The Listening Eye

Chapter 16

DETECTIVE Inspector Abbott came out from Ledlington in the early afternoon next day and was closeted with Lucius Bellingdon. When they had talked for a time he interviewed members of the family party and of the household. It was not until the last of them was disposed of that he expressed a desire to see Miss Silver.

She came into the small writing-room which had been placed at his disposal, greeted him, and settled herself in an armless chair of the type which she preferred. Looking at her, Frank had the thought that she was a fixed point in a changing world. Wars came and went, political changes like vast landslides swept the habitable globe, monarchies dissolved and new tyrannies took their place, but here she was, not changed at all as far as he could see from the time when he had first encountered her, not changed indeed from a very much earlier time than that-wise and sedate, with her Edwardian hair-do, her old-fashioned clothes, her beaded slippers, and the large gold locket with her parents’ initials entwined upon it in high relief. With her wisdom, her intelligence, her moralities, she was a continual delight to him. He looked across at her now, cocked an impudent eyebrow, and said,

“Well, ma’am, who did it?”

She extracted the blue shawl from her knitting-bag and took up the needles. She said,

“I have really no idea.”

He laughed.

“No? You surprise me! Anyhow that makes us two hearts that beat as one. Or to be quite accurate, a number of hearts. The Yard haven’t any idea either, nor have the Ledlington police, and nor have I. Do you know, I quite hoped that you would have had the murderer all taped and packaged and ready for me to take away.”

Her glance reproved him.

“My dear Frank!”

“I know-I’m being frivolous, and frivolity doesn’t mix with murder. But I’ve not only had large doses of Inspector Crisp, all very brisk and efficient and quite furious at the Yard having been called in, but I’ve had to suffer the new Ledlington Superintendent, a most worthy and reliable officer and, I should say offhand, just about the most crashing bore in southern England. His name is Merrett and he deserves every letter of it, including the extra T! And having got that off my chest, let us get down to business. Have you got anything for me?”

She regarded him with indulgence.

“I think so. Nothing definite of course, but at least one curious thing has come to my notice.”

She repeated what Annabel Scott had told her about the snuffbox and the grains of what was undoubtedly snuff which had been found amongst Hubert Garratt’s pillows. He listened intently, and when she had finished he said,

“The inference being that Garratt’s attack of asthma was deliberately induced either by himself-which would make him art and part in the plot to steal the necklace-or by someone else in the household who must have had a guilty motive. That certainly narrows things down a bit. You say the snuffbox was exhibited on the Sunday before the murder. Well, the snuff must have been used on the Monday night if Garratt had to be incapacitated from going to the bank on Tuesday morning. Which of the people now in the house were here on that Sunday, Monday, Tuesday?”

“All of them except Miss Foster and Mr. Moray.”

“You pay your money and you take your choice! Which of them was interested in seeing to it that Hubert didn’t go to the bank or-that Arthur Hughes did? The butler, the cook, the daily maids, the secretary, the attractive Mrs. Scott, the garrulous aunt, the decorative daughter-which of them do you fancy?”

Miss Silver was knitting. She said in a noncommittal voice,

“There were also present until the Monday Mr. Clay Masterson, and Mr. Wilfrid Gaunt. They are friends of Mrs. Herne’s. Mr. Masterson drives about the country picking up antiques. He has, I believe, a small business. Mr. Gaunt is an artist. He is also a cousin of Miss Paulina Paine’s, and he is staying here now. It might perhaps be advisable to make some enquiries about these young men.”

“And what about Arnold Bray? You’ve rather left him out, haven’t you?”

“I was about to mention him, but I see that there was no need for me to do so.”

“No, as it happens, there wasn’t. The locals have had their eye on Bray from the word go. As a matter of fact he very nearly qualifies as being ‘known to the police’.”

“Dear me!”

He nodded.

