Trial and Error (15 page)

But now all that was changed. He did not want to go to prison; he did not want to be tried; he did not want to be bothered at all. He wanted, if anything, to escape. Life still had its hold on him, and what was left of it he wanted to enjoy. He was not enjoying it at present, that was certain. He could not read, he could not play, even Bach had lost his spell. He felt in a kind of spiritual vice that was crushing the vitality out of him. He could remember nothing like the sensation since his first few miserable days at a preparatory school when he had first learned just how bleak life can be.

From all this Mr Todhunter longed to escape. He felt he ought not to go, but he felt, too, that he could bear the strain no longer.

One day he suddenly took a cab to the West End and booked a passage on a steamship cruising half round the world. The cruise was scheduled to last nearly four months, and Mr Todhunter knew that he would not come back from it alive. He was rather glad. It seemed to him a pleasant thing to die in luxury and comfort and be consigned to the warm waters of some tropical sea.

3

It was as if Mr Todhunter had been a bull confined in a tiny field surrounded by high hedges over which he could not see. While he was there he wandered round and round in circles, bellowing mournfully; but now that he had, so to speak, charged through the hedge and was in the spacious pastures beyond, life appeared a very different proposition. In other words, having taken his decision, Mr Todhunter found himself his own man again.

With all the old methodical care he made his preparations. The house in Richmond was to be kept in running order, with Mrs Greenhill as dominant housekeeper. It had been left in his will to two elderly and impoverished female cousins, and these Mr Todhunter thoughtfully installed in situ so that there should be no upheaval and bother for them in his absence. One or two items were added to his will. A visit was paid to his doctor, who annoyed Mr Todhunter as much as ever by persistently congratulating him on his approaching demise, the date of which, however, he was unable to name with any more accuracy than before, since it appeared that Mr Todhunter's aneurism had stood up to all this strain with astonishing fortitude and was in no worse condition than it had been four months before.

And lastly, having packed his bags and left nothing to chance, Mr Todhunter wrote out a careful account of the way in which he had murdered Miss Jean Norwood, added by way of proof that Miss Norwood's bracelet was in a certain locked drawer of the chest of drawers in his bedroom with the revolver, sealed up the document in an imposingly large envelope and deposited it with his solicitor to be handed over to Scotland Yard after his death.

This, Mr Todhunter considered, would round off the affair nicely. He had heard nothing from any of the Farroway family since his visit to Maida Vale and sincerely trusted that he never would. He had done what he could. The Farroways could now work out their own salvation for themselves.

In only one item did Mr Todhunter deviate from this decision; and the incident is perhaps worth recording as showing the new resolution which, after his black week, seemed to have descended upon him.

One day quite by chance he met Mr Budd, the manager of the Princess. It was, as a matter of fact, on the pavement in Cockspur Street just outside the offices of the shipping company which Mr Todhunter had been visiting in order to ask information upon a certain small point about which he could quite well have telephoned.

Mr Budd, looking bluer than ever about the jowls, recognised him at once, and greeted him with a degree of warmth which surprised Mr Todhunter. As a matter of fact it was just before closing time and Mr Budd, whose finances were temporarily low, was hoping to be asked to have the quick one for which there was just time—but not time for a return one.

Mr Todhunter did not particularly want to see Mr Budd or anyone who could remind him of Miss Norwood, but he was unable to cope with the exuberance which Mr Budd brought to his welcoming. Mr Budd, in fact, worked his hardest, but his luck was out. The vital five minutes passed, and there they were, still on the pavement. Resigning himself, Mr Budd invited Mr Todhunter into the Greenroom Club, and Mr Todhunter, unable to think up an excuse quickly enough, and indeed not sure whether he wanted one, suffered himself to be led. On such a hair hung the whole of Felicity Farroway's future.

For once inside, and Mr Budd having got off his chest his saga of woe (for of course the Princess was closed and Mr Budd with every expectation of being out of a job as soon as the lease had been transferred), the talk somehow veered round to a play which Mr Budd had just been reading and which, he averred, was a Pipper, a Peach and a Sure Thing,

“She
told me to bung it back,” recounted Mr Budd, “but I didn't. I just can't bear to let it go.”

