Wicked Uncle

Chapter XXIV

Martin Oakley met them with a flat refusal. “My wife’s ill-she can’t see anyone.”

“Have you a doctor’s certificate, Mr. Oakley?”

“No, I haven’t, and I don’t need one. I know my wife a great deal better than any doctor. She’s not fit to see anyone. Good heavens, man-a gentle, delicate woman has a man killed practically next door to her, and you expect her to be able to discuss it! Why, the shock was enough to kill her. And she’s got nothing to say, any more than I have myself. We were all there, standing close together. Mr. Porlock had gone over towards the stairs. Then he began to come towards us again, and the lights went out. We heard a groan and a fall, and less than a minute after that the lights came on, and there was Porlock lying dead on the floor with a dagger in his back. That’s all I know, and that’s all my wife knows. She’s very sensitive and tender-hearted. She went down on her knees to see if there was anything to be done, and when she found he was dead she became hysterical.”

Lamb said, “So I understand.”

They were in the study, among its incongruous chromium plating and scarlet velvet, registered by the Chief Inspector as ‘gimcrackery.’ He knew what an English gentleman’s study ought to look like, and it wasn’t anything like this. He said,

“How long have you known Mr. Porlock?”

“A couple of months.”

“And Mrs. Oakley-how long has she known him?”

“She never met him until he paid a formal call on Wednesday last.”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

“Of course I am-you can ask anyone you like. I’d met him in the way of business. She didn’t so much as know him by sight.”

“Then will you explain why she should have called him Glen?”

“She did nothing of the kind.”

“Mr. Oakley, there were eight people present besides yourself and your wife. They all agree that Mrs. Oakley called out repeatedly, ‘Oh, Glen! Glen’s dead-he’s dead! Oh, Glen- Glen-Glen!’ ”

“I should say they had made a mistake. How could she call him Glen? His name was Gregory. We were all calling him Greg. She was in the habit of hearing me speak of him as Greg. What she said was, ‘Greg’s dead! He’s dead-dead-dead!’ She was sobbing and crying, you understand, and I can’t think why anyone should have thought she said Glen-it makes nonsense.”

The Chief Inspectai allowed a pause to follow this statement. When he thought it had lasted long enough he said,

“I should like to see Miss Dorinda Brown and Mrs. Oakley’s maid. Perhaps I might begin with the maid.”

Martin Oakley stiffened.

“The maid? She’s only been with my wife a week. She wasn’t there last night.”

“I should like to see her, Mr. Oakley.”

Hooper came into the room in a black dress with a small old-fashioned brooch at the neck. The faded hair might have been a wig, or the part-wig which is called a front. It had small, close curls fitting tightly on to the head. Under it one of those round bony foreheads, dull pale cheeks, and a tight mouth. She came up to the table and stood there with an air of professional respect.

“Your name is Hooper, and you are Mrs. Oakley’s personal maid?”

The tight lips opened the smallest possible way.

“Yes, sir-Louisa Hooper.”

“How long have you been with Mrs. Oakley?”

“It will be ten days. I came in on the Saturday. We came down here on the Tuesday.”

She didn’t look at him when she spoke. She kept her eyes down. The lids reminded Frank Abbott of those little hooded awnings which you see at the seaside, keeping out the light, hiding the windows.

Lamb’s next question came rather quickly.

“How long had you known Mr. Porlock?”

“Mr. Porlock?”

He said sternly, “Come, come-we know you knew him. We know you were in the habit of telephoning to him. Your conversations were overheard. What’s the good of wasting time? You were in his pay-I want to know why?”

The lids did not rise, the lips were tight. Then quite suddenly they produced a smile-not a nice smile.

“If a gentleman takes an interest in a lady, I don’t see that it’s any business of the police.”

“Then you’d better do some thinking. When a gentleman’s murdered everything to do with him is of interest to the police. Got that? Now-why did he pay you?”

The smile persisted.

“He took an interest in Mrs. Oakley.”

“Whom he’d never seen till Wednesday last.”

The lids came up with a jerk. The eyes behind them were cold, with a bright point of malice.

“Who says so?”

“Mr. Oakley does. If you know any different you’d better say so.”

The lids came down again.

“He came to see her on Wednesday afternoon. I suppose a gentleman can come and call on a lady he’s taken a fancy to?”

Lamb fixed her with his bulging stare.

“Now look here, Miss Hooper, it’s no good your giving me that kind of stuff. I’ve told you your conversations with Mr. Porlock were overheard. You rang him up on Tuesday night and told him about Mrs. Oakley finding a crumpled-up photograph and being very much upset over it. You asked him if you should tell him whose photograph it was, and he said to give the photographer’s name, which you did-Rowbecker & Son, Norwood. Now-whose photograph was it?”

“How should I know?”

“You knew all right when you were talking to Mr. Porlock.”

She looked up again, not meeting the stare but, as it were, sliding past it.

“Well then, it was Mr. Porlock.”

“Sure about that?”

She nodded.

“He takes a good photograph.”

“Do you know where it came from?”

