A Bird Bath and an Inquest
In spite of my succession of broken nights, I woke shortly after
seven, and I got up as soon as Annie knocked at my door. No one was
about when I made my way to the bathroom; the cans of hot water were
still doing sentry duty outside the bedroom doors. I bathed and shaved
at leisure and sauntered down-stairs to find the breakfast table being
set, Annie hurrying to and fro. She spoke to me at once about the
accident to cook.
“Have you heard what’s been happening in the night, sir? The doctor
left a note on the table to say as how cook’s been taken ill and has
had to be sent to the hospital. Such goings-on there must have been,
the kitchen window smashed, and the doors standing wide open when I
come down this morning. I don’t know what we’re all coming to, I’m
sure. Do you know what it’s all about, sir?”
“Ah, you must sleep very soundly, Annie,” I answered. “Tell me now,
what was cook doing when you went up-stairs to bed last night?”
“Me, sir? I’m sure I couldn’t tell you, sir. I kept away from the
kitchen, I did. There’s all my washing up to do yet, but I wasn’t
going near cook as she was last night if I could help it, and when I’d
cleared away I went and sat by myself in the work room.”
“And where was cook then, Annie?”
“She was in the kitchen, sir. I locked the back door and fastened all
the windows except the kitchen window before I went to bed, but I
never heard her come up-stairs at all. What was it broke the window,
sir?”
“She never went to bed at all, Annie. She must have been too far gone
to get up-stairs, and apparently she turned on the gas at the stove
and then forgot to light it, and nearly paid the penalty.” I told her
exactly what had taken place during the early hours of the morning,
but I could get no useful information in return. Annie had not gone
into the kitchen and could not tell me anything of cook’s condition
when she went up-stairs to bed.
“My goodness, sir, we might all have been exploded up in our beds. I
told Miss Ethel it wasn’t safe to have her about the house,” was
Annie’s comment, and she added rather maliciously, “She won’t get none
of her whisky in the hospital.”
“No, Annie, you may be quite certain of that.”
“And my kitchen isn’t half in a mess with broken glass all over the
floor. You don’t know what became of the table-cloth, do you, sir?”
“The table-cloth, Annie?”
“Yes, sir, I can’t find it nowhere this morning.”
Now, I remembered quite definitely that the cloth, a red one, was on
the table when Janet and I had left the kitchen in the early hours of
the morning. I remembered the large wet patch where the whisky had
been upset. The Tundish had taken away the bottle and the glass, and
had left us two talking alone together. The cloth was there then, and
now, only a few hours later, it had disappeared. Clearly, either the
doctor must have come back and annexed it, or the police had taken
advantage of the open windows to return after we had gone to bed. It
occurred to me that it had been a rather strange suggestion to make,
that we should leave the window open. In either case it was
interesting, and made me begin to wonder whether the accident to cook
had been an accident at all.
Poor besotted cook, sitting drinking alone in the dark basement
kitchen, slowly drinking herself to death, while all the time that
more rapid certain death was swirling round her in the poisoned air. I
pictured her pitching forward in the dark. In the dark——? It suddenly
struck me how strange it was that she should have been sitting there
alone without any light, and my doubt about it being an accident
became a certainty that it was not.
“You’re sure that it isn’t there, Annie? You’ve looked everywhere, I
suppose?”
“It isn’t in either the kitchen or the scullery, sir.”
I was puzzled, and decided to tell Janet about it at the first
opportunity. Breakfast was not yet ready and no one was down, so I
sauntered out into the garden. I was just in time to see Janet come in
through the little door that leads into Dalehouse Lane. I was standing
on the far side of the lawn, level with the end of the doctor’s wing,
and somehow, from the way she looked about her, perhaps, I could guess
that she had been out on some errand in connection with our mystery.
To every pair of lovers, I suppose, there must come some time when
they quite suddenly realize that the word “friendship” can no longer
express their growing interest in each other, and I know that it was
as Janet moved the few short paces across the end of the surgery wing
that I realized that I was head over heels in love.
She looked so solemn and reliable as she came in through the door, so
utterly dependable and brave. She scanned the garden toward the
garage, apparently to make sure that her return had been unobserved, a
little smile flickering across her serious face, as though half amused
at her own precaution. It was not until she reached the corner of the
wing that she saw me, and it was then at that instant that I knew with
an absolute assurance that she was the one and only woman in the world
for me. Had an angel with wings sailed down from the cathedral tower
and led her to me, saying, “Mr. Jeffcock, allow me to introduce you to
your wife,” I could not have been more sure about the matter.
