Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (10 page)

He did not wait for any rejoinder from Harbord, but went into the hall. As he expected, there was no sign of the butler, but he knew his way to the pantry. Pushing open the green baize swing door at the side of the hall, almost hidden by a big, carved oak settle that stood out from the wall, he made his way down a narrow, stone-paved passage that must have looked the same when it re-echoed to the clatter of the monks' flat shoes.

It led to the domestic offices. The pantry door stood open. Inside, Brook could be seen polishing his silver. With a preliminary tap the inspector put his head in. “Why, Mr. Brook, I have just come round for a word with you if you have a moment to spare,” he cried genially. “I quite thought I should have found you in the hall, but it does not take you long to get to work. I must say, however, that it is the way to get on in the world. Never waste a minute.”

Brook's silver jingled as he set it against another piece on the shelf. It struck Stoddart that the man's face was curiously grey as he turned, but his voice sounded steady enough, as he said:

“Oh, well, inspector, in my line of life if one has a minute to spare there is always the leather and the silver, as I tell my footmen.”

“Quite right!” the inspector assented approvingly. “I wish we had a few men like you at the Yard. We could do with them. But now, have you got time for a cigarette?” He held out a well-filled case.

The butler's eyes glanced round in a vague, unseeing fashion, as he helped himself.

“You are very good, inspector. A smoke is a thing I don't often say no to.”

“That's a sensible man,” the inspector returned as he helped himself. “Bless my life, I haven't got my matches. I must trouble you for a light, Mr. Brook.”

The butler looked round and stepped back to a drawer. Stoddart followed him and swung himself on to a high table that stood against the wall. Swinging his legs, since they were too short to reach the ground, he lighted his cigarette from the other's.

“Sir Arthur advised me to come to you for a bit of help this morning,” he said, not looking at the butler, but watching the thin spiral of smoke float slowly up-wards. “You would hear the names of all the people who came to the ball the other night. I wonder if you noticed a Mr. Peter Hailsham?”

“I don't think I did,” the butler answered, a slight stammer impeding his utterance. Cigarette in mouth he turned back to his silver. “You will excuse me, inspector, but the silver needs a lot of looking after this weather.”

“I am sure it does,” the inspector acquiesced. “Ever heard the name before?”

“The name? I don't think I remember what it was,” Brook said, polishing away at his silver.

“Hailsham, Peter Hailsham,” the inspector repeated, his keen eyes watching the other's fingers.

“I don't know.” Brook took up another piece of silver. “Yes, I think I have heard it somewhere. But one hears so many names in a place like this that one gets muddled and doesn't recall where or when.”

“Naturally. It would be setting one an impossible task to try,” the inspector agreed amiably. “But perhaps you might remember whether you have heard it lately.”

“Oh, I don't think so. I feel sure I haven't,” Brook said more quickly.

“H'm!” The inspector finished his cigarette and took another. “Not ready yet, Mr. Brook. Ah, a cigarette lasts you longer than it does me. You are a Hepton man, Mr. Brook, Sir Arthur tells me.”

“Born and bred, inspector. Never lived away in my life. I came to the Abbey as a boy in Sir Arthur's father's days and I have been in the Penn-Moreton service ever since.”

“You knew Sir Arthur's mother, then?”

“Knew her ladyship? I should just think I did!” Brook was polishing very vigorously at his silver now. “Mr. Richard's mother too. I remember Sir Arthur and Mr. Richard both from the day they began to toddle.”

“Ah! There is no bond like that of old association,” the inspector remarked feelingly. “I was just now talking to my assistant, Mr. Harbord, and I said –”

He was interrupted. A voice behind him said:

“Hello! You two look very comfortable. Is this friendship, inspector, or is it the sleuth on the war-path again?”

If the inspector cursed Dicky in his heart, no trace of it was apparent in his face.

“Just a cigarette with Mr. Brook,” he said blandly. “Even a sleuth must relax sometimes, Mr. Richard.”

“Quite so. And give me one of your cigarettes too, they smell jolly good.”

The inspector held out his case. “ Given to me by Mr. Dawson Davenant. I did a lot of work for him last year.”

