Explanations and a Challenge
A few hours later the sad remainder of our little tennis party was
gathered in the drawing-room round one of the open windows, Janet and
Ethel comfortably on the settee, The Tundish and myself perched each
in a corner of the broad window sill, little Allport lolling back at
his ease in one of the large wicker chairs. It was both wide and deep,
and, entirely unconcerned as to his lack of inches, he sat well back,
his legs stuck out straight in front of him, his diminutive feet
barely projecting beyond the edge of the seat.
During the evening hours a heavy haze had gathered, to thicken later
into definite cloud, and now a steady rain was falling. The air was
heavy with sweet rain-washed scents released from thirsty soil and
reviving plants.
The smoke from our pipes floated over our heads in swirls and
snakelike twists that showed up gray and blue in the fading light.
Through the open window there came the welcome patter of the rain. A
thrush was singing his even-song. On Janet’s lap lay the surviving
tabby cat, lazily indolent under her gentle caressing hands, A sense
of tranquillity and brooding peace seemed to enfold us like some quiet
blessing. “Peace on earth,” sang the thrush in the tree, and “Courage
and hope,” throbbed my heart in reply, whenever I looked at Janet. She
was facing the light, her eyes like two clear stars, that now and
again would shine into mine, when the room and its occupants would
fade away leaving us alone together for a blessed brief eternity.
She had not been really hurt by Margaret’s ill-treatment, and apart
from the effects of the chloroform and a bruise here and there, she
was none the worse for her experience. Cold bandages, a little brandy
and a couple of hours’ rest had enabled me to recover from my own
collapse, which the doctor attributed as much to shock as to the blow
on my head.
Margaret’s headlong fall had broken a leg and had stunned her. She
regained consciousness but never her reason, and she had been taken to
a neighboring asylum babbling incoherently of paraffin and vitriol.
Kenneth and Ralph had returned to Sheffield together in the Daimler. I
was lying down in my room when they left and can tell you nothing of
the manner of their going, or of how Kenneth and Ethel parted from
each other.
The Tundish had forbidden any reference to the day’s events until
after dinner, and now, solemn and sad, but with feelings of
unutterable relief, we sat waiting to hear what little Allport had to
tell us.
He finished his coffee at last, put the cup on a table beside him,
relighted his pipe, and with some hesitation at first as he paused
here and there for a word or a phrase, began to give us the
explanations we were each for our own special reasons so curious to
hear.
“First of all, Doctor,” he said, “I think I had better tell you what I
am able to, about your dispenser, Miss Summerson, for in a sense she
has been the root cause, both of Miss Palfreeman’s death, and of all
your later troubles. Had she only been more robust in character, this
week might have come and gone, for all of you, like any other among
the annual fifty-two.
“As you will know, Miss Hanson, the Summersons used to live in that
row of little houses just beyond the end of the Hunters’ garden, and
unfortunately for Miss Summerson, the two girls struck up—I was going
to say ‘a friendship’—but what a word for it! The old fable of the
wolf and the lamb is a sweet little springtime idyll compared with the
tale of this comradeship of theirs. It began by Miss Hunter tricking
the younger girl into some petty dishonorable act—I won’t specify
it—and then persuading her to commit another to save herself from the
first.”
The little man paused as though wondering how much he should tell us,
and I saw a picture of a garden border with a tall frail flower in the
clinging bindweed’s devitalizing grip.
“Miss Summerson has made a clean breast of everything to me, but I can
only tell you that for the last two years she has been absolutely and
completely in Miss Hunter’s power, and Mr. Jeffcock here at any rate,
may be able to appreciate what that might ultimately mean for a
nervous girl. She was terrified out of all sense of safety and
proportion. It was a tyranny complete.”
I remembered the cruel laugh that I had heard in the waiting-room on
the morning of my arrival at Dalehouse, and how poor Miss Summerson
had lied to the doctor about it. How many similar lies had she told, I
wondered, during the past two years; how many unhappy hours spent in
self-recrimination! Ethel moved restlessly in her corner of the
settee. We were silent for a little while. Then Allport, clearing his
throat, proceeded.
“The key of the poison cupboard was never lost at all. It was handed
over to Miss Hunter under threat of exposure to the man to whom Miss
Summerson hoped to become engaged. She has told me, and I am inclined
to believe her, that she thought that Miss Hunter wanted to help
herself to some of the drugs, and that she had no idea that the
poisons were to be tampered with or used, and very possibly there was
no such intention when the key was first secured.”
“But why didn’t she demand what she wanted, instead of getting hold of
the key, and running the risk of being caught at the cupboard? If she
had Miss Summerson in her power in the way you’ve suggested, surely
she could have asked for drugs or anything else at any time she
liked?”
