A Christmas Party: A Seasonal Murder Mystery/Envious Casca

The Inspector looked a good deal taken aback by this exchange of compliments. It did not fit in with his ideas of how the gentry behaved, and he made no attempt to cope with the situation. Roydon seemed to share his feelings, but Paula, who had stalked into the library at the outset of hostilities, said in approving accents: ‘Good for you, Mathilda!’

As usual it was Joseph who had to intervene. He shook his head at Mathilda, although with a sympathetic twinkle in his eye, and suggested to Valerie that she was overwrought.

‘She’s trying to make you think I murdered Mr Herriard!’ said Valerie tearfully.

‘My dear child, no one could possibly think anything so absurd!’ Joseph assured her. ‘Nobody as pretty as you could be suspected of hurting a fly!’

She was a little mollified by this tribute, and when Roydon said emphatically ‘Hear, hear!’ she threw him a pathetic smile, and said: ‘Oh, I don’t know about that, but I don’t even remember Stephen’s giving me his case, and I certainly never took it out of the room. It’s much more likely that I simply tossed it back to him.’

‘Oh, it is, is it?’ said Mathilda. ‘Why “tossed”?’

Valerie’s face turned crimson. ‘I don’t know. I –’

‘Yes, you do. You know perfectly well that Stephen threw his case over to you. So let’s have less of this convenient aphasia!’

Valerie flung round to face Stephen. ‘Are you going to stand there allowing that woman to insult me?’ she demanded.

‘Where on earth did you dig out a line like that?’ enquired Paula.

‘She’s got a lousy taste in literature,’ Stephen explained. ‘Mathilda, I forbid you to insult my intended.’

‘You and who else?’ retorted Mathilda crudely.

‘Children, children!’ implored Joseph.

The Inspector cleared his throat. ‘If you please, ladies! Miss Dean, is it a fact that Mr Stephen Herriard gave his cigarette-case to you before he went up to change?’

‘I tell you I don’t know! I simply don’t remember! Anyway, I never took it out of the room!’

Maud, who had come into the library behind Paula, said in her flattened voice: ‘You asked him for a cigarette, dear, and he threw his case over to you.’

‘You’re all against me!’ Valerie declared, tears spangling the ends of her lashes.

‘No, dear, but it is always better to speak the truth. I have often thought it a pity that girls should smoke so much. It is very bad for the complexion, but I make it a rule never to interfere in what doesn’t concern me.’

‘Let that be a lesson to you!’ Paula said to Valerie, quite in Stephen’s manner.

The Inspector, possibly feeling that of all the women present Maud was the most rational, turned to her, and asked: ‘Did you see what Miss Dean did with the case, madam?’

‘No,’ Maud replied. ‘I expect something happened to divert my attention. Not that I was watching particularly, because there was no reason why I should.’

‘If she had given the case back to Mr Herriard, do you think you would have noticed it?’

‘Oh no, I don’t suppose I should!’

‘She didn’t give it back to him,’ Mathilda said.

‘Well, what did she do with it, miss?’

‘I don’t know. Like Mrs Herriard, I didn’t notice.’

‘I simply put it on the table!’ Valerie said. ‘Willoughby was in the middle of reading his play. I don’t know what became of it afterwards.’

‘Look here, miss!’ said the Inspector patiently. ‘We’ll get this settled once and for all, if you please! Did Mr Herriard give you his case, or did he not?’

‘I don’t call it giving me his case just because I asked him for a cigarette, and he hadn’t the decency to get up and hand me one, but just chucked his case at me! And I don’t see why –’

‘He did throw his case to you?’

‘Yes, but –’

‘Then don’t keep on saying you don’t remember!’ said the Inspector severely. ‘Now then, sir: are you sure you hadn’t got the case on you when you left the room?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘That’s true!’ Joseph exclaimed. ‘Now I come to think of it, you asked him for a cigarette, Paula, when we came down from poor Nat’s room, and he put his hand in his pocket, as though to pull out his case, and then just nodded to the box –’ He stopped short, as the infelicitous nature of his testimony apparently dawned on him. ‘Not that that proves anything!’ he added, in a hurry.

