The Case with Nine Solutions

Chapter Three. SIR CLINTON AT IVY LODGE

Dr. Ringwood left the smoke-room door open to ensure that he would hear anyone who entered the house. He made a second cursory inspection of young Hassendean’s body; but as he took care not to alter the position of anything, he discovered no more than he had done when he inspected it originally. There seemed to be nothing further for him to do until the police came upon the scene; so he picked out a comfortable chair and let himself relax whilst he had the chance.

The patient next door worried him a little. Perhaps he ought to have got the girl off to hospital at once, fog or no fog. It would be awkward if she turned delirious in the night. And from that, his mind drifted to other cases which were giving him anxiety. With this ’flu epidemic, Carew’s practice had been anything but the nice, quiet, jog-trot business he had imagined it to be when he promised to come as locum.

By some incongruous linking, his thoughts came back to the events through which he had just passed. Death was all in the day’s work for a medical man, but he had hardly bargained for murder. At least, he had hitherto assumed that this was a case of murder, but possibly it was suicide. He recalled that he had not seen any pistol; and he felt a momentary inclination to search the room for the weapon; but his fatigue was greater than his interest, and he abandoned the project. After all, it was an affair for the police, when they came to take charge; it was no business of his.

Nevertheless, he could not shake off the subject of the tragedy; and, despite himself, he began to speculate on the possibilities of the situation. Suppose that, after dinner, young Hassendean and Mrs. Silverdale had simply driven round to Ivy Lodge. That would account for the empty car at the door. Then they must have come into the house. He had found the door unlocked, so that anyone could enter. That seemed rather a peculiar point. Surely, if they had come here for the only purpose which seemed covered by the case, they would have taken the obvious precaution of closing the front door against intruders. But if they had done that, how could Silverdale have got in? He could hardly have had a latch-key for his neighbours’ house.

It occurred to Dr. Ringwood that possibly Silverdale might have gained admittance through some unlatched window. He might have seen something through the smoke-room window and got into the house like a burglar. But all the curtains were tightly drawn. No one could see in from the outside, even if they had wished to do so. Obviously, then, it could not have been a chance discovery of his wife’s guilt that had roused Silverdale to the pitch of murder. He must have had his suspicions and deliberately tracked down the guilty couple.

Almost against his will, Dr. Ringwood’s mind persisted in an attempt to reconstruct the happenings of the night. Suppose Silverdale got in—no matter how—then evidently he must have surprised the two; and the end of that business had been the shooting of young Hassendean. But that left Yvonne Silverdale and her husband still unaccounted for. Had she fled into the night before Silverdale could shoot her in her turn. Or had her husband forced her to go with him—whither? And if this were the truth of the matter, why had Silverdale not locked the door? There seemed to be many things needing explanation before one could feel that the case was clear. Well, that was the business of the police.

His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the sound of feet at the front door, and he pulled himself together with a start and rose from his chair. He was just moving towards the door when it opened and Sir Clinton Driffield, accompanied by another man, entered the room.

"Good evening, Dr. Ringwood," the Chief Constable greeted him. "I think we’ve managed to get here at the time I promised, though it was a difficult business with all this fog about."

He turned to introduce his companion.

"This is Inspector Flamborough, doctor. He’s in charge of the case. I’m merely here as an onlooker. I’ve given him the facts, so far as I know them from you; but I expect that he may wish further information if you have any."

At Sir Clinton’s words, the mouth under Inspector Flamborough’s tooth-brush moustache curved in a smile, half-friendly and half-inscrutable. Simultaneously, he seemed to be establishing good relations with the doctor and appreciating some obscure joke in the Chief Constable’s remarks.

"It’s very lucky you’re a medical man, sir. Death’s all in the day’s work with you and me; neither of us is likely to be put off our balance by it. Most witnesses in cases of this sort get so confused by the shock that it’s difficult to squeeze any clear story out of them. A doctor’s different."

Dr. Ringwood was not particularly susceptible to flattery, but he recognised that the Inspector probably was voicing his real sentiments. All three of them were experts in death, and among them there was no need to waste time in polite lamentations. None of them had ever set eyes on the victim before that night, and there was no object in becoming sentimental over him.

