The Act of Roger Murgatroyd

Chapter Four

‘H’m, I get the picture …’

Having digested the information that she had just been feeding to him, the Chief-Inspector then congratulated the novelist.

‘Thank you for that, Miss Mount. Very pithily put, if I may say so. To be honest, I’m not much of a one for detective stories. They’re too airy-fairy in my opinion, with not nearly enough of the hard slog, the sheer dogged legwork, that goes into bringing your typical murderer to book. But you do have a knack for boiling a complicated situation down to its essentials.’

‘Well, thank you, Chief-Inspector,’ she said beaming, ‘it’s really most magnanimous of you. More magnanimous, I fear, than I tend to be in my whodunits where you and your colleagues are concerned.’

‘Oh, it’s all good clean fun,’ Trubshawe answered heartily. ‘I hope we’re big enough at the Yard to take your ragging of us in the spirit in which I’m certain it’s intended. But enough of these pleasant futilities. We’ve now got to decide what’s to be done next.’

‘I really don’t see what there is we can do, Trubshawe,’ said the Colonel. ‘We’re snowed in, as you’re aware, and until the weather lifts, and the telephone wires are reconnected, we can’t even inform any kind of official authority what’s happened.’

‘In that case, may I enquire why I’m here?’

This question appeared to leave the Colonel at a loss for words.

‘Why you’re here …? Ah well, it just seemed like the only – well, when you put it like that, I’m not – it was just that Chitty suggested …’

‘Chitty?’

‘Yes, he reminded me that you’d settled down in the area and proposed that – dash it all, man, I do have a dead body in my house! If I have a leaky pipe I send for the plumber and if I have a – a leaky corpse, well, naturally, I send for the police!’

‘Probably what the Colonel means is that we all felt, at least until the local constabulary were able to reach us, that it would only be right and proper for a member of the police force to be in attendance, even if a retired member.’

‘Thank you, Farrar,’ said the Colonel gruffly. ‘That is exactly what, in my clod-hopping manner, I was trying to say. Fact is, Trubshawe, once we’d taken the decision to have Rolfe and Don fetch you over, I don’t suppose any of us really asked ourselves what precisely it was we were fetching you for. I hope you don’t mind – I apologise again – it being Boxing Day …’

‘No, no, no,’ said Trubshawe, ‘you did the right thing, and I would have been remiss in my duty – and, retired I may be, I still see it as my duty – if I’d declined to come.’

‘Why, that’s just what I said!’ exclaimed the Colonel. ‘Didn’t I say a policeman never retires? Not even for the night.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that, but let it pass. The question is, am I here merely to lend a seal, or the semblance of a seal, of officialdom, or again, as you rightly say, of semi-officialdom, to the hours and p’raps even days that lie ahead of you all before you’re able to re-establish communication with the outside world? Or do I myself do something about the situation in the meantime?’

The Colonel drew a doubtful finger along his unshaven chin.

‘Do something?’ he said. ‘I don’t get you. Do what?’

‘You aren’t going to arrest us all, are you?’ squealed the Vicar’s wife in a fluttery falsetto.

‘Dear lady,’ the Scotland Yard man smoothly replied, ‘even if I wished to arrest you – which I assure you I don’t – I couldn’t. Remember, I’m retired. I no longer have any official position, which means, logically, I no longer have any official power. However …’

His voice trailed off in a trio of tantalising suspension points.

‘However …?’ echoed the Colonel.

Trubshawe noisily cleared his throat.

‘Look, I realise what a dreadful ordeal this has been for all of you – and, between you and me, things are liable to get a good deal worse before they get any better. But it does strike me that a chance has presented itself which might allow us to clarify matters in the meantime.

‘It was Don here who told me, in Dr Rolfe’s motor, of the conversation you’d had in this very room a mere half-an-hour after he and the Colonel had discovered Raymond Gentry’s body. He told me, in particular, of Miss Mount’s insistence that you just couldn’t afford to sit around the house for hours, conceivably even days, with a corpse in the attic and an atmosphere of festering suspicion in the drawing-room. For he also apprised me of her theory – that one of you must logically be the murderer – a theory which, ladies and gentlemen, I’m obliged to endorse.’

