Police at the Funeral

Chapter 6 The Grand Manner

The strange procession wended slowly down the short corridor which led off the hall to the tiny sun-trap on the south side of the building which was Mrs Faraday's own private apartment.

Mr Campion seemed fully conscious of the honour which was being conferred upon him by the old lady, whose yellow-white fingers rested so lightly upon his arm. Marcus stalked behind them with the tea-cup. Mrs Faraday raised her stick. 'In here,' she said.

Campion opened the door and stood aside to let her pass. The room they entered was a perfect Queen Anne sitting-room, totally unexpected in this Victorian stronghold. The walls were white panelled and hung with delicate mezzotints. The old rose of the Chinese carpet was echoed in the brocaded hangings which framed the gentle bow of the window. The old walnut furniture reflected softly the bright fire in the grate. The candlesticks were silver and the upholstery covered with needlework. A beautiful room expressing a taste in direct opposition to the ostentatious solidity of the rest of the house.

Great-aunt Caroline in her laces seemed the natural owner of such a period gem. She sat down at the open bureau and turned to face them, one small ivory hand resting on the fine Italian blotter within.

'I'll have that cup on my desk, Marcus,' she said, 'if you don't mind. Thank you. Put it here on this piece of notepaper. It takes three years of polishing to remove a damp ring from walnut. You may sit down, gentlemen.'

They took up their places obediently on wide Sheraton chairs designed for a more ample generation.

'And now,' she continued, turning to Campion, 'let me look at you, Rudolph. You're not much like your dear grandmother, but I can see the first family in you.'

Mr Campion flushed. The thrust had gone home and there was a faint air of amusement in the old lady's face when next she spoke.

'My dear boy,' she murmured, 'very old ladies only gossip among themselves. I shall not expose you. I may say I quite agree with your people in theory, but, after all, as long as that impossible brother of yours is alive the family responsibilities are being shouldered, and I see no reason why you shouldn't call yourself what you like. Emily, the dowager, and I have corresponded regularly--why, for the last forty-five years--so I have heard all about you from her.'

Mr Campion faced the discovery of his more intimate affairs with remarkable equanimity.

'My grandmother and I,' he said, 'are partners in crime, in the eyes of the family at least. According to my mother, she aids and abets me.'

Great-aunt Caroline nodded. 'I had gathered that,' she said primly. 'Now to this terrible business. I understand from what I can make of Joyce's story that Marcus has invited you to assist him in this case. I should like you to act for me directly, if you will. The spare room will be prepared for you and the firm of Featherstone will be instructed to pay you one hundred guineas if you remain in my employ for less than one month. Be quiet,' she added sharply as Campion opened his mouth to speak. 'You can refuse afterwards if you wish.'

'I am eighty-four years old. You will understand, therefore, that in an emergency of this sort I am compelled to use my brain and other people's energies to protect myself and my household. I must also guard myself against such emotions as anger, grief or excitement which I have not now the strength to support.'

She paused and regarded them with a grave placidity, which made her somehow inhuman. Mr Campion realized that here was a woman of no ordinary strength of character, and her remoteness might have jarred upon him had it not been for the sudden illumination of her next remark.

'You see,' she said quietly, 'it is very necessary that someone in this household should consider things from an intelligent point of view. My poor children have not been blessed with brains, and that is why I have to conserve what strength I have in this way. You may think my attitude towards Julia's terrible death this morning is unnecessarily stoical,' she went on. 'However, I am past the age when it is proper for one to preserve the decencies by deceiving oneself. Whether it is because Julia has lived with me longer than any of my other children, or whether it is because she resembled my husband's mother, who was an irritatingly foolish woman in a generation when foolishness was fashionable, I do not know, but Julia has always struck me as possessing more than her fair share of stupidity and uncharitableness. So that although I am surprised and shocked by her death, I am not deeply grieved. At my age death loses much of its horrifying quality. Have I made all this quite clear?'

'Yes,' said Mr Campion, who had removed his spectacles and with them most of his air of fatuity. 'I understand. You want me to act as a kind of buffer between you and the shocks which we can only reasonably suppose are in store for us all.'