Mr Todhunter, not much interested, asked politely for explanations. From these he gathered that it had been one of Mr Budd's many tasks to read the dozens of plays showered by enthusiastic amateur playwrights upon Miss Norwood. Anything which he considered good enough he passed on to her to read, and the proportion amounted to something under one per cent.

“Hopeless!” pronounced Mr Budd with emphasis. “Ninety-nine out of a hundred of 'em. Just lousy. You'd think the poor goofs had never been inside a theatre in their lives.”

But this particular play, it appeared, was the exception. It was by an unknown writer, a first play, and according to Mr Budd it would make a sensation—if it was ever put on.

“But there you are. I told you once we were sheep in this business, didn't I? Mr X.Y.Z. makes a success of a play; every manager in London's on his doorstep next morning asking for another. Miss A.B.C.'s never had a play produced in her life—and no manager in London's going to take the risk. . . But that isn't why
she
turned it down. She said it wasn't good enough, but that wasn't the reason either. She knew as well as I did that it's a pipper. No, she turned it down because she couldn't play the part. It's a young girl for one thing, and it'd need a darned good actress to carry it off for another. I will say that for Jean, she knew her limitations. Why . . .”

Mr Todhunter sat suddenly forward in his chair, looking like a great bird of ill omen about to swoop.

“You say this is a good play?” he interrupted.

“I do,” agreed Mr Budd, a little startled.

“Would the part of the young girl suit Felicity Farroway?”

“Feli—Oh yes, I remember the kid. Mr Todhunter,” said Mr Budd with admiration, “you've just about pit it. She could play any other actress in London off the stage in that part, properly produced. Yes, she's the girl for it. Now however did you think that one up?”

“I remember you telling me that she was a good actress.”

“That's right. I remember now. You're a friend of the old man's. Poor old chap, just about knocked him up, this . . .”

“How much would it cost to put this play on with Miss Farroway in the leading part?”

Mr Budd looked doubtful. “It could be done for three thousand, easy. But look here, I'm not advising you, you know. It's a hell of a risk. Unknown actress, unknown playwright; you'd have everything against you. Mind you, if the public could be got in for a start you might have a chance, but—And who would you get to produce it?
I
should say Dane's the man, but . . . I say, you wouldn't be wanting a manager, would you?” asked Mr Budd, brightening.

“I'm going abroad in three days,” said Mr Todhunter slowly. “I can't do anything in the matter myself. Would you be willing to undertake the full responsibility—settle with the author (and the contract must be approved by the Society of Authors, I stipulate that), engage Miss Farroway and a cast, choose a producer or whoever is necessary—provided I deposit a cheque for three thousand with you before I sail?”

“But you don't know me,” almost wept Mr Budd. “You can't do a thing like that. I might hop off with the money, I might... you're barmy.”

“Will you?” cackled Mr Todhunter.

“My bones and brisket,” shouted Mr Budd, “you can bet I will. And if I don't make a fortune for you, it won't be my fault. Why . . . oh hell.
Boy
!”

4

Three days later Mr Todhunter sailed in the SS Anchusa. There had been no further developments in the Norwood case. The newspapers were openly accusing the police of being baffled, and the police seemed to be admitting that the newspapers were not far wrong. Mr Todhunter felt that he was out of the nightmare at last.

But that was where Mr Todhunter was immensely mistaken.

It was, in point of fact, in Tokyo that Mr Todhunter learned that Vincent Palmer had been arrested, nearly five weeks earlier, for the murder of Jean Norwood.

PART III

Detective

THE TOO-PERFECT MURDER CASE

CHAPTER X

Mr Todhunter arrived back in England in late November, having travelled from Japan with all speed, just a week before the trial of Vincent Palmer was scheduled to open. This he learned from the English newspaper which he bought at Calais before embarking. It did not seem to him that an hour or two's further delay could matter very much, and he therefore drove from Victoria to Richmond to deposit his luggage and greet his cousins and Mrs Greenhill before driving to Scotland Yard.