"Sit down, doctor," Sir Clinton broke in, after a glance at the medical man’s face. "You look as if you were about tired out. This ’flu epidemic must be taking it out of you."

Dr. Ringwood did not wait to be asked twice. Sir Clinton followed his example, but the Inspector, pulling a notebook from his pocket, prepared to open his investigation.

"Let’s see, now, doctor," he began pleasantly. "I’d like to start from the beginning. You might tell us just how you happened to come into the business; and if you can give us some definite times, it’ll be a great help."

Dr. Ringwood nodded, but seemed to hesitate for a moment before replying:

"I think I could give you it clearest if I were sure of one thing first. I believe that’s the body of young Hassendean who lived in this house, but I haven’t examined it closely—didn’t wish to disturb it in any way before you turned up. If it is young Hassendean’s body, then I can fit some other things into my evidence. Perhaps you’ll have a look for yourselves and see if you can identify him."

The Inspector exchanged a glance with his superior

"Just as you please, sir," he answered.

He crossed the room, knelt beside the chesterfield, and began to search the pockets in the body’s clothes. The first two yielded nothing in the way of identification, but from one of the pockets of the evening waistcoat the Inspector fished out a small card.

"Season ticket for the Alhambra," he reported, after glancing over it. "You’re right, doctor. The signature’s here: Ronald Hassendean."

"I was pretty sure of it," Dr. Ringwood answered. "But I like to be certain."

The Inspector rose to his feet and came back to the hearthrug.

"Now, perhaps, sir, you’ll tell us the story in your own way. Only let’s have it clear. I mean, tell us what you saw yourself and let’s know when you’re bringing anything else in."

Dr. Ringwood had a clear mind and could put his facts together in proper order. In spite of his physical weariness, he was able to take each incident of the evening in its proper turn and make it fit neatly into its place in his narrative. When he had finished, he had brought the story up to the point when the police arrived. As he closed his tale, the Inspector shut his notebook with a nod of approval.

"There’s a lot of useful information there, doctor. We’re lucky in having your help. Some of what you’ve told us would have cost a lot of bother to fish out of different people."

Sir Clinton rose to his feet with a gesture which invited the doctor to remain in his chair.

"Of course, doctor," he pointed out, "a good deal of your story is like What the Soldier Said—it isn’t first-hand evidence. We’ll have to get it for ourselves, again, from the people who gave it to you: Dr. Markfield and this maid next door. That’s only routine; and doesn’t imply that we disbelieve it in the slightest, naturally."

Dr. Ringwood agreed with a faint smile.

"I prefer getting a patient’s symptoms at first-hand myself," he said. "Things do get distorted a bit in the re-telling. And some of what I gave you is quite possibly just gossip. I thought you ought to hear it; but most certainly I don’t guarantee its accuracy."

The Inspector beamed his approval of the doctor’s views.

"And now, sir," he said, glancing at Sir Clinton, "I think I’d better go over the ground here and see if there’s anything worth picking up."

He suited the action to the word, and began a systematic search of the room, commenting aloud from time to time for his companions’ benefit.

"There’s no pistol here, unless it’s hidden away somewhere," he reported after a while. "The murderer must have taken it away with him."

Sir Clinton’s face took on a quizzical expression.

"Just one suggestion, Inspector. Let’s keep the facts and the inferences in separate boxes, if you please. What we really do know is that you haven’t found any pistol up to the present."

Flamborough’s grin showed that the Chief Constable’s shot had gone home without wounding his feelings.

"Very good, sir. ‘Pistol or pistols, not found.’ I’ll note that down."

He went down on hands and knees to examine the carpet.

"Here’s something fresh, sir," he announced. "The carpet’s so dark that I didn’t notice it before. The pattern concealed it, too. But here it is, all right."

He drew his fore-finger over the fabric at a spot near the door, and then held it for their inspection, stained with an ominous red.

"A blood-spot, and a fair-sized one, too! There may be more of them about."

"Yes," said Sir Clinton mildly. "I noticed some on the hall-carpet as I came in. There’s a trail of them from the front door into this room. Perhaps you didn’t see them; they’re not conspicuous."

