The Santa Klaus Murder (18 page)

“What have you done to make him go? How do you come to know that he's gone? It's wicked if he is dragged into this beastly mess!”

“Just consider!” I urged them. “If the man is, as you say, completely innocent of any complicity and, in fact, ignorant of what actually happened, then you yourselves are to blame for making a great fuss about nothing. First your conspiracy of silence, then a car seen leaving Flaxmere when everyone in the house says that no car has been here. If Parkins had not very properly confessed to me, Ashmore might have had to undergo a very close questioning as to what he was doing here secretly that afternoon.”

“Yes, I see now that we are to blame and that it was idiotic of us not to tell you he was here,” Carol agreed, after considering this. “But we were none of us quite normal that evening. A horrible thing had happened and more than our judgment was upset. But don't let's argue about who's to blame. If he has really disappeared, he must think you are after him and he might do something desperate. He must be found at once. One of us must go and tell him that it's all right. But you haven't explained. Why should he have gone?”

I told her what I knew.

“Well, of course,” she burst out indignantly. “If you sent police to his house, he'd be awfully upset—”

I pointed out that they were plain-clothes men.

“I'm sure he'd know what they were; they'd look like policemen, even in their best mufti, and they'd talk like policemen.”

I managed to get in a word to the effect that Ashmore had apparently taken himself off some time before the first plain-clothes man called.

“Are you
sure
?” Carol asked. “I can't believe that. He has absolutely no reason at all to be worried. Unless there was something horrible in the papers. There might be. Some journalist might have routed out the fact that Ashmore was here.”

I didn't think that likely, but we sent for all the papers which could be collected in the house and when they were brought we studied the pages announcing what most of them called the Christmas Crime, or the Santa Klaus Murder. There were plenty of lurid headlines, but very little real information, the lack of it being made up for by wordy and inaccurate descriptions of the house and family. There was no reference to Ashmore, nor could we find the least hint that he, or anyone in his position, was connected with the crime or under suspicion.

“There may be some other awful screaming rag that Ashmore reads,” Jenny suggested.

“Or perhaps, as Jennifer suggested to begin with,” I mildly ventured, “he has gone out on his own affairs and will be back this evening.”

The two young women looked at me suspiciously and coldly.

“You don't really think that,” Carol accused me. “Your police have said something that makes you sure there's some important reason for his disappearance.”

The Bristol police had actually reported that, from all they could discover, it was unheard of for Ashmore to go out, even for an hour, without telling his wife where he would be and when he would return. This was important for his business, to which he attended diligently. Some inquiries in the local public houses had not been very helpful. One publican knew Ashmore who, he declared, was “almost a teetotaller” and hadn't been in the bar for days.

“Look here!” said Carol suddenly. “If Jenny or I could go and see Mrs. Ashmore, I believe we might get something out of her. Naturally she's suspicious of your plain-clothes police!”

I suppose my face showed my doubt of the wisdom of this plan. Anyhow, Carol looked at me and laughed.

“Oh, blast! Of course we're all under suspicion and observation and the rest of it and you daren't let us out! Well, come yourself, if you like; only keep in the background! Or send another guard with us. Let Jenny go, with a nice fatherly policeman!”

I was sorry that Kenneth was not at hand. There might be something in Carol's idea that she or Jenny could get more out of Mrs. Ashmore, and I began to think that Ashmore did know something and it was important to find him. I felt that Jenny certainly, and Carol possibly, really believed in Ashmore's innocence. Perhaps he had picked up some clue quite by accident. Yet I was reluctant to turn either of those girls loose in Bristol, though I had no definite idea of what mischief they could do. I took a few steps up and down Jenny's little room, whilst they watched me anxiously. Reaching a decision, I sent for Rousdon and held a colloquy with him in the passage outside the door.

We decided to let Bingham drive Jennifer to Ashmore's house, and they should be followed by a plain-clothes man on a motor bicycle who was to keep himself in the background unless he noticed anything unusual or unless they overstepped their instructions, which were to go to the house, make the inquiries and come straight back to Flaxmere. Bingham—who had been helping the searchers of the outhouses, drawing their attention to lofts, producing ladders, unlocking doors—was supervised whilst he placed a rug in the Sunbeam and drove it round to the front door. The car itself had already been searched.

Jenny had put on a black hat and coat which she had selected from amongst the goods which deputations from two or three of the chief shops in Bristol had brought to Flaxmere that morning. Looking small and frail and anxious in the back of the big limousine, she drove off alone with Bingham.

Chapter Eighteen

Mr. Ashmore's Story

by Jennifer Melbury

It was a relief to get away from Flaxmere, where we had all been cooped up so unpleasantly for what seemed weeks, though it was really only from the evening of Christmas Day—Wednesday—until this Friday afternoon. Colonel Halstock had been pretty unpleasant, but now that I began to think it over calmly, he had really been no worse than we all were. Everyone seemed perfectly beastly during those awful days. Oliver must have had the hell of a time, because although we all agreed that it seemed utterly idiotic that he should shoot Father, yet it did look like that to begin with. I don't wonder that he was quite pleased to spend a night in prison and that he kept away from us when he returned to Flaxmere.