Laughing that she had not seen me before, she came forward to greet
me, and my uneasy thoughts of whisky-stained red table-cloths that
mysteriously vanished in the night vanished too, and I could have
cried out aloud, “Oh, you darling, you darling, what have you done?”
But instead, I stood awkward and silent, thrilled with the realization
of her nearness and her morning beauty.
“You’ve caught me,” she laughed.
“Have I?” I whispered back, and I think that she must have felt that
my words might hold some double meaning, for we stood looking at each
other, her eyes meeting mine—unflinching, appraising, her level brows
a little arched—puzzled and wholly adorable.
“Please don’t tell any one.”
“It shall be our special secret,” I replied.
She turned and ran to the house, and I lounged up the sunny garden, my
pulses pleasantly a-throb, drinking in the morning freshness that
seemed to reflect and emphasize the joy of my uplifting discovery.
At the far end and in the corner away from the garage, there is a
little rose garden, enclosed on two sides by a sturdy hedge of wild
white rose, and on two by the mellow red brick walls—a diminutive but
formal square of lawn with a rose bed in each corner—a little place of
peace and sanctuary to which I naturally turned. An archway gives
entry through the white rose hedge and I passed through it musing
happily—yes happily, in spite of all the horrors of the week—for it
seemed that for me the darkness might lift to a golden dawn. In one of
the corner-beds grew a lovely large white rose and I stooped to
examine one of the buds, a thing of perfect beauty, the outer petals
curling back to show the heart—layer on layer of closely folded
purity.
Then just behind me I heard a tiny splash, and I turned quickly to
learn the cause. I had been looking at beauty and thinking of love,
while behind me the lawn was a place of broken hopes and death.
Dead birds lay scattered over the little square; sparrows mostly, but
a robin with its vivid breast, and a cock blackbird with its gay
orange beak were there as well, and they all lay stiffly on their
backs with their little claws pathetically extended, for all the world
as though they had been taken from some taxidermist’s show-case and
scattered about the grass. Under the hedge lay Ethel’s tabby Tom,
stark and stiff, a half-eaten sparrow between his outstretched paws.
In the center of the square there stood an old painted iron table on
which Ethel kept a shallow dish of red pottery filled with water for
the birds in times of drought. A thrush was in the middle of it, lying
on its back, and it made one last dying flutter as I stood taking in
the tragic little scene. A second thrush, its mate, I guessed, flew
down from the garden wall as I watched, and perched on the edge of the
dish, then catching sight of me, it gave one long, sorrowful,
flutelike note and flew away.
I crossed over to the cat and turned him over with my foot. His eyes
were wide and when I saw them I felt the hair go creeping across my
scalp, for there was a yellow slit of iris and the rest was an angry
red. I started back in horror and ran to the house for Janet.
She was coming down the stairs as I entered the hall, and I beckoned
to her to come into the garden with me.
“What is it?” she queried. “Is anything the matter?”
“Yes, come and see what I’ve found.”
We hurried back to the rose garden.
“Oh, the poor dears, the poor dears! Oh, how horrible!” she cried when
I pointed to the birds, her sweet low voice vibrating with a
tenderness that it made my heart ache to hear.
“Yes, it’s the poison,” she agreed, when I showed her Ethel’s cat.
“How horribly, oh, how wantonly cruel! Run in quickly, please, and
telephone to Inspector Brown before the others get down-stairs. Ask
him to come in by the side door and straight to me here at once, not
to go to the house. I know he’s at the station. If Annie’s about send
her to me here out of the way before you speak. If any of the others
are about come back to me at once and we must hide them away without
showing the inspector. The number’s forty-seven. I’ll be thinking of
some excuse for wanting Annie.”
There was no one about but Annie and when I had sent her to Janet I
got my message through to the inspector without any interruption, for
once the telephone working according to plan. He promised to be with
us in a few minutes and I hurried back to find Janet walking up and
down the path behind the garage. What excuse she made for her talk
with Annie I forgot to ask, but it was satisfactory, for Annie met me
smiling broadly.
Janet was angry. Now that I know her so well I can better estimate how
angry and disturbed she was. “It’s so stupidly cruel,” she almost
sobbed, “to put it there where the birds come to drink. It seems an
unsympathetic thing to say, but somehow it riles me more than the
murder itself.”
“Don’t you think we had better tell the doctor,” I asked her, “he will
be able to say more definitely if it’s the poison—the Chinese poison,
I mean.”
