What Really Did Happen
Alec contemplated the tips of his shoes for a moment. Then he looked
up suddenly. “It wasn’t exactly murder, you know,” he said abruptly.
“Certainly not,” Roger agreed. “It was a well-merited execution.”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean, if I hadn’t killed Stanworth, he would
probably have killed me. It was partly self-defence. I’ll tell you the
whole story in a minute.”
“Yes, I should like to hear what really happened. That is, if you feel
yourself at liberty to tell me, of course. I don’t want to force
confidences about—well, about the second lady in the case.”
“About Barbara? Oh, there’s nothing that reflects on her, and I think
you ought to hear the truth. I always meant to tell you the whole
thing if you found out that I did it, and of course, if you were
intending to take any drastic step, such as telling the police or
trying to get Jefferson arrested. That’s why I made you promise to
tell me before you did anything like that.”
“Quite so,” Roger nodded understandingly. “A good many things are
plain to me now. Why you hung back so much and were so unenthusiastic
and threw cold water on everything and pretended to be so dull and
refused to believe that a murder had been committed at all, although
I’d proved it to you beyond any shadow of doubt.”
“I was trying to keep you off the right track all the time. I really
never thought you’d find out.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have done if the significance of that hair hadn’t
dawned on me at last. After that everything seemed to come in a series
of flashes. Even then I might not have hit on the truth with such
certainty if two particular photographs hadn’t suddenly developed
themselves in my mind.”
“Tell me all your side of it, then I’ll tell you mine.”
“Very well. As I said, that hair was the clue to the whole thing. I’d
taken it quite idly out of my pocket out there in the garden and was
having a look at it, when it suddenly struck me that whosoever it
might be it was certainly not one of Mrs. Plant’s. I stared at it hard
enough then, I can tell you, and the second realization occurred to me
that, from the colour at any rate, it looked uncommonly like one of
Barbara’s. Then the first of the pictures flashed across my mind. It
was of Graves sorting the post just before lunch yesterday. He had
only three letters, and they were all of exactly the same appearance;
same shaped envelopes and typewritten addresses. One was for Mrs.
Plant, one for Jefferson—and one for Barbara. The first two I’d
already accounted for, now I seemed to be accounting for the third.
Add to all that Barbara’s ill-concealed agitation the next morning and
the fact that, for no apparent cause whatever, she broke off her
engagement to you at the same time, and the thing was as plain as
daylight—Barbara was also in the library that night and for some
reason or other the poor kid had got into Stanworth’s clutches.”
“_She_ hadn’t,” Alec put in. “It was——”
“All right, Alec; you can tell me all that in the proper place. Let me
finish my story first. Well, having got so far, of course I asked
myself—What light does this throw on Stanworth’s death? Does it give a
definite pointer to any person? The answer was obvious. Mr. Alexander
Grierson! I gasped at first, I can assure you, but when I got rather
more used to the idea, daylight simply flooded in. First of all, there
was your hanging back all the time; that began to take on a very
significant aspect. Then there was your height and your strength,
which fitted in very nicely, and I knew that your place in
Worcestershire, where you must have spent most of your boyhood, is
liberally supplied with lattice windows, so that you might be expected
to be up to all the tricks of the trade regarding them. So far, in
fact, so good.”
“But what about that footprint? I thought I’d managed that rather
neatly. By Jove, I remember the shock you gave me when you discovered
that and the way I got out of the library that night. I’d thought that
was absolutely untraceable.”
“Yes, that did give me an awkward couple of minutes, until I
remembered that you’d run back to get your pipe while I was talking to
the chauffeur! And that’s where the second of my little pictures comes
in. The scene flashed across my mind on that flower bed just after you
had stepped on to the path when we were trying to find out who had
been in the library and before you smoothed out the fresh footprints
you’d made. The old and the new prints were absolutely identical, you
see. I suppose I must have noted it subconsciously at the time without
realizing its significance.”