Allport shook his head. “No, Doctor, if you think that, then you don’t
yet understand Miss Hunter—I do not myself entirely—there are still
certain points that I can’t set down even a mad woman’s reasons
against, but I do understand her better than that. You see, above
everything else she was cruel. She knew well enough that Miss
Summerson would be in an agony of apprehension until the key was
returned, and it was that which gave her pleasure. It was typical of a
hundred other cruelties that Miss Summerson has suffered, some of them
merely petty, many of them worse.”
The Tundish seemed to be content with the explanation. I, too, had
questions I wanted to ask, but I was too eager to hear the rest of his
story to frame them, and the little man continued without further
interruption.
“Well, that is how Miss Hunter secured the key. There was nothing
actually criminal in the giving of it, but later, Miss Summerson’s
reticence was of course a punishable offense. She has begged me to
tell you, Doctor, that in spite of everything she would have come
forward had you been arrested. I have told you, as I promised I would,
and you must take it for what it is worth.
“However, if she endangered you all by the one act, she certainly
saved your life, Janet, over the matter of the vitriol, When she asked
for the key, which according to promise was already overdue, it was
not forthcoming, and a bottle of vitriol was demanded against its
return. Fortunately, and we all know now how very fortunate it was,
they were interrupted before the exchange could be made, and it gave
Miss Summerson an opportunity to decant the contents of an old
sulphuric acid bottle and substitute medicinal paraffin for it.
“And now I want you to try to understand the difficulty of my position
on the morning after the murder. There was ample evidence to have
warranted the arrest of the doctor here. He made up the fatal draft;
he knew all about and had access to the poison; and both he and Miss
Palfreeman had lived in Shanghai and had almost certainly been
acquainted there. There was a possible motive—after the inquiry an
obvious one—the key of the locked bedroom door was found in his
pocket.”
“What!” The Tundish exclaimed with unusual excitement.
“Yes, in the pocket of your indoor coat, Doctor. I had my reasons for
saying it was found elsewhere. For one thing, I wanted to observe Miss
Hunter when I made the statement, to see how she would take it. I wish
now that I had thought of some other place in which to have said I had
hidden it, but I could not have foreseen the consequences of my
deception.”
“But China! How could you possibly have known at your round-table
inquiry that I had lived in China and had met Miss Palfreeman there?”
“My dear Doctor,” the little man laughed complacently, “we live in
civilized times—times of telephones and medical directories, for
instance. Within five minutes of Mr. Jeffcock’s call to the police
station on Wednesday morning, I was asking Scotland Yard to look up
your record in the directory, and to find out if you were known by
repute to any of the medical staff. Inspector Brown’s superintendent
knew exactly which players in the tournament were staying with Dr.
Hanson, and before we came to Dalehouse inquiries with regard to Mr.
Jeffcock’s antecedents and the rest of the party were already on foot.
We did not know Miss Palfreeman’s address, but you kindly furnished us
with that before we even had to ask you for it. It was not a difficult
matter for Scotland Yard to ascertain that Miss Palfreeman’s uncle had
been for a time in Shanghai, that her father, who was a government
official, had committed suicide there, and that you had lived there
too and were almost certainly acquainted with all three of them.”
“Yes, of course. How perfectly simple! But the quarrel! What about
that? Neither the medical directory nor the girl at the telephone
exchange could help you there.”
“No. That was merely an instance of the nasty suspicious turn a
detective’s mind instinctively takes. I didn’t know that there had
been any quarrel. But I did assume for the time that you had murdered
Miss Palfreeman, and if you had done so, then surely it was only
logical to make the assumption of a quarrel too?”
“You did really suspect me then, and leave me at large? Surely that
was a risk to take?”
“No, as you will see later I did not altogether suspect you. But I did
when I was questioning you at my inquiry. When you treat a patient,
Doctor, you diagnose the disease and then you treat him for it, and
you work consistently on the assumption that your diagnosis has been
correct until you find out definitely that you have made a mistake.
You don’t make up your medicines to suit two or three possible
ailments on the off chance that one of them may be correct. Well, my
own experience has taught me that at an inquiry like the one we had
round the dining-room table on the Wednesday morning, the only
possible way to obtain exact information is to assume that the
questionee is guilty. It is no good making up your mind beforehand
that X is guilty and allowing that to color all the questions you put
to Y. I believe that my success as a detective is due to the fact that
for a time I can force myself into believing what I don’t really
believe, more than to anything else. I questioned each of you as Miss
Palfreeman’s murderer. As I questioned you I was convinced of your
guilt. Then, when it was over, I was able to stop play-acting, and
sift out the information I had secured.”
The conceited little fellow looked round brightly for approbation
after the manner of some small boy who knows he’s said something
rather smart. Self-satisfied little beggar! Just when I was beginning
rather to like him too! The Tundish murmured something about a
doctor’s diagnosis not always being quite the pig-headed business he’d
described, and Allport, filling up his pipe again, continued.
“As I was explaining, it was inevitable that my first suspicions
should turn to the doctor, but there were several points that led me
to think it might be a mistake to make an immediate arrest without
further investigation. On the floor, near the bedside table, in Miss
Palfreeman’s room, I had picked up a tiny fragment of splintered glass
and a good-sized diamond.