‘No, sir,’ agreed the Inspector dryly, and turned from him to Valerie again. ‘You say you put the case down on the table, miss –’

‘I didn’t say I actually did! I only said I most probably did!’ replied Valerie, who seemed to have decided that her only safety lay in prevarication. ‘And it’s no use badgering me, because –’

‘Valerie, my child!’ Joseph said, taking one of her hands, and holding it between both of his. ‘The Inspector only wants to get at the truth of what happened! You mustn’t think that you’ll be incriminating anyone just by telling him quite frankly what you did with Stephen’s case.’

‘I don’t care about that,’ said Valerie, stating a self-evident fact. ‘But I know quite well Mathilda’s trying to put it onto me, and it isn’t fair!’

‘No, no; Tilda never had any such idea, had you, Tilda? She knows you couldn’t have done it.’

It now seemed good to Paula to pour oil on sinking flames. ‘Indeed!’ she ejaculated. ‘How, may I ask, does she know that?’

‘Good God, Paula, she hasn’t got the guts, let alone the ingenuity!’ replied Mathilda.

‘Mathilda! Paula!’ expostulated Joseph despairingly. ‘No, really! Really, my dears!’

‘Oh yes, I’ve no doubt you both think I’m a fool!’ said Valerie. ‘Just because I don’t do the things you do! But as a matter of fact I very nearly went to college, and I should have, only that it seemed the most frightful waste of time!’

‘I think that was very sensible of you,’ remarked Maud, without any malice at all. ‘I daresay it’s all very well for some people, but I never went to college, and look at me!’

Quite a number of those present obeyed this behest, in a fascinated kind of way. The Inspector, feeling that the command of the situation was slipping out of his grasp, cleared his throat, and said loudly: ‘No one, least of all the police, wants to put anything on to an innocent person; but I warn you, Miss Dean, you don’t do yourself any good by refusing to speak the truth. Did you put Mr Herriard’s case down on the table?’

After this question had been relayed in a gentler form by Joseph, and Roydon had made a rather involved speech, the gist of which seemed to be that it was the height of injustice to expect nervous subjects to speak the truth, Valerie was induced to admit that she had put the case down on the table. Nobody remembered having seen it there, but that, as Mathilda delicately suggested, was hardly surprising, since everyone’s attention had been fully occupied by Roydon’s reading, and the exciting scene that had followed it.

The Inspector then went to look at the table in question, everybody tramping after him, and it was found to be a Chippendale piecrust table, which Sturry preferred to designate as an Incidental Table. It bore a small bowl of flowers, an ashtray, and a silver match-box, and Sturry, questioned, stated that when he had entered the drawing-room before dinner, to make sure that James, the footman, had Set it to Rights, no cigarette-case had been visible. James was equally sure that it had not been on the table when he had emptied the ashtray, so that left everyone, as Mathilda kindly pointed out, exactly where they were before this exhaustive enquiry had been inaugurated.

‘No, miss, there I cannot agree with you,’ said the Inspector darkly.

‘The fact is, anyone could have picked it up without attracting the least attention,’ she said.

Edgar Mottisfont took instant exception to this. ‘I don’t see that at all!’ he said. ‘Are you suggesting that someone tried to steal Stephen’s case? Why should anyone but Stephen have picked it up? We all knew it didn’t belong to us!’

Joseph said, as angrily as anyone of his mild temper could: ‘Edgar, do think before you speak! What – I ask you – are you trying to insinuate? What reason have you to try to stab Stephen in the back?’

‘I wasn’t trying to stab him in the back!’ retorted Mottisfont. ‘All I said was –’

‘What you meant us to infer was obvious!’ said Joseph. ‘I should have thought that after all the years you’ve known Stephen –’

‘I don’t say that he stabbed Nat!’ said Mottisfont, a spot of colour on his cheekbone. ‘It’s not my business to find out who did that! I’m only saying that the most likely person to have picked up the case was its owner! Of course, I know very well you Herriards always stick together, but I’m not a Herriard – I’m just a plain man, and I object to the fantastic idea you’re trying to foster, that someone else pocketed a valuable case which didn’t belong to them!’

‘Edgar, old friend, if anything I’ve said gave you the impression that I was in league with Stephen against you –’

‘Nothing I have said could have given you that impression,’ interpolated Stephen.

‘Hush, Stephen! – if I’ve given you that impression, I heartily beg your pardon! I never for one moment meant to insinuate that you had touched the case!’

