Miss Marple and Mystery (7 page)

Danger! He was in danger. At this very moment, in this very room, he was in danger.

He tried in vain to ridicule himself free of the fear. Perhaps his efforts were secretly half hearted. So far, the Red Signal had given him timely warning which had enabled him to avoid disaster. Smiling a little at his own superstition, he made a careful tour of the flat. It was possible that some malefactor had got in and was lying concealed there. But his search revealed nothing. His man Milson, was away, and the flat was absolutely empty.

He returned to his bedroom and undressed slowly, frowning to himself. The sense of danger was acute as ever. He went to a drawer to get out a handkerchief, and suddenly stood stock still. There was an unfamiliar lump in the middle of the drawer – something hard.

His quick nervous fingers tore aside the handkerchiefs and took out the object concealed beneath them. It was a revolver.

With the utmost astonishment Dermot examined it keenly. It was of a somewhat unfamiliar pattern, and one shot had been fired from it lately. Beyond that, he could make nothing of it. Someone had placed it in that drawer that very evening. It had not been there when he dressed for dinner – he was sure of that.

He was about to replace it in the drawer, when he was startled by a bell ringing. It rang again and again, sounding unusually loud in the quietness of the empty flat.

Who could it be coming to the front door at this hour? And only one answer came to the question – an answer instinctive and persistent.

‘Danger – danger – danger . . .’

Led by some instinct for which he did not account, Dermot switched off his light, slipped on an overcoat that lay across a chair, and opened the hall door.

Two men stood outside. Beyond them Dermot caught sight of a blue uniform. A policeman!

‘Mr West?’ asked the foremost of the two men.

It seemed to Dermot that ages elapsed before he answered. In reality it was only a few seconds before he replied in a very fair imitation of his man’s expressionless voice:

‘Mr West hasn’t come in yet. What do you want with him at this time of night?’

‘Hasn’t come in yet, eh? Very well, then, I think we’d better come in and wait for him.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘See here, my man, my name is Inspector Verall of Scotland Yard, and I’ve got a warrant for the arrest of your master. You can see it if you like.’

Dermot perused the proffered paper, or pretended to do so, asking in a dazed voice:

‘What for? What’s he done?’

‘Murder. Sir Alington West of Harley Street.’

His brain in a whirl, Dermot fell back before his redoubtable visitors. He went into the sitting-room and switched on the light. The inspector followed him.

‘Have a search round,’ he directed the other man. Then he turned to Dermot.

‘You stay here, my man. No slipping off to warn your master. What’s your name, by the way?’

‘Milson, sir.’

‘What time do you expect your master in, Milson?’

‘I don’t know, sir, he was going to a dance, I believe. At the Grafton Galleries.’

‘He left there just under an hour ago. Sure he’s not been back here?’

‘I don’t think so, sir. I fancy I should have heard him come in.’

At this moment the second man came in from the adjoining room. In his hand he carried the revolver. He took it across to the inspector in some excitement. An expression of satisfaction flitted across the latter’s face.

‘That settles it,’ he remarked. ‘Must have slipped in and out without your hearing him. He’s hooked it by now. I’d better be off. Cawley, you stay here, in case he should come back again, and you keep an eye on this fellow. He may know more about his master than he pretends.’

The inspector bustled off. Dermot endeavoured to get at the details of the affair from Cawley, who was quite ready to be talkative.

‘Pretty clear case,’ he vouchsafed. ‘The murder was discovered almost immediately. Johnson, the manservant, had only just gone up to bed when he fancied he heard a shot, and came down again. Found Sir Alington dead, shot through the heart. He rang us up at once and we came along and heard his story.’

‘Which made it a pretty clear case?’ ventured Dermot.

‘Absolutely. This young West came in with his uncle and they were quarrelling when Johnson brought in the drinks. The old boy was threatening to make a new will, and your master was talking about shooting him. Not five minutes later the shot was heard. Oh! yes, clear enough. Silly young fool.’

Clear enough indeed. Dermot’s heart sank as he realized the overwhelming nature of the evidence against him. Danger indeed – horrible danger! And no way out save that of flight. He set his wits to work. Presently he suggested making a cup of tea. Cawley assented readily enough. He had already searched the flat and knew there was no back entrance.

