Through the Wall

Chapter 22

It was no more than five mintues later that a constable came through to say that the Inspector would be glad if they would step along to the drawing-room next door and answer a few questions.

The two girls were in Ina’s bedroom with the door shut, but Richard went to it and knocked. They came out at once. A resourceful woman can do a good deal in five minutes. He had heard water splashing in the basin, and guessed at a vigorous sponging of Ina’s drawn face and tired eyes. She certainly looked a good deal more alive. Powder had been applied, and a very little rouge-not enough to stand out from the pallor beneath, but enough to mitigate it. The dark curls had been combed and the crumpled dress replaced by a skirt and jumper.

They went down the stairs, along the passage where the raincoat and scarf had hung, and through to the drawing-room of the next house.

The dust-sheets had been removed from the furniture, and the scene had a kind of caricature resemblance to one of the more ghastly forms of tea-party. Mrs. Brand and Miss Remington sat side by side on a gilded sofa between the windows. Cyril, in his town suit, was standing beside the piano looking like any guest who wishes he had not come and is counting the moments till he can get away. Penny, in a dark skirt and the old white sweater, sat stiffly on a small gilt chair, her hands in her lap, her eyes never lifting from them. There was even a tea-table, a gimcrack inlaid affair, but instead of a tea-tray it was laid out with writing materials, and behind it, to dispense not hospitality but justice, sat Inspector Crisp, stocky, wiry, efficient, and very much concerned with getting to the top of his own particular tree. To do this it was necessary that he should get to the bottom of this and every other case which came his way. From the set of his head with its harsh dark hair, his bristling eyebrows, and quick frown, to the way in which he handled the papers before him and kept his feet firmly planted upon a rather anaemic rose wreath in the Brussels carpet, everything about him declared that he was a man who would stand no nonsense. The young constable who sat on the piano-stool with pencil and notebook ready kept a wary eye cocked in his direction, and was obviously ready to spring to it at the mere flick of an eyelash.

Marian and Ina sat down together on a second small sofa. Richard pulled up a chair beside them.

Eliza Cotton stalked in with an air of extreme disapproval and went to stand behind Penny with a hand on the back of her chair.

The door to the garden was open and a soft air came in, but the room had a chill.

Inspector Crisp looked them all up and down and rapped upon the table.

“Everyone here who slept in either of the two houses last night?” he said in a barking voice.

Richard was just thinking that he reminded him of a terrier-the whole air of him, and the eyebrows bristling out over the small bright eyes when they were suddenly turned on himself.

“Who are you, sir? Were you here last night? I haven’t got you down. Who are you?”

“Richard Cunningham. I am a friend of Miss Brand and Mrs. Felton. I didn’t sleep in the house, but I was here all day.”

“When did you leave?”

“About half past ten.”

Crisp stared at him for a moment, said, “Very well, you may stay,” and rapped again. “I would like everyone to give me their attention. I have here a list of the bedrooms in both houses which look out towards the sea. I am going to check up on them.”

He picked up a sheet of paper and read from it.

“In this house:-

Attic bedroom, occupied by Miss Halliday-box-room next door.

Next floor:-

Two bedrooms-Miss Remington and Miss Adrian.”

Cassy Remington made a fidgeting movement.

“Of course, Inspector, it’s really my niece Penny’s room- Miss Halliday. Only she isn’t actually my niece but rather a distant cousin, though she has always called us Aunt.”

She wore her lilac cardigan and a long chain of gold links and amethysts. Her fingers played with it continually. Her blue eyes dwelt on the Inspector and sustained his frown.

“That is beside the point. You are not suggesting that Miss Halliday did not occupy the attic room last night?”

“Oh, no, Inspector.”

“Or that Miss Adrian was not occupying the bedroom next to yours?”

She darted a little edged glance at him.

“Not really next, because the bathroom is in between. It used to be a dressing-room, you know, but Mr. Brand’s father had baths put in on both sides of the house.”

Mrs. Brand’s colour had been deepening alarmingly. She said, “Really, Cassy!” in an exasperated voice.

