A Christmas Party: A Seasonal Murder Mystery/Envious Casca

There was no apparent reason to suppose, on the following morning, that Inspector Hemingway was regarding the case with a less jaundiced eye. On the journey into Hampshire, he spoke bitterly and at length on the subject of the play which he had been helping to produce in his hometown, and which was to be performed on Boxing Day. He saw no prospect of being present upon this interesting occasion, and the trend of his remarks led Ware to infer that without his masterful hand upon the reins the play had little chance of succeeding, if, indeed, it could be performed at all.

The Drama was one of the Inspector’s pet hobby-horses, and the Sergeant sat back in his corner of the railway compartment, and resigned himself to the inevitable. The expression of interest which concealed his almost total inattention did not deceive the Inspector for an instant. ‘Yes, I know you aren’t listening,’ he said. ‘If you listened more, you’d be a better detective, besides being a lot more respectful to your superiors. The trouble with you young chaps is that you think you’ve got nothing to learn.’

The Sergeant had never been disrespectful to his superiors in all his blameless life, and his painstaking efforts to broaden his knowledge were notorious, but he attempted no protest. Merely he grinned, and said that he had never been much of a one for the theatre.

‘You needn’t tell me!’ said Hemingway disgustedly. ‘I’ll bet you spend all your off-time at the pictures!’

‘Well, I don’t, sir. I was brought up very strict. I generally do a bit of carpentering.’

‘That’s worse,’ said Hemingway.

After a discreet pause, the Sergeant ventured to enquire what were his chief’s impressions of the case they were bound for.

‘It’s a great mistake to start off with a lot of preconceived ideas,’ replied Hemingway. ‘Which is why you’ll never see me do such a thing. It’ll be time enough for me to go getting impressions when I’ve had a look at the dramatis personae. Not that I want to look at them, mind you! From what the Superintendent told me, you’d find it hard to pick out a set of people I wouldn’t rather not look at.’

‘Sounds to me as though it might be an interesting sort of a case,’ suggested the Sergeant, in cajoling accents. ‘Stands to reason it’s going to be a teaser, or the locals wouldn’t have called us in.’

‘That’s where you’re very likely wrong,’ said the disillusioned Inspector. ‘Whenever we get called in to a crime in classy country surroundings, you may bet your life it’s because the Chief Constable plays golf with half the suspects, and doesn’t want to handle the thing himself.’

Events were to prove him to be to a certain extent justified. Almost the first thing that the Chief Constable said to him was: ‘I’m not going to pretend I’m not glad to hand over this business to you, Inspector. Very awkward case: most astounding! I’ve known the murdered man for years. Know his brother too. I don’t like it.’

‘No, sir,’ said the Inspector.

‘What’s more,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘it’s a damned queer business! Can’t see myself how the murder can possibly have been committed. Of course, our Detective-Inspector’s away, sick. This is Inspector Colwall, who’s had charge of the case up till now.’

‘Glad to know you,’ said Hemingway, mentally writing Colwall down as a painstaking man who had probably missed every vital point in the case.

‘Inexplicable!’ pronounced Major Bolton, but not, it was gathered, with reference to Hemingway’s polite remark. ‘You’d better go through it from the start. Take a chair!’

Hemingway obeyed this invitation, nodded to his Sergeant to follow his example, and turned a bright, enquiring eye upon the Major.

‘The murdered man,’ said Major Bolton, ‘was a wealthy bachelor. He bought Lexham Manor some years ago. Sort of show-place: oak panelling, and that kind of thing. Cost a packet: never could make out why he wanted it. Not that sort of man, on the face of it. Made his money in trade. Head of a firm of importers, but been a sleeping-partner for some years now. East Indian stuff: spices, and that kind of thing. Mind you, I’m not saying he was a self-made man! Perfectly respectable family, and all that. Don’t know anything about his parents: believe the father was a country solicitor. There were three children: Nathaniel, the murdered man, Matthew, and Joseph. Matthew doesn’t come into it. Dead for years. His widow’s in America, with her third husband. Never met the lady myself, but I know her children. They’re both in it, up to the neck. Couple of years ago, Joseph – bit of a rolling-stone: no harm in him, but a feckless sort of a fellow – came home from wherever he’d been – South America, I believe, but that’s nothing: he’s been all over the world at one time or another – and took up his residence at Lexham Manor. Never had much use for Nat Herriard myself, but to give him his due, he treated his family well. Better than any of ’em deserved, if you ask me. Not that there’s anything against Joseph. What you might call a well-meaning ass. Sort of Peter Pan, if you get my meaning. Got a wife. Gossip says he picked her up out of the chorus. Don’t know anything about that. Colourless kind of woman. Pretty once, run to fat now. Never could make anything of her. Either deep as the devil, or a born fool. Know the type?’

The Inspector nodded. ‘I do, sir, and what’s more I wish I didn’t.’

Major Bolton gave a snort of laughter. ‘Mind you, I haven’t anything on her, and I don’t myself see her sticking a knife into her brother-in-law. All the same, no one in these parts could ever understand her consenting to live at Lexham, sponging on Nat. However, she’s a placid kind of a woman, and I daresay she’d had enough of roaming about the world with Joseph. Tiresome sort of man, Joseph. No money-sense. No sense at all, if you ask me. Ever see a play called Dear Brutus?’