Dermot was permitted to depart to the kitchen. Once there he put the kettle on, and chinked cups and saucers industriously. Then he stole swiftly to the window and lifted the sash. The flat was on the second floor, and outside the window was a small wire lift used by tradesmen which ran up and down on its steel cable.

Like a flash Dermot was outside the window and swinging himself down the wire rope. It cut into his hands, making them bleed, but he went on desperately.

A few minutes later he was emerging cautiously from the back of the block. Turning the corner, he cannoned into a figure standing by the sidewalk. To his utter amazement he recognized Jack Trent. Trent was fully alive to the perils of the situation.

‘My God! Dermot! Quick, don’t hang about here.’

Taking him by the arm, he led him down a by-street then down another. A lonely taxi was sighted and hailed and they jumped in, Trent giving the man his own address.

‘Safest place for the moment. There we can decide what to do next to put those fools off the track. I came round here hoping to be able to warn you before the police got here, but I was too late.’

‘I didn’t even know that you had heard of it. Jack, you don’t believe –’

‘Of course not, old fellow, not for one minute. I know you far too well. All the same, it’s a nasty business for you. They came round asking questions – what time you got to the Grafton Galleries, when you left, etc. Dermot, who could have done the old boy in?’

‘I can’t imagine. Whoever did it put the revolver in my drawer, I suppose. Must have been watching us pretty closely.’

‘That
seance
business was damned funny. “
Don’t go home
.” Meant for poor old West. He did go home, and got shot.’

‘It applies to me to,’ said Dermot. ‘I went home and found a planted revolver and a police inspector.’

‘Well, I hope it doesn’t get me too,’ said Trent. ‘Here we are.’

He paid the taxi, opened the door with his latch-key, and guided Dermot up the dark stairs to his den, which was a small room on the first floor.

He threw open the door and Dermot walked in, whilst Trent switched on the light, and then came to join him.

‘Pretty safe here for the time being,’ he remarked. ‘Now we can get our heads together and decide what is best to be done.’

‘I’ve made a fool of myself,’ said Dermot suddenly. ‘I ought to have faced it out. I see more clearly now. The whole thing’s a plot. What the devil are you laughing at?’

For Trent was leaning back in his chair, shaking with unrestrained mirth. There was something horrible in the sound – something horrible, too, about the man altogether. There was a curious light in his eyes.

‘A damned clever plot,’ he gasped out. ‘Dermot, my boy, you’re done for.’

He drew the telephone towards him.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Dermot.

‘Ring up Scotland Yard. Tell ’em their bird’s here – safe under lock and key. Yes, I locked the door when I came in and the key’s in my pocket. No good looking at that other door behind me. That leads into Claire’s room, and she always locks it on her side. She’s afraid of me, you know. Been afraid of me a long time. She always knows when I’m thinking about that knife – a long sharp knife. No, you don’t –’

Dermot had been about to make a rush at him, but the other had suddenly produced an ugly-looking revolver.

‘That’s the second of them,’ chuckled Trent. ‘I put the first of them in your drawer – after shooting old West with it – What are you looking at over my head? That door? It’s no use, even if Claire was to open it – and she might to
you
– I’d shoot you before you got there. Not in the heart – not to kill, just wing you, so that you couldn’t get away. I’m a jolly good shot, you know. I saved your life once. More fool I. No, no, I want you hanged – yes, hanged. It isn’t you I want the knife for. It’s Claire – pretty Claire, so white and soft. Old West knew. That’s what he was here for tonight, to see if I was mad or not. He wanted to shut me up – so that I shouldn’t get Claire with the knife. I was very cunning. I took his latchkey and yours too. I slipped away from the dance as soon as I got there. I saw you come out from his house, and I went in. I shot him and came away at once. Then I went to your place and left the revolver. I was at the Grafton Galleries again almost as soon as you were, and I put the latchkey back in your coat pocket when I was saying good night to you. I don’t mind telling you all this. There’s no one else to hear, and when you’re being hanged I’d like you to know I did it . . . God, how it makes me laugh! What are you thinking of? What the devil are you looking at?’

‘I’m thinking of some words you quoted just now. You’d have done better, Trent, not to come home.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look behind you!’ Trent spun round. In the doorway of the communicating room stood Claire – and Inspector Verall . . .

