Wicked Uncle

Chapter XXVIII

Miss Maud Silver arrived at tea-time in the black cloth coat, the elderly fur tippet, and the black felt hat with its purple starfish in front and its niggle of purple and black ruching behind. Having partaken of what she described as a most refreshing cup of tea, she was conducted to her room, where she removed her outer garments and had a conversation with Dorinda.

“It’s very good of you to come.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“It is certainly more suitable that I should be here with you than that you should be here alone… My room is next to yours? That is nice, very nice indeed. And now, Miss Brown, tell me just what happened on Saturday night.”

When Dorinda had finished Miss Silver coughed and said, “Very clear, very succinct.” She looked at the watch she wore pinned on the left-hand side of her bodice. “And now I think I will go down. Sergeant Abbott said he would be here by five o’clock, and it is just on the hour.”

Sergeant Abbott was punctual. He rang the front door bell as they came down the stairs, greeted Miss Silver a good deal more like a nephew than a policeman, and carried her off to the study, leaving Dorinda conscious for the first time that he was not only a very personable young man but quite human.

Inside the study he was less like a policeman than ever. He put an affectionate arm round Miss Silver as he guided her to a comfortable chair, after which he took an informal seat on the arm of another.

“It’s a good thing you rang me up,” he said. “The Chief was hopping mad at first, but I’ve got him soothed. The fact is, there are just about half a dozen people up to their necks in this case- and when I say up to their necks I mean up to their necks. And any blighted one of them could have knifed Gregory Porlock- and had every reason to.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!” She had brought down a flowery chintz knitting-bag, the gift of her niece Ethel. She opened it now and took out a half-made infant’s vest in the pale pink wool which she had bought on the occasion of her visit to the De Luxe Stores. The four needles clicked. The vest revolved without detracting in any way from the attention with which she was regarding Frank.

He nodded.

“As you say-‘Dear me!’ it is. One might almost call it the theme-song. I take it you know more or less what happened on Saturday night?”

“Miss Brown has given me a commendably clear account.”

“Would you like to read the statements first? They won’t take you very long. The Chief let me bring them, after blowing off the customary steam.”

Miss Silver laid down her knitting and perused the typewritten sheets in a silence which he did not attempt to interrupt. When she looked up from the last word he had another sheaf to offer her.

“These are my notes of the various interviews. There’s quite a lot of information in them.”

She read these too.

“It all fits very well into the framework given me by Miss Brown.”

“Yes, she’s got a head on her shoulders, and in spite of being the late unlamented’s sole legatee she is one of the few people who isn’t a suspect. Now for the ones who are. I’ve tabulated them for you, and you’ll see how nice and simple it all is. Here we go.”

He handed her some more of his neat typing and leaned over her shoulder to read aloud, with occasional excursions in the nature of comment or explanation.

“1. Leonard Carroll. Cabaret artist. Clever, slick, thoroughly unreliable.”

Miss Silver coughed gently.

“I have met him.”

“In fact you have him taped! Well, he had a very compelling motive. Porlock was blackmailing him. Their conversation was overheard by Pearson-you know about him. He was here to try and get something on Porlock because Porlock was blackmailing a client of his firm. The Chief knows him, and says he’s all right. He was doing all the listening at doors he could, and as he said himself, a butler really has excellent opportunities. Well, Pearson heard Porlock talking to Carroll. He told him he had evidence that he had given information to the enemy when he was out at the front with a concert-party in ’forty-five. Carroll went right off the deep end-very much rattled, very abusive. You’ve had that-it’s in my notes. An hour or two later Porlock is knifed. Now if you look at this plan of the hall you can see where everyone was when Justin Leigh turned on the lights. It’s his plan, and nobody disputes it. Gregory Porlock’s body was lying with the feet a couple of yards from the newel-post at the bottom of the stairs. He had gone over there from the group about the hearth, and just before the lights went out he had turned round and was coming back. That is to say, at the time he was stabbed he was facing the hearth and had his back to the staircase and the drawing-room door. If you look at the plan you will see that Carroll was on the stairs, third step from the top, and Tote was in the drawing-room doorway. Now, taking Carroll as the murderer, the theory is that on his way up to wash after impersonating the devil in his charade he left a spot of luminous paint on Porlock’s back as he passed, and subsequently turned out the hall lights from the top of the stairs. He then slid down the banisters, stabbed Porlock right in the middle of the bright spot, and got back upstairs a couple of steps at a time. It could have been done. There were no fingerprints on the dagger. He may have worn a glove, or he may have taken a moment to wipe it clean.”