‘Barrie,’ responded the Inspector. ‘If you’ve a taste for him, it’s in his best manner. Myself –’

‘Well, Joe’s always put me in mind of one of the characters in it,’ said the Chief Constable, ruthlessly interrupting what Sergeant Ware knew would have been a pithy lecture on the Drama. ‘Silly old footler who danced about in a wood. Know the one I mean?’

‘Coade,’ said Hemingway.

‘Well, I’m a plain man myself,’ said the Chief Constable, conveying in these simple words his contempt for all whimsies. ‘However, they say it takes all sorts to make a world. Next we come to Stephen and Paula Herriard. They’re Nat’s nephew and niece, Matthew’s children. Always treated Lexham Manor as a second home. I know ’em both, and I don’t like either of ’em. Stephen’s a rough-tongued young man with no manners, and not enough to do; and Paula – nice-looking girl, if you like that stormy type – is on the stage. Both got small private means: enough to make ’em independent, but not enough to make a splash with. It’s always been assumed that Stephen was Nat’s heir. Stands to reason he would be. Only a few months ago he got engaged to a girl. Never set eyes on her myself, but Nat couldn’t stand her. Said she was a gold-digger. Daresay he was right. You didn’t take to her, did you, Colwall?’

‘No, sir. Silly little thing, and not, in my opinion, the right sort for a gentleman to marry.’

‘Well, she’s in it too. I don’t mean that she committed the murder, for from what Colwall tells me it doesn’t look as though she’s the sort of girl who could do such a thing, but she was one of the people staying in the house at the time. Stephen brought her down, presumably to introduce her to Nat. According to what the servants say, they didn’t get on at all. Quite possible that Nat’s annoyance over her may have precipitated matters.’

‘Precipitated matters?’ repeated Hemingway.

‘Don’t know that it’s quite fair to say that,’ amended the Major. ‘But there seems to have been a row between Nat and Stephen. Of course, if Nat threatened to cut Stephen off with a shilling if he married the girl – well, you never know, do you? I wouldn’t put it beyond Stephen to stick a knife into someone. Always seemed to me a callous young devil. Then there’s this Roydon-fellow.’

From the Major’s expression it could easily be deduced that he disapproved profoundly of Mr Roydon. The reason was at once made apparent. ‘He calls himself a playwright, or some such nonsense,’ said the Major.

‘He does, does he?’ said Hemingway. ‘Well, that’s very interesting, sir. What did you say his name was?’

‘Willoughby Roydon. Don’t suppose you’ve heard of him; I know I hadn’t. As far as I can make out, he hasn’t had anything put on – really put on, I mean.’

The Inspector appeared to appreciate the distinction, nodding, and saying sapiently: ‘Sunday evenings, eh? Uplift and Modernism. I know. What’s he doing in the case, sir?’

‘Friend of Paula Herriard. He’s written a play which she wanted her uncle to back. Don’t know what it was about. Daresay it would be all the same to me if I did. I don’t go in for that kind of thing. Can’t stand highbrows at any price. Point is, Nat didn’t like it. This Roydon-fellow seems to have read the thing aloud to him yesterday afternoon, and Nat lost his temper over it, and there was a general sort of a row. Well, I’m a fair-minded man, and, after all, you can’t be surprised, can you? I mean, coming down to stay with a man, and then reading stuff aloud to him! Never heard of such a thing!’

‘Did Mr Herriard quarrel with Mr Roydon, then?’ asked Hemingway.

‘That we can’t make out, can we, Colwall? Roydon says he didn’t.’

‘Well, sir, it’s a bit more than that,’ said Colwall. ‘They didn’t any of them say as Mr Herriard had actually had words with Mr Roydon. It was Miss Herriard he quarrelled with. According to what the butler told me, Mr Herriard threatened to cut her out of his will, and said he wouldn’t have her, nor Mr Stephen either, to stay again. Of course, there’s no denying he was a violent-tempered kind of man. No saying whether he meant it or not. If he did, and Mr Stephen knew that he did, it puts an ugly complexion on the matter, that’s what I say.’

‘Yes, yes!’ said the Major, elbowing him out of the discussion. ‘All very well, but we mustn’t exclude the other possibilities. There’s Mottisfont, for instance. I consider he will bear looking into. He’s been Nat’s partner for a great many years, Inspector, and there’s plenty of evidence to show that he’s been up to something Nat didn’t like. The servants say that he was shut up with Nat yesterday, and that there was a quarrel between them. You didn’t feel satisfied about him, did you, Colwall?’

‘Not altogether, I didn’t, sir. Very nervous gentleman, for a man of his years. He didn’t speak the truth to me, or at least not all of it, that I am sure of.’

‘They never do,’ said Hemingway. ‘Are there any more suspects?’

‘Properly speaking, there aren’t,’ said Colwall. ‘There’s Miss Clare, but she’s got an alibi. Besides, there doesn’t seem to be any motive. Kind of cousin, she is. Otherwise, there’s only the servants. Most of them couldn’t have had any reason to murder their master. I don’t know that any of them had, except that Mr Herriard was very rough with his valet, by what the butler told me. Threw things at him when he was out of temper. Quite one of the Old School, as you might say.’

