The Unfinished Clue

Chapter Thirteen

Inspector Harding, driving his car back to Ralton, was rather silent, and frowned at the road ahead of him. The Sergeant ventured presently to ask him what he meant to do next. "Will you be wanting me, sir?"

"No, I don't think so, Sergeant. I want to tabulate all these statements, and think the thing out a bit. And I want also to see Mrs. Chudleigh. But you needn't come with me there if you'll explain just where the Vicarage is."

"You want to see Mrs. Chudleigh, sir?"

"Of course I want to see her. Where does she live?"

"At Lyndhurst," replied the Sergeant. A slow grin spread over his solemn countenance. "I'm bound to say, sir, I hadn't thought of her, but I wouldn't put it above her and no more would most of them who knows her. She's a tartar, that's what she is."

"What I want to see Mrs. Chudleigh about," explained Harding patiently, "is to find out from her whether she heard or saw anyone in the study yesterday when she passed that side window."

"Yes, sir. It was only my little joke," said the Sergeant, abashed.

When Harding arrived at the Crown, having dropped the Sergeant at the police station, it was close on seven o'clock. He went straight into the dining-room, and had dinner. With the exception of one old gentleman seated at the far end of the room, he was the only diner at that early hour, and was able in the vault-like silence to study his notes while he ate. The knowledge of his identity had reached every one in the hotel by this time, in that mysterious manner peculiar to small country towns, and the waiter hovered about him with respectful assiduity while various other members of the staff, including two awe-struck chambermaids, peeped at him through the service-door. As he remained quite unconscious of the interest he was creating, this did not discompose him in the least. He continued to study his notes, and ordered black coffee, and an old brandy. Shortly after this the Chief Constable looked into the dining-room, and seeing Harding, came over, and sat down at his table. This was very thrilling, and the chef, who had till then taken very little interest in the Inspector, was moved to peep into the dining-room also.

Major Grierson, who was wearing evening-dress under a light overcoat, explained that he was on his way to a dinner-party in the immediate vicinity, and had just dropped in to have a word with Harding.

"Delighted, sir," said Harding, and beckoned to the waiter, who came up with great alacrity.

The conversation between the detective from London and the Chief Constable was, however, somewhat disappointing.

"What will you have, sir? Martini? Sherry?"

"Thank you, thank you, I think a sherry — a dry sherry. Dear me, Harding, how it — er — takes one back! Fancy running across you again like this! Most er — rxtraordinary!"

When the waiter returned with a glass of sherry for the Chief Constable the conversation was still more dispiriting. All he had to report to the chambermaids, the house porter, and the chef, was that the detective and the Major seemed to know one another very well, and were swopping yarns about the war.

But when he was out of earshot the conversation took a swift turn. The Chief Constable, having enjoyed a reminiscent chuckle over what had happened in a certain billet behind the lines, stopped laughing, and said in a low voice: "Well, well, you must — er — come and dine with me, Harding. But about this business: you've been up to the Grange?"

"Yes, I've been there, but I haven't reached any conclusions yet," said Harding.

"Naturally not. Quite. I didn't expect it, my dear fellow. You consider it — er — a difficult case?"

"I do indeed, sir. There are too many people mixed up in it."

"My view — er—exactly! You haven't — er — discussed it yet with the Superintendent?"

"Not yet, but I will tomorrow morning," promised Harding.

"Yes, yes, I was sure I could — er — rely on you," said the Major, swallowing the last of his sherry. "Must try not to tread on — er — corns!" With which he took his leave, and bustled out to join his wife in the car outside.

Inspector Harding drove up to Lyndhurst Vicarage at half past eight, and sent in his card. The parlour-maid, reading it, stepped back from him as from a coiled cobra and, leaving him standing in the hall, disappeared into a room at the back of the house. She came back in a few minutes, and intimated that he was to step this way, if you please.

He passed unannounced into the room she had come from, and found himself in a fair-sized apartment crowded with china cabinets, incidental chairs, smell tables, knick-knacks, and hassocks. The walls were papered in a design of white and silver stripes, and hung with a heterogeneous collection of paintings, photographs, and Crown-Derby plates. A tapestry fire-screen was set before the empty grate, and the long windows were obscured by very stiffly starched white muslin curtains, and flanked on either side by faded blue brocade ones, looped back with thick silken cords. The room was lit by a central light in an alabaster bowl, and had beside, a standard lamp with a pink silk shade behind the sofa.