“I noticed it all right,” Alec said grimly. “It gave me a bad turn for
the moment.”
“After that all sorts of little things occurred to me,” Roger
continued. “I began to test each of the facts I’d collected, and in
each case the explanation was now obvious. Those letters, for
instance. I knew they must have been posted between five and
eight-thirty that morning; and at eight o’clock behold you coming back
from the village and actually saying you’d been down there to post a
letter!”
“Couldn’t think of any other explanation on the spur of the moment,”
Alec grinned ruefully.
“Yes, and curiously enough I questioned the bookmaker motif at the
time, didn’t I? Then there was your quite genuine anxiety to stop me
from assuming complicity on the part of Mrs. Plant. I suppose you knew
all the time about her and Stanworth, didn’t you?”
Alec nodded. “I was present at the interview between them,” he said
briefly.
“The devil you were!” Roger exclaimed in surprise. “I never gathered
that. She didn’t say anything about it.”
“She didn’t know. I’ll tell you all about that. Anything else on your
side?”
Roger considered. “No, I don’t think so. I gathered that you had
somehow got to know that Stanworth was blackmailing Barbara, and had
simply waded in and shot him, as any other decent chap would have done
in your place. That’s the gist of it.”
“Well,” Alec said slowly, “there’s a little more in it than that. I’d
better begin right at the beginning, I think. As you know, Barbara and
I had got engaged that afternoon. Well, I suppose you can imagine that
a thing like that rather unsettles a chap. Anyhow, the upshot was that
when I got to bed that night I found I couldn’t sleep. I tried for
some time, and then I gave it up as hopeless and looked round the room
for a book. There was nothing I particularly wanted to read there, so
I thought I’d slip down to the library and get one. Of course I had no
idea that everyone wouldn’t be in bed, so I didn’t trouble to put on a
dressing-gown but just went down as I was, in pyjamas. There were no
lights on the landing or in the hall, but to my surprise when I got
there I found all the lights in the library full on. However, there
wasn’t anyone inside and the door was open, so I went in and began to
look round the shelves. Then I heard unmistakably feminine footsteps
approaching and, hardly wishing to be caught like that, I nipped
behind those thick curtains in front of the sash window and sat down
on the seat to wait till the person, whoever it might be, had gone. I
thought it was someone come down like me for a book, and probably also
more or less in a state of undress. Not that I really thought much
about it at all. I just didn’t want to be mixed up in a rather
embarrassing situation.”
“Quite natural,” Roger murmured. “Yes?”
“Through the chink in the curtains I could see that it was Mrs. Plant.
She was still in evening dress, and I saw at once that she looked
rather worried. Very worried, in fact. She began to wander aimlessly
about the room, twisting her handkerchief about in her hands and it
looked rather as if she’d been crying. Then Stanworth came in.”
“Ah!”
Alec hesitated. “I don’t want to exaggerate or turn on the pathetic
tap too much,” he resumed a little awkwardly, “but I hope to God I
never have to see anything again like the scene that followed. Roger,
it was almost unbearable! I don’t know how I sat it out without
dashing through the curtains and getting my hands into Stanworth’s
throat; but I had the sense to see that anything like that would only
make matters very much worse. Have you ever seen a woman in agony? My
God, it was absolutely heart-rending. I could never have imagined that
a man could be such an indescribable brute.”
He paused, shivering slightly, and Roger watched him sympathetically.
He was beginning to realise just how terrible that scene must have
been, if it could move the stoical Alec to such a display of emotion.
“You know the main lines of what happened, don’t you?” Alec went on,
rather more calmly. “So I needn’t go into details. The wretched woman
begged and wept, but it had no more effect upon Stanworth than if he
had been a stone image. He just went on smiling that infernal, cynical
smile and told her not to make such an unnecessary fuss. Then he made
that suggestion to her that you told me about, and for the moment I
very nearly saw red. As for her, it finished her off completely. She
just crumpled up on the chesterfield and didn’t say another word. A
few minutes later she got up and tottered out of the room. Then I came
out of my hiding place.”