Hemingway was unimpressed. ‘Nothing to stop him giving notice, if he couldn’t stand Mr Herriard,’ he said. ‘Unless, of course, he’d got a legacy coming to him?’

‘That I don’t know, not having seen the will, but I should not think he had. He’d only been with Mr Herriard a matter of a few months. Mind you, he never said Mr Herriard was a hard master! It was the butler told me that. Ford spoke very nicely about his master. Spoke up for Mr Stephen, too.’

‘What’s he like?’ demanded Hemingway.

‘Wiry little chap, about thirty-five or six, I’d say. Bit scared of me, he was, but he spoke out quite honest and aboveboard, and didn’t try to throw suspicion on to anyone – except Mr Roydon, maybe, though he was only telling me what it was his duty to, after all.’

‘What about the butler?’

‘I’d say he was all right. Very starchy he is, but not above putting his ear to keyholes. He doesn’t like Mr Stephen, but that’s nothing. He’s been some time with Mr Herriard.’

‘Might be coming in for a legacy, of course,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘He’d hardly commit a murder for it, though. Not a man like Sturry. Besides –’ He paused, frowning, and then said, shooting a look at Hemingway from under his brows: ‘Not the point. I told you this was the devil of a case, Inspector. The suspects aren’t worrying me: it’s how the deuce the murder was committed at all.’

‘What, you aren’t going to tell me this is one of these locked-door cases you read about, sir?’ exclaimed Hemingway incredulously.

‘It is, just that. Now, you listen to the facts as we know them! Roydon read his play to the rest of the house-party after tea yesterday. It ended in a general row; the party split up, and went off upstairs to change for dinner, leaving Miss Clare in the library, and Joseph Herriard trying to smooth his brother down in the drawing-room. Nat then went up to his room, still furious. Miss Clare, who came out of the library just as he was going upstairs, heard him slam his bedroom door. She and Joseph then went up together. They were the last people except the murderer, of course – to see Nat alive. Some time between then, which must have been between seven-thirty and eight, and when the party gathered in the drawing-room again for cocktails, Nat was stabbed to death in his bedroom. When he didn’t join the party, Joseph went up to tell him they were all waiting for him. He found Ford outside Nat’s door, pretty worried at getting no answer to his knocking. The door was locked, and when Ford and Stephen Herriard forced the lock, Nat was lying dead on the floor, with the windows latched securely, both the door into his bedroom and that from his bathroom on to the upper hall locked on the inside, and only the ventilator above the bathroom window open.’

‘What kind of a ventilator?’ asked Hemingway.

‘The ordinary sort, opening outwards, which you often get above a casement-window.’

‘Big enough for anyone to get in through it?’

The Chief Constable looked at Inspector Colwall, who said slowly: ‘Well, it is, and it isn’t, if you take my meaning. A man would have to be pretty small to do it, and, what’s more, he’d need to be clever. It isn’t as though the room’s on the ground-floor, you see. What with having to climb up to it, and then squirm in without making any noise – well, I don’t see how it could have been done, I’m bound to confess. Nor I couldn’t discover any signs of footprints on the sill, but you can’t go by that entirely, for it was snowing hard all yesterday evening, and they might easily have been covered up.’

‘Any finger-prints?’

‘Only on the insides of the windows, and they were Ford’s, just as you’d expect. It was he who shut the windows after tea, and drew the curtains.’

‘What about the door-keys?’

‘That’s just it,’ said the Major. ‘We’ve had them carefully examined, and we can’t detect any of the scratches you’d expect to find if they’d been turned in the locks from outside.’

‘That’s queer,’ said Hemingway, with the bird-like look in his eye which his Sergeant knew betokened lively interest. ‘Sounds like a classy case, after all. Any signs of a struggle in the room, sir?’

‘None whatsoever.’

‘Looks as though he wasn’t expecting trouble from his visitor, then. Those the photographs, sir? Thank you.’ He considered them for a moment or two, and remarked: ‘Still in his day-clothes.’

‘Yes; there were no signs that he’d started to change. Ford had prepared his bath, and laid out his dinner-jacket and things.’

‘He didn’t have this Ford in to help him dress?’

‘Apparently he did sometimes, but not always. He rang if he wanted Ford.’

‘Oh! Weapon?’

‘The doctors are agreed that the blow was struck with a thin, sharp instrument, probably a knife. You’ll see the position of the wound. There was scarcely any external bleeding, but death, I’m informed, must have followed within a very few minutes.’

‘I see, sir. Weapon not found?’

‘Not so far. But to my mind it hasn’t been looked for,’ said the Major, casting a severe glance towards Inspector Colwall.

The Inspector reddened. ‘It was looked for in the deceased’s room, sir, but you know as well as I do that it’s a very big house, and what with that, and the number of people all staying there, with their baggage – well, it’s a tall order to find the weapon, and I didn’t like to turn the place upside-down.’

The Major looked unconvinced, but Hemingway said: ‘No, you’d have been at it all night and half today, I daresay.’