She shook her head emphatically and looked at me rather queerly, I
almost fancied, too. “No, no,” she said. “There’s nothing to be gained
by telling any one else. Never tell any one anything, that’s Johnny
Allport’s golden rule for detective work.”
At her suggestion we went back to the rose garden to await the
inspector and to prevent any more birds from drinking the poisoned
water. “He’ll have to take them away with him,” she said. “Did you
tell him anything?”
“No,” I replied, “for once I obeyed the golden rule.”
“Well, we ought to be looking for something to put them in. Do you
think you could get a clothes-basket or something without Annie seeing
you, and a bottle or can for the water?”
I returned to the house once more to try my luck, but Annie was in the
hall, and though I racked my brains I could think of no reasonable
excuse for getting her out of the way. Then my eyes happened to light
on the garage key that hung on a hook in the hall, and I remembered
having seen an old wooden box that I thought might serve our purpose.
It was there, but I could find nothing for the water, so I took what I
had found across to Janet hoping that she might be able to make some
other suggestion.
But she had already solved the problem by finding the watering can,
and to my dismay I returned to find her tipping the contents of the
bird bath into it. I hated to see her handle the deadly stuff,
remembering the doctor’s alarm when I had only touched the outside of
the baby flagon.
“It’s all right,” she replied cheerfully to my protest. “I haven’t
touched a drop, and I promise to disinfect.”
Then very gingerly we picked up the birds one by one and put them in
the box, leaving one bird and the cat, so that the inspector might see
exactly how they had lain when he arrived.
He was with us before we had completed our task, more gigantic and
phlegmatic than ever, I thought he looked, in the little formal
garden. Janet quickly explained the situation and bustled him away
with a competence that only went to increase my admiration for her,
but we were not to be left alone as I half hoped we might. She would
have none of it, but insisted that we ought to get back to the house
at once, that breakfast must be ready and that we should be missed,
and that the less we were seen together the better, though I did my
best to persuade her to stay.
Idiotic of me, perhaps, but it was—no, I can’t explain it—if you who
read need explanations then you are beyond me. I was in love, I had
never been in love before, and here was my darling alone among the
roses. I wanted to stay with her and keep her to myself, not share her
with the rest.
But it was not to be, for up the garden path came The Tundish
whistling the _Marseillaise_, his chin stuck out in a way that he had
when he whistled and felt jolly, or rather I should say when he was
willing that others should know he was feeling jolly, for only once
had I seen him really depressed, and that was the time when I had
caught him frowning over Hanson’s case-book. He was amazing, The
Tundish, and the more I saw of him the more my amazement grew. Here we
were at the morning of the inquest, and he could whistle away
light-heartedly, just like any boy at home from school on the first
day of the holidays.
If I was amazed, Janet was alert. “Your knife, quickly, Mr. Jeffcock,”
and she was cutting roses and asking me about their names—of which I
knew exactly nothing—even as the doctor stood smiling happily under
the arch.
“Hello! Breakfast ready?” she greeted him.
“Yes.”
He was looking at the little table on which the bird bath had stood.
“Where’s the bird bath gone to?”
Janet looked at him hard and I looked at Janet. “It has gone to be
cleaned, Dr. Wallace,” she replied.
“Cleaned! Oh, Ethel’s taken it, has she? I came to see if it wanted
filling. Come along in to breakfast.”
The others were seated at the table when we got back to the house, and
although Janet said very little and I could see that her thoughts were
busy with our discovery, her presence again seemed to break down the
restraint of some of our former meals. Neither Ethel, Margaret, nor
the boys had heard of cook’s experience, and their natural curiosity
kept the conversation going, and helped us to avoid those appalling
periods of silence that I was beginning to associate not only with our
meals, but even with dear old Dalehouse itself. Silences they were
that seemed beyond our control. Silences that seemed to close down on
us from outside, while we sat with averted eyes, each busy with his
own suspicious thoughts.
“What a night you must have had,” was Ethel’s comment. “I see now that
I ought to have given way, and have allowed you to turn her out last
night as you wanted to, Tundish; then you would all have been spared.”
“No, it was my fault, and I blame myself entirely for what happened,”
he replied. “I ought to have looked round myself before I went to bed,
knowing the state she was in. I’m only glad that the rest of you were
not disturbed—especially you two girls—it was no pretty sight, I can
assure you.”
“I’m thankful I didn’t wake,” Margaret joined in, “I shouldn’t have
slept another wink all night. It makes me feel quite faint even to
think of it now.”