Crisp said sharply,

“Miss Remington, I must ask you not to speak unless you have something relevant to say. You and Miss Adrian were occupying the two bedrooms above us now, and they both look out towards the sea. Mrs. Brand and Mr. Felix Brand have the rooms which look towards the road?”

Miss Cassy fiddled with her chain.

“Oh, yes, Inspector. My sister finds this side of the house too bright, but I like all the sun I can get.”

Crisp opened his mouth, closed it again with something uncommonly like a snap, and returned to the paper he was holding.

“In the next house, which is on exactly the same plan, Miss Eliza Cotton has the attic bedroom, Miss Brand and Mrs. Felton the two rooms looking towards the sea on the bedroom floor. One of the rooms looking towards the road was empty, and Mr. Felton was in the other. That is correct?”

Cassy Remington twisted the links of her chain.

“Oh, quite,” she said brightly. “Except that you’ve forgotten the bathroom. But it’s just the same as the one on this side. It was the dressing-room of the best bedroom, you see, so it is between Miss Brand’s room and her sister’s.”

Crisp said, “Yes, yes, we’ve had all that! Now, if you please, I want to know whether anyone heard Miss Adrian cry, or call out. I want to know whether anyone heard any unusual sound of any kind. I want to know whether anyone heard her come downstairs or leave the house. This glass door into the garden was found open this morning by Mrs. Bell. It may have been opened by Miss Adrian, or by Mr. Felix Brand, who is missing. I want to know whether anyone heard it opened. You, Miss Remington-your room is immediately over it. Did you hear the door being opened?”

She put her head on one side and gave him a bright, birdlike attention. Anyone who knew her well would have known that she was enjoying herself. Eliza Cotton eyed her with disapproval. People hadn’t any business to enjoy themselves when there had just been a murder in the house.

“The door? This door? Oh, no. But then if I was asleep I don’t think I should. All our doors and windows open very quietly-none of them creak.”

“Did you hear any cry?”

“Well, there you put me in a difficulty, Inspector. I must absolutely refuse to swear to it.”

Everybody was now looking at her. Eliza’s impression that she was enjoying herself deepened, so did Eliza’s disapproval.

Crisp said with restraint,

“You are not being asked to swear to anything. I am asking you whether you heard a cry.”

Miss Cassy said in a bright voice,

“I couldn’t possibly say whether it was a seagull.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Now, Inspector, you mustn’t try and catch me. I didn’t say it was in the middle of the night. I woke up, I heard this cry, and I went to sleep again. I had no opportunity of consulting my watch, which was on the dressing-table.”

“I suppose you know whether it was dark?”

“Oh, quite dark. Quite, quite dark.”

“Then it wasn’t a seagull.”

“But it might have been a bat,” said Cassy Remington.

“A bat!” The Inspector’s restraint was wearing thin. The word came out with a snap.

“Oh, yes, Inspector. You may not be aware of the fact that bats have quite a sharp cry. It is so high in the scale that most people are unable to hear it. I happen to be one of the exceptions.”

Crisp tapped with his pencil in an exasperated manner.

“You woke in the dark at some time which you cannot fix, and you heard something which may or may not have been a human cry.”

Miss Cassy jingled her chain.

“Of course it may have been a cat. They come here after Mactavish.”

Crisp pounced on the name.

“Mactavish?”

“Our cat, Inspector-a very fine half-Persian.”

It is probable that Mactavish heard his name. He obliged with a dramatic entry, walking in through the open door, his tail held high and all his orange fur fluffed out. Seeing his whole family assembled, and not caring for the manner of it, he surveyed the strange man at the table with hauteur, opened his mouth in a soundless mew of protest, and went disdainfully back down the two shallow steps into the sunny garden.

The Inspector rapped.

“You heard something in the nature of a cry. Did you hear any sound of movement in the house? Did you hear Miss Adrian leave her room? I don’t mean when you were all going to bed, but later when the house had settled down.”

She shook her head regretfully.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so-only this cat, or bat, or whatever it was.”

He swung round on Penny, who had not moved at all.

“You, Miss Halliday-did you hear anything outside or in?”

She said, “No.”

Her face was bloodless under its tan. He could only just hear the word. Well, thank God everyone wasn’t a gas-bag. He swung back again.