It was generally felt that Joseph had now surpassed himself; but it was plain, from his guileless countenance, that he had no notion of having said anything that might have been more felicitously expressed. Mathilda would have allowed the matter to rest. Stephen, however, said sardonically: ‘Why stop there? Whom do you suspect of having taken my case?’

‘Stephen! Why will you always take me up wrongly? I don’t suspect anyone! Good gracious, how could I possibly –’

‘This is the most useless discussion I’ve ever taken part in!’ declared Paula. ‘Are we to sit up all night while you and Joe make fools of yourselves? I’m tired to death, and I’m going to bed!’

This last announcement was flung at the Inspector’s head. He said nothing to dissuade her. He was feeling tired too; he wanted to consider the case quietly; and he could not think that a prolongation of his investigations into the night-watches would yield any very valuable results. Like many laymen, he had a deep faith in the skill of specialists, and his dependence was now placed on the findings of the police experts. He said formally that he had no further questions to put to anyone.

Valerie at once reiterated her demand to be allowed to go home, and her conviction that she would be unable to sleep a wink if compelled to remain at Lexham. The Inspector, having informed her that her presence was necessary to the conduct of the case, very meanly left her fellow-guests to convince her that a journey to London from Lexham at eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve would be most difficult to accomplish, and rejoined his assistants in the morning-room. Twenty minutes later, the police-cars were heard to start up in the drive, and Valerie, until she discovered that a constable had been left to mount guard over the premises all night, showed signs of recovering her equilibrium.

Maud, whose stagnant calm had been to all outward appearances undisturbed by the shocking events of the day, exasperated everyone by resuming her search for the Life of the Empress of Austria; Paula, saying that she must be alone or go mad, swept upstairs to her room; and Stephen gratified Mathilda, but revolted everyone else, by saying that a drink was clearly called for. Even Joseph said that it did not seem to be quite the moment for carousing: an expression which had the effect of driving everyone else instantly over to Stephen’s side. Mottisfont said that he thought they had all earned a drink. Upon reflection, he said that that wasn’t quite what he had meant, but when Stephen asked him with false amiability what he had really meant, he found himself unable to explain, and foundered in a morass of unfinished sentences.

Sturry, gathering that his superiors were determined to debauch themselves, apologised in a quelling way for having forgotten, under the stress of circumstances, to bring the usual tray into the drawing-room, and went away to rectify his omission.

Valerie, who had been silent for quite ten minutes, suddenly announced her intention of ringing up her mother. No one put forward any objection, though from the look which descended on to Stephen’s face it was generally inferred that he was not in favour of the operation.

When Valerie had left the room, Mathilda moved across to Stephen’s side, and asked softly: ‘Who’s the heir?’

He shrugged.

‘You?’

‘I don’t know. Don’t think he made a will.’

‘Joe’s been hinting all day that he did.’

‘Oh – Joe!’

‘He ought to know, if anyone does.’

‘The answer being that no one does. Sorry you’ve been let in for this.’

‘Don’t waste any pity on me: I’ve got an unbreakable alibi,’ she replied lightly. ‘Far be it from me to cast any aspersions on your word, Stephen, but there is one appeal I should like to address to you in the name of us all.’

He looked at her with a suddenly lowering expression on his brow. ‘Well?’

‘If you purloined Maud’s book, do for God’s sake give it back to her!’

He gave a laugh, but it seemed to her that it was perfunctory. ‘I haven’t got her book.’

‘Don’t quibble!’ said Mathilda severely.

‘I’m sick of the damned book!’ he snapped. ‘I’ve already told you once that I don’t know where it is!’

He got up, as he spoke, and walked away to the other end of the room. She saw that his nerves were on edge, and was sorry that she had teased him. Sturry came in with a tray of drinks, and set it down on a side-table. Maud asked him if he had seen the book she was reading. Sturry said in a very despising way that he had not noticed it, but would make enquiries.

‘It is very unfortunate,’ stated Maud. ‘I wish I could remember where I laid it down. I always read for twenty minutes in bed before I put the light out. It is very calming to the mind. I had just got to the part about Rudolph. The one who committed suicide.’

‘What do you find so calming about that?’ asked Stephen, over his shoulder.