The doctor smiled broadly, rather unkindly too, I fancied. “Well, if
that’s what you look like when you feel faint——!”
We all of us laughed, for never had she looked more pink and white and
golden, more full of vitality and less like a fainting lady. Both
Ethel, whose bruise was still in evidence, and Janet looked pallid and
worn by comparison.
As we were finishing breakfast a note came by hand for the doctor.
Ralph had just said, apropos of the accident to cook, that the house
seemed fated, and that, without meaning to be rude, he would be very
glad to be back at work. The Tundish looked up from his note with a
smile, as happy a smile as you could wish to see.
“Well, you’ll be able to gratify your wish. This is from the
inspector. The inquest is fixed for eleven o’clock and we are all to
be there. He is sending cars to fetch us. Moreover, our little pocket
Hercules will be with us at four, and so you see, Ralph, you will be
able to leave this evening, but whether I shall be here to see you off
is, I imagine, more uncertain.”
He got up to leave the room as he spoke, but turned with his hand on
the door-knob. “By the way, Ethel, what have you done with the bird
bath from the rose garden? I’ll fill it up before I go.”
“The bird bath?”
“Yes, haven’t you had it? It’s missing from the table.”
“No, I filled it up yesterday morning and I’m afraid I haven’t touched
it since.” Ethel looked round the table to see if we could give her
information, but we none of us spoke, and The Tundish left the room.
When he had gone Margaret offered to take out another bowl of water,
saying, “The poor little things will be parched,” and there was a
discussion as to household duties, during which the two boys went off
to the garden and I out into the hall where I pretended to be brushing
my clothes. I wanted to waylay Janet.
She came out at last and I persuaded her to join me in the garden as
soon as she could get away, and after an interminable half-hour she
came to me there. “Just for two minutes,” she said uncompromisingly,
but with the smile I had grown to look for and to love so much. “What
do you want?”
“I want to know what you make of it all,” I asked her. “Wasn’t it just
a little odd that the doctor should have come to look for the bird
bath then?”
“I don’t know, and I can’t tell you what I make of it.”
“You mean you won’t. You don’t want to tell me.”
“No, it’s not that. I do want to tell you but I can’t.”
“Where did you go before breakfast?”
“To the police station.”
“What for?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“I’m rather a poor sort of confederate then, I’m afraid, if you won’t
let me know what you are doing.”
“You’re not a confederate, you’re a protector should the need rise.
Honestly, I can’t help it, Mr. Jeffcock, it isn’t my doing. Johnny
Allport is my superior officer and I was to tell you nothing except
who I was, and that I might possibly require your help. And that was
only because you caught us together.”
“I see, a sort of sop to keep me good.” I was feeling childishly hurt.
We had been walking up and down the strip of lawn that lay between the
house and the boundary wall, and at the end of one of our sentry goes
she turned and faced me, the sun lighting up her dear face so that I
could see the tiny gold brown hairs that straggled across the bridge
of her delectable little nose. I wanted to help her and felt absurdly
that I had the right to. I wanted endless consultations. Here we were,
within an hour of the inquest, with the mystery that had bedeviled the
Dalehouse atmosphere from cellar to attic as far from solution as
ever, and while yesterday my head had been full of such thoughts as,
“If he did this, then why did he go and do that?” now this morning I
could think of nothing but Janet and how I might keep her near me.
“Do please be sensible,” she smiled.
“But how can I help you if I’m all in the dark?”
“It helps me just to know you’re there at hand. Now I must really go.”
She turned to go back to the house. The two boys were sitting out of
earshot, under the cedar tree. “I say, do sit next to me at the
inquest,” I called after her gently.
She laughed outright. “Certainly, sir,” she said, “only I’m not
going.” She was gone, leaving me uncertain as to whether I was annoyed
or pleased about what she had said. And I only remembered afterward
that I had told her nothing of Annie’s missing table-cloth.
Two police cars came for us at a quarter before the hour, backing into
Dalehouse Lane where we got into them without attracting the attention
I had rather feared. Two men only observed us, and I heard one say to
the other in passing, “Aye, that’s ’im, goes about the town as bold as
brass,” a remark which made me appreciate the doctor’s bravery, or
effrontery, in continuing to attend his patients.
I had never been to an inquest before and the only thing that really
impressed me was the brevity of the whole proceeding. A room behind
the mortuary was used for the purpose, a long room it was with a plain
deal table running nearly the length of it, and with whitewashed walls
that made the most of the rather inadequate light.
