Blue Murder (23 page)

Leda smiled.

“But,” went on the Inspector, “there is a possibility also, that some person, as yet unknown, did plan the scene exactly as you have described it, hoping that in your terror, you would not be responsible for your actions, and would rush out of the room and throw yourself over the balcony into the hall below. And so it is my duty to investigate the matter more thoroughly. Shall we all go upstairs?”

Before they could recover from their surprise, Driver had ushered them out of the room and across the hall. Then, taking Charity's arm, he went up the stairs, bidding the others to follow.

He paused at the door of the late Mr. Hardstaffe's bedroom, and listened, while the others exchanged deprecating smiles.

But as he put out a gentle hand and turned the knob, their smiles changed to expressions of apprehension and fear, as they heard from within the room the sound of a cracked, unmusical voice singing, “Teasin', teasin', I was only teasin' you—”

At Charity's scream of terror, Driver flung open the door.

A short figure, wearing a man's dark overcoat with up-turned collar, and a trilby hat was strutting up and down in front of the long wardrobe mirror.

As they rushed into the room, the figure turned, and they looked into the startled face of Frieda Braun!

After Frieda had been dispatched to the kitchen and placed under the care of the cook, the others returned to the breakfast-room.

Leda went up to Charity.

“I owe you an apology,” she said. “I honestly thought you'd made it all up, and if I think a thing like that, I can't pretend that I don't. I know it offends a lot of people, but that's my way, and I don't suppose I shall ever alter it now. You see I know that Daddy's dead, and I don't believe in ghosts, so I thought you'd got a touch of indigestion or something and had a nightmare that made you hysterical. I'm never hysterical myself but I know the symptoms when I see them. I've not taken First Aid, and Warden's courses, and Life-saving for nothing. That's why I had to slap your face. I don't suppose you remember anything about it, but if you do, I want to say I'm sorry.” 

She insisted on taking Charity's cold, inert hand in her own firm grasp as if to prove her sincerity.

“Well, it seems fairly clear what happened,” said the Inspector. “I shall have to ask you all a few more questions just to clear it up, if you don't object.”

“Do you want us all to go out of the room, and come in again separately, as in ‘Postman's Knock?” asked Betty facetiously.

Driver shook his head.

“No, we'll keep it informal if you don't mind,” he said, “and of course, you needn't answer any question if you prefer not to.”

He turned to Charity, and, noting the signs of strain visible in her face, said gently, “Was it just the idea of someone being in the bedroom just now that made you scream?”

Charity clenched her hands as if to keep a hold on herself.

“No,” she said, “It was the song. I'd heard Mr. Hardstaffe sing it the last time I saw him, when he was walking home with me. I'd never heard it before in my life.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Leda. “I thought everyone knew that old song.”

“I don't suppose Miss Fuller does,” remarked Arnold. ‘“It was in fashion a good many years before she was born.”

And he doesn't realise what he's said, thought Sergeant Lovely, glancing at Leda's face. The man's a fool!

“And when you saw Frieda dressed in that overcoat did you recognise her as the same person you saw in the night?” asked Driver.

“No. She didn't look the same at all. I tell you it was him,” she cried hysterically.

Driver shrugged his shoulders and turned to Arnold.

“You were the first person to reach Miss Fuller when she screamed,” he said. “What were you doing when you heard her?”

“I wasn't sure I had heard a scream at first,” replied Arnold. “I was dreaming.”

“Dreaming, my darling of thee,” thought the irrepressible Sergeant. The fellow looks embarrassed, too. Funny that he should feel that way about Miss Hardstaffe. She's not my idea of a dream, but there's no accounting for tastes, and it takes all sorts to make a world, as the saying goes.

“It seems a little strange,” remarked Driver, “that although you and Miss Hardstaffe both have the bedrooms farthest away from Miss Fuller's, you both reached her first. I should like to know what you, Mr. Stanton, and your wife were doing when you heard the screams.”