“Good man,” Roger murmured.
“Well, of course I knew by this time just how the land lay. I knew
what Stanworth was, and I knew where he kept his evidence against
these people. I didn’t quite know what I was going to do, but it was
pretty clear that something had got to be done. Well, he was a bit
startled at first, but recovered himself wonderfully and began to be
infernally sarcastic and cynical. I told him that I wasn’t going to
stand the sort of thing I’d just seen; and unless he stopped the whole
thing and let me burn all the evidence he’d been talking about, I’d go
straight to the police and tell them all about it. That seemed to
amuse him quite a lot; and he pointed out that if I did that,
everything would come to light which all these people had been paying
money to keep concealed, and they’d all be very much worse off than
before. That had never occurred to me, and I was rather taken aback
for the minute; then I told him that if that was the case I’d unlock
the safe myself, even if I had to lay him out to get the key. He
simply laughed and tossed his keys on the table. ‘That’s the one for
the safe,’ he said. ‘I don’t quite know how you’re going to open it as
you happen to be ignorant of the combination, but doubtless you have
provided for that contingency.’ Of course that took me in the wind
again, but before I could answer him I heard somebody coming down the
stairs.
“‘Ah!’ he said. ‘I was quite forgetting. I’ve got another visitor
coming to see me to-night. As you seem to have mixed yourself up in my
affairs, the least I can do is to invite you to be present at this
interview also. Get behind that curtain again, and I think I can
promise you an interesting quarter of an hour.’
“Well, I hesitated, while the footsteps began to cross the hall, till
he caught me by the arm and sort of snarled, ‘Get out of sight, you
fool. Can’t you see you’ll make it ten times worse for her by letting
her see you?’
“Even then I didn’t realise what he meant, but I saw that there was
something in what he said, and just managed to get behind the curtain
in time. You can imagine what I felt like when the door opened and I
saw Barbara come into the room.”
“Ghastly!” Roger exclaimed with feeling.
“Ghastly! That’s putting it mildly. Well, I’m not going to tell you
the details of what happened then, because there’s really no need to
and it’s only giving people away unnecessarily. All I need say is that
Stanworth had got hold of some information about—well, about Mrs.
Shannon. I don’t even know what it was. He ostentatiously pulled a
revolver out of his desk, opened the safe, and showed her two or three
pieces of paper, holding them so that she could read them without
taking them into her hands. Then he told her to sit down on the settee
to talk things over, keeping the revolver in front of him on the desk
all the time. Well, Barbara sat down, looking very white and
frightened, poor kid, but still not knowing in the least what
Stanworth was getting at. He didn’t keep her in ignorance long. He
just leaned back in his chair, informed her calmly that if she didn’t
fall in with his wishes he’d make the information he’s just shown her
public property and calmly proceeded to state his terms.
“Lord, Roger, old man, I had some difficulty in holding myself in.
What do you think he wanted? He told her absolutely plainly that what
he was after was money, and went on to say that he knew quite well
that she herself hadn’t got enough to satisfy him. Therefore she’d got
to marry me within a month, so that she would be able to pay the very
moderate sums which he would from time to time require. She could
either tell me or not, as she saw fit; it didn’t matter to him in the
least. If she refused, he was very much afraid she and her mother
would have to take the consequences.
“Of course you see what he was getting at. Me! He was practically
saying to me that if I didn’t marry her and pay his blackmail, he
would disgrace and ruin the mother of the girl I loved. Very neat sort
of trap, wasn’t it? Incidentally, he went on to point out, also for my
benefit, that it wasn’t the least use trying to do him any sort of
bodily harm, because that would only bring things to a head in the way
you know, and he never opened the safe without a loaded revolver in
his hand, which he wouldn’t hesitate for a second to use if it became
necessary.