It was about half past four when Mr Todhunter arrived, as he imagined, at the end of his journey, prepared for arrest and subsequent retirement from the world. He felt a little upset, but not at all panic-stricken. As for his aneurism, this seemed to be still in much the same state as when it had left England; certainly Mr Todhunter had taken all possible care of it during his tour, refrained from giving it any undue strain and sedulously withheld from it all alcohol. The voyage had done him good too. His mind was at rest now, and he had had no difficulty in keeping Miss Norwood out of it, except occasionally in dreams. The news of young Palmer's arrest had distressed him considerably, and he blamed himself for having gone abroad at all without foreseeing some such blunder on the part of the authorities; but of course that would all be put right now. If the red tape were not too strong, Palmer should be at liberty in time for dinner.

“I want,” mumbled Mr Todhunter to the large policeman at the door of the Scotland Yard building, “to see the officer in charge of the Norwood case.”

“That'll be Chief Inspector Moresby,” replied the policeman in a friendly way. “Just fill in this form, sir, and state the business you wish to see him about.”

Mr Todhunter, impressed by the friendliness, laid his shapeless hat on the table and duly filled in his form. The nature of the business on which Chief Inspector Moresby was to be troubled he stated as “important information concerning the death of Miss Jean Norwood.”

The large policeman then invited Mr Todhunter to take a seat and withdrew.

Ten minutes later he informed Mr Todhunter that Chief Inspector Moresby would see him in a few minutes.

Half an hour later, in reply to a query of Mr Todhunter's, the policeman opined that Chief Inspector Moresby was a very busy man.

Twenty minutes after that Mr Todhunter was actually ushered into Chief Inspector Moresby's presence.

There rose to greet him from behind a severe-looking desk a burly man with a drooping walrus moustache, who shook Mr Todhunter's hand with great geniality, invited him to be seated and enquired what he could do for him.

“You're in charge of the—er—the Norwood case?” asked Mr Todhunter with care. He was not going to be put off, after all that waiting, with anyone less than the right man.

“I am, sir,” agreed the chief inspector affably.

Mr Todhunter rubbed the top of his head. He had a hatred of the dramatic, but it seemed difficult to break his momentous news without being slightly dramatic.

“I—um—have been out of England recently. It was only a few weeks ago—in Japan, as a matter of fact—that I learned of Mr Palmer's arrest. It was—er—a great shock to me,” mumbled Mr Todhunter.

“Yes sir,” prompted the chief inspector with patience. “And why was Mr Palmer's arrest a great shock to you?”

“Why, because . . . that is, because . . . well, you see,” floundered Mr Todhunter, not at all dramatically, “it was I who shot Miss Norwood.”

The chief inspector looked at Mr Todhunter, and Mr Todhunter looked at the chief inspector. Rather to Mr Todhunter's surprise the other did not make an instant dive for handcuffs and clap them on the bony wrists which Mr Todhunter was already almost holding ready for them. Instead he said:

“Well, well. So you shot Miss Norwood, sir? Dear me, dear me.” He shook his head as if to intimate that no doubt boys will be boys, but grown men should behave as grown men.

“Er—yes,” said Mr Todhunter, a little puzzled. The chief inspector did not seem at all shocked. He did not seem even upset, although the whole of his case against Vincent Palmer must be clattering round his ears. He merely continued to shake his head in a slightly reproving way and pull at one end of his moustache.

“I want to make a statement,” said Mr Todhunter.

“Yes sir, of course,” soothed the chief inspector. “That is, you're quite sure you do?”

“Of course I'm sure,” said Mr Todhunter, surprised.

“You've thought it well over?” persisted the chief inspector.

“I've been thinking it over all the way between Tokyo and London,” riposted Mr Todhunter quite tartly,

“It's a serious thing, you know, accusing yourself of murder,” pointed out the chief inspector in the kindliest way.

“Of course it's a serious thing,” positively snapped Mr Todhunter. “So is murder itself. So is arresting the wrong man.”