‘Well, that’s where it is,’ said Colwall gratefully.

‘I don’t know that the weapon’s going to interest me much,’ pursued Hemingway. ‘What with all these thrillers that get written nowadays by people who ought to know better than to go putting ideas into criminals’ heads, there’s no chance of any murderer forgetting to wipe off his finger-prints. Sickening, I call it. Now, how do you figure the murderer got into that room, Inspector?’

Colwall shook his head. ‘It’s got me beat. If there wasn’t any hanky-panky with the key – and that’s an expert’s job, when you come to think of it – I don’t see how anyone could have got in.’

‘No; but there’s one piece of evidence we mustn’t forget,’ interposed the Chief Constable. ‘Stephen Herriard’s cigarette-case was found lying on the floor by the fire, half-hidden by an armchair.’

‘That doesn’t look so good for Stephen Herriard,’ said Hemingway. ‘Does he own it?’

‘Yes, he owned it, but Miss Clare deposed that he had given it to Miss Dean before he went up to change for dinner.’

‘What did she have to say to that?’ asked Hemingway, addressing himself to Colwall.

Inspector Colwall sighed. ‘She had a lot to say, being one of those who can’t give you a plain yes or no. Anyone would have thought she expected to be charged with having committed the murder, simply through admitting she’d had the case! In the end, she did say she’d had it, but she swore she never took it out of the drawing-room. Her theory is that Mr Stephen himself must have picked it up, and I’m bound to say it’s likely he did.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He didn’t say much,’ answered Colwall reflectively. ‘He didn’t, so to speak, get much chance, for Miss Clare started in to tell Miss Dean off good and proper, and what with that, and Mr Joseph trying to make me believe the case might have slipped out of Mr Stephen’s pocket after the murder had been discovered, when he was bending over the body –’

‘Could it?’ interrupted Hemingway.

‘Not a chance, seeing where it was found. Mr Stephen saw that himself. If he’d been sitting in a chair by the fire, though, and took out his case for a cigarette, and put it back sort of careless, so that it didn’t slip into his pocket, but fell into the chair instead, and maybe slid off when he got up – well, that might account for it.’

‘Sat down with his uncle for a chat and a quiet smoke, and then murdered him when he wasn’t looking?’ demanded Hemingway. ‘Cold-blooded chap he’d have to be!’

‘He is,’ said the Major shortly. ‘Anyone will tell you that.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed Colwall. ‘Cold as a fish, that’s what he is. Why, from all I could see, he doesn’t even care two pins for that girl of his! Didn’t turn a hair when Miss Clare said that she’d had his cigarette-case. You don’t catch him trying to shield anyone!’

‘Well, that’s a comfort, anyway,’ said Hemingway. ‘If there’s one thing that gets my goat more than another, it’s coming up against a man with a lot of silly, noble ideas in his head which don’t do any good to anyone. Is that all the evidence we’ve got, Inspector?’

‘Not quite, it isn’t. One of the housemaids saw Miss Herriard coming away from her uncle’s door in her dressing-gown. A bit after, the valet heard a footstep in the front hall, as he was coming up the backstairs. He just saw Mr Roydon’s door shut. But Mr Roydon gave a perfectly reasonable explanation for that; and as for Miss Herriard, she made no bones about admitting she’d tried to get into her uncle’s room, to have her row out with him. She says she found the door locked, and didn’t get any answer to her knock.’

‘Didn’t that strike her as funny?’

‘It didn’t strike anyone as funny. They all bear one another out that it was just like Mr Herriard not to answer, if he was in a bad temper.’

‘It sounds like a nice family,’ remarked Hemingway.

The Inspector permitted himself to smile. ‘It is that, and no mistake. You’ll see!’

‘Seems to me I’d better go up there as soon as I can,’ said Hemingway. ‘I’d like to have a word with the police-surgeon, if you please, sir.’

‘Yes, of course. You’ll want to see the finger-prints too, I daresay,’ said the Major, passing him on to Inspector Colwall.

‘Half that gang up at the Manor,’ confided Colwall, as he closed the door of the Chief Constable’s room, ‘will just about throw fits when they realise you’re from Scotland Yard.’

‘Excitable people, are they?’

‘I believe you! Miss Herriard’s a real tragedy-queen, and Miss Dean’s the sort who’d go off into hysterics for two pins.’

‘That’s young Herriard’s blonde, isn’t it? I’ve got a fancy to meet her.’

‘You won’t get anything out of her, not to rely on,’ Colwall said, staring.

‘Ah, but I’ve always had a weakness for blondes!’ Hemingway said.

Inspector Colwall looked at him suspiciously, but could not bring himself to believe that the good man from Scotland Yard was being flippant. ‘Well, you may be right,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t set any store by what she says myself. But of course I’ve never gone in for your branch of the service. Never had a fancy for it. I daresay it comes easy to you chaps, but if I had to spend many evenings like I did last night I should go potty. You don’t know what you’re up against with that crowd, Inspector.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Hemingway cheerfully. ‘As long as there’s one blonde I’ve no complaints coming.’

There were, unknown to him, two blondes now awaiting him at Lexham Manor, Mrs Dean having arrived in a hired car at an alarmingly early hour.