“Well, Barbara behaved like an absolute thoroughbred. In fact, she
told him, in so many words, to go to the devil; she wouldn’t dream of
involving me in the affair, and as for her and her mother, they’d have
to take what was coming to them if he chose to behave in such a
damnable way, but they’d take it alone. Great Scott, she was
wonderful! She practically defied him to do his worst, and said that
she was going to break off her engagement to me the very next morning.
Then she sailed out of the room with her head in the air, leaving him
sitting there. No tears, no entreaties; simply the most overwhelming
contempt. Roger, she was just marvellous!”
“I can believe you,” Roger said simply. “What happened then?”
“I came out again. I think I meant to kill Stanworth then if I got a
chance to do so without making a worse mess of things. Remember, I
knew already to what lengths he was ready to push the wretched women
that he had in his clutches, and though Barbara would certainly never
give way to him an inch, I wasn’t so sure about Mrs. Shannon. Well,
there was the safe still open, and there was Stanworth sitting in his
chair with the revolver in his hand. He looked at me with a grin as I
appeared, and said he hoped I hadn’t been too bored. I walked straight
up to him without a word (I was beyond talking by then), and I suppose
he could see from my face what I had in mind. Anyhow, when I was only
a few feet away he whipped up the revolver and fired. Luckily he
missed, and I heard the vase shatter behind me. I lunged forward,
grabbed his wrist and used all my strength to twist it round till the
muzzle was pointing straight at his own forehead. Then I simply
tightened my finger over his on the trigger and shot him.
“I didn’t stop to think what I was doing, or anything like that; I
hardly imagine I was capable of thought at the moment. I just knew
that Stanworth had got to be killed, in the same way that one knows
that a mad dog or a rat or any other vermin has got to be killed. In
fact, once he was dead, I hardly paid any more attention to him at
all. He was a filthy thing wiped out, and that’s all there was about
it. I never felt, nor have felt since, a single moment’s compunction.
I suppose it’s curious in a way.”
“You’d have been a sentimental fool if you had,” Roger said with
decision.
“Well, I suppose I’m not a sentimental fool then,” Alec replied with a
slight smile; “for I most certainly haven’t. Well, as soon as the man
was dead I became as cool as ice. I knew exactly, almost without
thinking about it, what had got to be done. First of all, and in case
I was interrupted, the evidence in the safe had got to be destroyed,
and then I had to make my escape. It didn’t take long to burn the
documents in the safe. There was one shelf full of them, all done up
in envelopes inscribed with various addresses; about sixteen or
seventeen altogether, I suppose. I burnt them in the hearth without
opening them, and just ran through the contents of the other shelves
to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything.
“Up till then, mind, it had never occurred to me that the case would
ever appear to be anything but murder; and if it was traced back to
me, I should simply say that I had shot him in self-defence, after he
had first shot at me. I would have gone to the police straight away
and told them the whole thing, if it wasn’t that that would have given
away the facts of blackmail, which it was of course essential to hush
up. Then I glanced at the chair in which he was lying, and it struck
me that he looked exactly as if he had shot himself, so I began to
wonder if I couldn’t make the whole thing look like suicide.
“I knew you weren’t such a blithering fool as you’ve been trying to
make yourself out to be for the last forty-eight hours——”
Roger interjected, “Yes?”
“Well, the whole finished effect didn’t occur to me at once. I started
off by shutting the safe and putting the keys back in his waistcoat
pocket; the wrong pocket, as it turned out afterwards. Then I cleared
up the bits of vase and shoved them into my pocket for the time being,
and examined the revolver in Stanworth’s hand. To my joy, I found that
I could get at the chamber and extract the first shell without
loosening his grip, which I proceeded to do. You were right about my
knowledge of lattice windows. I knew that trick with the handle when I
was a boy, and patted myself on the back when I realised how I could
get out of the room and leave everything locked behind me. Lord, I
never thought anyone would spot that!”