The Inspector looked a trifle crestfallen.

"I know you’ve a sharp eye, sir. I didn’t spot them myself."

"Suppose we finish up this room before going elsewhere. All the windows are fast, are they?" the Chief Constable asked.

Flamborough examined them and reported that all the catches were on. Then he gazed up and down the room inquisitively.

"Looking for bullet-holes?" Sir Clinton questioned. "Quite right. But you won’t find any."

"I like to be certain about things, sir."

"So do I, Inspector. So does Dr. Ringwood, if you remember. Well, you can be certain of one thing. If two shots had been fired in here this evening, and if all the windows had been left closed as they are now, then I’d have smelt the tang of the powder in the air when we came in. I didn’t. Ergo, no shots were fired in this room. Whence it follows that it’s no use hunting for bullet-holes. Does that chain of reasoning satisfy you, Inspector?"

Flamborough made a gesture of vexation.

"That’s true enough," he confessed. "I ought to have thought of it."

"I think we’ve got the main points, now, so far as this room itself goes," Sir Clinton observed, without paying any heed to the Inspector’s annoyance. "Would you mind examining the body, doctor, just to confirm your view that he was shot in the lung?"

Dr. Ringwood assented and, crossing over, he subjected young Hassendean’s body to a careful scrutiny. A few minutes sufficed to prove that the only wounds were those in the chest; and when the doctor had satisfied himself that his earlier diagnosis was correct, he turned to the Chief Constable.

"There’s no certainty without a P.M., of course, but from the way the bullets have gone in, it’s pretty obvious that the shots took effect on the left lung. There’s very little external bleeding, apparently; and that rather looks as if one of the intercostal arteries may be involved. He must have bled a lot internally, I suspect. Probably the P.M. will confirm that."

Sir Clinton accepted the verdict without demur.

"And what do you make out of things, Inspector?" he demanded, turning to Flamborough.

"Well, sir, with these small-calibre pistols, it’s difficult to give more than a guess. So far as I can see, it looks as if the pistol had been quite close-up when it was fired. I think I can see something that looks like scorching or discoloration on his dress shirt round about the wound, though the blood makes it hard to be sure. That’s really as far as I’d like to go until I’ve had a better chance of examining the thing."

Sir Clinton turned back to the doctor.

"I suppose a wound in the lung may produce death at almost any length of time after the shot’s actually fired. I mean that a man may live for quite a long while even with a wound like this and might be able to move about to some extent after being shot?"

Dr. Ringwood had no hesitation in agreeing with this.

"He might have lived for an hour or two—even for days. Or else, of course, he might have collapsed almost at once. You never can tell what will happen in lung wounds."

Sir Clinton seemed to give this a certain consideration. Then he moved towards the door.

"We’ll take up the blood-trail now. You’d better switch off the light and lock the door, Inspector. We don’t want anyone blundering in here and getting a fright by any mischance."

They went out into the hall, where Sir Clinton drew the attention of the Inspector to the traces of blood which he had noticed on the carpet.

"Now we’d better have a look at that car outside," he suggested.

As they descended the steps from the front door, the Inspector took a flash-lamp from his pocket and switched it on. Its rays merely served to light up the fog; and it was not until they came almost to the side of the car that they could see much. The Inspector bent across, rubbed his finger over the driving-seat, and then examined his hand in the light of the lamp.

"Some more blood there, sir," he reported.

He cleaned away the marks on his finger-tip and proceeded to explore the other seats in the same manner. The results were negative. Apart from one or two spots on the running-board at the driving-seat door, the car seemed otherwise clean. Inspector Flamborough straightened himself up and turned to Sir Clinton.

"It seems that he must have driven the car back himself, sir. If someone else had done the driving, the blood would have been on some of the other seats instead of this one."

Sir Clinton acquiesced with a gesture.

"I suppose that’s possible, doctor? A wound in the lung wouldn’t incapacitate him completely?"

Dr. Ringwood shook his head.

"It would depend entirely on the sort of wound it was. I see nothing against it, prima facie. Driving a car isn’t really much strain on the body muscles."