The jurors were all assembled when we arrived, a solemn uninteresting
dozen, with, so far as I could judge, not one man of any personality
among them. They were seated round the table. We were given seats
against the wall, and the coroner, a very much younger man than I had
expected, came in as we took our places.
He was business itself.
He asked the inspector to take the jury to view the body, filling up
an official-looking form pending their return. And he then asked Ethel
to explain to the jury exactly how she had found Miss Palfreeman on
the Wednesday morning. There was no witness box and she was sworn and
made her statement standing in front of her chair at the side of the
room. She spoke clearly and well.
The doctor made a similarly brief statement, and was continuing to
describe how he had prepared a draft for Stella the evening before,
when the coroner pulled him up.
“Just at the moment I am only asking you to tell the jury how you
found Miss Palfreeman when you went up-stairs at Miss Hanson’s
request.”
“I have nothing more to add then,” the doctor replied.
“You were of the opinion that her death was not from any natural cause
and decided that the police should be informed?”
“Yes.”
Inspector Brown next described how he had been called and went to
Dalehouse along with Detective Inspector Allport and the police
surgeon, and he concluded his few short sentences by asking that the
inquest might be immediately adjourned while the police secured
further evidence.
“How long do you want, Inspector?”
“I suggest Tuesday of next week, sir.”
“At the same time?”
“Yes.”
“Very well then, gentlemen, the inquest is adjourned and I am sorry to
have to ask you to attend here again next Tuesday at the same time. A
formal reminder will be posted to you. I understand that there have
been rumors in the city with regard to this unfortunate affair, and
there have been one or two most improper references in the press. It
is your plain duty to shut both your ears and your eyes until we meet
again, and to take care that you come to the adjourned inquest with
your minds a blank. There has been talk of foul play. We shall know
nothing of that. The unfortunate girl met her death in circumstances
that require further investigation. That is the sum of our knowledge
at present. We shall meet again on Tuesday to consider the full
evidence that will be put before us, and, under my guidance, you will
then decide together what was the cause of her death. Thank you.”
A tall, gray-haired, full-faced man whom I hadn’t noticed before came
and stood at the end of the table, facing the coroner. “I have a
statement, sir, that I think it is my duty to make. It’s with regard
to——”
“Excuse me,” the coroner interrupted, “but whoever you are I can allow
no statement whatever to be made.”
“My name is Crawford and I am uncle to the deceased, and what I have
to say may, I think, ha——”
“I am sorry, Mr. Crawford, but I really can not allow any statement
whatever to be made. The jury must hear all the evidence in proper
order and at the proper time. If you have any information you feel you
ought to impart immediately, then it is your duty to report it to the
police.”
“Can’t I——?”
“No, really you can’t.”
The florid-faced uncle retired. I liked the look of the man, jolly I
thought, and I wondered what it was that he wanted to say. Then to my
surprise, just as the coroner was gathering up his papers, and the
jurors were pushing back their chairs, Kenneth jumped to his feet.
“May I ask, sir, how much longer we are to be detained?”
The coroner looked up in some surprise. “We—detained? I don’t think I
understand you. Who are you and to whom do you refer?”
“My name is Dane, sir, and I refer to my friends and myself and our
detention at Dalehouse.”
The inspector stepped forward and whispered in the coroner’s ear. The
coroner nodded his head emphatically and then he turned to Kenneth.
“No warrant has been issued for any one’s detention. I understand that
you and your friends made a perfectly voluntary arrangement with
Inspector Allport, and if that is so I think that your application is
in very bad taste indeed. Neither I, nor the police, have any right to
detain any one at present and you are at liberty to go when and where
you will, but you will be wanted at the inquest on Tuesday and a
proper notice will be served.”
Kenneth reddened and sat down.
Inspector Brown came forward and told us that the cars were available
for our return, and we filed out into the dazzling sun. The dreaded
inquest was over, but I realized that the next would be a far more
trying affair.
At the door stood Mr. Crawford talking to the police surgeon, and he
came forward and spoke a few words to Ethel in the kindest possible
way, and then to my surprise he buttonholed the doctor, drawing him a
few paces apart. They held a brief, earnest little conversation, at
the close of which Mr. Crawford handed The Tundish a letter which he
put carefully away in his pocketbook. They shook hands amicably and
the doctor rejoined us. I could not help my curiosity, and I wondered
what Stella’s uncle could have to say and give to the doctor and
whether he had lived in China too, and they had met before. There was
nothing to be gleaned from the doctor’s face, however; he was neither
pleased nor perturbed, but just the same equable and placid Tundish,
as inscrutable as ever.
