Miss Silver Comes To Stay

CHAPTER 27

The Chief Constable laid down the papers submitted by Superintendent Drake. He saw before him an unpleasant and harassing day. He found Drake zealous, efficient, and extremely uncongenial. He allowed none of these things to show in face or manner.

Drake, always ready to break a silence, took up his tale.

“As you see, the medical report puts the time of death anywhere between nine and eleven. Well, we know he was alive at nine, because Mrs. Mayhew heard him speak about then. If we knew when he had his last meal we could narrow it down a bit, but with a cold supper left, we can’t do better than that. They think it couldn’t have been later than eleven. Well now, Mrs. Mayhew saw that raincoat with the blood on it at a quarter to ten. That means he was dead within half an hour of the time at which Miss Cray admits she was there. If he was dead then, Miss Moore’s statement gives Mr. Robertson an alibi-he was with her until nine-fifty. But I’ve seen Mrs. Mayhew again, and I don’t make out from what she says that there was all that blood on the sleeve when she saw it. She says it was stained round the cuff and she saw the stain. But when I put it to her, was it soaked, she said no it wasn’t, it was just stained. And that would tie up with the scratch Miss Cray had on her wrist. The way I see it now is this. Miss Cray goes home, like she says, at a quarter past nine. Miss Bell corroborates this. We don’t know why she left the raincoat, but leave it she did. My guess is, either there was a quarrel and she came away too angry to notice, or maybe he started to make up to her and she got nervous and cleared out. Now to my mind one of two things happened. Either Miss Cray gets thinking about that old will and the half million it would bring her, and then she remembers her raincoat and goes on up to get it back. Mr. Lessiter is sitting there at his table. She puts on her coat, goes over behind him to the fire as if she was going to warm herself, picks up the poker and-well, there you are. Then she comes home and washes the coat. It must have needed it!”

The Chief Constable shook his head.

“Impossible.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, sir. It’s one of the things that might have happened. The other is that Mr. Robertson took Melling House on his way back from Lenton. He gets there about half past ten, goes in, and sees the raincoat lying there-it’s an old one of his own, you’ll remember. He recognizes it, as Mrs. Mayhew did, by the lining. Remember too that he isn’t wearing a coat himself. He picks it up and puts it on. He has only to make some excuse to go over to the fire. It was a bitter night, and he had been walking in the wind, so it would be easy enough. Well, there he is, with the poker to his hand, as you might say.”

Randal March leaned back in his chair.

“Isn’t all this a little too easy, Drake? Do you know what strikes me?”

“No, sir.”

“I’ll tell you. It’s what you might call the supine acquiescence of Mr. Lessiter. Here is a young man with quite a bitter quarrel against him-I am assuming that it really was James Lessiter who had seduced Marjory Robertson-that’s your theory, isn’t it? Well, if you assume that, you also assume that Miss Cray’s object in going to Melling House was to warn James Lessiter. Now on the assumption that Carr had just found out who was his wife’s seducer, and that James Lessiter had just been warned that Carr had found him out, do you really think that an interview between them would have been conducted on the lines you indicate-Carr Robertson strolling in, putting on his raincoat, going over to the fire to warm himself, with James Lessiter just sitting at the table with his back to him? I’m afraid I find it quite incredible.”

“Then it was Miss Cray.”

“Who has a witness to prove that she returned home at a quarter past nine, and Mrs. Mayhew to prove that the coat was only slightly stained at a quarter to ten.”

“That leaves more than an hour for her to go back, kill him, and bring the coat away.”

“And no evidence to prove that she did any such thing.”

Drake looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“That raincoat was hanging in her hall, sir. It didn’t walk there.”

A short silence ensued. Drake thought, “Set on getting her out of it, that’s what he is. All the same these people-whoever’s done murder, it can’t be one of them. But you can’t hush things up like you used to-not nowadays.” He went on with his report.