Miss Silver gave her slight cough.

“What about the switch?”

“Wiped clean. And that’s one of the most damning bits of evidence against Carroll. A switch like that ought to have been a perfect smother of everybody’s fingerprints. It was as clean as a whistle. Why should anyone have wiped it? Well, there’s only one answer to that, and only one person who had a motive for doing it-the person who turned out the lights. If it was Carroll-and I don’t see that anyone else was in a position to reach that switch-then Carroll is the murderer. So much for him. Now we come to Tote. Porlock was blackmailing him over activities on the black market. One of our leading operators. He was by all accounts very angry. Now, as you will have gathered, Tote wasn’t one of the party who went out to play the charade. He stayed behind in the drawing-room with Porlock, Miss Masterman, Justin Leigh, and Dorinda Brown. What we don’t know is whether he went on staying behind after the others came out to do audience in the dark hall. He says he did. Nobody else says anything at all. Gregory Porlock was last out of the room. He was the only person who would know for certain whether Tote followed him. He could have followed him. He could have marked him with the luminous paint. Everyone in the party knew the pot was standing handy in the cloakroom. And he could have crossed the hall without being seen and lurked behind the service door until the charade was over and everyone was moving about. Then he would only have needed to open the door a very little way in order to put out the lights. Of course there’s no proof that he did anything of the sort-that switch has an absolute crisscross of fingerprints. And when Leigh turned on the lights from over by the outer door, Tote was in the open drawing-room doorway, apparently about to emerge into the hall. Look at the plan.”

Miss Silver coughed and said,

“Very interesting.”

Frank Abbott went on.

“But Tote could have done it. At the service door he was in a position to see the luminous mark on Porlock’s back. That is to say, he was slightly behind him, the door being at the back of the hall in prolongation of the line of the stair. Like Carroll he could have worn a glove, or he could have wiped the dagger. After that he had only to reach the drawing-room door, open it, and turn round so as to look as if he was coming out. He could have done it on his head.”

“My dear Frank!” Miss Silver’s tone reproved the slang.

He threw her a kiss.

“We’re getting along nicely-two murderers in about three minutes. Here comes a third. Shakespearean, isn’t it? First, Second, and Third Murderers. Enter the rather saturnine Mr. Masterman, a gloomy cove who looks the part to a T, which murderers generally don’t. Porlock was probably blackmailing him too. Our chief eavesdropper, Pearson, only got away with an intriguing fragment about a missing will, but I should say there was something in it. We’ve been busy on the telephone, and it transpires that Masterman and his sister came in for a packet about three months ago from an old cousin who boarded with them. Nothing extraordinary about that, but the death was sudden, and there was apparently some local talk, reinforced by the fact that, whereas Masterman has been spending in a big way, the sister has gone about looking like death and wearing out shabby old clothes. They were, I gather, tolerably hard up until they came in for fifty thousand apiece under the old cousin’s will. Connecting this with what Pearson overheard, it looks as if Cousin Mabel might have made a second will and been tidied out of the way-or perhaps only the will. Now, to consider Masterman as Third Murderer. I don’t think there’s much doubt that Porlock was blackmailing him. He was in the charade, with ample opportunity for picking up a spot of luminous paint-probably on a handkerchief. He had every opportunity of marking Porlock, easy access to the switch by the hearth, and no need to wipe off his prints, since he was known to have turned on the lights there at the close of the charade. Say he put them out again as soon as he saw Porlock turn back from the foot of the stairs. He had only to cross the hall until he was behind him, strike him down, and get over to the other side of the hearth. All quite easy-and, as you are about to observe, unsupported by a single shred of evidence.”

Miss Silver coughed, and said thoughtfully,

“That is not what I was about to say. But pray go on.”

He gave her a sharp glance. It met with no response. He did as he was told.

