Penhallow (33 page)

Ingram, who, in Raymond’s absence, had constituted himself as head of the establishment, took him there, and was struck at once with a sense of loss. The great bed stood empty, the blazing quilt stretched neatly across it; the mountain of ash had been cleared out of the hearth; and the litter of miscellaneous objects on the refectory table had been removed. The silence of the room brought home his father’s death to Ingram as nothing else had done, yet Penhallow’s spirit seemed to hang over it, so that Ingram almost expected to hear his loud, jovial voice hail him. He was rather shaken, and said: ‘By Jove! The poor old Guv’nor! Brings it home to one!’

From Ingram, the Inspector learned the names and relationships of those living in the house.. He was obliged to write these down, and to refer to them frequently during the course of his inquiries. Sergeant Plymstock said crankly that it would be a month of Sundays before he got any of them sorted out. He had always understood Penhallow to have been a proper tyrant, but by the time his superior had elicited from Ingram various admissions which showed the extent and nature of Penhallow’s despotism he began to feel that his previous impressions of the deceased had been milk-and-water bowdlerising of the truth.

It had not taken Logan long to discover the almost certain means by which Penhallow’s death had been brought about. In response to his preliminary inquiries, Faith had said: ‘But I’m the only person in the house who takes sleeping-draughts. Unless you do, Eugene? Only it isn’t exactly a sleeping-draught. I’ve taken it for years. Dr Lilton prescribed it for me. It’s veronal. But I always keep it in my own room!’

‘Is it kept under lock and key, madam?’ Logan asked her.

She fixed her strained, startled eyes on his face. ‘No. No, not under lock and key. But no one has ever—’

‘Don’t be an ass, Faith!’ Charmian interrupted. ‘Obviously someone has! Where is the stuff?’

‘It’s always kept on the shelf, with my other medicines and things. But there’s only a very little left in the one bottle, and I haven’t opened the new one yet! I really don’t think ‘

‘May I see it, madam?’

‘Yes, of course! Shall I fetch it, or would you like to see for yourself where it is?’

‘If you please,’ said Logan.

She led the way up the main staircase to her room at the head of it. ‘There it is, Inspector. Those two bottles at the end of the shelf. You’ll see that the new one hasn’t been opened even. I’m sure ‘

The Inspector, who had picked one of the bottles up with his handkerchief, said: ‘This is empty, madam.’

‘Empty? Oh, you must have got the old one! But I quite thought there was a little left in the bottle!’

He picked up the other bottle, and tilted it. ‘In this one, madam, there is.’

She put a hand to her head, faltering: ‘But I never even opened it! You must be mistaken! Oh, no, of course I know you can’t be, but — but I don’t understand! Do you mean he was poisoned with my drops? Oh, no, no. it’s too awful! I won’t believe it!’

He wrapped the bottle up in his handkerchief. ‘You said, I think, that you have been in the habit for some years of taking veronal? Was anyone in the household aware of this?’

She sank down into a chair. She looked very white, and a little dazed. ‘Oh, yes! Everyone knew I had to take drops to help me to sleep.’

‘Does the bottle always stand on that shelf?"

‘Yes — at least, I do sometimes have it on the table by my bed, but generally — Oh, I ought to have kept it locked away, only I never thought — Besides, who could possibly… ? And they wouldn’t have put it back in my room! You don’t think I did it? Inspector, you can’t think I would do such a thing?’

‘It’s too early for me to think anything, madam. On the face of it, it seems that anyone in the house could have had access to the bottle at any time.’

‘Yes, but — Oh, does it mean that I’m actually responsible? For leaving the bottle about? But I never dreamed…it didn’t even occur to me that anyone would-’

‘No, madam, I’m sure. Was anyone aware, to your knowledge, that you had recently had this prescription made up again?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think — that is, my maid knew, and of course the housemaids must have seen it, when they dusted the room.’

‘How long have you had the second bottle in your possession, madam?’

She pressed her hand to her brow again. ‘Let me think! Everything’s such a nightmare that I find it hard to — Was it yesterday? No, I think it must have been the day before. My maid was going into Liskeard, and I asked her to get the prescription made up again. Yes, I’m nearly sure that was when it was.’

The Inspector referred to his notes. ‘That would be Loveday Trewithian?’

‘Yes. She is our butler’s niece. But she couldn’t have had anything to do with it, Inspector!’

He raised his eyes from his notebook. ‘She is engaged to be married to Mr Bartholomew Penhallow, I believe, madam?’