“He hasn’t actually ever been run in, though he got as far as having his fingerprints taken a couple of years ago in connection with a case of blackmail. There had been anonymous letters of the ‘pay up or I’ll tell’ order, and he was under suspicion, but there wasn’t enough of a case and he slipped through the net. If he was in the house and any dirty work was going on, I should expect him to have a finger in it, but there’s a strong consensus of opinion that he wouldn’t be the man behind the gun. A petty small-town near crook and definitely allergic to firearms-that is how Arnold seems to strike those who know him- I won’t say best.”

Miss Silver pulled on her ball of wool.

“Mr. Bellingdon gave me very much the same description.”

“Well, we can put Arnold through it. Sprinkling snuff on Garratt’s pillows might be right up his street. We’ll see what he has to say about it. Is there anyone else you fancy?”

She remained silent for a little. Then she said,

“There is Mr. Gaunt’s connection with Miss Paine. I do not see how it can be more than a coincidence, and as a coincidence it is easily accounted for. Mrs. Herne is acquainted with Miss Sally Foster who has a flat in Miss Paine’s house. She and David Moray, another tenant of Miss Paine’s, are here for the week-end-David Moray because Mr. Bellingdon has just bought his portrait of Miss Paine, which he considers to be a very fine picture. You see, all these people were loosely linked together before the robbery and murder took place. David Moray had not, I gather, met Mrs. Herne before, but the other two young people knew her quite well, so that what I mentioned as a coincidence is not really one at all. I was, I believe, merely thinking aloud when I used the expression.”

He gave her a quizzical look tempered with affection.

“You pay me quite a compliment.”

She went on as if he had not spoken.

“There is, however, a circumstance which I think you should know about, and which concerns Mrs. Herne. She is not really Mr. Bellingdon’s daughter but an adopted child, and she was adopted without his knowledge or consent. I gather that there is no very strong tie of feeling between them.”

She told him what Annabel Scott had said about Moira Herne’s marriage and Oliver Herne’s death, and continued,

“I have thought that perhaps some enquiries as to their friends and associates might be advisable. They may have been in contact with people who would have been interested in Mr. Bellingdon’s wealth and his more valuable possessions, such as the Queen’s Necklace. You will understand that I am not suggesting complicity on Mrs. Herne’s part, but it is obvious that this crime was very carefully planned and could hardly have been carried out without professional backing. One of the men whom Miss Paine watched in the gallery had no part in the shooting or the actual robbery, but he was certainly indispensable to the success of the plot.”

Frank nodded.

“He would be the fence. The other, the man who spoke, was of course the murderer, and it was he who must have been an intimate. Now, just let us sum up what we know about him, and we can start with that. He must not be recognized. Hubert Garratt would have recognized him, and so would Arthur Hughes. Therefore whoever fetches the necklace cannot be allowed to survive. For some reason he does not wish to shoot Hubert Garratt-or, let us say, he would prefer to shoot Arthur Hughes. Hence the snuff on Garratt’s pillow. So we know that he is an intimate, that he cannot risk being recognized, and that he either doesn’t want to shoot Garratt, or that he does want to shoot Hughes. In either case he is taking a tremendous risk and there must be a correspondingly strong motive to induce him to take it. The necklace is said to be worth thirty thousand pounds, but it would probably have to be broken up, and he’d be lucky if he got five thousand.”

“Murder has been done for a great deal less than that, Frank.”

“Of course it has. But-”

She put up her hand to stop him and said gravely,

“You conclude that Hubert Garratt was incapacitated in order that Arthur Hughes might take his place. Since talking to Mrs. Scott I have been considering that there might have been another and a far more likely substitute.”

“My dear ma’am!”

She continued in the same tone.

“Arthur Hughes was a young man. He had not been very long in Mr. Bellingdon’s employ, though he had been on social terms with the family both before he went up to college and after he came down. He was about to leave his appointment as secretary and take up another one. Mr. Bellingdon was annoyed at his attentions to Mrs. Herne. In these circumstances, do you consider that there was any justification for supposing that, with Mr. Garratt incapacitated, it would necessarily have been Arthur Hughes who would be deputed to fetch the necklace?”