“You weren’t reckoning for me to be on the trail, my boy,” Roger said
with modest pride.
“Well, you certainly made me jump when you discovered it. Let’s see
now, what did I do next? Oh, yes, the letters. I knew that all these
people would be scared to death at the idea of Stanworth having shot
himself with the safe still locked, as even if they had the keys
nobody could open it without the combination; and I thought that in
the agitation of the moment Mrs. Plant or somebody might give some
vital point away. So I sat down and hammered out letters to the three
of them on the typewriter, for I knew by what I’d seen in the safe
that both Jefferson and Lady Stanworth were involved in it also. You
know what I said in the letters, of course. Well, then, I had a final
look round and just by chance thought I’d better glance into the
waste-paper basket. The very first thing I saw there was a sheet of
paper, only very slightly crumpled, that bore Stanworth’s signature.
Instantly I thought to myself—why not rig up a statement of suicide
just to clinch things? And I typed one out above the signature.
“Of course all this took a devil of a time. In fact, it was about four
o’clock by now. I’d been as cool as a cucumber for two hours, but I
was getting so tired that I made one or two mistakes after that. I
never searched the waste-paper basket, for instance, and so left that
other piece of paper with the signature there for you to find; and I
forgot to smooth over that footprint on the bed. I did curse myself
for that when you found it! Also I ought not to have thrown those bits
of vase into the shrubbery between the library and the dining room, I
suppose.”
“But how did you get back into the house?” Roger asked.
“Oh, before I locked up the library I went through and opened the
dining-room windows. Then I just walked round from the lattice window
and in through the dining room, locked the dining-room door, and went
up to bed. And that’s all.”
“And very nicely timed,” Roger remarked, glancing out of the window.
“We shall be at Victoria in five minutes. Well, thanks very much for
telling me like that, Alec. And now let us proceed madly to forget all
about it, shall we?”
“There’s one thing that’s been worrying me rather,” Alec said slowly.
“Do you think I ought to tell Barbara?”
“Good heavens above, no!” Roger shouted, staring at his companion in
dismay. “What on earth would you want to tell her for? She’d only be
overcome with shame that you knew anything about her mother’s
shortcomings; and the fact that you’d killed a man more or less on
account of her would simply make her wretchedly miserable. Of course
you mustn’t dream of telling her, you goop!”
“I think you’re probably right,” Alec said, gazing out of the window.
The train began to slacken speed, and the long, snaky Victoria
platforms appeared in sight. Roger stood up and began to lift his
suitcase off the rack.
“I think we might stay up in town this evening and do a dinner and a
show, don’t you?” he said cheerfully. “I feel as if I want a little
relaxation after my strenuous mental efforts of the last two days.”
Something seemed to be troubling Alec.
“You know,” he said awkwardly, “somehow I can’t help wondering. Are
you really sure, Roger, that it wouldn’t be best for me to go and tell
the police? I mean, it isn’t as if they’d have me up for a murder or
anything like that; nothing worse than manslaughter, I should imagine.
And I daresay I should get off altogether on the self-defence idea.
But are you sure it isn’t really the right thing to do?”
Roger gazed down at his companion with disfavour.
“For heaven’s sake, Alec, _do_ try sometimes not to be so disgustingly
conventional!” he said scornfully.
The End
Transcriber’s Notes
“The Layton Court Mystery” was first published anonymously in 1926,
the author being identified only as “?”. This transcription follows
the text of the edition published by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.
in 1929 (which identifes the author as Anthony Berkeley). The
following alterations have been made to correct what are believed to
be unambiguous errors in the text:
* “enploymemt” to “employment” (Chapter XIV);
* “Alter all” to “After all” (Chapter XVI);
* “acquiesence” to “acquiescence” (Chapter XXV);
* “whoseever” to “whosoever” (Chapter XXVIII);
* “overwheleming” to “overwhelming” (Chapter XXVIII).