Mrs. Chudleigh, in a nondescript garment known to her as 'semi-evening dress', was seated bolt upright on the sofa with her work-basket beside her, and a piece of embroidery in her hand. The Vicar, as Harding entered the room, got up from a deep arm-chair on the oppossite of the fireplace. He held Harding's card between his fingers, and said in a vague way: 'Er — good evening, Inspector. Pray come in. You find us all unprepared for visitors, I fear." With a slight gesture and an apologetic smile he indicated his carpet slippers, and his wife's needlework.

Harding came forward. "I hope I haven't come at an inconvenient hour, sir? My time is rather limited, you know, and I wanted to be sure of finding Mrs. Chudleigh at home."

Mrs. Chudleigh removed the steel-rimmed spectacles she wore for working or reading, and replaced them by her pincenez. "I must say, it is a very odd hour to come," she said. "However, please don't apologise! I am quite at liberty, though what you can have to say to me I am entirely at a loss to discover." She broke off to admonish her husband, who had placed one of the incidental chairs for Harding. "Not that one, Hilary: you know one of the legs is broken."

"Ah, tut, tut! My memory again!" said the Vicar ruefully. He returned the chair to its place, and pulled forward another. "I trust we have no broken legs here. Sit down, Inspector. It was my wife, I think, you wanted to see?"

"Thank you. Yes, I have something I want to ask Mrs. Chudleigh," said Harding, seating himself. "I'm working, as I expect you've guessed, on the case up at the Grange."

The Vicar shook his head. "Shocking, shocking! A terrible affair! What a judgment! Dreadful, dreadful!"

Mrs. Chudleigh stuck her needle into her work, drew off her thimble, and executed a profound shudder. "I'm sure I have no desire to speak of it," she said. "Either my husband or I would have been willing and glad to have visited Lady Billington-Smith in her hour of trouble, but since she apparently feels no need of spiritual consolation I have nothing further to say. I have no doubt that a great many vulgarly inquisitive people will flock to the inquest, which I suppose will be held any day now, but I for one should not dream of forcing my way in."

"Quite, Emmy, my dear, quite! Naturally you would not wish to be present," said the Vicar gently. "That goes without saying. But I think the Inspector wants to ask you some questions."

Mrs. Chudleigh regarded Harding with unveiled hostility. "I do not know how I can be expected to tell you," she said. "No one has told me anything about it, I can assure you. The only person I have been permitted to speak to is Miss Fawcett. I'm sure I don't wish to call her secretive, but really I must confess I found her reticence most overdone and foolish."

"Emmy, dear!" said the Vicar again, still more gently.

She bridled a little, but subsided. Harding took swill advantage of the lull. "I only want to ask you a few questions about your own movements yesterday morning, Mrs. Chudleigh. Can you remember just when you arrived at the Grange?"

"Oh, if that is all — ! I rang the front-door bell at twenty minutes past twelve precisely, for I looked at my watch. fearing it might be later. I may say I had ample opportunity for doing so since the butler kept me waiting on the doorstep longer than I should permit any servant of mine to do."

"And when he admitted you, did he take you straight out on to the terrace?"

"Certainly. Since Lady Billington-Smith was there, I do not know where else he would have taken me."

"How long did you remain on the terrace, Mrs. Chudleigh?"

"I remained until half past twelve."

"And you left by way of the path leading round the side of the house to the drive?"

"Yes. I told Lady Billington-Smith there was no need for her to disturb herself on my account. She seemed to me to be far from well, which I am sure was not to be wondered at. Though I shall always consider that she brought it all on herself, marrying that man."

"Emmy, we must not speak ill of the dead," said the Vicar.