We were back at Dalehouse before twelve o’clock, and my first concern
was to look for Janet. She was not in the down-stairs rooms and I went
up to change my coat for a blazer, prior to making a search in the
garden. The Tundish and I happened to go up the stairs together, he to
his room and I to mine. They were next door to each other, and as he
opened his door out came Janet. Obviously a little astonished, he
stood to one side to allow her to pass.
“Sorry, Doctor. I was finishing off some dusting for Ethel, and didn’t
expect you back so soon,” she apologized.
He made some conventional remark and she went on down-stairs, but I
noticed, and I wondered whether the doctor noticed it too, that she
had no duster. She had been searching his room, I felt convinced, and
I hated the whole business and Janet’s part in it in particular as I
had never hated it before.
Lunch passed without incident—Janet did not look at me once—but
afterward, as we were leaving the dining-room, with a whispered “Take
this,” she handed me a folded note. I went up-stairs to my bedroom at
once to read it.
“Dear Mr. Jeffcock,”—it ran—“I am going out this afternoon and shall
not be back until four o’clock. If an opportunity occurs will you
please tell Miss Hunter that you saw me coming out of the doctor’s
bedroom before lunch; that you heard me tell him that I had been
dusting, and that you noticed that I hadn’t any duster. Just tell
her that you thought it rather curious. I don’t want to tell her
myself, but I do want her to guess that I have been searching the
doctor’s room. Please burn this.”
There was no signature, and I folded it up and put it carefully away
in my pocketbook in spite of her request; it was my first letter from
Janet and whatever its contents it should be preserved. As for its
contents, I could not understand them at all. Think as I would, and I
sat on the edge of my bed for a full quarter of an hour thinking as
hard as the sweltering heat would let me, I could read neither sense
nor reason into her request. If, for some reason or other, she wanted
Margaret to know that she was working with Allport, why could she not
tell her right out, instead of adopting this roundabout device? If, on
the other hand, she still desired to keep her true identity hidden
from the rest, why should she tell even Margaret that she had been
searching the doctor’s room?
After a time, I gave up my attempt to follow the reasoning that led to
the writing of the letter, and concentrated my attention on trying to
carry out the instructions it contained. The two boys had been reduced
to their chess again and were playing in the drawing-room. In neither
the house nor the garden could I find Margaret, and I concluded that
she had gone to her room to lie down, so I had perforce to amuse
myself as best I might by reading the paper and by watching the two at
their funereal game.
Three o’clock came and then half past three, and I was beginning to
think that I should be unable to do as Janet wished when Margaret
joined us and surprisingly asked me to go into the garden with her.
“Come up behind the garage,” she said, “I want to show you something.”
Full of curiosity, and wondering whether what she had got to show
might not have some bearing on Janet’s strange request, I followed her
up the garden and we sat down on the bench behind the garage where I
had caught Allport talking to Janet.
“You remember that newspaper that was found in the chest of drawers in
your bedroom?” Margaret began.
“Yes.”
“Well, you know, I always felt somehow that you might have put it
there yourself after all—forgive me for saying so—and that it might
have been you who put up the second notice over the switch, you see
you found it and had such a chance to put——”
“You have no business to make such suggestions,” I interrupted
angrily, as soon as I could conquer my first astonishment.
“Oh, please don’t be cross, you know what a way I have of blurting out
whatever comes into my head. And, after all, it must be one of us, we
must each of us be guessing and thinking these awful things about the
rest. It was all very well, and natural too, perhaps, of the doctor to
warn us against it, but it really isn’t human nature not to. However,
it doesn’t matter now for just look here what I’ve stumbled across.”
She put her hand down inside the top of her jumper and pulled out a
sheet of newspaper, handing it over for my inspection. Like the one
that had been found in my chest of drawers, odd words and letters had
been cut out here and there, and I gazed at it astonished.
“And look at this,” she added, passing me a smaller piece of paper.
I recognized it for what it was at once. It was a sheet torn from the
memo tablet that stood on the doctor’s desk. On it there were some
almost illegible pencil notes, about a prescription, I gathered, in
The Tundish’s characteristic writing. And right across the middle of
it, and pasted partly over the penciled words, had been stuck letters
cut from a newspaper forming the first portion of the identical
message that I had found on the card above the landing switch.
“dark Deeds ARE done in D”
“Where on earth did you find this?” I asked her.
