Wicked Uncle

Chapter XIX

That Saturday night brought very little sleep to the Grange. With dreadful suddenness it had ceased to be a private dwelling. Justin, whose mother had been a devoted bee-keeper, could not help being reminded of the moments when she used to remove part of the outer covering and watch through a sheet of glass the private activities of the hive. Cross the line which divides the law-abiding from the law-breaker, and all cherished rights of privacy are gone. The police surgeon, the photographer, the fingerprint man; Sergeant, Inspector, Chief Constable -each and every one of them comes and takes a look through just such a pane of glass and watches to see who shrinks from the observing eye. Murder, which used to be one of the most private things on earth, is now attended by a vast deal of ceremonial and publicity, and whilst an efficient constabulary attended to its rights Inspector Hughes sat in the study taking statements.

It was late before Martin Oakley was permitted to take his wife and her secretary back to the Mill House, and later still before those who remained could separate and go to bed if not to sleep.

At ten o’clock on the Sunday morning Detective Sergeant Frank Abbott rang up Miss Maud Silver at her flat in Montague Mansions.

“Miss Silver speaking.”

“This is Frank. I’m afraid I shan’t be able to come to tea. A bloke has got himself stabbed in Surrey, and as everyone who can possibly have done it hails from London and the corpse was London too, they’ve thrown the job at us, and the Chief and I are off. What’s the odds you crop up as we go along?”

Miss Silver gave her characteristic cough.

“That, my dear Frank, is hardly likely.”

She heard him heave an exaggerated sigh.

“I wish it were. Never a dull moment when you’re about. Uplift a speciality-morals strictly attended to.”

“My dear Frank!”

“I’m afraid it’s a case of ‘Never the time, and the place, and the loved one all together.’ I must fly.”

Later on in the morning Justin rang up Dorinda.

“Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Get any sleep?”

“Well-”

“I don’t suppose anyone did much. How is Mrs. Oakley?”

“Very upset.”

“I’d come up and see you, but I hear the job’s been turned over to Scotland Yard. They may walk in at any moment now, so I think I’d better be here. They’ll want to see everyone of course.”

There was a pause. Then Dorinda said,

“Horrid for you-but, oh, it does make such a difference your being in it too!”

He said firmly, “Neither of us is in it,” and rang off.

Actually, Chief Detective Inspector Lamb and Sergeant Abbott did not reach the Grange until a little after two o’clock, having meanwhile conferred with Inspector Hughes, gone through the statements which he had obtained, and partaken of a mediocre lunch at the local inn.

Admitted by the butler, Lamb stared hard at him before letting him take his coat and hat. Coming in out of the grey afternoon light, the hall seemed middling dark. The man threw open the first door on the right and stood aside to let them pass into the study. The Chief Inspector walked as far as the writing-table and, turning, called him.

“Come in and shut the door! You’re the butler?”

“Yes, sir.”

The light from three windows showed a middle-aged man with a slight forward stoop, thinning hair, brown eyes, and rather hollow cheeks.

Lamb said sharply, “Pearson! I thought so!”

The butler did not speak, only lifted his eyes with a deprecatory expression and stood there waiting.

Frank Abbott looked from one to the other and waited too.

Very deliberately the Chief Inspector pulled up a chair to the table and sat down. He was in the habit of judging the furniture in a house by the way in which any given chair stood up to his weight. Since this one received him without a protesting creak, it was approved. Perhaps he judged men by the manner in which they sustained his formidable stare. If so, Pearson would not come off so badly. He stood there, meek, elderly, and silent, but not very much discomposed. The stare continued.

“Pearson! My word! I didn’t expect to see you here, and I don’t suppose you thought of seeing me.”

“No, sir.”

“You’re butler here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s the game?” Lamb shifted his gaze to Sergeant Abbott, who had been an interested spectator. “This is Mr. Ernest Pearson of the Blake Detective Agency. Used to be in the Force -invalided out.” He turned back again. “Come along, man- out with it! What are you doing here?”

“Well-”

Lamb gave the table a sudden bang with his fist.

“What’s the good of humming and hawing? This is murder. You don’t need me to tell you that any private game you may have had will just have to go to the wall. Why are you here?”

The mild brown eyes were still deprecatory, but not alarmed.