“Ah, yes, that pearl case of his, I remember. Decent sort of old chap – Dawson Davenant. But my brother says you want to know the whereabouts of one Peter Hailsham. I have come to put you wise.”

The inspector took his cigarette out of his mouth. “I am sure I am much obliged to you, Mr. Richard. Where is he?”

Dicky grinned. “Where you can't get at him, inspector; in Normanford Cemetery.”

For once the inspector was really surprised and showed it. “What? Dead!” he exclaimed.

“As a doornail, my friend.” Dicky's grin grew more expansive. “Brook, you must remember old Peter Hailsham at Normanford.”

The butler looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Of course I do, sir, now that you recall him. I may say that I was put off the track before because I thought the inspector was looking for someone in a different walk of life. The inspector asked me if Mr. Peter Hailsham was at the ball the other night, the night Miss Karslake – died.”

Dicky laughed loudly. “Guess if he was, he'd got a bit cleaner on the other side, or some of our pretty flappers wouldn't have cared much about footing it with him.” He laughed again.

Listening to him, the inspector asked himself whether he was mistaken, or whether there was not something forced in the merriment.

“Know the Canal, inspector? But of course you do. Well, the lock is three or four miles out on the north side. Right opposite it, on a piece of waste ground they call the common, there used to stand, when I was a kid, a sort of tumble-down hovel, where an old man, a kind of rag-and-bone picker, used to hang out, an old chap by the name of Peter Hailsham. He had a jar of mixed sweets, a few bottles of ginger-pop in his window, and kids used to go there for a penn'orth. I have been there myself when I have got hot with rowing. But old Peter Hailsham has been dead for more years than I can count. So if he was here the other night it could only have been in the spirit. What on earth could you want with old Peter Hailsham, inspector?”

Stoddart did not speak for a minute, but he watched Dicky rather closely.

“From information I had received,” he said at last guardedly, “I fancied that Mr. Peter Hailsham might have been able to help me a bit. I must have been mistaken.”

“Yes,” said Dicky, screwing in his monocle more firmly, “you will have to look a bit further than that!”

The inspector and Harbord were in the library at Hepton. Everywhere in the Abbey the blinds were down and the room was shrouded in dimness. The inspector stood by the window. A tiny bit of the blind twisted aside gave him the view of the drive.

It was the day of Charmian Karslake's funeral. About three truckloads of wreaths had been wheeled across to Hepton Church, and now the hearse itself was coming round, bringing the coffin from its temporary restingplace in the disused chapel. Across the coffin lay a great gold cross from Miss Karslake's fellow actors and actresses at the Golden. Other wreaths there were from the management of the Golden, from many members of the profession, from Sir Arthur and Lady Penn-Moreton, from Mr. and Mrs. Richard Penn-Moreton and from the rest of the party.

A special train had brought down the London mourners and these had gone straight to the church, where already Lady Penn-Moreton, with her sister-in-law, Miss Galbraith, and many of the women who had been at the ball, had gone.

The men followed the hearse on foot, turning out of the Abbey drive into the churchyard, Sir Arthur Penn-Moreton at their head, his brother by his side, the other members of the house-party and the management of the Golden behind.

Inspector Stoddart watched them filing down the drive, then he turned to Harbord, who was on the other side.

“Nice looking lot of men; I would give something to know whether the murderer is among them.”

“What do you think yourself?”

“I trust the next half-hour will clear my thoughts considerably,” the inspector said meaningly. “Come along, Harbord, we must get a move on. We haven't much time.”

He picked up a square leather case with a strap handle, considerably the worse for wear, led the way upstairs, walking with a cat-like tread, which was thoroughly characteristic. Harbord followed.

On the first floor he paused, and then, after a momentary indecision, turned abruptly to the left.

“The bachelors' wing,” he said quietly.

The rooms on this floor, which went by the name of the bachelors' wing, were just a row of cells, which, as far as structural alterations went had probably been little altered since the old monks' days. They each held a small, modern bed, a small dressing-table with a shaving mirror, a hanging wardrobe and the washing apparatus in the corner. The last two cells had been turned into bathrooms.

