Bodies from the Library 4, page 22
‘It might be convenient, Miss Pye, but I don’t think it will work.’
Gloria had also privately thought it would be an excellent idea. ‘I don’t see how you can be so sure …?’
‘He simply had no motive,’ said Dickinson firmly. ‘The only possible reason would have been if he—if he really loved Miss Sandells; and even that was far-fetched. Besides, if he’d had murder planned for the following day, do you think he’d ever have bothered to take that pendant the night before?’
Miss Pye veered round to her earlier theory, going through an elaborate pantomime, forefinger jabbing in the direction of the serving door through which Sparrow had disappeared in search of the fish. Truda and Julian, miserably aloof from each other, aloof from all the world, looked on at this ugly exhibition with disgust. Evan Stone said mildly: ‘Oh, I don’t think so, Miss Pye. He’s a dear little man, he wouldn’t do harm to a soul—and why, anyway, to Geoffrey?’
Gloria had no nonsense about noblesse oblige. She thought if anyone were going to have the blame it might as well be Sparrow, who might be a dear little man but was after all only a servant and so didn’t have feelings like real people. Into the bowl of discussion she tossed an ugly little pebble. ‘What was that you were saying to Geoffrey the night before he died, Pye, about some girl at Cow’s Bay?’
Miss Pye also was anxious to make amends for hasty words that afternoon. If darling Gloria was still angry with her when the marriage with Mr Thoms came off, then good-bye to all hopes of ever getting back her money.
She hastened to catch up the pebble and toss it back. ‘It was all for your sake, darling; Mr Geoffrey and Roy were meeting a couple of girls on the cliffs and I didn’t think it was right …’ As Sparrow returned with the fish, she added: ‘The girls came from Cow’s Bay.’
‘Sparrow lives at Cow’s Bay,’ said Tiggy, trailing lovingly after the steward.
‘Your wife’s there alone, is she, Sparrow, while you’re on duty here?’ asked Gloria sweetly, leaning sideways to allow her plate to be placed in front of her. Sparrow put it down with a little clonk. He said briefly, ‘Yes, madam.’
‘I expect she’s very pretty, Sparrow, isn’t she?’ asked Miss Pye, leaning forward.
Sparrow continued steadily with his duties. ‘Mrs Sparrow is a nice-looking young woman, miss,’ he agreed with a sort of deliberate modesty, as though to shame the questioner by his own humility.
‘Had Mr Winson ever met Mrs Sparrow to your knowledge?’ asked Gloria; they were like two sleek, female cats watching a mousehole, waiting for the first faint flicker of a whisker.
‘Not to my knowledge, madam,’ said Sparrow.
Dickinson looked appealingly at her; Evan made a little sign begging her to desist. Mr Thoms said heavily: ‘Well, never mind that now.’ To Sparrow he said, with a hint of apology in his voice: ‘Go on serving the dinner, Sparrow. All this can be discussed another time.’
But Sparrow could no longer control his indignation. ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of the matter too, Mr Thoms, sir, and if you’ll excuse me, sir, I’d like to leave your service as soon as it’s possible to go … It’s one thing to be accused of such murders as take place among your friends, sir, but to drag my wife’s name into it, that I cannot allow.’ He took up the dish again with shaking hands, and began his round of the table.
Gloria dabbed fish soufflé on to her plate, hitting the spoon against the china irritably to shake it loose. She said: ‘Well, that’s a great display of just indignation, but I don’t see that Sparrow has proved anything.’
Sparrow made no attempt to respond, but his lips were set in a thin white line. Tiggy, hanging gaily to his coat tails as he bent forward to present the dish, announced sentimentally: ‘Mrs Sparrow’s got such a darling little baby. She found it under her bed at Taddlecombe Hospital.’
Sparrow glanced up and shook his head warningly at her.
‘It’s such a darling little baby,’ insisted Tiggy, taking a pineapple from the dish on the sideboard and tenderly nursing it. ‘It’s got a teeny little nose and teeny little blue eyes when they’re open, but they’re shut all the time. And it’s quite bald; but Sparrow says that’s all you can expect from a fledgling.’
Sparrow gave her a sudden, sweet smile. Dickinson leaned back, tipping his chair on to its hind legs, and caught at the little man’s arm with a kindly hand. ‘When did your wife find the baby under the bed in the hospital, Sparrow?’
