The Inquest
1
At ten o’clock the next morning they brought a note to Lucia, radiant
from a nine hours’ sleep.
“My Dear Mrs. Lemesurier”— she read—“Hastings’s car, its owner and I
will call for you at some time between four and five this afternoon.
“Do not attend the inquest this morning, and above all prevent your
sister from doing so. No doubt this warning is unnecessary, but I
thought safer to issue it. For it is highly probable that the
coroner’s jury will return a verdict of murder against Archibald
Deacon.
“Do not worry about this. Deacon had nothing to do with this messy
business. (The great god Bias again, you see.) At the moment,
however, things look bad for him. But I repeat: do not worry. Also,
prevent your sister (I understand there is an alliance) from doing
so more than is unavoidable. I promise things shall be straightened
out.
“Yours optimistically,
“Anthony Gethryn.”
“P.S.—I find that yesterday I omitted to return to you a
bathing-sandal which I found. I ought to have sent it with this
letter; but have decided to keep it.”
Lucia, after the first shock, obeyed orders. Fond as she was of her
sister and her sister’s titanic lover, she found worry, for this
morning at least, impossible. After the events of yesterday, she
somehow discovered herself possessed of a childlike faith in the power
of Anthony Gethryn to work necessary miracles.
She told Dora; then spent the morning to such purpose that the girl’s
fears were in some measure allayed.
2
At ten minutes to eleven Anthony left the Bear and Key and walked
slowly in the direction of Abbotshall. He was tired and very tired. In
spite of his fatigue he had barely slept. There had been so much to
think about. And also so much which, though nothing to do with this
work of his, had yet insisted on being thought about.
He entered the house at five minutes past the hour. Proceedings were
being opened. The coroner and his jury had just seated themselves
round the long table set for them in the study.
All about was an air of drama, heightened by the intensity of public
feeling and the fact that the court was set on the actual scene of the
crime. Marling felt the eyes and ears of the world bent in its
direction. It rather enjoyed the feeling, but nevertheless went
sternly, and with due solemnity, about its duty.
Anthony nodded to Boyd, shook hands with Deacon, ignored Hastings and
Margaret Warren, already seated at the press table, and ran an eye
over the jury.
The sight depressed him. “Mutton!” he murmured.
The coroner rapped the table, cleared his throat, and opened the
court.
Five minutes later Superintendent Boyd turned to address a remark to
Colonel Gethryn. But Colonel Gethryn was no longer there. Nor,
apparently, was he anywhere else in the room. Boyd shrugged his
shoulders.
Anthony was in the hall. In the far corner, by the front door, stood a
knot of servants. They were clearly absorbed in their talk. On the
steps were two policemen, their blue backs towards him. Slowly,
Anthony mounted the wide, curving staircase. Once out of sight from
below, his pace quickened to a run.
On the first floor he found his hopes realised. It was depopulated. As
he had calculated, the whole household was downstairs.
3
The court adjourned at fifteen minutes to two. Hastings and a
different, softer, more charming than ever Margaret Warren were given
lunch by Anthony in his sitting-room at the Bear and Key.
The meal over, Margaret was given the one comfortable chair, Hastings
sat on the table, and Anthony leaned against the mantelpiece.
“Now, my children,” he said, “I have congratulated you, I have filled
your stomachs. To work. What of the crowner’s quest?”
“Adjourned till three-thirty,” said Hastings, “when, after a quarter
of an hour’s cosy talk, they’ll bring in a red-hot verdict of willful
murder aganst the hulking private secretary. We needn’t go back, I
think. There’s one of our men there. He’ll take the rest of the
report; and it’s all over except the shouting.”
Anthony nodded. “No, you needn’t stay.”
“_I_,” said Margaret, “don’t think the secretary had anything to do
with it. Not with those sort of eyes—he couldn’t.”
Hastings guffawed.
“I agree with you, Miss Warren,” Anthony said. “And it was the eyes
which made me think that way.”
Hastings exploded. “Oh! I say! But——”
“Quiet, dog!” Anthony waved him to silence. “I am Richard on the Spot.
The case is mine, and I say that Archibald Deacon’s a non-starter.
Children, I am about to question you. Make ready.”
Hastings cast his smile. Margaret produced a notebook.