“In the box-room up among the attics. I went up just now to look for a
cardboard box to send some things away in. Annie told me there were a
lot stored away up there and the first one I came to had a lot of
rubbish and odd bits of paper in it and when I emptied them out,
this”—she pointed to the memo slip—“fell face upward on the floor.
Then I found the sheet of newspaper when I searched among the rest.”
“I can’t make it out, can you? Who could have put it there?”
“It looks fishy to me,” she said. “Kenneth’s bit of fish,” she added
pensively after a pause.
“You mean you think that Dr. Wallace is—responsible for this.”
“Well, it does point that way to say the least of it. I’m sure that’s
his writing on the pad slip. And listen. I went to Annie with the box
to ask her if she thought I might take it, and this is what she told
me. ‘Oh yes, miss, it was by the waste-paper basket in the dispensary
this morning where the doctor always puts anything that he wants us to
throw away, but it seemed such a nice box that I took it up-stairs
instead.’ Now what do you make of that? I argue that he must have been
trying what it would look like, when he was interrupted or something,
and that he might have thrown them into the basket or on to the floor
by mistake. The basket may have been full, perhaps, and then when
Annie went to clean out she would naturally sweep them up into the
box. Yes, and he would think that they had been burned, and wouldn’t
like to make any inquiries when he missed them later on!”
“Yes, I suppose that is a possibility,” I replied meditatively, “but
it doesn’t sound very characteristic of the doctor, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t, but I can’t think of anything more likely.”
We sat on the bench in thought for a little time, and then I gave her
the information Janet had asked me to in her little note. I could have
had no better opportunity.
“How very strange!” was Margaret’s comment. She sat frowning in
thought, and then she turned to me, her eyebrows arched. “And so you
suspect the doctor after all, do you? Or else why do you think that
Mrs. Kenley, of all unlikely people, might have been searching his
room? Come now, isn’t it more natural to suppose that she left the
duster in the room? I think you’re almost as bad as I am, Mr.
Jeffcock.”
“Well, one can’t help wondering,” I excused myself lamely enough; “but
what are you going to do with these?”
“Give them to the police, I suppose. It’s no use showing them to the
Kenneth-Ralph combination, and it would be unkind to say anything to
Ethel. I think I shall just keep them to myself until Mr. Allport
comes.”
“I think we ought to ring up the inspector at once, or show them to
Mrs. Kenley,” I ventured, “she at any rate is impartial and has no
bias.”
“You think her tremendously clever, don’t you? Perhaps I will.”
We got up to return to the house, my brain a-whirl with fresh
conjecture, but as we drew level with the end of the garage and were
approaching the little rose garden, I could have sworn that I heard
movements in the hedge.
“Did you hear that?” I asked, holding Margaret back.
“No, what?”
“I’m certain I heard some one moving in the rose garden.” We went
forward through the archway piercing the hedge as I spoke. At first we
could see nothing and we were just coming away when Margaret grabbed
me by the shoulder and pointed to the end of the hedge. Right at the
end of it where it met the garden wall some one was standing—pressed
well back between the hedge and the wall itself—apparently trying to
hide. We went to see who it could be.
It was Miss Summerson.
“What is the matter? Whatever are you doing?” Margaret asked her.
She came a little forward out of the hedge and stood before us, her
face scarlet, her breast heaving like a woman in a crisis in a picture
play, obviously on the edge of tears, a pitiable object. There we
stood, the three of us, Margaret and I exchanging glances of surprise,
Miss Summerson looking first at one of us and then at the other and
then at the ground, a study in furtive indecision.
At length she stammered, “I was trying to reach a rose in the hedge.”
I stepped forward to get it for her, pressing into the hedge where it
grew thickly against the wall and where we had seen her standing, but
no rose at all could I see.
“Whereabouts was the one you were after?” I asked, looking back over
my shoulder to where she and Margaret stood.
“Oh, I’m—I’m—no-not sure that there was one really,” she stammered,
looking at me beseechingly out of her timid tear-filled eyes. “I must
really go now.”
And before we could say another word she ran away through the arch,
leaving us alone with our astonishment.
“Well, and what are we expected to make of that?” I queried.
“You know, I wonder whether she really did lose the poison cupboard
key!” was Margaret’s rather irrelevant reply.
“But what is—I don’t see the connection.”
“Oh, none, no connection exactly, but her behavior was queer, wasn’t
it? And I’ve always thought she looked a little underhand. You see, if
she did poison Stella, then it would be quite a good plan to lose the
key, a little before the event, say on the afternoon before and in
time for some one else to have possibly found it.”