“The little boy must have got at it. It was in his toy-cupboard. Nurse was saying how spoilt he’d got whilst she was away. She said Miss Brown picked up a photograph from the nursery floor and took it away.”

“What happened to the photograph?”

“Mrs. Oakley said it was spoilt, and she went over and dropped it in the fire.”

“Mr. Porlock came to see her on Wednesday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Where did she see him?”

“Upstairs in her sitting-room.”

“And how much of their conversation did you overhear?”

“I don’t listen at doors.”

“Is there a door you could have listened at-a door through to her bedroom?”

“I don’t listen at doors.”

“I’m asking you if there’s a door through from her bedroom. I can ask Mrs. Oakley, you know.”

“There’s a door.”

“And you don’t listen at doors? Look here, Miss Hooper, I’m making no threats, and I’m making no promises-I’m just poiting out one or two facts. This is a murder case. It’s a serious thing to obstruct the police in their inquiries. If you listened at that door and got any information that would help the police, it’s your duty to tell them what it is. If you have any idea of trying to dispose of that information for your own profit, it would be a very serious offence-it would be blackmail. Blackmail is a very serious offence. You know best what your past record is- whether it will bear looking into. I don’t want to have to look into it. Now then-how much of that conversation between Mrs. Oakley and Mr. Porlock did you hear?”

She stood there weighing her chances. Mr. Oakley would pay her to hold her tongue. Would he? Gregory Porlock was dead. Mrs. Oakley would pay her. Yes, and go and cry on Mr. Oakley’s shoulder next minute and tell him all about it. Mr. Oakley was the sort that might turn nasty. She couldn’t afford to have the police come ferreting round. Chances were all very well when you were young and larky. She’d got past taking them. Safety first-that’s what you came to. It wasn’t safe to get on the wrong side of the police. Better tell him what he wanted to know, and see what pickings she could get from Mrs. Oakley- quick, before it all came out. She’d be easy managed the way she was, crying herself silly one minute, and wanting her face done up so that Mr. Oakley wouldn’t notice anything the next.

Lamb let her have her time.

“Well?” he said at last.

She gave a businesslike little nod.

“All right, sir.”

“Good! You’d better have a chair.”

She took one with composure, settled herself, folded her hands in her lap, lifted those cold eyes, and said,

“The door wasn’t quite shut. I didn’t do it, Mrs. Oakley did. She knew Mr. Porlock was coming, because he telephoned-I took the message. But she didn’t have any idea who he was-she didn’t know who she was going to see.”

“Sure about that?”

“I don’t say things unless I’m sure.”

“Go on.”

“I thought I’d like to hear what they said, because all he’d told me was, I was to go there as maid and tell him anything he wanted to know. He didn’t tell me why, and I don’t like working in the dark, so I thought I’d listen.”

“Yes?”

“Well, the first I heard was him calling her by her Christian name. ‘Well, Linnet,’ he said, ‘I thought it would be you, but I had to make sure.’ Then he said to pull herself together. And she said, ‘I thought you were dead,’ and she called him Glen.”

“Go on.”

“Well, I can’t remember it all, but she was crying and saying why did he let her think he was dead. And he said, ‘I suppose you told Martin you were a widow?’ and she said she thought she was.”

“Do you mean-”

She nodded.

“It was as plain as plain-you couldn’t miss it. They’d been married, and he’d gone off and left her, and nine months after she’d married Mr. Oakley. Mr. Porlock, he kept talking about bigamy, and saying she’d broken the law and he hadn’t, and in the end he got her so she’d do anything he wanted. And what he wanted was for her to put Mr. Oakley’s dispatch-case out on the study window-sill. Mr. Oakley was expected down by tea-time. She was to put the case outside the window when he went to dress for dinner, and leave the window unlatched, so that everything could be put back and no one any the wiser. And in the end that’s what she agreed to.”

“Did she do it?”

“I couldn’t say, but if you want my opinion, she’d be too frightened not to. She’s easy frightened, and he’d got the whip hand-talking about putting her in the dock for bigamy, and Mr. Oakley putting her out in the street. Well, in my opinion she wouldn’t have dared not do what he told her.”

“Now look here-did she tell Mr. Oakley?”

“She wouldn’t do that-not if she’d any sense.”

“Why do you put it that way?”

“Because that’s the way Mr. Porlock put it-said he knew she couldn’t hold her tongue, but if she went crying to Mr. Oakley about it she’d find herself in the dock for bigamy.”

“So you don’t think she told him?”

“No, I don’t.”

“They didn’t have anything like the scene there’d have been if he’d found out she wasn’t really married to him?”

“No-nothing like that.” She hesitated. “Not unless it was just before they started for the dinner party. He came in when she was dressing, and I left them there. She might have said something then, or in the car.”

Lamb grunted.

“But you don’t know whether she did?”

“No, I had to go downstairs.”

When he had sent her away with instructions to say that the Chief Inspector would like to see Miss Brown, he turned to Frank Abbott and said in an expressionless voice,

“That gives Mr. Martin Oakley a pretty big motive.”

“If she told him.”

“We’ll know more about that when we’ve seen her.”