‘It takes one’s mind off things,’ she answered vaguely.

It said much for Joseph’s kindliness, Mathilda thought, that with no more than a sigh, immediately suppressed, he got up from his chair, and offered to help in the search for the book. Mathilda was afraid that he would ask Stephen for it, but although he did glance speculatively at that unresponsive profile he appeared to feel the moment to be unpropitious, and said nothing. It seemed rather unfair that he, upon whom the brunt of the evening’s burden had fallen, should be obliged to undertake a singularly futile search single-handed, so Mathilda got up, and offered to assist him. Maud thanked her placidly, and went back to her seat by the fire.

‘She might have put it down in the billiard-room,’ Mathilda suggested. ‘She came in there just before tea, didn’t she?’

The billiard-room yielded no clue to the book’s whereabouts, but the sight of the Christmas tree, glittering under the lights, brought home to Mathilda and to Joseph the gruesome nature of the events of the day. Joseph swallowed twice, and made a tragic gesture towards the coloured balls and the twinkling tinsel.

‘What are you going to do about it?’ asked Mathilda. ‘It does seem a trifle out of place, doesn’t it?’

Joseph blew his nose. ‘It must be taken away. Oh, Tilda, is this all my fault? Was I wrong to coax Nat into giving this party? I meant it to be so different!’

‘I don’t see that you could have known that Nat would be murdered,’ she replied.

He shook his head, putting out a hand to finger one of the icicles that depended from a laden branch.

‘Joe, did he make a will?’

He raised his eyes. ‘Yes. I don’t know whether it’s still in existence, though. Perhaps it would be better if he’d destroyed it.’

‘Why?’

‘It was when he had pleurisy, in the spring,’ Joseph said. ‘I persuaded him to make a will. I thought it right, Tilda! If only one could see into the future!’

‘Was it in Stephen’s favour?’

He nodded. After a moment, she said: ‘Well, Stephen didn’t know it, anyway.’

He glanced up quickly, and down again.

‘Unless you told him,’ she added.

‘I? No, I never said so! Not in so many words! But when I saw what sort of a mood he was in, I did rather hint to Valerie that a word from her might be advantageous. She may tell the Inspector so. She’s such a thoughtless child! And you know what an impression Stephen must be giving the police by that silly, boorish manner he puts on! Oh, Tilda, I feel worried to death!’

She was silent for a moment. ‘Did the police ask you who was the heir?’ she said presently.

‘Yes, but I think I shelved the question. I gave them the name of Nat’s solicitor.’

‘Do you suppose that the will is in his charge?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said reluctantly. ‘If it isn’t, I shall have to say where I think it might be. I mean, I can’t do Stephen out of his inheritance, can I? Besides, they’d be bound to find it sooner or later. I don’t know what to do for the best.’

Mathilda felt strongly inclined to advise him not to meddle, but she refrained. He said: ‘I wish you’d exert your influence, Tilda! Don’t let him alienate the police through sheer perversity! He won’t listen to me.’

‘I expect he knows his own business best,’ she said shortly. ‘In any event, I have no influence over him.’

‘Sometimes I fear that no one has,’ said Joseph, with one of his gusty sighs. ‘It’s as though he was born cussed! Now, what in the world can have possessed him to hide poor Maud’s book? That’s the sort of silly, schoolboy mischief that puts people against him so!’

Mathilda thought that anyone less schoolboyish or mischievous than Stephen would have been hard to find, but she merely observed that Stephen denied all knowledge of the book’s whereabouts.

‘Oh well, perhaps I’m wronging him!’ said Joseph, visibly brightening. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t seem to be in this room.’

They returned to the library, their arrival synchronising with that of Valerie, who had apparently derived some benefit from a protracted and expensive telephone-call to her mother. She announced that Mummy was coming down to Lexham on the following day.

‘Oh, my God!’ said Stephen audibly.

‘I’m sure she must want to be with you at such a time,’ said Joseph hastily. ‘We shall be very glad to have her, shan’t we, Maud? One only wishes that her visit were taking place under happier circumstances.’

‘Mummy says she’s sure it will all be cleared up satisfactorily, and we just mustn’t worry!’ said Valerie.

This valuable piece of advice plunged everyone into a state of profound gloom. After thinking it over, Mottisfont said that he didn’t see how it could be cleared up satisfactorily.

