Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 17, No. 90, May 1951

It Could Have Happened That Way by A. A. Milne

Mr. John Mason Brown on the subject of A. A. Milne: “Very definitely a certain sort of person. He is sensitive. He can write charmingly. He can be witty in the fluffiest tradition of English Wit, and his prose is at once facile and precise.” We doubt if Mr. Brown was thinking of Mr. Milne’s detective stories — but all he says is ’tec true...

“Forget the detective story. I’m not saying that because I have written one detective story I’m a good detective. What I do say is that any writer who makes his living by creative fiction is well fortified to do just what your policemen have to do.”

“And what’s that?”

“Invent a story which accounts for all the facts and suspicions and discrepancies which the case presents. That’s our daily job, inventing stories; making a definite pattern of a number of incidents. Why, I could contrive some sort of story out of any assortment of facts: a spot of candle grease, a badly sharpened pencil, a canary which wouldn’t sing any more, and a man who went to bed one night with his wooden leg.” Even as he said this, Colby began to wonder what the story would be. Better start with the canary...

Colonel Saxe went to his desk and unlocked a drawer. He took out a loose-leaf file of papers and said, “Like to try?” Colby came back to his surroundings suddenly, and said, “Oh — what’s that?”

“Our latest murder.” The Chief Constable sat down again and began to turn the pages. “You’d better look at this. It shows you the house in relation to the rest of the town. That’s important.”

Colby looked at it, and said plaintively, “Can’t I have a plan of the room, with X marks the spot?”

“That particular room doesn’t matter so much. Still, here you are: bedroom where the body was found, living-room where the girl and the man were drugged.”

Colby took them, and said, “Drugs too. I am going to enjoy this.”

“I’ll just give you the set-up. Wavetree — silly name — is a bungalow about three hundred yards outside Easton, which is a small country town in my district. It’s got a bit of garden, front and back, and there are half a dozen houses, mostly pretty good ones with a fair amount of land, between it and the town. There were four people at the bungalow that Sunday afternoon. Norris Gaye, the owner, now deceased: elderly, miserly, an invalid, or anyway he preferred to live like one, and generally, I should say, was a crotchety unpleasant person and a great trial to his niece Phyllida. She is thirty minus, very capable, very good-looking in a big, healthy way, if you know what I mean — Captain of Hockey type — and runs the house and her uncle single-handed. Fhyllida’s brother Douglas — hot-tempered, who-the-devil-are-you-sort-of-cove — lives in London, test driver for racing cars, generally dashed down to lunch on a Sunday, and dashed off again, but whether from love for his sister or to keep in with his rich uncle, I can’t say.”

“Did they know he was rich?”

“I think so. Even living as he did, he must have had something to leave. In fact, the girl gets an annuity of £500 and the boy the residue, about £20,000. The fourth person was Mark Royle. You may have come across him: thirty plus, French and German scholar, translates books. Very reliable, I’ve known his people for ages; very intelligent, Field Security in the war, and did a good job. I say all this because he is our chief witness.”

“You wouldn’t let me make him the murderer?”

“That’s up to you: you’ll see. Personally I have no doubts about him. Well, now, there’s a confectioner’s in the town where people go for coffee in the mornings. A few weeks ago Royle and Phyllida had run into each other, literally, just outside it, and when he had picked her parcels up, and apologized — well, there they were having coffee together, and telling each other their names. And it wasn’t surprising, seeing what a good-looking couple they are, that they were doing it again next morning. And so on.”

“Both fancy-free at the time?”

“More or less. The girl wears an engagement ring, rather a good one, but the fellow was missing-believed-killed in the war, as Royle was not sorry to hear. I suppose she saw him looking at it and wondering — he seems to have fallen for her rather. One Sunday he came to lunch.”

“To ask Uncle?”

“Oh, no. She wanted him to meet her brother. Just friendly on her part; probably still thinking of the other man. The three of them lunched together in the dining-room; Uncle was being an invalid in his bed-sitting-room, looking out on to the front garden; and after lunch they went into the living-room. Phyllida told her brother to light the fire while she got the coffee — it was a log-fire already laid — and Douglas, when he had got it going, wandered about rather impatiently, looking at his watch. Royle sat down in the armchair on the right of the fireplace, as you face it. Phyllida came back with the coffee. She put the tray on the table behind Royle’s chair and said, ‘Pour it out, Douglas, I must just make sure that Uncle’s all right. The cream’s for Mr. Royle, special.’ Apparently they had had some joke about that at the coffee shop. Of course, it wasn’t real cream, just the top of the milk, and only enough for one. You’ll see the point directly.”

“I’m seeing it now. Who put the sleeping tablets in what?”