“Now for Miss Lane. She was undoubtedly being blackmailed, and she is a very fine, upstanding, handsome young woman who wouldn’t take at all kindly to it. Pearson only heard something enigmatic about a bracelet. If she was being blackmailed about that she pulled a fast one on the late Gregory-see description of her bounding into the drawing-room and displaying a very handsome bracelet and telling everyone how marvellous Greg had been to get it back for her after she had lost it. Well, he didn’t contradict her, but we’ve come across the bill for the bracelet. He paid a pretty price for it. It wasn’t true, what Pearson heard him tell her, that the bracelet was fully described in the bill-it wasn’t. But we got on to the jeweller, and he said it was sold to him in November by Miss Moira Lane. Gives you something to think about, doesn’t it? But on the whole, I don’t know about Moira. I don’t see how she could have turned out the lights without upsetting Masterman’s fingerprints, for one thing.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“A woman could raise or depress a switch without touching more than a very small portion of the surface, and if it were done with the fingernail, there would be no print.”

Frank sat up with a jerk.

“You’ve got it! Anyone could have done it with a fingernail! What a dolt I am! I never thought about it. I’ve been trying to see how anyone except Masterman could have handled that switch, and there’s the answer, right under my nose!” He spread out a hand and frowned at five well kept nails, then suddenly relaxed. “It was under the Chief’s nose too-but perhaps we won’t rub that in. Well, Moira Lane could have done it, and so-and a great deal more likely-could Martin Oakley.”

Miss Silver fixed him with an intelligent eye.

“The statements you have given me to read do not include one from Mrs. Oakley.”

“No, I kept that back. We saw Martin Oakley and her maid yesterday, but we didn’t see her until this morning.”

“Her maid? Had she anything to say?”

There was a sparkle of malice in his eyes.

“Only that Mrs. Oakley committed bigamy when she married Oakley-the first husband being Glen Porteous alias Gregory Porlock.”

“Dear me!”

Frank produced another of his typewritten sheets.

“She listened to a conversation between her mistress and Porlock on Wednesday afternoon. You’d better read my notes.”

When she had done so she looked up gravely and said,

“So he was blackmailing her too.”

“Undoubtedly. She doesn’t admit it-she doesn’t admit anything. She just cries and says, ‘Please don’t tell Martin.’ I wish you could have been there, because you would probably have known whether she was putting on an act. She’s one of those little fluffy women-brain apparently left out. I say apparently, because the Chief says he’s met that sort before, and you can’t always tell. He swears they have an instinct for putting on a scene. I expect you would have been able to tell whether it was genuine or not. And it’s important, because everything turns on whether she told Martin Oakley that Glen Porteous had turned up and was blackmailing her. If she did, he had all the motive any jury could want. If she didn’t, he hadn’t any motive at all. Porlock was his friend and they were doing business together. He simply hadn’t got a motive-if Mrs. Oakley held her tongue. She says she did. Martin Oakley says she did, but then of course he would. I may say that he put up a most convincing show-dumbfounded astonishment, resentment, anger, and, at the end something as near a breakdown as you’d get in a man of his type. If he was putting it on he’s an uncommon good actor. As far as the physical side of it goes, he could have turned off the lights, and he could have stabbed Porlock just as any one of the group round the hearth could have done. And that brings us to Mrs. Oakley.”

“Yes?”

Frank nodded.

“She certainly had a motive, and she had the same opportunity as everyone else. She was right beside the body when the lights went on. Everyone says she looked dazed. She went down on her knees beside him and began to scream out his name, calling him Glen and saying, ‘They’ve killed him!’ Whether she had the brains to plan the murder-and it must have been carefully planned-is another matter. You wouldn’t say she had. The Chief isn’t sure-I think he’s rather impressed by the strength of the motive. He says it’s surprising what a woman will do if she’s faced with the loss of her husband and her child.”

Miss Silver had picked up her knitting. The needles clicked. She said,

“Women do not readily use a knife-not in this country, not unless it is a weapon snatched up in the heat of a quarrel. This was a premeditated blow, the dagger carefully selected. I will not say that no woman would be capable of such a deed, but I do say that only a very unusual woman would choose such a way of extricating herself from an unfortunate situation. The woman you and Miss Brown have described would be far more likely to weep upon her husband’s shoulder and leave the matter in his hands. Of course I have not seen Mrs. Oakley, and the Chief Inspector has. I have a great respect for his opinion and can agree with his conclusions, but human nature can be very unexpected.”