Then when we all grasped that there must have been what we called a “second Santa,” the suspicions grew worse, because none of us could see who it could possibly have been. Some people, Aunt Mildred and Patricia especially, who are quite impervious to reason, obviously wanted it to be poor Grace Portisham, though we all knew that Hilda had been talking to her in the hall all the time when the murder must have been committed. They evolved an idea that she might have done it immediately Oliver left the study, and it was true that she hadn't joined Hilda till a bit later and no one could exactly remember when she came into the hall from the library, where she had stayed behind to clear up the litter when most of us drifted out. However, that wouldn't account for the second Santa, and anyhow I was sure that poor Grace simply worshipped Father and wouldn't dream of shooting him, even if she was going to get a lot of money by his death, which everyone was afraid of.

Bingham had said he knew the way to Ashmore's house, but as we began to get into Bristol he stopped the car and slid back the glass partition behind him. I thought he was going to ask about the address, but instead of that he said, “Excuse me making a suggestion, Miss, but if I might be so bold, wouldn't it be better for me to draw up just at the corner of the street, as it were, and for you to go up to the door by yourself? Make less stir in the street, like, if you understand my meaning.”

It seemed a good idea, because there would be sure to be a lot of excitement and talk if the big Flaxmere car were seen outside Ashmore's door, and what Carol and I were specially anxious about was to avoid publicity for Ashmore. He had such a horror of it and it was all through trying to keep him out of it that we had apparently made such a mess of things, and brought him under suspicion.

Bingham stopped the car in a busy street, just before the corner of the little road, with small houses in two grim rows, in which Ashmore lives. We were very inconspicuous, stopping there, as I might have been going to a shop.

I knocked at Ashmore's door and it was opened a crack, and a voice behind it said surlily, “What is it?”

I said who I was and the door opened wider to show Mrs. Ashmore. She was always rather a draggled woman but now she looked more down-at-heel than usual, furtive and red-eyed. She took me into the parlour and then it suddenly came over me that I didn't know quite what I was to say to her. I didn't want to make her think I had anything to do with the police by asking straight out where her husband was. However, she got me out of the difficulty by pouring out a flood of sympathy and indignation about Father's death.

“We was anxious, you'll understand, all the Boxing Day, Ashmore having come back on Christmas Day with news of some accident to Sir Osmond, by reason of which he left hurriedly without knowing rightly what was the matter. We thought it might be that he had another stroke like he had in the summer. Ashmore would have rung up if it hadn't been that he thought Sir Osmond would answer the telephone himself, as like as not, if he was in good health, we having no suspicion, of course that the poor man was lying dead, and thinking he might consider the inquiry uncalled for.”

She ran on like this, explaining just how anxious they were and what they said to each other and so forth, and I told her I was very sorry I hadn't thought of letting them know and asked if Ashmore was at home.

“No, he's not; and that's the trouble!” she said.

I inquired whether anything was wrong and she burst out: “I don't know what should be wrong or why there should be anything wrong, but Ashmore's bin that upset since yesterday evening and this mornin' off he goes with nothin' to speak of inside 'im except just a cup of tea, and I'm not to say anything to anyone, though there's little I could say if I wanted to, but the way he said goodbye to our Ada—she's the weakly one, you'll remember, Miss, an' always at home an' her father that devoted to her, would make your blood run cold. Jus' as if he never thought to see the girl again an' I says to Ashmore, I says, thinkin' he was jus' takin' a short run, as he often does mornin's, ‘I s'pose,' I says, ‘you'll be back within the half hour.' At that he gives me a queer look an' says, ‘There's no knowin',' says he, ‘but anyway, you know nothing, old girl, and you'll say nothing to any as may come making inquiries.' An' with that off he went and hasn't bin seen since, and how he thinks we're to get on without him, with nothing comin' in but what he gets by the car and little enough of that, and me not knowin' what to say to people when they ring up, I'm that worried I don' know what to think!”

I tried my best to get out of her whether there could be any other reason for Ashmore's disappearance; anything not connected with Father's death. Mrs. Ashmore seemed to have an idea that he had gone away because of that, though exactly why she could not or would not say. She declared that he had no reason for leaving, nothing to do with his home or business. She maintained for a long time that she hadn't the faintest idea where he had gone, but at last she told me that there was some place he had talked about last night, after he began “to get in a state,” a place he had often talked about before. He had been there on a day trip in his youth and he always said it was the most beautiful place in the world but she could never get him to take her there. Sometimes she was doubtful whether it ever existed, except that other people had talked of going there. She couldn't make out what he saw in it, for he admitted that it wasn't the seaside and there was no promenade, but just some ruins. Last night he had said he'd like to see that place again, for the last time, he had always promised himself that he's see that place again. Could she remember the name of it? She didn't think so; she wasn't good at remembering names, but Ada might know. She went to consult her invalid daughter and returned with the information that it was “Tinnun.”

Considering the ruins and Mrs. Ashmore's slurred Bristol accent, I suggested Tintern and she thought that might be it.