The inspector stopped before the fourth door. “You know whose room this is,” he said, looking over his shoulder.

Harbord nodded. “Mr. John Larpent's.”

“Exactly!” The inspector opened the door.

Looking round there appeared to be little chance of making any discovery in Larpent's room. Mr. Larpent, as Meadshire folks say, travelled light. Of letters or papers, such as the inspector had hoped to find, there was not a sign. A row of boots and shoes and a pair of slippers stood near the bed.

The inspector's capable fingers quickly went over the clothes; obviously in vain. Then he came over to the boots and shoes. Taking a paper from his pocket he spread it out on the toilet-table and placed the right shoe upon it.

Then he stood back.

“As I thought,” he said, beckoning to Harbord.

On the paper was the print of a shoe, into the tracings of which Mr. Larpent's evening shoe fitted exactly.

“When Charmian Karslake was murdered,” the inspector said slowly, “some blood dripped on to the floor; when the murderer picked her up and laid her on the bed he stepped with one foot, at any rate, in the blood, and then walked over to the bed with the body, leaving his very distinct trail behind. I had a print made at once, and, as I expected it would be, Mr. John Larpent's shoe just fits.”

Harbord drew his brows together as he bent over the print. “I see it is exactly the size. But Mr. John Larpent was one of the men who broke into Miss Karslake's room in the morning; it is possible he stepped into the blood then.”

“I think not.” The inspector was scrutinizing the shoe through his magnifying glass. “By next morning the blood was too dry and coagulated to have made this very remarkable print. Besides, the print is decidedly that of an evening shoe and I do not suppose Mr. John Larpent would be wearing those in the morning. These shoes have been well cleaned, though. The microscope does not reveal a trace of blood.”

“Larpent is not a criminal lawyer for nothing,” Harbord remarked, scrutinizing the shoe in his turn.

“Oh, it does not do to take anything for granted!” the inspector said, bringing out the inevitable notebook, and making a cryptic entry. “Eight is not an unusual size. I dare say half the men in the house take it or half those who came to the ball might do. Besides, ask yourself what motive Larpent could have for murdering Charmian Karslake?”

“Well, I don't know.” Harbord hesitated. “But when I am thinking the thing over, it seems to me that, if Charmian Karslake was really a native of Hepton or the neighbourhood, she might have known Mr. Larpent when he came to stay down here, might have got friendly, and perhaps what passed between them might, if it reached Miss Galbraith's ears, have broken off his engagement with her, and I expect her money counts for a good deal with Larpent.”

“Ah, good for you!” was the inspector's comment. “Mr. Peter Hailsham! Where does he come in? And there are plenty of girls with pots of money about, plenty of them with as much money as Miss Galbraith, and a good many worth more. Now, would Larpent, who is a barrister himself, and knows the consequences to the full of course, risk his neck for the sake of Miss Galbraith's money?”

“He might be in love with the girl herself,” hazarded Harbord.

“He might be,” the inspector assented, “But would a man, callous enough to murder a woman like Charmian Karslake, be capable of caring for anyone to that extent?”

“Oh, I think he might be,” Harbord began. “Look at Crippen and Miss Le Neve, and heaps of others that I can remember. If –”

“Ah! It is a pretty big if,” Stoddart retorted. “Come along, Harbord, we have a good deal more to do before they come out of church.”

They went out into the corridor in which tradition said the monks of old had done their penance. Across the grass, green with the growth of centuries, there came to their ears the sweet sounds of the choristers singing round Charmian Karslake's open grave:

Stoddart quickened his steps as they crossed to the front of the house, where the rooms of Sir Arthur and Lady Moreton were situated, together with those allotted to the more important guests. Passing those of the master and mistress of the house he stopped before the big bedroom and dressing-rooms occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Richard. No one appeared to be about. As the inspector had surmised, the whole household was either present at the funeral or engaged in watching what they could see of it over the wall dividing the churchyard from the Abbey grounds. Mrs. Richard's dressing-room was at the right as you entered, her husband's on the left.