“The diamond had evidently fallen out of the setting on a ring or a
broach—it might have belonged to any one—most likely to Miss
Palfreeman herself, but when we came to search the bedrooms we found
no piece of jewelry from which a stone was missing. It struck me as
being rather strange that its loss had not been advertised. Annie had
heard nothing of it and none of you had questioned her about its loss.
It was possible, of course, that the owner might not have noticed that
it was missing, but then I should have expected to find a damaged ring
either among Miss Palfreeman’s belongings or in one of the other
bedrooms. Not very much to go on, perhaps, but I felt it to be
unnatural that a diamond of such considerable value should be lost and
nothing said.”
It was my turn to interrupt, and unlike his previous attitude, the
little man seemed now almost to welcome the interruption. I could see
that he was in the throes of an exquisite—and I must admit a
thoroughly deserved—enjoyment. He was like a child, I thought, sucking
its favorite sweet, and making it last. I told him how I had caught
Margaret searching the stairs for a sixpence that Annie found for her
later on, and how my half-awakened suspicions had been allayed by the
find.
Then The Tundish informed us that he too had seen her searching, but
in his case on the floor of poor Stella’s room. He had been mounting
the stairs to the upper landing. The door of the room was half closed,
and he had seen movements within, or had fancied that he had. But when
he had pushed the door open to see what it was, he had found Margaret
kneeling devoutly in prayer at the side of the bed.
Once again I was amazed at the placid doctor’s powers of description.
He was uncanny. He described the little incident in the fewest
possible simple words, but like the bold strokes of a master they made
the picture live. Margaret, on hands and knees, half frantic,
searching the floor for her incriminating diamond—then a sudden creak
on the stairs, and the doctor gently pushing open the door to find her
kneeling in prayerful attitude at the side of Stella’s bed—an
attitude, surely, to make angels weep and Sapphira jealous.
The little man smoked thoughtfully for a few minutes, rearranged the
cushions at the back of his chair, and continued.
“Yes, it was very fortunate, very, that finding of the diamond on the
bedroom floor. It might so easily have been trodden into the carpet.
Luck was on the side of justice then. And again luck was with us when,
quite by accident, I found that the little splinter of glass came from
the stopper of the bottle of Chinese poison. Have you ever examined it
carefully, Doctor?”
The Tundish shook his head.
“It’s a really wonderful piece of work. The glass is very thin and
fragile and is doubled back underneath the curving irregular top,
curling inward again close to the projection that fits the neck of the
bottle itself. It was from this point that the tiny splinter was
missing. By the merest chance, I happened to hold the bottle up to the
light and look up underneath the stopper when we were in the
dispensary together. Later I found that my little fragment fitted it
exactly.
“I argued that had the doctor added the poison to the draft, the
addition would have been made when it was prepared.
“Again, that bedroom key required explanation. You might just
conceivably have returned up-stairs and have thrown the glass among
the ivy on the roof, and having locked the door, lied to Mr. Jeffcock
about it—it was possible that you might have done that in order to
throw suspicion on to some one else—but I could think of no
satisfactory explanation that would account for your leaving the key
in your own coat pocket. An oversight, it might have been, but even at
that early stage of our acquaintance, dropped bottle-stoppers and
glaring oversights did not seem to fit you, Doctor.
“Anyhow, I decided that in all the circumstances I ought to give you
the benefit of the doubt, but that was about all I had to go on when I
secured your promise that you would submit to a voluntary confinement
if I held my hand. It never occurred to me that I might be putting you
all in danger. True, the key of the poison cupboard was still missing,
but I had no reason to anticipate any general attempt at slaughter.
“Before the joint conference in the dining-room at which I succeeded
in achieving such universal unpopularity, I became more than ever
satisfied that my decision had been the right one, and the inquiry
itself only added to my satisfaction. And if I had known what Miss
Palfreeman’s uncle has since told me, the inquiry would hardly have
been necessary at all.”
The Tundish, who had been sitting quietly in his corner of the
window-seat, with his hands clasped round one knee, became suddenly
alert. “And it was hardly necessary for Mr. Crawford to discuss my
affairs. I very much wish that he had not.”
“Oh, come now, Doctor, a detective’s mind is chock-full of curiosity,
and it was only natural for any one seated at that inquiry to wonder
what it was that had caused Miss Palfreeman’s father to commit
suicide, and what part he imagined you had played in his disaster. All
that Mr. Crawford told me when I pressed him for information was that
now that his niece was dead there was no longer any need for secrecy;
that in his opinion it had been absurd, in the circumstances, to keep
it secret at all, and that if matters went against you, he could and
would give certain information that would throw a very different light
on the affair.”
The Tundish hesitated. For once he looked disturbed and at a loss.
