Speedy Death (15 page)

‘You think somebody meant to do the kid in, I suppose, the same as I do?’

‘What else is there to think?’ asked Bertie. ‘But who would want to do such a dastardly thing? I mean, Dorothy’s such a topping girl. Anybody who wanted to put her out of the way would be absolutely mad!’

‘That’s it!’ cried Mrs Bradley, joining them, closely followed by Carstairs. ‘That’s just what we’ve been saying, Mr Carstairs and I. Madness. That’s just what it is!’

‘Well, it does seem the sort of irresponsible destructive action one might expect of a homicidal maniac,’ said Garde. ‘Fancy trying to put somebody out with a poker! Nasty blighter, whoever it was!’

‘I suppose that’s why people have such a horror of the insane. They
are
irresponsible,’ said Bertie.

‘Well, yes, they are irresponsible in a way,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘but they’ve always got an idea at the back of their irresponsibility, if you can only get at it, you know. And you’d be surprised to hear how logically some maniacs can explain their actions—actions which to us——’

At this moment they heard themselves hailed from behind. They turned, and were amazed to see Alastair Bing tearing after them across the lawn, his coat-tails flying, his hair standing straight on end, and in his face a blending of horror and fury such
as none of them had before beheld, even upon his expressive countenance.

‘Eleanor! Eleanor!’ he gasped, and, with a choking cry, fell to the ground.

‘Brandy!’ said Mrs Bradley crisply. And, while the young men raced to get it, she knelt down by Alastair’s side and quickly and skilfully loosened his collar.

‘He’ll be all right in a minute,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Don’t look so scared, Dorothy.’

‘But—but he said Eleanor’s name,’ faltered Dorothy, white to the very lips. ‘You don’t think——’

‘I don’t think anything for a minute,’ returned Mrs Bradley. ‘Here come those boys with the brandy. Go and tell one of them to go for a doctor. Although I don’t think it is at all necessary. Still, one can never tell.’

‘But Eleanor——’ said Dorothy for the second time. ‘Hadn’t I better——’

‘Wait a second. He is coming to,’ interrupted Carstairs.

He supported Alastair, who showed signs of wanting to sit up, and the old man said weakly:

‘Have they got her out?’

‘Do you mean Eleanor? Where is she?’

‘In the bathroom! That horrible place! I should have locked it up and disconnected the water. I realize now that I should have locked it up.’

‘Good God!’ said Carstairs, turning pale. ‘Not another instance of foul play!’

He lowered Alastair’s head to the ground, and
ran back to the house, calling as he ran to Bertie Philipson:

‘Give the brandy to Garde, and come with me.’

Bertie obeyed, and neck and neck they sprinted across the lawn.

‘What’s the row this time?’ yelled Bertie.

Carstairs, requiring all his breath for other purposes, did not reply until they reached the verandah steps.

‘The lower bathroom?’ he then gasped. ‘This is an awful business.’

They entered the breakfast-room, where the scared servants, who had come to clear away, were clustered together as though for mutual protection.

‘You may clear,’ said Carstairs shortly, indicating the littered breakfast-table as he and his companion hurriedly passed it on their way to the door opening into the hall.

The servants, however, loitered uncertainly, and whispered among themselves.

‘Please, sir,’ began the butler, stepping forward, ‘what about Miss Eleanor? She hasn’t appeared yet, and—oh, sir, I do hope there’s nothing wrong.’

‘Of course not, Mander,’ said Carstairs, with unusual abruptness, as he wrenched open the door. ‘Get on with your work and don’t think about anything else.’

He slammed the breakfast-room door behind him, and the two men mounted the stairs, their feet making no sound on the thick pile of the carpet.

The bathroom door was closed. Carstairs knocked on the panels loudly. Then he turned the handle and pushed, but with no result. He put his shoulder to the door and heaved. The door remained fast closed.

‘Here, help me, Philipson, will you? When I say “Three!” fling all your weight against it. Ready?’

‘Yes,’ replied Bertie, gritting his teeth.

‘Then, one, two, three?’