None of the inmates of the house had, from their appearances, enjoyed unbroken rest during the night. Valerie, indeed, declared that she had not once closed her eyes; and even Stephen seemed more than usually morose. The party met at the breakfast-table. Joseph, who came in last of all, greeted the company with a tremulous smile, and said: ‘Alas, that I can’t wish you all a merry Christmas! Yet it seems unfriendly, and sad, doesn’t it, to let this day pass without one word to mark its character?’

There was no immediate response to this. Finally, Valerie said: ‘It doesn’t seem like Christmas, somehow.’

‘Personally,’ said Roydon, ‘I set no store by worn-out customs.’

‘If anyone is going to church,’ said Maud, apparently deaf to this remark, ‘Ledbury is bringing the car round at twenty minutes to eleven.’

‘I’m afraid none of us feels quite in the mood for our usual Christmas service,’ said Joseph gently. ‘But you must go, of course, if you wish to, my dear.’

‘I always go to church on Christmas Day,’ replied Maud. ‘And on Sundays, too.’

‘One had not realised that there were still people who did!’ said Roydon, with the air of one interested in the habits of aborigines.

This was felt to be an observation in such bad taste that Mathilda at once offered to accompany Maud, and Stephen – although not going to these lengths – ranged himself on Maud’s side by telling the dramatist to shut up, and get on with his breakfast.

‘Hush, Stephen!’ said Joseph, yet with a sympathetic gleam in his eye.

‘You shut up too!’ said Stephen. ‘We’ve listened to enough nauseating twaddle to last us for a fortnight. In case it interests anyone, Uncle Nat’s solicitor is coming down here by the eleven-fifteen from Waterloo. If Ledbury is fetching you from church, Aunt Maud, you’ll have to drive on to pick Blyth up at the station afterwards.’

Maud showed herself perfectly ready to fall in with this plan, but Mottisfont, who had been making only the barest pretence of eating, said with a good deal of meaning: ‘Very high-handed! Let us hope that someone is not in for a disappointment.’

Stephen showed his admirable teeth in a singularly disagreeable smile. ‘Is that meant for me?’

Mottisfont shrugged. ‘Oh, if the cap fits – !’

‘For heaven’s sake, Edgar!’ interposed Joseph. ‘Surely if anyone has the right to object to Stephen’s taking charge of things it is I!’

‘Well, if I were you I wouldn’t put up with it for a moment.’

Joseph tried to exchange a smile with Stephen. ‘Ah, but I’m not a clever business man like you, Edgar! I’m only a muddleheaded old artist – if I may be so bold as to lay claim to that title – and Stephen knows well that I’m grateful to him for all that he’s doing.’

Paula, who had been crumbling a roll in glowering abstraction, intercepted the offensive reply which everyone felt to be hovering on Stephen’s tongue by saying suddenly: ‘How long will it be before we get probate?’

Everyone was rather startled by this, and as no one else seemed inclined to answer her Joseph said: ‘My dear, I’m afraid we aren’t thinking of such things just yet.’

She cast him one of her scornful, impatient glances. ‘Well, I am. If Uncle Nat’s left me the money he always said he would I shall put Wormwood on.’

Roydon flushed, and muttered something unintelligible. Valerie said that she would make a point of going to see it. She gave it as her opinion that it would be marvellous. Mathilda hoped, privately, that this appreciation would in some measure compensate Roydon for the marked lack of enthusiasm displayed by everyone else. She rose from the table, and went away to smoke a cigarette in the library.

Here she was soon joined, rather to her annoyance, by Mottisfont, who, after remarking aimlessly that one missed one’s morning paper, began to wander about the room, fidgeting with blind-cords, matchboxes, cushions, and anything else that came in the way of his unquiet hands.

After a few minutes, Mathilda laid down her book. ‘You seem worried, Mr Mottisfont.’

‘Well, who wouldn’t be?’ he demanded, coming to the fire. ‘I don’t know how you can go on as though nothing had happened! Apart from anything else, Stephen’s manner –’

‘Oh, Stephen!’ she said. ‘You ought to know him by now, surely!’

‘Ill-mannered cub!’ he muttered. ‘Taking things into his own hands, without so much as a by-your-leave! I call it thoroughly officious, and why on earth he must needs drag Nat’s solicitor down here on Christmas Day, God alone knows! Anxious to get his hands on Nat’s will, I suppose. Indecent, I call it!’

‘The solicitor ought to come at once,’ she replied rather shortly. ‘The police are bound to want to go through Nat’s papers, for one thing.’

It struck her that he winced slightly at this. He said: ‘They aren’t likely to find anything.’

‘You never know,’ Mathilda said.

‘Everyone knows that Nat was a hot-tempered old – a hot-tempered man who said a lot of things he didn’t mean. Why, I, for instance, have had dozens of quarrels with him! They always blew over. That’s what the police don’t understand. They’ll go picking on things that have no bearing on the murder at all, and try to make out a case from them against some unfortunate person who had nothing to do with it.’

She had a strong suspicion that the unfortunate person he had in mind was himself. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t think they’d do that!’ she said, in a reassuring tone. ‘After all, they must have realised by now that Nat quarrelled with everyone.’