“Exactly. Douglas poured out the three cups, put sugar in his own and Fhyllida’s, pulled up a stool next to Royle, and put on it the third cup, the cream jug, and the sugar bowl. Royle put in the sugar, poured in the cream very gently so that it rested on the top, and left it for the sugar to melt. Apparently this was a little way of his. Douglas drank his straight off, put his cup back on the tray, and as Phyllida came back, said, ‘Sorry, old girl, but I must dash.’ She suggested that he should say goodbye to his uncle, and he went out and was back again, Royle says, in a couple of minutes; the door was open and they watched him into his uncle’s room and back. Phyllida looked at him a little anxiously when he came back, or so Royle thought, and said, ‘All right?’ and Douglas said, ‘Most genial, but then I wasn’t making a touch, and that’s all he’s afraid of.’ They went out to his car, and saw him drive off like-a-bat-out-of — towards the town.”

“Exit First Murderer,” said Colby. “Or not?”

“You’ll see. The other two went back to the living-room. Now, then, I’ll read Royle’s actual statement, starting from there.” He drew out the pages and read. Colby lay back, listening to the words of Royle.

“I sat down in the chair, and she sat on the sofa, which was on the other side of the fireplace and at right angles to it. She drank her coffee and put the cup down on a little table behind the sofa, and then we talked about her brother. After a bit she said, ‘Oh, dear, I do feel so tired, it’s very rude of me,’ and I said, ‘Nonsense! Put your feet up and be comfortable.’ So she did. I finished my coffee, and was trying to listen to some story she was telling me, but for some reason I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I put my hand up, as if to shield my eyes from the fire, so that she wouldn’t notice. Then I suddenly realized that she wasn’t talking any more, and I opened my eyes with an effort, and saw her lying there, utterly still. Her hand drooped to the ground, and the firelight flickered in her engagement ring. She might have been dead. I knew that I ought to do something — I think I knew then that we had both been drugged — but I couldn’t take my eyes off the enormous ruby in that ring; it got bigger and bigger until it filled the whole room and swallowed me up... and by that time I suppose I had passed out. I woke up to a smell of burning, and thought vaguely of breakfast, and it took me a little time to realize that I wasn’t in bed at home. One of her shoes had fallen off, and I suppose a bit of burning wood had shot onto it from the fireplace, and the leather was smoldering gently. Then I knew where I was. I tried to revive her, but she was still completely out, I went into Mr. Gaye’s room to find out his doctor’s telephone number. He was dead. So I rang up the police. It was just five o’clock.”

Saxe returned the statement to the file, and Colby opened his eyes.

“Very good picture. Or is there too much detail? Oh, well, you can take that either way. Now the body.”

“Gaye had been stabbed through the heart by a double-edged knife of some sort, but there was no trace of the weapon. It was an hour before the girl was brought round and able to make a statement. Wherever it overlapped Royle’s, it confirmed him exactly. Of course we analyzed all the coffee things. Result: traces of an opiate in the two cups, nothing in the third or in the coffee pot, cream jug or sugar bowl.”

“And the only person who could possibly have dropped anything in the cups was the brother — at least, according to Royle.”

“Yes, and the cups were the only possible medium.”

“So you sent out an all-station call for Douglas.”

“No.”

“You surprise me. I should have thought your Inspector would have jumped at it.”

“He didn’t, for the simple reason that Douglas was already arrested. He was stopped in the town for dangerous driving, lost his temper, laid out a couple of constables, and was now safely locked up. Blasted fool!”

“But very convenient for you.”

“So we thought. But, you see, we searched him, we searched the car, and there was no weapon!”

“It could have been thrown away.”

“Where? When? The others saw him off, remember, streaking towards the town. Within a minute he was in trouble with the police. We’ve searched the room and the garden outside the window of the room; we’ve searched the front gardens on each side of the road, and the dagger is simply not there. But in any case, Colby, if it was hidden under his coat when he drove off, why should he throw it away at once? By doping the coffee he had given himself at least a couple of hours’ start, and could have dropped it in a pond or river a hundred miles away, where it would never be found. Also, with a murder behind him, wouldn’t he take especially good care not to get into the hands of the police?”

“You’d think so. Yes.”

“So there we are. I’ll bet my last shilling that Douglas drugged the coffee, but I don’t see how he could have killed his uncle. And I’ll put my shirt on Royle as an utterly honest and reliable witness, but that means that the girl couldn’t have done it either. So there it is. Now make up a story to account for everything, and I shall believe that you really are an author.”

