity, and took his seat at the table.
Roger was not the only person to whom things did not seem to be going
right. “Well, aren’t you going to arrest me, Inspector?” asked
Woodthorpe in bewilderment.
“All in good time, sir, all in good time,” replied the inspector,
busying himself with the veal. “Business first and pleasure afterward,
perhaps, but food before either of them.”
“And drink before that,” murmured Roger, who was beginning to recover
himself. Roger thought he saw a gleam of light in the darkness.
Woodthorpe dropped back into his seat. “I—I don’t understand,” he
muttered.
“You’ve got no salad, sir,” said the inspector in tones of some
concern. “Help yourself and then pass the bowl across to me.—Well,
well! So it’s you who’s been giving us all this trouble, is it?”
“If you like to put it that way,” replied Woodthorpe stiffly.
Certainly it must be galling to any conscientious murderer, who has
just brought off a neat right and left, to hear his exploit described
merely as ‘troublesome.’ There is nobody like an inspector of police
for showing things up as they prosaically are.
“And why did you suddenly make up your mind to come and tell me all
about it, sir?” pursued the inspector, with the air of one making
polite conversation.
“I don’t see that I’m called upon to give you my reasons.”
“Of course not,” the inspector agreed with the utmost heartiness.
“Worst thing in the world you could do. Never give reasons, that’s my
advice. Have some more veal? Mr. Walton, you’ve finished; cut Mr.
Woodthorpe some more veal.”
Anthony, who had been watching this exchange with open mouth, started
violently and began to cut the bread.
“I don’t want any more veal, thank you,” said Mr. Woodthorpe, flushing
angrily.
“Just as you like, sir, of course,” murmured the inspector, and
bestowed a large wink on Roger.
Roger, to whom the gleam of light had now become a broad beam,
returned the wink with interest.
Unfortunately Woodthorpe intercepted both. He sprang wrathfully to his
feet again, knocking his chair over behind him. “Look here,” he burst
out, “I’ve had about enough of this fooling. I told you what I came
here for, Inspector. Are you going to arrest me or are you not?”
The inspector looked up from his plate. “Well, sir,” he said blandly,
“since you ask me so candidly—no, I’m not!—But I’d like to ask you a
few questions, perhaps.”
For a long moment the eyes of the two men held each other, while a
deep flush slowly overspread the younger’s face. Then Woodthorpe
turned away and marched over to the door.
“Then you can jolly well come up to my home and ask me them there,” he
announced as he opened it. “I’ve had about enough of this.” The door
closed behind him with a bang.
“That looks like a walk for me, I’m afraid,” observed the inspector
with regret.
“Yes,” Roger laughed. “He got one back on you there, Inspector.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Anthony. “Good Lord!”
“What’s the matter, Anthony?” Roger asked sympathetically.
“You mean—that chap never did it at all?”
“No, not exactly that, Anthony,” said Roger with a grave face. “It’s
simply that Inspector Moresby has a conscientious objection to
arresting anybody for murder under the age of thirty.”
“Ass!” growled his cousin, and helped himself to stewed gooseberries.
“Well, what about your story now, then? Did you know Roger had solved
the mystery, Inspector?”
“No, Mr. Walton, I didn’t,” said the inspector with interest. “Has
he?”
“Well, he thinks he has,” said Anthony nastily.
“Now, now, Anthony,” Roger reproved. “Don’t be vindictive.—Yes,” he
added modestly to the inspector. “I’ve solved the mystery all right.
And I warn you that I’m going to telephone part of it at any rate to
London to-night, though not the bit you wanted suppressed for the
present, of course.”
“Well, well!” said the inspector. “These gooseberries seem to me a bit
sour, didn’t you think?”
“Inspector Moresby,” said Roger with heat, “there are some people for
whose murder it’s well worth while to be hanged. You’re one of them.
So take this as a friendly warning and don’t try me too far.”
“But they are a bit sour, Mr. Sheringham,” protested the inspector.
“Really!”
“So are the grapes too, I’m afraid,” Roger grinned. “Never mind,
Inspector; perhaps I shan’t be on your next case.—So the story-books
are right after all when they talk about Scotland Yard’s professional
jealousy of the amateur.”
“True, sir,” said the inspector, shaking his head. “Terribly true.”
“See in the paper this morning that Glamorgan have won their eleventh
match this season, Anthony?” Roger remarked airily. “Extraordinary how
they’ve come on, isn’t it? We shall see them head of the table soon.”
“Yes, it’s nice to see a county that plays more than one amateur doing
well for a change,” Anthony responded with alacrity.
Roger kept the conversation firmly upon cricket till the inspector had
swallowed his last mouthful and the dinner things had been cleared
away, and even till the inspectorial pipe was well alight and the
inspectorial countenance decidedly bored.
“By the way, sir,” remarked Inspector Moresby, relaxing comfortably in
the armchair to which he had transferred himself. “By the way, didn’t
I hear you say something about having solved the mystery?”
“I thought you’d come round, with time and gentle treatment,” Roger
laughed. “Yes, Inspector, joking apart, I really think I have solved
it. Care to hear?”
“Of course I would, sir. You mustn’t mind if I pull your leg now and
then.”
“Well, I do a bit of that myself,” Roger admitted. “But look here, the
trouble is Anthony. I haven’t told him yet, because it’s all bound up
with what you confided to me the other night; but of course he wants
to hear. Can’t you stretch a point and let me just give him a quick
idea of what you told me?”
The inspector hesitated. “You’ll give me your word that it wouldn’t go
any further, then, Mr. Walton? Not to another mortal soul?”
“On my oath,” Anthony agreed eagerly.
“It’s highly irregular,” sighed the inspector, “but—very well, Mr.
Sheringham; fire away!”
Roger proceeded to give Anthony a brief outline of how Meadows had met
his death and the discovery of the aconitine in the tobacco-jar.
“And that’s why I was so interested in tobacco this morning, Anthony,
you see,” he concluded, and went on at once to acquaint the inspector
with the new discoveries he had then made.
The inspector nodded sagely. “Yes, I wondered whether you’d get hold
of that,” he remarked.
“You knew it already?” Roger asked, somewhat dashed.
“A week ago,” replied the inspector laconically.
“But she never told me she’d told anyone before.”
“She didn’t know she had. She doesn’t know she’s told you now. With
that sort of person, if you don’t ask ’em direct questions but just
let ’em dribble their information out in their own way, they’ll tell
you everything they know just the same and they won’t realise five
minutes later that they’ve told you anything at all. Yes, well, what
did you make of it all, Mr. Sheringham?”
Roger drew a deep breath.