Frank Abbott laughed.

“He loves it when you agree with him. It doesn’t happen very often, does it? Well, that’s the field. Pearson wasn’t on the spot, and, as he took pains to explain, devotion to a client’s interests would hardly take him as far as murder. As for the others, Miss Masterman is a possible, and so, I suppose, is Mrs. Tote, but the Chief doesn’t think either of them likely. Justin Leigh had no motive, and Dorinda Brown-well, she’s sole legatee, but it’s practically certain that she couldn’t possibly have known the terms of the will. So there we are-Carroll, Tote, Masterman, Oakley and Mrs. Oakley, Moira Lane -”

There was a brief silence. The infant’s vest revolved. The colour really was extremely pretty. Miss Silver appeared to be concentrating her attention upon the clicking needles. Presently, whilst continuing to knit, she raised her eyes and said briskly,

“Was there a fire in the hall?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Then how much light did it give? As I passed just now I observed that there was a good wood fire. Such a fire would throw out a considerable amount of light. It would affect the question of whether Mr. Tote could have made his way across the hall without being observed and-”

Frank Abbott interrupted.

“Yes, I know-you think of everything, don’t you? I ought to have told you that the fire had been dowsed.”

“By whom?”

“By Masterman, under Carroll’s orders. Carroll couldn’t do with the firelight for his charade. He wanted the hall to be dark, with the single lamp on the mantelpiece arranged to be as much like a spotlight as possible. They put a cone of brown paper on it and tilted it so that the light fell in a pool just where it caught his people one by one as they came down off the bottom step and turned at the newel. Leigh says it was very effective. They came down the stairs and passed through the light and out of it into the dark back of the hall. Masterman was in charge of the lighting. Carroll told him to dowse the fire. He was also first in the procession, and when he had done his part he worked round the edge of the hall and came back to the hearth, ready to turn on the lights when the show was over. I say that Tote could have crossed the hall without being noticed, because nobody noticed Masterman work his way back from the service door to the hearth. Of course they were all watching the charade then, but I say Tote could have done it. Everyone would have been moving, and no one would have been thinking about him.”

Miss Silver continued to knit. She said,

“Quite so. There is now a very important point which I wish to raise. Mr. Porlock’s back was marked with luminous paint. How large was this patch?”

“About three inches by four. It was an irregular patch, not a circle. There is no doubt at all about its purpose.”

“No,” said Miss Silver. “Very shocking indeed. But the luminous paint must have been conveyed in some manner which would prevent its spilling and marking not only the victim but the murderer. You yourself suggested a handkerchief. I am inclined to agree. Has any such handkerchief been found?”

“No.”

“If the fire was dowsed, the handkerchief could not have been burned. Did anyone leave the hall before the local Inspector arrived?”

“No. Leigh kept everyone there. He’s an able chap-he wouldn’t let anyone leave the hall. But I’m afraid that when Hughes arrived his ideas of a search were a bit perfunctory. He put the women in a room by themselves whilst he sent for a female searcher, and he had the men searched for bloodstains and paint-marks. There were no bloodstains, either on the men or on the women-there wasn’t any external bleeding. Carroll had smears of luminous paint, and so had Moira Lane and Masterman. It just proves nothing at all. Carroll was smothered with the stuff in his part as the devil, and the charade ended with his embracing Miss Lane. Carroll threw down his luminous mask upon the hall table, and Miss Lane threw her things there too. She was wearing a red velvet dress under her robe, and there was a mark on her left sleeve-rather a wet one. Masterman had a smear on his right cuff. He could have got it stabbing Gregory Porlock, but apparently he didn’t. Moira Lane says he pointed out the mark on her sleeve. She says he brushed up against her, and then exclaimed and said, ‘You’re all over paint. I’ve got some of it on my cuff. Hadn’t you better wipe it off?’ That was before Hughes arrived.”

“My dear Frank!”