“Mr. Holderness-he was Mrs. Lessiter’s solicitor, and he’s acting for Mr. Robertson, and I suppose for Miss Cray-”

“Yes, I know him.”

“He was on to me this morning. It seems Mr. Robertson mentioned a circumstance to him which he thought we ought to know about. The Mayhews have a son, a lad of about twenty. He’s been working in London. Mr. Robertson says he saw him get off the six-thirty at Lenton the evening of the murder. He and Miss Bell were on the train too. Well, it might be he’d made a mistake, or it might be he’d made it up, but as it happens, there’s corroboration. The Mayhews go to relations in Lenton on their day out-name of White-tobacco and sweets, 16 Cross Street. We checked up on them for the Wednesday of the murder. You remember Mrs. Mayhew came home early, on the six-forty bus-well Whitcombe checked up on that. There’s a boy there, Ernie White-seventeen-helps his father in the shop. When Mr. Holderness handed us this about young Mayhew I sent Whitcombe along and told him to find out if Ernie White had seen his cousin. You see, if he came down on the six-thirty he’d have to get out to Melling or find someone to put him up in Lenton. As it turns out, Whitcombe finds out that Cyril Mayhew had borrowed young Ernie’s bike. Told him his father had forbidden him the house, but he was going to pop over and see his mother.”

The Chief Constable straightened up.

“Why had Mayhew forbidden him the house?”

“Oh, he’d been in trouble. Spoilt only child brought up in a big house. Got a job in London. Caught taking money out of the till-put on probation. The officer got him a job. Mayhew wouldn’t have him about the house. He’s a very respectable man-and I don’t mean just the ordinary respectable kind-he’s something rather out of the way- very much respected in Melling. I suppose he felt it was a bit of a responsibility. Well, there you are-Cyril Mayhew came down on Wednesday night and borrowed his cousin’s bike. And Mrs. Mayhew took the six-forty bus. There wasn’t much doubt why she went home early. Mr. Holderness and his clerk are out at the House now with Whitcombe checking over the inventory. I looked in on my way, and they say there are some figures missing from the study.”

“Figures?”

Drake consulted a note.

“Four figures-The Seasons-”

“Seems an odd sort of thing to be taken. What were they- china?”

“No; sir, gilt. I asked Mrs. Mayhew about them, and she says she thinks they were there Wednesday morning. She says they were after the style of those statues you see in a museum-not much in the way of clothes. About ten inches high.”

If the Chief Constable felt inclined to smile he did not permit himself to do so. He said,

“They might be valuable, but it would be a connoisseur’s value, and a strictly limited market. Of course there are people who specialize in that sort of thing. The boy might have been got hold of. What does Mrs. Mayhew say about his being there on Wednesday night?”

“Oh, she denies it-she would of course. Cries and says she hasn’t seen him for six months. Well, everyone knows that isn’t true. It’s common talk he’s been up and down, and Ernie White admitted it wasn’t the first time he’d lent his bike.”

March frowned.

“Look here, Drake, Mrs. Lessiter must have had an insurance policy. It was probably used as a basis for probate. What were those figures insured for?”

Drake looked alert.

“I put that point to Mr. Holderness, but it doesn’t get us anywhere. The only separate items in the insurance were some of the old bits of furniture and the jewelry. Everything else was just lumped together and not put very high. The total amount including the house was ten thousand.”

March said, “I think we might ask Miss Cray about those figures. She would know if they were still there when she left at a quarter past nine.”

“That’s what I thought, sir. Meanwhile I’ve taken steps to find out whether this young Mayhew is back at his job. I got the address from Mrs. Mayhew-a firm of house agents in Kingston. I’ve been on to the local people and asked them to keep an eye on the boy without letting him know. I thought better not startle him till we knew a little more.”

“No-quite right, Drake.” March glanced at his wrist-watch. “Well, if we are to see Miss Cray before we go up to the House we’d better be off.”