Wicked Uncle

Chapter XXXIII

Miss Silver did her errand. The hall was empty as she came through. If there had been anyone there, she might have been observed to go over to the hearth and, standing there, give some moments of close attention to what remained of the fire. The logs of which it had been composed were sunk together upon a deep bed of ash. They were not wholly consumed, but so charred and eaten away as to be mere frail shells, almost as light and insubstantial as the ash upon which they lay. They still looked like logs, but at a touch they would crumble and fall apart-with one exception. Tossed in upon the back of the burned-out fire was just such a log as might have served for the sign of one of those old inns which take their name from the Crooked Billet-a roughly L-shaped faggot, heavy and gnarled. It lay tilted against a pile of banked-up ash.

Miss Silver bent forward and looked at it closely. The heat had died out of the fire, but there was still a glow from the ash. She put out a hand and drew it back again, after which she shook her head slightly, pursed her lips, and proceeded to the drawing-room to summon Mrs. Tote.

They came back to the study together, and found the Chief Inspector restored. He addressed Mrs. Tote in as genial a manner as he thought proper.

“Come in and sit down. I’m sorry to keep you up so late, but I am sure you see the necessity. I suppose you have no objection to Miss Silver being present while I ask you a few questions? She is representing Miss Brown.”

Mrs. Tote said, “Oh, no.”

She folded her hands in her lap, fixed her red-rimmed eyes upon him, and thought with anguished longing of the days when a policeman used to be a pleasant sight. If only anything didn’t come out about Albert-if only she could be sure that there wasn’t anything to come out. Getting rich quick in ways you oughtn’t to was bad enough, but there might be worse than that. Murder would be worse. When the word came into her mind it made her feel as if she was shrinking up smaller and smaller and smaller, until presently she wouldn’t be there at all -and then she wouldn’t see Allie again-

Lamb’s voice sounded like a great gong.

“Now, Mrs. Tote-about tonight. What time did you go upstairs?”

“Ten minutes to ten.”

“Rather early?”

“We’d all had enough of it.”

Something about the way she said this gave him quite a good idea of what the evening had been like. He took her through it, getting her angle on what had already been very accurately described by Miss Maud Silver. She agreed that Mr. Carroll had had a good deal to drink- “Not drunk, of course, but he’d had more than was good for him. He’d never have said the things he said, nor behaved the way he did if he hadn’t-trying to make everyone think he knew something-well, it isn’t the way anyone would behave if they’d any sense in them. Downright foolish, I thought it was, and likely to lead to trouble.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She was frightened. She oughtn’t to have said it. It was only what she thought. You can’t just say what you think in a murder case-it isn’t safe. She spoke quickly.

“No one likes to be hinted at. That’s what he was doing-hinting. I was afraid one of the gentlemen would take it up and there would be words.”

Perhaps she oughtn’t to have said that either. She threw a nervous glance at Miss Silver. There was something reassuring about the pink wool and the steady click of the needles.

Lamb recalled her attention.

“Well, you went upstairs at ten minutes to ten. Did you go to bed at once?”

“No.”

“What did you do?”

“We talked a bit.”

“About Mr. Carroll-about the scene downstairs?”

“Well, there was something said.”

Lamb laughed.

“Well, I suppose there would be! And I suppose your husband wasn’t best pleased?”

“Nobody would be,” said Mrs. Tote.

“I don’t suppose they would. I’m not blaming him. And I suppose you were trying to soothe him down?”

“Well, I was.”

“And then?”

“He went off to his dressing-room.”

“What time was that?”

“Twenty past ten.”

“Look at your watch?”

“Yes. I wanted to see if I’d write a line to my daughter. My husband takes his time undressing.”

“Did you write to your daughter?”

“No-I thought I wouldn’t. I was feeling upset-I didn’t want to upset her. I thought I would undress.”

Lamb leaned forward.

“Now, Mrs. Tote-your room has two windows looking on to the courtyard where Mr. Carroll’s body was found. Were those windows shut or open?”

She said, “Shut,” looked round at Miss Silver, looked back, opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, and then closed it again.

“Yes, Mrs. Tote?”

She sat there, twisting her hands in her lap, pressing her lips together.

“Come, Mrs. Tote-something about those windows, isn’t there? Did you open one of them-did you look out?”

Her fingers went on twisting. You couldn’t exactly say she nodded, but there was some small reluctant movement of the head. Lamb looked at her with a gravity which was impressive in its way.

“Mrs. Tote, if you heard anything or saw anything tonight, you know as well as I do that you’ve got a duty. It isn’t pleasant giving evidence which may lead to a man being hanged, but murder’s murder, and if you know anything, it’s your duty to speak.”

Her red-rimmed eyes were sad but acquiescent.

“I opened the window.”

“Yes. Why?”

“I heard something.”

“What?”

“Something rattling-as if there was someone throwing stones up against a window.”

“Your window?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, no-not mine. So I thought I’d look out.”

“Yes?”

“I put out my light and opened the window. I couldn’t see anything at first, but I could hear someone moving down there in the court. And then all at once Mr. Carroll opened his window just over the way and stood there looking out with the lighted room behind him.”