‘Yes, but –’ He stopped, reddening, and took off his glasses, and began to polish them. ‘I haven’t any opinion of that Inspector we had here last night. Unimaginative fool, I thought. Rather offensive too. What do you think of his locking Nat’s study? As though any of us would dream of touching anything in it! Very uncalled-for! Sheer officialdom!’

Mathilda now felt reasonably certain that there was in existence some document which Mottisfont wanted to get his hands on. She returned a noncommittal answer, and was relieved of the necessity of sustaining any more of a difficult dialogue by the entrance of Roydon.

Edgar Mottisfont looked at him in an exasperated kind of way, but Roydon seemed to have come in search of Mathilda, and took no notice of him. ‘Oh, there you are, Miss Clare! Are you really going to church?’

‘Yes,’ said Mathilda firmly.

‘Well, could I have a word with you before you go? It isn’t important! – at least, it doesn’t really matter – but I thought I’d like to.’

Mathilda reflected that fright had had an appalling effect upon Mr Roydon’s powers of self-expression. ‘All right, as long as it hasn’t anything to do with the murder,’ she said.

‘Oh no, nothing to do with that!’ he assured her.

‘I suppose you want me to go?’ said Mottisfont.

Roydon disclaimed, not very convincingly, but Mottisfont said with a short laugh that he knew how to take a hint, and left the room.

‘Well?’ said Mathilda.

‘It’s nothing much, but you took such an intelligent interest in my work that I wanted to tell you that I’ve thought over what you said, and come to the conclusion you were right. Either Wormwood is good enough to stand on its own merits, or it had better be chucked into the incinerator. I daresay that you heard Paula say that she would put it on. Well, I shan’t let her. The whole idea of getting a backer was wrong.’

‘I see,’ said Mathilda, more than a hint of dryness in her voice.

‘I felt I’d like you to know.’

‘Yes, I quite see.’

‘Of course, Paula doesn’t quite understand. She’s so keen to play the part. As a matter of fact, the idea of getting her uncle to back the play was hers, not mine. I don’t really think I ought to have let her talk me into it. I never was quite happy about it, and then when you said what you did, I made up my mind that I wouldn’t be under an obligation to anyone over it. Paula doesn’t see it in that light yet. Of course, it’s very generous of her, but –’

‘But equally embarrassing,’ supplied Mathilda.

‘Oh, I don’t know about that exactly! Only, I thought that you might be able to make her understand my point of view. I mean, if she says anything to you about it.’

‘I should think,’ said Mathilda, extracting the butt of her cigarette from its holder, and throwing it into the fire, ‘that she would be quite capable of appreciating your point of view without any assistance.’

He looked sharply at her; she met his challenging stare steadily, and after a few moments his eyes shifted from hers, and he said lamely: ‘You see, she’s tremendously keen on the play. It’s rather difficult for me to say anything.’

‘Yes, I should think it might be,’ she agreed.

He said in an injured tone: ‘I thought you would understand the way I feel.’

‘I do.’

‘Well, then –’ he began uncertainly. He did not seem to know how to continue, and started again. ‘Besides which, I don’t think it’s altogether wise of her to talk so openly about what she means to do with her legacy, do you? I mean, it might so easily give people a totally wrong impression.’

‘Of her, or of you?’

The colour rushed up into his face; he looked very much discomposed, but after a moment blurted out: ‘Of both of us, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’ said Mathilda. ‘I like you so much better when you’re honest, Mr Roydon.’

‘I wasn’t aware that I had ever been anything else,’ he said stiffly.

She saw that she had deeply offended him, and was not sorry that Paula should choose that moment to stalk into the room.

‘Why,’ demanded Paula, in her deep, throbbing voice, ‘are the police letting us alone this morning?’

‘I can’t think. I was merely thankful,’ replied Mathilda.

‘There’s nothing to be thankful for. I believe it means Scotland Yard.’

Roydon gazed at her with something of the expression of a fascinated rabbit. ‘Why should it mean that?’

‘My dear Willoughby, can’t you see how obvious it was from the start that Scotland Yard would be called in? Think! Uncle Nat was murdered in a locked room! Do you imagine that the local police can cope with that? If I weren’t so closely connected with the crime, I think I should find it absorbingly interesting,’ she added, considering the matter dispassionately.

‘Anyone is welcome to my ring-seat,’ said Mathilda. ‘I do hope you’re wrong about Scotland Yard.’

‘You know I’m not.’

‘Well, if you’re not, I do think you ought to be more careful of what you say, Paula!’ said Roydon.

Her brilliant gaze drifted to his face. ‘Why? In what way?’

‘About my play, for instance. I was just saying to Miss Clare, when you came in, that you might easily give people a wrong impression by talking of backing it. Besides, though I’m awfully grateful, I’ve changed my mind about it. Miss Clare made me see yesterday that it would be a mistake to rely on a backer.’

The expression of contempt which swept over Paula’s face made her look suddenly like Stephen. ‘You’ve got cold feet,’ she said. ‘Whether you like it, or whether you don’t, I’m going to put your play on.’

