The Gazebo

THIRTY-ONE

NICHOLAS CAREY SAT at the dressing-table of his room at the George, but he was not engaged with the affairs of the toilet. The old-fashioned dressing-mirror with its five drawers, two on each side and one in the middle to take rings, trinkets, and what have you, had been pushed on one side to make way for the typewriter upon which he was rapidly tapping out his latest article. The room was furnished in a heavy mid-Victorian style, the only change which it had suffered since the days when the George was a posting inn being the substitution of up-to-date spring beds for the gloomy four-poster of a hundred years ago. If the carpet had been renewed, Mr Pickwick himself would not have been able to swear to it, and the general air of gloomy respectability remained intact.

When the telephone bell rang Nicholas stopped tapping, crossed to the space between the beds, and took up the receiver. A voice informed him that there was a gentleman to see him, ‘Name of Abbott – Mr Abbott.’ He said, ‘Send him up,’ and went back to the dressing-table, where he stood gathering up a couple of sheets already typed. He was frowning at the one still in the typewriter, wondering whether he would be allowed to finish it if they arrested him, and whether the Janitor would want it if they did.

There was a knock at the door before he could make up his mind. Frank Abbott came in and shut it behind him. He was alone, and the official manner was in abeyance.

Nicholas raised his eyebrows, laid down his sheets of typescript, and said,

‘Mr Abbott? Is that tact or…’

‘Well, perhaps unnecessary to give the hall porter anything fresh to talk about.’

‘But I take it you haven’t just dropped in to pass the time of day?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Well, we might as well sit down.’

He gave Frank Abbott the armchair, sat on the side of the nearer bed, and waited. If police officers chose to come butting in they could break the ice for themselves.

Frank leaned back, crossed his long legs, and said easily,

‘I thought it might be useful to have your views on Mrs Traill’s evidence. Miss Graham has told you about it?’

‘She has.’

‘Would you care to comment on it at all? You need not of course – I expect you know that. If you do, I suppose I ought to caution you.’

‘That anything I say may be taken down and used in evidence? All right, we’ll take it as said. About this Mrs Traill’s statement – I certainly wasn’t in the gazebo at twenty past eleven on Tuesday night. I left as soon as Althea had taken her mother into the house.’

‘You are sticking to that?’

‘It happens to be true.’

‘Mrs Traill heard Mrs Graham use your name. She is prepared to swear to hearing her say, “How dare you, Nicholas Carey!” ’

Nicholas nodded.

‘Yes, that’s what she said before when she came out and found us in the gazebo. But you know, she couldn’t have seen who it was this second time. All she could possibly have done was to see or hear that there was someone in the gazebo, and to jump to the conclusion that it was me.’

Frank thought, ‘That’s reasonable enough – it might even be true…’ He said,

‘There was a torch in the pocket of her coat.’

Nicholas gave a short laugh.

‘No, really that won’t do! If she had had the torch out and been using it, it would have dropped and rolled. It wouldn’t have been found in her pocket.’

‘Unless the murderer put it there.’

‘Good lord, Abbott, what sort of nerve are you giving him credit for? The gazebo is right on the road, anyone may have been passing – Mrs Traill was passing – and Mrs Graham had called out. There may have been other sounds. Can you suppose that the man who has just strangled her is going to waste any time in getting away? Do you see him hunting round for that torch and putting it in her pocket? Because I don’t. And by the way, if that’s what he did, there would be his fingerprints on the torch, or if he had wiped them off, then there wouldn’t be any prints on it at all. Whereas if Mrs Graham had put it in her pocket, why then, Abbott, her own prints would be there, and I suppose the police would have found them.’

Frank nodded.

‘Point to you. They did. Now let us get back to what you did after the Grahams had gone in on Tuesday night. Which way did you walk – up the hill or down?’

‘Up. My first idea was to go back to Grove Hill House. It’s only a step, you know – up Hill Rise and just round the corner. I got as far as the corner, and realized that I didn’t want to go in. It wouldn’t be any good going in, because I shouldn’t sleep. I went back down Hill Rise and across Belview Road. There’s a lane there cutting between the houses – it’s called the Dip. It has never been built over, because it’s the quickest way down off the hill to what used to be farm land and water meadows. I went right down as far as it goes and turned to the left. After that I can’t say for certain. Even in the last five years that part has been a good deal built up. I got into a new building estate and out of it again. I wasn’t really thinking of where I was going. When I had walked as long as I wanted to I made my way back up the hill. I can’t tell you where I was half the time – I just followed the rise of the ground. In the end I struck St Jude’s church, and then I knew where I was – ten minutes walk from Grove Hill House. I can’t tell you what time it was when I got in. It was after midnight, because the street-lamps were out. I let myself in with a latchkey, and I didn’t look at a clock or hear one strike. I was dog-tired. I didn’t even wind my watch. I just chucked off my clothes and tumbled into bed. Take it or leave it, that’s the truth.’

Well, it might be. Frank Abbott inclined to believe that it was. Nicholas Carey’s voice, his manner, had been informed with a kind of nervous energy. It was as if what he had in his mind must come out, and with the least possible delay. There was not the slightest hint of aggressiveness. He had something to say and he was impatient to get it said. He had throughout the air of a man who is doing his best to remember.

Frank Abbott said,

‘Well, that’s your statement. I take it you would be willing to put it into writing and sign it?’

‘Right away. I’ll type it out now if you like.’

He went over to the dressing-table, sat down there, pulled the typewriter towards him, put in a fresh sheet of paper, and began to type. It was a rapid and expert performance. He went from one end of it to the other without so much as pausing for a word. When he had finished he extracted the sheet, took a fountain pen out of his pocket, and put a scrawled signature under the last line of the type. Then he came back to his seat on the bed, handing the statement to Frank as he went past.

‘There you are – that’s the best of my recollection.’

Abbott ran his eye over it. Good even typing, no mistakes, and hardly a variation from the spoken word. That word had left the impression that Carey was setting himself to remember what he had done after leaving the gazebo, and that the effort to do so had fixed it in his mind. That being so, he would not lose it again.

Nicholas said,

‘Anything else you want?’

‘Well, yes. You’ve made this statement about your movements on Tuesday night. I think I must tell you it doesn’t agree with another statement that has been made.’

Nicholas gave a short laugh.

‘I don’t feel called upon to account for what anyone else may have said.’

‘Mrs Harrison states that you were back at Grove Hill House by eleven.’

‘Mrs Harrison is mistaken.’

‘I am afraid that what she says doesn’t allow for a mistake. She states categorically that you returned to Grove Hill House by eleven o’clock and that you and she remained together for the rest of the night.’

Nicholas Carey’s thin dark eyebrows rose.

‘How very silly of her. I suppose she thinks she is giving me an alibi.’

‘You say it’s not true?’

‘Of course it isn’t true. I’m engaged to Althea Graham. We should have been married on Wednesday if all this hadn’t happened. It’s a preposterous story!’

Frank was inclined to agree with him. Nicholas went on with an edge to his voice,

‘It’s a preposterous story, and she’s a preposterous woman! I think I had better tell you she had put it up to me already and I had turned it down. The whole thing’s rubbish! It must have been at least after twelve when I got back. I had a key, and I went straight to my room. I didn’t see a soul. Poor old Jack, he didn’t have any luck when he picked her, did he? If she goes round telling this sort of yarn it’s going to hit him where it hurts. He’s a nice chap, you know, but he can’t cope. Honestly, Abbott, that story of hers is twaddle.’

‘And you stick to your statement?’

‘I stick to my statement.’