‘No,’ said Stephen cordially. ‘Not when you consider that one of us is an assassin.’

‘I find that remark gratuitously offensive!’ said Mottisfont.

‘Why?’ asked Stephen.

‘Now, now!’ Joseph intervened. ‘We mustn’t let this thing get on top of our nerves! I myself feel convinced that Nat was murdered by someone from outside.’

‘You would,’ said Stephen.

‘Damn it all, why not?’ demanded Mathilda.

He shrugged. ‘Windows all latched on the inside.’

‘But the ventilator was open!’ Joseph reminded him. ‘An agile man might have got in that way, I believe. Of course, it wouldn’t have been easy, but although you may not believe it I used to be a bit of an athlete in my younger days, and I’m pretty sure I could have done it.’

‘You couldn’t do it now, Joe,’ said Mathilda. ‘Too much enbonpoint.’

‘Ah, you love to make fun of your poor old uncle!’ he said, shaking his fist at her. ‘Yet when I was a young man I was as slim as Roydon there. I well remember when I was playing Romeo once – But what am I about, telling stories of my youth when our minds are full of graver matters? Maud, my dear, we will have a thorough search for your book tomorrow, I promise. You have had a wearing day: you should be in bed, you know.’

‘I daresay I may have left it upstairs,’ she said, winding up her knitting-wool. ‘I do not want anyone to worry about it. I expect it will turn up.’ She rose, said good night in a general way, and departed.

‘I shall follow her example,’ said Mathilda. ‘Are you coming up, Valerie?’

Valerie replied reluctantly that she supposed she would have to, but that the thought of having a policeman in the house was too ghoulish to permit of her closing her eyes all night.

‘I shouldn’t worry. I believe policemen are a very moral set,’ said Mathilda unkindly. ‘Lock your door, if you’re nervous.’

‘I do think you’re the limit!’ exclaimed Valerie, giggling.

‘I don’t suppose any of us will sleep much,’ remarked Mottisfont, when she had left the room. ‘I know I shan’t. I feel as though I’d had a knock-out. Nat! It still doesn’t seem possible!’

‘Personally,’ said Roydon, with ill-assumed indifference, ‘I feel pretty done-in, and I daresay I shall sleep like a log. After all, it’s different for me. I mean, it isn’t as though I knew Mr Herriard.’

This implication, that he stood aloof from the crime and its consequences, did nothing to advance his popularity with the three other men. Even Joseph shook his head in a foreboding way; and Mottisfont went so far as to say that they were all in it, one just as much as another.

‘I’m afraid I can hardly agree with you!’ said Roydon, in a head-voice. ‘I don’t want to cast any aspersions on anyone, but I had no quarrel with Mr Herriard!’

‘Just what do you mean by that, young man?’ Mottisfont demanded, his eyes snapping behind his spectacles.

Stephen yawned. ‘That you and I did. I wonder if I’m as boring as the rest of you? Perhaps I’d better go to bed. What’s the name of Uncle Nat’s solicitor, Joe?’

‘Filey, Blyth, and Blyth,’ answered Joseph. ‘But John Blyth has always handled poor Nat’s affairs.’

‘Know his home address?’

‘No; but I expect it’s in the Telephone Directory, for I’m nearly sure he lives in London. Why? Do you think we ought –’

‘I’ll ring him up in the morning,’ Stephen said, and lounged out.

Mottisfont watched him go, his expression one of open dislike. ‘Taking a lot on himself, isn’t he?’ he said disagreeably.

Joseph, who had looked a little surprised, rallied, and said briskly: ‘Nonsense! Stephen knows what a muddle-headed old fellow I am. Quite right of him! Good gracious, Edgar, I hope you aren’t trying to make me jealous of my own nephew! That would be rather too much of a good thing!’

‘Oh, as long as you don’t mind, I suppose it has nothing to do with me!’ said Mottisfont.

‘Stephen and I understand one another,’ said Joseph, becoming the indulgent uncle again. ‘Now, I think we had better all go to bed, don’t you? We are a little overwrought, and, indeed, how could we fail to be? Perhaps the night will bring counsel.’ He went to the door, but looked back as he opened it to say with a wistful smile: ‘We feel the blank in our lives already, don’t we? Perhaps I more than anyone. To go to bed without that good night to Nat! It will be long before I can accustom myself to it.’