The lock yielded before their double onslaught, and the door swung open so suddenly that both men pitched forward, and were saved from falling full-length only by the opposite wall of the room, against which they both crashed.

‘Hurt?’ gasped Bertie. ‘Oh, heavens!’ he cried, without waiting for a reply from Carstairs.

Clad in her dressing-gown, and lying over the side of the bath with her feet on the floor, her head touching the bottom, and the chain of the wasteplug twisted round and round her left hand, was Eleanor Bing.

‘Good God!’ said Carstairs slowly. ‘She’s drowned! Although there’s no water remaining in the bath now.’

He placed his arm round the woman’s body and heaved it upright. Eleanor’s wet head fell heavily against his shoulder.

‘Take the feet, Philipson,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Better take her into Miss Clark’s room, I should think. That’s nearest. Face downwards on the floor. That’s it.’

Slowly they bore their burden into the pretty bedroom, and, under Carstairs’ directions, laid it
down. With heavy hearts, for both imagined that their efforts were in vain, they attempted artificial respiration for the resuscitation of the apparently drowned.

For half an hour, taking turns about every few minutes, they toiled, but with no result.

Carstairs, whose turn it was, rose slowly to his feet, and shook his head. His face was grey, although great drops of perspiration testified to the genuineness of his efforts to bring poor Eleanor back to life.

‘It is of no use, I am afraid,’ he said.

The sound of a car on the gravel below caused him to look out of the window leading on to the balcony.

‘The doctor!’ he cried, and, opening the long window, he stepped out, and, making a trumpet of his hands, hailed the doctor as the latter stopped his engine and alighted.

‘Yes? Hallo! What is it?’ the medical man called out.

‘Come up here as soon as you can!’ bellowed Carstairs.

He came back into the room, and again knelt beside the inert woman.

‘One more try,’ he said, bending to the grim work.

Bertie watched his untiring efforts with the tremendous concentration of one who has received a great nervous shock. Carstairs glanced up at him once, and said kindly:

‘Go downstairs and get yourself a peg, old chap. You looked knocked up.’

‘I’m all right, thanks,’ said Bertie heavily, with the ghost of a grateful smile. ‘Shall I have another go at that to relieve you a bit?’

‘No, it’s all right. It’s wasted labour, really, I am afraid, but one feels as though one can’t remain still. And I can’t face Bing yet.’

‘Oh, Lord! Of course he has to be told.’ Bertie whistled apprehensively. ‘I say! How frightful it all is! First that poor chap Mountjoy—I can’t think of him as a woman, somehow!—then that dastardly attempt upon Dorothy last night—and now, this! It makes one wonder who’ll be the—well, the next victim, doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Carstairs soberly. ‘I’ll swear there will be no more victims. I fancy this is the last. Poor, poor woman,’ he added, with overwhelming pity, gazing down upon the apparently lifeless body.

A tap at the door heralded the doctor’s entrance. He was followed by Mrs Bradley.

‘Where’s Bing?’ demanded Carstairs, swift as a flash.

‘Downstairs. His son is with him.’

‘Oho!’ said the doctor, taking in the situation with his keen, professional glance. ‘What’s happened here?’

‘Drowned, I fear, doctor.’ And Carstairs briefly outlined the circumstances so far as he knew them.

The doctor knelt beside the body.

At last he stood up, dusted the knees of his trousers, and spoke abruptly.

‘Somebody shout for young Bing,’ he said.

Then he resumed his seemingly thankless task.

‘I’m here,’ said Garde’s voice at the door. ‘Who sent for me?’

‘I did. Understand this pumping game?’ asked the doctor, without pausing in his steady work.

‘I guess so.’

‘Take the arms, then. I’m done. Nice mess here for somebody to clear up. Now, man, put your guts into it.’

With this last implicit instruction Garde nobly complied.

‘Pretty work,’ said the doctor appreciatively. ‘I think we’ve pulled her through. Take his place somebody, and then I’ll have another turn. Ah, she’s coming. She’s coming! That’s it! I thought so.’

Eleanor was certainly manifesting signs of returning animation.

‘She’ll do! She’ll do!’ said the doctor, with professional approval. ‘I’ll take another turn now.’