Trent was quick. The revolver spoke just once – and found its mark. He fell forward across the table. The inspector sprang to his side, as Dermot stared at Claire in a dream. Thoughts flashed through his brain disjointedly. His uncle – their quarrel – the colossal misunderstanding – the divorce laws of England which would never free Claire from an insane husband – ‘we must all pity her’ – the plot between her and Sir Alington which the cunning of Trent had seen through – her cry to him, ‘Ugly – ugly – ugly!’ Yes, but now –

The inspector straightened up again.

‘Dead,’ he said vexedly.

‘Yes,’ Dermot heard himself saying, ‘he was always a good shot . . .’

‘The Mystery of the Blue Jar’ was first published in Grand Magazine, July 1924.

Jack Hartington surveyed his topped drive ruefully. Standing by the ball, he looked back to the tee, measuring the distance. His face was eloquent of the disgusted contempt which he felt. With a sigh he drew out his iron, executed two vicious swings with it, annihilating in turn a dandelion and a tuft of grass, and then addressed himself firmly to the ball.

It is hard when you are twenty-four years of age, and your one ambition in life is to reduce your handicap at golf, to be forced to give time and attention to the problem of earning your living. Five and a half days out of the seven saw Jack imprisoned in a kind of mahogany tomb in the city. Saturday afternoon and Sunday were religiously devoted to the real business of life, and in an excess of zeal he had taken rooms at the small hotel near Stourton Heath links, and rose daily at the hour of six a.m. to get in an hour’s practice before catching the 8.46 to town.

The only disadvantage to the plan was that he seemed constitutionally unable to hit anything at that hour in the morning. A foozled iron succeeded a muffed drive. His mashie shots ran merrily along the ground, and four putts seemed to be the minimum on any green.

Jack sighed, grasped his iron firmly and repeated to himself the magic words, ‘Left arm right through, and don’t look up.’

He swung back – and then stopped, petrified, as a shrill cry rent the silence of the summer’s morning.

‘Murder,’ it called. ‘Help! Murder!’

It was a woman’s voice, and it died away at the end into a sort of gurgling sigh.

Jack flung down his club and ran in the direction of the sound. It had come from somewhere quite near at hand. This particular part of the course was quite wild country, and there were few houses about. In fact, there was only one near at hand, a small picturesque cottage, which Jack had often noticed for its air of old world daintiness. It was towards this cottage that he ran. It was hidden from him by a heather-covered slope, but he rounded this and in less than a minute was standing with his hand on the small latched gate.

There was a girl standing in the garden, and for a moment Jack jumped to the natural conclusion that it was she who had uttered the cry for help. But he quickly changed his mind.

She had a little basket in her hand, half full of weeds, and had evidently just straightened herself up from weeding a wide border of pansies. Her eyes, Jack noticed, were just like pansies themselves, velvety and soft and dark, and more violet than blue. She was like a pansy altogether, in her straight purple linen gown.

The girl was looking at Jack with an expression midway between annoyance and surprise.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said the young man. ‘But did you cry out just now?’

‘I? No, indeed.’

Her surprise was so genuine that Jack felt confused. Her voice was very soft and pretty with slight foreign inflection.

‘But you must have heard it,’ he exclaimed. ‘It came from somewhere just near here.’

She stared at him.

‘I heard nothing at all.’

Jack in his turn stared at her. It was perfectly incredible that she should not have heard that agonized appeal for help. And yet her calmness was so evident that he could not believe she was lying to him.

‘It came from somewhere close at hand,’ he insisted.

She was looking at him suspiciously now.

‘What did it say?’ she asked.

‘Murder – help! Murder!’

‘Murder – help! Murder,’ repeated the girl. ‘Somebody has played a trick on you, Monsieur. Who could be murdered here?’

Jack looked about him with a confused idea of discovering a dead body upon a garden path. Yet he was still perfectly sure that the cry he had heard was real and not a product of his imagination. He looked up at the cottage windows. Everything seemed perfectly still and peaceful.

‘Do you want to search our house?’ asked the girl drily.

She was so clearly sceptical that Jack’s confusion grew deeper than ever. He turned away.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It must have come from higher up in the woods.’