‘It’s extremely generous of you, but –’

‘It’s nothing of the kind. I’m not doing it from any personal motive, but because I believe in the play. I don’t know how you came to write it, but you did, and that’s all that concerns me.’

He did not know how to interpret these remarks, and merely said: ‘Yes, but it’s sheer folly to tell everyone what you mean to do.’

‘You’re wrong! Stupidly wrong! Everyone knows that I care desperately about Wormwood. I made no secret of it. You heard what I said to Uncle Nat! I should be a fool to change my tune now that Uncle’s dead. As big a fool as you, Willoughby!’

‘I very much resent that implication!’ he said.

‘Oh, go to hell!’ Paula threw at him, over her shoulder.

He walked out of the room with an air of wounded dignity which gave promise of a day of sulks to come.

‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ Mathilda told Paula. ‘People not out of the top-drawer are always inclined to be touchy.’

But Paula had as little consideration for the sensibilities of others as Stephen, and she said disdainfully: ‘He’s yellow. Odd, how clever he can be on paper, yet how inept in conversation!’

‘He’s a little out of his depth. Frightened too. He can’t cope.’

‘Badly frightened. I ought to have known he’d lose his nerve. I can’t bear men who go to pieces in a crisis!’ She saw the quick, startled look Mathilda cast at her, and added, with a curl of her lip: ‘Don’t be afraid! I didn’t mean to imply that Willoughby was my accomplice.’

‘Well, do, for God’s sake, be more careful what you say!’ recommended Mathilda crossly.

Paula laughed. ‘It’s getting you down, Mathilda, isn’t it? I knew it would. You’re beginning to feel suspicious; you listen – oh, without meaning to! – for the underlying motive beneath everything we say. Do you wonder which of us did it? Find your brain sneaking round to that thought, however much you try not to let it?’

‘Yes,’ Mathilda admitted.

Paula cast herself on to the sofa, setting her elbows on her knees, and sinking her chin into the cup of her hands. ‘I know! Ah, but it is interesting, isn’t it? Confess!’

‘No, it’s vile.’

‘Oh – vile!’ The thin shoulders jerked up in a characteristic shrug. ‘If you like! But, psychologically speaking, isn’t there a fascination? Watching our behaviour, listening for the scared note – voices lift: have you noticed it? People are such fools, they give things away, lose grip, say too much!’

‘The trouble with you, my girl, is that you have a morbid mind,’ said Mathilda. ‘What’s that?’

The sound of chains clanking round car-wheels had provoked this exclamation. Paula got up, and moved to the window. It had stopped snowing some hours earlier, but only a single pair of wheel-tracks disturbed the smooth whiteness of the drive and the deep lawn beyond it. A large limousine had drawn up before the front-door, and as Paula reached the window a figure in a Persian lamb coat and a skittish hat, perched over elaborately curled golden hair, alighted.

‘I think,’ said Paula, ‘I think it’s Mrs Dean.’

‘Good God, already?’ exclaimed Mathilda, getting up. ‘What’s she like?’

‘Just what you might have expected. Joe has tripped out to meet her.’

‘He would!’ said Mathilda.

Not only Joseph had gone out to meet this new guest, but Valerie also. Before Joseph could utter his little speech of welcome, she had cast herself upon her parent’s awe-inspiring bosom, crying: ‘Oh, Mummy, thank goodness you’ve come! It’s all too frightful for words!’

‘My pet, of course Mummy has come!’ said Mrs Dean, in accents quite as thrilling as Paula’s. ‘Mummy had to be with her little girl at such a time.’ She extended a tightly gloved hand to Joseph, saying with an arch smile: ‘I shan’t ask my girlie to introduce you. I know that you are Stephen’s Uncle Joe! Val told me about you over the ’phone, and how kind you have been to her. You must let a mother thank you, Mr Herriard!’

Joseph turned quite pink with pleasure and responded gallantly that to be kind to Valerie was a privilege requiring no thanks.

‘Ah, I can’t have you turning my girlie’s head!’ said Mrs Dean. ‘Such a foolish childie as she is!’

‘Oh, Mummy, it’s been simply foul!’ said Valerie. ‘I couldn’t sleep a wink all night, and that beastly policeman upset me frightfully!’

‘I’m afraid our nerves aren’t over-strong,’ Mrs Dean confided to Joseph. ‘We’ve always been one of the delicate ones, and quite absurdly sensitive.’

‘Ah!’ said Joseph. ‘May I say that it is all too seldom nowadays that one encounters the bloom of innocence?’

While uttering this speech, he had drawn Mrs Dean into the house, and Mathilda and Paula, who had come out of the library into the hall, were privileged to hear it. They perceived at once that Joseph had met a soul-mate, for Mrs Dean threw him a warm smile, and said: ‘I have always tried to keep the bloom on both my girlies. How one hates to see that dewy freshness vanish! You must forgive a mother’s foolish heart if I say that I can’t help wishing that this hadn’t happened!’

‘I know, and I understand,’ said Joseph earnestly.

‘If only my Val had not been in the house!’ said Mrs Dean, apparently stating her only objection to the murder.

Joseph saw nothing ludicrous in this remark, but shook his head, and said with a heavy sigh: ‘How well I know what you must feel!’

