For that matter, however, David had a double motive too, as a husband and as a lover.
“I should like to know where David went when Colin left him,” Roger thought to himself. “Did he go up on to the roof then, or didn’t he? The time of death does give us that amount of latitude, whatever the doctors say. Now I wonder how I can possibly find that out?”
The more closely he looked at his new solution, the more certain Roger became that it was the right one. He had been led away before, by the pretty will-of-the-wisp of Chalmers. But examining the situation with an unprejudiced eye, he saw now that a simple elimination left no one at all but one of the Stratton brothers as the guilty man. Colin, Williamson and himself were out of the question; Dr. Mitchell, he was sure, had not left the ballroom or his wife’s side during that hour; Mike Armstrong equally had been constant in his attendance on Margot; the women were all ruled out as not possessing the necessary physical strength; Chalmers was cleared for the same reason—only David and Ronald remained. And still further against these two, David’s alibi was not sound and Ronald’s had not even been examined.
Well, good luck to both of them.
By the time he reached the house Roger had decided that he no longer wanted to find out where David had gone when Colin left him. Whether it were he or Ronald who had done the actual deed, Roger had not the least intention of interfering. Murder could seldom be justified, but it was difficult to look on the elimination of a piece of blight like Ena Stratton as murder. And the best thing for Roger was simply not to know who had done it, or anything about it.
But as he passed through the front door Roger could not help smiling.
Did any lingering suspicion still really remain with Colin that he of all people, Roger Sheringham, had taken it upon himself to string up Ena Stratton? Or was that merely a retort on the part of that obstinate young man to Roger’s charges against David?
In either case, Roger could not help feeling amused at the idea of Roger Sheringham being suspected of murder.
A HIVE IN THE HELMETS
Roger found Inspector Crane on the roof, talking to Ronald Stratton. A uniformed constable hovered in the background.
“Good morning, Inspector,” Roger said cheerfully.
“Good morning, sir. Funny, I was just saying to Mr. Stratton, could I have a word with you up here.”
“Were you? A lucky arrival then.”
Roger glanced round with interest. He had not seen the roof in daylight before, and it did not look quite as he had imagined it in the dark. Much smaller, for one thing, and the arbour was almost at the end instead of nearly in the middle, as he had thought. The gallows were exactly in the middle, and from them still hung the two remaining straw effigies. In the sunlight these looked merely ludicrous, and no longer in the least grisly.
The inspector and Ronald were standing close to the gallows, and Roger intercepted a surreptitious wink from the latter which puzzled him slightly.
“It’s about this chair, Mr. Sheringham,” the inspector explained, in a somewhat apologetic voice, and pointed at the chair lying on its side underneath the gallows.
A tiny stab of alarm pierced Roger’s chest, but he answered easily enough.
“Oh, yes? What about it?”
“Well, sir, you see how it’s lying, right underneath the rope. Now, I’ve taken measurements, and it appears that the poor lady would have been able to stand on it quite easily if it had been like that. These rungs support me, as I’ve tried, so they would quite easily have supported her.”
“Yes, I see what you mean. But perhaps it’s been moved.”
“That’s just what I wanted to ask you, Mr. Sheringham. Was it, to your knowledge, moved last night, while you and Mr. Stratton were cutting the poor lady down?”
Roger looked, as meaningly as he dared, at Ronald. He did not want his reply to clash with any story that Ronald might have told.
“Well, that’s rather difficult to say,” he answered cautiously. “Do you remember if it got moved, Ronald?”
To Roger’s horror, Ronald said brightly:
“No, I can’t say. As a matter of fact, I was just telling the inspector that I don’t remember it being there at all when we were cutting her down.”
After a moment’s stupefaction before this stupidity, Roger regained control of himself. “Don’t you? Oh, I think I do. It was rather in the way. Yes, I expect someone must have kicked it aside, inspector.”
“Yes, I can understand that, sir,” agreed the inspector, in a worried voice, “but why was it put back again?”
“Oh, well—probably someone just kicked it back. In any case, I don’t think it’s a point of any importance, is it?”
“No Mr. Sheringham. Probably not. I just didn’t quite understand about it, and I thought you might have been able to give me some information.”
