The Catherine Wheel

CHAPTER 25

Well,” said Crisp when the door had closed behind him, “there you have it. The man was drunk when he was killed, and the way he got drunk was drinking Mr. Jacob Taverner’s champagne along with his manager after everyone else had gone upstairs to bed. Nice work, I must say! Not put it on the bill, indeed!” He made a sound that was more like a snort than a laugh.

Miss Silver said mildly,

“What is your theory, Inspector, as to how Luke White came to be lying in the position in which he was found? There was not more than eighteen inches between his feet and the bottom step. To fall in such a position he must have been standing either on the step itself or just below it with his back to the stairs, and the murderer must have been on the step behind him.”

Crisp stared.

“You mean they were both coming down the stairs?”

Miss Silver knitted two, slipped one, and knitted two together. Little Josephine’s skirt was being gathered in to the waist.

“Can you think of any other explanation?” She paused, decreased again, and added, “If he was really killed where he was found.”

Crisp said impatiently,

“There isn’t the slightest reason to suppose he wasn’t. Coming downstairs-I wonder. Let’s see-Eily lets John Higgins in, and they go upstairs together. Luke White hears something-comes after them. Higgins has the knife. He turns round with it. Luke sees it, takes fright, and makes off. Higgins catches him up on the bottom step and stabs him in the back.”

Miss Silver shook her head, but she did not speak. It was Frank Abbott who said,

“You say John Higgins has the knife. Why?”

Crisp shrugged his shoulders.

“He’s jealous-he’s angry over the girl-he’s where he’s got no business to be, and he knows Luke White is an awkward customer-so awkward that it’s not many hours since he had threatened to cut the heart out of any man that the girl took instead of him. Plenty of reasons for picking a knife off the dining-room wall before he went upstairs with her.”

Miss Silver shook her head again. Her lips were primmed together. She knitted in silence.

Frank Abbott said seriously,

“I don’t think it happened like that. The girl isn’t that sort of girl, and the man isn’t that sort of man.”

Crisp stared angrily.

“Then how did it happen?”

Getting no answer but that conveyed by a lifted eyebrow, he produced a counter-attack.

“It’s got to be Castell to satisfy you, hasn’t it-or one of the Taverners? Well, there’s not a shred of evidence to connect them with the crime, or a shred of a motive. Mr. Jacob Taverner says he was in bed before eleven and slept until he was roused by the commotion in the house. Mr. Geoffrey Taverner says he read till after twelve. He heard no unusual sounds, he went to sleep as soon as he put his light out, and was waked by the noise downstairs. Castell’s statement amounts to very much the same thing. After hearing John Higgins come along whistling round about eleven he lay awake for a bit, and then dropped off, waking up like everyone else when the noise began. Mrs. Castell corroborates as far as to say that Castell was in bed when the house was roused. She is a heavy sleeper and can’t say anything about the earlier part of the night. Well, you can’t expect alibis when people are in bed and asleep. There’s nothing to say that all those statements aren’t correct. Same with the people on the other side of the house, the Thorpe-Enningtons, Miss Taverner, Miss Heron- and yourself, Miss Silver. There is nothing to connect any of them with Luke White, or to suggest that they had the slightest motive for murdering him.”

Miss Silver coughed in an exceedingly pointed manner, and Frank Abbott said,

“What about Mrs. Duke? You’ve rather left her out, haven’t you? She was very much on the spot at the time of the murder- victim’s blood on her hands, and a pretty thin story to account for it.”

Miss Silver said in a meditative tone,

“True stories often appear to be regrettably thin. Fabrications are so much more carefully composed. We do not know of any motive in the case of Mrs. Duke.”

As the words left her lips, the door through which Castell had made his exit was opened in a tentative manner. Castell looked through the opening with what was obviously intended for an ingratiating smile.

“If I intrude, it is, if I may say, my eagerness to assist in the discovery of the assassin.”

Crisp said shortly, “Come in, Mr. Castell!”

He came in sideways like a thick-bodied crab, rubbing his hands together and turning his eyes this way and that.

“You will pardon if I interrupt-”

“Sit down if you’ve got anything to say!”

Fogarty balanced himself on the edge of the chair which he had occupied before.

“It is not I-it is my wife. You are married, Inspector? Yes?… No?… Ah, but what a pity! There is no fortune in the world like a good wife. So when I find my wife in tears just now when I go out of this room-when I find her in such a great distress that she cannot give her mind to the art in which she excels-I take her hand, I speak to her tenderly, I say, ‘What is it?’ And she says, ‘Is it true that the police are suspecting John Higgins? Is it true that they think he killed Luke White?’ And I say, ’How do I know? I am not in their confidence. It looks that way.’ Then she says, ‘It will break Eily’s heart. John is a good man. He is my own nephew. He did not do it.’ And I say, ‘He was jealous about Eily, and Luke had threatened him. If it was not John Higgins, who was it? No one else had any reason.’ Then she cries and says, ‘That is not true. There is someone who might have a reason.’ ”

Miss Silver’s eyes were on his face. Frank Abbott put up a hand and smoothed back his hair.