"No, Hilary, but truth is truth, and it would be clear hypocrisy to pretend that the General was anything but a rude, overbearing, and ill-natured person. No doubtt he had his good qualities; I can only say that they were hidden from me. He treated Lady Billington-Smith abominably — not that I have any sympathy to waste on her, for I have always considered such a marriage, between a man of his age and a girl of hers, as little short of disgusting — and his behaviour to his son — such a delicate boy, too! — was positively brutal!"

"He seems to have been a very unpleasant man," interposed Harding tactfully. "What I want to know, Mrs. Chudleigh, is this: when you walked down that garden path, you must have passed the study window. Did you notice whether anyone but Sir Arthur was in the study?"

Mrs. Chudleigh sat up straighter than ever. "In my young days, Inspector, we were taught that to look in at other people's windows was the height of ill-breeding!" she pronounced.

"I wasn't suggesting that you — shall we say, peered in? But it would have been a perfectly natural thing for you to have glanced that way. Are you sure that you did not do so?"

"It would have been a very unnatural thing for me to have done," replied Mrs. Chudleigh with asperity, "particularly since I knew that the General was in his study. Really, I don't know what the world is coming to if I am to be suspected of staring in at windows!"

"Had anyone been talking in the study do you thing you would have heard voices?" asked the unwearied Inspector.

The Vicar leaned forward to pat his wife's hand "Come, my dear, the Inspector is not accusing you of peering in at the window," he said soothingly. "You must see that if you did hear or see anyone it may have important bearing on the case."

"If I had seen or heard anyone in the study when I passed I should have communicated with the police the instant the news of Sir Arthur's murder came to my ears." said Mrs. Chudleigh. She met her husband's mild gaze and relented a little. "So far as I am aware there were no voices raised when I passed the window. I daresay my attention would have been attracted had there been any sounds, though I trust I should not have given way to idle curiosity."

"Equally, Mrs. Chudleigh, any movement in the study would have caught your eyes — er — irresistibly?" She thought it over. "It might have. I should not like to say definitely. My impression is that there was no movement."

Harding got up. "Thank you, Mrs. Chudleigh; that all I wanted to ask you."

He drove back to the Crown at Ralton, and almost immediately retired to his room. It was not until midnight, however, that he at last put his papers away and went to bed, and by that time he had done much writing, much thinking, and had smoked several pipes.

He visited the police station at nine o'clock next morning, and found the Superintendent in a slightly peevish mood.

"I was expecting you to give me a look up last night," said that worthy austerely.

"Were you?" said Harding. "I hope you didn't wait about for me. Good morning, Sergeant: have you had any bright ideas?"

"No, sir, I can't say that I have," replied the Sergeant. "The more I think of it the more I see that it might have been anybody."

"Well, let's try and work it out a bit," said Harding, drawing up a chair to the table, and opening his dispatch-case. "I'll give you back the statements you took, Superintendent. I think I've tabulated the important points."

The Superintendent took the sheaf of papers, and put them in a drawer. "Of course if you don't want them —"he began in an aggrieved voice.

"They were most valuable. When I got in last night I thought it might help us if I drew up a time-table. Here it is." He laid a neat sheet before the Superintendent and nodded to Sergeant Nethersole. "Come and have a look at it, Sergeant."

"I take it," said the Superintendent ponderously, "that this refers to the morning of the first of July?"

Having received confirmation on this point, he bent his gaze on the time-table, and carefully read it through.

11.30 Geoffrey Billington-Smith left the house.

11.45 The General and Mrs. Halliday returned to the house. Lady Billington-Smith called downstairs; Mrs. Halliday upstairs to her room.

11.50 Lady Billington-Smith into the garden-hall.the General into his study.

?11. 55 Mrs. Halliday on to terrace. Halliday upstairs to their room.

12.5 Halliday's voice heard in study.

12.10 Arrival of Mrs. Twining. No sound from study.

? 12.10-12.15 Mrs. Twining in hall.

? 12.15 Mrs. Twining on to terrace.

12.20 Lady Billington-Smith on to terrace from kitchen-garden. Mrs. Chudleigh on to terrace from house.

12.25 Halliday on to terrace from billiard-room.

? 12.27 Guest left terrace.

12.30 Departure of Mrs. Chudleigh by way of garden path.

12.35 Butler on to terrace with cocktails.

? 12.40 Guest back on to terrace.