“Yes-I know. It’s just what he might have done if he had noticed a smear which would have to be accounted for. On the other hand, he did brush up against her, and she had got a large wet patch on her sleeve. It wouldn’t be any good putting that smear on his cuff to a jury-now, would it?”

“I suppose not-unless there was other evidence in support. Was there anyone else who was marked with the paint?”

“No, there wasn’t. I think Hughes was quite thorough about that. What hadn’t occurred to him was the question as to how the paint had been carried. I think he was all out for Carroll as the murderer, and he took it for granted that the luminous mark on Porlock’s back had been made by a paint-smeared hand. Carroll’s hands were all over paint, and he had gone upstairs to wash them. Nice simple line of explanation-perfectly satisfactory to Hughes, so he never looked below what you might call the surface of the men’s handkerchiefs. I don’t think the paint could have been hidden if it had been on one of those flimsy squares of muslin that women drop about all over the place-it would have come through.”

Miss Silver coughed gently.

“My dear boy, not muslin-cambric, or linen.”

An almost colourless eyebrow jerked.

“Call them anything you like-paint would show through. But a man’s handkerchief could be carefully folded up to hide a paint-stain. Hughes just looked blank when I asked him if he’d had all the handkerchiefs spread out. He hadn’t. You expect a man to have a handkerchief-you take it for granted. At least you don’t, but Hughes did. Which gives the murderer the best part of twenty-four hours to get rid of the evidence. By the time I’d thought about a handkerchief and put Hughes on to going through the house with a toothcomb there naturally wasn’t anything left for him to find.”

Miss Silver put away her knitting and got up.

“I should like to go into the hall, but before we do so, will you tell me what results have been obtained in the way of fingerprints?”

“I think I told you about the four sets of switches. The one at the top of the stairs had been wiped clean. The one by the service door was just a mess. The one by the hearth had Masterman’s prints, and the one by the hall door Justin Leigh’s-both quite innocently accounted for. The dagger had been wiped clean-there were no prints there-” He stopped beneath a searching gaze.

“Were no other prints found?”

The eyebrow jerked again.

“What other prints were there to take? Most of these people were staying in the house. The others had been dining, moving about in the hall. Their prints would be all over the place, and they wouldn’t prove a thing.”

Miss Silver coughed, picked up Justin Leigh’s plan, and led the way into the hall.

It was empty. The electric candles shed a soft light upon the stone flags and the two long Persian runners which crossed them. But Miss Silver was not looking at the floor. She walked over to the hearth and stood there, her eyes lifted to the trophy of arms above the stone mantelshelf. Hanging there on the broad chimney-breast, it had the air of some military decoration pinned to a rough grey coat, for the chimney-breast like the ledge was of stone, breaking the panelled wall. There were old flintlocks, four cumbersome pistols, and a ring of daggers. The bottom dagger was missing. Miss Silver stood looking at the place where it had been.

After a little while she turned round and looked in the direction of the stairs. Then she turned her head, glanced towards the switches on the left-hand side of the hearth, and back again at the staircase. At the sound of approaching voices she went back into the study. When she had seated herself and taken up her knitting again she enquired,

“How tall are you, Frank?”

He looked surprised.

“Five-foot-eleven.”

“Mr. Masterman would be a little taller?”

He said, “Yes. Oakley and Masterman are both taller-about six foot. I should give Justin Leigh another inch. Moira Lane must be all of five-foot-nine-Dorinda Brown not quite so tall. Mrs. Oakley is about your height. Tote not more than five-foot-seven.”

She said, “I was extremely pleased to observe that there was dust upon the mantelshelf-quite a considerable amount. It seemed almost too much to hope for, but the hall does not really look as if it had been dusted.”

Frank Abbott laughed.

“I don’t suppose it has. Pearson had the sense to leave everything until we came, and I told him to go on leaving it until I said-well, I’m afraid I quite forgot to say.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“A truly fortunate circumstance.”

He was sitting astride one of the upright chairs with his arms folded on the back…

“Now, what are you getting at?”

She was knitting rapidly.

“I hope that it may be possible to recover fingerprints which may prove of great importance. I should like you to ring up and ask to have someone sent out at once. Will you do so?”

He looked at her sharply.

“Blind?”