‘You have young people of your own, I expect,’ said Mrs Dean, throwing open her coat and displaying a formidable bust, covered by a tightly fitting lace blouse and supporting a large paste brooch.

‘Alas, no! None of my own! But I count Stephen and Paula as my own. They are very dear to me,’ said Joseph, getting well into his stride.

‘I knew as soon as I saw you that my little girl had not exaggerated ‘Uncle Joe’s’ kindness,’ declared Mrs Dean, laying a hand on his arm, and gently squeezing it. ‘You can’t deceive me! You are the good fairy in the house!’

‘Oh no, no, no!’ protested Joseph. ‘I’m afraid I’m only a foolishly sentimental old fellow who likes to see people happy around him! Ah, here is Paula! Paula, my dear, come and say how-do-you-do to Mrs Dean!’

‘My dear!’ ejaculated Mrs Dean, turning on her high heels as Paula advanced, and stretching out her hands. ‘So this is Stephen’s beloved sister! Let me look at you, childie! Yes, I can see something of Stephen. My poor child, this is a terrible time for you, and with your mother so many, many miles away! I shall claim the right of Stephen’s mother-in-law to take his sister under my wing too.’

The thought of Stephen’s being taken under Mrs Dean’s wing momentarily paralysed Paula. By the time she had recovered her breath sufficiently to repudiate the suggestion that she either missed her mother or wanted a substitute, Joseph had drawn Mathilda forward and was introducing her. He then said that Mrs Dean must be cold from her long drive, and begged her to sit down by the fire while he fetched his wife.

‘Now, you mustn’t make any difference for me, dear Mr Herriard, for I have come to be a help, and not a hindrance! I don’t want to cause anyone the least bit of trouble! I’m sure Mrs Herriard must be far too upset and shocked to be troubled by tiresome visitors. You must just not take a scrap of notice of me.’

‘You must have a cup of coffee and a sandwich!’ he said. ‘Do let me persuade you!’

‘Well, if you insist! But this is spoiling me, you know!’

Paula, seeing no other way of escape, said that she would give the necessary order, and vanished, leaving Mathilda to cope with a situation that appalled her. Joseph trotted upstairs in search of Maud, and Mrs Dean disposed herself in a chair by the fire, and began to peel off her gloves.

Mathilda, who had had time to observe the lady, had not missed the calculating light in the prominent blue eyes, and now noticed with malicious amusement the quick, appraising glance Mrs Dean cast about her, at her surroundings.

‘Mummy, I simply won’t be bullied by that ghastly policeman any more!’ said Valerie.

‘No one will bully you while Mummy is here to protect you, my pet,’ responded her parent. ‘But, childie dear, you must run up, and change out of that frock!’

‘Oh, hell, Mummy, why?’

‘Hush, dear! You know Mummy doesn’t like her girlies to use that sort of language! You shouldn’t have put on the primrose today: it isn’t suitable.’

‘I know, but I haven’t got anything black, and anyway no one else is bothering.’

‘No, dear, Mummy knows you haven’t anything black, but you have your navy. Now, don’t argue with Mummy, but run off and change!’

Valerie said that it was a foul nuisance, and the navy suit made her look a hag, but Mathilda was interested to see that she did in fact obey Mrs Dean’s command. She began to suspect that that lady’s smile and sugared sweetness masked a will of iron, and looked at her with misgiving.

Mrs Dean, having smoothed out her gloves, now extricated herself from her fur coat, revealing a figure so tightly corseted about the hips and waist, so enormous above as to appear slightly grotesque. As though to add to the startling effect of this method of dealing with a superabundance of fat, she wore a closely fitting and extremely short skirt. Above the confines of the hidden satin and whalebone, her bust thrust forward like a platform. A short neck supported a head crowned with an elaborate coiffure of rolled curls. Large pearl studs were screwed into the lobes of her ears; and the hat that perched at a daring angle over one eye was very smart, and far too tiny for a woman of her bulk. She was quite as lavishly made-up as her daughter, but could never, Mathilda decided, have been as pretty as Valerie.

Mrs Dean, having taken covert stock of Mathilda, said: ‘Such terrible weather, isn’t it? Though I suppose one mustn’t complain.’

‘No,’ agreed Mathilda, offering her a cigarette. ‘The weather is about the only seasonable feature confronting us. Will you smoke?’

‘I wonder if you will think me very rude if I have one of my own? I always smoke my own brand. One gets into the habit of it, doesn’t one?’

‘Indeed, yes,’ said Mathilda, watching her extract an enamelled case from her handbag, and take from it a fat Egyptian cigarette with a gold tip.

‘I expect,’ said Mrs Dean, ‘you are all quite disorganised, and no wonder! On Christmas Eve, too! Tell me all about it! You know that Val was only able to give me the barest details.’

Luckily for Mathilda, who did not feel equal to obeying this behest, Joseph came down the stairs again just then, saying that Maud was dressing for church, and would be with them in a few minutes. Mathilda said that she too must get ready for church, and made good her escape. As she rounded the bend in the stairs, she heard Mrs Dean say in confiding accents: ‘And now, dear Mr Herriard, tell me just what happened!’