“Yes, it is quite true that every one who could have been damaged by
the story is dead, but even so, I do not like giving explanations of
my own conduct at their expense. However, as briefly as I can, and in
the strictest confidence, I will give you the outline of the unhappy
story. Miss Palfreeman’s mother was a very beautiful and charming
woman, and like all beautiful and charming women who are stationed at
the world’s outposts, she was subject to more than her share of
temptation. She was soon the center of the English-speaking colony in
Shanghai. She got badly into debt and stole and sold some of her
husband’s official papers in order to save herself from catastrophe.
But she might have saved herself the trouble and have taken her debts
to her Maker, for only a few days after the papers were missed she was
taken seriously ill of the complaint from which she died. My friend,
her husband, loved her. The papers were lost beyond recovery.
Circumstances were such that though he suspected me of the theft he
could not make any open accusation, or hope to substantiate it if he
did.”
The doctor paused for a few minutes, obviously pondering what further
details he should give us. The light had nearly gone, and I could just
make out the strong outline of his clear-cut face from where I sat at
the end of the window-sill opposite to him. The wind was rising and
the rain was beating against the window now, the drops collecting in
little rivulets and streams that wriggled down the panes. Then he
added in his quiet, unemotional voice, “I attended her in her last
hours, and at death’s door she confessed what she had done. For the
sake of her peace of mind, and for the sake of my friend, I promised
that her secret should be kept. I did not know until yesterday that
she had previously made a similar confession to her brother in
writing. Well, that, briefly, is the story, and that is why I could
not be more explicit about the quarrel with Stella’s father and her
natural dislike for me.”
Ethel, what did you think, I wonder, of the man of your choice, as you
sat there on the settee by Janet’s side in the fast fading light. To
me, it came in a sudden flash of enlightenment, the reason for the
impressive power of the unemotional, unassuming man. Bedrock,
fundamental, essential honesty was the one foundation of his quiet
strength. A rock on which he stood deriding fear and all the petty
evils that beset the half-and-halfer. I felt a flush of shame, that I
could have allowed my amateurish reasoning to besmirch my belief in
such a one. My sheets of notes, and my table of relative guilt, which
I still carried in my pocket, scoffed at me aloud. But for you, Ethel,
what a glow of happiness his words must have brought you! Of all of us
you alone had trusted him through thick and through thin. You had
overdrawn your account at the bank of blind belief, and your lover had
met the debt and paid you back in full. No wonder your eyes were
bright.
There was another little pause when The Tundish had finished speaking.
We none of us made any comment and Allport again continued his
explanations.
“As you already know, I found some burned papers in Miss Hunter’s
bedroom grate, but you did not know that there was one unburned
fragment among the rest. Quite unmistakably it was the corner of a
photograph, and fortunately it was the corner bearing the
photographer’s name. A little later in the drawing-room—you and
Inspector Brown were there, Mr. Jeffcock—and once again by the
sheerest piece of good fortune, I caught sight of exactly the same
name across the corner of a photograph of Mr. Bennett that stood on
the top of the piano.
“It had been taken in Sheffield by Parberry, and the letters
r-b-e-r-r-y had straggled across the corner of the bit I had found in
the bedroom grate, and allowing for the treatment it had received—the
texture and quality of the heavy mounts were both the same—I could not
be certain that the photo Miss Hunter had burned was a duplicate of
the one on the piano, but somehow I felt that it might be, and I
decided to find out more about it if I could, and as far as I might,
the extent to which the two had been acquainted.
“I did find out a certain amount from my direct questions to Miss
Hunter, but it was to Mr. Bennett that I was chiefly indebted, though
I put no question to him. You will remember that one of the questions
I asked you, Miss Hanson, was whether the doctor had ever shown any
sign that he might perhaps be attracted by Miss Palfreeman?”
A quiet “Yes” came from Ethel’s corner of the settee.
“When I asked that question, Mr. Bennett quite unmistakably took a
suddenly increased interest in the proceedings. I concluded that he
had had a special interest in Miss Palfreeman himself, and I felt that
there might still be a motive if Miss Hunter had committed the crime
and not the doctor. Please don’t imagine that I actually arrived at my
conclusions on such vague and shadowy material. I merely felt that the
whole affair required further scrutiny.”
“But, even now, I don’t think I understand why she burned the photo.
Why did she do it?” Ethel queried.
“She burned the photo because she didn’t want it to be found among her
belongings. She would feel that it would be too patent that her old
love-affair with Mr. Bennett still survived so far as she was
concerned, and that if it came to light that Mr. Bennett had been
obviously attracted by Miss Palfreeman, it might suggest a possible
motive.”
“But she knew that both Dr. Wallace and I knew exactly how fond she
has always been of Ralph,” Ethel objected. “She couldn’t count on our
not telling you.”
“No, that is quite true, but I think that it was a reasonable action
for her to take, all the same. For her to bring a photo with her on a
short visit was a complete admission of her feelings. It was definite.
The mere fact that the finding of the unburned corner did help to
convince me that she was involved, proves that she was right in what
she did, if only she had taken more care.”
Ethel nodded her agreement.