Mrs Faraday shot a swift glance at him. 'Emily is right,' she said. 'You seem to be a very intelligent young man. I take it we have settled this first point, then. Now I want you to understand that I have nothing to conceal--that is from the police. I want to give them every assistance I possibly can. In my experience nothing is ever gained by vigorous efforts to hush up trouble. Also, the quicker a thing is over the sooner it is forgotten. There is this matter of the newspapers, though. Reporters are beginning to besiege the house already. The servants have instructions, of course, to say nothing, but I do not consider it good policy to refuse all information to the newspapers. This, in my experience, antagonizes them and they are apt to invent far more suggestive information than any they could possibly glean from oneself.'

Once again she shot that bird-like inquiring glance at her audience, and appeared satisfied when they nodded their comprehension.

'I don't intend to see these people myself, you know,' she went on, smiling a little at such an eventuality. 'And of course William certainly must not see them. I hope you will arrange all that for me, "Mr Campion". You will also attempt to find out who is responsible for these outrages, although I am not insulting you by suggesting that you behave like a policeman. However, what I particularly want of you is information as it arrives, so that I may not be overwhelmed by the results of it unprepared. And, incidentally, of course,' she went on in her precise slender voice, 'I need the presence of an intelligent person in the house from whom we may expect a certain amount of protection. Because,' she continued, 'it seems to be quite obvious that, if these two murders emanate from this family, as I believe they do, then there is only one of us who is safe. In fact, unless some solution is arrived at it is only a question of time who is to be murdered next.'

Her small voice died away and the two young men sat staring at this remarkable impersonal old lady as she sat in her gracious little room making these extraordinary statements.

It is so often that the emotions and the affections outlive the intellect in the very old that the effect of encountering an exact inversion of this process is apt to appear startling.

Great-aunt Caroline next turned her attention to Marcus. 'I am not waiting until your father comes to make my arrangements,' she said, 'because I was calculating your age this morning. You must be nearly thirty, and I see no reason why you should not be even more useful than he, who, to my mind, has never really understood the art of growing old. Besides,' she added, with a touch of grimness in her tone, 'if a man is not worthy of responsibilities at thirty there is very little likelihood of his ever attaining to that state. William and Andrew are distressing examples of this. I remember putting this maxim to Mr Gladstone in this very room many, many years ago. He said: "Madam: if I admitted that I should never have become a politician." But after dinner, in the drawing-room, he told me that I was quite right.'

Just for a moment as she spoke there was a trace of the Caroline Faraday of the 'eighties, the brilliant hostess who had made her husband, that bad-tempered but erudite old scholar, the remarkable figure he had been. It was only for a moment, however; the next instant she was the little black eagle again, shrewd and impersonal.

'First of all,' she said, 'I must tell you, I suppose in confidence, that yesterday I had a short talk with my old friend's son, the Chief Constable of this county, and he promised me that everything should be done to clear up the mystery of Andrew's death. So that I fancy that Scotland Yard will have been asked to assist this morning. That is the first thing. But the important question at the moment is, of course, poor Julia.'

She was silent for a moment, and they sat waiting.

'Doctor Lavrock,' she said at last, 'who has nothing but longevity in his family to make him in any way extraordinary, is convinced that it is suicide. I have no doubt,' she went on placidly, 'that he has a theory that poor Julia, after having been responsible for Andrew's death, was overtaken by remorse and committed suicide. Of course, no one but an unimaginative fool who knew neither of the two people concerned would credit such an idea for a moment. However,' she added, eyeing the young men judicially, 'should nothing more occur and the police come to that conclusion, I see no reason why we should force an alternative upon them, at least in so far as the question of suicide is concerned.'

Mr Campion leant forward in his chair. 'Mrs Faraday,' he said diffidently, 'why are you so sure yourself that suicide is not the true explanation of Miss Julia's death?'

Great-aunt Caroline sighed. 'Julia and Andrew disliked one another bitterly,' she said, 'and if Andrew had murdered Julia and then committed suicide, I do not think I should have been so astonished. But that Julia should kill herself is unthinkable. She clung to life as though she had ever got anything out of it, poor creature, and she certainly had not the physique, nor the opportunity, nor even the strength of character to tie Andrew up and then shoot him and drop him into the river. She was a year older than Catherine, remember, and a heavy cumbersome person who was terrified if she so much as got her feet wet. As to the actual facts, theorizing apart, Doctor Lavrock has diagnosed acute conium poisoning, and the remains of the dose which Julia took are probably in that cup. You can see for yourselves that there is a sediment there.'

She indicated the large blue tea-cup with a small bony hand.

'Doctor Lavrock wanted to take it away with him,' she said, 'but I told him quite firmly that he could leave it safely in my care, and I would hand it over to the police immediately they arrived, which should be at any moment.'