Sir Clinton ran his eye over the lines of the car in the light of the side-lamps.

"It’s an Austin, so he’d be able to get the engine going with the self-starter, probably, even on a night like this. He wouldn’t need to crank up the car. There would be no exertion on his part."

The Inspector had been examining the ground.

"It’s frozen fairly hard," he reported. "There’s no hope of tracing the car’s track on a night like this, even if one could have done that through all the marks of the town traffic. That’s a blank end."

"You may as well take the number, Inspector. It’s just possible that some constable may have noticed it, though the chances are about a thousand to one against that, on a night of this sort."

Flamborough went round to the rear number-plate and jotted down the figures in his pocket-book, repeating them aloud as he did so:

"GX. 6061."

He came round the car again and subjected the whole interior to a minute scrutiny under the light of his flashlamp.

"Here’s a girl’s handkerchief lying on the floor," he said, as he peered down at the place beside the driver. Then, holding it in the light from the side-lamp, he turned it over and reported.

"It’s got ‘Y.S.’ embroidered in one corner. That would be for Yvonne Silverdale, I suppose. It doesn’t take us much further. Except that it proves this was the car she went off in with young Hassendean, and I expect we could have got better proof of that elsewhere."

"Nothing else you can find?" Sir Clinton inquired.

"No, sir."

Before the Chief Constable could say anything further, two figures loomed up through the fog and a startled exclamation in a female voice reached the group around the car. Sir Clinton caught Dr. Ringwood’s arm and whispered hurriedly in his ear:

"The maids coming back to the house. Spin them a yarn that young Hassendean’s met with an accident and been brought home. Tell them who you are. We don’t want to have them in hysterics."

Dr. Ringwood moved towards the dim figures in the fog.

"I’m Dr. Ringwood," he explained. "I suppose you’re the maids, aren’t you? You must go in very quietly. Young Mr. Hassendean’s had a bad accident and mustn’t be disturbed. He’s in the room to the right as you go in at the door, so don’t make a fuss in the house. You’d better get off to bed."

There was a sound of rapid whispering and then one of the maids enquired:

"Was it a motor accident, sir?"

Dr. Ringwood, anxious not to commit himself to details, made a gesture to the window behind him.

"Don’t make a row, please. Mr. Hassendean mustn’t be disturbed in any way. Get off to bed as soon as you can, and keep quiet. By the way, when do you expect the rest of the family home?"

"They’ve gone out to play bridge, sir," answered the maid who had spoken before. "Usually they get home about half-past eleven."

"Good. I shall have to wait for them."

The bolder of the two maids had advanced as he was speaking, and now she stared suspiciously at him in the dim light from the car lamps.

"Excuse me, sir," she ventured. "How do I know that it’s all right?"

"You mean I might be a burglar, I suppose?" Dr. Ringwood answered patiently. "Well, here’s Inspector Flamborough. He’s surely protection enough for you."

The maid examined Flamborough with relief.

"Oh, that’s all right, sir. I saw Inspector Flamborough once at the police sports. That’s him, right enough. I’m sorry to have been a bit suspicious, sir——"

"Quite right," Dr. Ringwood reassured her. "Now, just get off to bed, will you. We’ve got the patient to think about."

"Is it a bad accident, sir?"

"Very serious, perhaps. Talking won’t mend it, anyhow."

Dr. Ringwood’s temper was becoming slightly frayed by the maid’s persistence. However, she took the hint and retired with her companion into the house. Inspector Flamborough made a gesture which arrested them at the door.

"By the way, when did young Mr. Hassendean leave the house to-night?" he demanded.

"I couldn’t say, sir. We left ourselves at seven o’clock. Mr. Hassendean and Miss Hassendean were just going out then—they were dining out. And Mr. Ronald was dressing, I think. He was going out to dinner, too."

Flamborough dismissed them, and they vanished into the hall. Sir Clinton gave them a reasonable time to get out of the way before making any further move. The Inspector occupied himself with writing a note in his pocket-book.

"I think we may as well go into the house again," the Chief Constable suggested. "Just fasten that front door after us, Inspector, if you please. We may as well have some warning when the family turns up."