“Yes, well you see, Inspector, it isn’t the kind of thing about which one can be very accurate. I dare say I ought to have noticed exactly the position of the chair when Mr. Stratton and I got up here, but I’m afraid I was much more concerned in finding out if she was really dead, and trying to save her life if she wasn’t.”
“Yes sir, of course. Yes, I quite understand that. No doubt it’s of no importance at all.”
“And there was a certain amount of confusion up here, you must remember. Mr. Stratton and I, and Mr. Williamson and Mr. Nicolson, too. And it was quite dark. No, I think it’s only surprising that the chair didn’t end up in the garden below, instead of more or less where it started from.”
“Yes, no doubt you’re quite right, Mr. Sheringham,” agreed the inspector, and made a note in his little book.
But he did not sound quite so convinced as Roger would have liked.
Ronald Stratton, who had been viewing this exchange apparently with tolerant amusement, said:
“Well, that was all you wanted to ask Mr. Sheringham, Inspector?”
It’s all very well, my dear Ronald, thought Roger, but there is such a thing as over-confidence. He was astonished that Ronald should have made such a blunder over the chair, for the second time. Apparently he still did not realise its vital importance.
“Yes, I think so, Mr. Stratton, thank you,” the inspector replied, perhaps a little uncertainly.
“And you’ve finished up here?”
“For the time being, sir, yes.”
“Then come down into the house and let me give you a glass of beer. It’s getting on for twelve o’clock.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stratton. I wish I could say yes, but I have to see the superintendent. I’ll just say a word to my man, and then I must be off.”
The inspector walked aside and said a few words to his constable in a low voice. Neither Roger nor Stratton could overhear them, nor tried.
“You’ll have a spot of beer, Roger?” Ronald remarked, more in the manner of one making a statement than asking a question.
“Thanks,” Roger agreed. “I will.”
“I’ll come upstairs again, when I’ve seen the inspector off.”
“No,” said Roger, “I’ll come down.” He wanted a closed door between them and the rest of the world while he said a few firm words to Ronald on the topic of his imbecility, and the late bar-room was altogether too public.
They escorted the inspector politely to the front door, chatting about the weather, and Stratton took Roger into his study.
“I keep a cask in here,” he said happily. “It’s handier. This cupboard might have been specially built for a cask, mightn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Roger. “Look here, Ronald …”
Ronald looked round from the tankard he was filling. “Yes?”
“I want to speak to you, in words of one syllable. Don’t, you inconceivable bonehead, say anything more about not remembering that chair being there when we were taking down the body last night.”
Ronald turned off the tap, put the other tankard under it, and turned it on again.
“What’s that? Why not?”
“Because,” Roger explained, with suppressed fury, “the presence of that chair, nincompoop, means suicide, and its absence means—
murder.
Think it out, and you’ll see.”
Ronald Stratton turned a suddenly white face over his shoulder and stared at Roger, while the beer ran unheeded over the top of the tankard.
“Good lord!” he muttered. “That had simply never occurred to me.”
He turned back, mechanically stopped the flow from the cask, and got to his feet.
“I say, Roger—”
“No,” Roger interrupted quickly. “Much better not.”
Ronald didn’t.
They drank their beer, looking surreptitiously at each other.
Then Roger said, in quite a casual voice:
“Want any help in getting things down from the roof, Ronald? There are still some things up there—chairs and things. It’s nice and sunny now, but who knows whether it mayn’t rain later, in April?”
Ronald grinned. “That’s quite a sound idea, Roger. Yes, I’d like your help.”
They finished off their tankards and went solemnly up to the roof.
With a nod to the constable, who was still loitering there, Ronald walked over to the nearest pair of chairs, near the steps that led down to the sun-parlour. Before he could touch them, however, the constable had lifted his voice.
“Sorry, Mr. Stratton, sir, were you wanting anything?”
“Yes, we’re going to take these chairs and things into the house, in case it rains later. It’s April, you know.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the constable portentously, “but the inspector said for me to see that nothing wasn’t moved up here.”