“See him?”

“Oh, yes-quite plainly. He leaned out and said, ‘Who’s there?’ and someone moved below and said, ‘Come along down -I want to speak to you.’ ”

“Yes-go on.”

“Mr. Carroll said, ‘Is that you, Oakley?’ and the man in the court said, ‘It might be worth your while to keep a still tongue. Suppose you come down and talk it over.’ ”

“What did Carroll say to that?”

“He laughed. It was all very quiet, you know. I’ve got very quick hearing. It was just so I could hear it and no more. He laughed, and he said, ‘I’ll come down and let you in by one of those groundfloor windows,’ and he shut his window and pulled the curtains over it.”

“What did you do?”

“I shut my window and went back into the room and put the light on. I didn’t think it was any of my business, and I didn’t want them to know I’d been listening.”

“Did you hear anything after that?”

“No-”

“Nothing that might have been a blow, or a fall?”

“I was moving about, you see-pouring out water and having a wash. You don’t hear things when you’re washing-” There was something hesitating about her manner.

“But Carroll said, ‘Is that you, Oakley?’ You’re sure about that?”

She had a shrinking look, but she said quite firmly,

“Yes, I’m sure about that. He said the name quite loud.”

“And you heard nothing more-nothing more at all after you shut your window?”

She seemed distressed.

“I don’t know-it isn’t fair to say if you’re not sure.”

“Then you did hear something?”

Her fingers twisted.

“Not to say hear. I was washing. I thought there was something-like someone calling.”

“What did you think when you heard it?”

“I thought it was Mr. Carroll calling out to Mr. Oakley. Just the name-that’s what I thought it was-the way he said it before, only louder. It must have been louder, or I wouldn’t have thought I heard it-but the water was running-I couldn’t swear to anything.”

He let her go.

When the door had closed behind her he threw himself back in his chair.

“Well, that puts a noose round Oakley’s neck all right!”

Miss Silver coughed delicately.

“Mrs. Tote will not swear that the person she saw in the court was Mr. Oakley.”

She sustained the full impact of a formidable frown.

“She heard Carroll address him as Oakley-she’ll swear to that.”

“That is not quite the same thing. Mr. Carroll may have been mistaken. In fact the final point you so skilfully elicited from Mrs. Tote confirms Mr. Oakley’s story. He explains his presence in the court by saying that he thought someone was calling him and hastened in the direction from which he believed the sound to come.”

Lamb gave a short annoyed laugh.

“And isn’t that just what he had to say? Carroll has shouted his name-anyone may have heard him. He’s got to put some kind of a gloss on it, so he uses it to account for his going round to that side of the house.”

With his frowning gaze upon Miss Silver, he was struck by the birdlike quality of her regard, the head a little on one side, the eyes very bright. He had seen her look like that before, and it meant something. In fact, the bird with its eye on a highly promising worm.

“If I might just put that question to Mr. Pearson, Chief Inspector-”

“It won’t keep?”

“I believe not.”

He jerked round in his chair.

“Ring, Frank!”

Pearson came in all agog. His nerves had received a severe shock, but he was being a good deal buoyed up by the fact that it was entirely due to his zeal that the police had arrived in time to arrest the murderer upon the very scene of his crime. That the circumstances of this case would provide him with the most interesting reminiscences, he was already aware. But this solace could not entirely prevent a nostalgic yearning for a future in which two murders would have become merely the subject of a tale. As he was subsequently to put it to his wife, “It’s all very well when it’s a has-been as you might say, but very upsetting to the nerves when it’s going on and you don’t know who’s going to be the next corpse.” Since murders do not commonly take place in the presence of two police officers, to say nothing of one of them being a Chief Inspector, he found the study a very comfortable place, and would have been quite willing to stay there all night.

Miss Silver’s words were therefore rather a disappointment.

“I only want to ask you one question, Mr. Pearson.”

He assumed the butler.

“Yes, madam?”

“When you came through the hall after locking up, did you put any wood on the fire?”

If anyone had been watching Frank Abbott he would have been observed to start.

“Oh, no, madam-I shouldn’t do that.”

“So I supposed. Did you notice the condition of the fire?”

“It is part of my duty to do so, as you might say. I wouldn’t go upstairs and leave a big fire, or anything that might fall out.”

“And the fire was low?”

“Three or four bits lying flat and quite charred through.”

“And you have put no wood on since?”

“Oh, no, madam.”

“Or anyone else?”

“No one has had the opportunity-not since the alarm was given.”

Miss Silver turned a look of extreme gravity upon the Chief Inspector.

“When I came downstairs after the murder I noticed a heavy crooked log at the back of the fire. It was not there when we all retired just before ten o’clock. When you began to speak about the weapon used in tonight’s murder, the fire as I had seen it when I went upstairs and as I saw it when I came down again came very strongly to my thought. At first it only seemed that there was some incongruity, but whilst you were talking to Sergeant Abbott I became aware that this extra piece of wood might very well be the missing weapon. I can only hope that the smouldering ash has not been hot enough to destroy possible evidences.”

Before she had finished speaking Frank Abbott was at the door.