? 12.55 Mrs. Twining to the study.

? 1.0 Mrs. Twining back on to terrace.

"You've got a lot of queries," said the Superintendent having mastered the time-table.

"They occur where I've had to guess at the exact time. My figures ought not to be more than a minute or two either way."

"Well, I daresay it's all very nice," said the Superintendent disparagingly. "Not that it leads us anywhere.

"I think it may," replied Harding. "Let us take Lady Billington-Smith first. If you glance at the time-table you'll see that from eleven-fifty till a few minutes before twelve-twenty when she interviewed the gardener, her movements are not accounted for. But at twelve-five Halliday admits to having been in the study, and from twelve-ten to about twelve-fifteen Mrs. Twining was in the hall, and heard no one in the study. That leaves only five minutes for Lady Billington-Smith to murder Sir Arthur, and reach the kitchen-garden at the other side of the house."

"That's as may be," said the Superintendent. "But supposing she did it before twelve-five? What about that?"

Harding looked up. "You are forgetting that Halliday saw the General at twelve-five alive."

The Superintendent, who never felt at his best so early in the day, glared at the Sergeant, and said: "You've only got his word for that, Mr. Harding."

Evidently Harding did not consider it worth while to argue this point, for he passed on to his next suspect. "Now we come to Halliday," he said. "Somewhere round about twelve he entered the study, to give back the cheque presented to his wife. Has the Sergeant told you of that?"

"Yes, Mr. Harding, he has, and to my way of thinking that's our man. If you remember, I said so right from the start."

"I agree with you that a great deal of the evidence points to him. Yet I'm not entirely satisfied. The motive is there, and so is the opportunity. I should say that he is very hot-tempered. I could easily believe in a violent quarrel between him and Sir Arthur, culminating in that blow with the nearest weapon to hand, if it were not for just one thing. On top of the fragments of the cheque in the waste-paper basket were quite a number of other papers. If Halliday committed the murder you would expect to find the cheque uppermost."

Some shadow of emotion crossed the Sergeant's face. "I ought to have thought of that," he said sorrowfully. He stroked his moustache, pondering the question. "You could account for it, sir," he pronounced at length "Supposing it was Mr. Halliday himself who threw them other papers into the basket?"

"I have considered that point," admitted Harding. "It seems to me possible but unlikely. One can argue, of course, that if Halliday had the presence of mind to wipe any finger-prints off the hilt of the dagger he would have had enough presence of mind to throw papers in to the basket on top of the torn cheque. Yet wouldn't it have been a simple matter to have gathered up the pieces of the cheque, and taken them away with him?"

"There is that, of course," conceded the Sergeant, and stroked his moustache anew.

"Similarly, it is possible that during the quarrel with Halliday, Sir Arthur continued to tear up letters and throw them into the basket."

"Yes, that's so," reflected the Sergeant. "What's more he might easily have done so, wanting to get rid of Mr. Halliday."

"To my mind," struck in the Superintendent, "we've got a case against Halliday."

"I should hate to arrest him on this evidence," said Harding. "Admitted that there are strong grounds for suspicion, let us take a look at Stephen Guest. On his own showing he left the terrace somewhere between twelve-twenty-five when Halliday appeared, and twelve thirty when Mrs. Chudleigh departed. He says that he was in the house for ten minutes, and possibly alone .When he returned to the terrace attention was called to a blood-stain on his shirt-cuff, for which he accounted by saying that he had cut his hand opening a tin of tobacco."

"I must say, sir, when I heard him give his evidence I suspicioned him strongly," said the Sergeant. "But, come to think of it, that was the effect they all of 'em had on me. It's a nasty-looking case against Mr. Guest, though — seeing as he's in love with her ladyship."

"It is a nasty-looking case," agreed Harding. "And, as I think you said at the time, he's a tough customer. Given two important facts: one, that he loves Lady Billington-Smith; and two, that she wouldn't consent to divorce, things begin to point to him. We have to consider the man himself too. I don't know what impression he made on you, Sergeant — or on you, Superintendent — but he seemed to me a man who knows what he wants, and gets it. He's a strong man, possibly a ruthless one, and certainly which make it difficult for us — a very deliberate one. If he committed the murder I am convinced that it was not done in the heat of the moment, but was carefully planned — and we're going to have the devil of a job — lacking further evidence — to bring it home to him."

