Wicked Uncle

Chapter XXII

Mr. Carroll came into the study with a jaunty air. The cold blue eyes of Sergeant Abbott took him in from head to foot. Their owner decided that the fellow was putting on an act. Might mean nothing-putting on acts being more or less second nature to an actor. Might mean something to hide-according to Pearson, quite a lot. He sustained a slightly insolent return stare with equanimity and took up his pencil.

Mr. Carroll’s act, which permitted a derogatory glance at the Sergeant, tumbled over itself with bright helpfulness towards the Chief Inspector.

“You’ll understand I don’t know any of these people except Miss Lane -I’ve met her of course. But anything I can do to be of any help-”

“I take it you knew Mr. Porlock?”

Mr. Carroll’s crooked eyebrow rose.

“As a matter of fact, hardly at all. I’d met him once or twice in houses where I’ve had a professional engagement, so when he offered me one for this week-end-”

“You were here professionally?”

The eyebrow twitched, the whole crooked side of the face twitched in a crooked smile.

“My dear man, have you seen the rest of the house party? Wild horses wouldn’t have got me anywhere near them if I hadn’t been paid for it! And I don’t mind telling you I was going to put it to Porlock that I’d expect a bonus.” He settled himself back in his chair with a gesture which dismissed the Totes and Mastermans to some appropriate limbo, and said, “Well, go ahead-ask me all the questions you want to. I’m quite at your disposal, but not, I’m afraid, very useful. You see, I’d gone upstairs to wash after the charade-I was all smothered in paint-so I wasn’t on the scene when Porlock was knifed.”

“So I understand. This is Mr. Leigh’s sketch of the hall, showing everyone’s position when the lights came on after the murder.” He passed the paper across. “Will you take a look at it and tell me whether it corresponds with what you remember?”

Leonard Carroll looked, nodded, passed it back again, all between a couple of breaths.

“That’s O.K. by me. I was about the third step down. Tote coming out of the drawing-room. At least-” one side of his lip lifted a trifle-“I suppose that’s what it was meant to look like. And Moira Lane and Mrs. Oakley one on either side of Porlock. All very arresting and dramatic-especially when Mrs. Oakley went down on her knees and began to scream ‘Glen- Glen! Someone’s killed Glen!” I suppose you can’t tell me why she called him Glen, can you? As his name was Gregory, and his friends all called him Greg, one couldn’t help wondering, could one? Especially as I understand he had only met the lady once, a couple of days before. In which case her emotion seemed a little excessive, and one wondered how she came by quite a different Christian name.”

Lamb said, “Quite so. Now, Mr. Carroll-about your own movements. I have your statement here.” He lifted a paper from the blotting-pad. “I see you say that when the lights came on after the charade was over you were standing on that oak table in the hall, with Miss Lane just below. You were wearing a paper mask covered wifh luminous paint. You took it off and dropped it on the table. You then came forward, received the congratulations of your audience, and made your way upstairs to get the paint off your hands. Why did you go upstairs? The cloakroom was nearer, wasn’t it?”

“I’d left my dinner-jacket in my room. I was wearing a pullover.”

“How long were you away?”

“I don’t know-a few minutes.”

“You got the paint off your hands very quickly.”

Carroll gave his crooked smile.

“I’m a professional. You have to be quick between turns.”

“I see.”

“I wish I could be of more use. But there it is-I was well out of the way. I had just got to the top of the stairs, when the lights went out.”

“Could you see the hearth? There are switches there on the left-could you see who was nearest to them?”

“Afraid not. I’d just come to the corner. As soon as I got there the lights went out.”

Lamb leaned forward.

“Mr. Carroll, there are four sets of switches. The hall lights can be turned on or off from any of the four.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that.”

“Yet you arranged that the lights should be turned off for your charade and then turned on again.”

Carroll shrugged.

“Sorry-my mistake. I knew about the switches by the hearth of course. Masterman was in charge of the lighting for the charade-any other switches didn’t come into it.”

Lamb resumed.

“There are four sets of switches-one at the front door, one on the left-hand side of the hearth, one by the service door at the back of the hall, and one at the top of the stairs. Mr. Leigh turned the lights on at the front door after Mr. Porlock had been stabbed. There are his fingerprints on the switch. I think we may take it as certain that the lights were not turned off from there. That leaves the three other switches. You say Mr. Masterman used the switch by the hearth to turn the lights on after the charade?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that accounts for his fingerprints on that switch. If anyone else had touched it after he did, his prints would have been spoiled.”

“Perhaps he touched it again himself.”

“Just so. But there are two other switches that might have been used-the one by the service door, and the one at the top of the stairs.”