“Mrs. Brand, your room looks the other way, but you could have heard sounds in the house. Did you hear anything at all?”

She sat there stout and shapeless in the black dress with the brown and red pattern which looked like smears of mud and red ink. Her large smooth face, usually of an even pallor, was considerably flushed. Her prominent brown eyes were fixed in an angry stare. She had a linen handkerchief in her hand, and every now and then she fanned herself with it. She said in her heavy voice,

“No, I didn’t hear anything.”

“Mr. Felix Brand’s room is next to yours. Did you hear him leave it?”

“No. I am a sound sleeper.”

He made an abrupt movement.

“Well, that’s everyone on this side of the house-Miss Adrian being dead and Mr. Felix Brand missing. I’ll now take the next-door people. Miss Brand-did you hear anything?”

Marian returned his look with a steady one.

“I don’t know, Inspector. I woke up suddenly in the night, but I don’t know what it was that waked me. I couldn’t say that it was a cry, but I woke with the feeling that something had startled me. I sat up in bed and listened, but I didn’t hear anything more, so I went to sleep again.”

“Can you fix the time at all?”

“I didn’t look at my watch. It was high tide.”

He came back quickly.

“Sure about that?”

“I could hear the water. You don’t hear it when the tide is out.”

He looked round the circle.

“Anyone know when the tide would be high?”

Richard Cunningham said,

“It was pretty far out at seven o’clock yesterday evening.”

“Low tide seven-twenty,” said Eliza Cotton.

Crisp nodded.

“That’s near enough. We can check up on it. Then it would be high tide round about one a.m. Low again about half past six, and coming up now. If you heard the sea when you woke up, Miss Brand-well, I suppose it might be high enough for you to hear any time between twelve and two, or say a bit more margin than that.”

The constable on the piano-stool wrote in his notebook, using a clear, neat script.

Crisp passed on to Ina.

“Mrs. Felton, your room is next to your sister’s-looks the same way. Did you wake in the night at all?”

Marian put her hand over her sister’s and found it cold. She felt it give a little nervous jerk as Ina said in a breathless voice,

“No-I didn’t wake.”

It went through Marian’s mind that if you haven’t slept you cannot wake. She did not think that Ina had slept at all. She had not taken off the clothes which she had been wearing the night before. She had not slept.

“You didn’t wake up, and you didn’t hear anything?”

The hand that Marian was covering twitched again. Ina said,

“No.”

His keen bright eyes remained fixed on her.

“Was Miss Adrian a friend of yours?”

She shook her head, then, as if realizing that something more was needed, came to hesitating speech.

“I didn’t know her-at all-only these two or three days.”

“Any quarrel with her?”

She was startled into awareness.

“Oh, no. I don’t think I spoke to her more than twice, and then only a few words.”

He said sharply,

“I ask because you look as if this has been a considerable shock.”

Ina felt the hand on hers press down with a strong, comforting warmth. Marian said quietly,

“It has been a very great shock. My sister isn’t strong.”

He gave a sort of nod and swung round to Eliza.

“Now, Miss Cotton-you’re in the third room facing that way, the attic, aren’t you? Did you hear anything?”

Standing there with her hand on the back of Penny’s chair, Eliza sniffed.

“I did not.”

“Sure about that?”

There was a second and more portentous sniff. When Penny or Mactavish heard that sound they knew enough to make themselves scarce. Inspector Crisp did not.

Eliza’s temper had been working up for some time. She now let it go with what was no longer a sniff but a snort.

“There are those that’ll lie as soon as look at you, and there are those that won’t whether they’ve taken a Bible oath or not. Thank God I’ve got my sleep, and when I go to my bed I’m not listening for any bats, or cats, or such-or expecting that people’ll be murdered and police officers come asking a lot of questions nobody can answer.”

Crisp was irresistibly reminded of his Aunt Aggie, a lady whose temper intermittently afflicted her family. She would come on a visit and stay until some dynamic quarrel hurled her on to the next suffering relative.

He said hastily, “That’s all I want to hear, Miss Cotton,” and came round with relief to Cyril.

“Well, Mr. Felton, you’re on the wrong side of the house, unless-you weren’t sharing your wife’s room last night?”