“You mean the idea that someone might want Arthur Hughes out of the way won’t hold water?”

“I mean something more than that. I mean that if Hubert Garratt were not able to fetch the necklace, the most natural person to do so would have been Mr. Bellingdon himself.”

“Lucius Bellingdon!”

“I do not think the possiblity could have been ignored. It may even have been desired and counted upon. A motive for the murder of Arthur Hughes eludes me, but it is not difficult to imagine that there might be strong and compelling motives for the murder of Lucius Bellingdon.”

He was looking at her, his eyes cold and intent. He said,

“As what?”

“He is a very wealthy man. He controls large interests. His death would endow Mrs. Herne with a fortune. There are a number of young men vaguely connected with this affair whose interest in her is apparent. While Mr. Bellingdon lives he will continue to hold the purse-strings. He can disinherit Mrs. Herne. He wishes her to marry again, but he wishes her to marry suitably. He has a very marked partiality for Mrs. Scott. No one who has seen them together would be surprised if they were to announce an engagement.”

He said, “You really mean all this?”

“My dear Frank!”

“With all the implications? I’m not insulting you by asking you whether you realize what they are.”

“I believe I am fully aware of them.”

“In fact you suggest that the theft of the necklace is no more than a cover up? That Arthur Hughes was shot merely because he was there and could have identified the criminal? And that the real purpose of the plot was the murder of Lucius Bellingdon?”

“I consider it to be a possibility.”

“All right, let us go on considering it. It involves believing that Hughes was shot because he might have recognized the man who carried out the crime. And if the sole purpose of the crime was to kill Bellingdon, where was the need to run the risk of murdering Hughes? It would be known that he was the messenger in plenty of time to have called the whole thing off. Even if there was no accomplice in the household, or no opportunity of warning the man on the job- which is something I would find very difficult to believe-the man himself would have had the opportunity of sheering off. He must have been following Hughes for the best part of a mile and a half. He must have known that he wasn’t following Bellingdon. Even at the last moment when he came abreast of him before driving him off the road and forcing him to stop there would be time for him to change the plan and draw back from murdering Hughes.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“There would be time. But you have to consider that there was still the necklace. The prime object of the plot may have been the death of Mr. Bellingdon, but the apparent reason was the theft of the necklace. The details had all been worked out. It was to be handed over to the man whom Miss Paine saw in the gallery. It was probably to be out of the country before an alarm could be given. Thirty thousand pounds, or even a quarter of that sum, was not to be despised. In these circumstances a reckless and unscrupulous man would not shrink from murder. In fact, as we know, he did not shrink from it.”

“And that, my dear ma’am, leaves us exactly where we were to start with.”

She remained silent for a little. After which she said,

“We have been discussing a number of people connected with this household. I should be interested to know where each of them was, and what he or she was doing, at twelve o’clock last Tuesday when Arthur Hughes was shot in Cranberry Lane. I suppose enquiries of this kind have been made?”

He nodded.

“Oh, yes. The locals are very good at that kind of thing. You’ll remember Crisp. Terrier at a rat-hole. Not a soul-mate of mine, but efficient as they come. Well now, let’s see-” He got out a notebook and flicked over the pages. “We’ll start at the top. Mr. Lucius Bellingdon says he didn’t leave the house and grounds until the news of the murder reached him. He was actually in the garden talking to Donald the gardener from twelve o’clock until the half hour, and Mrs. Scott was with him. Alibi for both of them, reinforced by Donald. They were planning a water garden. Mr. Garratt states that he was incapacitated by asthma. He was visited shortly before ten by Mr. Bellingdon, who confirms his condition, and by Mrs. Scott a little later. She says he was still pretty bad, and that she stayed there getting him to take some coffee and generally tidying up for about twenty minutes, when she joined Mr. Bellingdon in the garden. Since Garratt was still in bed and incapacitated shortly before twelve he could hardly have been following Hughes from the bank at twelve o’clock and murdering him in Cranberry Lane as soon as the coast was clear. Moreover he hasn’t got a car and wouldn’t have had time to steal one. In fact another beautiful alibi.”