“I was dissatisfied, too, even then, about Miss Summerson. I don’t
know whether it struck you in the same way, but to me, there was
something unnatural about her behavior when she told us she had lost
the key. I was convinced that she was keeping information back.
“Very much against the inspector’s wishes, then, I had made up my mind
before the inquiry that I would not immediately arrest the doctor, and
after the inquiry, and in spite of what came out about the practical
joke and the quarrel with Miss Palfreeman’s father, I saw no real
reason to alter my decision. I quite made up my mind to leave you
undivided, and to put an unknown agent into the house who could not be
suspected of having any connection with the police.”
I saw my darling bend her graceful head lower over the cat.
“What made you change your mind then?” Ethel asked.
“He didn’t change his mind,” Janet replied.
I had almost forgotten that Ethel and The Tundish were both of them
unaware of Janet’s connection with Allport, and even after she had
spoken they were a little time in grasping what her words implied.
It was The Tundish who tumbled to it first.
“Well, then, Mrs. Kenley,” he said pleasantly, “we are more indebted
to you than ever. You relieved us of Torquemada here in the chair, you
saved us from Aunt Emmeline, you probably prevented us all from
cutting one another’s throats, and all the time you were solving the
mystery that had entangled us in its meshes.”
“But I don’t begin to understand. You are Bob Kenley’s wife, aren’t
you? You must be because of mother’s letter——” Ethel was properly
bewildered, and took some convincing that Janet could be anything
other than she had pretended, but ultimately all was explained, and I
was relieved to see that Janet had not in any way lost prestige by
what had come to light.
“With Mrs. Kenley safely installed in the house, I went over to
Sheffield to make what inquiries I could. I was soon satisfied that
there had been something in the nature of a love-affair between Miss
Hunter and Mr. Bennett. I also learned that she had been asked to
resign from the school in which she taught. That was on Thursday
morning. In the evening when I got back here, I was met with the
disturbing information that the Chinese flagon had been found to
contain nothing but water, and that the poison itself was still in the
murderer’s private possession. You will see at once that almost surely
cut out the doctor, unless he was being very, very clever and had
removed it just to make me come to the conclusion I did.”
“I had practically made up my mind to break up the party and rely on
obtaining further evidence in some other way, but Janet overpersuaded
me, and we took Mr. Jeffcock partly into our confidence so that she
should have some one always at hand in case of need.”
When I remembered how I had caught them behind the garage, it amused
me, his reference to taking me into their confidence. I smiled to
myself, and I thought that Janet was equally amused, but I made no
comment.
“This is what I imagine actually happened. Mr. Bennett’s obvious
attentions to Miss Palfreeman aroused Miss Hunter’s jealousy. Who
knows what castles she had built, on the foundation that they were
staying in the same house and playing in the same tournament together?
What hopes she may not have had with regard to their reunion? Perhaps
at the psychological moment she heard the doctor tell Miss Palfreeman
that her medicine had been sent up-stairs, or perhaps she saw Annie
taking it up. The cupboard key she already had, and in spite of what
you have said, Doctor, she probably knew a good deal about the poison.
Remember her connection with Miss Summerson. I think that the poison
must have been taken from the cupboard and added to the draft some
time between six and seven on Tuesday. What made her decide to keep
the rest, I can’t explain, neither have I found out where she put it.
But it would be easy to hide. For instance, she could have put it in
one of her scent bottles and have hidden it in the garden.
“On the Wednesday morning after the murder was discovered she probably
lost her nerve to some extent, and thought she might add to her safety
by throwing away the glass and putting the key to the bedroom door in
the doctor’s pocket. As luck would have it, the doctor unfortunately
drew particular attention to the fact that he hadn’t locked the door.
“When Mr. Dane stated at the inquiry, that the doctor had laid
unnatural stress on the fact that you all of you might have been
up-stairs unknown to the rest during Tuesday evening, that probably
decided her later actions, and explains the second notice, and the
hiding of the newspaper in Mr. Jeffcock’s bedroom.”
“That still puzzles me,” I exclaimed. “Why on earth didn’t she hide
the paper in the doctor’s room?”
“I think that she wanted to spread the suspicion,” Allport answered me
after a pause. “And it wasn’t a bad plan either. She had already put
the medicine glass inside one of your socks before she threw it out of
the window among the ivy on the roof. But for accidents such as the
unburned corner of photograph, the splinter of glass and the diamond,
we might have been sadly at sea, and it may interest you to know, Mr.
Jeffcock, that for a period you were the prime favorite of our good
friend Inspector Brown.”
“But why didn’t you suspect me in the same way that you suspected
Margaret, just at first, I mean?” Ethel asked him.
“There was the photograph, for one thing, and then as we sat round the
dining-room table it was quite obvious to me that—— Well, I think I
shall leave the doctor to find out what it was that was so obvious by
himself, if he doesn’t know it already.”
The little man actually chuckled.
“John, don’t be such a tease,” Janet admonished.
