The Catherine Wheel

CHAPTER 24

On Monday morning Jeremy drove Jane up to town. At half past nine she was going in at the side door of Clarissa Harlowe’s dress shop. Jeremy was about to drive off again, when he noticed that his off-side front tyre was flatter than it ought to be. He discovered that he had picked up a nail, and set to work to change the wheel.

He had just about finished, when Clarissa Harlowe’s side door opened again and Jane came out. She had a bright colour and she was walking fast. She got into the car, sat down, and said crisply,

“I’ve got the sack.”

Jeremy whistled and said, “Why?”

Jane looked at him angrily.

“Murder is quite the wrong sort of publicity,” she said.

He whistled again.

“Why did you tell her?”

“There’s going to be an inquest, isn’t there, and I’ve got to go down for it-and there are newspapers and reporters and things. Of course I had to tell her. And for goodness’ sake let’s get away! I never want to see the place again!”

Jeremy got in, banged the door, and said cheerfully,

“Let’s go round to the flat and get something to eat. You’ll feel a lot better after a cup of something hot.”

This, though infuriating, was true. At the time it merely brightened Jane’s eyes and made her colour rise alarmingly, but after her second cup of coffee she relaxed sufficiently to discuss the future.

“I’ll take the week off and get through with this blasted inquest, and then I’ll hunt another job. I did hold my tongue, so she may give me a reference.”

“She’s bound to, isn’t she?”

Jane looked coldly at him.

“There are references and references. How many jobs do you suppose I should get if she were to say, ‘Jane Heron? Oh, no, I’ve nothing against her. It’s just rather a pity she got mixed up in that murder case’?”

“She wouldn’t play a dirty trick like that.”

Jane laughed without amusement.

“Let’s say, ‘I hope she won’t.’ That’s about as far as it will stretch.”

There was a pause. Then he said,

“I want to go back to the Catherine-Wheel.”

Her answer was unexpected.

“So do I.”

“All right then-we’ll go.”

“There’s the inquest, and Eily, and-well, it’s horrid, but it’s interesting.”

Jeremy laughed.

“You needn’t give your reasons. I’m not giving mine.”

“Have you got any?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What are they?”

“I’m not giving them.”

Down at the Catherine-Wheel Inspector Crisp was acquainting Miss Silver with the police surgeon’s report.

“You see he says that the man had taken a considerable quantity of alcohol. Now you had the opportunity of observing Luke White-he was in the lounge, wasn’t he, most of the time that you were?”

They were in the office. A nice snug fire was burning, Frank Abbott, who had a way with fires, having coaxed it from a reluctant smoulder to its present cheerful state. That he had done so without in any way impairing his customary air of having just emerged from a glass case had an irritating effect upon Inspector Crisp. It sharpened his voice a little as he enquired,

“You were in the lounge with him for about an hour and a half. Did he appear to have been drinking then?”

Miss Silver gazed thoughtfully down at the wide blue flounce to which little Josephine’s woolly dress had now been advanced. Another two inches, and she would be able to make the sharp decrease which would impart a gathered effect to the skirt before beginning upon the tight plain bodice. She might have been considering how many more rows it would take to finish the skirt, or she might not. She kept Inspector Crisp waiting long enough to start him tapping on the table with his pencil. Then she raised her eyes to his face and gave him a quiet,

“No.”

Crisp tapped. She could speak plenty when she liked. Now, when he could have done with a few more words, she seemed to have run out of them.

“He let you in, didn’t he? Did he smell of drink then?”

Miss Silver repeated the irritating monosyllable.

“No.”

“When did you see him last?”

She seemed to consider this too.

“It would be just before half past ten, when I went up to my room.”

“He didn’t seem to have been drinking then?”

Miss Silver produced another “No.”

Crisp tapped.

“Well, some time between then and the time he was killed he must have put away quite a lot. Castell ought to know something about that. We’ll have him in.”

He went out through the door on the kitchen side.

Frank Abbott, who had been standing in a lounging attitude beside the fire looking down into it as if admiring his own handiwork, now shifted his cool gaze to Miss Silver and said,

“What are you up to?”

“My dear Frank!”

“Yes, I know, I know, but you can’t put it across with me.”

Without attempting any further reproof she said very composedly,

“There are some interesting points about this case.”

“As what?”

“The attempt to implicate John Higgins.”

“Attempt?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Do you believe that he returned nearly two hours after he had said good-night to Eily, and that having drawn attention to himself by whistling his customary tune under Miss Heron’s window, he induced Eily to let him in, that he then deliberately selected a knife from the trophy in the dining-room and killed Luke White in the most public place in the house?”

Frank’s fair eyebrows rose.

“Is that how it strikes you?”

“Undoubtedly.”

He said, “Well, well-” And then, “You said, ‘under Miss Heron’s window.’ Did you mean anything by that?”

Her needles clicked.

“Oh, yes. The person who whistled under Miss Heron’s window knew that Eily was there.”

“If you say that to Crisp, it will go down to John Higgins’ account. He’s pretty sure he did it, you know.”

“My dear Frank!”

“You’re quite sure he didn’t?”

She smiled.

“He was telling the truth.”