“I know that, sir. I was just thinking how I could put it. The fact is, it’s a bit delicate. Mr. Blake sent me down here to watch Mr. Porlock.”

“Divorce?”

“Oh, no, sir-” he hesitated, and then came out with it- “blackmail.”

Frank Abbott’s eyebrows rose. The Chief Inspector allowed himself to whistle.

A faint shade of melancholy triumph invaded Pearson’s manner as he repeated the word.

“Blackmail-that was Mr. Porlock’s business. One of our clients was in a terrible state over it-something he’d got on her, she wouldn’t tell us what. So Mr. Blake, he sent me here to see if I couldn’t get something that would scare Mr. Porlock off.”

“Blackmailing the blackmailer-eh?”

“Oh, no, sir.”

Lamb gave a short laugh.

“What else? But that’s not my pigeon. You say Porlock was a blackmailer. Have you any evidence of that?”

Pearson diffused a certain modest pride.

“Only what I’ve heard with my own ears.”

Frank Abbott had drawn a chair up to the far side of the table. His overcoat removed, he was seen to be elegantly attired -grey suit, grey socks, a blue and grey tie, a blue and grey handkerchief just showing above the line of the pocket. As always, his very fair hair was slicked back and mirror-smooth, his light eyes cool and observant, his manner cool and detached. Lamb jerked a “Notes, Frank,” over his shoulder, and the long, pale hand began to move busily above a writing-pad.

Lamb leaned forward, a hand on either knee, his body vigorous in spite of the flesh it carried, his florid face expressionless under the thatch of strong dark hair just beginning to thin away from the crown. He looked at Pearson and repeated his words.

“What you heard with your own ears? Do you mean that he was blackmailing any of these people in the house?”

The shade of triumph deepened.

“Most of them, I should say.”

“If that’s the case, you’d better pull up a chair and we’ll get down to it.”

Quietly and deferentially Mr. Ernest Pearson fetched himself a chair. When he was seated, hands folded, feet nearly together, he coughed and observed that it was a little hard to know where to begin.

Frank Abbott leaned across the table to lay a list of names before his Chief. It was received with a grunt and a nod. Lamb read from it the names of Mr. and Mrs. Tote.

“Know anything about them?”

“Oh, yes. Him and Mr. Porlock had very high words in this room after tea yesterday. By leaving the door unlatched after attending to the fire I was enabled to overhear part of what passed between them. A butler has great advantages in the line of overhearing conversations, if I may say so. What with taking in drinks, and fetching out trays, and attending to fires, he can pretty nearly always have an excuse for being close to a door, and with a centrally heated house no draught is felt if the door should be left on the jar.”

Frank Abbott’s hand covered his lips for a moment. Mr. Pearson’s meek ingenuity had threatened him with a smile. Lamb’s face remained a frowning blank. He said,

“You overheard a conversation between Porlock and Mr. Tote?”

The mild brown eyes met his without a tremor.

“Part of it, sir. Mr. Porlock was saying things to Mr. Tote that made him very angry-Mr. Tote, if you take my meaning.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well, you couldn’t call it anything else except blackmail- you really couldn’t. Mr. Tote, he used the word himself-fairly shouted it out. And then there was one of the maids come through the hall and I was bound to move away. I crossed over to the morning-room on the other side of the hall, and when I got back Mr. Porlock, he was saying, ‘Well, there’s two can swear to time and place, and you know as well as I do that if the police begin to look into it there’d be plenty more.’ ”

“What were they talking about?”

“Black market, sir. Mr. Porlock, he put it to him straight when he tried to explain it away. ‘You can tell that to Scotland Yard,’ he said. ‘I suppose you think they’ll believe you,’ he said. ‘And if they don’t, you can always try the Marines!’ he said, and he laughed hearty. Very fond of a joke, Mr. Porlock was.”

“And did Mr. Tote laugh too?”

“Oh, no, sir-he cursed and swore something shocking. And Mr. Porlock said, ‘Come, come, Tote-you’ve made a pot of money, and if you won’t spare a thousand to shut these men’s mouths you don’t deserve to keep it.’ And Mr. Tote said, ‘Shut their mouths, my foot! It’s your mouth wants shutting, and if you don’t look out you’ll get it shut so that it’ll stay that way! I’m not a man to be blackmailed!’ And Mr. Porlock laughs very pleasant and says, ‘Black market or blackmail-you pay your money and you take your choice.’ ”

Lamb’s frown deepened.