“He did?” Roger could not tell whether Stratton was really surprised, or was only acting surprise; in either case he sounded highly surprised. “But why?”
“Couldn’t tell you, sir. But that’s what he said. Nothing to be moved, nor touched. He left me here for the purpose.”
“What on earth …?” said Stratton, and lifted his eyebrows at Roger.
“But surely Inspector Crane didn’t mean that nothing was to be touched on the whole roof, constable?” Roger came to the rescue.
“Sorry, sir, those are my orders. Nothing to be moved on this roof, nor yet touched.”
“Oh, well!” Roger shrugged his shoulders. “There must be some mistake, I think, but you’ll have to wait for the inspector to put it right, Ronald. Inspector Crane will be coming back soon, I take it, as he’s left you here?” he added to the constable.
“‘Bout half an hour, he said, sir.”
“I see. Well, Ronald, we must just wait, that’s all. Shall we go in?”
As they went down the stairs Ronald said:
“Surely that’s rather queer, Sheringham, isn’t it?”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” Roger replied. “Probably the superintendent has told Crane he’d like to have a look at the scene before things are moved, and Crane’s gone off to get him.”
“But Crane didn’t say anything last night about things not being moved on the roof when I took him up there.”
“Well, he hadn’t seen the superintendent then, had he?” Roger said smoothly. But he felt a little uneasy. It certainly was rather queer.
Downstairs they found Colin reading the
Sunday Times
in front of the hall fire.
“Hullo Colin, all alone?” said Ronald. “None of the women down yet?”
“No, nor Osbert either, the lazy hound. Oh by the way, Ronald, I told you I’d be pushing off after lunch. Sorry, I’ve got to change my plans. I’ll be staying to-night.”
“Well, we shall be very glad to have you, Colin. Decided your appointment wasn’t so urgent after all?”
“Not a bit of it. I met that inspector chap as I was coming in just now, and he asked me was it a fact that I was going off after lunch? I said it was and he told me there was nothing doing, or words to that effect.”
“Told you you couldn’t go?” Ronald said incredulously.
“Well, not quite like that. He said I should probably be wanted at the inquest tomorrow, and it would be a great convenience to him if I stayed; so of course I said I would. But if I’d said I couldn’t, I wouldn’t put it past him to have told me I’d jolly well got to. He had that sort of look in his eye.”
“The devil he had !” said Ronald.
The half-hour passed slowly, and as it passed Roger’s uneasiness grew.
He knew the signs, and he knew the ways of the police. The inspector was not satisfied: that was quite obvious. But what on earth could have managed to rouse his dissatisfaction? If it was just the position of the chair, then that really was the most thundering bad luck; for had everything been as innocent as it could be, it was inevitable that the chair should have been kicked about a bit, with four men scrimmaging round it. The inspector could hardly have expected that it could have been left quite untouched.
No, in spite of his deferential manner, Inspector Crane must be a busybody. With a death at such a house as Sedge Park, he saw his chance of making himself important. If he could find a few niggling points over which to raise queries, he could get his name put forward as a keen man. And the devil of it was that, without knowing it, Inspector Crane might be carrying a match towards a powder-magazine. If he really did begin to uncover the surface, heaven knew what train he might not fire. Roger hoped most sincerely, and with all the fervour of a guilty conscience, that Inspector Crane’s match might prove a damp one.
The same constraint seemed to be resting on the others as on himself. They sat in gloomy silence, round the big open fireplace and rustled their newspapers, but it was doubtful if any of the three read very much. As the time passed Roger began to feel more and more like a school-boy before a house-match; that nasty sensation of sick emptiness. And if he felt like that, what must Ronald Stratton be feeling?
For Ronald’s reception of the warning about the chair had gone all the way to confirm Roger’s conclusion. There had been real fear on the face that Ronald had shown him: and in these circumstances fear could surely be caused only by a knowledge of guilt, either on his own behalf or David’s. Well, Roger would do all he possibly could for him, but there might be some awkward times ahead, with this infernal inspector raking over the dung-heap. It would look bad, uncommonly bad, if the man brought to light the feelings with which the Stratton family in general had regarded Ena; and precious little raking would be needed to do that.