He raised his cap and retreated. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw that the girl had calmly resumed her weeding.

For some time he hunted through the woods, but could find no sign of anything unusual having occurred. Yet he was as positive as ever that he had really heard the cry. In the end, he gave up the search and hurried home to bolt his breakfast and catch the 8.46 by the usual narrow margin of a second or so. His conscience pricked him a little as he sat in the train. Ought he not to have immediately reported what he had heard to the police? That he had not done so was solely owing to the pansy girl’s incredulity. She had clearly suspected him of romancing – possibly the police might do the same.
Was
he absolutely certain that he had heard the cry?

By now he was not nearly so positive as he had been – the natural result of trying to recapture a lost sensation. Was it some bird’s cry in the distance that he had twisted into the semblance of a woman’s voice?

But he rejected the suggestion angrily. It was a woman’s voice, and he had heard it. He remembered looking at his watch just before the cry had come. As nearly as possible it must have been five and twenty minutes past seven when he had heard the call. That might be a fact useful to the police if – if anything should be discovered.

Going home that evening, he scanned the evening papers anxiously to see if there were any mention of a crime having been committed. But there was nothing, and he hardly knew whether to be relieved or disappointed.

The following morning was wet – so wet that even the most ardent golfer might have his enthusiasm damped. Jack rose at the last possible moment, gulped his breakfast, ran for the train and again eagerly scanned the papers. Still no mention of any gruesome discovery having been made. The evening papers told the same tale.

‘Queer,’ said Jack to himself, ‘but there it is. Probably some blinking little boys having a game together up in the woods.’

He was out early the following morning. As he passed the cottage, he noted out of the tail of his eye that the girl was out in the garden again weeding. Evidently a habit of hers. He did a particularly good approach shot, and hoped that she had noticed it. As he teed up on the next tee, he glanced at his watch.

‘Just five and twenty past seven,’ he murmured. ‘I wonder –’

The words were frozen on his lips. From behind him came the same cry which had so startled him before. A woman’s voice, in dire distress.

‘Murder – help! Murder!’

Jack raced back. The pansy girl was standing by the gate. She looked startled, and Jack ran up to her triumphantly, crying out:

‘You heard it this time, anyway.’

Her eyes were wide with some emotion he could not fathom but he noticed that she shrank back from him as he approached, and even glanced back at the house, as though she meditated running to it for shelter.

She shook her head, staring at him.

‘I heard nothing at all,’ she said wonderingly.

It was as though she had struck him a blow between the eyes. Her sincerity was so evident that he could not disbelieve her. Yet he couldn’t have imagined it – he couldn’t – he couldn’t –

He heard her voice speaking gently – almost with sympathy.

‘You have had the shellshock, yes?’

In a flash he understood her look of fear, her glance back at the house. She thought that he suffered from delusions . . .

And then, like a douche of cold water, came the horrible thought, was she right?
Did
he suffer from delusions? Obsessed by the horror of the thought, he turned and stumbled away without vouchsafing a word. The girl watched him go, sighed, shook her head, and bent down to her weeding again.

Jack endeavoured to reason matters out with himself. ‘If I hear the damned thing again at twenty-five minutes past seven,’ he said to himself, ‘it’s clear that I’ve got hold of a hallucination of some sort. But I won’t hear it.’

He was nervous all that day, and went to bed early determined to put the matter to the proof the following morning.

As was perhaps natural in such a case, he remained awake half the night, and finally overslept himself. It was twenty past seven by the time he was clear of the hotel and running towards the links. He realized that he would not be able to get to the fatal spot by twenty-five past, but surely, if the voice was a hallucination pure and simple, he would hear it anywhere. He ran on, his eyes fixed on the hands of his watch.

Twenty-five past. From far off came the echo of a woman’s voice, calling. The words could not be distinguished, but he was convinced that it was the same cry he had heard before, and that it came from the same spot, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the cottage.

Strangely enough, that fact reassured him. It might, after all, be a hoax. Unlikely as it seemed, the girl herself might be playing a trick on him. He set his shoulders resolutely, and took out a club from his golf bag. He would play the few holes up to the cottage.

The girl was in the garden as usual. She looked up this morning, and when he raised his cap to her, said good morning rather shyly . . . She looked, he thought, lovelier than ever.

‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ Jack called out cheerily, cursing the unavoidable banality of the observation.

‘Yes, indeed, it is lovely.’

‘Good for the garden, I expect?’

The girl smiled a little, disclosing a fascinating dimple.

‘Alas, no! For my flowers the rain is needed. See, they are all dried up.’

Jack accepted the invitation of her gesture, and came up to the low hedge dividing the garden from the course, looking over it into the garden.

‘They seem all right,’ he remarked awkwardly, conscious as he spoke of the girl’s slightly pitying glance running over him.

‘The sun is good, is it not?’ she said. ‘For the flowers one can always water them. But the sun gives strength and repairs the health. Monsieur is much better today, I can see.’

Her encouraging tone annoyed Jack intensely.

‘Curse it all,’ he said to himself. ‘I believe she’s trying to cure me by suggestion.’

‘I’m perfectly well,’ he said.

‘That is good then,’ returned the girl quickly and soothingly.

Jack had the irritating feeling that she didn’t believe him.

He played a few more holes and hurried back to breakfast. As he ate it, he was conscious, not for the first time, of the close scrutiny of a man who sat at the table next to him. He was a man of middle age, with a powerful forceful face. He had a small dark beard and very piercing grey eyes, and an ease and assurance of manner which placed him among the higher ranks of the professional classes. His name, Jack knew, was Lavington, and he had heard vague rumours as to his being a well-known medical specialist, but as Jack was not a frequenter of Harley Street, the name had conveyed little or nothing to him.

But this morning he was very conscious of the quiet observation under which he was being kept, and it frightened him a little. Was his secret written plainly in his face for all to see? Did this man, by reason of his professional calling, know that there was something amiss in the hidden grey matter?

Jack shivered at the thought. Was it true? Was he really going mad? Was the whole thing a hallucination, or was it a gigantic hoax?

And suddenly a very simple way of testing the solution occurred to him. He had hitherto been alone on his round. Supposing someone else was with him? Then one out of three things might happen. The voice might be silent. They might both hear it. Or – he only might hear it.

That evening he proceeded to carry his plan into effect. Lavington was the man he wanted with him. They fell into conversation easily enough – the older man might have been waiting for such an opening. It was clear that for some reason or other Jack interested him. The latter was able to come quite easily and naturally to the suggestion that they might play a few holes together before breakfast. The arrangement was made for the following morning.

They started out a little before seven. It was a perfect day, still and cloudless, but not too warm. The doctor was playing well, Jack wretchedly. His whole mind was intent on the forthcoming crisis. He kept glancing surreptitiously at his watch. They reached the seventh tee, between which and the hole the cottage was situated, about twenty past seven.

The girl, as usual, was in the garden as they passed. She did not look up.

Two balls lay on the green, Jack’s near the hole, the doctor’s some little distance away.

‘I’ve got this for it,’ said Lavington. ‘I must go for it, I suppose.’

He bent down, judging the line he should take. Jack stood rigid, his eyes glued to his watch. It was exactly twenty-five minutes past seven.

The ball ran swiftly along the grass, stopped on the edge of the hole, hesitated and dropped in.

‘Good putt,’ said Jack. His voice sounded hoarse and unlike himself . . . He shoved his wrist watch farther up his arm with a sigh of overwhelming relief. Nothing had happened. The spell was broken.

‘If you don’t mind waiting a minute,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll have a pipe.’

They paused a while on the eighth tee. Jack filled and lit the pipe with fingers that trembled a little in spite of himself. An enormous weight seemed to have lifted from his mind.

‘Lord, what a good day it is,’ he remarked, staring at the prospect ahead of him with great contentment. ‘Go on, Lavington, your swipe.’

And then it came. Just at the very instant the doctor was hitting. A woman’s voice, high and agonized.

‘Murder – Help! Murder!’

The pipe fell from Jack’s nerveless hand, as he spun round in the direction of the sound, and then, remembering, gazed breathlessly at his companion.

Lavington was looking down the course, shading his eyes.

‘A bit short – just cleared the bunker, though, I think.’

He had heard nothing.

The world seemed to spin round with Jack. He took a step or two, lurching heavily. When he recovered himself, he was lying on the short turf, and Lavington was bending over him.