The Six Queer Things, page 10
Morgan filled his pipe slowly, and then lit it dexterously with one match. “Mr Wainwright, why not be frank?” he said genially, his whole manner changing. “Surely you can see matters can’t be left like this?”
“I don’t understand what you mean?”
“Surely it’s quite clear,” said Inspector Morgan more sharply. “Here is a girl who has disappeared. You say you know her. Here is a man who has died suddenly. His last words are that you have poisoned him. It turns out that you have been hanging round this man under an assumed name. Your explanation of why you did so frankly isn’t satisfactory. You surely don’t suppose we can leave it like that?”
“Well, that’s all there is to it. I can’t help it if it sounds fishy.”
“You refuse to say any more? That’s your story and you stick to it?”
“Yes, if you like to put it that way.”
“Very well. We’ll have to leave it like that until we get the doctor’s report. Until then I can’t definitely say you’re under suspicion, and hence I’m not warning you. It may be that Crispin has died a perfectly natural death. Meanwhile, are you prepared to let me search you?”
“No. I don’t see why the hell you should.”
“Very well, then, I must ask you to stay here until we get the doctor’s report. If it is to the effect that Crispin died a violent death, then you will be arrested and searched in the usual way. If you want to go home today, you’d do much better to let us search you voluntarily.”
“I like your idea of a voluntary search,” answered Wainwright irritably. “Why not hold a pistol to my head and have done with it? All right, go along. Search me.”
Morgan called his sergeant, who ran his hands through Wainwright’s pocket. Morgan glanced rapidly through the papers, penknife, keys, money and other small objects which were brought to light. Then he gave a slight exclamation.
“What’s this?” he asked, picking a small glass phial out of the heap. He pulled out the stopper and sniffed it gingerly, and then his face changed.
Wainwright stared at the phial with startled eyes.
“Here,” he said, “that wasn’t in my pocket!”
“Don’t be a fool, young man. You saw the sergeant take it out just this minute.”
“But I tell you, it wasn’t!” insisted Wainwright. “It couldn’t have been. Don’t I know what was in my own pockets? What’s this, a frame-up?”
Morgan looked coldly into the young man’s white, agitated face.
“A frame-up,” he repeatedly sternly. “You’d better not use that kind of expression with me! You can put the other things back in your pocket. I’m keeping this. Now go straight home. Sergeant Dooney will go back with you to verify your address.”
Sergeant Dooney stepped forward.
“You’d better be available at that address,” Morgan added meaningly.
“But look here, I swear I didn’t have that bottle in my pocket,” protested Wainwright anxiously.
“Are you trying to suggest we can’t believe our own eyes?” replied Morgan brusquely. “Don’t be childish! Cut along now.”
Dooney took his arm and Wainwright went out protesting. As the door closed behind them, Morgan turned to one of the plain-clothes officers who was helping photograph the room.
“Here, Macintosh, cut along after those two, and when Dooney leaves Wainwright, see you keep him tailed. I’ll send someone else along to give you a relief as soon as I can spare him. Wainwright may try to make a bolt for it, so keep your eyes skinned! If you want any help, phone us.”
Morgan walked into the next room, where the late witnesses of the scene were whiling away the time with awkward conversation.
“I shan’t want any of you ladies and gentlemen today,” he said genially. “Please go home when it suits you. If we want any other information, we will send an officer round to interview you at the addresses you have given us.”
He returned to the séance room and, sitting down at the green bureau, made a few notes. When he had finished, he picked up the phial again and sniffed it. Then he handed it to one of his assistants.
“There’s not much doubt about that, is there, Keith?”
The other sniffed it carefully.
“Seems a pretty clear case, sir,” he said, replacing it. “Lucky you thought to search him!”
“Hm. I should have deserved a good kick in the pants if I hadn’t. Cut along and ask Doctor Tremayne if he’s finished the preliminary examination yet!”
