Bruce Alexander - Death of a Colonial

“And more, sir,” said she, “my bedroom is below the stairs. If she had fallen so, I would have heard. Of that I’m sure, for I’m a terrible light sleeper.”

For a moment or two, Sir John appeared utterly baffled. He rubbed his chin and shook his head, then did he turn to her at last and asked: “How many visitors had she after we left yesterday? “

“Well, now, I’m not sure. Let me think about that,” said she. And that she proceeded to do. “One thing I want you to understand, though. I am not the sort of landlady who spies on her tenants.”

“Oh, certainly not! That is understood — perfectly understood.”

“Well, all right, then-just so you know. First of all, there was you and this lad here. You know better than I when you came by, but as I remembers, it was sometime after four but well before six, because it was right after six, though maybe half past, that those two came by. “

“What two? Madam, you credit us for knowing more than we do.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose I do. But the two I meant was her son and that other one he travels with, the wild-looking older fellow with the beard, the one I don’t like. Now you must know something more about me.”

“And what is that?” He seemed to be wearying of this woman, but had not (as yet) grown cross with her.

“Just as I do not go peeking at my tenants’ visitors through the curtains, I do not go about listening at their doors to learn their private affairs. Nevertheless, I did hear a deal of shouting and foot stomping whilst those two were here. Yet Peg held her own with them. She was shouting right back. Oh, I was proud of her.”

“Did you happen to hear what was said?”

“No, like I said, I’m not the sort to listen.”

“Naturally not, but — “

“Well, I will say there was one word come up often at one time,” she said, interrupting, “and that word was ‘affidavit.’ I’m not even sure myself what it means, though I’ve heard it said a time or two. But then, after the shouting stopped, the two of them left.”

She stopped then, folded her arms, and nodded her head, as if to say, “There, you have it.” Sir John, assuming he had gotten from Mrs. Eakins all she had to give, seemed ready to end their interview. He shuffled his feet. He juggled his hat in his hand. He opened his mouth to speak. Yet before ever a word came out, she had resumed:

“Then one of them came back,” said she.

“What’s that you say?” Sir John asked, obviously taken off guard.

“One of them came back.”

“Well, which of them was it?”

“I couldn’t say. The fact of it is, I can’t even be sure it was one of them two. I just assumed that it was. His step on the stair was heavy, and so it was with both of them. She seemed to know whoever it was, for she opened the door to him.”

“When was this?”

“Ah, well, that’s difficult to say. It was after dark — of that I’m sure. The two of them left just as night was coming on. It couldn’t have been much more than a quarter of an hour after that one of them came back — half-hour at most. It gets dark this time of year round seven, so you can figure it for yourself.

“And when did her visitor leave?”

“That I couldn’t even guess, for I never heard him depart.”

“Never heard him leave, you say? And in the ordinary course of things you would have done so?”

“Oh, yes, I suppose I would, for as I said, my bedroom’s beneath the stairs.” Then did she add, as if it had just occurred to her, “But do you know, I woke up during the night, and I don’t know why. Could it have been Mr. Whoever taking his leave?”

“It might have been the sound of the front door shutting,” suggested Sir John.

“Why, indeed, it might have been,” said she. “But why would he stay so late?”

“No doubt he was waiting for you to fall asleep.”

Once out in the street, Sir John at first showed little inclination to discuss the substance of Mrs. Eakins’s interview. He made a few remarks about the woman herself, none of them of a slighting nature, and praised her willingness to give information to a visiting magistrate. “I believe,” said he, “that she truly meant what she said in claiming the Widow Paltrow as her friend.”

“She shed a few tears whilst giving her responses,” I volunteered.

“That surprises me not at all. I detected a thickness in her voice on a number of occasions that suggested as much.”

We proceeded along Bristol Road in the direction of the Bear Tavern, saying nothing at all for what seemed a long while, Sir John seemed to be considering the information given him by Mrs. Eakins in the light of our earlier discoveries in the widow’s small apartment. It seemed to me that we had learned a great deal.

“Will you go to the Bath magistrate with what we have found out thus far?” I asked him. “All this certainly indicates murder.”

“No,” said he, “I think not. That fellow Bester and the coroner will not be convinced, for they do not wish to be. You heard what he said? ‘Murder is simply not the sort of thing that is done here in Bath’ — or words to that effect. What nonsense! Would he have us think that this is some sort of earthly paradise where such violent actions for base motives simply do not and will not take place? People are no better whilst visiting here than they are at home.”

He continued: “I shall take what we have learned here to London and present it to the Lord Chief Justice. If nothing more, this puts a much darker complexion upon this business. Before, it seemed no more than a conspiracy to gain a title and a fortune. In fact, I half hoped that the claim would be valid, so little was I in sympathy with the true purpose of this commission upon which I foolishly agreed to serve. But … no more. Now murder has been committed in furtherance of that conspiracy. Now the situation is altogether different.”

I was, of course, rather troubled by the direction these events had taken. For no matter what the evidence I had myself discovered, and in spite of the testimony given by Mrs. Eakins, I had my doubts still. For I could scarce believe that he whom Clarissa and I had encountered in Kingsmead Square would be capable of murder of any sort — much less that of an old woman whom he had called “Mother.” But then, it was also true that I could in no wise be certain that the man we had met and seen again at the theater was indeed the claimant. There was thus no point in mentioning him to Sir John.

“You may be interested to know,” said he to me, “that I have revised your conception of the crime somewhat, based upon what we learned from Mrs. Eakins.”

“In what way, sir?”

“In a manner that reveals him as the cold-blooded murderer that he certainly was. As you suggested, and Mrs. Eakins confirmed, he was admitted to the apartment. There was a struggle, in the course of which the Widow Paltrow lost her spectacles, a struggle so violent that her spectacles were broken and kicked halfway cross the room. Am I correct so far?”

“Well. .yes, sir, I suppose you are.”

“Then it is here that my conception deviates from your own. You suggested, as I recall, that she had managed to break away from her assailant, sought escape down the stairway, and unable to see well because she was without her spectacles, she lost her footing and fell the full flight, thus breaking her neck by the time she reached the bottom.” He paused but a moment. “Does that do justice to your theory of the crime?”

“Yes, Sir John, and as I recall, you were in agreement with me.”

“I was indeed. But what we heard from Mrs. Eakins makes me believe that during that struggle the Widow Paltrow’s assailant quite purposefully broke her neck — killed her by means of his superior strength. And then — what seems to me most monstrous of all — he simply sat down and waited, in fact waited for hours until he was sure that Mrs. Eakins was asleep, then carried down the corpus of her tenant and arranged it at the foot of the stairs so that it would look as if she had fallen into that position. And then he simply left. “