Anthony said: “So far, the case against Deacon is, I assume: one, that
in his possession were found bank-notes for a hundred pounds proved as
having been drawn by Hoode from his bank on the morning of the murder;
two, that his explanation that this money was given to him by Hoode as
a birthday present was neither regarded as at all probable nor
supported by any witness; three, that his explanation as to his
whereabouts during the time within which the murder was committed was
both unsatisfactory and entirely uncorroborated; four, that he
attempted to mislead officers of the law by means of an alibi which he
knew to be false; five, that in view of his size, strength, length of
leg, and the fact that every one else for miles round appears to be
accounted for, he seems the most likely person; and six, that his
finger-prints were found on the wood-rasp with which the deed was
done.”
“Look here,” said Hastings, “if you were at the inquest, what’s all
the palaver about?”
“I wasn’t, and you’ll see. Some of this I knew already, some I
guessed. Wonderful, isn’t it?”
Margaret leaned forward. “But who do you think did do it, Mr. Gethryn?
Do you suspect any one?”
“Every one in the world,” said Anthony. “Except Deacon, you, James
Masterson, and one other. But I look first at the household; just as a
matter of interest like.” He ticked off names on his fingers. “The
butler Poole, the chauffeur Wright, Martha Forrest the cook, Robert
Belford the other man-servant; Elsie Syme, Mabel Smith, housemaids;
Lily Ingram the kitchenmaid, and one Thomas Diggle, gardener. Also the
sister of the corpse, Sir Arthur Digby-Coates, and Mrs. Mainwaring.
And there we have the ‘’ole ruddy issue, incloodin’ the ’eads.’”
“Shades of Pelman!” Hastings was moved to exclaim.
“And,” said Anthony benignantly, “what about ’em all? Their stories,
their behaviour?”
Margaret consulted the notebook. “The servants,” she said, “were all
right. Most obviously all right—except the man Belford. The girls no
one could accuse of murder, they’re too timid and their stories were
all connected enough. In most cases they fitted in with each other
naturally enough. The cook was in bed before ten-thirty, and slept
through the whole thing. The chauffeur was talking to friends outside
the lodge. The butler was apparently in his little room all the
evening. He can’t prove it by witnesses, but you couldn’t suspect an
old man like that. He’s not strong enough for one thing; and he’s
obviously dreadfully upset by the death of his master. Mrs. Mainwaring
seemed all right. She went to bed early, and was seen there by both
Miss Hoode and the maid Smith—the one that was afterwards in the
linen-room. After the murder was discovered she was found fast asleep.
Sir Arthur Digby-Coates is quite all right. He was in his own
sitting-room—it has his bedroom on one side of it and the secretary’s
on the other, apparently—from ten-fifteen until the body was found by
Miss Hoode and the old butler rushed up and fetched him. During that
time he was seen by various people, including Deacon, at very short
intervals. As for Miss Hoode, she deposed—that’s the word, isn’t
it?—that she was in bed by half-past ten, reading. At about eleven she
suddenly remembered something about an invitation to some one—she
wasn’t very clear in her evidence—and went downstairs to use the
telephone and to speak to her brother. After that, well, you know what
happened. That’s all.”
Anthony smiled. “And very good, too. I congratulate you, Miss Warren.
‘So there, in a manner of speaking, they all are.’ Of course, it’s all
very untidy, this evidence. Very untidy! Not at all neat!”
“I know, Mr. Gethryn. But then, you see, it wasn’t as if they were all
on trial. I mean, all this about where they were and that sort of
thing came out mixed up with other things. It wasn’t cross-examination
with everything on the point and nowhere else. And if people don’t
know there’s going to be a murder, they can’t very well all get up
nice, smooth alibis, can they?”
Anthony laughed. “Just what I said, Miss Warren. They can’t. Now,
about ferret-face—Belford, I mean. You seem to think his evidence
wasn’t as good as the others’. What did he do? Or say?”
Hastings took up the tale. “Nothing very unusual in itself. But his
manner was all wrong. Too wrong, I thought, to be merely natural
nervousness. Margaret thinks the same. It wasn’t that he said anything
one could catch hold of; he was just fishy. He made rather a bad
impression on the court too. In fact, I think there’d have been a lot
more of him later if the case against your limpid-eyed pet hadn’t come
out so strong.
“Damn it all!” he went on, after a moment’s silence, “in any other
circumstances I’d be quite willing to bow to your vastly greater
experience, Gethryn. And to Margaret’s womanly intuition and all that
sort of thing. But this is a bit too much. When you get such a lot of
circumstantial and presumptive evidence as there is against this man
Deacon and then add to it the fact that his finger-prints were the
only ones on the weapon the other feller was killed with, it does seem
insane to blither: ‘_He_ couldn’t have done it! Just look at his
_sweet_ expression!’ and things like that!”
