Patricia Wentworth - The Case Is Closed

It all came down to the Mercers again. If Geoff was speaking the truth, then the Mercers were lying. Of course Geoff was speaking the truth. She believed in Geoff with all her heart. If he said James Everton was dead when he arrived at twenty minutes past eight, then he was dead, and Mrs. Mercer’s evidence about the quarrel and the shot was a lie. She couldn’t have heard Geoff quarrelling with his uncle, and she couldn’t have heard the shot when she said she heard it if Mr. Everton was already dead when Geoff arrived. No, Mrs. Mercer was telling lies, and that was why she had come over all gasping and frightened in the train – she’d got a bad conscience and it wouldn’t let her alone because of what she’d done to Marion and Geoff.

But why had she done it?

That was quite easy. Mercer must have shot his master, and Mrs. Mercer had lied to save his neck. It was frightfully wicked of her, but it was the sort of wickedness you could understand. She had lied to save her husband, and in saving him she had damned Geoffrey.

She had certainly done that very completely. Hilary had a feeling that she needn’t have done it quite so completely. The very badness of her conscience had made the thing worse. How could you help believing the evidence of a woman who seemed so heartbroken at having to give it? Well, that was the explanation – Alfred Mercer had shot James Everton, and Mrs. Mercer had lied to cover it up.

She turned the next page, and there, staring her in the face, was the evidence of Mrs. Thompson. She had forgotten all about Mrs. Thompson. It wasn’t only Bertie and Frank Everton who had alibis-beautiful watertight alibis – the Mercers had one, too. Mrs. Thompson exonerated them. There was a picture of her which might almost have been a picture of Mrs. Grundy – large, solemn, massive, and as solid as the British Constitution. She was the housekeeper from next door, Sir John Blakeney’s housekeeper and twenty-five years in his service. She was supping by invitation with the Mercers, Sir John being away from home. She was in the kitchen from half past seven until the alarm was given. During all that time Mercer was in the pantry cleaning his silver, or else in the kitchen with her and Mrs. Mercer. The house was an old-fashioned one, and the pantry opened out of the kitchen. She could swear he never went through into the house until the alarm was given. He ran through the kitchen then, and seeing something was wrong, she went after him into the hall, where she saw the study door standing open, and Mrs. Mercer crying, and Mr. Grey with a pistol in his hand.

The Coroner: ‘Did you hear the shot?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘No sir – I’m very deaf, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘Did you hear Mrs. Mercer scream?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘No, sir, I wouldn’t hear anything like that, not with two doors shut between.’

The Coroner: ‘There were two doors between the kitchen and the hall?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir – the kitchen door and the baize door.’

The Coroner: ‘Mrs. Mercer had been with you in the kitchen?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘She says she went upstairs to turn down Mr. Everton’s bed. How long had she been gone when the alarm was given?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘I should say it was the best part of five minutes, sir – not any longer.’

The Coroner: ‘There is a point which I would like to have cleared up. Is Alfred Mercer in the court? I would like to recall him for a moment.’

Alfred Mercer recalled.

The Coroner: ‘In all this evidence there has been no mention of Mr. Everton’s dinner hour. What was his dinner hour?’

Mercer: ‘Eight to half past, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘You mean that the hour varied from day to day?’

Mercer: ‘Yes, sir. If it was a fine evening he didn’t like to come in from the garden.’

The Coroner: ‘On this particular evening had he dined?’

Mercer: ‘No, sir. It was ordered for half past eight.’

The Coroner: ‘I would like to recall Mrs. Mercer.’

Mrs. Mercer recalled.

The Coroner: ‘On July 16th Mr. Everton had ordered his dinner for half past eight?’

Mrs. Mercer: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘You are the cook?’

Mrs. Mercer: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘Dinner was ordered for half past eight, yet at a quarter-past eight you went upstairs to turn down his bed. Isn’t that a little unusual?’

Mrs. Mercer: ‘Yes, sir. Everything was cold, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘You mean you had no cooking to do?’

Mrs. Mercer: ‘No, sir. Everything was ready in the dining-room except for my pudding, which I was keeping on the ice.’

The Coroner: ‘I see. Thank you, Mrs. Mercer, that will do. Now, Mrs. Thompson, let us get this quite clear. You have sworn that Alfred Mercer was in the kitchen or in the pantry between half past seven and twenty minutes past eight, which was the time that the alarm was given as near as we can fix it?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘I have here a plan of the house. It bears out your statement that there is no way out of the pantry except through the kitchen. The pantry window, I am told, is barred, so that there would be no egress that way. You swear that you did not leave the kitchen yourself between seven-thirty and eight-twenty?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘You swear that Alfred Mercer did not pass through the kitchen during that time?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘He come into the kitchen, sir. Me being so deaf, he had to come right up to me before I could hear what he said, but he never went through anywhere except back to his pantry.’

The Coroner: ‘I see – you were talking?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘And Mrs. Mercer was there all the time until she went to turn down the bed?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘I think she went through to the dining-room once, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘What time was that?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Somewhere about eight o’clock, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘How long was she away?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Not above a few minutes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘Did she seem as usual?’

Mrs Thompson: ‘Well, no sir, I can’t say she did. Shocking bad she was with toothache, poor thing. That’s what Mercer come in to talk to me about – said he couldn’t get her to go to the dentist. “And what’s the sense,” he said, “crying your eyes out with pain instead of taking and having it out?” ’

The Coroner: ‘I see. And Mrs. Mercer was crying with her toothache?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘All the time, poor thing.’

That finished with Mrs. Thompson.

There was medical evidence, there was police evidence, there was evidence about the will. The medical evidence said that James Everton had died at once. He had been shot through the left temple. The police surgeon had arrived at a quarter to nine. He said that in his opinion Mr. Everton could not have moved after he was shot. He certainly could not have dropped the pistol where Mr. Grey said he had found it, neither could he have thrown it there. He must have fallen forward and died at once. The shot had been fired from a distance of at least a yard, probably more. This, together with the absence of his finger-marks on the pistol, made suicide out of the question. The exact time of death was always difficult to determine, but there was nothing to contradict the evidence of his having been alive at eight o’clock.

The Coroner: ‘He might have been dead as long as three-quarters of an hour when you first saw him?’

‘It is possible.’

The Coroner: ‘Not longer?’

‘I should say not longer, but it is difficult to place these things exactly.’

The Coroner: ‘He might have been alive as late as twenty past eight?’