At this point, when Eleanor, by deciding to return to life, had somewhat alienated public interest, Bertie Philipson created a diversion by suddenly falling prone across her body in a dead faint.

‘Silly fool,’ said the doctor pettishly. ‘Haul him off, Bing. Might cause the poor girl to bite her tongue clean off, falling all over her like that just when she’s coming round.’

AS THE CHIEF
Constable had stated, the proceedings at the inquest on the body of Everard Mountjoy were brief, and no witnesses were called except the doctors and such persons as were deemed necessary to identify the body. Little surprise was manifested by the general public when it was known that the jury had found for wilful murder. A detective inspector was officially placed in charge of the case, and, accompanied by the Chief Constable, he presented himself at the front door of Chayning Place just as the recovered Eleanor was being assisted into bed by Mrs Bradley and her maid.

‘Keep her quiet,’ was the doctor’s parting injunction, ‘because she has had a bad shock, you know.’

‘How do you think she came to fall into the bath like that?’ asked Alastair, who accompanied the doctor to the door, and so was on the spot to
greet the Chief Constable and the inspector upon their arrival at his house.

‘No business of mine, and I don’t intend to hazard a guess,’ replied the doctor. ‘Sudden faintness, giddiness, anything of that sort might have been the cause.’

‘But I should have thought the water would have brought her quickly back to consciousness,’ said Alastair to the Chief Constable, with a puzzled frown.

‘As I am unacquainted with the circumstances which occasion your discourse,’ said the great man, twinkling, ‘I am afraid I cannot pretend to join in the discussion with any tremendous enthusiasm. Don’t tell us that something else extraordinary has occurred in your house, my dear Bing!’

The doctor hastily took his leave, and Alastair led the two officials into the hall.

‘Come to my study, and I will tell you all about it,’ he said.

They heard him to the end without interruption.

‘Well,’ said Sir Joseph to the inspector, ‘well, Boring, what do you make of it?’

The impassive inspector knitted his brows.

‘If I understand you to mean, Sir Joseph, what bearing do I think the events of the night and the awkward accident to Miss Eleanor Bing in the bathroom this morning have on the case we are investigating, well’—he paused, and frowned heavily—‘I say, no bearing at all.’

‘What!’

Alastair Bing’s voice rang out like a pistol-shot.

‘Do you mean to say that the dastardly attempt on Miss Clark’s life and the extraordinary accident to my daughter have nothing to do with the fact that we have a criminal—yes, a murderer in our midst? Nonsense! Nonsense!’

Alastair’s little white imperial quivered with rage.

‘I beg your pardon, sir, but it is my opinion, and I intend to stick to it until it is disproved,’ said the inspector quietly. ‘Now, see here gentlemen. This poker and Guy Fawkes business upstairs. Has it been disturbed in any way?’

‘By my express injunction,’ said Alastair proudly, ‘everything was left entirely as we found it. But come with me. You shall see for yourselves, and then possibly the inspector may see fit to modify his opinion.’

He led the way upstairs into Dorothy’s room, which had been put tidy by the maids after Eleanor’s recovery and exit, but in which the bed had been left untouched.

‘Here we are. Poker, you see. Dummy figure. Smashed mask. It doesn’t look like a joke to me.’

‘Well, sir, I must disagree with you,’ said the inspector stubbornly. ‘To begin: who had a grudge against the young lady. According to you, no one. Well, I can find out more about that later on, so we’ll leave it. Secondly: it is a chancey thing, you know, to aim a slosh at a sleeping person by
moonlight! Suppose you missed killing her, but she had time to recognize you and yelled out! Risky, very. You see, you wouldn’t dare switch the light on, would you, to see her better, and so direct your aim? Third: it’s a brutal way of going about matters, isn’t it, now? Imagine it for yourself. An East End drunk or a mental defective might do a thing like that, but remember you are virtually certain that someone in your own household did it. Can you fix on any one out of the whole crowd who would slosh a pretty girl over the head with a poker? Think of the nasty sight she’d present with her head battered in and lots of blood everywhere! Think of the sound of crunching bones! Think of——’