Cover Her Face (9 page)

“See me in my study at nine, nine-five, nine-ten …” whispered Felix to Deborah. He was not sure whether he sought relief for himself or her, but there was no answering smile.

Dalgliesh let his glance move briefly over the group. “Mr. Stephen Maxie, Miss Bowers, Mrs. Maxie, Mrs. Riscoe, Mr. Hearne and Mrs. Bultitaft. Will those who are waiting please stay here. If any of you need to leave this room there is a woman police officer and a constable outside in the hall who can go with you. This surveillance will be relaxed as soon as everyone has been interviewed. Would you come with me please, Mr. Maxie?”

Stephen Maxie took the initiative.

“I think I had better begin by letting you know that Miss Jupp and I were engaged to be married. I proposed to her yesterday evening. There’s no secret about it. It can’t have anything to do with her death and I might not have bothered to mention it except that she broke the news in front of the village’s prize gossip, so you’d probably find out fairly soon.”

Dalgliesh, who had already found out and was by no means convinced that the proposal was nothing to do with the murder, thanked Mr. Maxie gravely for his frankness and expressed formal condolences on the death of his fiancée. The boy looked up at him with a sudden direct glance.

“I don’t feel I’ve any right to accept condolences. I can’t even feel bereaved. I suppose I shall when the shock of this has worn off a little. We were only engaged yesterday and now she’s dead. It still isn’t believable.”

“Your mother was aware of this engagement?”

“Yes. All the family were except my father.”

“Did Mrs. Maxie approve?”

“Hadn’t you better ask her that yourself?”

“Perhaps I had. What were your relations with Miss Jupp before yesterday evening, Dr. Maxie?”

“If you are asking whether we were lovers the answer is ‘no.’ I was sorry for her, I admired her and I was attracted by her. I have no idea what she thought about me.”

“Yet she accepted your offer of marriage?”

“Not specifically. She told my mother and her guests that I had proposed so I naturally assumed that she intended to accept me. Otherwise there would have been no point in breaking the news.”

Dalgliesh could think of several reasons why the girl should have broken the news, but he was not prepared to discuss them. Instead he invited his witness to give his own account of recent events from the time that the missing Sommeil tablets were first brought into the house.

“So you think she was drugged, Inspector? I told the Superintendent about the tablets when he arrived. They were certainly in my father’s medicine chest early this morning. Miss Bowers noticed them when she went to the cupboard for aspirin. They aren’t there now. The only Sommeil in the cupboard now is in a sealed packet. The bottle has gone.”

“No doubt we shall find it, Dr. Maxie. The autopsy will discover whether or not Miss Jupp was drugged, and if so, how much of the stuff was taken. There is almost certainly something other than cocoa in that mug by the bed. She may, of course, have put the stuff in it herself.”

“If she didn’t, Inspector, who did? The stuff might not even have been meant for Sally. That was my sister’s drinking-mug by the bed. We each have our own and they are all different. If the Sommeil was meant for Sally it must have been put in the drink after she had taken it up to her room.”

“If the drinking-mugs are so distinctive it is curious that Miss Jupp should have taken the wrong one. That was an unlikely mistake surely?”

“It may not have been a mistake,” said Stephen shortly. Dalgliesh did not ask him to explain but listened in silence as his witness described the visit of Sally to St. Luke’s on the previous Thursday, the events of the church fête, the sudden impulse which had led him to propose marriage and the finding of his fiancée’s body. The account he gave was factual, concise and almost unemotional. When he came to describe the scene in Sally’s bedroom his voice was almost clinically detached. Either he had greater control than was good for him or he had anticipated this interview and had schooled himself in advance against every betrayal of fear or remorse.

“I went with Felix Hearne to get the ladder. He was dressed but I was still in my dressing-gown. I shed one of my bedroom slippers on the way to the outhouses opposite Sally’s window so he reached them first and gripped the ladder. It’s always kept there. Hearne had dragged it out by the time I caught up with him and was calling out to know which way to carry it. I pointed towards Sally’s window. We carried the ladder between us although it’s quite light. One person could manage it, although I’m not sure about a woman. We put it against the wall and Hearne went up first while I steadied it. I followed him at once.