She gave a gasp, and clutched the arms of her chair ‘No! There’s no engagement! Who told you? Who can possibly have said anything about that to you?’

The Inspector did not feel it to be incumbent upon him to enlighten this nervous, and rather simple creature on the extent of the knowledge of the family’s more private affairs which was enjoyed by Loveday’s fellow servants. He merely said: ‘That is the information I have madam.’

She thought that Bart must have avowed his intention to marry Loveday. ‘It’s nothing but a passing fancy. I know my stepson did — did fall in love with her, but of course marriage is out of the question, and I’m quite sure Loveday knows it, because she’s a thoroughly nice girl, whatever you may have been told to the contrary!’

‘Did Mr Penhallow know of his son’s intention to marry this girl?’

‘Yes. That is ‘

‘Was he willing for the marriage to take place?’

‘No. No, of course not! But I’m sure he didn’t take it seriously, because he didn’t wish me to dismiss Loveday, or anything like that.’

‘Is it a fact that Mr Bartholomew Penhallow expected his father to set him up at Trellick Farm?’

‘Yes. But my—my husband hadn’t said anything definite about it. It was always understood, but ‘

‘Was there any quarrel between Mr Penhallow and his son on this subject?’

‘I don’t know. That is — You see, Inspector, my husband and his sons were always quarrelling, so it didn’t mean anything, and in any case Bart — Mr Bartholomew Penhallow — was very fond of his father, and I know he wouldn’t have even thought of — of doing anything to him!’

He pursued the matter no further with her, but by the time that he left Trevellin, at the end of the morning, he had acquired enough startling and contradictory information to make him inform the Chief Constable that the case was not going to be an easy one to solve. He saw no reason for bringing Scotland Yard into it, but admitted that he had not been prepared to find quite so many people at Trevellin with motives for murdering its master.

‘Well, I was never personally acquainted with Penhallow,’ said Major Warbstow, ‘but, speaking as a plain individual, the only wonder is that someone didn’t murder him years ago, from all I’ve ever heard about him. The doctor’s report isn’t in yet, but I don’t suppose there’s much doubt he was murdered?’

‘None at all, I should say, sir,’ responded Logan. ‘I’ve brought away a bottle of veronal which ought to have been full, and which I found empty.’

‘Good lord! Where did you find it?’

‘In Mrs Penhallow’s room, sir, on a shelf in full view of anyone who happened to come in.’

‘Mrs Penhallow!’

‘Yes, but I don’t make a lot of that, sir. She seems to have been taking the stuff for years, and though she does seem a silly creature, I shouldn’t think she’d be silly enough to leave the bottle about, if she’d used the stuff to poison her husband with.’

‘The use of poison often points to a woman, Logan.’

‘Yes, sir. I didn’t mean that I was ruling her out. But she isn’t the only woman to be mixed up in this case. And really I should doubt whether she’d have had the nerve to poison anyone from the way she carries on! Of course she’s upset by the whole thing, as is natural she should be. But let alone her getting a bit hysterical at my finding the bottle empty, she goes up in the air as soon as ever I ask any questions about anyone else in the house, and keeps on telling me that she knows none of them could possibly have done it, till I could pretty well have brained her. Its plain the rest of them don’t think much of her. What’s more, it’s plain they don’t any of them think she had anything to do with the crime. And that’s significant, sir, because they don’t give me the impression they like her."

The Major nodded. ‘All right: go on. What about the boy who has absconded?’

‘Well, we haven’t managed to catch up with him yet sir, but there doesn’t seem to bee much doubt that he made off with three hundred pounds in cash, which h, took from Mr Penhallow’s bed.’

‘From his bed!’

‘Yes, sir. Oh, I don’t mean he kept it under his pillows, but pretty near as bad! I’ve never seen such a bed in my life. It has got a whole lot of cupboards and drawers in the head of it. But there doesn’t seem to have been any need for this Jimmy to have murdered Penhallow. He was his father, too.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, yes, sir!’ said Logan matter-of-factly. ‘The rest of them call him Jimmy the Bastard, making no bones about it!’

‘Good God! What a set!’

‘I believe you, sir. I’ve only spent one morning in the place, but I give you my word nothing would surprise me what I found out about them. I mean, there’s no end to it. But though there’s a good few of them would like to bring the murder home to this Jimmy there’s two of them with enough common sense to see that he could have got away with the money without adding to the risks he was taking by killing the old man. That’s Miss Penhallow, and Mr Raymond Penhallow. She’s one of these masterful women who make you want to run a mile to get away from them; he’s a surly sort of chap: doesn’t say much.’