Nothing could have been pleasanter than Cyril’s,

“Oh, no. She hasn’t been very well.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“I’m afraid not. I am a pretty sound sleeper.”

Crisp looked from one to the other, frowning.

“When Sergeant Jackson got here this morning it was stated that the whole party, including Mr. Cunningham who didn’t sleep in the house, another visitor who left early, Miss Adrian, and Mr. Felix Brand, were all together for several hours at a picnic in the cove. Mr. Cunningham is stated to have left at half past ten.” He turned to Richard. “That correct?”

“Yes.”

“The parties on the two sides of the house had supper and spent the evening oh their own premises, but both parties say they had separated for the night by a little after half past ten. That is correct? I just want to confirm it.”

There was a general murmur of assent. Miss Cassy said brightly,

“A quarter past ten is my hour, Inspector-winter or summer.”

He rapped on the table.

“I will ask you again. Did anyone hear Miss Adrian leave the house? Or Mr. Felix Brand?”

A deep persistent silence followed each of these questions. He made an impatient movement.

“Mrs. Brand, you told Sergeant Jackson that none of your son’s clothes were missing except the pair of flannel slacks and the pullover which he was wearing last night?”

Florence Brand said, “That is all.”

“Except his bathing-suit,” said Cassy Remington. She turned helpfully to the Inspector. “Plain black stockinette. So neat and workmanlike, I always think. And he is such a good swimmer.”

He gave her his most repressive stare.

“I was speaking to your sister. Mrs. Brand, I want to know how your son would dress if he were going out for an early morning dip.”

Florence Brand said,

“Like that. He would put on a pair of trousers and a sweater over his bathing-suit unless it was really hot.” She paused, fanned herself with the linen handkerchief, and said in her slow, deep voice, “I had better put you right about our relationship. Felix is not my son.”

“Not? Do you mean that he was adopted?”

“No. I married his father.” She fanned, and added, “When he was two years old.”

It was a public repudiation. Since Felix was probably a murderer, she would have none of him. There was not anyone present who was not aware of the implication. Even Crisp was taken aback. Eliza gave another of those formidable snorts. And for the first time Penny moved. Her little stiff body remained rigid, but she turned her head. Her clear brown eyes rested for a moment upon Florence Brand. They said, “Judas.” Her clear young voice said,

“You are in a great hurry, Aunt Florence.”

Cassy Remington came into the silence that followed. Her chain jingled. She said in what Eliza called her vinegar voice,

“Always a most uncongenial child. Such a shocking temper.”

Penny looked away. It was perhaps the more damning gesture of the two. She went back into her stillness.

The sound of heavy feet came in through the garden door. A constable came up the two steps and stood there looking across at the Inspector.

“Excuse me, sir-”

“Well, what is it?”

“We’ve found the clothes.”

“Where?”

“Shoved in under the bank above high water mark.”

Crisp had a frowning stare. He barked out,

“All right, what are you waiting for? Bring them in!” The frown was turned on Florence Brand. “Son or stepson, madam, I suppose you can identify his clothes?”

She sat affronted. Cassy Remington played with her chain, primmed up her lips, patted the regular waves of her hair.

Coming out of the bright sunshine, the constable found the room embarrassingly full of people. It was really quite light, but it didn’t seem so, coming in like that. He had to thread his way amongst the chairs, the tables, the people. He felt as crowded and uncomfortable as if he was wearing a suit that was too tight for him, but he got up to the table without mishap and dumped the clothes he was carrying in front of Inspector Crisp.

Felix Brand’s old grey flannel slacks. The Inspector picked them up and held them dangling. He addressed Florence Brand.

“Are these your son’s?”

She stared back at him with her prominent brown eyes.

“If they belong to Felix they will have his initials inside the waistband. I have already told you that he is not my son.”

“F.M.B.-is that right?”

“Felix Martin Brand-yes, that is right.”

He let the slacks fall in a heap and picked up the sweater. As he shook it out, there was a sound in the room, a movement, a drawing in of breath. The front of the sweater was stained and spotted, and the right sleeve soaked with blood from elbow to wrist.