This last statement of his provoked a collective gasp, almost as though a new and unexpected accusation had been levelled at the party, even though all the Chief-Inspector had done was, of course, reiterate what Evadne Mount had said earlier. It was possibly because, on this occasion, the charge was being made not by a novelist famed for her morbid imagination, the kind of imagination you look for and long for when you settle down at the fireside with a whodunit, but by an individual whose diagnosis of the situation couldn’t help but carry, even into his retirement, the ring of authority.

‘Yes,’ Trubshawe continued after a moment, ‘I fear you’ll have to forget any convenient notion that this murder might have been an outside job. I’ve seen Raymond Gentry’s body. And I’ve seen the room in which he was done to death.

‘And there’s another thing. I also found, inside the pocket of his bathrobe, a piece of paper that clearly implicates him as a blackmailer – whether amateur or professional

I couldn’t yet say. I’d like you all to take a look at that paper.’

Whereupon he drew it out, flattened it with his fingers and spread it on to the table so that everybody could read it.

No matter how enigmatic these words and symbols would have been to anybody else, they certainly seemed to make a meaningful impact on the various members of the ffolkeses’ house-party who, one after the other, the colour draining from their features, could all be seen recoiling from a hasty perusal of the damning text.

Only Evadne Mount, either because she was of a more robust temperament than her fellow guests, or simply because of her congenital propensity to pry, continued to pore over the crumpled paper.

When she raised her head at last, Trubshawe noticed at once that she wore an expression of frowning perplexity.

‘What is it, Miss Mount?’ he quickly asked her.

‘Well, I don’t really know,’ she mumbled almost plaintively.

‘You don’t know?’

‘No, I don’t. It’s just that – well, I just can’t help feeling that there’s … there’s, you know, something wrong with that piece of paper. But what?’

‘I beg you to share with us whatever it is you have to say. You never know what could turn out to be important.’

She looked back down at the page of notes and studied it again for a few moments. Then she shook her head.

‘No, sorry, Trubshawe, I don’t know what it is that’s troubling me, really I don’t. It may come to me if I stop thinking about it.’

At first the Chief-Inspector seemed undecided whether or not to pursue the matter, then he asked Roger ffolkes:

‘Colonel, do you by any chance recognise the typing?’

‘Recognise the typing? How could I possibly recognise the typing? It’s not as though it’s handwriting.’

‘Actually,’ Trubshawe said patiently, ‘it is in a way. No two typewriters, you see, ever produce an exactly identical typeface. What I mean is, do you happen to know on whose machine this was typed out?’

He handed the sheet of paper over to the Colonel, who gave it no more than a perfunctory inspection.

‘Haven’t a clue. Don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for. Here, Farrar, you take a gander at it, will you? Perhaps you can see what the Inspector’s on about.’

‘Why, yes, Colonel.’

‘What? You mean you can?’

‘Yes, sir. It’s – well, it was typed on your typewriter.’

‘Mine?!’

‘Definitely, sir. The one in the library. You see here – Chief-Inspector – this letter C? And this one again? The arc is broken – look, it has like a tiny space in the middle. Both of them. It’s your typewriter all right, Colonel.’

‘Well, I’m jiggered!’

‘So,’ ruminated the Chief-Inspector. ‘That means these notes were typed inside this very house, probably at some time in the last thirty-six hours. Colonel, would Gentry have had access to your library?’

‘Why, naturally he would. I don’t keep parts of my house out of bounds to my guests, even the uninvited ones. Anyone in search of a book to read, or if he just fancied being on his own for a while, was free to wander into the library.’

Trubshawe folded the paper up again and stuffed it back in his pocket.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘since it’s clear there was no love lost between any of you and the victim, and since this’ – he patted his jacket pocket – ‘is a significant part of what makes it clear, it’s my belief that it would be a waste of time looking elsewhere for possible motives for his murder, at least before I’ve investigated those closer to home. By that I mean, here in ffolkes Manor.’

‘Before you’ve investigated …’ said Dr Rolfe. ‘Are we to understand that you’re suggesting you yourself conduct an investigation?’

‘Yes, that is what I’m suggesting.’

‘Here and now?’

‘Yes, again.’

‘Let me get this straight,’ said the Colonel. ‘You’re proposing to – what? – question each of us in turn?’

‘That’s right. That is just how I was thinking of going about it.’