Betty and Stanton exchanged stealthy glances.

It was Betty who replied.

“We—we were in bed, weren't we, Stan?” she said, and her husband nodded.

“Did the screams wake you?”

“Yes, that is—no,” replied Stanton. “We were awake already.”

“Both of you?”

“Yes.”

“It took you rather a long time to decide to investigate.”

Again that stealthy glance. Again Betty was the first to reply.

“I suppose it took us some time to find our dressing-gowns and things,” she said.

“That's about it,” agreed Stanton.

To their evident relief, the Inspector did not pursue the subject.

“Now then, Miss Hardstaffe,” he said, “whose idea was it that Miss Fuller should sleep in your father's room?”

Leda stared at him.

“I've explained all that to you,” she said. “Don't you remember what I told you—”

“About Mr. Stanton's friend? Yes. But surely you don't expect me to believe that. Isn't it a fact that the friend was never invited at all? That he was, in fact, an excuse to get that room ready? I know more about it than you think.”

The Sergeant looked up in surprise, glanced at the faces of the others, and whistled softly.

I believe you've got something there, Baby, he thought disrespectfully. Now whatever put him on to that track, the old fox?

Leda looked completely bewildered.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she said. “The bedroom was prepared for a friend, exactly as I told you. Stan rang up Betty and asked—Oh, you tell him, Stan.”

“It's just as she says,” Stanton said awkwardly.

Leda looked steadily at her brother, but he did riot raise his eyes.

Arnold stood up suddenly.

“You'd better tell the truth, Hardstaffe,” he advised. “If you don't, I shall have to. I overheard you and Betty talking about it last night. You'd left the door open, and I couldn't help hearing. What's the sense of telling lies about it?”

Stanton made no reply.

Leda turned to her sister-in-law.

“Betty!” she appealed.

But Betty merely compressed her lips and looked obstinate.

“Very touching,” remarked Driver. “You know, of course, that husband and wife need not testify against each other. I don't know what your little game is, but I suppose I shall have to justify my title of detective, as meaning ‘one engaged in detecting, uncovering, discovering, or finding out.'” He turned to Leda. “The truth is, Miss Hardstaffe,” he said, “that your brother made no suggestion that he should bring a friend this week-end. Mrs. Hardstaffe, for some reason, invented the story. We can only guess that it was an excuse to get Miss Fuller into the house. When her husband arrived, she evidently explained things in such a way that he decided to back up her lie.”

Charity sat up, rigid, in her chair.

“You mean that it was Mrs. Stanton who—oh, no! I don't believe it,” she said. “This dreadful house has bewitched us all!”

Leda's face was suffused with anger.

“Stan! to abuse my hospitality and lie to me! How could you do such a thing? How dare you! I always knew you were a weakling and a liar. That's why we never got on well together when you were at home. You were always poisoning Mother's mind against me. But after you were married, I thought you'd improved. I never really liked Betty, but I've always given her credit for turning you into a decent human being. Now I can see that you're both as bad as each other. Well, thank goodness, I've found it out in time. At least I don't need to shield you any longer.”

Stanton took a step towards her.

“What are you saying, Leda?” he demanded. “Don't do anything you'll be sorry for later. I can explain—”

“Explain!”

She turned to the Inspector.

“You've heard him tell you one lie to-day,” she said. “It isn't the first one he's told you. He lied when he said that he'd never been near this house since his quarrel with Daddy. He was here on the night that Mother was murdered!”

It was Inspector Driver's turn to stare in astonishment.

“Do you realise what you are saying?” he asked. “This is a very serious matter.”

Leda laughed.

“I certainly do realise it, Inspector,” she replied. “Doesn't the fact that I've kept it to myself for so long prove that?”

“You might have had some other reason,” returned Driver. “Now perhaps you'll tell me exactly what happened.”

