Envious Casca (15 page)

That was polite of the Superintendent, but when his words were repeated to Inspector Colwall, the Inspector only said, Yes, in a dispirited tone. The good man from Scotland Yard would automatically take charge of the case, and very likely tick everyone off into the bargain, he thought, uneasily aware of his own shortcomings as a detective. He went off duty in a frame of mind almost as gloomy as anyone's at Lexham Manor, and very nearly as resentful as that of the good man from Scotland Yard, who, far from feeling any elation at being given a promising case to handle, told his subordinate that it was just his luck to be sent into the wilds of Hampshire on Christmas Day.

Sergeant Ware, an earnest young man, ventured to say that the case sounded as though it might be interesting.

"Interesting!" said Inspector Hemingway. "It sounds to me like a mess. I don't like the lay-out, I don't like the locality, and if I don't find a whole crowd of suspects, all telling a lot of silly lies for no reason at all, my instinct's wrong, and that's all there is to it."

"Well, perhaps it is, this time," suggested Ware.

The Inspector fixed him with a bright and fulminating eye. "Don't you get insubordinate with me, my lad!" he warned him. "I'm never wrong."

The Sergeant grinned. He had worked with Inspector Hemingway many times, and had almost as great a respect for his foibles as for his undoubted ability.

"And don't stand there smirking as though you were off on a Cheap Day Excursion, because if I were to burst a blood-vessel you'd very likely get blamed for it!"

"Why should I, sir?" asked Ware, diverted.

"Because that's the way things turn out in the Force," said the Inspector darkly.

Chapter Nine

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 hobbyhorses, 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 wellmeaning 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 violenttempered 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."