The grim smile which flickered across her lips testified to a battle won. They did not attempt to speak, and she went on, still speaking quietly and in the same impersonal tone.

'My inquiries,' she continued, 'some of which you heard, have revealed one reasonable explanation and one rather curious fact, which may or may not be interesting. Catherine has confessed, however theatrically, to the making of early morning tea every morning for the last two years, a cup of which it was her habit to carry in to Julia, who has the room next to hers. Alice, the housemaid, it appears, knew of this custom. I was talking to her upstairs before I came down to find poor William making that disgraceful scene. Alice, it seems, used to collect the cups from under the two beds, wash them in the bathroom and return them to the little cupboard, where Catherine kept her paraphernalia.'

There was a distinct touch of contempt in the old lady's voice on the last few words and she answered a criticism which she felt might be passing through their minds.

'Tea-drinking in the early morning has always appeared to me as an indulgence for which there is nothing but spinelessness as an excuse,' she said. 'I have never had it served in my house and I never shall.' Having made herself quite clear upon this point, Aunt Caroline returned to the more important matter on hand. 'The second fact I have discovered is strange,' she said. 'Alice, a most reliable and intelligent woman for her class, tells me she has noticed a sediment in Julia's cup every morning for the past six months. Therefore, until the dregs in this cup on my desk are properly analysed by the police, there must remain some element of doubt as to whether Julia was poisoned in her early morning tea or not. Also I must assure you that Julia was not in the habit of taking drugs. That is the sort of secret which no one could keep in a household like this. Well,' she paused and her quick black eyes rested on Mr Campion's face, 'may I expect you this evening? We dine at eight.'

Campion rose to his feet. 'I shall be delighted to do all I can, Mrs Faraday,' he said earnestly. 'But if I am not to be a source of embarrassment to you I must know at least of the existence of the pitfalls into which I may stumble. Besides your immediate household, was there anyone else visiting this house round about the time of Mr Seeley's disappearance?'

Great-aunt Caroline hesitated and her lips moved ruminatively. Finally she shrugged her shoulders.

'You have heard already of George Faraday,' she said. 'I was afraid this would have to come out. Yes, he was in this house the night before Andrew disappeared. I also saw him in the town when I drove to church the next morning.'

An unusual sternness had come into the old face.

'I do not wish to have his name mentioned in this case if it can be avoided,' she said. 'I do not think for a moment that he could have had any possible interest in Andrew's death. Certainly he could expect no material benefit from it. The only death which could possibly assist him in any way is my own. Under my will he receives a small annuity, subject to his emigrating to Australia and payable only while he stays there. On the Saturday night before Andrew died he came to borrow money from me and actually obtained ten pounds. That is all I wish to say about him, save that he has no permanent address of which I know.'

It was quite clear to both men that any further questioning upon this point could have only one result, and Mr Campion at least appeared satisfied. His next question, however, was also of a delicate nature.

'Mr William Faraday...' he began, and hesitated.

Once more Great-aunt Caroline came to his rescue. 'William drinks a little,' she said, 'and so did Andrew.' She spoke quite calmly and they suddenly realized that she had reviewed the situation in all its aspects and was taking them into her confidence as aides and allies, because she felt that in this way only could she muster enough strength to meet the storm which had broken over her.

'Neither of them was aware that I had any knowledge of this,' she said. 'William, I fancy, is the worse of the two. There is also the possibility'--she lowered her voice and spoke with great deliberation--'that William, who is both physically and mentally incapable of murder, may know something about Andrew's death, although I am certain he was not a party to it. But he was about twenty minutes later for luncheon on the Sunday either than he realized or than he cares to admit, and he has not yet been able to give me a satisfactory explanation for this. I shall look forward to seeing your father when he does arrive, Marcus, and you, Mr Campion, I shall expect to see at my dinner table this evening.'

This was patently a dismissal, and the young men rose to make their departure. In the corridor outside Marcus shot a sidelong glance at Campion.

'What do you make of it?' he murmured.

A faint smile spread over Mr Campion's pale face. 'I hope I suit,' he whispered.

In the hall they caught a glimpse of a tall, gloomy individual being shown into the library by the startled Alice, while two of his minions remained stolidly in the passage. Campion's face lighted up.

'Ah, the Boys in Blue,' he said. 'And Stanislaus Oates at the head of the inquisition. That's the first piece of luck we've had yet.'