‘That would be the day she was muckin’ about on the cliffs with the two gentleman, I dare say, sir,’ said Sparrow, directing a look of contempt at Gloria and Miss Pye, who sat with forks poised motionless above their fish. ‘The child came a little bit early, I believe. I went over home on the Tuesday night, sir—Mr Thoms will remember, he gave me leave—and she’d been to the hospital for her examination. And she didn’t come back; the baby was born the next day, and I took Miss Tiggy to see it this afternoon. I didn’t like to trouble anyone with my affairs, sir, while things was in such a mess.’
‘Mrs Sparrow’s going to call the baby Tommy,’ said Tiggy, blissfully nursing the pineapple which had cost fifty shillings. ‘After Thom-Thom, because he’s always so kind to Sparrow. Isn’t she, Sparrow?’
Mr Thoms put his head in his hands; and Evan got up and went round to the steward and gave him a little friendly pat on the shoulder. ‘So there, you see, Pye, you were absolutely wrong as usual,’ said Gloria; and went on with her fish.
And so Roy Silver was out. And Sparrow was out. And there remained seven people of whom one had committed murder: Mr Thoms, Evan Stone, Gloria Winson, Miss Pye, Jenny Sandells. Truda Deane, Julian Messenger. Motives: passion, fear, concupiscence, greed? Opportunity—as far as the human eye could see—none! And Mr Dickinson was pledged next day to reconstruct the crime, to tell them: Who; and How; and Why. And so far he had not the faintest idea.
PART VI
Another day of sunshine: of blue sky and blue sea, of gulls wheeling over the harbour, of little wavelets lapping the side of the quay, of the sea-scented warmth of the air struck up from sun-baked stone. But in the hearts of the seven victims being driven before Mr Dickinson along the quay to where the launch waited to take them out to the yacht, there was no sunshine.
Gloria was uneasy and frightened, trying desperately to keep the balance between Mr Thoms and Evan Stone, till at last it should be possible to announce to the world that the money-bags had won. Thom-Thom, jealous and suspicious, doting and anxious, tried by forced geniality to conceal from his secretary that anything could be wrong; Evan felt wretchedly that he was somehow disloyal to his employer in stealing the prize from him, by reason of twenty years of devotion compared to Mr Thoms’ one.
Jenny walked droopingly with downcast eyes, Julian very upright and handsome, but obviously ill at ease. Only Truda forgot her personal troubles, overwhelming though those might be, and gave her mind to the full significance of the horror that overshadowed them all. One of them—one of them!—walked even now in the terror of shameful death; one of them, before this morning was out, would stand accused of murder.
Was one of them afraid, now; afraid in his heart, coldly, desperately despairingly afraid of what was so soon to come? Oh, Julian, my love, not you! Not you! She could not endure to see his brown eyes so clouded, to see the insouciant laughter wiped so bleakly from his troubled face. Julian, the gay, the smiling, the irresponsible, the clean of heart—with downcast eyes and grim, set mouth, and nervous hands … Oh, Julian—not you! She closed her thoughts against the bare whisper of it. Mystery there might be, and questions unanswered and an undercurrent of ugliness that she did not understand; but she walked along at his side in her cool, summer dress, and looked up into his face, and gave him all her trust. Let the mind whisper ugly doubts the heart knew best.
They sat silently in the launch as it scudded across the blue waters to the little white yacht nosing at her mooring out in the bay; or stood in the stern, the light breeze ruffling their hair, the light spray needling their faces with a million tiny tonic touches, barely perceptible.
When they boarded the Cariad, Mr Dickinson assembled them all in the well and faced them, leaning back against the wheel, Inspector Trickett standing stolidly beside him, silently looking on. ‘I want to take you down afterwards to the cabin; the lunch will be laid out just as it was five days ago, when Mr Winson died. They’re doing it now.’
Tiggy’s little face, upraised to his in wonder and curiosity, was the face of a flower; for she had for the moment left off her spectacles. He said; ‘Why don’t you go and help them lay the table? You could have fun down there!’