Allport was going up in my estimation again, but I did not like his
frequent “Janets” nor Janet calling him John. Interested as I had been
in what he had told us, I wanted to get ahead with that still greater
mystery that concerned Janet and me alone, and already a half-formed
plan of campaign was shaping in my head. I suppressed several
questions that I really wanted to ask, but the others were not so
considerate.
“Why did she attack Mrs. Kenley?” came from the doctor. “And by the
way, Jeffcock,” he added, turning to me, “I still owe you an apology
for my conduct in the box-room. But poor Margaret came to me in a
great state, and told me that she had just seen you drag Mrs. Kenley
along the attic passage and into the box-room at the end of it,
locking the door behind you; and when I had broken the door down,
there you were with the atmosphere reeking of chloroform.”
“Your mistake was both understandable and excusable,” I assured him.
“As to why she attacked me, I believe that she suspected me from the
very beginning,” Janet said, picking up the cat and cuddling her up
against her neck in the most distracting fashion. “To start with, I am
almost sure that she overheard, or at any rate, saw me talking to you
behind the garage, John. As Mr. Jeffcock and I came away, some one, I
am certain, moved in the bushes near by. She probably coupled what she
saw with the fact that it was I who had discovered her diamond with
such surprising ease in the grass on the lawn. When she came to think
about it, she would realize what a mistake she had made in claiming it
as hers.”
“Didn’t you really find the diamond there then?” Ethel questioned.
“No, of course I didn’t. Mr. Allport gave it to me. Whether she may
not also have seen me searching in one of your bedrooms, I don’t know,
but she was very sly and she trapped me cleverly in the box-room. Just
after we finished tea in the garden, she whispered to me that she
wanted to show me something indoors. I was suspicious, but I still had
a sneaking feeling that you might have been the culprit after all, Dr.
Wallace. The incident of the bird bath had put me off the scent. It
was odd that you should have come up to the rose garden and have
noticed that the bath had disappeared so immediately after Mr.
Jeffcock and I had found the dead birds.”
“Dead birds! Whatever are you talking about?”
“Yes, birds and a cat. Hasn’t John told you of our sad little find in
the rose garden? Just before you came to call us in to breakfast this
morning, we had found that the poison had been emptied into the bird
bath. There were dozens of dead birds and one of the cats lying dead
on the lawn. We rang up for Inspector Brown, and we had no sooner
bundled him away than you appeared on the scene and began to make
inquiries about the missing bath. Then, too, I did not quite like your
taking away the whisky bottle and the glass from the kitchen table the
night before.”
“I wanted to find out if they contained anything in addition to the
whisky. And they did. The whisky had been heavily drugged.”
“Yes, we know it was. I took the table-cloth on which some of it had
been spilled to the police station. Miss Hunter had drugged the whisky
and then had turned on the gas, after cook had succumbed to its
effects. She made a bad mistake when she forgot to turn on the light
as well. But as I was saying, at the time it made me begin to wonder
when I saw you go off with the bottle and the glass. You see, I didn’t
appreciate that you suspected Miss Hunter too, and I thought that you
were taking them to prevent any one else from knowing what they had
contained. I was puzzled about it, and when she showed me a slip from
one of your memo pads with the words pasted over it, as though you had
been making a trial to see what it would look like, and a newspaper
with odd words cut out of it, well, I followed her to the box-room
eagerly enough, hoping that we might find something else. I was
leaning over a box on the floor, when she came up behind me and held a
pad soaked in chloroform over my nose and mouth. I hadn’t the ghost of
a chance and couldn’t utter a sound.”
My darling finished her explanation, and I cried out, “Oh, what a fool
I’ve been. What a blundering fool! You warned me. I see it now, and
there I sat in the garden and left you without help.”
“No, no, indeed it wasn’t your fault at all. I ought never to have
gone with her. You couldn’t have guessed. Any one might have missed
it.”
“Look here, are you two talking some other language? What’s it all
about?” Allport interrupted.
“You’re not to tell him, Mr. Jeffcock.”
“She warned me that she thought she might be in danger as clearly as
she could, and idiot that I am, I’ve only just this minute
understood.”
Then I went on to tell them how Margaret had shown me her alleged
box-room find behind the garage, and of how we had found Miss
Summerson hiding in the hedge and what she had said.
“Yes, Miss Summerson has told me about that,” Allport informed us when
I had finished. “Miss Hunter had sent her there and had told her to
hide in the hedge until she came to her. Then she took you along with
her and Miss Summerson was too frightened of her tormentor to explain.
She was in complete subjection.”
“But it was I who heard her moving,” I told him.
“Oh, she would have done it if you hadn’t.”
“And why did you want me to tell her about your dusting the doctor’s
room, and that I had noticed that you hadn’t any duster?” I asked,
turning to Janet.
“I wanted to know what she said. What did she say, by the way?”
I told her.
“Oh, if only I had known that, she would never have got me into that
box-room alone!”