He led the way up the steps, entered the hall, and, after opening one or two doors at random, selected the drawing-room of the house, in which a banked-up fire was burning.

"We may as well wait here. It’s to be hoped they won’t be long, now. Sit down, doctor."

Then, noticing the expression on Dr. Ringwood’s face, he continued:

"I’m sorry to detain you, doctor; but now we’ve got you, I think we’ll have to keep you until the Hassendeans come in. One never knows what may turn up. They may have something to tell us which might need medical checking and you’ve been too much of a gift from the gods to part with so long as there’s a chance of our utilising you."

Dr. Ringwood tried to make his acquiescence a cheerful one, though he was thinking regretfully of his bed.

"It’s all in the day’s work," he said. "I’m only a bit worried about that case of scarlet next door. I’ll have to look in there before I go."

"So shall we," Sir Clinton explained. "Once we’ve got all the evidence from the family, we’ll need to ring up and get the body taken off to the mortuary. You say we can telephone from the house next door?"

"Yes. I had to go there to ring you up myself. The Hassendeans have no ’phone."

"We’ll go round with you then. . . . H’m! There’s the door-bell, Inspector. You’d better attend to it. Bring them in here, please."

Flamborough hurried out of the room; they heard some muffled talk broken by ejaculations of surprise and horror; and then the Inspector ushered Mr. and Miss Hassendean into the drawing-room. Dr. Ringwood was unfavourably impressed at the first glance. Mr. Hassendean was a red-faced, white-haired man of about seventy, with a feebly blustering manner. His sister, some five years younger, aped the air and dress of women twenty years her junior.

"What this? What’s this, eh?" Mr. Hassendean demanded as he came into the room. "God bless my soul! My nephew shot? What does it mean, eh?"

"That’s what we should like to know, sir," Inspector Flamborough’s quiet voice cut into the frothing torrent of the old man’s eloquence. "We’re depending on you to throw some light on the affair."

"On me?" Mr. Hassendean’s voice seemed to strain itself in the vain attempt to express his feelings at the Inspector’s suggestion. "I’m not a policeman, my good fellow; I’m a retired drysalter. God bless me! Do I look like Sherlock Holmes?"

He paused, apparently unable to find words for a moment.

"Now, look here, my good man," he went on, "I come home and I find you occupying my house, and you tell me that my young nephew has been shot. He’s a good-for-nothing cub, I admit; but that’s beside the point. I want to know who’s to blame for it. That’s a simple enough question, surely. And instead of answering it, you have the nerve to ask me to do your work for you! What do we pay police rates for, tell me that! And who are these men in my drawing-room? How did they come here?"

"This is Sir Clinton Driffield; this is Dr. Ringwood," the Inspector answered smoothly, taking no notice of Mr. Hassendean’s other remarks.

"Ah! I’ve heard of you, Sir Clinton," Mr. Hassendean acknowledged, less ungraciously. "Well, what about it?"

"We’ve met under rather unfortunate conditions, Mr. Hassendean," Sir Clinton admitted soothingly, "but they’re none of our choosing, you know. I quite understand your feelings; it must be a bad shock to come home to an affair like this. But I hope you’ll see your way to give us any information you have—anything that will assist us to get on the track of the person who shot your nephew. We really depend on you to help us at once, for every hour lost may make it more difficult to lay our hands on the criminal. Without knowing it, you may have the key to the thing in your hands."

More by his manner than by his words, the Chief Constable had succeeded in pacifying the old man.

"Well, if it’s put like that, I don’t mind," he conceded, with a slight lessening in the asperity of his tone. "Ask your questions and I’ll see what I can do for you."

Dr. Ringwood, watching the change in the situation, reflected sardonically to himself that a title had its uses when one came to deal with a snob.

"That old bounder was rude to the Inspector on principle; but when Sir Clinton Driffield asks precisely the same question, he’s quite amenable," he thought to himself. "What a type!"

The Chief Constable, when he began his interrogatory, was careful not to betray that he already had some information.

"Perhaps we’d better begin at the beginning, Mr. Hassendean," he suggested, with the air of one consulting a valued collaborator. "Could you throw any light on your nephew’s arrangements for this evening? Did he mean to stay in the house, or had he any outside engagement that you knew about?"