Miss Silver inclined her head, but did not speak. Frank went on.

“Hilton and Mrs. Hilton and the rest of the staff are all accounted for, and I don’t think we need seriously consider Miss Bray. Not, I think, the stuff of which the efficient criminal is made, and as a matter of fact I gather that she was, as usual, very busy getting in the way of the staff. So we come to Mrs. Herne.”

Miss Silver said, “Yes?”

“Well, nobody seems to like Mrs. Herne very much. Crisp didn’t say so, but I got the impression that her local reputation wasn’t too good. She was in a motor smash when a man was killed, and she went to a dance the same night. She wasn’t actually to blame, but people didn’t like it. All the same she couldn’t have shot Arthur Hughes, because she caught the ten-forty-five to London, where she was met by Mr. Wilfrid Gaunt, after which they dropped in at a newsreel and had lunch together at the Luxe.”

“Dear me.”

Frank cocked any eyebrow.

“It strikes you that way? Perhaps. But it’s an unbreakable alibi for both of them, unless they were in it together. There is no actual proof that he met her beyond the fact that they both say he did, and the same applies to the newsreel. But when it comes to the lunch at the Luxe, the head waiter backs them up. He knows them by sight, and they were there having lunch at a quarter past one. Of course, if the first part of the story was a lie upon which they were agreed, either of them could have shot Arthur Hughes, handed over the necklace to the anonymous gentleman in the dark raincoat-who was probably one of our leading fences-and joined the other in time for a well earned lunch. It would require some neat dovetailing, but it could certainly have been done. I don’t say it was done, but it could have been. So there we are. Let us turn to Arnold Bray, who hasn’t got an alibi at all in the sense of being able to prove that he wasn’t in Cranberry Lane at twelve o’clock. What he says is that he borrowed a bike from his landlady and was on his way to Ledstow, when a tyre went flat and he had to walk. He says he wasn’t feeling well and he couldn’t make it, so he got through the hedge into a field and sat down to rest. Then, he says, he went to sleep, and by the time he woke up it was getting on for one o’clock, so he walked the bike back to Ledlington. The only part of the story for which there is any corroboration is that he did borrow the bike, and he did bring it back with a flat tyre at something after one. He could have been picking up a car either by theft or as a loan and murdering Arthur Hughes, but I shouldn’t think it was at all likely. As far as stealing one goes, no car was reported as missing between eleven and one and the whole thing was much too serious a job for the acquisition of a car to have been left to chance. Of course someone who was in the plot might have lent him one, but from what I hear of Bray I just can’t see anyone risking it. He’s the type that goes to bits in an emergency, and personally I think he’s out of it. Which brings us to Clay Masterson.”

Miss Silver gazed at him with interest.

“My dear ma’am, the part would fit him like a glove! He’s everybody’s first suspect, and there isn’t a single shred of evidence against him. Rather a tough young man with rather a rackety reputation. Owns a car, and has a perfectly legitimate excuse for driving about the country-side since, as you have already mentioned, he has a small antique business. He says he was on his way up the London road on Tuesday to attend a sale at Wimbledon. It was just a small affair, but he had been tipped off that there was some good stuff there which the big dealers hadn’t got wind of. He says the things he was interested in were due to come up any time after one o’clock, and that’s when he got there. Well, there was the sale just as he says, and he got there a little after one, and he bought six chairs, one with a broken leg and the others fairly rickety, but he says they’re Chippendale and they’ll be as good as new by the time he’s done with them. He also got a very dirty Persian carpet which he says is worth a lot but it went for a song. All perfectly above board and bona fide, but he would have had time to shoot Arthur Hughes on the way up and hand the necklace over before he arrived at the sale. Perhaps he didn’t, but on the other hand perhaps he did. He’s a very slick young man, and I have a horrid feeling that we may never know. And that, so far as I can see, is the entire field. You haven’t got a hunch about any of them, have you?”

Miss Silver said in a reserved voice,

“Not at the moment, Frank.”