“I shouldn't have known anything about it if one of the dogs hadn't started heaving on my bed,” said Leda, without expressing any distaste for this circumstance. “I knew there'd be an unholy row if she was sick there, so I pushed her off, and rushed her out of the door, and along to the stairs, without even waiting to put my dressing-gown on. When we got into the hall, I bumped into somebody in the dark. No, I didn't scream,” she smiled. “I called out ‘Who's there?'

“It was my mother.

“I switched on the light, and asked her what on earth she was doing there. At first she told me some rigmarole about looking for a book, but I soon got the truth out of her. She told me that Stanton had written asking her to let him into the house after we were all in bed, because he wanted to see her about something important. She was on her way to the front door when I came downstairs. I told her that she couldn't possibly let him in at that hour, because if Daddy happened to hear of it, he'd half kill Stan, and after a bit, she agreed that I was right, and she went back to bed.”

“Did you go outside the house then?”

“In a pair of shell-pink pyjamas on a frosty night?” exclaimed Leda archly. “Have a heart, Inspector.”

“So you didn't see your brother?”

“No, I didn't see why I should risk catching cold on his account. He ought to have had more sense than to expect to see her at that hour. He could have met her somewhere in the daytime if he'd wanted to see her so badly. Or he could have told her about it in a letter. I've no sympathy with people who try to make mysteries over everything, and I thought it would do him good to kick his heels outside in the cold.”

“Have you any idea what he wanted to see her about?”

“I just thought it was another of his attempts to borrow money from her,” she said coldly.

“That's a lie!” shouted Stanton. “I've never borrowed money from her in my life.”

“Her cheque books are full of counterfoils made out to you,” replied Leda. “You must have had hundreds of pounds from her.”

“They were gifts. I never asked her for money.”

Leda shrugged her shoulders.

“That's what you say,” she returned.

The Inspector interrupted them.

“Miss Hardstaffe,” he said in grave tones, “you don't seem to realise that you've deliberately hindered the police in the execution of their duty by withholding vital information. That is a punishable offence.”

Pompous ass! thought Lovely, and was delighted to hear Leda say, “Oh rats! You never asked me about my brother's movements that night. I should have told you if you had. I never believed that he'd had anything to do with my mother's death, so I decided to keep quiet about it. But if he's going to tell more and more lies, I'm not keeping quiet any longer. I've no intention of landing myself into trouble for his sweet sake, I assure you.”

“The fact remains that you lied about the time when you last saw your mother alive,” said Driver. “You gave Superintendent Cheam to understand that you did not see her after she went up to bed at about nine-thirty. Yet all the time you knew that she was alive at—what time was it?”

“Somewhere about half-past twelve, I suppose. I don't know the time more accurately than that. But I knew it made no difference: you knew the time of her death by the post-mortem. I was so sure then that her death was an accident that I didn't see the point of involving any of the family.”

“It didn't seem to occur to you that you might be involving yourself by keeping silent,” remarked Driver. “We always find these things out, sooner or later, and we naturally suspect anyone who withholds information for any reason whatever.”

“Nonsense!” laughed Leda. “You know I had nothing to do with it.”

“Did you go upstairs with your mother or see her again alive?”

“No. I waited for her to go upstairs again before I switched off the hall light. You must think it ridiculous that there's no two-way switch in a house of this size, but Mother was awfully mean over little extras like that. Then I went up to bed myself.”

Driver regarded her seriously.

“I find it difficult to believe that you could let a dog out of the house at that hour without attracting the attention of anyone who was in the grounds, or without his attracting the dog's attention,” he remarked.

“But I didn't let her out,” explained Leda. “I didn't go as far as the front door. By the time that I'd finished talking to Mother, poor old Ming had been well and truly sick in the corner of the hall near the grand-father clock, so there wasn't any need to let her out.”

“So you don't know whether the front door was locked or not?”

“No. I'd locked it before going to bed the first time, of course, but for all I know, Mother might have unlocked it to let Stanton in, although she said she hadn't.”