"Personally," said the Superintendent, "I hold to that Halliday."

"You may be right. There are points against it being Guest. To murder a woman's husband (and, incidentally, your host) with the object of marrying her yourself argues an abnormal degree of cold-bloodedness. To stab him in the back isn't a thing you'd expect a man of Guest's type to do. Further, if he committed the murder he did it between twelve-twenty-seven and twelve-forty. Now I have been to see Mrs. Chudleigh, and although she is most annoyed at the suggestion that she would have looked at the study window I am fairly certain that there can have been no one in the room with the General when she passed. Had there been she must have noticed And, more significant still, the weapon used was the General's own paper-knife, which was always kept in the study, on the desk. That circumstance leads one to suppose that the murder was quite unpremeditated, the knife being snatched up through impulse. At the sane time we've got to remember that Guest, who was connection of Sir Arthur's, frequently stayed in the house, and may easily have known that the dagger was always to be found on the General's desk, and used it deliberately."

"Look here, Mr. Harding," said the Superintendent. affronted. "Seems to me you're arguing away every bit of evidence you find! How are we going to get on if that's what you do?"

"I see you've reached the same conclusion I have," said Harding with not the veriest flicker of a smile. "Following up these suspects is leading us precisely nowhere."

"Eh?" ejaculated the Superintendent, consideralby startled.

"What about Mr. Geoffrey, sir?" asked the Sergeant.

"Still more hopeless. We know he left the house at eleven-thirty and returned considerably after one. According to his tale, he went for a long walk. He must have done so, or he may have slipped back to the house and murdered Sir Arthur. With a youth of his type it's almost impossible to say what he might or might not do. In a rage he might be capable of anything. I would suggest, Superintendent, that you have a few inquiries made. I want to know whether anyone saw Mr. Billington-Smith between eleven-thirty and one on Monday, and if so where, and at what time. I jotted down the route he said he took." He hunted in his dispatch-case, and handed over a slip of paper. "And at the same time, I should very much like to find out whether Captain Billington-Smith was seen in the neighbourhood at any time that morning."

"Captain Billington-Smith?" repeated the Superintendent. "You're on the wrong scent there, Mr. Harding. The Captain left the house at ten-forty-five, as you might see by my notes."

"Yes, I did see it," said Harding. "But I should like those inquiries to be set on foot all the same, please."

"What about the foreign young lady, sir?" asked the Sergeant.

"Somehow I don't think so, Sergeant. We shall have to bear her in mind as a possible suspect, of course, but she doesn't interest me much so far."

"The butler, sir?"

"Extremely unlikely. We have discovered no motive."

"This is all very well," interrupted the Superintendent, ,but what are you driving at, that's what I'd like to know?"

"This," said Harding. "That, at present, investigation into the motives and movements of the various suspects is not getting us any forrarder, because though anyone might have done it, there is no proof that any one of them did. Therefore we must change our plan of attack. Now there are just two pieces of evidence which seem to he totally unrelated to any of the people I've mentioned. One is the slip of paper with the word There scrawled on it, which was found under the General's hand; the other is the fact that there were no finger-prints on the handle of the safe."

The Superintendent looked him over with tolerant amusement. "I thought you'd come to the conclusion, Harding, that this wasn't a murder with robbery thrown in?"

"I had. But I am no longer so sure of that."

"Well, if there weren't any finger-prints on the safe handle — which there weren't, because I was there when our man took them — I don't see what you want to start thinking about robbery for, and that's a fact."

"But there should have been finger-prints," said Harding quietly.

"How do you mean, should have been?" demanded the Superintendent. "Whose finger-prints?"

"The General's," replied Harding. "At eleven o'clock he opened that safe to put something in it, and according to Mrs. Halliday he was not wearing gloves."

"You mean," said the Sergeant slowly, "you mean that someone had hold of that handle after the General touched it? And, what's more, wiped it carefully afterwards?"

"Of course," said Harding.