“But surely what she said was innocent and reasonable enough?”
“No, it was neither. You see, she and I had dusted the doctor’s room
together directly after breakfast. It proved quite clearly that she
knew something of who I was, and that she suspected me, and she would
not have suspected me unless she had had a guilty conscience. Knowing
that she had dusted the room with me it was a most unnatural thing for
her to say. That was why I wanted you to tell her about it, only
unfortunately I never had the chance of asking you the result of the
little trap.”
“And cook! What about cook?” Ethel asked.
“Grace is a bad lot, Miss Hanson, and got no more than she deserved,”
Allport answered. “I’ve seen her in the hospital, and I’ve looked up
her record which is almost a record in itself. She told me that she
actually saw Miss Hunter coming out of Miss Palfreeman’s room on
Tuesday evening, but that she didn’t like to say anything because of
the family honor! You should have heard her attempt at the old family
retainer touch. What she really meant, was that she hoped to do better
for herself by blackmailing Miss Hunter.”
“I wonder why she seemed to threaten you so on the landing that night
then, Doctor—do you remember her ‘I knows what I knows, Dr.
Wallace,’” I asked, turning to The Tundish.
“No, I can’t quite understand that either,” he replied thoughtfully.
“It was silly, if she was really trying to blackmail Margaret, but
after all she was half fuddled with whisky and doubtless resented my
remarks about the dinner.”
I told them how I had heard cook’s threatening voice from one of the
upper windows, and we concluded that it was to Margaret she had been
speaking then.
The pauses in our conversation were growing longer. The thrush had
finished his song and had gone to roost. Now I could barely make out
Janet’s eyes, so dark had it become, though I could still see the
clear-cut oval of her face; and the light having gone I could feast on
what I saw. She should not leave Dalehouse, I resolved, before I had
made some real attempt to secure an early further meeting.
“When did she get up-stairs to throw away the glass?” The Tundish
asked, knocking the ashes out of his pipe and pulling the window to.
“She can have had very slight opportunity after breakfast.”
“I can tell you that,” I answered him. “When I stood at the telephone
trying to get through to the police station, Margaret came out of the
dining-room. I thought that she went down to the kitchen, but she must
have run up-stairs. I didn’t hear her, but the call was difficult and
maybe I was shouting. A little later I did think that I heard some one
come down, only I was too engrossed to look round.”
Then I told them of the conversation I had had with Margaret in the
garden, and of how she had told me that she had heard some one on the
stairs and had thought it was me and had directly accused me of hiding
the bedroom key.
“That’s it then,” Allport said with satisfaction. “She was pumping you
to find out if you had heard or seen anything that might have been
dangerous to her.”
“I hate to think about her. What will happen to her, John?” Janet’s
low voice was full of sympathy.
It was The Tundish who replied. “She will never come out of Highfield
Asylum alive. Now she is neither living nor dead, but I believe no
more accountable for what has happened than any of us here.”
“You suspected her all the time, didn’t you?” I asked him.
“Yes I did, but how could I say anything? What might not Allport here
have thought had I attempted to put forward such a facile solution,
and what would have been gained? Besides, I had nothing very much to
go on and I could have proved her neither guilty nor insane. But her
family history alone was enough to make me wonder. You caught me
looking it up again in Hanson’s case-book that afternoon, Jeffcock.
Hanson himself suspected her of taking drugs, and it was I who
persuaded Ethel to ask her to stay here for the tournament. Ethel
didn’t want to because young Bennett was coming and she knew that she
still cared for him, and that unfortunately, from her point of view,
he no longer cared for her. But I wanted her to come because I was
interested in her case. I felt certain from the very first that it was
she who had poisoned Stella, but I certainly hadn’t anything definite
to back up suspicions and at times they weakened. For instance, when I
caught you in the box-room, Jeffcock. I only had little things to go
on. You remember when I asked her and you to witness me making up that
medicine for Ethel? Well, you wouldn’t notice anything, but I was
watching her closely—she was simply thrilled—the idea of another
sleeping draft, the association was too strong for her to hide. It was
horrible. I dared not allow her to take it up to Ethel. If you had
been here then, Mr. Allport, I should have told you of what I
suspected; I should have risked your possible misconstructions. I was
terrified lest there should be some further catastrophe. As you know
there were very nearly two, but I felt that it would have been quite
useless for me to have made any statement to Inspector Brown. I felt
that he would have locked me up on the spot if I had made any
suggestions of the sort, and that until you arrived on the scene again
I was better at large.
“I’ve been unhappy about Margaret, Ethel, ever since the time your
father ran over that dog. About eighteen months ago, wasn’t it? The
poor brute was in agony of pain when we got out of the car, and
unawares I caught a glimpse of Margaret’s face. It bore a look of—no,
there’s no other word for it—a look of simply hellish delight. In a
flash it was gone and she was all womanly sympathy and sorrow. Tears
rolled down her cheeks, and I remember your mother saying how
tender-hearted she was.”