“Oh, I say, how could she though, she wasn’t even in the house?”
“She could—she could have got in through the bedroom window while we
were at supper. She may easily have known of the medicine there ready
for Stella and handy for the poison. In spite of what he said, the
doctor may have made it up before she left; or he may have told her
about it; or he may have written himself a reminder on his pad, or—oh,
I can think of several ways in which she might have got to know about
the draft.”
“But why should she have done it?”
“Oh, you men, how blind you are. Do you seriously mean to tell me that
you haven’t noticed that she worships the ground he treads on? Why,
she can’t keep her eyes away from him when they are in the room
together.”
“But even so, that’s surely no reason why she should murder one of
Ethel’s guests?”
“Blockhead,” she laughed, “she was jealous. And I’m not so sure that
she hadn’t good reason to be too, or why did Mr. Allport ask Ethel
about it in the way he did?”
“But, my dear Miss Hunter, the girl is only just engaged to another
man, you heard her tell us so yourself.”
“And, my dear Mr. Jeffcock,” she mocked, “it’s quite, quite possible
to be engaged to one man and in love with another all the time—even
quite, quite nice girls may find themselves in that position. If you
doubt it I can give you a case near at hand, can’t I now?”
I had to admit to myself that she could, but our conversation was
interrupted by the cathedral clock which boomed out the hour of four.
Margaret seemed absurdly—I was going to say put out, but I think
alarmed is more the word—that it should be so late.
“Why, that’s four o’clock,” she whispered. “Mr. Allport expected to be
here by then, didn’t he? I must go, I must really go. I had no idea it
was so late.”
We hurried off down the garden together. A subtle change seemed to
have come over Margaret—in the rose garden and behind the garage,
friendly and anxious to exchange her ideas and confidences with
mine—now suddenly reticent and disturbed. I could hear her whispering
to herself as we hurried along the path, “How late it is, how late it
is, I had no idea it was so late!” It somehow brought a picture of the
White Rabbit hurrying off to the duchess’s tea party before my mind.
“I say, they’re going to have tea in the garden, and it’s ready now;
Mr. Allport may be here before we finish,” she said aloud in an
agitated voice.
“Well, and why not?” I voiced my surprise.
“But I wanted to see Mrs. Kenley before he came, to show her the paper
I found in the attic, you know, and now I shall have to wait until
after tea and he may be here before we finish.”
The doctor was still away on his afternoon round, but Janet, who had
returned, and the others were seated under the cedar having tea. It
was a hurried, agitated, unhappy little meal: Ethel obviously nervous
and on edge; Margaret, anxious to finish and buttonhole my Janet,
hardly ate anything at all; Janet absorbed and I fancied a little
worried; Kenneth morose, with Ralph, as usual, a sort of sympathetic
shadow, myself thinking, thinking, thinking, of Margaret’s latest find
and Miss Summerson’s odd behavior. And all the time as we sat under
the cedar’s shade with the sunsplashed lawn before us and the rooks
cawing dreamily overhead, we each had an ear alert and listening for
the front door-bell, and Allport, and the breaking of the storm. No
wonder that we finished rather quickly and that Annie, for once, had
overestimated our requirements in the matter of bread and butter.
The two boys went off to the garage to make Ralph’s beloved and
expensive car ready for the anticipated journey back to Sheffield as
soon as Allport should arrive and release them from their parole.
Ethel went indoors to aid the overworked Annie, and I think to escape
from the rest of us. I saw Margaret turn and whisper to Janet as soon
as Ethel had gone. They were seated next to each other, Janet next to
me, Margaret in the chair beyond, and it just happened that I was
looking at Janet’s hand as it rested on the arm of her wicker-chair
when Margaret began to whisper. I was thinking how characteristic
those hands of hers were—rather large for a woman—strong and gentle at
once with fingers that tapered away like a dream; hands that were both
manly and womanly at once. And then to my astonishment I noticed that
the wicker of the chair-arm was bending beneath her grip.
She rose to her feet as I glanced at her in surprise—surprise which
increased, when I felt her tap my foot with hers as she said, “I don’t
suppose that I shall be gone for more than five minutes, Mr.
Jeffcock—about five minutes, Mr. Jeffcock.” For all the world as
though we had had some definite arrangement together and she were
making some excuse. But she took Margaret by the arm and walked away
before I could question her about it.
They went into the house together.