“Very well, sir.” Almost resignedly, as it seemed to the astonished Mr Todhunter, the chief inspector pulled a pad towards him and prepared to take notes. “Now, what's this all about?”

“Oughtn't my statement to be taken down properly, for me to sign?” Mr Todhunter asked, remembering the textbooks.

“You just tell me about it first. Then if necessary we can put it down in statement form afterwards,” suggested the chief inspector, as one humouring a child.

Somewhat haltingly Mr Todhunter began his story. It must be admitted that he told it badly, and that was only partly because he found it so difficult to tell at all. The necessity of leaving Farroway, and the whole Farroway family, out of the account was an added stumbling block.

“I see,” said the chief inspector when Mr Todhunter had brought his tale to a diffident and somewhat lame close. So far as Mr Todhunter could judge, the chief inspector did not appear to have made a single note. “I see. And why did you determine to shoot Miss Norwood, sir? That wasn't quite clear to me.”

“Jealousy,” explained Mr Todhunter unhappily. Even to himself it did not sound altogether convincing. “I could not bear to—um—share her with others.”

“Quite so. But had the question of sharing ever arisen? So far as I can make out, sir, you'd only met the lady once or twice. Had you on either of those occasions been—h'm—admitted to her favours?” queried the chief inspector delicately.

“Er—no. That is, not exactly. But. . .”

“You hoped, eh?”

“Quite so,” agreed Mr Todhunter gratefully. “I hoped.”

If the chief inspector thought privately that Mr Todhunter looked like anything in the world rather than an eager lover, or ever could look like one, he forebore to mention it.

“Then the actual question of sharing had never arisen, in point of fact, because you had never had a share, so to speak, yourself?”

“I suppose so.”

“And you say you killed her before you could obtain the share? You killed her, in fact, while you were still hoping?”

“Well, if you put it like that,” said Mr Todhunter doubtfully.

“I'm not putting it any way. I'm only repeating what you said, sir.”

“We had a quarrel,” said Mr Todhunter miserably. “A—um—a lovers' quarrel.”

“Ah! A bit passionate, was it?”

“Very passionate.”

“Shouted at each other and all that?”

“Certainly.”

“And what time was that, sir?”

“I should think,” said Mr Todhunter cautiously, “about a quarter to nine.”

“And you shot her in the middle of the quarrel?”

“Yes.”

“She didn't run up to the house or get away from you or anything like that?”

“No.” said Mr Todhunter, puzzled. “I don't think so.”

“Well, you'd have noticed if she had, wouldn't

“Certainly I should.”

“Then how do you account for the fact that she spoke to her maid,
in
the house, at nine o'clock, sir? According to your version she was dead by then.”

“I'm not giving you a Version,' ” said Mr Todhunter angrily. “I'm telling you the truth. I may be mistaken over a matter of a quarter of an hour or so; that's of no importance. You can surely realise from what I'm able to tell you that in the main fact I'm right. For instance, I can give you an exact description of the scene as it was when I left it. Miss Norwood was lying . . .” Mr Todhunter gave as graphic a description as he could manage. “And there were two glasses on the table,” he added triumphantly. “I wiped the prints off one but not the other.”

“Why not the other?” awkwardly demanded the chief inspector.

“Because I lost my head,” confessed Mr Todhunter. “I thought I heard a noise and escaped as quickly as I could. But the fact that I know that one of the glasses was wiped and the other not proves that I must have been there.” For by this time Mr Todhunter had been compelled to realise that this idiot of a chief inspector was receiving his story with the greatest scepticism.

“Yes. No doubt.” The chief inspector began to balance his pencil across one stubby finger in a way extremely irritating to Mr Todhunter. “Ever read the newspaper, Mr Todhunter?” he asked suddenly with great airiness.

“No. That is, yes. In the ordinary way. But not about this case.”

“Why not about this case?”

“It was painful to me,” Mr Todhunter said with dignity. “Having shot the woman I—um—loved, I had no wish to see the sensation that the Press was making of it. . . . Why?” asked Mr Todhunter in sudden alarm. “Was that information about the two glasses reported in the papers?”

