Ten Star Clues (19 page)

“I should hardly think so,” agreed Bobby gravely, and the colonel looked more disapproving than ever.

This sort of thing, he was telling himself, was definitely not the sort of thing one wished to associate with the stately homes of England.

“But the best laid plans of mice and men—you know,” Anne continued with a slight air of disappointment. “He only just poked his head round the door, took a good look, and went off. I never expected he would be so backward. I thought he would come in and wait for me to return. That's all.”

The colonel was only just able to stop himself from saying severely:— “Quite enough, too.” Bobby seemed to be deep in thought. He said:— 

“That seems to explain the discrepancy in the evidence. Thank you very much. You have no idea what he did after that?”

“Went to bed, I suppose,” Anne answered promptly, and then paused and for once looked a little uneasy, even frightened. “You don't mean,” she said, “you think he went down the backstairs to the library and killed grandfather?”

“It is a part of police routine to consider all possibilities, however unlikely,” Bobby explained. “I take it it is a fact that from outside your door any one could run down those backstairs to the library and back very quickly and that, at that time of night, no one would be likely to see or hear?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Anne agreed, and there was still that frightened look in her eyes where fear so seldom showed. “I suppose you are thinking I could have, too?” Then when Bobby did not answer she said rather loudly:—- “Well, I didn't.”

Bobby made no comment. The colonel was looking more and more uncomfortable. He felt it simply couldn't be, and yet—certainly the evidence proved a possibility. Fortunately a possibility was not even a probability, much less a certainty. Bobby did not much wish to pursue this question of the possibility of Anne's guilt, for which at present there was certainly no hint even of direct evidence, and bringing the questioning back to Bertram, he said:—

“It is clear Bertram could have done just that, but do you think he did?”

“No,” she answered instantly, “he hasn't it in him.”

“Difficult to say what is in any of us,” Bobby remarked. “Can you suggest any reasonable motive for his doing such a thing?”

She did not answer for a little. She was looking at him steadily, more warily than ever, he thought. She said presently:—

“You could ask him. You know as much as I do.” 

“Unfortunately, we don't,” Bobby told her. “We know very little indeed of what you might call the background. And background is very important. There may be all sorts of things, of motives, we have no idea of, but that if we did know, might put us on the right track. We are not even sure how seriously or with what chance of success, Mr. Ralph Hoyle means to dispute Mr. Bertram's claim.”

“Grandfather accepted Bertram,” Anne reminded them. “Isn't that conclusive? Why should grandfather—grandmother, too—if it isn't true? Ralph says he's an impostor. Ralph doesn't say why, he just says it. Ralph is like that. If he says a thing he thinks it's all settled. I suppose it's only natural he should be upset. He was the heir and now he's nobody—at least unless Bertram dies unmarried without children. He's still the heir—only heir presumptive, not heir apparent as he thought he was. Perhaps,” she added angrily, “you had better tell Bertram to be careful now, had you?”

“Good God,” said the colonel, really startled by this unexpected suggestion which almost seemed as if it were meant to hint at Ralph's guilt, but Bobby ignored it and went on:—

“There is another piece of information we have received. I expect you know all police work depends on what we call ‘information received'. We understand you are in possession of an automatic pistol?”

“Did Bertram tell you that, too?” she asked.

“I think a remark was made last night at dinner before every one there at the time, wasn't it?”

“Well, if it was, that doesn't make it true, does it?”

“Is it true?”

“No, it isn't.”

“Can you suggest any reason why he should say such a thing?”

“You do want to dig it all up, don't you?” she asked resentfully. “If you must know, he was being a bit of a nuisance. I told you I found him prowling about near my room once or twice. Another time I met him in the wood.

I was coming back from the village. I don't much think it was an accident. His meeting me, I mean. I can look after myself. But I didn't want a fuss. It would have been all over everywhere in no time. I mean, if we had started scuffling. So when he began to get a little too pressing, I opened my handbag and let him see a glint of metal. My cigarette case, really, but I told him it was grandfather's automatic I had borrowed. I don't know whether he believed it. I suppose now he did. Anyhow, he took the hint and began to talk about the weather or the scenery or something. Stopped being troublesome. That's all.”

“I see,” Bobby said. “That, of course, is a very satisfactory explanation,” and when he said that she shot him a look from under lowered eyelids that was more wary, more doubtful than ever. “By the way, do you understand firearms? would you have any idea of how to use an automatic?”

“Yes,” she answered after a pause, and very much as if she would have liked to say ‘No' instead, had she dared, and had she not been aware her acquaintance with the use of such weapons was well known. “What about it?” she asked, defiantly this time.

“My dear young lady,” Bobby protested in his mildest voice, “we are merely collecting and collating facts. I expect you know that the pistol you were speaking of, your grandfather's automatic, that is, seems to have disappeared. At any rate, it is not in the case in the drawer of this table where apparently it was kept, and up to the present we haven't been able to find it anywhere else.”

“I don't know anything about it,” she answered briefly.

“One last question,” Bobby said, “and then we shan't need to worry you any more. You heard nothing during the night, after you went to your room, that is?”

“No.”

“There is nothing you can suggest, nothing you can think of or have heard that could be of any assistance to us in bringing your grandfather's murderer to justice?”

“No. Of course, I've heard what every one is saying about Ralph.”

“What is that?”

“You know perfectly well. If you don't, I shan't tell you.”

“You mean that Ralph and his great-uncle quarrelled violently last night?”

“Yes.”

“It seems clear that Ralph left here about half-past ten, when Earl Wych was certainly still alive.”

“What's the good of pretending you don't know he could have come back? Every one knows it. Every one knows he was furious at grandfather's accepting Bertram. Ralph said it was a conspiracy. He said he wasn't going to be swindled out of his rights. He said grandfather must be senile, in his dotage. He said softening of the brain must have set in. That made grandfather pretty angry. He just hated being thought too old.”