“You say Mr. Tote was threatening him?”

“He used the words I’ve said, and his manner was very threatening too, sir.”

“Hear any more?”

“No, sir. Mr. Tote got up-using very violent language, he was. So I went back and attended to the hall fire until he came out, which he did almost at once, and off up the stairs, as red as a turkey cock.”

Without moving his position Lamb said,

“That’s Tote. Who else?”

Mr. Pearson hesitated slightly.

“Well, sir, Mr. Porlock came out of the study and went into the drawing-room. But he didn’t stay there. He came out again with Miss Masterman and her brother and took them off to the billiard-room, so I went to lay the table for dinner. That’s the dining-room, sir, on the other side of that wall behind you, and where those book-shelves are there’s a door going through. You can see it on the other side, but of course it can’t be used because of the shelves. Still, you know how it is-voices carry through a door the way they wouldn’t if it was a wall. And presently I could hear that Mr. Porlock was in the study again, and one of the ladies with him, so I went up close-polishing my silver in case of anyone coming in.”

“Well?”

Ernest Pearson looked mournful and shook his head.

“Not very satisfactory, I’m afraid, except that it was Miss Lane he’d got with him, and there was something about a bracelet, and I heard her say, ‘I shouldn’t like my cousin to know,’ and something about being in a frightful hole and having to have the money. I don’t find a lady’s voice quite so easy to follow-not so resonant, if you take me. Now Mr. Porlock, he had what I should call a ring in his voice-I could hear him all right. I don’t know what you’ll make of it, but this is what he said- ‘Well, don’t sell it again. It’s a bit too dangerous-someone else might recognize it next time.’ And then he said, ‘I’ve got the receipted bill, you know. It describes the bracelet. You can have till Monday morning to make up your mind. Meanwhile we’ll call a truce.’ And I couldn’t help noticing when she came down to dinner that Miss Lane was wearing a very valuable diamond and ruby bracelet.”

Lamb grunted.

“You said you didn’t know what I’d make of all this. What do you make of it yourself?”

“Well, sir, with one thing and another, it did come into my mind to wonder about Miss Lane selling the bracelet-whether she had the right to, as you might say. I certainly got the impression that Mr. Porlock thought he’d got something he could use against her. But it didn’t look to me as if it was money he wanted, because if he bought that bracelet he must have paid a lot of money for it. It looked to me as if there was something he wanted Miss Lane to do, and she didn’t want to, so he was giving her time to think it over. She’s a lady that goes about a lot-very well connected, as you might say. A high-class blackmailer like Mr. Porlock-well, there are ways a lady like Miss Lane could be a lot of use to him.”

Lamb’s grunt may have meant that he agreed. On the other hand it may just have been a grunt.

Frank Abbott’s pencil travelled, and his thoughts too. What a case! What a pity to have to hang even a Tote for removing a blackmailer from the body politic. Perhaps it wasn’t Tote. He hoped quite dispassionately that it wasn’t the lady who might or might not have stolen a diamond and ruby bracelet. But perhaps there were others… He turned his attention to Pearson, who was at that moment producing Mr. Leonard Carroll like a rabbit out of a hat.

“The Leonard Carroll!” he exclaimed.

Lamb turned the frown his way.

“Know him?”

“Society entertainer. Clever-sophisticated-very much the rage at the moment. I don’t know him personally. If I did I should probably dislike him quite a lot.”

The Chief Inspector enquired darkly,

“One of these crooners?”

“Oh, no, sir. There’s always one bright spot, isn’t there? It is nice to reflect that whatever else he has done, he has never crooned.”

“Well, what has he done?” growled Lamb.

“Perhaps Pearson is going to tell us, sir.”

Ernest Pearson had plenty to tell. Mr. Carroll had arrived later than any of the other guests. He had gone straight into the study, and circumstances being favourable, there had been some very satisfactory listening-in. “Everyone being upstairs dressing for dinner, as you might say. Which of course Mr. Carroll would count on, for there wasn’t any keeping his voice down. Not exactly loud, if you know what I mean, but very carrying.”

“What did he say?”

