A Blunt Instrument (21 page)

"There's a catch in it somewhere, and I can't spot it,"

said Sally, frowning at Hannasyde. "What makes you so sure my brother-in-law's innocent?"

"The fact that he was not in London last night, Miss Drew."

Helen put out a wavering hand and grasped a chairback. "He didn't do it?" she said, as though she hardly understood. "Are you trying to trick me into saying something - something -'

"No," Hannasyde replied. "When Mr. North has told me just where he really was on the evening of the 17th I shall be satisfied that neither of you murdered Ernest Fletcher. You, at least, could never have done so."

She gave a queer little sigh, and crumpled up in a dead faint.

"Oh, damn you, Superintendent!" exclaimed Sally, and went quickly forward.

She was thrust somewhat unceremoniously out of the way. North went down on his knee, gathered Helen into his arms, and rose with her. "Open the door!" he ordered curtly. Over his shoulder he said: "I went to see a friend of mine on the evening of the 17th. You can verify that. Peter Mallard, 17 Crombie Street. Thanks, Sally: I shan't need your assistance."

The next instant he was gone, leaving his sister-in-law meekly to shut the door behind him.

Neville covered his eyes with his hand. "Drama in the home! Oh, my God, can you beat it? He thought she did it, and she thought he did it, in the best Lyceum tradition. And they performed their excruciating antics on empty stomachs!"

"Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me!" suddenly announced Glass. "They will deceive every one of his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies!"

"You know, I won't say that I don't appreciate Malachi," remarked Neville critically, "but you must admit that he has a paralysing effect on conversation."

Hannasyde said briefly: "You can wait in the hall, Glass."

"Rebellion," said Glass, is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is an iniquity and idolatry. Therefore I will depart as I am bidden."

Hannasyde refused to be drawn into any sort of retort, merely waiting in cold silence until Glass had left the room. Neville said: "I wish you'd brought the Sergeant. You don't understand how to play up to Malachi a bit."

"I have no wish to play up to him," replied Hannasyde. "Miss Drew, when your sister feels well enough to see me, I want to have a short talk with her."

"All right," said Sally, lighting another cigarette.

He looked at her. "I wonder if you would perhaps go and find out when I may see her?"

"Don't leave me, Sally, don't leave me!" begged Neville. "My hand must be held. Suspicion has veered in my direction. Oh, I do wish John had done it!"

"I'm not going," replied Sally. "For one thing, I wouldn't be so tactless; for another, this problem is just beginning to get interesting. You needn't mind me, Superintendent: carry on!"

"I know what's coming," said Neville. "Who were you with last night?"

"Precisely, Mr. Fletcher."

"But it's very awkward: you've no idea how awkward!" said Neville earnestly. "I can see that you're asking a very pregnant question, of course. But it would make things much easier for me if you'd tell me what the secret of last night is."

"Why?" said Hannasyde. "All I wish you to do is to tell me where you were yesterday evening. Either you know why I'm asking this, or you don't - in which case you can have no possible objection to answering the question."

"You know, that sounds very specious to me," said Neville. "I can see myself falling headlong into a trap. How terribly right Malachi always is! He warned me against deceit repeatedly."

"Am I to understand that you have been practising deceit?"

"Oh yes! I lied to my aunt," said Neville. "That's what makes it all so awkward. I told her I was coming here last night, to see Miss Drew. I can't but see that that is going to cast an extremely bilious hue over my whole story."

"You didn't come here, in fact?"

"No," said Neville unhappily.

"Where did you go?"

"I'd better tell the truth, hadn't I?" Neville asked Sally. "One is at such a disadvantage with the police: they always know more than they say. On the other hand, if I tell the truth now I may find it awfully hard to lie afterwards."

"Mr. Fletcher, this sort of thing no doubt amuses you, but it fails entirely to amuse me!" said Hannasyde.

"You must think I've got a perverted sense of humour!" said Neville. "I haven't; I'm not in the least abnormal: it's only other people's troubles that amuse me. I'm wriggling in the toils."

"I am still waiting for an answer to my question, Mr. Fletcher."

"If I had my way you'd wait for ever," said Neville frankly. "Oh God, why didn't I go to Oxford, and call on my tutor? He'd have been very glad to see me, too. You mightn't think it, but they all hoped for great things of me at Oxford. You know: Fellowships, and what-nots. I was thought to have an intellect."