‘Even though you’re retired and have no authority to do so?’

‘Look,’ said Trubshawe. ‘You do realise that, when the police eventually get here, you’re all going to be subjected to some tough questioning. What I propose could almost be like a dress rehearsal. It’s true, I’d have to be fairly tough myself. There wouldn’t be much point to the exercise if I weren’t. But because I wouldn’t be interrogating you in an official capacity, and also, of course, because none of you would be on oath, well, if you began to think you really ought to have a lawyer present or else you simply found yourself getting a little hot under the collar, then there’s nothing I could do or say to prevent you from refusing to answer.

‘And if, by chance, though I must confess this strikes me as a very long shot indeed, if I arrive at the solution before the police arrive at the house, if I actually succeed in identifying Gentry’s murderer, then the whole distasteful process will have taken place away from the prying eyes of the yellow press.

‘For don’t delude yourselves, you’re in for some extremely unsavoury publicity. As I understand it, Gentry was a gossip columnist on a nationally syndicated scandal rag. Well, I can promise you, the public will juicily eat that up and come back asking for lots more of the same. By having the interrogation now, you may actually be sparing yourselves the worst.

‘As for the alternative, you all know what that means. Sitting here, hour after hour, wondering which of you did it and when he – or she – is going to strike again.’

‘Well,’ muttered the Colonel, ‘that does put a new complexion on things.’

He turned to face his guests.

‘All right. I think it’s only fair we be democratic about this. So let’s hear what you all think of the Chief-Inspector’s idea.’

For a while it seemed as though everyone was waiting for someone else to speak first, exactly as happens at many a public lecture, whose listeners, visibly aching to interrupt the lecturer with their own opinions, opinions just as passionately held as his, suddenly seem to be struck dumb when questions are thrown open to members of the audience.

It was, as ever, Evadne Mount who broke the silence.

‘Since you lot seem too timid to speak up, I will. I’m all for it. Matter of fact, Trubshawe, I might even give you a helping hand. Only if you wanted me to, of course. But we whodunit writers have a few aces up our sleeves, you know, just as you coppers have.’

‘No comment,’ replied the Chief-Inspector in an amiably dismissive aside. ‘But thank you anyway, Miss Mount, for taking the initiative. That’s one in favour. Any other takers? Rolfe?’

‘It is irregular, of course,’ said the Doctor, ‘but it certainly does seem to me preferable to doing nothing at all. I’m with you.’

‘Good. That makes two.’

‘However,’ Rolfe continued, ‘I would like to remind the undecideds’ – he gave his friends a steady appraising glance – ‘that the presence in this house of Raymond Gentry has reopened a number of wounds that many of you, many of us, believed and hoped had been closed for good. I fear the Chief-Inspector’s questions are going to open up those wounds even wider. We’ve all got to be prepared for that, am I not right, Trubshawe?’

‘Yes, Doctor, you are, and that was well put. As I said before, I’m not in a position to oblige any of you to answer my questions. You won’t be required to take any kind of oath, as you would in a courtroom. And if you should opt to lie to me, no action could be taken against you, which would not be the case during a proper police interrogation, where lying is a very serious offence indeed.

‘Let me add, though, that if in your mind you’re already planning to be, well, economic with the truth, then, frankly, I’d prefer we didn’t waste our time by embarking on the experiment at all. You may like to think of it as a bit of a game, but, don’t forget, there’s not much point to any game, be it Ping-Pong or Mah-Jongg, if you refuse to abide by the rules.’

‘Then may I make a rather controversial suggestion?’

‘Please, Doctor, any suggestion, any sensible suggestion, is welcome.’

‘We’re all old friends here, aren’t we?’ said Rolfe. ‘And with everything that’s due to happen in the next few days whatever we elect to do now – the police trampling over our lives, the press snapping at our heels – our friendship is going to be put under a greater strain than it’s ever known. Already, both Evie and Trubshawe have spoken about how easy it is to poison the atmosphere with no more than a few lethal droplets of suspicion. Luckily, we haven’t had enough time yet to savour those droplets. But when the police do manage to get here, I guarantee there won’t be one of us who hasn’t hysterically accused his dearest friend of the murder of Raymond Gentry.