Inspector Crisp said, “What!” in a voice like a barking terrier.

Fogarty looked from one to the other. His expression seemed to say, “See how clever I am-how acute-how discerning! You are a lot of clever people in the police, but it is Castell who puts the clue into your hands!” He gestured complacently.

“That is what I say too. ‘What!’ I say. ‘Annie!’ I say. ‘Tell me at once what you are talking about!’ But she does not. She puts her head down on the kitchen table and cries. We have been married fifteen years, and I have never seen her cry like that. She says, ‘What shall I do, what shall I do?’ And I say, ‘I am your husband-you will tell me.’ ” He looked round again, as if for approbation. “So in the end she tells me.”

Crisp tapped impatiently.

“Well-well-what did she tell you?”

Castell’s eyes gleamed. It was quite obvious that he was enjoying himself.

“She does not want to tell me, you understand. She cries and says she has always kept it to herself. And I say, ‘What has always been must at some time come to an end, and when there is a murder and the police in the house, that is the time for it to come to an end.’ And at the last she tells me.”

Crisp fairly banged on the table.

“Mr. Castell, will you come to the point and tell us what your wife said!”

Castell spread out his hands.

“And with what reluctance she says it! That is part of the evidence, her reluctance, is it not? She does not wish to suggest a motive, to accuse, to say anything at all. I say to her, ‘It is your duty,’ and she shakes her head. I say, ‘I am your husband and I command you!’ She weeps. I say, ‘Have you no heart for John Higgins who is your nephew, and for Eily who looks already like an apparition from the tomb?’ Then she tells me.”

Frank Abbott said in his languid voice,

“All right, Castell, we’ve got the mise en scène. Just tell us what she said.”

If Chief Inspector Lamb had been present he would at this point have had something to say. It was his considered opinion that the English language contained all the words required by any police officer who hadn’t got wind in the head. French words in particular had a highly inflammatory effect on his temper and his complexion. In his absence Frank could indulge himself with impunity.

Castell became very animated indeed. He turned from one to the other, he waved his hands.

“My wife Annie Castell, she says a name.”

Crisp said sharply, “What name?”

“I will not disguise it from you, Inspector-it is the name of Mrs. Duke.”

“What does she say about Mrs. Duke?”

“She weeps as she says it. If you could have seen her!”

“Never mind about that! What did she say?”

Castell spread out those fat hands.

“She weeps, and she tells me. It is before we are married, you will understand, and my wife she is chef at the White Lion at Lenton. Never has the hotel done so much business. From all over the county they come-to lunch, to dine, to give supper parties, because of her cooking. And my poor Luke, he is the barman. She has known him a little all her life, you understand, because he is some sort of a cousin-on the wrong side of the blanket, as you say. One day he says to her, ‘I am going to get married, Cousin Annie.’ He calls her that because it vexes her, and he can be malicious that poor Luke. So then she says who is it he is marrying, and he says, ‘You would be surprised.’ And when he tells her it is her own cousin Florence Duke-”

This time both Inspectors said, “What!” together.

Castell smiled and nodded.

“When he tells her that-well, she is surprised like you have been.”

Frank Abbott said, “Florence Duke was married to Luke White?”

“My wife says so. Florence, she was behind the bar at the George, which is the other hotel at Lenton. Annie knew she was there, and they had spoken once or twice, but they did not know each other well, as cousins should, because of the quarrel in the family. She was also young and gay. My wife Annie, you will understand, is very particular, very respectable.”

Frank Abbott said, “Are you sure there was a marriage?”

Castell nodded.

“My wife Annie says so. She says it would be in ’31 or ’32- in July-at the register office in Lenton. And after that they went away, the two of them, to take a job together, and she did not see Luke again”-he shrugged and gestured-“not for many years. When he comes here she asks him, ‘What about your wife Florence?’ and he laughs and says, ‘It didn’t last long, and she has gone back to calling herself Florence Duke again.’ ”

Crisp said, “Is that all?”

Castell leaned forward, dropping his voice confidentially.

“Shall I tell you what I think? I think that when Florence comes here she does not know at all that Luke is here. I think it gives her a great shock. She looks very bad after she has seen him. I think she comes down in the night to have a meeting with him. She says she was in the kitchen. Pfft! His room is opposite-I think she was there. I think they quarrel. He is very inconstant with women that poor Luke. He fascinates them, and goes away and forgets. What is it in the proverb-‘Hell hasn’t got anything so furious like a woman who is scorned’? It is not my business to say anything, but we all saw the blood on her hands.” He pushed back his chair. “That is all! I go to console my wife!”

When they could no longer hear his footsteps going down the passage Crisp growled,

“What do you make of that?”

Frank cocked an eyebrow.

“I think Annie Castell wouldn’t stand for putting it on John Higgins.”