She smiled. Miss Silver’s smile had an extraordinary charm. It had before now captured hearts and converted the sceptic. Frank Abbott’s heart had been captured long ago. A young man not much given to enthusiasms, he undoubtedly had one for his “revered preceptress.” He had also a very complete confidence in her judgment. When, therefore, she said primly, “I do not think there is any time to be lost,” he got up, went over to the table, and picked up the telephone receiver.

When the ensuing short conversation had been closed by a definitive click he came back to his place and said,

“All right, ma’am. Do I get anything explained to me, or do I just wait for the explosion?”

This time she did not smile. She looked across the busy needles and the pale pink wool and said,

“I shall be very happy to explain. But before I do so, perhaps you will go into the hall and measure the distance from the ground to where the handle of the missing dagger would have been.”

“Oh-so that’s it? All right.”

He went out and came back again.

“Six foot or thereabouts. I take it fractions don’t matter.”

“No. I believe you see my point. The stone ledge which crosses the chimney breast and serves as a mantelshelf is, I should say, twelve to fourteen inches lower. It is perhaps fourteen inches deep. It has occurred to me that scarcely anyone would reach across such a ledge to remove an object hanging just above it without putting a hand upon the ledge. Of course-as you are about to say-anyone staying in the house might have rested a hand upon that shelf without having any connection with the murder. But if the prints of a suspect were found, their position and direction might prove valuable corroborative evidence.”

He nodded.

“Have you got anything else up your sleeve?”

The smile came out again.

“I think so. All the suspects are known to have been present in the hall at the time that Gregory Porlock was stabbed, with the exception of Mr. Tote, who may have been in the drawing-room or waiting behind the service-door, and Mr. Carroll, who had gone upstairs to wash and was found to be on the third step from the top of the stairs when the lights came on after the murder. If we are accepting it as an axiom-and I think we must-that it was the murderer who had turned out the lights, Mr. Carroll, if it was he, could only have done so by using the switches at the top of the stairs. And the probabilities are that Mr. Tote, if it was he, would have used the switches at the back of the hall by the service door. These probabilities appear to be so strong as almost to constitute a certainty. For everybody else there was only one set of switches which was both accessible and, owing to the shifting of the group round the fire, not too much exposed to observation. I refer to the switches on the left of the hearth. Now, my dear Frank, pray consider. Leaving Mr. Carroll and Mr. Tote on one side for the moment, let us suppose that the murderer is one of that group round the fire. He has his plan all ready. He has put his mark on Gregory Porlock’s back so as to make sure of finding a vital place in the dark. He turns out the lights. Now remember that Mr. Porlock, who had gone over in the direction of the staircase, had already turned and was coming back. That is to say, he was facing the murderer, and the bright spot of luminous paint on his back was therefore not visible. What would the murderer do? I think he would cross the hall as quickly as he could with a hand stretched out in front of him till he came up against the staircase. This would bring him behind his victim, and at no great distance. The luminous patch would be right in front of him as he turned, and he would only have to step forward and strike.”

“You think we might get a print of the murderer’s hand on the panelled side of the staircase?”

“Or on the balustrade. I am not clear as to the height reached by the stair at a point immediately opposite the switches.”

Frank Abbott said thoughtfully,

“It’s worth trying for. But if he was wearing gloves, it’s a wash-out.”

Miss Silver gave her gentle cough.

“I think it very improbable that he would have been wearing gloves. By the way, I assume that no glove has been found.”

“No.”

“It would almost certainly have been marked with paint. I do not believe that the murderer wore a glove. He would have so short a time to dispose of it. It would be much simpler and safer to wipe the hilt of the dagger. To return to a possible print on the side of the staircase. It would, I think, be likely to be a left-hand print, since the right hand would either be holding the dagger or ready to take hold of it without an instant of delay.”

The cold blue eyes held a spark of admiration. Frank Abbott said,

“Any more aces?”

“My dear Frank!”

“I should like to know. You know what the Chief is like when you pull a fast one.”

“My dear Frank!”

His eyes teased as well as admired.

“Come-as man to man, is that all?”

Miss Silver was indulgent to the young. She smiled benignly, gave her slight cough, and said,

“For the moment.”