Leonard Carroll laughed.

“So handy for me! Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn’t even know that the switch was there. If I had known, and had wanted to stick a knife into Porlock-incidentally depriving myself of quite a handsome fee-how do you suppose I managed it? I should have had to fly down and back again, to reach him and be where Leigh saw me when the lights came on. I’m afraid it couldn’t be done.”

Lamb showed a stolid face.

“Oh, I think it could. In theory, Mr. Carroll-of course just in theory. A slide down the banisters would be almost as quick as flying. And Mr. Porlock would be quite handy when you got down-very handy indeed, with his back towards you, and the best place to strike marked out in luminous paint. As to getting back-if you went up two steps at a time as you did before, I should say it could be done whilst Mr. Leigh was feeling his way to the front door.”

Leonard Carroll had turned an ugly colour. The Chief Inspector would have described it as tallowy. Sweat glistened on his temples, his eyes shifted. It was a moment before he said,

“Is this a joke?”

Lamb said, “I don’t joke on duty, Mr. Carroll. You said it couldn’t be done, and I was showing you that it could. I don’t say it was done, but it could have been-just as a matter of theory.”

Frank Abbott saw a curious thing. The hand on Carroll’s knee didn’t close. It stiffened-he got the impression that it would have clenched if a very strong effort had not held it open. When he looked higher than the hand he saw evidence of a similar restraint-in the muscles of the throat and face. If angry blood had an urge to rise, it was being frozen. If angry words leapt to the tongue, they were halted there.

Lamb’s gaze dwelt upon these phenomena with bovine calm. Frank Abbott’s glance flicked over him and came back to his notes. There was scarcely a pause before the Chief Inspector went on.

“You see, Mr. Carroll, I am bound to consider the possibilities of the case. The idea that it was physically impossible for you to stab Mr. Porlock is one which you really mustn’t ask me to accept. Whether you had any motive for wishing him out of the way is another matter. You say you only knew him slightly.”

The hand that hadn’t been allowed to clench had relaxed.

“Well, you know, you can hardly say I knew him at all-a couple of casual meetings in somebody else’s house, and a professional engagement-” He shrugged.

“Meaning you didn’t know him well enough to quarrel with?”

No one could say that Carroll wasn’t quick. He burst out laughing.

“Well, I wouldn’t go as far as that. You can always quarrel if you’re feeling quarrelsome, whether it’s the first time you meet a man or not. But it would hardly go the length of murder- would it?”

Lamb’s mental comment was that Mr. Carroll was as slippery as an eel. Quick in the uptake too-and that’s what he was looking for. It was someone uncommon quick and clever who had murdered Gregory Porlock. He said in his measured voice,

“That’s as may be. You had a quarrel with Mr. Porlock in this room not long before dinner, didn’t you?”

“I had a talk with him, and a couple of drinks.”

“You asked him, ‘What’s all this about Tauscher?’ and you called Mr. Porlock a damned blackmailer and said you’d come down here to tell him so. And he said, ‘You’ve come down here to save your neck.’ ”

If the first shock of danger had brought the sweat to Mr. Carroll’s face and stopped his tongue, he was now over the worst of it and very much in command of his faculties. He said,

“What’s all this rubbish?”

Lamb looked at him with gravity.

“Your conversation was overheard.”

He took that without a tremor.

“Then whoever overheard it was a damned bad listener. Porlock asked me if I knew a man called Tauscher, and I said I didn’t know him from Adam.”

“There’s a good deal more to it than that, Mr. Carroll. I understand that this man was an enemy agent, and that Mr. Porlock was suggesting that you had met him when you were out with a concert party entertaining the troops at a time when the war was still going on, and that you supplied him with information likely to be of use to the Nazis… No, no, no-wait a minute-wait a minute, if you please! It’s not me that’s putting out these suggestions. I’m only telling you that Mr. Porlock was overheard putting them out-and I suppose you would agree that there would be the makings of a quarrel in that.”

There was another of those twists, for Mr. Carroll laughed.

“I’m afraid your eavesdropper was a bit handicapped by being on the other side of the door! A pity he didn’t come in and join us! Then he’d have got the matter straight! Porlock told me this man Tauscher was an enemy agent. Said he was knocking about in Belgium about the time I was there, and asked me if I’d met him. I wasn’t best pleased-I thought it was an offensive thing to say. I let Porlock see I didn’t like it-I mean-well, who would? I’d never seen the fellow in my life, and on the top of telling me he’s an enemy agent he asks me if I know him. I don’t mind owning I lost my temper. But you don’t murder a man because he’s been a bit tactless. I mean-well, do you?”