Keith returned with Tremayne—a short, pale-faced little man with a small silvery moustache and washed-out blue eyes. He had a small silvery washed-out voice.
Dr Tremayne looked at Morgan sharply as he came in.
“You’ve hit a queer case, Morgan,” he said at once. “Very queer indeed. Got a line on it yet?”
“I’ve got several facts to go on,” admitted the policeman guardedly. “I take it Crispin was poisoned?”
“Yes, so far as one can tell from the brief examination I’ve made. There were clear symptoms of it. I shan’t be prepared to say anything definite, of course, until after the P.M.”
Morgan nodded. “As I thought. What the facts point to, at the moment, is this. This youngster, Wainwright, has been friendly with the girl, Marjorie Easton, who has just run away. From the way he spoke of her, I’m prepared to bet he was in love with her and perhaps still is. She’s been staying here with Crispin. I assume our young man is jealous of Crispin.
“Of course we have no facts yet to show what was the nature of Marjorie Easton’s association with Crispin, but I think it must have been fairly intimate. Wainwright has been coming here regularly under a false name. This goes to show Crispin knew of his fondness for the girl, but had never met him under his own name.
“Well, the girl disappears. At present we have no concrete evidence as to why she has run away, or where she has gone to. Perhaps she had a quarrel with Crispin. Anyway, she has been seriously ill—so we must leave that part of the story in the air for the moment.
“Even so, we have plenty of solid material to go upon. Ted Wainwright gave Crispin a glass of water. Crispin drank it and was immediately taken ill. He screamed, ‘You devil, you’ve really poisoned me!’ That seems to show that he had guessed who Ted Wainwright was and why he had been poisoned. As luck would have it, we’ve one cast-iron proof. We found a small bottle that had held prussic acid in Wainwright’s pocket.”
Morgan tossed the phial over to Tremayne, who sniffed it carefully and nodded. Morgan looked at him triumphantly.
The inspector was a little proud of his ordered marshalling of the facts which, he felt, inevitably pointed to a simple conclusion—Wainwright’s guilt. That, in the inspector’s opinion, was how a murder case should be—simple, concrete and obvious. He knew that subtle or involved crimes were rare. People were driven to murder for large elementary causes that stood out a mile—or else they were insane, in which case they made no real attempt to cover up their tracks.
Tremayne looked at Morgan with a slightly apologetic smile.
“It all looks extremely convincing,” he admitted. “I hardly like to throw cold water upon it. But there just happen to be two facts . . .”
“Which don’t fit in, eh?” said Morgan, nodding his head. “Hm, let’s hear them. I think we can find a place for them.”
“Point number one, then. Fit it in. That phial undoubtedly contained prussic acid—or hydrocyanic acid, to be more correct. Hydrocyanic acid is a very powerful, pervasive and clinically distinctive poison. That makes it certain that, whatever substance poisoned Crispin, it was not hydrocyanic acid. Hydrocyanic acid causes a rapid deoxidisation of the blood which gives the whole complexion a characteristic appearance. Crispin’s body had not got that appearance. Also one can generally smell its characteristic odour in the mouth and lips for some time afterwards. There is no trace of that. Finally, the victim of hydrocyanic acid passes into a coma. Crispin died in convulsions.”
“Then what the devil was the poison used?” asked Morgan querulously.
“I incline to strychnine, although it is impossible to say definitely without an analysis of the organs. I’ll do the post-mortem as soon as possible. Strychnine kills by deranging the nervous system. Its effect on the neural synapses and the chronaxy of the nerves is such that the slightest stimulus overflows into the whole motor system and produces terrific convulsions. The functioning of the body is disorganised, and death results. The description I got from one of the spectators of Crispin’s death, and the general attitude of the body, makes it fairly clear that if he was poisoned at all, strychnine was the cause. The only other possible cause of such symptoms is tetanus, but I think in the circumstances, owing to the suddenness of the collapse, we can rule tetanus out. I should say poisoning by strychnine is undoubtedly the cause of death.”