"He told me he was going out to dinner with that hussy next door."

Sir Clinton’s smile further disarmed old Hassendean.

"I’m afraid you’ll need to be more definite. There are so many hussies nowadays."

"You’re right there, sir! You’re right there. I agree with you. I’m speaking of the French one next door, her name’s Silverdale. My nephew was always hanging round her skirts, sir. I warned him against her, often enough."

"I always knew something would happen!" Miss Hassendean declared with the air of a justified Cassandra. "And now it has happened."

Sir Clinton returned to the main track.

"Have you any idea if he meant to spend the evening next door?"

Miss Hassendean interrupted before her brother could reply.

"He mentioned to me that he was going with her to the Alhambra to dance. I remember that, because he actually asked me where I was going myself to-night, which was unusual interest on his part."

"Scattering his money, of course!" her brother rapped out angrily.

"He had money to scatter, then?" Sir Clinton asked casually. "He must have been lucky for his age."

For some reason, this reflection seemed to stir a grievance in the old man’s mind.

"Yes, he had about £500 a year of his own. A very comfortable income for a single young man. And I had to sit, sir, as his trustee; pay over the money quarterly to him; and see it wasted in buying jewellery and whatnot for that wench next door. I’m not a rich man, sir; and I give you my word I could have spent it better myself. But I’d no control over him, none whatever. I had to stand by and see all that good money flung into the gutter."

Dr. Ringwood turned aside to hide his smile at this revelation of the drysalter’s soul.

"By the way, who gets that money now?" Sir Clinton inquired.

"I do, sir. And I hope I’ll put it to better use."

Sir Clinton nodded in response to this sentiment, and seemed to ponder before he asked his next question.

"I suppose you can’t think of anyone who might have had a grudge against him?"

The old man’s glance showed some suspicion at the question; but his sister seemed to have less compunction, for she answered instead.

"I warned Ronald again and again that he was playing with fire. Mr. Silverdale never took any open offence, but . . ."

She left her sentence unfinished. Sir Clinton seemed less impressed than she had expected. He made no comment on her statement.

"Then I take it, Mr. Hassendean, that you can throw no light on the affair, beyond what you have told us?"

The old man seemed to think that he had given quite enough information, for he merely answered with a non-committal gesture.

"I must thank you for your assistance," Sir Clinton pursued. "You understand, of course, that there are one or two formalities which need to be gone through. The body will have to be removed for a post mortem examination, I’m afraid; and Inspector Flamborough will need to go through your nephew’s papers to see if anything in them throws light on this affair. He can do that now, if you have no objections."

Old Hassendean seemed rather taken back by this.

"Is that necessary?"

"I’m afraid so."

The old man’s face bore all the marks of uneasiness at this decision.

"I’d rather avoid it if possible," he grumbled. "It’s not for use in Court, is it? I shouldn’t like that, not by any means. To tell you the truth, sir," he continued in a burst of frankness, "we didn’t get on well, he and I; and it’s quite on the cards that he may have said—written, I mean—a lot of things about me that I shouldn’t care to have printed in the newspapers. He was a miserable young creature, and I never concealed my opinion about him. Under his father’s will, he had to live in my house till he was twenty-five, and a pretty life he led me, sir. I suspect that he may have slandered me in that diary he used to keep."

"You’d better make a note about that diary, Inspector," Sir Clinton suggested in a tone which seemed to indicate that Flamborough must be discreet. "You needn’t trouble yourself too much about it, Mr. Hassendean. Nothing in it will come out in public unless it bears directly on this case; I can assure you of that."

The drysalter recognised that this was final; but he could hardly be described as giving in with a good grace.

"Have it your own way," he grunted crossly.

Sir Clinton ignored this recrudescence of temper.

"I’ll leave the Inspector to see to things," he explained. "I’ll go with Dr. Ringwood, Inspector, and do the telephoning. You’d better stay here, of course, until someone relieves you. You’ll find plenty to do, I expect."

He bade good-night to his involuntary host and hostess and, followed by the doctor, left the house.