‘I know Ray Penhallow slightly. Always thought him the best of the bunch.’

‘Yes, sir? Well, he had a shot at strangling the old man yesterday morning,’ said the Inspector calmly.

The Major stared at him. ‘You don’t say so! Good heavens!’

‘Yes, sir. No deception about it: all clean and above board, just as though a little thing like that was nothing out of the way. Which I daresay it wasn’t. Interrogated, he said he had lost his temper with his father on account of the old man’s interference in the business of the estate. Jimmy and the butler — chap called Lanner — pulled him off his father’s throat. Lanner’s been with the family since he was a lad, and his father before him, and the way I see it is that he’s torn between his loyalty to the Penhallows as a whole, and his affection for the old man, which I should say was pretty considerable. He wasn’t keen to talk, but I did get out of him that he’d never known Mr Raymond to do a thing like that before.’

The Major pursed his lips. ‘They’re a wild lot. At the same time, I shouldn’t expect a man who’d tried to strangle his father in the morning, and been prevented from doing it, to poison him in the evening.’

‘No, sir. But I’m bound to say that he does look, on the face of it, to be the one with the biggest motive. A couple of his brothers gave me some interesting sidelights on the way things have been at Trevellin, and it does seem as though Mr Raymond, being the heir, might have had very good cause to want his father dead. I got it out of the second brother -’ He consulted his notes — ‘Big chap with a stiff leg — Ingram! — Well, he told me that the old man had taken to throwing his money about in a way likely to ruin the estate, and that he and Raymond were always at loggerheads about it. Said he never had got on with his father. However, I got the impression that there wasn’t much love lost between himself and Raymond. Then there’s the third brother — chap with a foreign name. I can’t make out what he’s doing in the house at all, for he’s got a wife, and you’d think anyone would be glad to get away from such a place. I must say, I didn’t take to him. Smooth-tongued fellow, with a nasty little way of making insinuations about the rest of the gang…family! But, then, his wife’s mixed up in it, so I daresay he has his reasons. Anyway, he’d like the murderer to turn out to be Jimmy. Failing Jimmy, he favours Raymond, with Loveday Trewithian as a close second. Also ran, Aubrey, and Clay. That’s the second Mrs Penhallow’s boy and not such an unlikely candidate either, if you were to ask me, sir.’

‘What about the third son’s wife?’ interrupted the Major. ‘Why should she have done it?’

‘To get away from the place. Stormy little thing: one of the kind who tells you she’s going to be perfectly frank with you, and then shoots off a lot of damaging; information about herself, as though she dared you to think she’d have done so if she’d had anything to do with the murder. Said she hated her father-in-law, and didn’t care who heard her say so.’

‘Yes, but surely that isn’t a reason for murdering him!’ protested Warbstow. ‘She needn’t have stayed at Trevellin if she hated him so much!’

‘That’s just it, sir. If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t properly understand the lay-out. It took me a bit to grasp the hold old Penhallow must have had over the lot of them. Couldn’t call their souls their own, from what I can make out. I never set eyes on him myself, but you can take it from me that he wasn’t an ordinary sort of a man at all. Seems he had a passion for keeping the family hanging round his bedside. The description Mrs — What was that name? Oh, I’ve got it! — Mrs Eugene gave me of what used to go on fairly made my hair stand on end. I mean, if you’d only seen that room of old Penhallow’s, sir. Mrs Eugene said they used to have to sit in it, every blessed night, watching the old man drink himself boisterous, while the rest of the family quarrelled, and shouted each other down. Enough to get on anyone’s nerves, if you ask me!’

‘All the same,’ began Warbstow dubiously, ‘I don’t think I’d expect anyone to murder Penhallow for a reason like that.’

‘No, sir. I’m only giving you the possibilities. Then we have this Loveday Trewithian. I don’t more than half like the look of her. She’s going to marry Mr Bartholomew — the one they all call Bart. Tough young devil with a temper. She’s maid to Mrs Penhallow, and it was she got the prescription for the veronal made up the day before the murder. Not that I want to make a lot of that, because anyone could have got at that veronal at any time. She’s like a good many of the people about here: sooner tell a lie than not. She denied that there was any fixed understanding between herself and Mr Bart , said old Mr Penhallow had never said a word to her about it. She was frightened all right. But Mr Bart blurted out the whole thing. Said he was going to marry the girl; that his father had found it out, and they’d had a row about it, which ended though in his agreeing to do nothing about it for a bit. Told me his father said I could please himself once he was dead, and that he hadn’t wanted to upset the old man, if he really was going to die.’