‘So it does appear to me to make extremely good sense to let the Chief-Inspector conduct his interviews. But what I also propose is this. So that none of us starts worrying about just what helpful little clues the others might be dropping into his ear in private, he should question us all together.’

‘All together?’ retorted an incredulous Colonel. ‘You mean, we all speak to Trubshawe in front of each other?’

‘That’s exactly what I mean. That we’re all present when each of us is being questioned. If dirty linen is going to be aired in public, then let it really be aired in public. It won’t be pleasant for any of us, I’ll be bound, but at least we’ll all be in the same boat. Otherwise, don’t you see, questioning us individually behind closed doors could destroy our friendship just as surely as not questioning us at all.’

The Chief-Inspector was manifestly intrigued by this notion, but he was also perturbed by its unconventionality. For forty years he had stoutly upheld the Law not merely in its majesty but in its minutiae, in all its procedural codes, practices and orthodoxies, and, in the matter of being taught new tricks, he may have been an older dog even than Tobermory.

‘We-ell, I really don’t know,’ he said. ‘If you ask me, that sounds less like something we at the Yard would countenance than a scene from one of Miss Mount’s novels.’

‘Oh, rubbish!’ the novelist interjected. ‘If you’re referring to the kind of scene I think you are, then you should know I reserve it exclusively for a book’s climax. I mean the chapter in which the detective assembles all the suspects in the library then demonstrates, step by meticulous step, just how and why the murder was committed. Not the same thing at all.

‘But I have to say,’ she went on thoughtfully, ‘I do believe Henry’s idea is a good one. None of us will be able afterwards to accuse anyone of seeking to lay the blame elsewhere. Not that any of us would, of course. Then again, you never can tell, can you?’

‘Well,’ said Trubshawe, ‘that’s two in favour. Miss Rutherford?’

‘I’m going to surprise you,’ said the actress, ‘but I’m for it. Surprise you, I say, because I’ve got more to lose than any of you.’

‘Oh? And why is that, Cora?’ asked the Colonel.

‘Listen, darling, we now know we all have skeletons in our cupboards. I mean, what with that stinker Gentry spewing his rancid guts out last night, our dirty little secrets are practically in the public domain, right?’

‘Er, well – yes, I suppose so, right.’

‘But mine are a star’s dirty little secrets. They’re of interest to everyone. I tell you, there are muckraking journalists in Fleet Street who’d pay a small fortune to get the lowdown on my private life. However, I also know I didn’t murder Raymond Gentry and I’m ready to answer Trubshawe’s questions so long as I have his assurance that anything that turns out not to be relevant to the case stays within these four walls.’

‘That goes without saying,’ said Trubshawe.

‘Nevertheless,’ replied the actress, ‘I’d like to hear it said. When someone like you says, “That goes without saying”, he can always claim afterwards, perfectly honestly, that he never actually said it.’

The Chief-Inspector smiled wearily.

‘I solemnly promise not to repeat anything I hear inside this room in the next few hours that proves to have no bearing on the solution to Gentry’s murder. Satisfied?’

‘Satisfied. Then I’m in.’

‘Well,’ said Trubshawe, ‘we seem to be heading for a majority here. For the others, shall we take a vote? Remember, ladies and gentlemen, we can’t proceed unless you’re all prepared to participate. So who, among those of you who haven’t yet spoken up, supports Dr Rolfe’s proposal that I undertake an immediate interrogation at which all of you are present throughout?’

The second hand to be raised was Madge Rolfe’s. Then Don shot up his arm. And then, to everyone’s astonishment, Mary ffolkes more tentatively raised hers – to everyone’s astonishment, because her friends had always known her to be the sort of wife who would wait until she had learned exactly what her husband’s thoughts were on any given topic before daring to air a view of her own.

It was obvious that the Colonel himself was taken aback, for he gave her a sharp glance before (reluctantly?) raising his own arm.

Then there was silence.

Trubshawe finally turned towards the Vicar, who was seated next to his wife, a pained expression on his almost anaemically pale features.

‘Well, Vicar,’ he said. ‘As you see, Miss Mount, Miss Rutherford, Farrar, Mrs Rolfe, Don and now both the Colonel and his wife – they’ve all agreed to be questioned. That leaves just you and your good lady.’