“That’s an awkward fact, certainly!” admitted Morgan. “I can see things aren’t going to be quite so easy as they seemed at first. What was the other fact which you said would not harmonise with my theory?”
“Well, you suggested that the motive was the eternal triangle—Wainwright’s jealousy of Crispin. Unfortunately you’ve got your triangle arranged wrongly.”
“How do you mean?”
“Michael Crispin happens to have been a woman.”
CHAPTER VI: The Six Queer Things
“A woman!” exclaimed Inspector Morgan. “That certainly is a surprise!”
“What beats me,” went on Tremayne, “is that no one spotted it. Her build is slightly more masculine than the average woman’s, I’ll admit, but, even so, the broad hips and hairless face ought to have made most people suspicious. She had her clothes cut to make her look as masculine as possible.”
“I must find out who her tailor was. Not that it will help much now.”
“Is there anything else you wanted to know?” asked Tre-mayne.
“Not at the moment. I’d rather you went ahead with the post-mortem and analysis as quickly as possible. You’ve left me plenty to chew over.
“You might take that glass,” added Morgan, “and get Hitchcock to develop any fingerprints as soon as possible, and then let you have the sediment in the glass for analysis. If there isn’t enough liquid in the glass, there’s some spilt on the carpet here. I should test it for strychnine first, as that seems to have been the poison used. You’d better take this phial too. Make sure it has contained hydrocyanic acid and nothing else. It certainly smells like it, but after these last two surprises, it’s impossible to be sure. It may be some fake stuff.”
As soon as Tremayne had gone, Morgan began a careful interrogation of the servants. His first task was the questioning of Miss Easton’s nurse, Miss Furnivall. She was of that type, useful to the detective and all too rare, which answers questions clearly and does not regard speculation or inferences as evidence. Unfortunately she had only been in the Crispins’ employ for a short time. She had been engaged to look after Marjorie Easton because of her experience with mental cases, and had spent most of her time with the girl.
“What exactly was the state of this girl’s mind?”
“She was obviously on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and was very moody and depressed. You could not describe her as in any way mad. She was perfectly rational in her conversation and always recognised people and remembered things. She seems to have had hallucinations occasionally, but these were the outcome of her depressed and sensitive state. I think they would have vanished as she became in better shape physically.”
“Why do you think she has disappeared in this way? Was it a sudden brain storm?”
“I can’t give any reason at all; perhaps she woke up in the night under the influence of some delusion and wandered out of the house. Even so, I can’t understand how she was able to get far, seeing she was still in her night things. She would certainly have been noticed in the street; and if she wandered haphazard into a house, it would have been reported to you long ago. So you would have heard of her even if she is in such a state that she does not know her own name and address—which is quite likely, by the way.”
“Up to the time I left there were no reports in of anyone answering to her description,” admitted Morgan. “It is strange. It is still too early to fear the worst. There may be some quite simple explanation.”
“There’s just one thing that worries me, and that is why I slept so heavily last night. I am a light sleeper, and I have that special sensitiveness to sickroom noises which all nurses develop. We do not respond to ordinary noises, even if they are fairly loud, but the slightest unusual movement or cry from our patient wakes us at once. I should have thought it would have been impossible for Miss Easton to have got out of bed and gone out of the room without waking me.”
“Well, it does happen sometimes,” answered Morgan. “People often sleep more heavily than they imagine—a fact our housebreaking friends count on. I don’t think you need be worried by that.”
Miss Furnivall looked doubtful. “You may think me foolish, Inspector, but I am certain there is more in it than that. When I woke up this morning, I found my shoulder and neck were bruised. You can see the marks on my neck now.”
Morgan examined the reddish-purple contusions. He gave a low whistle.
“Those look like the marks of a hand. Has someone been trying to strangle you?”
Miss Furnivall shook her head.