As she scudded brightly off, clambering up ungracefully out of the well, he said, half-apologetically: ‘I had to have her here, because of her part in the “reconstruction”; but she needn’t listen to all the discussion, poor little soul!’ As Tiggy scampered happily off he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but could not shift the weight off his mind. This was the beginning of the scene through which he had impetuously and rashly announced he would reveal the murderer of Geoffrey Winson, and he had still no glimmer of how it could be done! In a slightly unsteady voice he plunged into his nerve-racking ordeal:
‘One of you seven people killed Geoffrey Winson last Wednesday, here aboard this yacht, at the table down below. Cyanide is a quick-acting poison, and the dose must have been administered within two minutes of the time he died. One of you administered it. Mr Thoms, Mrs Winson, Evan Stone, Miss Deane, Mr Messenger, Miss Pye, Miss Sandells. One of you administered it. We are here, to find out Who. And How. And, if possible, Why?’
Seven pairs of eyes stared back at him, inimical, carefully blank. He went on:
‘Each of you had a motive for wishing Geoffrey Winson out of the way. Some of the motives aren’t very strong; but many murders have been committed for reasons which, to anyone but the murderer, wouldn’t seem reasons at all, and this may be one of them. Each of you had some motive. And each of you knew of the existence of the poison in Mr Stone’s pocket-book. Each of you may have had access to it during the night before the murder. We are here to run through what happened at lunch-time that day, and discover who had the opportunity to administer the poison. We are going to “reconstruct” that luncheon party. I’m afraid it’ll be rather grim. I’m sorry.’
There was a little rustling as the tension relaxed for a moment. He passed a nervous hand through his shining hair and uttered a small prayer to whatever gods might be, to keep, for this brief hour, his mind clear, his perception quick, his resolution high.
‘First, we must have a few words about the night before the murder, during which the poison was stolen. And immediately we come across a very curious discrepancy. Mr Messenger!’
‘Me?’ said Julian, jumping.
‘Yes, you. You were out of your room that night. What were you doing?’
It had to come. Truda sat rooted to the wooden seat, staring at Julian with terrified eyes. Julian said, stammering: ‘I—I was out of my room?’
‘Yes. You were out of your room during the early hours of the morning. What were you doing?’
Julian’s frank face was ashen. He said at last, stammering: ‘I—I expect I was in my bathroom. There’s a private bathroom to my room.’
‘The bathroom door was open. You weren’t in there,’ they would wriggle, all of them; he must remember every detail of that night as it had been guilelessly recounted to him by Tiggy telling him of her search in the ‘miggle of the night’.
Julian was silent.
‘Perhaps, Miss Deane,’ suggested Dickinson, looking at her rather miserably, ‘you could give Mr Messenger an alibi?’
Truda remained with her eyes fixed upon Julian’s face, terrified. (‘You mustn’t say a word to Dickinson about us, Truda. He mustn’t know!’ that had been Julian’s tense voice speaking to her. She had said, bewildered, ‘Why on earth not?’ and he had repeated again, violently: ‘He mustn’t know!’) She did not know what to say now, and at last temporized feebly: ‘Are you suggesting that Julian was with me that night?’
Mr Dickinson was almost apologetic. ‘Now I come to think of it, he couldn’t have been; because you were out of your room, too—weren’t you?’
‘I was in my bathroom for a little while,’ said Truda, after a moment. ‘Round about midnight, I believe it was.’ She gave him a nervous half-smile. ‘And you can’t say I wasn’t because my bathroom door was closed.’
‘Right. You were in your bathroom. But Mr Messenger wasn’t there with you?’
She did not know what Julian wanted her to say. Again she played for time. ‘What on earth would he have been doing in my bathroom?’
‘So much depends on this,’ said Mr Dickinson, standing, swaying, looking around him with hands in his pockets. ‘Whoever got possession of that poison killed Geoffrey Winson.’ He changed his tone a little. ‘Perhaps instead of trying to find out who could have gone to Mr Stone’s room and taken it that night, it might be easier it we try to find out who couldn’t.’
Miss Pye spoke up.
‘Well, I couldn’t for one,’ she said. ‘I was drugged.’
‘So you were, Miss Pye.’ Miss Pye had received the gin-and-tonic dosed for Jenny by Roy Silver. ‘So you were asleep and snor—were asleep all night.’
‘The same would go for me,’ said Mr Thoms mildly.