‘Yes, I realise that,’ said the Vicar vexedly. ‘I, uh – well, you see, I – I – I really don’t think it’s –’

‘You do understand, don’t you, that if you refuse, we can’t conduct the investigation at all?’

‘Yes, you have made that point, Inspector.’

‘You’ll all have to sit about waiting for the police to turn up, wondering which of you did it, why they did it and whether they’ll do it again. Is that really what you want?’

‘No, no, of course it’s not, but I shan’t – I shan’t be bullied, you know. I’m a free agent and – well, it does seem – I’m sure Cynthia feels the same way, don’t you, my –’

‘Oh, for cripes’ sake, Clem!’ Cora Rutherford ejaculated. ‘We’re all in this together! And, frankly – I’d never say this except under circumstances as exceptional as these – but, frankly, you really have the least to lose! I would wager, from what Gentry hinted at last night, that most of us have already rumbled your Terrible Secret. And it’s going to come out anyway, whether you like it or not.’

‘She does have a point, Reverend,’ said Trubshawe softly.

The Vicar gazed helplessly at his wife, whose twinkly-eyed decency and pragmatism, precisely the modest English virtues one would expect to find in the helpmeet to a man of the Anglican cloth, were of scant assistance to him in a dilemma of this order. Then he gulped – you could almost hear him gulp – and said:

‘Oh, very well. But I do insist that – that –’

‘Yes?’

‘Oh, well, no, nothing. Yes, yes, I agree.’

‘Good,’ said Trubshawe, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

He looked at his watch.

‘Ten-fifteen. You’ve all been up now for over two hours. May I suggest you repair to your bedrooms, freshen up and get dressed. Then we’ll all come together in, let’s say, twenty minutes – inside the library.

‘And what,’ he appended to what he’d already stated, ‘what does go without saying is that none of you take it upon yourself to go wandering up to the attic. Not, you understand, that I don’t trust you. Except that, if Miss Mount is right, and I think she is, there’s at least one person in this room whom none of you can afford to trust. You get what I mean?’

They all got what he meant.

‘So, Colonel,’ he said, ‘would you like to show me the way?’

They were already deep in conversation as they entered the library, Tobermory plodding faithfully behind them.

‘I must say I began to think that Vicar chappie was going to scupper the whole scheme,’ the Chief-Inspector could be heard saying.

‘Yes, he’s something of a fusspot all right,’ answered the Colonel. ‘But he’s also a nice well-meaning old bird and all he needed was a poke in the ribs.’

‘I believe I’ll start the ball rolling with him, just so he’ll have no time to change his mind.’

‘I say, Trubshawe, this is a rum affair and no mistake.’

‘That’s true enough,’ said the policeman. ‘I never in my career came across such an outrageous crime. It’s like something out of one of Evadne Mount’s – whatyamacallums? – whodunits.’

‘Don’t let her hear you say that. Said exactly the same thing myself and had my head snapped off for it.’

‘Really? I’d have thought she’d take it as a compliment.’

‘Oh, you know what people are like. You pay them the wrong kind of compliment and they react as though they’ve never been so insulted in all their lives. Alexis Baddeley, I’ll have you know, won’t be doing with locked-room murders.’

‘Is that so?’ replied a bemused Trubshawe. ‘Choosy about the kind of murders she solves, is she? Wish I could have been.’

‘I’ve no patience with Evie’s stuff myself, but Mary tells me that, apart from locked rooms, you’ll find the whole trumpery bag of tricks. You know, a secret passage that only the murderer has a key to. A clock and a mirror facing each other at the scene of the crime, meaning the dial was read in reverse. Some black sheep of a family shipped off to South Africa and supposed to have died there, except that nobody’s certain he really did. All the usual whodunit hoo-hah. Load of codswallop, if you ask me.’

‘Well, we won’t have to go looking for anything of that kind in this case, I’m sure.’

‘No – except that, as it happens, ffolkes Manor does have its own secret passage. It’s a former Priest’s Hole, you know, located in a panel behind one of these walls. I should show it to you some time.’

‘Thanks. I’d like that. For the moment, though, I can’t see how it could possibly be relevant to Gentry’s murder. From what you told me, there was such a loathing of him among your guests, it seems to me that all I’ve got to do is find out the individual reasons for that loathing and, of course, who got there first.’