“I dare say,” Anthony said. “But then Miss Warren and I are _so_
psychic, you see.”
“But the finger-prints, man! They——”
Anthony became sardonic. “Ah, yes! Those eternal finger-prints.
Hastings, you’re an incorrigible journalist. Somebody says
‘finger-print’ to you, you shrug—and the case is over. The blunt
instrument bears the thumb-mark of Jasper Standish, _ergo_ Jasper’s
was the hand which struck down the old squire. It’s so simple! why
trouble any more? Hang Jasper! Hang him, damn him, hang him!”
“But look here, that’s not——”
Anthony lifted his hand. “Oh, yes, yes. I know what you’re going to
say. And I know I’m talking like a fool. The finger-print system is
wonderful; but its chief use is tracing old-established criminals. If
you consider the ingenuity exercised by this murderer in everything
else, doesn’t it strike you as queer that he should leave the damning
evidence of finger-marks on only one thing, and that the actual
weapon? Why, he might as well have stuck his card on Hoode’s
shirt-front!”
Hastings looked doubtful. “I see what you’re driving at,” he said,
“but I’m not convinced. Not yet, anyhow. And we’ve rather got away
from Belford. Not that there’s any more to say, really. He merely
struck us as being rather too scared.”
“What you really mean, I think,” said Anthony, “is that in your
opinion Belford was very likely in it with Deacon.”
Margaret laughed. “That’s got you, Jack. You shouldn’t funk.”
Anthony said: “Let us leave ferret-face for the moment. Was there no
one else you thought behaved suspicious-like?”
Margaret fingered the notebook in her lap. Hastings looked at her.
“You shouldn’t funk, Maggie,” he said.
“Pig!” said Margaret. “And _don’t_ call me Maggie! It’s disgusting!”
“What is all this, my children?” Anthony asked.
Margaret looked up at him. “It’s only that I told this person that
Miss Hoode made me uncomfortable.”
“You’ve watered it down a good bit,” Hastings laughed.
“Well, all I meant was that she seemed so contradictory. Not in what
she said, you know, but in the way she looked and—and behaved. It was
funny, that feeling I had. At first I thought she wasn’t suffering
over her brother’s death, but was just worn out with fear and with
trying to—to hide something. And then after that I began to think she
was sorry after all, and that all the queer things about her were due
to grief. And then after that again I sort of half went back to my
first ideas. That’s all. You must think I’m mad, Mr. Gethryn.”
“I think,” said Anthony, “that you’re a remarkable young woman. You
ought to set up in the street of Baker or Harley, or both.” His tone
was more serious than his words; Margaret blushed.
“Did they,” asked Anthony, after a pause, “exhibit the wood-rasp at
the ’quest?”
Hastings nodded. “And a nasty weapon it must have made, too.”
“I must get a look at it somehow,” Anthony said. Then added,
half-aloud: “Now, why does that mark worry me?”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing, nothing.” Anthony stretched himself. “Enough for to-day,
children. Hastings, there is a lovely lady who wishes to visit your
flat, and this to-night. She is the sister of our old friend J.
Masterson. I promised she could see him if she went up to town this
evening.”
“Of course. J. Masterson, by the way, is all right. Temperature much
lower; though he’s very weak still, of course. Does nothing but sleep.
Doctor saw him again this morning, and says his trouble is really
nothing worse than ’flu, aggravated by inattention and complicated
nervous thingumitights due probably to shell-shock.”
“I see. It’ll be all right about his sister seeing him this evening?”
“Of course.” Hastings’s smile was replaced by a blank sort of look.
“Er—by the way, if this lady lives down here, perhaps I had—could
drive her up now, what?”
“I was going to ask whether you would,” Anthony said, after a pause,
“but I’ve changed my mind. Don’t look too relieved.” His reasons for
this sudden change of plan were mixed; it is certain they were not
purely philanthropic.
“I gather, then,” said Hastings, “that having left a competent
subordinate to take down the dregs of the inquest, the lady Margaret
and I may now get back to town.”
They descended to the waiting car. Before it began to move,
“Miss Warren,” said Anthony, “would you be so kind as to have that
report of this morning’s proceedings typed by some one and sent down
to me here to-morrow; it’ll be so much better than the public ones.”
“I’ll do it myself at once,” said Margaret.
The car moved forward. Anthony waved his thanks, turned on his heel
and re-entered the inn.
4
Within half an hour he was in Lucia’s drawing-room. Outside the gate
was his big red car.