“It’s more what didn’t he say, sir-or what both of them didn’t say. Mr. Carroll, he started in hammer and tongs. ‘What’s all this about Tauscher? I don’t know the man from Adam. Who is he-what is he? You’re a damned blackmailer, and I’ve come down here to tell you so!’ And Mr. Porlock says, ‘You’ve come down here to save your neck.’ ”

The Chief Inspector whistled.

“His neck-eh? What had he been up to-murder?”

Pearson shook his head.

“Worse, if you’ll excuse my saying so. Because there’s murders you can understand how a man came to do them. I wouldn’t like you to think I was excusing them, but you can see how they got there. But meeting enemy agents on the sly when you were supposed to be out with a concert party entertaining the troops, and giving things away that might mean hundreds of lives-well, that’s the sort of thing that nobody can understand except those that have demeaned themselves to do it.” A dull flush coloured his cheekbones as he spoke. “I’d a boy out there myself in ’forty-five, and I’ve got my feelings.”

Lamb said, “That’s all right. What did you hear?”

“Well, it was a bit here and a bit there. Seems there’s a man called Tauscher that Mr. Porlock got his information from, and according to Mr. P. this is what it amounted to. Tauscher says he had a brother who was a Nazi agent. When this brother died-he got bumped off towards the end of the war-this Tauscher opened up a box of papers his brother had left with him. That’s Mr. Porlock’s story, if you understand, and I’m not saying how much of it’s true. All I say is, he put it to Mr. Carroll that Tauscher had left notes of their meetings which incriminated him up to the hilt, and what did he propose to do about it? Mr. Carroll, he uses most awful language and says it’s all a lie, and Mr. Porlock laughs and says of course he knows his own business best, and if that’s the way he feels, then it don’t matter about Tauscher going ahead and turning his brother’s papers over to our people out there-it being his idea to show what a good German he is by doing so. I thought Mr. Carroll was going to have a fit-I really did, sir. And anything like the language-well, you know what you come across in the way of business, but I give you my word it was enough to curl your hair. Mr. Porlock, he just laughed very pleasantly and said, ‘We won’t say another word about it, my dear fellow.’ And Mr. Carroll says, fit to kill, ‘How much do you want, damn you?’ ”

Sergeant Abbott, having written this down, looked across at his Chief and observed,

“Quite a party-”

He received no reply. Lamb’s frown had become ferocious. His eyes, which that irreverent young man was in the habit of comparing to bullseyes, were definitely bulging. He said on a deep growling note,

“Is that the lot?”

Pearson sustained both growl and frown with an air of conscious virtue just perceptibly tinged with regret.

“In the matter of Mr. Masterman, I was quite unable to hear as much as I should have wished.”

“Masterman?” Lamb’s voice threatened to rise. His colour had deepened to a rich plum.

“Oh, yes, sir. Mr. Porlock took him off into the study before tea, and what with having my duties and other guests arriving, the hall was really not available as, if I may put it that way, an observation post. I was thrown back upon the dining-room, where the conditions for listening are not at all what I should describe as satisfactory. The parlourmaid came in once or twice about the silver, and altogether the only things I can swear to are that there was a quarrel going on, that Mr. Masterman used the word blackmail, and that there was some mention of a missing will. But I happened to be in the hall when Mr. Masterman came out of the study, and the way he looked-well, what it reminded me of was a Channel crossing on a rough day. The wife and I used to be very partial to one of those day trips to Boulogne before the war. Very good sailors, both of us, but you know how it is with a choppy sea-the way most people look. Well, I couldn’t compare Mr. Masterman with nothing else.”

“Look here, Pearson, you’re not making this up?”

“Me, sir?”

“Because you’d better be careful. You’re not on what I should call very firm ground, you know. Let’s see-you say in your statement to Inspector Hughes that you were in the servants’ hall having supper at the time of the murder-” He picked up a paper from the table in front of him and read: “ ‘I had fetched out the coffee-tray from the drawing-room about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes earlier. I did not go through to the front of the house again till the bell rang. During this time I was in the company of the cook, the parlourmaid, and the head-housemaid.’ Anything to add to that?”

“No, sir.”

“Sure you didn’t go through to the hall between taking out the coffee tray and answering the bell after the murder had happened?”

“Quite sure.” Mr. Pearson’s tone was one of reasonable protest. “The Blake Agency gives good service, sir. The clients’ interests are our study, but it wouldn’t run to murder-now really, sir!”

Lamb said grimly, “I suppose it wouldn’t.”