During the latter part of their conversation, the Colonel had begun to grow slightly fidgety and his agitation at last caught Trubshawe’s eye.

‘Something the matter, Colonel?’

‘Ah well, Trubshawe … yes. Yes, I have to say there is.’

‘What is it?’

‘Well’ – he took a deep breath – ‘you are planning to question all of us, am I right?’

‘Right.’

‘Which means me too, I suppose?’

‘Well, naturally, Colonel. I really don’t know how, in all fairness, if your guests are prepared to submit to the ordeal, I can leave you out. The others simply wouldn’t have it.’

‘No, no, of course not. It’s just that, like Cora, I know I didn’t murder Raymond Gentry and there are certain facts I’ve kept from Mary all these years, facts – from my past, you know – facts that would break her heart if they were suddenly to emerge at this late date. So I thought …’

‘Yes?’

‘I thought, if I were to give you those facts now, in private, just the two of us, you could – well, you could keep them out of the questioning.’

The Chief-Inspector had started shaking his head even before the Colonel finished speaking.

‘I’m sorry, Colonel, but there you’re asking too much of me. We’ve got to have a level playing-field, don’t you agree?’

‘Oh yes, quite. Quite. It’s only that the secrets – secret, I should say – the secret I’m thinking of is a rather special one. In view of the very serious consequences it could have for me, it just can’t be compared with the Vicar’s petty fibs or Evie’s peccadilloes, whatever they could possibly have been.’

‘Still, you really can’t expect me to give you privileged treatment. Not the done thing. Not cricket.’

‘I understand …’

It was clear, however, whether he understood or not, that the Colonel was still unwilling to give up.

‘Then what about this?’ he suggested. ‘What if I tell you now what it is I’m talking about and, when you interrogate me, if you judge, as I’m sure you will, that it’s got nothing to do with the murder, you won’t force me to bring it up?’

The policeman pondered for a few seconds.

‘Colonel,’ he finally agreed, ‘I’ll do what I can. But I make no promises. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

There was a brief silence. Then:

‘So? What is it you have to tell me?’

‘Well, Trubshawe, I haven’t always been the pattern of a model citizen. When I was young, scarcely more than a nipper, I got into a whole series of scrapes. Nothing close to murder or anything like that, but – well, it won’t serve any purpose my reciting all my crimes to you – it’s a lengthy list – I mean, it was a lengthy list – all of this happened a long time ago. But the fact is that in this country I have a criminal record.’

‘Aha.’

‘Aha, indeed. Caught you out there, didn’t I? I mean, to look at me now, who’d ever suspect such a thing? But there you are. The police, naturally, have a set of my fingerprints and, if this business explodes in our faces, it would be extremely disagreeable for me, innocent as I am. And for poor Mary, of course, who’s even more innocent. Not to mention Selina.’

‘I see …’ said Trubshawe, who visibly hadn’t expected such a revelation. ‘So the Yard actually knows your name?’

‘H’m?’

‘I said, the Yard knows your name?’

‘Well, in fact, no.’

‘But they must do, man, if, as you say, you have a criminal record.’

‘No, they don’t. Because Roger ffolkes isn’t my real name.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t you see, I had to change my name. After I’d – well, after I’d paid my debt to society, I left to make my fortune in America and, when I returned, I couldn’t take the risk of one of my former accomplices tracking me down. I’d done jolly well for myself in the States and I felt I deserved a new life. So, surely forgivably, I gave myself a new identity.’

‘Then what is your real name?’

‘It’s Roger all right – just not Roger ffolkes.’

‘Roger what?’

‘Well …’

At this point, the Colonel slowly and almost conspiratorially began casting glances around the room, even though there was no one in it but himself and the Chief-Inspector.

Then, just as he was about to speak, there was a knock at the door.

‘Er, yes, who is it?’

‘It’s Farrar, sir.’

‘Ah, Farrar. Come in, will you?’

‘Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but you should know – you and Mr Trubshawe – that your guests are already on their way downstairs.’

‘I see. Well, thank you. Ready for them, are you, Trubshawe?’

‘Yes, Colonel, I am. But you were going to –’

‘We’ll speak about that later, shall we? When we manage to have a private moment together.’

‘Just as you say, sir, just as you say.’