Lucia kept him waiting barely two minutes. When she came he noticed
with irritation the schoolboyish unruliness of his heart. There was
for him some new, subtle quality in her beauty to-day. Something dark
and wonderful and rather wild.
She gave him her hand. “I heard the car. I haven’t kept you waiting,
have I?” she asked.
Anthony shook his head. She glanced curiously round the room.
“No,” he said. “Hastings hasn’t come. He had to get back. That’s my
car outside. If you’ll allow me to, I’ll take you up to town now. If
you’re ready, shall we start?” He turned to the door.
“I’m sorry,” she said as he opened it, “that Mr. Hastings couldn’t
come. I wanted to have time to thank him properly.”
Anthony, jarred, cheered himself with the thought that there had been
a laugh in her voice. He glanced at her face. It told him nothing.
Her travelling-bag was carried out and placed in the car.
“I’m driving myself,” said Anthony. “Will you sit in front?”
She smiled at him and took the seat beside the driver’s. Annoyed with
the disturbance aroused in his breast by that smile, Anthony drove out
of the gate and down the narrow road to the bridge at a speed quite
illegal. Then he slowed down, feeling not a little ashamed. Another
new sensation for Anthony Ruthven Gethryn.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Pace frighten you?”
She turned to him not the tense, white face he had expected, but a
joyous one, vivid with life under the enchanting veil.
“Not a little bit,” she said; and laughter peeped through her words.
“You see, after yesterday—and all that you did—I feel quite safe with
you. As if you couldn’t make a mistake. Not possibly!”
Anthony glowed.
“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely safe, that’s what I feel.” A pause. “Just
as a tiny girl feels if her father takes her out, say, in a tandem.”
Anthony fell from heaven with a crash. Good God! “Father!” So he had
aroused an emotion akin to filial, had he? Unfortunately for him, to
drive a car a man must keep his eyes on the road: he had not seen the
little half-smile of joyous mockery that had accompanied that last
thrust.
He drove on in silence, unbroken until Guildford was reached. Here he
had to slow to a crawl.
“Were you at Abbotshall this morning?” came in a small meek voice from
beside him.
He nodded.
“How did the inquest go? You see, I’ve heard nothing, nothing! Was
it—was it as bad as you said it might be?”
“I wasn’t there myself,” said Anthony, keeping his eyes on the road
ahead, “but from what I’ve been told, I’m afraid it was.”
“But you said you _were_ there.”
“At the house, yes. At the inquest, no.”
The small voice mocked him. “You do so love being mysterious, don’t
you?”
“_Touché!_ I believe I do, you know. I’ve been discovering a lot of
youthful traits lately very ill in accord with my age.” Something in
his tone made her look up at him from under the rakish brim of the
little hat. His profile showed grim; it seemed leaner than ever.
“I’m sorry if I was inquisitive.” The small voice was smaller and very
meek.
Anthony started. “Good God! No! I didn’t mean that. Look here, I’ll
tell you. I went to Abbotshall because I wanted to play burglars on
the first floor. And the best time to do it was when everybody was
downstairs at the inquest. See?”
“Of course. But how thrilling! Do go on. I won’t tell a soul!”
“If I hadn’t known that,” said Anthony, “I wouldn’t have said anything
at all.”
“Thank you. Did you find anything—that you expected to find?”
“I found. Some of what I found I had expected to find; some not.” His
tone was final and silence fell again. The big car’s speed increased.
Soon they were among London’s outskirts.
“Where are you going to stay?” Anthony asked.
“Brown’s Hotel. May I go there first, please?”
To Brown’s he took her, and waited with the car till she reappeared.
During the journey to Hastings’s flat in Kensington there was little
opportunity for conversation. Once, threading skillfully through a
press of traffic, he began to whistle, under his breath, the dirge of
Cock Robin.
Then Hastings’s flat was reached. Introductions over, they were left
alone in Hastings’s study while Hastings went to prepare the invalid.
Anthony picked up his hat. “I must go,” he said.
“Where?”
“Back to Marling.”
“Oh, Mr. Gethryn!” Lucia cried. “Did you only come up to bring me?”
“Yes,” he said, after a pause.
“How awfully nice of you! But ought you to have wasted all that time?”
“All pleasure,” Anthony said oracularly, “is gain. Did you warn your
sister that Deacon would probably be arrested after the inquest?”
“I did. And I tried to persuade her not to worry. So I obeyed orders,
you see.”
“Did you believe there was no cause for worry?”
The great dark eyes met his. In their great depths he saw little
golden fires dancing.
“Yes,” she said.
Anthony bowed. “Good-night,” he said, and was gone.