“Dear Saxe, I can give you one straight off. The girl stabbed him when she went to see him after lunch. She hid the knife temporarily in the back garden — where you never looked — and disposed of it afterwards. To give her a perfect alibi Douglas drugged the two of them, and witnessed that his uncle was alive after Phyllida had left him. To give himself a certain amount of cover, he deliberately got himself arrested. If you’d picked him up two hours later, the absence of the knife wouldn’t have been in his favor. Thus, joint murder by the two legatees.”

“Good lord, Colby,” said Saxe. “I believe you’ve got it!”

“Yes, but I don’t like it. It doesn’t do justice to my creative powers. Any policeman could have thought of it. Also, it leaves no alternative suspect, which is bad art, and, from the murderer’s point of view, bad management. No, it won’t do; there’s something wrong somewhere. I was picturing the scene in my delightfully imaginative way — see press clippings — and something went wrong suddenly. Let me take that plan of the room and Royle’s statement to bed with me, and I’ll tell you the true story tomorrow.”

“Well, got the story?”

“Yes. Your Hockey Captain did it on her own, hoping that her little brother would be hanged, thus scooping the pool. Nice girl.”

“Impossible!”

“That’s what she hoped you’d think.”

“I suppose you mean that being in love with the girl, Royle made up his story to save her?”

“Who said anything about Royle? Royle is the perfect witness. That’s why the girl bumped into him.”

“You’re suggesting that she deliberately picked him up?”

“Well, you see, he was just what she wanted: good character, observant, and a slow starter with his coffee.”

“My dear Colby, how could she possibly have known beforehand that he drank his coffee slowly?”

“She’d watched him on other mornings. Why not? Now, I’ll tell you what happened—”

“In a story,” interrupted Saxe, leaving himself free to laugh at it or profit by it.

“In a story,” said Colby firmly, “which may or may not — I haven’t decided yet — include a very stupid Chief Constable. Here we go. The morphia was in the cream — don’t interrupt. All went as Royle told you. There are the two of them sitting by the fire; and in the car, bumping into policemen, which was the last thing she wanted, a witness that the uncle was alive. The plan demands that she shall be the first to drink her coffee, and so now she drinks it undrugged. She pretends to feel sleepy, and puts her feet up. Just as he is beginning to fade away, she goes out with a bump, or so it seems; and, of course, the fact that oblivion (as we novelists say) is descending on him too makes it all very convincing. As soon as he is completely out, she gets up, and in her quick athletic way stabs that very tiresome uncle. She has a nice little untraceable grave in the back garden waiting for the dagger, and in it goes. She washes out the cream jug, pours a little undoped cream into it which she has carefully put aside, gives herself a little more coffee, drops in the morphia for herself, stirs, and swallows. Then she lies down again on the sofa and — genuinely this time — passes out. And there she is, and there she has been all the time when Royle wakes up, and there is the dope in the coffee cups and nowhere else. End of story.”

“Good lord, you know,” said Saxe in astonishment, “it could have happened that way!”

“If there is one thing that Author Colby prides himself on, it is his realism. It could.”

“But that doesn’t say that it did. It’s just a story.”

Colby was silent.

“Or have you got any proof?” continued Saxe. “Yes, you said there was something wrong in Royle’s statement. Is that it?”

“Not in Royle’s statement. It couldn’t have been more accurate. No; something was wrong in my visualization of the scene. Or so I thought. But on consulting Plan С again in my bedroom, I found that there was nothing wrong in my visualization of the scene. So then I knew that the hockey eleven was going to lose its popular young captain.”

“You’ll have to explain.”

“I insist on explaining. I’ve been looking forward to explaining ever since 1:30 a.m. When your Inspector arrived on the scene, Phyllida was lying on the sofa with her feet towards the fireplace — otherwise, how could a bit of burning wood from the fireplace have got on her shoe, the one that fell off? But Royle’s last view of Phyllida before he passed out included the ruby on her engagement hand, hanging over the side of the sofa. A woman’s engagement finger is on her left hand. For Royle to have seen Phyllida’s left hand hanging over the side of the sofa, with her feet towards the fireplace, the sofa would have had to be on the right side of the fireplace. But Royle had specifically testified that his armchair was on the right of the fireplace, and that the sofa was on the other side.”

“The sofa is on the left.”

“Exactly. Which means that she was lying in a drugged stupor with her head to the fire at 2:30, and in the same drugged stupor with her feet to the fire at 5. Silly girl.”

“My God!”

“Yes.”

“I think I’ll telephone,” said Saxe, getting up.

“At least,” said Colby, “you can dig up the back garden. And you might give Royle a hint, or a French novel to translate, or something, to take his mind off the girl. Quite apart from losing your star witness if he marries her, you don’t want to spoil his young life. He wouldn’t be happy with Phyllida. Too violent for him, don’t you think?”