Wicked Uncle

Chapter XVIII

In an emergency some one person usually takes command. In this instance it was Justin Leigh. He came quickly down the hall, knelt by the body, clasped the outflung wrist for a long minute, and then got up and walked to the bell on the left of the hearth, breast-high under a row of switches. Standing there and waiting there for the answer to his summons, he looked briefly about him. Switches by the front door-the light hadn’t been turned off from there. Switches here, on the left as you faced the hearth, fifteen feet or so in a direct line from where Gregory had been stabbed-anyone round the fire could have reached them. Switches by the service door opening from the back of the hall where the panelled casing of the stairway gave place to a recess-certainly anyone could have opened that door with very little chance of being seen and have reached for the lights. The door to the billiard-room was also in the recess, at right angles to the service door-but the switches couldn’t have been reached from there without coming out into the hall, with the strong probability of being seen by someone near the fire.

As his mind registered these things, the service door opened and the butler came in. Justin went a step or two to meet him, saw his face change, and said,

“Mr. Porlock has been stabbed. He is dead. Will you ring up the police and ask them to come as quickly as they can. Tell them nothing will be touched. Come back as soon as you have got through.”

The man hesitated, seemed about to speak, and thought better of it. As he turned and went out by the way he had come and Justin went back to the body, Leonard Carroll came to a stand beside him and said quite low, out of the side of his mouth,

“Taking quite a lot on yourself, aren’t you? What about pulling out that knife and giving the poor devil a chance?”

Justin shook his head.

“No use-he’s dead.”

“You seem very sure.”

“I was through the war.”

Carroll said, with something that just stopped short of being a laugh,

“Well, that lands us in for a game of Hunt the Murderer! I wonder who did it. Whoever it was can reassure himself with the thought that the painstaking local constabulary will probably obliterate any clues he may have left.” He did laugh then, and added, “Now I do wonder who hated Gregory enough to take a chance like this.”

Justin made no reply. He was looking at the group of people any one of whom might be the answer to Leonard Carroll’s question. Mrs. Tote was sitting in a small ornamental Sheraton chair. The waterproof she had worn for the charade lay along at her feet with a horrid resemblance to a second body, but she was still wearing the hat, an old-fashioned wideawake, now tipped well to one side. Her small features were sternly set. Perhaps the grey satin of her dress and the glitter of her diamonds contributed to her pallor. She sat without moving, stiffly upright, her hands in a rigid clasp, the large bediamonded rings still and unwinking. Miss Masterman had remained standing, but not upright. She had hold of the back of a chair and was bent forward over her straining hands. She wore no rings, and every knuckle stood up white. As he looked Justin saw her brother come over to her. He said something, and when she made no reply fell back again to the edge of the hearth, where he bent down to put a log on the fire. Linnet Oakley lay sobbing in a long armchair, Dorinda on one side of her, Martin Oakley on the other. The pink and white carnations which she had taken from the dinner-table to make a wreath had for the most part fallen. There was one on the arm of the chair, and one on her lap. A bud and a leaf hung down against her neck like a pendant earring. Her face was hidden against her husband’s shoulder. He looked across at Justin now, and said in a deep, harsh voice,

“I’ve got to get my wife out of this-she’s ill.”

Justin crossed the space between them. He dropped his voice.

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until the police come.”

Their eyes met, Martin’s dark with anger.

“And who’s going to make me?”

Justin said, “Your own common sense, I should think.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What do you suppose? Anyone who gets out is going to attract a good deal more attention than it’s worth.”

There was a moment of extreme tension. There was something as well as anger. Justin remembered that the Wicked Uncle’s name was Glen-Glen Porteous. Mrs. Oakley had cried out that Glen was dead. Nine people had heard her say it, as well as Martin Oakley. If he held his tongue, the others couldn’t and wouldn’t. Mrs. Oakley, who had met Gregory Porlock tonight as a stranger, would certainly have to explain to the police why she had flung herself down weeping by his body and called him Glen. As he went back to his post he saw one of her pink carnations. The heavy bloom had broken off. It lay between Gregory’s left shoulder and the thick curly hair.

Mr. Tote had gone over to stand beside his wife. Not a muscle of her face moved. The small greyish eyes stared steadily down at her own hands.

Leonard Carroll said sharply,

“What we all want is a drink.”

He was still where he had been, a yard or two from the body, staring at it. There was a curious white mark on the back-a round pale smudge, with the knife driven home in the centre ot it.

It came to Justin with horror that the smudge was luminous paint.