“Then-”

“Someone in the house must have known that Eily had left her own room and gone to Miss Heron’s. If we can find that person we shall, I think, have found the murderer-or, at the very least, someone deeply implicated in the murder.”

“And who, do you suppose, could have known that Eily was in Jane Heron’s room?”

She said thoughtfully,

“Almost anyone. Her room, as you know, looks out at the back, and is on the opposite side of the house from Miss Heron’s. It is, in fact, the corner room at the end of the opposite corridor. There is only one other bedroom opening on to the back from that corridor. It is next to the landing, and is occupied by Mr. Jacob Taverner, the intervening space being taken up by the back stairs, linen-room, and lavatory. On the same corridor, looking to the front, are the rooms occupied by the Castells and Mr. Geoffrey Taverner. There is also a bathroom, and a large housemaid’s cupboard. Mr. Taverner might possibly have overheard Eily’s conversation with John Higgins if he had opened his window and leaned right out, but I do not regard this as at all likely. The linen-room window is not conveniently accessible, nor is that which lights the back stairs, but the lavatory window, which is next to Eily’s room, would be very convenient indeed. Castell says in his statement that he did in fact hear someone come along the road and go round to the back, and that he went across to the lavatory and looked out of the window. He says he heard someone come along whistling Greenland’s Icy Mountains, and that he then went back to bed because he knew it was only John Higgins come to have a few words with Eily. Castell was, I think, a little too anxious to inform the police that John Higgins had been out to the Catherine-Wheel that night. We have only his own word for it that he went back to bed without listening to the conversation between him and Eily. He could very easily have done so. On the other hand, Mr. Jacob Taverner or Mr. Geoffrey Taverner might also have done so.”

Frank made a slight grimace.

“Not so very likely.”

“Perhaps not. But we really do not know enough to say what is likely or unlikely at present. On the other side of the landing, in my own corridor, either Lady Marian and her husband, or Mrs. Duke, Miss Taverner, and myself could have heard Eily go into Miss Heron’s room, though we could not, of course, have heard the conversation which induced her to do so.”

Frank Abbott gave her a quizzical look.

“Are you by any chance the villain of the piece? Did you hear anything?”

“No, Frank.” After a pause she continued, “If John Higgins did not return at one o’clock, then someone was being at pains to manufacture evidence against him by whistling that tune under Miss Heron’s window. It would have to be someone who knew that Eily was there. So far as we know, the most likely person to have that knowledge was Castell.”

Frank gave a slight sarcastic laugh.

“And, as Crisp put it, I’m here to get something on Castell! ‘The Innkeeper Framed’! You know, it’s almost too much to hope that it is Castell. He’s so beautifully obvious, isn’t he?”

If Miss Silver was going to reply, the sound of approaching voices stopped her. The door by which Crisp had gone out was flung back, and there came in Castell in full spate, with the Inspector only occasionally managing to stem the flood.

“If I can be of any assistance-any assistance whatever! All murders are atrocious-that goes without saying! The sight of blood makes me incapable of digesting my food! All are, I say, atrocious, but this one is an outrage! In the middle of a festivity-in the middle of a family reunion! Depriving me of a friend as well as of a servant most valued! Leaving me short-handed with the house full!” He threw up his hands in a gesture of horror. “And the consequences! You will pardon me, but-the police in the house! Mr. Jacob Taverner, my patron, is indisposed! I myself-I will not trouble you with how I suffer! My wife Annie whose cooking is unsurpassed-last night her hand fails her! I do not say that the pastry is heavy-it is impossible for Annie Castell to make heavy pastry-if I say that it is made by an ordinary chef, it is enough! Can you then doubt how eagerly I would help to unmask the assassin?”

Inspector Crisp used the most repressive tone at his command.

“Sit down, Mr. Castell, and stop talking! I want to ask you some questions.”

Fogarty Castell spread out his hands in an expansive gesture.

“Anything-anything!”

“It’s about this man Luke White. The police surgeon says he’d had a lot of drink. When did he get it, and how?”

Fogarty brushed away a tear.

“My poor Luke! Yes, I will tell you. There was some champagne left, and I said to him, ‘Come, my friend, we will finish it.’ That was after everyone had gone up to bed, you understand. For me, I take one glass-two-I am the most abstemious of men- and my poor Luke, he finishes the rest.”

“How much?”

Castell hesitated. Then he said,

“There was a half bottle-”

“You’re not going to tell me you had a couple of glasses or so, and Luke White got drunk on what was left!”

There was that gesture with the hands again.

“No, no, no-I will tell you! He had a weakness that poor Luke. In his working-time he takes nothing, but-how shall I say-when he is off duty he takes what he can get.”

“Are you telling me he was a heavy drinker, Mr. Castell?”

Fogarty’s dark face glistened with feeling.

“Only when he is off duty. And for champagne he has a passion. He finishes the bottle, and then he says, ‘Come on, boss-the old boy won’t miss it!’ and he opens another. There- I have told you! Do not repeat it, I beg of you. I would not, of course, have put it on the bill.”

Frank’s eye rested upon him with cool enjoyment. Crisp said sharply,

“That’s nothing to do with us. You’re telling me White was a heavy drinker?”

“Only when he was off duty,” said Fogarty Castell.