“Though, mind you,” she insisted, “I don't say he's gone there. There's no sense in it, to me, an' it'd cost a fair sight, though they run trips in the summer.”

Then she seemed suddenly anxious as to whether she had done wrong in giving away this clue. What was I going to do? Was I sure no harm could come to him through what she had told me?

I told her I was dead sure that Ashmore had no reason for bolting, but I thought he was run-down and in a very nervy state and must have imagined something which was preying on his mind. Mrs. Ashmore agreed that he hadn't been at all himself for some time and was “suffering with his nerves” through worry over bad business and her own illness, about which she began a detailed history. I managed to head her off and told her that if Ashmore came back, or she got news of him, she was to telephone to Flaxmere at once and ask to speak to me. We would do all we could to find him, I assured her. “You won't put those police on to him, will you, Miss?” she implored, and I promised that I wouldn't, with some doubt about whether I could fully keep the promise.

The visit of the policemen in plain clothes hadn't been mentioned, except for a vague reference by Mrs. Ashmore to “people who come nosing round for no good purpose.”

I began to say good-bye and she wanted to know how I was getting home, so I told her the car was round the corner and she came along the street with me. When we got to the corner we saw the car a few yards away, with Bingham sitting at the wheel. Mrs. Ashmore looked hard at him and then plunged forward in a sort of half run. Bingham saw me and got out to open the door, so Mrs. Ashmore caught him on the pavement.

“So it's you, Mr. Bingham! And so I thought!” she raged at him shrilly. “An' I'd like to know what you have to say for yourself, you who took away my husband's job and now you've taken away his senses, you with your cock-and-bull tales, whatever they may be, that have sent him, as good a husband and as good a father as ever there was, off to goodness knows where.”

People passing by on the pavement were beginning to stare and pause to see what was going on. I got quickly into the car. Bingham behaved very well, saying he was sorry if anything had happened to Ashmore but he knew nothing about it, and so on. He didn't lose his temper but answered her quietly and then got into his driving seat. I opened a window and asked what was the matter.

“Just you ask him!” she cried. “Ask Mr. Bingham! Ask him what he told my poor husband on Boxing Day! That's what I'd like to know!”

I dreaded being involved in a scene in the street and I thought the woman had lost her senses and was putting the blame on Bingham because probably she had always felt bitter about him since he got her husband's job at Flaxmere. I assured her that Bingham had nothing to do with the affair and implored her not to get so upset about it or to jump to conclusions too quickly. Then I told Bingham to drive on and we left Mrs. Ashmore standing on the pavement, shaking her head of straggling hair.

When we were clear of Bristol again, Bingham drew up and said he would like to explain what Mrs. Ashmore had meant, before we got back to Flaxmere. So I went and sat in the front and we drove on.

He told me that yesterday—Boxing Day—he had to drive Mr. Crewkerne, the solicitor, from Twaybrooks back to Bristol and after dropping him Bingham decided to call at Ashmore's house and break the news to him. Bingham explained that it was hardly at all out of his way and although Colonel Halstock had instructed him to return to Flaxmere at once he thought there was no harm in stopping for a moment. The Ashmores, he realized, wouldn't have heard what had happened at Flaxmere and he thought he could save them the shock of reading it in the papers next day. Bingham said he was rather “come for” at the way Ashmore received the news. “All broke up, he was, seemed to take it to 'eart somethink orful. I wouldn't be surprised if the man 'as done isself a mischief.”

“But why?” I asked. “Even if he were upset at hearing of Father's death, I don't see why he should behave like that.”

Bingham said mysteriously, “There's no knowin' what a person'll do,” and I could get no more out of him. He was worried about his own position. He had disobeyed Colonel Halstock's orders because he thought it would be a kindness to old Ashmore to break the news gently to him and he had never dreamt that his visit would cause such a to-do. He understood that the police now wanted to get hold of Ashmore and if they found out that Bingham had seen him just before he went away, Bingham would be for it, he was afraid. He would take it as a great favour if I could forget to mention to Colonel Halstock that Bingham had ever been there. He reasoned very ingeniously that it was simply the news of Father's death which had sent old Ashmore off the deep end, and if Bingham hadn't happened to deliver that news the day before, Ashmore would have got it from the papers this morning, so his visit was really of no importance.

I wasn't going to make any promises to Bingham, but I decided that I wouldn't bring him in to the story at all if I could avoid it. I did tell him, however, that the police didn't really want to get hold of Ashmore, not in the way he implied. They had wanted an explanation of why he was at Flaxmere, but they understood now that he had a perfectly good reason for coming and it was Carol and I who were anxious to find him because we were worried about him, though we were perfectly certain that he had nothing to do with what had happened or any knowledge about it.

Bingham replied that he would venture to suggest that we left any search for Ashmore to the police, who knew how to manage things. It mightn't be a very nice business for young ladies to mix themselves up in.

I don't quite know what he was implying and thought it was rather cheek of him, though I suppose Ashmore's behaviour did look so queer that no one could be blamed for suspecting him of at least some guilty knowledge.