“Do you think he was? In his dotage, I mean?”

“I never saw any sign of it,” Anne answered. “No one ever suggested such a thing before. Not that I ever heard of.”

“I think we may take that as established,” Bobby agreed. “I think we may agree it is plain that Earl Wych was in full possession of all his mental faculties. The doctors tell us, too, he was in unusually good physical condition. He would probably have lived another ten years or even longer. It's just possible that was the reason for the murder.”

He waited to see if Anne would make any comment on this. When she remained silent, he said:—

“Do you think it likely that Ralph Hoyle is guilty?” She stared at him a long time in silence after he had said this, yet almost as though she were not even conscious of his presence but only of her own thoughts. After a long interval, and, again it was almost as if she were speaking to herself, having forgotten others were there, she said:— “I do not know. I am not sure. Perhaps he is.” 

Bobby made no comment, but the colonel interposed sharply.

“You and Ralph are engaged, aren't you?” he asked.

“Would that make any difference?” she countered. “Engaged or not, does it affect facts?” Then she said:— “Besides, we aren't.”

“Not engaged?”

“No.” She held out her left hand. There was no ring on it. She said: “He's been running after that little chit of a Sophy a little bit too much for my liking.”

Both Bobby and the colonel received this statement in silence. They did not quite know what to make of it. But they found it interesting.

“It's not her,” Anne went on presently. “She's a pretty little thing. I'm quite fond of her. There's not much in her, but she's rather sweet, and she does try to be nice. I daresay she doesn't realize about Ralph. He wouldn't admit it, either. But you soon know it when a man begins to get interested in someone else.” She rose briskly to her feet. “You feel a bit snubbed,” she said. “I suppose it's silly. Of course, our engagement was always just a family affair, taken for granted.” She was silent for a moment and then said resentfully:—“You're clever. You've made me tell you things I never meant to tell any one. I think I'll go if I may.”

Bobby got up to open the door for her. She went through without noticing him. Bobby came back to his place. He said:—

“I would give quite a lot to know if we are clever.”

“Eh?” said the colonel.

“I mean,” Bobby explained, “whether we did make her tell something she had meant to keep to herself, or whether it was something she had been planning to tell us all the time.”

“Um!” said the colonel. Then he said:— “What do you think of her?”

“I don't know,” answered Bobby.

“Do you think she's our man?”

Bobby was too engrossed with his own thoughts even to notice this fine confusion of sexes. He said absently:— “It might be.”

“Do you think she means to marry this claimant chap?”

“I think that much is clear,” Bobby answered, and with a faint grin added:—“Anyhow, I'm sure he thinks so. I wonder if it's true that Ralph is attracted by Miss Longden. Or if Miss Anne has invented that for an excuse to break off the engagement? If it is true, can Miss Anne have shot her grandfather so that Bertram could succeed at once and then she could marry him and so become Ralph's boss and make things hot for him?”

“Roundabout sort of idea,” the colonel objected.

“It might attract,” Bobby said. “I mean a jilted woman might recover her self-respect by getting to be the boss of the man who let her down. It's only an idea, of course.”

They were still talking when there came a message from Mr. Clinton Wells to say that he had various appointments and other business to attend to; and if the chief constable wished to question him, could that be done at once, or, alternatively, could he be allowed to go?

Clinton Wells, who had been told that Colonel Glynne would be most happy to see him without further delay, came briskly into the room.

“I don't want to bustle you,” he said, “and of course I'm entirely in your hands, but if you could see your way to let me get off, it would be a tremendous convenience.” 

The colonel, favourably impressed, relieved to think that this time he was safe from any sharp, feminine tongue, waved him amiably to a chair.

“I don't suppose there's really very much you can tell us,” he explained expansively, so happy was he to think that this time he would be talking as man to man, and not as mere man to an indignant old lady or to a young one with an exceedingly sharp tongue. “You were at the A.R.P. meeting last night, I think, but you didn't stay to dinner here, did you?”

“No,” admitted Clinton Wells, grinning a little, “I invented a business appointment. Damaging admission, I'm afraid, when I've just told you the same story. But this time it's true. I have appointments with two clients. One of them doesn't matter much, but the other's important—or thinks he is. Last night I wanted to dodge the dinner.”

“Had you any special reason?”

Clinton rubbed his nose and looked doubtful.

“Well, I don't know,” he said finally; “possibly it's violating professional confidence as between client and solicitor, but the fact is Ralph and I had a bit of a row, and I felt we were better out of each other's way for the time. You know I have resigned from my firm in order to act for him in this succession business?”

The colonel nodded.

“So I understand,” he said. “It is—er—a big thing for you to do, a big risk. I daresay most people would think it showed a good deal of courage, chivalry, too, to take up such a forlorn hope.”

Clinton Wells made a deprecating gesture.

“Oh, I don't want to appear too much of a knight errant,” he protested. “Of course, no one wants to see a gross injustice done merely to satisfy an old man's senile vanity. All the same, I admit I'm quite aware that if I can establish Ralph's claim, I expect I shall be sure of the Wych estate business for the duration—and my partnership back again in a hurry and on my own terms, too. The Blacklocks would be on their knees to get me to join them again.”

“But if the case goes against your client?”

“Well, I daresay I shall have to whistle for my costs,” Clinton admitted. “And my partnership would be up the spout for good. They wouldn't touch me with a barge pole. No one in Midwych would. I should have to make a fresh start somewhere else. Still, I'm facing that. You've got to risk something, and I hope I should have got my name known as a good fighter, so I might still expect a few clients. After all, one doesn't like to see a good, decent sort of chap like Ralph done out of his rights.”