The window was open but the curtains were drawn across. As you saw, the bed is at right angles to the window with the head towards it. There’s a wide window-ledge where the oriel window juts out and Sally apparently kept a collection of small glass animals there. I noticed that they had been scattered and most were broken. Hearne went over to the door and pulled back the lock. I stood looking at Sally. The bed-clothes
were pulled up as far as her chin but I could see at once that she was dead. By this time the rest of the family were around the bed, and when I turned back the clothes we could see what had happened. She was lying on her back—we didn’t disturb her—and she looked quite peaceful. But you know what she looked like. You saw her.”

“I know what I saw,” said Dalgliesh. “I’m asking now what you saw.”

The boy looked at him curiously and then closed his eyes for a second before replying. He spoke in a flat expressionless voice as if repeating a lesson learnt by rote. “There was a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were almost closed. There was a fairly distinct thumb impression under the right lower jaw over the cornu of the thyroid and a less clear indication of finger-marks on the left side of the neck lying along the thyroid cartilage. It was an obvious case of manual strangulation with the right hand and from the front. Considerable force must have been used, but I thought that death was possibly due to vagal inhibition and may have been very sudden. There were few of the classic signs of asphyxia. But no doubt you will get the facts from the autopsy.”

“I expect them to be in line with your own views. Did you form any idea of the time of death?”

“There was some rigor mortis in the jaw and neck muscles. I don’t know whether it had spread any farther. I’m describing the signs that I noticed almost subconsciously. You will hardly expect a full post-mortem account in the circumstances.”

Sergeant Martin, his head bent over his notebook, detected unerringly the first note of near hysteria and thought “Poor devil. The old man can be pretty brutal. He’s stood up to it all right so far, though. Too well for a man who has just discovered the body of his girl. If she was his girl.”

“I shall get the full post-mortem report in due course,” said Dalgliesh equably. “I was interested in your assessment of the time of death.”

“It was a fairly warm night despite the rain. I should say not less than five hours nor more than eight.”

“Did you kill Sally Jupp, Doctor?”

“No.”

“Do you know who did?”

“No.”

“What were your movements from the time that you finished dinner on Saturday night until Miss Bowers called you this morning with the news that Sally Jupp’s door was bolted?”

“We had our coffee in the drawing-room. At about nine o’clock my mother suggested that we should start counting the money. It was in the safe here in the business room. I thought they might be happier without me and I was feeling restless, so I went out for a walk. I told my mother that I might be late and asked her to leave the south door open for me. I hadn’t any particular idea in mind, but as soon as I’d left the house I felt I should like to see Sam Bocock. He lives alone in the cottage at the far end of the home meadow. I walked through the garden and over the meadow to his cottage and stayed there with him until pretty late. I can’t exactly remember when I left, but he may be able to help. I think it was just after eleven. I walked back alone, entered the house through the south door, bolted it behind me and went to bed. That’s all.”

“Did you go straight home?” The almost imperceptible hesitation was not lost on Dalgliesh.

“Yes.”

“That means you would have been back in the house by when?”

“It’s only five minutes’ walk from Bocock’s cottage, but I didn’t hurry. I suppose I was indoors and in bed by eleven-thirty.”

“It’s a pity that you can’t be precise about the time, Dr. Maxie. It’s also, surely, surprising in view of the fact that you have a small clock on your beside table with a luminous dial.”

“I may have. That doesn’t mean that I always take a note of the times I sleep or get up.”

“You spent about two hours with Mr. Bocock. What did you talk about?”

“Horses and music mainly. He has a rather fine record-player. We listened to his new record—Klemperer conducting the
Eroica
to be precise.”

“Are you in the habit of visiting Mr. Bocock and spending the evening with him?”

“Habit? Bocock was groom to my grandfather. He’s my friend. Don’t you visit your friends when you feel like it, Inspector, or haven’t you any?”

It was the first flash of temper. Dalgliesh’s face showed no emotion, not even satisfaction. He pushed a small square of paper across the table. On it were three minute splinters of glass.