"That doesn't surprise me at all," said Hannasyde dryly.

"Yes, but doesn't it all go to show that a classical education is so much dross? Double firsts - yes, I did really! - are of no practical use whatsoever. Oh, let us end this ghastly suspense! I was in London last night."

"Intrigue!" said Sally, her eyes dancing. "He lied to his aunt, and went to the great, wicked city! Spill it, Neville! What haunt of vice did you visit?"

"I didn't. I wish I had. All I sought was rational companionship."

"Beast! You could have found that here!"

"Oh no, darling! No, really! Not with Helen in the offing!"

"Where did you find this rational companionship?" interrupted Hannasyde.

"I didn't. I went to call upon one Philip Agnew, who lives in Queen's Gate, and pursues a delightfully scholarly and ineffective career at the South Kensington Museum. But he was out."

"Indeed? So what did you do?"

"I wandered lonely as a cloud, trying to think of anyone besides Philip whom I could bear to consort with. But I couldn't, so I came home, and went to bed."

"Thank you. At what hour did you leave Greystones?" "Oh, but I don't know! After dinner. I expect it was somewhere between half-past eight and nine."

"How were you dressed?"

"God, I can see the pit yawning at my feet! You could get the answer to that one out of my aunt, or Simmons, couldn't you? Black tie, Superintendent. Rather a nice one, too. Even my aunt was pleased."

"Did you wear an overcoat?"

"What, in the middle of June? No, of course not."

"Hat?"

"Yes."

"What sort of a hat?"

"A black felt hat."

"What, that thing?" exclaimed Sally.

"It's a very good hat. Besides, I haven't got another."

"Forgive the interruption," said Sally to Hannasyde, "but if you are trying, as I gather you are, to convict Mr. Fletcher of having murdered his uncle, do you mind telling me how you account for the man Malachi saw leaving Greystones at 10.02?"

"I have an idea, Miss Drew," replied Hannasyde deliberately, "that that man is dead."

Neville blinked at him. "Did - did I kill him?" he asked in an anxious voice.

"Someone killed him," said Hannasyde, looking searchingly at him.

"Who was he?" Sally demanded.

"His name was Charles Carpenter. He was present at Greystones on the night of the murder, and was murdered yesterday evening between the hours of 9.30 and 10.00."

"How do you know he was present at Greystones?"

"His finger-prints were discovered, Miss Drew."

"Oh! Known to the police, was he?"

"How acute!" said Neville admiringly. "I should never have thought of that."

"Yes, he was known to the police," said Hannasyde. "But before the police could interrogate him he was killed - as Ernest Fletcher was killed."

"Can't we pretend he murdered my uncle?" begged Neville.

"No, Mr. Fletcher, we can not."

"Killed because he knew too much," said Sally, getting up, and beginning to walk up and down the room. "Yes, I see. Not Neville, though. Any weapon discovered?"

"No," said Hannasyde. "In both cases, the murderer contrived to conceal his weapon with - let us say - extraordinary ingenuity."

"Oh!" Sally threw him a somewhat scornful smile. "You think that points to Mr. Fletcher, do you? There's a difference, Superintendent, between ingenuity of mind and practical cleverness. Neville - practically speaking - is half-witted."

"I suppose I ought to be grateful," murmured Neville. "What was my weapon, by the way? You know, I don't want to upset the only theory left to you, but I doubt very much if I could nerve myself to commit an act of such repulsive violence - let alone two of them."

"Just a moment!" Sally intervened. "My sister's evidence now becomes of vital importance. I'd better go and see if she's fit enough to see you, Superintendent."

"I should be very grateful to you if you would," said Hannasyde.

"I will, but I don't suppose I shall be frightfully popular," said Sally, going to the door.

"Tell her a man's life is at stake," recommended Neville, swinging his legs over the window-sill, and stepping into the room. "That'll appeal to her morbid mind."

Sally went upstairs to her sister's bedroom. She entered to find that Helen, having recovered consciousness, was indulging in a comfortable fit of weeping on her husband's shoulder, gasping at intervals: "You didn't do it! You didn't do it!"

,No, darling, of course I didn't do it. If you'd only told me!"