“No, the marks are at the side of the neck, not round the windpipe. But they are marks where someone has gripped me violently—and this must have happened in the night. Why didn’t it wake me? How could I have been sleeping so soundly that these bruises on my neck could have been made without waking me?”
“You mean you must have been drugged?”
“It seems the only explanation.”
“Have you any idea when and where the drug could have been given to you?”
“Most likely in the glass of cocoa which is always brought up to me last thing at night. Now I think of it, it did seem to have had a faintly bitter taste, although I should not be prepared to swear to that.”
“The Crispins must have had something to do with that. Had you noticed anything odd about them when you were here?”
Miss Furnivall sniffed disdainfully.
“I haven’t noticed anything else. Rappings and séances and spirits—it’s enough to drive anyone mad. Childish goings on! As for the people who come here—well, I’ve had plenty of patients a good deal saner!”
“I don’t mean that kind of oddness,” explained Morgan. “I mean the kind that is likely to come in for my attention, not yours.”
“Oh, they were law abiding enough, I dare say. I got my salary regularly, at any rate.”
Morgan looked at her speculatively.
“What would you say,” he asked, “if I told you Michael Crispin was really a woman?”
Miss Furnivall started.
“I should say you were daft, man!” she exclaimed. Then she hesitated. “And yet, he certainly was abnormal . . . Do you mean . . . Well, I’m blest . . . That walk and those hips of his . . . And the fatness in the wrong places!”
Morgan nodded.
“Yes, Michael Crispin was a woman. How long she had been masquerading as a man I don’t know. What precisely did you mean by saying he certainly was abnormal?”
The nurse found it difficult to explain.
“Well, one got a queer impression of him. He had a standoffish kind of manner, very polite and formal. Somehow one didn’t think of him quite as a man because of that, but as someone who was neither—you know, emotionally cold. He didn’t strike one as effeminate, as some men do. He didn’t strike one as masculine. It was an odd feeling, and it gave me the creeps. I can imagine it would have a powerful effect on some people.”
“Well, that’s interesting, Miss Furnivall. It’s all I want to know at the moment. I suppose you will be staying on here?”
“Yes, for another week, at any rate. I’m entitled to a week’s notice. Miss Easton may be found at any moment, and she’ll be likely to need my help. Has Miss Crispin said anything about whether I’m to stay on?”
“I can’t find Miss Crispin. She seems to have gone out and not come back.”
Morgan’s next task was to examine the rest of the household—cook, parlourmaid and chauffeur.
He found little response from either the cook or the parlourmaid. They both seemed to think Crispin had been a good master. “He” had paid them well and not been exacting. Their opinion of Bella was not quite so high—she was fussy and tyrannical.
As for the “goings on”—they had been scared of these at first. Not everyone would be prepared to work in that kind of house, they said, much less sleep in. But one soon got accustomed to it. It was harmless really.
“Not that I can ever stomach the way the master talks of spirits being in the room at meals when I hand round the plates. It gives me the jumps sometimes,” remarked the parlourmaid.
Their surprise seemed genuine enough when they were told that Crispin had been their mistress and not their master. Evidently Crispin had played her role well and at all times. It had become instinctive no doubt; all the same, they admitted she had seemed “odd.”
Morgan’s final interview was with Hawkins, the chauffeur. He told Morgan that the car had vanished from the garage. It had been there in the morning, for he had been cleaning it. It must therefore have gone soon after Crispin’s death. This suggested to Morgan where Isabel Crispin had gone.
“Could Miss Crispin drive the car?” asked Morgan.
“Yes, I taught her, and sometimes on my off day she would take it out shopping herself. She’s not a very good driver, though, as she’s still nervous of town traffic.”
“How long have you been in the Crispins’ service?”
“Five years.”
Morgan looked in his notebook.
“You’re the senior member of the household then? Did you know that Michael Crispin was not really Michael Crispin?”
Hawkins seemed taken aback.