“These were found in the outhouse opposite Miss Jupp’s room, where you say that the ladder is normally kept. Do you know what they are?”

Stephen Maxie bent forward and studied this exhibit without apparent interest. “They’re splinters of glass obviously. I can’t tell you any more about them. They could be part of a broken watch-glass I suppose.”

“Or part of one of the smashed glass animals from Miss Jupp’s room.”

“Presumably.”

“I see you are wearing a small piece of plaster across your right knuckle. What’s wrong?”

“I grazed myself slightly when I was coming home last night. I brushed my hand against the bark of a tree. At least, that’s the most probable explanation. I can’t remember it happening and only noticed the blood when I got to my room. I stuck this plaster on before I went to bed and I’d normally have taken it off by now. The graze wasn’t really worth bothering about, but I have to look after my hands.”

“May I see, please?” Maxie came forward and placed his hand, palm down, on the desk. Dalgliesh noted that it did not tremble. He picked at the corner of the plaster and ripped it off. Together they inspected the whitened knuckle underneath. Maxie still showed no sign of anxiety, but scrutinized his hand with the air of a connoisseur condescendingly inspecting an exhibit which was hardly worthy of his attention. He picked up the discarded plaster, folded it neatly and flicked it accurately into the waste-paper basket.

“That looks like a cut to me,” said Dalgliesh. “Or it could, of course, be a scratch from a finger-nail.”

“It could, of course,” agreed his suspect easily. “But if it were wouldn’t you expect to find blood and skin under the nail which did the scratching? I’m sorry I can’t remember how it happened.” He looked at it again and added, “It certainly looks like a small cut but it’s ridiculously small. In two days it won’t be visible. Are you sure you don’t want to photograph it?”

“No thank you,” said Dalgliesh. “We’ve had something rather more serious to photograph upstairs.”

It gave him considerable satisfaction to watch the effect of his words. While he was in charge of this case none of his suspects need think that they could retreat into private worlds of detachment or cynicism from the horror of what had lain on
the bed upstairs. He waited for a moment and then continued remorselessly.

“I want to be perfectly clear about this south door. It leads directly to the flight of stairs which go up to the old nursery. To that extent Miss Jupp slept in a part of the house which can be said to have its own entrance. Almost a self-contained flat in effect. Once the kitchen quarters were closed for the night she could let a visitor in through that door with little risk of discovery. If the door were left unbolted a visitor could gain entrance to her door with reasonable ease. Now you say that the south door was left unbolted for you from nine o’clock when you had finished dinner until shortly after eleven p.m. when you returned from Mr. Bocock’s cottage. During that time is it true to say that anyone could have gained access to the house through the south door?”

“Yes. I suppose so.”

“Surely you know definitely whether they could or not, Mr. Maxie?”

“Yes, they could. As you probably saw, the door has two heavy inside bolts and a mortice lock. We haven’t used the lock for years. There are keys somewhere, I suppose. My mother might know. We normally keep the door closed during the day and bolt it at night. In the winter it is usually kept bolted all the time and is hardly used. There is another door into the kitchen quarters. We’re rather slack about locking up, but we’ve never had any trouble here. Even if we did lock the doors carefully the house wouldn’t be burglar-proof. Anyone could get in through the French windows in the drawing-room. We do lock them, but the glass could easily be broken. It has never seemed worthwhile worrying too much about security.”

“And, in addition to this ever-open door, there was a convenient ladder in the old stable-block?”

Stephen Maxie gave a slight shrug. “It has to be kept somewhere. We don’t lock up the ladders just in case someone gets the idea of using them to get through the windows.”

“We have no evidence yet that anyone did. I am still interested in that door. Would you be prepared to swear that it was unbolted when you returned from Mr. Bocock’s cottage?”

“Of course. Otherwise I couldn’t have got in.”

Dalgliesh said quickly, “You realize the importance of determining at what time you finally bolted that door?”

“Of course.”

“I’m going to ask you once more what time you bolted it and I advise you to think very carefully before you reply.”