The chief inspector nodded. “It was, sir. And so was everything else that you've told me. Every single thing.”

“But I did it!” cried Mr Todhunter in high agitation. “Damn it all, I shot the woman. There must be some way I can prove it. Ask me questions. Ask me about some of the details that didn't get into the papers.”

“Very well, sir.” The chief inspector, stifling a yawn, proceeded to question Mr Todhunter about the exact situation of the barn in relation to the house, about a summerhouse that apparently stood somewhere near the barn and about similar topographical details.

Mr Todhunter, unable to answer, explained feverishly that he had only seen the place by night.

The chief inspector nodded and went on to ask him what he had done with the revolver after the shooting.

“It's in a drawer in—” Mr Todhunter clapped a hand to his forehead. “Ha! I can prove it!” he crowed. “Gracious me, I'm taking leave of my senses. Of course I can prove it. If you'll come back with me to Richmond, Chief Inspector, I can lay before you incontrovertible evidence, tangible evidence, of the truth of what I'm telling you. I have there a diamond bracelet which I actually took off Miss Norwood's wrist after she was—um—dead.”

For the first time the chief inspector showed real interest. “A bracelet? Describe it if you please, sir.”

Mr Todhunter did so.

The chief inspector nodded. “The bracelet that was reported as missing. And you say that it's in your possession?”

“I didn't know it was reported as missing, but it's certainly in my possession now.”

The chief inspector pressed a button on his desk. “I'll send a sergeant back to Richmond with you. If what you say is true, sir, we shall have to go into all this seriously.”

“What I say is true,” returned Mr Todhunter with dignity, “and I should advise you very earnestly to take it seriously. You have an innocent man in prison. If you put him on trial, it will be a fiasco, in view of what I have to tell.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” returned the chief inspector equably. “But we'll look after that, Mr Todhunter.”

To the sergeant, when he arrived a few moments later, the chief inspector gave his instructions; and, Mr Todhunter having been consigned to the newcomer's care, the two made their way downstairs. To Mr Todhunter's gratification, they entered a police car.

“I suppose I'm under arrest?” suggested Mr Todhunter, not without complacence, as the car pushed a cautious nose out into the traffic of Whitehall.

“Well, I wouldn't say that, sir,” replied the sergeant, a taciturn person with the air of a drill sergeant.

It appeared that he would not say very much else, either, and the journey to Richmond was accomplished in almost complete silence, Mr Todhunter being filled with a strange mixture of elation and apprehension, and the sergeant wearing an expression like a stuffed sea lion, which might or might not have covered a complexity of emotions.

Mr Todhunter let himself into the house with his own key and, motioning to his companion to tread softly, led the way upstairs. The police car waited outside, presumably to conduct Mr Todhunter to prison. He wondered in a vague way whether he would have to walk out of the house between the sergeant and the plain-clothes driver, and if they would put gyves upon his wrists.

Selecting the right key with due deliberation, Mr Todhunter pulled open the drawer. There, in its nest under the handkerchiefs, was the revolver. Mr Todhunter pulled it out and handed it to the sergeant.

The sergeant broke it open and squinted down the barrel with an expert eye. “This gun's clean, sir.”

“Well, I cleaned it of course,” Mr Todhunter said testily, rummaging in the drawer.

“I mean, it's never been fired.”

Mr Todhunter turned round and stared at him. “Never been .. . but it
has.”

“This gun's never been fired, sir,” repeated the sergeant stolidly.

“But . . .” A light broke on Mr Todhunter. “Bless my soul,” he muttered. “Bless my soul!” He hesitated. “Er—are you at liberty to tell me this, Sergeant? Was a gun found in the possession of Mr Vincent Palmer?”

“It was, sir.”

“And had that gun been recently fired? Please tell me. It's exceedingly important.”

“Evidence was given before the magistrates that the gun in Mr Palmer's possession had been recently fired,” replied the sergeant without emotion.