Sally paused for a moment in the doorway, and then came in and shut it behind her. "Delicately nurtured female suffering from a fit of strong hysterics?" she inquired. "Come on, Helen. Snap out of it! You're wanted downstairs." She walked into the adjoining bathroom, discovered a bottle of sal volatile in the medicine-chest, mixed a ruthless dose of it, and returned to the bedroom, and put the glass into North's hand. "Push that down her throat," she said.

"Come, Helen! Drink this!" North commanded.

Helen gulped some of the mixture and choked. "Oh! Filthy stuff! I'm all right; really I am! Oh, John, tell me it's true, and I'm not dreaming? It wasn't you I saw that awful night?"

"Of course it wasn't. Is that what you have been thinking all this time?"

"I've been so much afraid! Then that ghastly Superintendent told me you weren't in your flat that evening, and it seemed to make it quite certain. I hoped you'd get away while I talked to the police. That's why I sent Baker up to tell you. I hoped you'd understand it was a warning."

"Was that why you told the Superintendent you had committed the murder?" he asked.

"Yes, of course. I couldn't think of anything else to do. I was too unhappy to mind what happened to me. It didn't matter."

He took her hands, and held them. "You cared as much as that, Helen?"

John, John, I've always cared! You thought I didn't, and I know I behaved like a beast, but I never meant to let this awful gulf grow between us!"

"It was my fault. I didn't try to understand. I even made you afraid to turn to me when you were in a mess. But, Helen, believe me, I never meant to lose your trust like that! I would have got you out of it, no matter what it cost me!"

"Oh, no, no, it was all my utter folly! Oh, John, forgive me!"

Sally polished her monocle. "Don't mind me!" she said. North raised his head. "Oh, Sally, do go away!"

"I would if I could. Don't think it's any pleasure to me to watch a couple of born idiots dripping all over one another," said Miss Drew with brutal frankness. "I'm here on a mission. The Superintendent wants to see Helen. Do you think you could pull yourself together, sister?" Helen sighed, still clinging to North's hand. "I never want to set eyes on the Superintendent again."

"I daresay, but you happen to be an important witness. Now that you aren't labouring under the delusion that John's a murderer, the police would like to hear your evidence all over again. Take another swig of sal volatile! Tell me, John: why did you come back from Berlin in such a hurry?"

"It doesn't matter any longer," he said.

Sally opened her eyes at that. "What a lurid thrill! Did you get an anonymous letter about Helen's goings-on?"

"No. Not anonymous."

Helen swallowed some more sal volatile. "Who?" she asked, flushing.

"Never mind. It wasn't what your somewhat vulgar sister thinks. In fact, it was a metaphorical kick in the pants for me. So I came home."

"And very helpful you were," said Sally. "You spread such a blight all over everywhere that even I began to think Helen might be wise not to tell you all."

"It was - a little difficult," he replied. "Helen was so obviously dismayed at seeing me, and so obviously afraid of my finding out the nature of her dealings with Fletcher -'

"That," said Sally, "was your cue, and you missed it. If you'd gone the right way to work, she would have told you the whole story."

"Yes," said North. "But I wasn't sure that I wanted to hear it."

"An ostrich act? You? Well, I wouldn't have thought it of you," said Sally.

Helen pulled his hand to her cheek. "And thinking that, you - you tried to get yourself arrested to save me! Oh, John!"

"I'm sorry, Helen. We seemed to have lost one another."

Sally took the empty glass away from her sister. "Look here, do you mind postponing all this? You've got to come down and tell the Superintendent exactly what did happen on the fatal evening. At the moment he looks like pinching Neville for the murder, which I'm not at all in favour of. I don't know whether your evidence will be any good to him, but it might be. Shove some powder on your nose, and come downstairs."

Helen got up and went rather wearily to her dressingtable. "All right, if I must. Though why you should care, I don't know. I thought you had no use for Neville."

"I have never," said Miss Drew, inaccurately, but with dignity, "allowed vulgar prejudice to influence my judgment. Moreover, I don't share your conviction that as long as John isn't pinched for the murder it doesn't matter who is. Are you ready?"

Helen passed a comb through her hair, patted the waves into place, critically surveyed her profile with the aid of a hand-mirror, and admitted that she was ready.