‘And that’s right too, Mr Thoms. And I’ll tell you another thing,’ said Mr Dickinson, warming to his story. ‘We’ve naturally been cross-examining Master Silver at the station, and he now says that on his way to Mr Thoms’ room to get the impression of the key of his safe, he turned the lock of Mrs Winson’s bedroom door. He had taken the opportunity during the day of just slipping his hand inside the door and transferring the key to the outside.’
‘He locked me in?’ said Gloria.
‘He said—he said he didn’t want to be disturbed by—er—by anyone coming to Mr Thoms’ room while he was there. I’m only telling you,’ said Mr Dickinson hastily, ‘what Roy Silver says.’
Gloria went first scarlet and then very white. She kept her eyes lowered. ‘It’s a vile lying suggestion.’ And it was true that, with all her dilly-dallying, she always contrived to steer clear of actually compromising herself.
‘Well, anyway, the point is this, that Mrs Winson was locked in her room and couldn’t have been prowling about after poison. Now, as for Miss Sandells, we know that she was out of her room—but we also know what she was doing.’ He looked at her gently. ‘She was keeping her—very innocent—assignment in Roy Silver’s room. My—my informant heard her in there. So that cuts out Miss Pye, Mr Thoms, Miss Sandells, Mrs Winson; and—if we accept the fact that Mr Stone didn’t have to steal his own poison—leaves one person whose movements during that night we cannot ascertain—Mr Messenger.’
(‘Promise me that you won’t tell Mr Dickinson about “us”!’) Truda said at last: ‘Yes. I suppose it does.’
Mr Dickinson ran through the alibis in his mind. They weren’t watertight, of course. There was nothing to show that poison had been stolen early in the night and Gloria’s door had been unlocked by Silver on his return from Mr Thoms’ room.
Moreover, a sleeping-drug did not last for ever, and either Thoms or Miss Pye might have woken up in the early hours of the morning, and still had time to commit the theft. Stone might simply have kept the poison and used it himself. All the same, Messenger had been out of his room; and if he had been with Truda, surely to God she would admit it when his very life was at stake … Even if he would not give her away, surely she would refuse to let him be accused of murder.
But Truda, white and shaking, kept her silence, and into that deathly vacuum Dickinson played his trump card. ‘Mr Messenger—how much money have you in the bank?’
Julian’s nervous hands were suddenly still. He said at last: ‘Not much.’
‘Fifty pounds?’
‘You seem very well informed! Yes—fifty pounds.’
‘I am very well informed,’ said Dickinson quietly. ‘I know that two days before Winson’s death you had three hundred pounds in your bank, and Winson had nothing in his. But that after he died he was found to have two hundred and fifty in his; and you had fifty in yours. It seems a coincidence.’
Julian began to grow angry and some of his colour came back. He said: ‘Why the cat-and-mouse stuff? You must have seen my cheque passed through the Daunton bank.’
He shrugged hopelessly, and then continued:
‘I drew out two hundred and fifty pounds in cash and gave it to Winson on the Tuesday. He spoke to me at Lady Templeton’s dance, and I agreed to—to lend it to him.’ Having spoken, he straightened his shoulders with the air of a man who has picked up the burden and means to carry it on with him after all.
‘If it were merely a loan, why didn’t you just give him a cheque?’
Julian shrugged. ‘He said he preferred it in cash. I don’t know why.’
‘I think I know why,’ said Dickinson. ‘Blackmailers don’t like cheques.’
‘Blackmail?’ said Julian uncertainly.
‘Yes, blackmail. Winson came to you at the dance and told you he had persuaded his stepdaughter to bring action against you for breach of promise. You paid him all you had, to stop his mouth.’
Truda sat with clenched hands, white and sick.
‘If you think two hundred and fifty pounds would stop Winson’s mouth, you must be a fool,’ said Julian calmly to Dickinson. ‘There was a great deal more to be made out of an action for breach of promise.’
‘He knew he’d never succeed in such an action. It was all just a threat. But you’d pay the earth to keep Miss Deane’s name out of such a mess.’
‘Yes, I would,’ said Julian. ‘But I don’t happen to have the earth.’
‘No. Winson began to realize that. You had the reputation of being wealthy, Mr Messenger, but the money was a trust, left for your education, and it finished when you came down from the University. You told Winson that. He decided to take what he could get.’