Mottisfont and Roydon both suffered the Englishman’s inevitable reaction to such indecent pathos. Mottisfont reddened, and coughed; Roydon stared at his feet, and muttered: ‘Quite!’ Joseph sighed, and said: ‘But I mustn’t intrude my private grief upon you. We’ve all got to keep stiff upper lips, haven’t we?’

Neither of his listeners could lower himself sufficiently to respond adequately to this, so Joseph went away with a heavy tread and another sigh.

‘Well, considering I never heard Mr Herriard say a decent word to him – !’ began Roydon.

Mottisfont resented Joseph’s attempt to play upon his emotions quite as profoundly as Roydon, but he had known the Herriards for many years, and he was not going to join a long-haired playwright in running them down. He said repressively: ‘The Herriards take a good deal of knowing. They’ve all got sharp tongues, except Joe, but I’ve never set any store by that. You can’t judge by appearances.’

‘It seems to me that they all play into one another’s hands!’ said Roydon. ‘In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me to discover that Stephen’s filthy rudeness to Joseph Herriard is just so much eyewash! You can’t help noticing how they all hang together, once it comes to the pinch!’

Mottisfont had been thinking much the same thing, but he was not going to admit it. He merely said that there was nothing surprising in families hanging together, and made for the door.

Roydon followed him upstairs, remarking in a disgruntled way that it wasn’t his idea of a Christmas party.

He was by no means alone in this view of the matter. The Chief Constable, receiving Inspector Colwall’s report on the case, said that this was the sort of thing that would happen when Bradford was sick.

‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Inspector Colwall, swallowing the insult.

‘Christmas Eve, too!’ said the Chief Constable, in an exasperated tone. ‘To my mind, it’s a case for Scotland Yard.’

‘Perhaps you’re right, sir,’ responded the Inspector, thinking of the complexities of the case, the lack of evidence, and the difficulties of dealing with the kind of witness he had found at Lexham Manor.

‘And that being so,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘I’ll get on to London right away.’

The Inspector was in complete agreement over this. If Scotland Yard was to take over the case, he for one did not want to be told that the scent had been allowed to grow cold, and that the Yard should have been called in days earlier. That was the kind of thing that happened when the local police tried to solve their cases, and failed; and it didn’t do a man any good to be made to look like a fool who’d been trying to make things difficult for Scotland Yard.

So the Chief Constable put through a call to London, and was connected in due course with a calm person who said he was Detective-Superintendent Hannasyde. The Chief Constable gave him the particulars of the case, and after asking several questions Superintendent Hannasyde said that he would send a good man down to assist him next morning.

That was polite of the Superintendent, but when his words were repeated to Inspector Colwall, the Inspector only said, Yes, in a dispirited tone. The good man from Scotland Yard would automatically take charge of the case, and very likely tick everyone off into the bargain, he thought, uneasily aware of his own shortcomings as a detective. He went off duty in a frame of mind almost as gloomy as anyone’s at Lexham Manor, and very nearly as resentful as that of the good man from Scotland Yard, who, far from feeling any elation at being given a promising case to handle, told his subordinate that it was just his luck to be sent into the wilds of Hampshire on Christmas Day.

Sergeant Ware, an earnest young man, ventured to say that the case sounded as though it might be interesting.

‘Interesting!’ said Inspector Hemingway. ‘It sounds to me like a mess. I don’t like the lay-out, I don’t like the locality, and if I don’t find a whole crowd of suspects, all telling a lot of silly lies for no reason at all, my instinct’s wrong, and that’s all there is to it.’

‘Well, perhaps it is, this time,’ suggested Ware.

The Inspector fixed him with a bright and fulminating eye. ‘Don’t you get insubordinate with me, my lad!’ he warned him. ‘I’m never wrong.’

The Sergeant grinned. He had worked with Inspector Hemingway many times, and had almost as great a respect for his foibles as for his undoubted ability.

‘And don’t stand there smirking as though you were off on a Cheap Day Excursion, because if I were to burst a blood-vessel you’d very likely get blamed for it!’

‘Why should I, sir?’ asked Ware, diverted.

‘Because that’s the way things turn out in the Force,’ said the Inspector darkly.