“Do you mean to tell us that she has been mad for more than a year
without any one being the wiser?” Allport queried.
“No, not mad, but she was abnormal, wildly excitable, a borderland
case. Anything might have pushed her over the line. There was insanity
on both sides of the family.”
It was too ghastly for comment, and we were silent for a space. “And
now I think it’s time we made our way to bed,” he added. “I for one
have arrears to make good.”
“And to-morrow I suppose I must write post-haste for Aunt Emmeline,”
Ethel said with an uncomplimentary sigh.
“Couldn’t I—would you like me to stay on for a few days?” Janet asked
in her sweet low voice. “I should be really glad to, if you’d prefer
it.”
“That’s very kind of you,” The Tundish said with his usual decision,
“but it will be neither you nor Aunt Emmeline. I’m going to pack Ethel
off to Folkestone by the first available train. I’ve already arranged
it all over the telephone with Mrs. Hanson, and Annie can look after
me.”
Now was my opportunity, I thought. It was a preposterous suggestion to
make. Allport I had only met for a few uncomfortable hours, and Janet
I hadn’t even heard of three days ago, but the darkness hid my
embarrassment and I plunged. “I was wondering, Mr. Allport, whether
you and Mrs. Player would care to come and spend the week-end with my
sister and me at Millingham?”
There was silence, and I felt uncomfortably sure that the darkness
alone hid the astonishment they felt. But the words were said,
irrevocable.
“That would be very nice, but unfortunately I must report at Scotland
Yard to-morrow morning. Janet though is unofficial and there’s no
reason——”
“I should love to,” Janet interrupted.
We said our good nights and went up-stairs to bed. Stairs, did I say?
There were no stairs. I floated up on air and the banisters were
wrought of pure gold.
In the morning I woke to find the curtains blowing into the room, and
a refreshing sense of movement and stir in the air that was
invigorating after the stagnant heat of the previous days. Gray masses
of cloud were chasing across a watery sky. Over the lawn, that looked
like some sodden piece of toast, odd shriveled leaves went scurrying.
It was a day for action, and dressing as quickly as I could, I went
and fetched my car from the inn before the others were down for
breakfast.
It had been arranged that Ethel and Allport were to travel together as
far as London, and our meal was a hurried one as they wished to catch
an early train.
I was on thorns lest Janet should receive some letter, or something
unforeseen should occur to prevent her from coming with me, but
nothing so disastrous happened, and soon after half past nine, we were
saying good-by to the solitary Tundish, who came into Dalehouse Lane
to see us off.
The placid, inscrutable Tundish—for that is how I shall think of him
always—looked just the same steady Tundish of the previous days and
not one whit relieved to find that his troubles had vanished.
“Good-by, Jeffcock!” he cried, and with a merry twinkle in his eyes.
“Good-by, Mrs. Kenley-Player! Something makes me think that we shall
meet again.”
Did he mean anything? Had I given myself away so completely then? Had
Janet noticed, I wondered, but I dared not look at Janet, so I slipped
in the clutch, and soon Dalehouse and Merchester were left behind,
things of the past. The open country and the future lay ahead.
Was ever air so fresh and cool, or country scents so sweet? Was ever
woman more perfect than this dear one so demure and quiet at my side?
The road stretched straight and true ahead, and Janet and I were
starting our journey together.
Under the tree, where I had stopped on my way into Merchester, I drew
up again to take one last look at the cathedral. Like a plain white
column—some gigantic Cenotaph, I thought—it stood out against the bank
of gray cloud behind it.
We were kneeling on the seat looking over the back of the car, and
after a time I turned to find Janet looking at me with a quiet little
smile.
“A penny for your thoughts,” she said.
She looked distractingly bewitching. I had plunged when I had asked
her to come to Millingham, and I made up my mind to plunge once again.
“My thoughts were with a certain unhappy general,” I prevaricated
boldly, “and I was wondering whether you always treated your admirers
so?”
There was a pause of a hundred years, and then, “I dare you to try,”
she whispered.
From over the hedge, an old red cow, chewing her cud contentedly,
gazed at us with solemn ruminative eyes. A field or two away there was
a steady chop, chop, as some son of the soil chopped turnips for his
sheep. Ahead of us and again behind, the road was deserted and clear.
I took my courage in my hands and accepted her challenge.
The End
Transcriber’s Notes
This transcription follows the text of the edition published by A. L.
Burt Company in 1927. However, the following alterations have been
made to correct what are believed to be unambiguous errors in the
text:
* “enchanced” to “enhanced” (Chapter I);
* “accomodation” to “accommodation” (Chapter I);
* “if you fell safe” to “if you feel safe” (Chapter VII);
* “absurb” to “absurd” (Chapter X);
* “grotequely” to “grotesquely” (Chapter XI);
* “Bennet” to “Bennett” (Chapter XII, two occurrences);
* “moonlinght” to “moonlight” (Chapter XIII); and
* “pyschological” to “psychological” (Chapter XVI).