Don Gutteridge - Unholy Alliance

“The Chief sent me, sir. They want you out atElmgrove right away, if you c’n leave yer missus, that is.”

“But what have the police got to do withElmgrove?”

“Seems there’s been a murder out there, sir.Cobb went out over an hour ago, with the coroner. Sent thestableboy back into town to tell Chief Sturges to fetch you.”

“My God!” Marc cried, a dozen wild thoughtsrushing at him all at once. “One of the gentlemen stayingthere?”

Wilkie’s face brightened. “Oh, no, sir. Notone of them bigwigs. It was only some butler fella.”

Young Cal Struthers knew nothing more about themurder than he had told Wilkie, and was too in awe of his gentlemanpassenger to say anything anyway. So he concentrated on what he didbest: driving Elmgrove’s swiftest horse smartly towards home,leaving Marc alone with his thoughts. As his investigativeexperience increased, Marc had schooled himself not to speculateneedlessly in advance of arriving at a crime scene. However, thatthe victim had not been one of the delegates, he had to admit, wasa substantial relief. And whatever the circumstances surroundingthe murder, they did not bode well for the success of theconference and an alliance that was nine-tenths forged.

As they approached the gates of Elmgrove andthe pair of stately trees overarching them, Marc turned hisattention to last night’s brief snow squall. Any footprints madealong the periphery of the estate before ten o’clock would still bevisible, even though they would be partially obscured by the threeinches of light snow that had fallen after that hour. And any madesubsequent to the squall would be instantly spotted. Which meantthat he could determine whether or not anyone had entered theproperty with malice on his mind. Marc hoped that somehow such hadbeen the case, but Graves Chilton was a newly landed Englishman, sothe chances of his having enemies here in Toronto were nearlyimpossible.

As the cutter pulled up in front of the mainentrance to the manor-house, Marc noticed a two-seater parked nearthe rear of the building. Abel Struthers was there tending to AngusWithers’ matched pair of Clydesdales. Marc also noticed that therunner-tracks made by his own vehicle last evening were stillvisible beneath the fresh snow, as were the footprints left by himand Jasper Hogg. Since Dr. Withers and Cobb had entered through therear door of the manor, it was clear to Marc that no-one had triedto enter the house through the front door after he himself had lefthere at nine o’clock.

Constable Horatio Cobb was waiting for Marcin the foyer. He was in uniform, except for his helmet. Dora’sbreakfast could be seen in various spatters across his lapels andover his tie. “Thank the Lord you’re here, Major,” he said. “I wassure I was gonna be left on my own in this here madhouse.”

“Where’s Chief Sturges?” Marc asked.

“His gout’s near killin’ him. We had to carryhim inta the office. Then when the young lad come in aboutseven-thirty cryin’ murder, Sarge sent me out here to do thehonours.”

“Well, you are an experiencedinvestigator.”

“But I’m in a house full of French gents, andI don’t parlay a word of that garble. So I sent the lad back to askthe Chief to fetch you, seein’ as Dora told me yer Beth was allright.”

“Well, we’re both here now — officially, itseems. So you’d better tell me what you’ve found so far.”

Marc tossed his coat and hat on a nearbyhall-tree, and looked past Cobb. “Where is Angus? And thevictim?”

“Angus is over there in the library talkin’to Macaulay. He’s finished his examination.”

“And the body?”

“In here,” Cobb said, indicating the smallbutler’s office just inside the foyer. The door was ajar. Marcpeered in. Graves Chilton was seated at his desk, his headseemingly asleep upon his forearms, as if he had been working lateat his accounts and drifted off from fatigue. Except that thisGraves Chilton was unnaturally still, and no breath escaped hisparted lips. Only his luxuriant, tangerine hair looked — grotesquely — alive.

Marc took one cautious step inside. The roomwas still warmed by the wall that abutted the parlour’s hearth.Partially hidden by the butler’s forearms and chin was whatappeared to be a ledger, opened about halfway. Just beyond it lay aglass tray with quills, an inkstand, and blotting-sand. The inkcontainer was stoppered and the quills in their proper place.Closer to the ledger, however, was a thick pencil. If Chilton hadbeen writing in the ledger, he had been using pencil, not ink.Which was unusual. At the victim’s right hand sat a dusty bottle ofwhat had to be vintage wine of some sort. It had beenwell-fingered, and four-fifths consumed. Near it Marc noticed asilver flask, lying on its side — unstoppered. There were two smallwine goblets on the desk, one at the victim’s left hand and theother across the desk, where a second chair had been drawn up.Chilton had been sharing a drink of his wine with someone seatedacross from him. His murderer?

“How do we know this was murder?” Marc saidto Cobb, who had come up beside him.

“Poisoned,” Cobb said with distaste. “The docsays that there bottle of fancy Spanish sherry was drippin’ with loud-an’-numb. ”

“Enough to kill him?”

“That’s right, Marc,” Angus Withers said,coming up behind the two investigators. “From what’s left in thebottle, I’m estimating there was four or five ounces in all, enoughlaudanum to stagger a horse. I’ll know for sure when I get it backto the surgery. And the corpse shows every sign of having beenpoisoned.”

“But surely Chilton would have noticedsomething odd about the sherry?”

“Normally, yes, though it’s not always thateasy to detect laudanum in small doses. Of course, you’d have to besober in any case.”

“You think he was too drunk to spot it?”

“That flask there is pretty much empty, butit definitely contained Scotch whiskey. I’m not the policeman here,but it’s likely the poor devil was nipping at the whiskey while hewas working at his accounts and — ”

“And somebody decided to join him, bearing agift,” Marc said.

“A very expensive bottle of Amontillado. And,as it turns out, a deadly one.”

“Were there traces of laudanum in the secondglass, the one across from him?”

“I can’t be sure until I get it back to thesurgery, but it was definitely used to drink sherry from.”

“So you’re speculating that someone saw alight in here last night, invited himself in, figured the victimwas already inebriated, and offered to share a glass of Amontillado- leaving the bottle, laced with laudanum, to finish the butleroff?”

“Something like that,” Withers said. “I’llleave those details to you and Cobb. Right now I’m concerned withgetting the body into my sleigh before rigor starts to set in, andthen back to my surgery, not that I think I’ll find anything Ihaven’t deduced here.”

“Rigor hasn’t started?” Marc said, puzzled.“What time do you estimate death, then?”

“Not long ago. Just before sunrise, I’d say.It takes laudanum five or six hours to actually kill its victim.Add another two or three hours for rigor to begin, and my bestguess is that he consumed the fatal amount some time shortly aftermidnight.”

“I shouldn’t think he’d be working in heremuch beyond that hour. He’d had a very full day, like the rest ofus.”

“I agree,” Garnet Macaulay said as he came upbeside Withers. He looked bewildered, as if he’d woken to findhimself in a place that had once been familiar but was nowcompletely strange. “And except for this office, the main part ofthe house was dark and deserted by ten o’clock, when my guests andI left the parlour and billiard-room and went to bed. The two wingsat the rear of the house are where everyone sleeps — servants, too.Chilton would be alone in this cubby-hole. No-one would know he washere. I just can’t understand — ”